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April 13, 2017

41st Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2017-Apr-13 (PDF)

L069 - Thu 13 Apr 2017 / Jeu 13 avr 2017

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 13 April 2017 Jeudi 13 avril 2017

Orders of the Day

Aggregate Resources and Mining Modernization Act, 2017 / Loi de 2017 sur la modernisation des secteurs des ressources en agrégats et des mines

Introduction of Visitors

Quebec mosque shooting

Oral Questions

Hydro One

Sexual violence and harassment

Hydro rates

Tenant protection

Provincial debt

Hospital funding

Employment standards

Hospital funding

Air ambulance service

Elevator maintenance

Assistance to flood victims

Anti-racism activities / Lutte contre le racisme

Affordable housing

Legislative pages

Members’ Statements

Cycling in Whitby

Anova

Anti-racism activities

School closures

Girls’ Government

Passover

Battle of Vimy Ridge

Vaisakhi

Highway improvement

Reports by Committees

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Petitions

Apraxia

Privatization of public assets

Elevator maintenance

School closures

Komoka Provincial Park

Primary health care

Government advertising

Energy policies

Hydro rates

Long-term care

Go Transit

Hydro rates

Visitor

Private Members’ Public Business

Ontario budget

Employment standards

Visitor

Reliable Elevators Act, 2017 / Loi de 2017 sur les ascenseurs fiables

Ontario budget

Employment standards

Reliable Elevators Act, 2017 / Loi de 2017 sur les ascenseurs fiables

Private members’ public business

Royal assent / Sanction royale

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Aggregate Resources and Mining Modernization Act, 2017 / Loi de 2017 sur la modernisation des secteurs des ressources en agrégats et des mines

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 11, 2017, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 39,

An Act to amend the Aggregate Resources Act and the Mining Act / Projet de loi 39, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur les ressources en agrégats et la

Loi sur les mines.

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

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I’ve got to say, I’m not exactly thrilled to be, at this point, debating this particular bill. I think what the government tried to do, in its intent of putting forward a mechanism by which we’re able to better manage aggregate in this province, is commendable. I think that was a good idea. Certainly, the changes to the Mining Act, although there are parts of it that I personally don’t support—most of the industry is pretty onside when it comes to what we’re doing within changes to the Mining Act.

But what I find disconcerting is how we’re not dealing with one of the major components of what reconciliation is supposed to be all about when it comes to First Nations. I want to turn our attention in this debate to the presentation that was made by the chief of Six Nations, Ava Hill, who came to our committee along with others and spoke to this particular issue, and said the government has done the right thing in the past by saying that in fact they were going to respect First Nations and deal with issues such as revenue sharing, but more importantly, take the duty to consult seriously and actually give that meaning.

I think for most First Nations—I would say all First Nations across Ontario—they were quite hopeful that those words spoken by the Premier and spoken by ministers of the crown were something that meant there was going to be, finally, some action taken.

Certainly, the ministry went out under the direction of the minister to do some consultation on this bill before it was in draft form and brought to this Legislature at first reading. In those consultations, First Nations, like Six Nations, pointed out that in fact this is problematic. What you have in this bill is not what is supposed to happen when it comes to the basis of the declaration by the United Nations when it comes to the duty to consult.

They were pretty specific in providing the ministry with what they thought and understood the UN was trying to do, and they echoed those sentiments in discussions that they had with the ministry. They were hopeful that those concepts would find their way into the bill, and unfortunately, they didn’t find their way into the bill, so they felt they needed to come to committee to present and to depute as to the reason why they would not be supporting this bill.

I just want to quote a couple of things that were said by Chief Hill when she was here. She made the point and said: “The Premier made a promise to engage with indigenous partners on approaches to enhance participation in the resource sector by improving the way resource benefits are shared, and to work with the federal government to address the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She was quoted as saying that Ontario will consider ‘how to advance resource benefit-sharing opportunities, including resource revenue-sharing in the forestry and mining sectors.’”

She goes on to talk about the whole idea behind subsections (1) and (2) under

section 32 of the UN declaration and said, “That has to be given life. That has to be given real meaning. That has to be given weight.” What she’s left with when she comes to our committee is looking at a bill that stops short of that. To say that she’s disappointed I guess is a bit of an understatement; surprised, probably not, because her people have been down this road many a time before. Be it Six Nations or Attawapiskat, we’ve seen this type of relationship between federal and provincial governments with First Nations for the better part of 150 years, since this nation was born.

It leaves us with a conundrum in this Legislature: If we truly do believe—as we said we did when we brought the First Nations leadership to this Legislature to talk about reconciliation and to reaffirm our intent to work with First Nations in order to make sure that they are full partners with Ontario and that we respect their right when it comes to the issues of the duty to consult and the UN declaration. We at that point voted in an affirmation of those principles, and we find ourselves with legislation now that falls short of it.

It leaves me as a New Democrat with the issue of: How can I support this legislation knowing that we’re not amending the legislation as was proposed at committee in order to make it do what it should have done in the first place?

So I’m not excited about having to vote against this at third reading, because, you know, we did vote in favour of this bill at second reading. We think that the principle of what the government was trying to do in setting up a mechanism by which we can better deal with the development of resource aggregates in this province was a step in the right direction. I and others in my party have pretty well said that. We went to committee hoping that there were going to be some changes to the bill that were to deal with the issues that we thought were important when it came not only to First Nations but also to the aggregate community and also to the mining sector.

At this point, I just want to stay on the First Nations component to say that one of the principal reasons why we will be voting against this bill at third reading is because the legislation as it stands now is not anywhere near in the spirit of what was intended in this House when we affirmed our support to First Nations. Certainly it is not in the direction of what the UN declaration is all about, which is our real responsibility: the duty to consult First Nations.

We hear the Six Nations come to committee and talk about how they had a discussion with the ministry, but that the First Nation didn’t consider that a full consultation. It was a point of information. “Consultation” means to say that you give us the information, we study it, we look at it and then we have a discussion about what we’re going to do and do we agree or not agree and if it needs to be amended. All of that was missing.

What they were left with was that somebody came and knocked at the door of the First Nation and said, “By the way, here’s what we’d like to do,” and walked away. The next thing they know, they’ve got the legislation. The chief is pretty clear. She’s saying, “I cannot support this legislation as a First Nations leader because it stops well short of what the UN declaration calls for.”

I wanted be clear on what she was saying, so I asked her the following question in committee—this is according to Hansard: “I think I know the answer to my question, but I’m going to ask it anyway: If you were in my shoes and this legislation was not amended”—that’s specifically to the motions that we put forward in order to deal with the UN declaration—“would you vote for or against it at third reading?” “I would vote against it,” said Chief Hill.

We find ourselves in a position of having to vote against this bill even though there are parts of this bill that we support and think make some sense, but it falls far short of what First Nations are expecting when it comes to actions from the provincial government, when it comes to respecting the rights of indigenous people and making sure that we’re serious about the duty to consult and that we’re serious about revenue sharing and we’re serious about land use planning. I want to now turn my attention specifically to those issues.

On the issue of the duty to consult, I think where the government has got it wrong is that the duty to consult is not something that you can just transfer onto the private sector and say, “Mining company, aggregate resource company, forestry company”—whoever you might be—“there is a requirement that you consult First Nations.” That’s not what duty to consult is all about. The duty to consult is also about the province, in our case, having a responsibility to consult First Nations as we work on policies and as we develop laws that are going to affect them and their territory, their traditional territories.

That’s what is in the UN declaration, but that also was within the Constitution of Canada, based on the decisions of the Supreme Court. It’s a not question of the province saying, “Well, duty to consult means I’m going to tell the mining company to go do it,” or in this case the aggregate resource company to go do it, “and as long as you do something that’s reasonable from the point of view of the government, we’ll say our obligation to consult is over.” That’s not what that is all about.

What we absolutely need, if we’re serious as a province, is for the province to take its responsibility seriously when it comes to consultation with First Nations. That means, yes, as you develop bills or as you develop policies such as we did with the Aggregate Resources Act, to sit down with the political leadership of the First Nations and say, “Here’s what we want to do,” and have a real discussion about what the end product is going to be. Now, there is going to be disagreement.

I don’t for one minute think that we’re going to be in a position where we’re always going to agree, between First Nations and the provincial government, on issues. At times, the government will use its majority to go do what it needs to do. But at the very least, consultation means that you sit down with First Nations and you do some real discussion around what is being proposed, and there’s a real attempt to try to find a way that we can work together toward the end product and agree.

That is where this process, under the Aggregate Resources Act, failed. That didn’t happen. If we were to do that, I think we would be in a position where First Nations would be willing to be at the table and they would be able to develop the capacity to do those things. But the more important thing is that if you did that when it came to land use planning or the Aggregate Resources Act, once the First Nations are engaged, are part of the process and sign off, we would be in a position of providing certainty to the private sector when it comes to development.

Let me give you an example. I raised this in the House a couple of weeks ago during the interim supply debate. Let’s look at what didn’t happen with the Ring of Fire and what should have happened. In the case of the Ring of Fire, one of the reasons that First Nations are reluctant to give their approval to the development of the Ring of Fire is not because they are opposed to mining; quite the contrary. First Nations, like any other communities, are in favour of jobs, wealth and the creation of opportunity for their people.

So they want to see their people in their communities benefit in the same ways that we all do from the economic activities that take place in their territory. But what ends up happening is that the government, on the Ring of Fire, has never taken their responsibility seriously when it comes to the duty to consult and to make sure that First Nations are at the table when it comes to the development of policy, to make sure that they’re there developing policy that allows those mining projects to go forward. As a result, that whole process at the Ring of Fire has come to a grinding stop.

We, as New Democrats, have said for a long time that one of the things that has to happen is that, of the various ministries that are responsible for permitting mining or forestry projects or whatever projects may be on traditional territory, we need to carve out part of those ministries and create a secretariat or ministry, whatever you want to call it, that gives First Nations a place at the table along with the province to deal with the issue of how we go ahead and plan policy for development on that territory so that the policy is respecting First Nations’ wants and wishes, that it is done in an environmentally sustainable way and is done in a way that makes sense to the private sector so that they are able to go forward and say, “Yes, you know what?

There’s a project here.” If the First Nation is there at the beginning and is part of the process of doing the approval and development of policy, once you have actually permitted something, they would then have to stand behind the permit and say to their own people, “No, you are not going to boycott and protest. This is something that we’ve approved, something we’ve agreed on.” They would have to defend their decisions the same way that we would have to defend together.

I am prepared to say—because I have seen it in examples with the Detour Lake gold, with the development of the Mattagami River basin, certainly with the De Beers situation—that where First Nations have been at the table and have been able to agree, it has been to the mutual benefit of everybody. But this bill falls short of that. It doesn’t give the kind of policy, the kind of ability for First Nations to be on the ground floor when it comes to development of policy.

On the first thing, on the duty to consult, we’re missing the point by not consulting with them. Number two, we are not developing the policies by which they can be at the table to help us develop the actual rules about how we are going to do the development in the first place.

The other

part is revenue-sharing. Revenue-sharing—the idea, the concept—has been around for a long time. It’s something that I first raised in Attawapiskat, at an assembly there some years ago, back in the days of the Conservatives being in power. At the time, it was being talked about in First Nations because they recognized that they had to undo the damage that had been done for so many years when it came to the development of traditional territories, and they needed some mechanism, as municipalities have, a way to be able to get revenue from the development on their traditional territories.

Dating back to the late 1990s, I guess, this whole concept of revenue-sharing has been out there. But we’re no closer today than we were in the late 1990s when it comes to having a mechanism in place that allows for revenue-sharing to happen. Again, this is where the government—this particular government, the Wynne government—has fallen short.

There was great fanfare, great hope at the beginning when she became Premier because we know who Premier Wynne is: She is a decent person, and normally wants to do the right thing, but she seems to be unable to deliver on things that are as important as revenue-sharing to First Nations.

Here we are, all of these years later, no closer to a solution on revenue-sharing than we were at the beginning. One of the things that Chief Hill said at the committee when she came to see us was, “You’ve got to deal with those kinds of issues before we can stand behind this type of legislation. If you don’t give us the real ability to have a say when it comes to land use planning and you don’t give us a real say when it comes to an ability to do revenue-sharing, why would we agree to any of this, because it’s counter to our interests?”

Again, I say, we as New Democrats will vote against this legislation at third reading. One of the primary reasons is because we have failed to do what we set out to do when we affirmed our support to First Nations in this Legislature some time ago when it came to the reconciliation process.

If we are truly serious about reconciliation—which I believe we were—well, then, this should have never happened. We should never have found ourselves in a position where we bring a bill to this House and in the end the bill does not live up to the spirit of reconciliation and actually deal with what we are supposing to do. On that basis, we have to vote against the bill.

The other part of it that I want to speak to is the difficulty that I have with this bill, and it’s something that’s been going on for some time here, and that is the delegation of authority to cabinet. This bill is probably one of the bills that I see where it’s almost to an extreme. There used to be a time we would draft legislation in this House and other Houses around the world, in Parliaments, where regulation was only utilized in order to deal with some of the technical parts of the bill.

In other words, you would draft the bill and you said, “This is what we wanted in the end.” If there were some technical things that had to be done in order to get there, that’s what the regulation was all about. Regulation was never about intent. It was about how to carry something out.

What this bill does say, “We are going to do a bunch of stuff when it comes to how we govern ourselves as a province and as an industry, when it comes to the development of aggregate resources, but everything is left to regulation.” In other words, this bill gives this minister and future ministers of the crown the ability to radically change the resource permitting process, and the public won’t have anything to say about it.

Why should we, as legislators, do that? Why are we, as legislators, all of a sudden saying it’s okay for us to delegate our authority as an assembly, and give that power to the executive? To me, it’s the wrong way to go.

I think the test is that if a bill comes to this House, we should, as legislators, make sure that the bill does what we intend it to do in the end. If a future government decides they don’t like the bill, and they don’t like the process that’s established in the bill, then let them bring another bill to this House, and let a future Parliament decide, “Hey, maybe these guys got it wrong, and we have to make some kind of a change.” It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.

But what this bill does is say that, no, you’ll never have to do that in the future, because we will delegate all authority on the mechanisms of how we deal with resource extraction, when it comes to quarries, to future ministers and cabinet to decide. I think that’s wrong.

On that point alone, I find that very distressing. I can tell you that, personally, it’s one of the things that drove me, in this whole process of committee hearings and clause-by-clause, where we tried, on a number of occasions, to get amendments that would tighten up the bill so that what you ended up with was a bill that clearly sets out the intent of what needs to be done, and the regulations would just drive what the final product is, not what we intend it to be.

Instead, what we end up with is a bill where we have delegated pretty well all of our authority directly to the cabinet. I think that was the wrong thing to do, as well.

I also want to have an opportunity to turn my attention to the mining

section of this bill.

I would say that the majority of the mining community supports what the government has done in this bill. I would say that would probably be a fair statement. However, it’s not unanimity.

This whole idea of map staking, where we’re going to entrench a system where, rather than having somebody be on the ground to stake the claim when looking for a mine but, instead, allowing the staking to happen by way of a map—somebody sitting in an office in downtown Bay Street or Rio de Janeiro stakes a claim by way of a map, and all of a sudden, they’ve got title to a piece of land—is something that some people in the industry don’t support. I have great trouble with it as well. It will be interesting to see what my colleague from Sudbury has to say, because she represents a large mining district as well.

There are a lot of people in the mining sector that make their living working on the ground, being the people that go in and actually stake the claim, the people who go out there and do the work that needs to be done to bring that claim and to register it. We are eliminating that whole sector of the economy.

It’s not a lot of people. I’m not going to pretend this is thousands and thousands of people. It’s probably in the hundreds of people. But we’re doing away with something that has long been done by people in northern Ontario, a lot of which are people who are First Nations, who get their employment from going out and actually doing the staking for the junior mining company or for the geologist. I think that’s a bit problematic. When there are so few employment opportunities for some of our people in northern Ontario, including First Nations, to take away any opportunity for employment, I think, is wrong.

I’m not going to use his name, because I didn’t get permission to use it, but I was talking to one particular individual in my riding who essentially lost everything as a result of map staking. He used to run a business and do quite well. He was married and had a couple of kids. Everything was going just fine. Along came map staking, and eventually there’s no more work. It all dried up.

As a result of the work drying up, the family fell apart, because the stress of trying to maintain a family and keep a relationship going when there is financial pressure on the family certainly brings conflict. Now these people are separated, and there is such a nasty separation going on that this fellow has really found himself in a pretty bad way. He hasn’t done anything wrong as far as his ex-wife, but it’s just that they couldn’t get along because of the financial pressure, and he was probably short-tempered over what was going on.

But the point is, I understand why we are moving to map staking, and I understand that a majority of people in the mining industry thought that was a good idea and still think so. But I just want to put on the record that there are those in northern Ontario who made their living from this who are no longer, and who can’t make their living from the new regime of map staking. I think that just needed to be put on the record.

Again, I just want to say—and I’m probably not going to take all of my time on this debate unless somebody here wants to share some of that time. I see you jumping up and down wanting to share the time—no?

M me France Gélinas: No.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Oh, that was funny. That’s called trying to find the follow-up speaker while you’re giving your speech.

I just want to be clear why New Democrats voted for this at second reading and won’t vote for it at third reading.

The other point that I want to put on the record is the environmental part. I’ve got to say that, again, I remember that during the committee process we had environmental groups that came before committee. A number of them spoke in favour of the bill and clearly said, “This is a step in the right direction. We think this is going to work.” There were a few exceptions where they didn’t agree. I think the environmental law commission was one of them, if I remember correctly. I may stand to be corrected there, so I apologize if I got the group wrong. But primarily, the environmental groups were okay.

Where they were not okay was on the delegation of authority. I asked the question at committee when they came before us. I said, “Listen, do you think it’s a good thing that we delegate authority to cabinet, because some future government could probably weaken the environmental component of this whole process?” They said that they would rather have this than nothing. I remember one group basically used the words, “I stay up at night worrying about that, but you should vote for the bill anyway.”

I think the environmental movement sees this at least as a step in the right direction, and I would agree. There’s stuff in this bill that is a step in the right direction. I’m not going to say that everything in this bill is bad, but my point is that even the environmentalists see that there is a problem with delegating authority to cabinet when it comes to how this bill is going to work.

It’s one thing to delegate regulation on how you implement a bill; it’s quite another thing to have delegation of authority where you can actually change the intent of what the bill is all about. I think that’s got some environmental people nervous, but they’re trusting that this government and future governments are not going to abuse that power. I tend to live in a world where I think those things do happen, and that’s why you have to be pretty clear up front in the legislation what it is that you set out to do.

With that, Madam Speaker, those are the comments that I make. I don’t know if anybody else wants to speak to this, but I’ve got to tell you that this particular bill, we will not be voting for at third reading.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. Bob Delaney: I listened intently to the comments of my colleague from Timmins–James Bay. I think this bill has been debated very thoroughly. I think it’s probably time now to send it to committee to see whether or not some of the ideas that he has proposed could stand up to scrutiny.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. John Yakabuski: It’s a pleasure to follow the member from Timmins–James Bay this morning on Bill 39.

First of all, I think it’s a good thing that the Aggregate Resources Act was reviewed. It hadn’t been properly reviewed for some time.

I just wanted to talk about the importance of aggregate to our society and to our economy.

Mr. James J. Bradley: The 417.

Mr. John Yakabuski: My colleague from St. Catharines says, “The 417.” Well, the reality is that we can’t build a single road in this province without aggregate. We can’t build any of the apartments or condominiums or any office towers or anything in the city of Toronto or any other community without aggregate. Without aggregate, our economy would grind to a halt. It would grind to a halt. We have to bear that in mind when we’re looking at the resource in general, and access to aggregate.

If you look at what’s going on and has been going on in Toronto with regards to building, every time that you have to reach farther afield to acquire that aggregate, the cost goes up and so does the impact on the environment. If you’re trucking aggregate from 100 kilometres or 200 kilometres away to build something in the city of Toronto, that has a far greater environmental impact than if there is a source of aggregate near to where the aggregate is needed. I recall a few years back, and I think my colleague from St.

Catharines was the Minister of Transportation at the time, there was an application for an aggregate deposit in the riding of the member for Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough–Westdale. I thought it was a good application, but it was turned down and, I think, completely—

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Thank you. Question and comments?

M me France Gélinas: I must say that when you represent the riding of Nickel Belt, we are in the centre of the Canadian Shield. We are where most of the good aggregate and most of the mining actually takes place. This is the kind of bill that I would say the majority of people in Nickel Belt followed step by step. I know that for a lot of people, talking about rocks and talking about mining is not that interesting, but when you live in Nickel Belt it becomes interesting really quickly. Why? Because it brings conflict at the local level.

There is not a season that goes by where there isn’t an application for a new pit some place—gravel pit, aggregate pit of some kind—in my riding. Then there is conflict with the people that live around that area.

There hasn’t been a good way forward to make sure that we find the right balance. The way those things end, the person who has put the application for the aggregate pit always wins. The campers who have wanted peace and quiet around their summer camp and around their lakes end up having dozens of big trucks up and down their camp roads, end up having huge machinery that makes noise—you can be five kilometres away and you know there is a crushing plant happening in this pit because you can hear them five kilometres away.

All of this, they were hoping would have been settled. They were hoping we would have found a compromise, that they would have been listened to, and they were not. So we won’t be supporting this bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. James J. Bradley: May I just say that there’s great opportunity in northern Ontario for us to have some mining take place, in other words aggregate being removed and shipped down to southern Ontario by ship, because we have a great shipping industry here in Ontario in terms of being able to move the aggregate from one place to another. That’s something that should never be forgotten.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I return to the member from Timmins–James Bay to wrap up.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: First of all, to my friend from Mississauga–Streetsville: With regard to sending this bill to committee in order to be amended, I don’t know if he is proposing unanimous consent that we do so, because we’ve already done that. The bill has gone to committee. We’re now at third reading. If the member is intending for unanimous consent in order to resend this to committee, I just want to put on the record: I’ll be okay with that. I’ll say yes, because maybe then we’ll be able to get the amendments that we sought during the process of committee.

Again, I just want to be really clear, there are things in this bill that are supportable. I’m not going to stand in this House and say, “Oh, everything’s terrible.” The government tried to do some stuff in this bill that we can support. The problem is what we ended up with. This final product can’t be supported on a couple of principles.

The very first one is what doesn’t happen for First Nations. When we stand in this Legislature and we affirm our solidarity with First Nations, and we say that we’re going to be real partners in a process of reconciliation, and that we’re going to make sure that we live up to the Constitution of Canada when it comes to the crown’s duty to consult, and the UN declaration on indigenous people, that we believe in those things, and that we’re going to live up to those expectations set out both by the UN and the Canadian Constitution—well, then, it’s for us to put it into action.

When I see, as a New Democrat—and I know our leader, Andrea Horwath, feels exactly the same—that a bill is not respecting First Nations in the way that they’re asking, well, then I say we can’t support the bill. Primarily that’s why we will not vote for this bill at third reading.

There are parts of this bill, as I said, that we can support. But the biggest, biggest problem is that we either mean that we are serious about reconciliation or we’re not, and I don’t see this bill as resolving the issue of reconciliation.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Further debate?

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: It’s always an honour to be able to stand in this place and represent the fine constituents of Niagara West–Glanbrook and the riding that I was elected to represent. I’m very pleased to stand today to speak to Bill 39,

An Act to amend the Aggregate Resources Act and the Mining Act.

My colleague the honourable member for Renfrew-Nipissing mentioned the impact that aggregate and mining has in our society in very tangible ways—whether that’s through the inability of people without aggregate to supply the needed resources to build up our society.

In my home riding of Niagara–West Glanbrook, this is especially pertinent. In my riding, we have several aggregate sources. I think of Waterford aggregates, which I just visited several weeks ago, in the Binbrook area. I think of Walker Aggregates, which is right on the corner of Fly Road and Campden and is very close to my hometown.

I had the opportunity while I was growing up to actually visit this regularly. I got to know some of the people there, as when I was growing up we would hear the dynamite or the TNT or whatever it was they used go off. I was very curious about the sourcing of stone and the sourcing of this material that helped build up not only my community but really the province in a very broad and significant way.

I had the opportunity to go fishing in some of the springs. There’s a spring at the bottom of one of the aggregates in my area. That has managed to turn into quite a beautiful lake—but also to interact with some of the people that work there and to interact with those in some of the smaller sites.

Just a couple of weeks ago, actually, I had the opportunity to visit Waterford aggregates in my riding, who were part of the consultation process here for this bill and had the opportunity to present and bring forward their suggestions and recommendations on reforming the Aggregate Resources Act and the Mining Act.

When I toured the area with them, it was in response to a constituent who had recently moved into the area and expressed particular concerns surrounding blasting and perhaps concerns with the potential for a cracked basement or a damaged well. Not being an expert in either mining or dynamite, for that matter, I had the opportunity to tour with the honourable member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek. He and I toured the centre but also visited some of the neighbours in the surrounding area to see what the impact was on their quality of life and to see what sort of impact this aggregate source is having on their wells and their homes.

I have to say, I was incredibly impressed with the level of corporate responsibility that the aggregate sector has shown to those in their areas—in my community, whether or not it’s in the development stage, letting everyone know when there’s a blast coming, having open houses so those in the community can come forward and see what’s happening in the aggregate sector but also its development after the mining has been completed, after the ground has been used.

We saw in Fonthill, which is in the eastern portion of my riding and an absolutely beautiful town, that there is an area that used to be an aggregate quarry and is now actually a gorgeous golf club. We’ve seen that potential in Niagara for people to use these resources in innovative and creative ways and to really utilize that land after it has been—I wouldn’t say “exhausted”—but after the aggregates have been removed for that portion.

Madam Speaker, I wish to also touch on one piece in the Ontario Mining Act that this bill seeks to modify, with respect to the staking of and record-keeping of mining claims shifting to an electronic program. In this place, we’ve had discussions about the need for broadband access in rural communities, in northern communities and especially in communities impacted by a lack of direct communications.

Unfortunately, this government really does have an abysmal track record when they roll out electronic systems, whether that’s e-health or SAMS. Unfortunately, we’ve seen quite a bit of neglect, failing to do due diligence on rolling out these systems.

I want to speak to something that yesterday my colleague from Parry Sound–Muskoka mentioned. He said, “The website that will be used to stake a claim must be simple enough that it will work properly using dial-up Internet access. I say this because large parts of northern Ontario still don’t have access to broadband. We should make sure that the new system doesn’t give southern Ontarians—and, for that matter, people around the world—an advantage over northern Ontarians when it comes to staking a mining claim in northern Ontario.”

That was from the member for Parry Sound–Muskoka, who has been a strong advocate in our caucus and a strong advocate in our party for the north, for mining concerns, and also the ability of this government—and pointing out the inability, perhaps, of this government to sometimes recognize the needs of the north, even when it comes to mining and aggregate sourcing.

I agree with my colleague’s concerns, because unfortunately this is a reality that not only impacts aggregate sourcing, that not only impacts mining, but also impacts people in a wide variety of entrepreneurial pursuits. I just recently had someone coming from an area in my riding called Caistor Centre. I like to joke that if you know where Caistor Centre is, you know you’re a true Niagaran, because not a lot of people do. But Caistor Centre is in a low-access area where residents can’t access broadband. Because of that, they feel it’s very difficult for them to engage in the entrepreneurial pursuits and the productive business activities that they want to be part of.

I fear that although this shifting to an electronic program, in many respects, is a beneficial and progressive move, it has the potential to truly, by not having adequate access through dial-up, create an unlevel playing field. That’s something that has come up from constituents in my riding, and I can only imagine that in these remote, rural, northern communities where they don’t have that access to broadband, they may feel disadvantaged, and not only feel but in fact be disadvantaged, when it comes to staking a mining claim in northern Ontario.

I think that’s something that we have to be aware of in this House. That’s something that we have to be careful of, that we’re creating an equal playing field and doing everything we can to ensure those in the north have equal access to the economic stimulus that comes from an aggregate source and that comes from mining. So I wanted to mention that specifically.

That also ties in to my critic portfolio, digital government. I hope that we will see a lot of good work being done by the Chief Digital Officer perhaps in this area also, when it comes to mining aggregates and being able to access broadband, and being able to access government services in industry. We can often speak about the need for individual access to services, we can speak about the need to be able to access health records etc., but we also have to recognize the needs of industry and the importance that that industry can have on economic stimulus in these areas, including northern and rural Ontario.

Another area that I wanted to touch on, Madam Speaker, if there’s time, is that, quite frankly, there are some good components to this legislation. There are also areas where, as in any government, there could be improvements.

The PCs and NDP wanted to work with the Liberals on this piece of legislation to improve it, because we believe that we can work together and come up with a good piece of legislation that addresses all the needs and all the realities of those in the aggregate and mining sectors and that has the potential to really demonstrate to Ontarians that as we collaborate on these issues, we can actually have a productive discussion that leads not just to consultation, but to significant and substantial change.

I want to touch base on our critic Todd Smith’s—and we’ve seen that, initially, the honourable member really supported this bill, with amendments. As a caucus and as a party, we supported this bill, but we needed to see amendments. We needed to see six things, really, that had to be changed or clarified in this bill in order to improve it. This wasn’t for any partisan purpose. This was to see that we have a bill that really does what’s best for industry here in Ontario and really does what’s best for the residents and our constituents here in Ontario, for all parties. We were hoping to see that.

Instead, what actually happened in a 37-page bill with dozens of sections, subsections and clauses, is that there were only two really substantive amendments that emerged from committee.

But the unbelievable failure of the government to address recycled aggregate in any way punts the problem down the road for us to have to deal with later. That’s a real issue. Punting down the road the issue of recycled aggregate, not dealing with recycled and unrecyclable aggregates, is a serious concern.

Look, at some point, as with any resource, we will have a resource scarcity issue to deal with if we’re going to maintain a close-to-market policy. The further you haul in your aggregate—I know the honourable member for St. Catharines mentioned we should be shipping all this aggregate down south. But the reality is, the more you ship, the more it’s going to cost and the more you will increase your greenhouse gas emissions and have lands that we seal off from development.

Unfortunately, with the cap-and-trade cash grab and the cash scheme that we’ve seen put into place by this government, it’s disproportionately impacting not only those who are lower income by addressing transportation needs, but the cost of food and the cost of basic necessities that are being transported from source to market.

So we’re not only seeing that cap-and-trade is having a hugely negative impact when it comes to the cost of living for those who may perhaps live below the poverty line, but now we see, unfortunately, that cap-and-trade could have another disproportionate impact on housing prices, on the cost of infrastructure.

If we’re talking about failing to maintain a close-to-market policy, the farther that we are hauling our aggregates—not only are we going to increase our greenhouse gas emissions, but as the cost of that transportation goes up, that cost has to be transferred. Unfortunately, that cost will be transferred to the cost of roads. That cost will be transferred to the price of housing. That cost will be transferred to infrastructure investments in a wide variety of traditional hard infrastructure investments, unfortunately.

I think that is a discussion we need to have: dealing with recycled aggregate and the failure of this government to address that in any real way, even though we brought forward ways that we could have worked together on this bill. It’s disappointing.

Another thing I would like to touch on, as we approach the five-minute mark, is the issue of increasing regulation.

I have been in this House for several months now, and I must say it has been an be enormous honour and an enormous privilege. But I also have to say that it gets incredibly frustrating sometimes, sitting here and hearing the Minister of Economic Development speak about all these ways that he feels they are addressing the red tape disaster here in the province of Ontario. I hear that, and I go out to my riding and see bills like this that increase red tape, that are hurting businesses, that are hurting industry by increasing regulation.

Unfortunately, the government seems to be speaking out of two sides of its mouth on this issue. On the one hand, they say, “We are cutting red tape to ensure that we have a competitive market.” On the other hand, they are increasing regulation through bills such as this.

I had the opportunity to tour a greenhouse in my riding, Hendriks Greenhouses, which produces a lot of herbage—and very excellent herbage—that they ship across not only the country, but across North America.

They informed me that they did renovations and built an addition onto their greenhouse facility. It was an investment of a couple of million dollars in their operations. But it took almost 18 months longer for the permissions to come through than they were initially told—for the zoning requirements, but also for the regulatory burdens from the MOECC etc., and the MTO as well; they are located beside the QEW.

They said to me, “Sam, if we had to do this again today, we would cut our losses and not do the development. The 18-month waiting time was simply outrageous.” They were very concerned.

What I’m hearing there is, for every person who still went ahead, for every business that still went ahead, and invested in a new development, there are businesses that, because of over-burdensome red tape, because of the increasing regulatory burden, are not going to invest, are not going to be making those investments and upgrades that they need to.

In this government, and in this bill, we are seeing that the increasing regulatory burden is a good way to end up with really expensive roads really quickly, something that no municipal property taxpayer wants to hear—and that’s true.

We see that the small, family-run aggregate companies don’t have big compliance departments. They’re not huge corporations. These are small businesses that are working to provide essential services, that are working to provide for their families. They can’t deal with this over-burdensome burden of red tape.

Complying with the law has to be simple. The process should be transparent. If something needs to be done, the first resort should be to do it in legislation instead of through regulation. That way, everyone knows what the law is.

This is a basic premise that I think we need to speak about more often: that we, unfortunately—and this government especially—seem to create obscure, opaque legislation that gives a lot of powers to the minister to create regulation that a lot of these people, unfortunately, don’t have the resources or time to go through and deal with in any sort of timely fashion. They are being burdened down by the increasing burden of red tape.

I think that we can do so much better. I very much wish that this government had collaborated with the NDP and the PCs on helping to reduce the red tape burden.

Mining and aggregation is a valuable contributor to Ontario’s economy. Since this government came to power in 2003, Ontario has dropped from being the seventh most attractive place to invest in mining to 18th. They’ve dropped 11 places, according to this year’s Fraser Institute Annual Survey of Mining Companies.

There isn’t an established framework for what consultation is required with indigenous people in the province of Ontario, and that’s a major concern as well. In the north, there are many of these communities that are impacted by mining and aggregation. We need to ensure that indigenous people have their voices heard in these types of decisions and that this growth in mining and aggregation is one that benefits their communities and benefits all of Ontario equally.

I’m very pleased to have been given the opportunity to speak to this legislation. I look forward to hearing from other members in this House.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: First of all, I appreciate the comments made by my colleague from Niagara-Glanbrook—something like that. Sorry, I don’t do that intentionally; I just didn’t know the name of the riding. Anyway, I appreciated his comments. I think he’s bang on.

Again, the government, as I said in my comments, has tried to do something in this legislation which is a step in the right direction. I think both of the opposition parties recognize that. That’s certainly why we voted for it at second reading. But the devil is in the details: When the bill comes out of committee, what is it going to look like?

The amendments that were sought by the public and that were proposed by the opposition weren’t accepted. That could have strengthened this bill and done what the bill intended to do. It leaves us with little in the way of choice but to vote against it. As I said, one of our primary reasons to vote against it is what we did not do for First Nations. We were very clear, and the First Nations were very clear, that they wanted to make sure that this bill lived up to the spirit of what we had agreed to—reconciliation—which includes our responsibility when it comes to the duty to consult and to make sure that they’re full partners in decisions that are made about their territory.

As Chief Hill said when she came before the committee, if those amendments aren’t given in the legislation, she recommended that we vote against it. That is exactly what we will do as New Democrats. I think we need to be serious and be clear about what it is that was intended. What was intended when it comes to reconciliation is that we are serious about that and that we give reconciliation some breath and some life. You do that by putting it into legislation. Unfortunately, it’s not in this bill and, for that reason, we will not be supporting third reading of this bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: I’m pleased to stand and talk about this bill. As we all know, aggregate resources such as sand and gravel are important to Ontario’s economy. They’re used to build roads, subway tunnels, hospitals and schools, and are part of the revitalization and renewal of our urban infrastructure, which is what this government is doing. This bill will also serve to strengthen and modernize our management of aggregate resources. That’s why we’ve introduced this new legislation.

I heard one of my colleagues say that he was concerned about consultation. We received valuable input from the public, from the indigenous communities and from our stakeholders. They will continue to support the province in moving forward with a strong and modern policy framework for aggregate resources. This bill is just the first step in a phased process. Should the bill pass, Ontario intends to move forward with consultation on regulatory and policy changes.

To improve oversight of the aggregate operations, we’re proposing to broaden the ministry’s ability to require information or studies related to aggregate operations and enhanced enforcement, including higher maximum fines and clearer offence provisions for false reporting; and to increase penalties with fines up to a maximum of $1 million plus $100,000 for each day that an offence continues. We’re also proposing a customized approach for unique applications, such as those in the bed of a lake or a river, which may require additional studies.

I urge everyone to support this bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. John Yakabuski: When I was last finishing, I was talking about the application for a pit or a quarry in the riding of Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough–Westdale, and the government turned it down because of political reasons and pressure against it.

The member from Nickel Belt talked about the balance and always the challenges between those who are requesting permits to extract aggregate and those who oppose them.

But you know, there’s that old saying, “It is what it is.” When it comes to aggregate, it is where it is. We can plant trees and we can plant corn, but we can’t plant aggregate. When this earth was formed, the aggregate was where it is and it’s not moving. The only thing that we can do is extract the resource that is there, for the work that needs to be done.

As I was saying, there is nothing we can do in order to build our economy without aggregate. If we don’t have roads and bridges and highways and sidewalks—concrete and asphalt are part of that, which require aggregate. We can’t build anything without aggregate, and the further we have to go afield, as I said, it’s going to drive up the cost and have more impact on the environment. So we have to find a balance.

I think the changes to the Aggregate Resources Act are important. We support them. It was something that had to be reviewed; it had not been reviewed for a significant period of time. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that if we want our economy to prosper and our province to grow, it is not something that we can invent in a test tube or in a laboratory. Aggregate is aggregate. It was formed as the earth was formed. We have to be able to extract it where it lies, or we’ll stop growing.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

M me France Gélinas: It was interesting listening to the member from Niagara West–Glanbrook talk about some of the conflicts that aggregates have brought to his riding and some of the good things that come from the extraction of aggregates. I would say he is right: Extraction of aggregates sometimes does lead to new quarry pits where people can go swimming in the summer. I have some of them in my riding. It’s really to try to find the right balance, and I see it as the role of this bill to make sure that people feel like they have been heard.

I’m from Nickel Belt. I represent all of the mines that you know in Sudbury; they’re not in Sudbury, they are in Nickel Belt. I know what it is to live in a mining town. I know what it is to live in a town that has more quarry pits and aggregate pits than anywhere else in the province. It creates conflicts with human beings.

It is our role as legislators to put in place fair play, to put in place the needs of urban infrastructure development with the needs of the people who choose to live in northern and rural areas, where most of this aggregate comes from. The aggregate comes from where I live, to build where you guys live. We have to be able to all agree as to how the aggregate should be used. I have no problem with this. I have hundreds and thousands of people who work in mining and who work in aggregate extraction. It’s to put in place the rules that will make it fair, so that everybody can prosper.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I return to the member from Niagara West–Glanbrook to wrap up.

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: I want to thank the member for Timmins–James Bay, the member for Barrie, the member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke and the member for Nickel Belt for their contributions and responses to my speech this morning.

I think we can all agree that there is a huge need in Ontario for aggregates. There’s a huge need for making sure that in the quarries and mining industry they have access to the land they need, and that they can access these mines without an overdue burden. Unfortunately, although I sincerely do believe that the government agrees with that goal, they seem to be doing everything they can in the meantime—by their failure to listen through the consultation they did and the increasing regulations that this is placing on those who wish to get involved in aggregate and mining, it seems that the actual end result is not reflective of the intent, unfortunately.

But we believe that in spite of the many positive benefits to local economies, even though, unfortunately, pits and quarries sometimes encounter opposition when they file for expansions, we have to increase the transparency between proponents and their communities. I know that’s what the member for Nickel Belt was referring to as well, coming from Nickel Belt where they have many quarries and mines. We need to ensure that there is a comprehensive buy-in from that community.

I was very pleased to be able to speak to this debate this morning and I wish to thank all the members for their reactions and contributions.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Further debate?

M me France Gélinas: I know that I won’t have time to do my full 20 minutes, so I’m going to pick and choose and jump around the bill a little bit, if you will allow me, so that I put on the record some of the issues.

The first

part I want to talk about is map staking. For those of you who don’t know how it used to be done, we used to have hundreds of people, many of them coming from my riding, who every spring would buy new camping equipment, head out into the bush and actually stake the claim. They would walk it, they would measure it, they would live in the bush. They would get to meet who else was in that area, get to start a first conversation as to, “Yes, we are claiming. We think that there may be a deposit of” whatever—copper, nickel, platinum, gold, it didn’t matter. It mattered to the prospector because they wanted to make money out of it—but I want you to understand how it was done.

Now the government is changing this to map staking, which means you sit at the map with your computer and your mouse, you click and you have your stake, without ever having set foot in that area, without ever having talked to the people who live there, who camp there, who harvest there, who hunt, fish, whatever in those areas. It’s all done on a map.

The example I always use is that when the Ring of Fire was developed, one mining company went click, click, click all the way from the Ring of Fire down to the next available road and claimed all of the high ground. Speaker, they had absolutely no intention of ever mining that series of claims. They had the intention of selling it, because they now owned the claim, to make money because it was the highest ground and therefore there’s a good chance that if and when we ever get a road to the Ring of Fire, they would make money—not by mining, not by extraction, but simply because they were the first one to click on the map to stake all of those claims.

For the people of Nickel Belt, that means what had been good jobs—not everybody wants to spend their summer in the bush, with the bugs and the bears and everybody else, but a lot of people do. In a lot of families, there were generations of people who had done this, raised their families from the earnings they made from it, because they were there, because they were on the ground, because they got to interact with the people.

Those people still have to eat. They will still come into Wawa and Westree and Gogama and go to the grocery stores. They need all sorts of camping equipment. I can tell you that Ramakko’s Source for Adventure used to have an entire

section of their store just for the type of equipment that those people who lived in the bush for the summer staking their claims were using. The store is still doing very well, it’s still a very nice store in my riding, but the

section that used to be devoted to those people now has a very nice line of ladies’ clothing, and I buy clothes from there.

But I am telling you the impact that this is having on jobs in the north. I don’t want anybody to lose the fact that when you have real people on the ground, you start that first conversation. You prepare the ground for making sure that everybody who has skin in the game, everybody who lives there, has a chance to see it coming, has a chance to prepare for it. If they are opposed to it, they have a chance to have things worked around so that we can find that middle ground. But none of this happened.

I will flip this argument on its head and say that there are large territories of my riding where people who are knowledgeable about staking claims for mining don’t have high-speed Internet. We still rely on Xplornet and other types of what my husband calls “space junk” on the roof of your home to be able to connect to a satellite so that we could have an Internet connection. I still have this what my husband calls “space junk” where I live, and it don’t work that good, Speaker. It don’t work that good.

I mean, dial-up is—forget it. You cannot download a picture of anything through it. If you use the satellite Internet, when the weather is good, it’s pretty good, but God forbid you want to try to watch a movie when there is a rainstorm out there, because your Internet goes down to such a slow pace that you can see every frame of that movie. Did you know that there were eight frames to a second in a movie? Well, where I live, you can see every one of those frames. This is the speed of the Internet. I’m talking to you about this because where people who have the knowledge and the skills to do this map-staking live, we don’t have high-speed Internet.

What does that mean? That means that people down in Toronto can easily sit at their desk and click and do the staking of claims, but yet people who live in the north, people who will be affected by those claims, by those mines, by those aggregates, don’t have the same chances of doing that.

Because time is going very fast, I will talk about the conflicts with aggregate pits and quarries. I have more aggregate pits and quarries by square inch in my riding than anywhere else, and I’m really proud of this. We have lots of very good entrepreneurs that have built very strong businesses dealing with quarries and pits. We have new entrepreneurs who go into that line of work.

When Highway 69 was being developed, you can follow the corridors where we go from two lanes to four lanes, and about every 15 kilometres or so you will see a new quarry, a new pit being developed. I have no problem with development. I’m on the record and will continue to be on the record that I cannot wait until Highway 69 is four lanes all the way to Sudbury and that we can—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: And all the way to Timmins.

M me France Gélinas: And all the way to Timmins—and that we can safely travel. I have no problem with this.

But I want a balance. I want a balance so that if there is a lake, an area where people have been camping for a long time, where people own cottages—we call them “camps” where I live—for a long time, they have an opportunity to be heard.

What sometimes happens is that they will have an opportunity to be heard, they will put restrictions as to when and how they can make the big noise—because if you have ever stood beside a crushing plant, Speaker, you will never forget how loud this is. It can be in the dead of the summer, when there is no wind and all you hear are the bugs, and when the crushing plant starts, you will hear it far and wide.

It happened in my riding. You have this beautiful cottage-style wedding where you have rented all sorts of tents and equipment, and it is a beautiful summer day and it’s going to be the best day of your life that you’ve worked on for a year and a half. Then the crushing plant does not live within the time frame that they are allowed to crush because they have this big job, and you phone MNR and there is nobody working there on the weekend. Then you cannot hear the priest do your wedding vow because the crushing plant is going on—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: It puts that relationship on a rocky start.

M me France Gélinas: It puts that relationship on a rocky start. That was a really bad joke.

It creates major conflict—and I see you want—

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Thank you.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Seeing that it’s 10:15, we will recess the House until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mr. Michael Harris: I know my mum and dad are watching at home on television. I want to wish my dad a happy 60th birthday.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I’m pleased to acknowledge at Queen’s Park today Layla Popal-Sharif. She has been invited by our Lieutenant-Governor to a panel discussion today on women’s empowerment called Trailblazers and Pathmakers. She is also the constituency office manager for MP John McKay and she’s in my riding association. Welcome to Layla.

Mr. Steve Clark: I want to introduce to the members of the Legislative Assembly two constituents from my riding of Leeds–Grenville. I would like to welcome my executive assistant from the riding, Michael Jiggins, and his partner, Tamara Baldwin. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Catherine Fife: I’d like to welcome Julia Cluet McCullough to Queen’s Park today. She was part of the remarkable women’s assembly, and she loved every moment of it. Welcome, Julia.

Mr. Harinder S. Takhar: This is an important day for the Sikhs, so I want to take a moment to extend my best wishes to everyone celebrating Vaisakhi in our great province and throughout the world. I am expecting some guests, so I just wanted to say happy Vaisakhi to all of them.

Ms. Jennifer K. French: I am pleased to welcome from Oshawa Ben Fleming, who is visiting. He’s a clinical facilitator at the Canadian Mental Health Association in Durham. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Page Joshua Geddes, who is working hard on the floor today, is joined at Queen’s Park today by his aunt, Catherine Poling. Please welcome her to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: I would like to welcome a special guest from Gothenburg, Sweden: Nathalie Banaszak.

Mr. Granville Anderson: I would like to welcome Charisma and Allan Hodgins, parents of Keira Hodgins, one of our pages from my riding, as well as her brother, Andrew Hodgins, here today.

M. Shafiq Qaadri: J’aimerais accueillir les représentants du Centre culturel islamique de Québec.

I ask all members of the Legislature to welcome representatives of the Islamic Centre of Quebec: Imam Hassan Guillet; Mr. Al-Rawni, president of Islamic Relief Canada; Dr. Benaissa, manager of Islamic Relief Canada for Quebec; and Mr. Yangui, president of the Islamic Centre of Quebec. Also, Speaker, a special welcome to His Excellency Imran Siddiqui, the consul general of Pakistan and host of a calligraphy exhibit today in Parliament.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Speaker, I’m pleased to welcome Andrew Simpson, family friend and guest of page captain Catherine Rootham, who is with us today.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: We have a very special guest here today visiting us at Queen’s Park on her first visit to Queen’s Park and first visit to question period: Anna Semansky. She’s joined by her loving parents, Mike and Paris Semansky. Welcome, Anna.

Hon. Dipika Damerla: I’m delighted, Chair, to welcome students from my riding high school of TL Kennedy. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

Hon. Indira Naidoo-Harris: I’d like to welcome my constituents Jim Frizzle, Jeannette Frizzle and Hunter Frizzle here to Queen’s Park. Welcome. It’s great to have you here with us.

Hon. Chris Ballard: It’s my great pleasure to introduce a good friend of mine, Steve Congdon, to the House. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Steve.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I’d like to welcome some guests who are in the east members’ gallery: John Kafieh, Ron Cowan and Glenn Christoff.

I’d like to wish a happy birthday to one of my staff here at Queen’s Park, Travis Hoover.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I’d like to welcome the family of page Kishan from Don Valley East. Joining him is Renuga Sathasivam, Sahana Muhundhan and Sorna Sathasivam. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Arthur Potts: I want to wish a happy new year to all my Bangladeshi friends. Shubho Noboborsho.

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: It’s my pleasure to welcome students from the great riding of Scarborough–Guildwood from West Hill Collegiate. Please welcome them.

Hon. Eleanor McMahon: I’d like to welcome to Queen’s Park today Daphne Jaques, who is here from my constituency office. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Daphne.

Quebec mosque shooting

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

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Thank you, Speaker. With respect, I believe we have unanimous consent to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six individuals who were shot while praying at a mosque in la ville de Québec.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Etobicoke North is seeking unanimous consent for a moment’s silence in honour of the six murdered people. Do we agree? Agreed.

I would ask all people in the galleries and the members to please stand for a moment of silence.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

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

Before we start question period, I just want to acknowledge that, for the very first time, a very, very small and newborn baby is here: Don’t make her cry.

Oral Questions

Hydro One

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. Did the Premier order the Minister of Energy and Hydro One to keep the ombudsman’s departure a secret?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: No.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: Hydro One is a company notorious for terrible customer service. The former ombudsman ended their investigation into Hydro One after—hear this, Mr. Speaker—10,000 complaints. And how did the Liberals respond to this? They want to get rid of oversight. They take away oversight that was under the purview of the ombudsman’s office and replace it with an office that is a shell of itself. Now, what is unbelievable is, the Liberals want to keep secret that shell of an office they created for oversight, and that ombudsman is now gone.

Here we have Hydro, where we know there are 10,000 complaints, and this government wants no oversight? How can they allow this to happen?

Mr. Speaker, can we please get a justification from the Premier why they believe it’s appropriate to have no oversight at Hydro?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: I’m very pleased to rise and talk about the continued work that the ombudsman’s office is doing at Hydro One. They’re doing some great work addressing the issues and the complaints that are coming forward from the millions of customers that Hydro One has.

Ombudsperson Fiona Crean did an excellent job with Hydro One, contributing to the company’s ongoing transition to a better-run, customer-focused company. She recently accepted a new position at another organization, and has stepped down from that role as ombudsperson. A search is under way for an appropriate replacement.

In the meantime, staff member Sophie—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Nepean–Carleton and the Minister of Infrastructure are not helpful to the debate; come to order.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: In the meantime, staff member Sophie Petrillo has been named the interim ombudsperson. She’ll continue to do the work of the ombudsperson for Hydro One, and we’ll continue to work forward on a hydro plan that works for everyone in this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary? The member from Leeds–Grenville.

Mr. Steve Clark: Back to the Premier: It’s more than a coincidence that just as the hydro scheme ad blitz hits the airwaves that the Hydro One ombudsman is MIA. The former ombudsman used to hold town hall meetings where customers could speak publicly about the nightmare high rates and inaccurate bills continue to cause. But that doesn’t fit this government’s narrative. In my riding, instead of a town hall, Hydro One is planning an open house that sounds more like an opportunity to spin for this government.

Will the Premier order Hydro One to stop wasting money on these travelling road shows to promote the government scheme and get back to the public meetings that actually fix the problems?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Be seated, please. I’m concerned about the safety of the member from Oxford. I’m hoping he’s not hurting his hand.

Minister?

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Hydro One goes out to talk to their customers, and the opposition doesn’t like it. It makes no sense. They have no plan for hydro. It’s been 42 days since the Leader of the Opposition said they’d have a plan for how to deal with electricity, and they do nothing.

Hydro One has an acting ombudsperson—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m getting the impression warnings are coming.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): That’s not helpful.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: The ombudsman office continues to operate as normal, with a full staffing complement while the search for a—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Okay, we’re there. The member from Leeds–Grenville, come to order. You asked the question.

This is the last time I’ll stand without doing warnings.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: As I mentioned, the ombudsman office continues to operate as normal with a full complement of staff while the search for a new ombudsperson continues. We have full faith that they’ll continue to operate with an ombudsperson in the acting role and with a full office contingent to address all the concerns.

Sexual violence and harassment

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. There is no monopoly on a good idea, no matter where that idea originates. Too often in this Legislature, you see parties oppose an initiative simply because another party proposed it. The federal Leader of the Opposition, Rona Ambrose, and the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock have led the charge for mandatory sexual assault training for judges. This is a good idea. Even the Liberal member for Davenport has put forward a similar suggestion and supports mandatory sexual assault training for judges, and I applaud her for that support.

Unfortunately, we are now hearing from the Attorney General that he does not support that initiative; from the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services that they don’t support that training.

The reality is, everyone here knows this is a necessary step. This is a good idea. It shouldn’t matter that an opposition member raised a good idea. This is about sexual assault victims. This is a right step.

My question is to the Premier: Will you support this great initiative from the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: This is an issue of not whether we support or not, because I know, for example, that the Attorney General and our caucus absolutely support everyone having the training they need to be able to, in a responsible, sensitive and compassionate way, deal with issues of sexual assault. The issue is the actual jurisdiction and the purview that government has over training of individuals in the judiciary, and I know the Attorney General will speak to that.

But this is not a matter of whether or not, in our opinion, something should happen. This is about the mechanism for actually making it and having it get—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Supplementary? The member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock.

Ms. Laurie Scott: Back to the Premier: Mandatory sexual assault training won’t threaten judicial independence. What it will do is give women more confidence in our justice system. Sexual assault survivors must feel comfortable coming forward.

Mr. Speaker, mandatory training is what needs to happen. Why won’t the Premier call for mandatory sexual assault training for judges in Ontario? You can do it.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Attorney General.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: This is a very important issue. First of all, I stand here very proud of my Premier and our government for taking the charge and taking the lead on putting an end to sexual violence and harassment for our province. Speaker, we are a leader in the country, and that charge has been led by the Premier herself.

The It’s Never Okay campaign has been held now around the world as one of the most progressive and proactive strategies to deal with issues around sexual violence and harassment. It is focused on providing supports for victims. It is focused on, most importantly, changing the attitudes of people around our province, and hopefully around the country, when it comes to putting an end to sexual violence and harassment.

I look forward to speaking in the supplementary as to the roles of the judiciary as well in that.

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

Ms. Laurie Scott: Back to the Premier: We don’t need blind partisanship on this. The federal government received a report called Taking Action to End Violence Against Young Women and Girls in Canada. That report details the importance of improving training in the field of sexual assault law for the Canadian judiciary.

It’s important that we do the same at the provincial level, but Liberals at all levels stall. It’s time for Liberals provincially and federally to wake up to the reality that we need to do more. Will the Premier give the Prime Minister a call, get on the same page and support mandatory sexual assault training for the judiciary? Will you do that?

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: This is not a partisan issue. The member is right, to that point. However, she continues to make this into a partisan issue. Speaker, this is—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville is warned. We’re on warnings.

Minister.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: Speaker, this is an issue of respecting our constitution. This is an issue of respecting the judicial independence that is key to and a cornerstone of our democracy. I don’t think anybody in this House or across our province or the country would say that politicians somehow should interfere in the manner in which our judiciary—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Nepean–Carleton is warned. Somebody else just missed one.

Minister.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: It’s clearly within the scope of the judiciary to determine the training that they set themselves. Most recently, at a parliamentary committee in Ottawa, that’s exactly what the judiciary presented as well.

I’m in conversations with the chief justice. I know she takes this matter seriously, and we look forward to the action from the judiciary.

Hydro rates

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: My question is to the Premier. The NDP recently received a letter from Lynn Ohanian in Burlington. In January, Lynn got a hydro bill for her trailer in Burk’s Falls with a nearly $500 delivery charge. She wrote to us because she was concerned. She received at the same time the delivery charge for her home in Burlington, which was just $135.

Out-of-control rural delivery charges mean that Lynn could lose her trailer, the place where she spends time with her partner to relax in the summer. Why has the Premier done nothing to address the outrageous delivery charges, the outrageous prices when it comes to hydro bills? Why is she leaving people like Lynn wondering if she can keep her trailer?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know the Minister of Energy is going to want to comment in the supplementary. I hope that when the member opposite got the letter from Lynn, he responded to her and let her know that she will see a 25% reduction, come the summer: 17% on top of the 8% that she already has.

I don’t know the specifics, but I imagine from the location of her home, the trailer, that she may also be eligible for up to a 40% or 50% reduction, because the distribution charges will be reduced.

So I hope that the member opposite—and if he didn’t have all that information, we would certainly be happy to provide it to him so that he can get back to this constituent and give her the good news about the reductions that she’s going to see.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Canadian Transportation Museum in Kingsville has also reached out to the NDP, specifically through my colleague the member from Essex. The museum is facing bills so high that staff don’t know if they can keep the museum afloat—they’re not sure if they can keep a community museum afloat. They cannot hire the needed staff, they can’t grow their children’s education program, and they’re putting exhibition design and capital projects on hold because they don’t have the resources.

The museum needs help now—not months from now, not years from now. Why has the Premier done nothing?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: That organization can call their local utility and get one of the many programs through the saveONenergy program that will help them save their money now.

On top of the many programs we already have in place that help thousands of businesses across the province, we’re also bringing forward Ontario’s Fair Hydro Plan. Our fair hydro plan will help many businesses—500,000 of them, small businesses and farms in this province—see a 25% reduction or more. On top of that, if these businesses are larger, they can qualify for the ICI program.

When it comes to our museums, there are numerous programs in place that will help them. We have done that before the fair hydro plan. And when you take that into consideration, many of these places will see significant reductions in their bill come summer.

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

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Speaker, families like Lynn’s, small community museums, hospitals, municipalities—Ontarians—everyone is waiting for the Premier to actually act. PR, press releases, paid government ads are not a plan; they are a desperate attempt to salvage the Premier’s dismal approval numbers. That’s all they are.

Why is the Premier prioritizing her political career over the people of Ontario?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Families, individuals, small businesses, farms, large manufacturing, greenhouse growers—they will all be seeing significant reductions on their electricity bill by summer.

We have made sure that everyone is going to see significant relief that’s going to last, to ensure that they can plan.

On that side of the House, we’ve got one party that has no plan, that has no idea on what to do with electricity, and another one that makes a pamphlet that relies on some pie-in-the-sky negotiations with some committee, some day to be determined. I know this expert panel hasn’t really reported back anything yet. They also want to have negotiations with the federal government. Well, when he’s touring around Ottawa, maybe he can have a conversation with them and see if they’ll actually help.

Tenant protection

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: My next question is to the Premier.

Another day has passed and the 1991 rent control loophole remains open. While the Premier was out politicking yesterday, it was another day on which tenants throughout the GTA may have received another devastating rent hike.

When will the Premier knock off the political games and close, once and for all, the 1991 rent control loophole that leaves renters in this province unprotected?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, we absolutely share the concerns of the member opposite about housing affordability, generally, in the GTA, and beyond, quite frankly. We know that it’s important that people are able to find an affordable place to live. But there’s no simple answer to this.

We have been working to put together a package of options, because there are many different issues at play here. There are issues around housing affordability in terms of being able to buy homes. There are issues around rental affordability. There are issues around supply in order for units and homes to be built, and there are issues around the regional demand for housing.

We are looking at all of those issues. There is a lot of advice that’s coming at our ministers and at our government, and we will be bringing forward a package very soon.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Instead of getting her picture taken, the Premier could have been in the House passing the NDP—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. As a reminder, the member does not make reference to someone’s attendance in the House. But he may continue with the question.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You’ve given me a choice as to whether or not I want to take that or leave it.

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Speaker, instead of prioritizing pictures, the government could prioritize passing bills like the NDP private member’s bill that would immediately protect people facing unfair rent hikes. By saying that she’s doing one thing and then not doing it, she’s signalling that now is the time to increase rents, and people and tenants are rightfully scared. They’re scared.

How can she continue to delay and do photo ops when the people of Ontario need action now?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: If the member opposite is referring to yesterday, when we were opening a new urgent care centre in Peel, at Peel Memorial Centre, or if he’s referring to the meeting that I held with GTHA mayors—yes, the media came in and took a picture of the meeting at the very beginning of the meeting, and then left, and we had a very important conversation.

If the member opposite is referring to either of those instances, then I just want him to know that the work that we are doing is extremely important to get to the right answer. It’s very important that I talk to the people who are on the front line, whether it’s from the home building industry, who I also met with yesterday, or whether it’s the mayors. We need to hear what’s going on on the ground so we can come up with the right package of remedies.

Interjections.

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

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Speaker, the Premier’s meeting with the mayors was a desperate attempt to get a good headline, but do you know what would have gotten her a good headline? Taking immediate action to close the 1991 rent control—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. The Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services is warned.

Carry on.

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Premier could have gotten a good headline if she had immediately closed the 1991 rent control loophole. That would actually help real people in Toronto, the GTHA and across the province.

When will the Premier stop stalling, close the loophole and protect all renters in this province?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Government House leader.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: Mr. Speaker, I can tell you how hard this Premier is working every day, in and out, to make sure that life is affordable for the people of Ontario. Unlike the member opposite, she’s not taking time off to do photo shoots for GQ Magazine, nor is she taking time to do photo shoots for fashion shows, nor is she modelling in this province. She is working hard every single day to make Ontario move forward, to ensure that the people of Ontario have opportunities to be prosperous.

It takes a lot of nerve from the member opposite, who appears in GQ, to talk about photo ops. He might be careful asking the Premier about issues that are important to Ontarians every single day when she is working hard.

Provincial debt

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, the government hit a new low. Instead of acknowledging the growing debt burden, they opted to keep their heads buried in the sand and ignore reality.

Our leader, Patrick Brown, put forward a motion that called on the government to immediately begin paying down the debt, but the government voted against our motion. They clearly demonstrated that they would rather spend more money servicing a growing debt than spend it on essential programs people rely on. Their lack of commitment to pay down the debt is both troubling and reckless.

Will the Premier take our party’s advice, and the advice of the Auditor General, and provide a long-term plan to get their debt under control now?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: President of the Treasury Board.

Hon. Liz Sandals: Of course, as we all know, we are going to be balancing the budget again this year—

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Again?

Hon. Liz Sandals: This year—again I am telling you.

But I think there’s actually some news about this year’s budget that the member opposite would be really interested in, because the borrowing for the year we’ve just come out of, the 2016-17 year, will be our smallest borrowing program since the beginning of the recession. We’ve actually borrowed $2.6 billion less in 2016-17 than was indicated in the budget, so in fact we are beating our targets.

One of the other things we’ve been able to do is to beat our target on the payments for interest. We have a lot of very good news about managing debt that you just choose to ignore.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the Premier: That answer, by the way, is 180 degrees opposite of the advice of the Auditor General.

Under this government, the people of Ontario have been subjected to crisis after crisis. Families are facing a hydro crisis, a housing crisis and a growing debt crisis.

Our party brought forward five critical budget asks to get this province back on track: take action on the growing debt, end the hydro crisis, address the housing crisis, make cap-and-trade revenue-neutral, and save our schools.

Speaker, does the Premier agree with our recommendations or does she agree with presenting an artificial balance of the budget?

Hon. Liz Sandals: We made a very conscious decision at the beginning of the recession about how we were going to manage the economy. We made a conscious decision that we were going to continue to invest in education, that we were going to continue to invest in health care, that we were going to continue to invest in the infrastructure that this province needs to move forward, that we were going to invest in job growth and that we were going to invest in the future of the people of Ontario, despite a global recession. That’s the decision that we made.

There were a whole bunch of recommendations at the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs made by the opposition party. Do you know how many of those 43 recommendations were about education? One was about education. Do you know how many were about health care? Zero.

Hospital funding

M me France Gélinas: My question is for the Premier. Speaker, our hospitals have been pushed to the breaking point by this Premier. Hamilton Health Sciences is taking care of 138 more patients every single day than they have beds for. Their occupancy rate has soared to 114%. Of course, surgeries had to be cancelled, and people are waiting longer in the ER. In the last three months, there have been 36 times when there was either just one or no ambulance at all, for all of the emergencies in Hamilton.

When will this Premier own up to the crisis that she is creating in our hospitals, and when will she do something to fix it?

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: We recognize that some of our hospitals face challenges as we go forward. That’s why, last year, we allocated nearly half a billion dollars for our hospitals and for operating costs, to allow them to address those challenges, wherever they might be. That included 29 million new dollars for Hamilton Health Sciences, for example. It included, for St. Joseph’s in Hamilton, $15 million—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Carry on.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I should mention that that was more than a 3% increase for Hamilton Health Sciences last year alone.

We’re working on an ongoing basis with all of our hospitals to ensure that they—and we have a program called Pay-for-Results in ERs, to address capacity issues there. We’re working with them on ALC challenges that they might face.

I’m happy to speak in more detail in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: This government has been living in denial, completely out of touch—freezing hospital budgets for four years straight, pushing health care to the breaking point.

St. Joseph’s in Hamilton has been overcrowded since January; we’re now in April. Brampton Civic has been in gridlock, and their premier new urgent care centre won’t fix the overcrowding. In London, we’re seeing horror stories—people who need mental health care waiting for seven days, nights and days, on stretchers in hallways, with the lights on 24/7, because there are no beds to care for those people.

Why is this Premier failing the people of Ontario who need care, and failing to fix the overcrowding in our hospitals?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: It’s important that Ontarians know that the vast majority of hospitals in this province operate at significantly less than 100% capacity routinely.

We have increased the number of acute beds in Ontario, since 2013 alone, by 600 new additional beds. We’re making the largest infrastructure investments in hospitals in this province’s history right now, with new hospitals like Humber River Hospital and Oakville hospital and many others, and expansions, like at Joe Brant—many, many examples of expansions in hospitals.

We’re going to make sure we continue to invest. We’re not going to do like that party did when they were in government, when they closed 24% of the acute hospital beds in this province, when they closed 13% of the mental health beds in this province.

We continue to invest. We continue to fund.

Employment standards

Ms. Harinder Malhi: My question is for the Minister of Labour. Before I came into politics, I was often asked what the government was doing to strengthen protections for workers—in particular, temporary workers. This was an issue that I wanted to explore after becoming the MPP for Brampton–Springdale. My constituents care deeply about employment standards, and believe that everyone who works in Ontario deserves a fair chance.

That’s why I was proud to have introduced a private member’s bill on temporary help agencies, to highlight some of the changes that I would like to see come from the Changing Workplaces Review.

Can the Minister of Labour please share with the House some of the things that our government is doing to help temporary workers in the province?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you to the member for her question, and I want to thank her for the advocacy that she does for ordinary working Ontarians who live in her riding.

We’ve been making great strides for temporary workers in the province of Ontario. We’ve put in place a number of safeguards for employees of temporary help agencies. They empower them to assert their rights. They protect them from illegal fees.

The Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act, which was passed by this House in 2014, added even more protection. This legislation makes Ontario the first province, and one of the few jurisdictions anywhere in the world, that specifically addresses temporary help agency employment in legislation.

We’re very proud of that, but we haven’t stopped there. Our government is making sure that temporary help agency assignment employees have the same rights as all other employees under the Employment Standards Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and labour legislation.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Harinder Malhi: I want to thank the minister for his answer. As the minister is aware, the House will vote on a motion from the third party today that piggybacks on much of the work we’re already doing. In fact, I highlighted many of the same points in my own PMB this past year.

I was also disappointed last week when they called the Changing Workplaces Review a waste of time, and made no mention of the Employment Standards Act. Unfortunately, they’re not acknowledging that we have been taking improvements for temporary workers seriously, and have introduced many changes that will not only help my constituents, but also people who work right across this province.

Can the minister please share with the House the importance of the review, and why our plan to help precarious workers makes sense?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you to the member again for an excellent supplementary.

The goal of the Changing Workplaces Review is to make sure that all workers in Ontario feel that they have the protection of the law. The Changing Workplaces Review is a key part of that. After all, why wouldn’t we want to hear from expert special advisers on this issue, who have been studying this issue for some time?

The reality is that we know that fundamental change is needed, and the incomplete plans that are coming forward from the opposition parties simply miss the mark. We’ve made significant changes. We’re doing a very comprehensive review. The private members’ bills that I’m hearing will do nothing to create a sustainable framework where everybody can share in the success of this great province.

No person in Ontario should ever feel underappreciated or undervalued. No person should feel that they can’t get ahead. The Changing Workplaces Review is going to help us get there.

Hospital funding

Ms. Sylvia Jones: My question is to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. My constituent Lori Leckie contacted me after her daughter Jamie-Lee was forced to wait in a hallway for five days because there was no hospital bed for her at Brampton Civic Hospital.

From the Brampton Guardian, Lori’s daughter said, “I spent five days in the hospital afraid, in pain and staring at a white partition wall as I anxiously awaited answers.” Lori wants you to explain why her daughter had no hospital bed for five days.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I have to say I was distraught when I learned of this particular individual, in a very vulnerable state, and what she had to endure at one of our hospitals.

It’s important that all of us who have a role to play in providing that highest-quality care remember specifically that we’re dealing with individuals in an extremely vulnerable state. We need to do everything we can to ensure their safety and that they are taken care of in a compassionate way.

As a result of that, I am looking very carefully and specifically in terms of measures that we can and should take so that hopefully this situation doesn’t happen.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Sylvia Jones: Minister, I’m sure that Lori and Jamie-Lee appreciate your sympathy, but you are the Minister of Health. You have an opportunity to fix this issue. It’s not new; we just heard about it in Hamilton. It’s happening in Brampton. It’s happening all over Ontario. Please do something. It’s unfair to people like Jamie-Lee. It’s an example of hallway medicine: no privacy, no beds, just another justification.

There’s no way it’s acceptable that someone has to lay in a hallway for five days without a bed in the province of Ontario. When will the minister ensure that our loved ones get a bed when they need one?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I was asked this question yesterday by the media. I was asked at the brand new Peel Memorial health and wellness centre that the Premier and I opened yesterday, which has a vast array of services available to individuals of Brampton and neighbouring communities, including an urgent care centre, which is drawing away some of the patients that previously would have gone to Brampton Civic, which is the hospital that the member opposite referenced.

It has dietitians, chiropractors, day surgery, cataract surgery, dialysis—many, many services in this brand new facility, which has been so well-received and appreciated by the community. It’s measures like that which will draw individuals in the community to the appropriate resources and reduce the overcrowding the member opposite mentioned.

Air ambulance service

Mr. Gilles Bisson: The question is to the Premier. Premier, you would know that last week, on behalf of our constituents on the James Bay, I raised the issue of Ornge shutting down the helicopter base in Moosonee.

I was told by Ornge in a subsequent phone call that they had consulted with chiefs in other communities such as Moosonee, and everybody was fine. That is not the case. I’ve talked to Kashechewan. I’ve talked to Fort Albany. I’ve talked to the mayor of Moosonee. I’ve talked to the deputy chief in Moose Factory. I’ve talked to the Mushkegowuk deputy chief. Nobody’s onside.

The question here is: The people living on the James Bay are no different than anywhere else in this province. Why would we allow that base to shut down, when we don’t do it anywhere else, when it comes to servicing helicopters?

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I appreciate the advocacy by the member opposite on this issue. I appreciate, actually, the opportunity to collaborate. We’ve had a number of conversations. I’m pleased to hear, as well, and I’m aware that Ornge reached out to him, as well, because they specifically wanted to discuss the issue with him and explain what was being anticipated in terms of the necessary—and necessary for a whole variety of reasons, particularly safety reasons—when we’re thinking of Moosonee, I think we all recognize just how vitally important that is. So they had an opportunity to have that discussion.

As I’ve mentioned to the member opposite, my goal is to ensure that the services in Moosonee and those that depend on the Ornge services that come out of Moosonee are of the highest quality as well. This maintenance is necessary for the safety of the pilots, the paramedics and others, as well as the passengers and patients. We’re looking to see what we might be able to do in terms of finding a replacement helicopter during that period of time.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: If heard you correctly, I think you just said that you’re looking for a replacement helicopter? If that is the case and that’s what we do, the people of Moosonee and the people of the James Bay will say thank you, but I’ve got to make the point again.

We have helicopter bases in Sudbury. We have them in Thunder Bay, Kenora, Toronto and Moosonee. None of the other bases are shut down. We’re able to shift equipment around to make sure that those bases continue to operate at the times the equipment is out for maintenance.

It is not acceptable that we shut down that helicopter base in Moosonee. Utilizing the ambulance boat is good sometimes, but due to tides, due to wind, due to weather, there are all kind of times that you cannot use that ambulance boat, and we’re putting people at risk—not to say what that helicopter does when it comes to emergency extraction out of Kash and other places when things happen.

I ask you again, on behalf of the people of Moosonee and James Bay: Will we put in a replacement helicopter during the time that that machine is out for servicing?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: As the member referenced, the vast majority of transports that take place out of Moosonee involve in the first instance the marine transport, to make that hop to the island where the hospital is located. The majority of transports on James Bay and the surrounding area take place by fixed-wing as well

But there is an important role for the Ornge helicopter at times. I know that the member opposite will agree with me; in fact, it’s my commitment that if there is a safe way—and this is about safety of passengers, safety of the paramedics, of the pilots in and around Moosonee—that we can keep rotor wing service throughout the summer, the two months when this maintenance is due to take place, we will make sure it happens.

Elevator maintenance

Mr. Han Dong: My question is to the Minister of Government and Consumer Services. Over the last decade, more and more people in Toronto have chosen to live in high-rises; in fact, over 40% of homeowners over the age of 65 live in high-rises. Every day, families, especially seniors, children and people with mobility restrictions, find themselves trapped because their building’s elevators are out of order and often remain that way for a long time.

This morning at the press conference, Mr. Gonzalez, a gentleman in a wheelchair, told us that he missed his blood transfusion appointment because of elevator outage. That is why I have introduced Bill 109, the Reliable Elevators Act, which, if passed, will ensure future buildings will have enough elevator capacity and broken elevators are repaired within a specific deadline.

Can the minister share her perspective on the importance of creating stronger protections for the growing population—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Minister of Government and Consumer Services.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I’d like to thank the member from Trinity–Spadina for this question and for introducing a very important piece of legislation on elevator availability—fantastic work.

I know that out-of-service elevators can be a great source of frustration for tenants and condo owners. It’s especially concerning, as we’ve heard, for elderly persons or people with disabilities, who have no alternative or other means of getting from floor to floor. For people who rely on elevators to get in and out of their buildings, disruptions and slow repair times cannot only create barriers to daily activities, they may also pose health and safety risks.

Currently, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority does have a mandate to ensure elevator safety. However, it does not have set-out time frames in which an out-of-service elevator must be returned to operation. I agree it is the right time to start looking at how we can ensure greater reliability and availability of elevators.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Han Dong: I want to thank the minister for her answer. As our province continues to grow upwards and buildings are frequently reaching the 70-plus-storey range, access to elevators for Ontarians who own or rent condominiums is not just a convenience; reliable elevators are essential.

Not too long ago, residents of the 79-storey Aura building on Yonge Street were trapped on their floors unless they took the stairs. While some of the tower’s elevators have since been repaired, weeks later many elevators remain out of service.

Bill 109 is a direct answer to the changing needs of Ontario’s residents and tenants and offers them increased consumer protection. Will the minister support creating greater protection for Ontarians by strengthening the rules and regulations pertaining to elevators?

I know more can be done. That’s why I’m really looking forward to the debate this afternoon on this bill. Again, I want to thank and congratulate the member for Trinity–Spadina.

This allowed me to hear from Aleksandra Stanojevic, a student with hearing challenges who faced great obstacles in high school after being assigned a poorly educated interpreter who failed to interpret the course properly.

I’ll be very happy to speak in the supplementary about the new education standard that we’ll be developing to complement the other standards that already exist.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Did you forget about the Premier’s promise, or is this just another one of your government’s stretch goals?

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: It’s an important question, but it’s also important that the member knows that we already do remove barriers in schools, whether it’s elementary or post-secondary education.

We have obligations in place for the education sector, under our standards, that policies be in place, that educators are trained on programs, and that libraries and other services are provided in accessible formats. These all help our students.

But we know that there is more to be done. That’s why the Premier announced the education standard in December of last year. She made that a public commitment.

I am working with my colleague ministers in education, and advanced education and skills development, to get that standard going, to strike an SDC—a standards development committee—as we have done recently with health care.

Assistance to flood victims

Mr. Percy Hatfield: My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Good morning, Minister.

Speaker, last September, my riding had record rainfalls. In a short period of time, storm sewers overflowed and thousands of homes were flooded. It was 110 millimetres of rain in five hours, 190 millimetres over 48 hours—more than what we would normally get in two months.

The minister came to see the damage first-hand. The minister promised financial help from the provincial disaster relief fund. It has been six months, yet only 36 people have received relief payments. Twenty more have partial payments, but their file is still open.

When can the rest of my constituents receive the relief that they were promised?

Hon. Bill Mauro: Thank you to the member for the question. I know that the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will want to weigh in on this in the supplementary.

The member is right: I was in southern Ontario within a very short period of time after the flood occurred. I met with Mayor Bain in Lakeshore, Mayor Dilkens in Windsor, and Mayor McNamara in Tecumseh. We visited a number of the homeowners who were affected by the flood.

Speaker, I can tell you that, very quickly, the program was activated. In fact, on October 3, 2016, we had activated the program. The deadline for applications was January 31, 2017.

One of the significant changes that I want to mention, that we brought to the program under my predecessor, Ted McMeekin, was that no longer are local municipalities required to fundraise, as was the case under the old ODRA program. That is significant.

Another change that was brought in that I want to share with the Legislature is very significant: Unlike every other province in the country, where sewer backup is the result of heavy flooding and insurance is usually the default mechanism, low-income people are now eligible to apply in Ontario for coverage where there has been sewage backup.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Two thirds of those applying for disaster relief have been denied. I heard from a constituent this morning who is still waiting for her phone calls to be returned.

The provisions of the disaster relief fund were established in the last century. Climate change is here. It’s a reality. This Liberal government has got to come to grips with that and realize that communities can’t cope with rainfalls of this magnitude.

Speaker, when will the minister update the disaster relief plan so more homeowners will be protected in storm events of this magnitude?

Hon. Bill Mauro: Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Hon. Jeff Leal: Mr. Speaker, on Monday I had the opportunity to be in beautiful Picton, Ontario, to announce a number of projects under the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund. Part of that announcement on Monday was to assist the town of Tecumseh with in the neighbourhood of $806,000 to repair the damage that occurred in that flood back in September.

I was particularly interested when I looked at the damage in wards 1 and 2 in the town of Tecumseh, where within a very short period of time 2.7 billion litres of water surged through the town’s pumps and eventually overwhelmed the system.

Mr. Speaker, what we’re encouraging now throughout the province of Ontario is to move from disaster management to disaster prevention. We’re asking our municipalities to separate their rainwater from their treatment water to make sure that the system isn’t overflowing. That’s why we’re giving $806,000 to the town of Tecumseh.

Anti-racism activities / Lutte contre le racisme

M. Shafiq Qaadri: Ma question est pour le ministre délégué à l’Action contre le racisme, the Honourable Michael Coteau.

Speaker, as you know, we have the privilege today of being joined by Imam Hassan Guillet and his colleagues from Quebec. Some two months ago, Imam Guillet addressed the Prime Minister, the Premier of Quebec, thousands of people in an arena, and indeed all Canadians when he stood and spoke bravely, celebrating the lives of six men who were killed while praying at their mosque in Quebec City. These men were fathers, husbands and neighbours, and on that murderous day, 17 children lost their dads. These men lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now lie in a French field.

They dreamed of their own futures and the futures of their children, the youngest of whom is 18 months old.

En tant que député, que père et que musulman, je comprends l’exigence de lutter contre l’islamophobie en Ontario.

Minister, can you share with this House what our province is doing to address this latest round of racism?

Hon. Michael Coteau: I would like to thank the member from Etobicoke North for the question, and I’d like to thank the imam and our other guests for joining us here in the Legislature. It is a true privilege to have you here today from Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, the tragedy that took place in Quebec reminds us all that Islamophobia is real here in the province of Ontario and it’s a problem right across this country.

Ontario is home to 61% of all Muslims in Canada and we are home to 90% of Muslims who are racialized. Here in the city of Toronto, 5% of our population is Muslim. This is the largest population in all of Canada, and including the United States.

A Better Way Forward: Ontario’s 3-Year Anti-Racism Strategic Plan includes specific initiatives to address Islamophobia. The Anti-Racism Directorate is engaging with community organizations and researching better ways to understand the causes and impacts of Islamophobia so we can move forward on future initiatives.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Thank you, Minister Coteau, for your ongoing work, and thank you, Premier Wynne, for your leadership on this and many other fronts of intolerance.

Over the past few days, Speaker, I’ve been heartened to hear members from all three parties deliberate and respond to Bill 114,

An Act to provide for Anti-Racism Measures. The content of the proposed legislation is substantive and has opened up an important and indeed essential conversation in our Legislature.

I note that the bill proposes the collection of key data, an anti-racism impact assessment framework and proactive methods to apply an anti-racism perspective to government decision-making.

Monsieur le Ministre, pouvez-vous partager avec la Chambre comment le projet de loi 114 et le travail de la direction contre le racisme contribuent à l’avenir de la province?

Hon. Michael Coteau: The scope of Bill 114,

An Act to provide for Anti-Racism Measures, is unprecedented in Canada. Through the strategic plan in Bill 114, we’re working to ensure that Ontario remains a place of inclusion, where everyone feels safe and has the ability to fully contribute to society. This bill ensures that government is held accountable and that the anti-racism work we are doing today continues for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I was so inspired by the words of the imam joining us here today when he said, “Let’s go from today to be a real society, united. The same way we are united today in our sorrow and in our pain, let us start today to be united in our dreams, our hopes and our plans for the future.”

Thank you again for being here and joining us in the Legislature today.

Affordable housing

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: My question is for the Minister of Housing. After I called for an expert housing affordability panel, the minister claimed that he had a housing affordability team. But it seems that no one has heard about that team. Can the minister tell us who is on the team and what they have actually done thus far?

Interjection: I’m on your team.

Hon. Chris Ballard: I know that everyone on this side of the House is on that team.

We’ll continue to answer the call to provide more affordable housing across the province. As we heard yesterday as we met with our municipal partners, affordable housing is a very complex issue. It requires close coordination with our municipal partners, with builders and with members of my ministry and other ministries, and that’s who we’ve turned to. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and myself have put together a team of senior people within our ministries to look at some of the issues that have been raised by municipalities and builders and environmentalists, just to make sure we get our solutions right.

The most important thing that we’re doing is continuing our consultations with municipal leaders, with our builders and with other stakeholders in the field to make sure we get our solutions right.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Minister, the housing crisis has developed under this government, under your watch. This team of insiders has done nothing to stop it. This team has piled cost after cost on new housing, without any realization of what the impact will be.

It’s time to consult with the people who actually understand the housing sector. We proposed a housing affordability panel with clear goals, broad membership and short timelines. Since the minister’s team doesn’t seem to have any of that, will he simply agree to support our panel so we can actually address the challenges of housing affordability in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Chris Ballard: What I will agree with is that there is a growing concern right across the GTHA and beyond about the impact of the booming housing market. I absolutely understand that Ontarians are worried about affording homes in this region. They want the peace of mind knowing that they’ll have an affordable place to call home.

The fact is, Speaker, we have been working on this in a number of areas. I will say that it’s nice that finally the member opposite and his party have joined the conversation to talk about affordable housing.

I can tell you, Speaker, that the question that I would put back to them is that they have been late to this game. We have been working on this game. We’re talking to renters. We’re talking to municipalities. We have legislation coming forward. We’re getting it right.

Legislative pages

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I have a rather sad announcement to make.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I have to say it. This is the last day for our wonderful pages. I want to thank them for all of the hard work that they’ve done, and I want to appreciate the fact that they’ve done such a good job for us. Thank you to all of the pages.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We might start a new program that’s basically a survey of the pages to ask them who their favourite MPP is. I’m not sure how that would work out.

There are no deferred votes. This House stands recessed until 1 p.m.—oh, sorry; a point of order. Just in the last second. The member from Eglinton–Lawrence.

Mr. Mike Colle: Since it’s Passover and Easter, I’ve invited all the pages to share some of Moishe’s world-famous cheesecake in room 212 after question period.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): As I normally do, I want to wish all of you a happy Easter and some time with your family during