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October 5, 2016

41st Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2016-Oct-05 (PDF)

L013 - Wed 5 Oct 2016 / Mer 5 oct 2016

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Wednesday 5 October 2016 Mercredi 5 octobre 2016

Orders of the Day

Burden Reduction Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur l’allègement du fardeau réglementaire

Introduction of Visitors

Oral Questions

Energy policies

Special-needs students

Privatization of public assets

Minimum wage

Fiscal accountability

Fiscal accountability

Employment standards

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.

Poverty

Ontario Municipal Board

Road safety

Hydro rates

Impaired drivers

Access to justice

Visitor

Introduction of Visitors

Members’ Statements

Hydro rates

Joe Fiorito

Events in Northumberland–Quinte West

Paul Grein

Disaster relief

Kidney Walk

Nuclear industry

Student housing

Canadian Cancer Survivor Network

Visitors

Introduction of Bills

Albanian Heritage Month Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur le Mois du patrimoine albanais

Protecting Students Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 protégeant les élèves

Islamic Heritage Month Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur le Mois du patrimoine musulman

Statements by the Ministry and Responses

Ontario Agriculture Week

World Teachers’ Day

Ontario Agriculture Week

World Teachers’ Day

Ontario Agriculture Week

World Teachers’ Day

Petitions

Automobile insurance

Diabetes glucose monitoring

Opposition Day

Privatization of public assets

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Burden Reduction Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur l’allègement du fardeau réglementaire

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 4, 2016, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 27,

An Act to reduce the regulatory burden on business, to enact various new Acts and to make other amendments and repeals / Projet de loi 27, Loi visant à alléger le fardeau réglementaire des entreprises, à édicter diverses lois et à modifier et abroger d’autres lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): When we last debated this issue, the Minister of Economic Development and Growth had the floor. Minister?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Out of respect for all of you in this Legislature, and knowing that my parliamentary assistant is much more eloquent than I am on her feet in this Legislature, I had the opportunity to speak at the outset of the introduction of second reading of this bill yesterday and was able to put forward what I consider some of the priorities for our government in terms of reducing regulatory burden.

Our goal, really, is to make Ontario the easiest place in the world in which to do business. We’re well on the way to getting there. We still have work to do. It’s an ongoing battle and something that is one of those continuous-improvement type of programs. I touched on a few of the things that we were doing to get there. But, in lieu of the fact that most of the members in the Legislature have heard me speak on many things, many times and probably aren’t too enthused to hear more, I’m going to pass on, as I said earlier, the rest of the time to my parliamentary assistant, the member from Davenport.

Mr. Speaker, it’s for you to recognize the member from Davenport.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. The member from Davenport.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: Good morning, everyone. I’m very pleased to rise this morning as parliamentary assistant to the fabulous Minister of Economic Development and Growth. Thank you to the minister for his remarks and for introducing the second reading of this important piece of legislation yesterday. The minister laid out a very clear and convincing case as to why these burden reduction efforts are essential to keep our economy competitive and open to business. He laid out clearly how this government is proposing to continue to build on its efforts in creating a business climate where business can thrive.

I know from the minister, from my own constituents and from my own career in business how important it is to have a modern, streamlined and efficient business climate. It’s what helps to attract new businesses to Ontario and what helps the businesses that are already here to get products and services to consumers more efficiently and create more opportunity to invest in jobs and growth.

Mr. Speaker, as the minister outlined in his remarks, he and his team have consulted with an impressive number of stakeholders in the development of this bill, and we have received some resounding positive feedback from the business community and other stakeholders.

Here are just a few of the things that stakeholders had to say in support of the Burden Reduction Act. Plamen Petkov, the Ontario vice-president for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says, “The Ontario government continues to demonstrate that it is committed to reducing the regulatory burden on small business in the province. By mending several existing acts, the Burden Reduction Act lays the groundwork for achieving real and measurable regulatory relief.”

Ian Howcroft, the Ontario vice-president of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, had this to say: “This will help to ensure Ontario’s competitive position and continue to support a culture in which safety is everyone’s priority. It is an example of how business and government can work together to develop a regulatory system that focuses on goals and results which reduces red tape and unnecessary burdens.”

Similarly, Allan O’Dette, president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, said this: “The Burden Reduction Act will support the growth of Ontario’s economy by removing many of the regulatory barriers that are challenging businesses in this province. Modernizing government and removing red tape are essential to innovation and growth. The chamber network has been a champion for many of the changes brought forward in this legislation. We encourage the business community to continue to push government to support burden reduction through participation in the Red Tape Challenge.”

Lastly, Mark Nantais, the president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, added the following: “The Burden Reduction Act recognizes that Ontario manufacturing competes in a globally competitive market that now operates in a modern digital business environment.” It provides “long-term clarity in an ever-changing business environment by reducing regulatory complexity and cost, and avoiding a drag on productivity and competitiveness—all of which contributes to a more positive investment climate in Ontario.”

Here we have a number of highly influential and successful business leaders explaining just how important these efforts are to the business community. At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, it’s important to remember what these efforts are really about. This is about ensuring we have a competitive business environment so that companies can invest here in Ontario and create and support jobs.

This really matters to people all over our province. We need to ensure we’re working with companies and other stakeholders to ensure we’re not perpetuating or creating overly cumbersome or unnecessary burdens to them doing business and supporting high-quality jobs.

We understand the power and importance of listening, which is why we’ve taken such a consultative approach to this process. Crucially, the minister pointed out yesterday we are doing that while also protecting environmental and health standards, and enhancing worker and consumer safety.

We know that some regulations are of course essential, but we know from speaking with stakeholders and consulting across ministries that there is still room to find efficiencies, both big and small. We have taken a holistic approach across government to find efficiencies for businesses and other stakeholders.

This bill proposes to make more than 150 amendments to more than 50 statutes, and I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the burden reduction that will occur across 11 different ministries, should the Burden Reduction Act be passed.

One of the most significant ways we are reducing burdens on business is through the elimination of the Bulk Sales Act. The Bulk Sales Act was one that stakeholders repeatedly told us was outdated. It was originally designed to ensure that creditors were protected when a business sold off assets, but nowadays, creditors have access to a number of more effective ways to protect their interests, making the act redundant.

It was also expensive for the act to be administered, and every other Canadian jurisdiction has eliminated their version of this statutory vehicle. This was costing the government time and money. It isn’t protecting Ontarians in ways they were not already protected, and it is not beneficial to the economy, so we are eliminating it.

We are also reducing the burdens on businesses who want to come to Ontario by incorporating recognized standards for international business dealings into law. Businesses would have the option of incorporating the standards into contracts, saving them the costs of negotiations over things like which electronic communications are recognized or which country’s court would be used to resolve a dispute.

As well, we are modernizing rules for commercial arbitration, which would make Ontario a more attractive jurisdiction for resolving cross-border disputes. In order to facilitate this, the bill would create five new acts: the International Choice of Court Agreements Convention Act, the International Commercial Arbitration Act, the International Electronic Communications Convention Act, the International Recognition of Trusts Act, and the International Sales Conventions Act. These acts would make it easier for businesses all over the world to understand how to play the game if they want to do business in Ontario.

Making it as easy as possible for investors to understand what they are getting themselves into by coming here is crucial if we want to continue to be a leader in Canada and in North America in terms of attracting foreign direct investment. These laws will mean that it is easier for Ontario companies to do business in places like the United States, the UK and Australia, and also for companies from emerging markets like those in eastern Europe, Africa and southeast Asia to bring jobs, growth, and economic development here. The bill also allows some really common-sense regulatory changes that make it easier for trained professionals to do their job.

I also want to highlight a couple of other examples. Currently, inspectors for the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change are required to request information from companies in face-to-face meetings. That means an inspector has to physically travel to a company to get an answer or a clarification on a particular item, regardless of how big or small it is. This bill, if passed, would allow inspectors to request information or seek clarification on specific matters, where appropriate, by phone or by email.

This bill would also allow for the government to notify clients about applications made under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, the Public Lands Act and the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act by email, rather than just by registered mail.

Additionally, this bill, if passed, will make it possible for more business activities to move to the Environmental Activity and Sector Registry, the online self-registration system available for certain low-risk activities. This would save stakeholders time and reduce complexity by providing an alternative streamlined method to conduct business in many circumstances. This is a clear example of the government being responsive to constructive commentary and suggestions from the community outside the walls of government.

This act, if passed, would also amend the Ontario Energy Board Act and the Electricity Act to empower the Ontario Energy Board to be more flexible. This new flexibility would help the OEB in its regulatory processes and reduce red tape for those participating in energy market. It would also strengthen the OEB’s consumer protection responsibilities to keep Ontarians safe.

One example of those responsibilities is to ensure that natural gas and electricity utilities are prohibited from disconnecting customers during certain times of the year, such as during winter months. We know how important it is to ensure that Ontarians have access to the critical utilities they need for their daily lives and this change will help to protect some of Ontario’s most vulnerable.

Furthermore, this act amends the Registered Human Resources Professionals Act to provide the authority for the Human Resources Professionals Association to regulate its members who conduct workplace investigations. The proposed amendment would give association members in good standing the authority to conduct investigations without having to get a private investigator’s licence and be regulated by the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services through that ministry’s licensing program. We have one of the most highly skilled workforces in the world, and the government should not be making it harder for Ontarians to do the job they are trained to do.

I also want to talk to you about the ways we are increasing protections for consumers through this bill. We’re updating the Consumer Protection Act to broaden the type of information that can now be made publicly available about companies that have received compliance orders.

We’re also creating a formal process of mediation for disputes between suppliers and consumers. In addition, we are updating the Land Titles Act to address increasingly sophisticated fraud situations and to help combat title fraud, including streamlining how easements are recorded in the land title system and how co-owners of property may give evidence of their percentage of ownership.

We are also streamlining the Technical Standards and Safety Act, providing a time limit for appeals of inspection orders, seals and fees under this act. This bill, if passed, would give them 90 days to file an appeal. These changes mean that the rights of consumers are better respected and that we can ensure their safety, which is one of our government’s top priorities.

Mr. Speaker, one of the major initiatives we are taking through this, as well as other initiatives such as the strategic investments office, is making it easier for businesses to interact with government. That’s why we are amending the Business Regulation Reform Act to require businesses to provide their business number during any interaction or registration with a government entity and to enable delegated administrative authorities and crown corporations to use the business number when working with businesses.

Businesses having a unique identifier for when they interact with government can enable us as government to provide better services to businesses when they request it, in the same way that when you shop online, a store can remember your shipping information, or that Pizza Pizza can remember what you last ordered. Facilitating the process by which businesses can communicate with government will make it easier for them to spend less time filling out forms and get back to business.

Lastly, this bill also streamlines the functions of government to make us operate more efficiently. This bill gives to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs as well as the Minister of Northern Development and Mines the ability to establish or amend programs without the need for an order in council. While our current Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Minister of Northern Development and Mines are certainly doing an incredible job for their respective sectors and constituents, this will allow their ministries to better adapt to the changes in their sectors and provide better service overall.

This bill also clarifies the Provincial Offences Act to give municipalities more of the tools that they need to collect defaulted fines in full. This is great news for our municipal partners and continues our track record of making it easier for municipalities to provide services to their constituents.

As an MPP from a Toronto riding, Davenport, I should also note that this bill would clarify or correct various sections of the Highway Traffic Act to accommodate new TTC streetcars. And this updates the Ontario Place Corporation Act to help us implement our vision for the Ontario Place revitalization to turn it into a year-round, vibrant waterfront destination. These amendments would lower the cost and complexity of transactions for everyone involved in the revitalization and make it easier for the government to ensure that we are able to capitalize on the opportunity that a redeveloped Ontario Place would create for our city.

Lastly, this bill will help to streamline our justice system. This bill currently proposes several amendments the Courts of Justice Act and the Justices of the Peace Act to help our court system function more effectively and efficiently.

These changes would include simplifying the court rules in provincial offences court, making it easier for them to adapt to changes in technology; creating the position of Small Claims Court administrative judge to improve our Small Claims Court processes and ensure that any dispute, big or small, is handled fairly and smoothly by our courts; and providing members of the judicial and justice of the peace appointments advisory committees immunity from liability for actions done in good faith.

This makes it easier for us to recruit the best people to these appointments, which is so crucial for ensuring that we have the best and brightest adjudicating the law in this province.

These changes may not seem that significant, but ensuring our legal system is able to keep up with the times, is able to function smoothly and effectively, and that the right people are sitting on the bench means that we are able to provide better access to better justice for all Ontarians.

Mr. Speaker, as the minister highlighted yesterday, our government has an excellent track record when it comes to reducing red tape. Since 2014, we have saved businesses $122 million and 5.4 million hours thanks to our red tape reduction efforts. This surpassed our self-initiated goal of saving businesses $100 million by 2017.

Thanks to this bill, if passed, and to the sum of our recent initiatives like the Red Tape Challenge, we’ll be able to make Ontario an even better place to live, to work, and certainly to invest and do business for years to come. We’re committed to continuing our strong leadership on this front.

The Burden Reduction Act, if passed, would be the first part of an annual burden reduction process, serving as a model to meet a firm commitment to reduce burdens to Ontario businesses. This annual process would provide all ministries with a regular way to identify and reduce their burdens. These efforts are all part of Ontario’s broader burden reduction ecosystem.

Mr. Speaker, we have completely transformed how this government cuts red tape. We have a wide spectrum of initiatives to help us in this effort. In 2008, we launched Ontario’s Open for Business strategy, and since then, we have eliminated 80,000 regulatory burdens since 2008. That’s 17% of all regulatory requirements.

Ontario’s 2016 Burden Reduction Report profiles 26 initiatives across government, including 13 new projects resulting in $47 million in cost savings, and $24 million saved through 13 previously announced projects with ongoing impact. That report highlighted some interesting initiatives, including BizPaL, an online tool that provides customized lists of all permits, licences and requirements needed to register a business in Ontario, saving entrepreneurs $27 million and thousands of hours over four years, and automating clearance certificates for construction contractors, saving contractors and their employers $13 million and 545,000 hours over five years.

Another initiative was the simplification of vendor reporting and registration under the Assistive Devices Program, saving businesses $2 million and 70,400 hours over one year.

These efforts tie into our broader efforts at spurring growth, helping Ontario companies scale up and fostering an innovative business climate. This government’s Business Growth Initiative makes key investments in research and development and facilitates rapid access to capital. It helps small and mid-sized enterprises scale up. We have also taken action to help small businesses. We fully eliminated capital taxes for businesses as of 2010.

In 2010, Ontario reduced the small business corporate income tax rate from 5.5% to 4.5%, not to mention that our corporate income tax rate is almost 13 percentage points lower than the average combined federal and state corporate tax in the United States. Of course, as was laid out in the throne speech, small businesses will also be eligible for the 8% rebate on the provincial portion of the HST on their hydro bills.

Similarly, through our industrial conservation initiative, we encourage large energy users to lower consumption during peak periods, helping them to save money. The industrial conservation initiative would be expanded to all sectors and the participation threshold would be lower, meaning that as many as 1,000 new businesses will be eligible.

This government understands the importance of taking a wide view of potential remedies and improvements that will help businesses create jobs and grow the economy. As the Minister of Economic Development and Growth spoke to yesterday, we’ve been responsive to constructive commentary from the business community and other stakeholders and that’s the approach they recommended.

We understand how valuable it is to solicit and take to heart comments from stakeholders and those actually on the ground, investing in our economy and creating jobs. That’s why ongoing consultation is a key part of our approach to ensuring that we’re continuing to create a competitive and efficient business climate.

Earlier, I mentioned the Red Tape Challenge, and that’s a key example of our commitment to consultation. An integral part of the Business Growth Initiative, the Red Tape Challenge is a crowd-sourced comments platform that is expressly designed around the concept of open and transparent consultation. It provides stakeholders across a wide array of sectors with the opportunity to provide feedback that will help us continue to modernize regulations so that they are outcome-focused and evidence-based.

This past spring, we launched the Red Tape Challenge with the automotive parts manufacturing phase. You can be on the lookout for the final report coming out in the coming months. Nearly 200 comments and messages were submitted, touching on more than 30 pieces of legislation. These comments came from employers, both small and large, and they were submitted by a wide range of stakeholders, from employees and business owners to skilled tradespeople and even apprentices.

We also launched the phase focusing on the food processing sector. I know the minister attended a very tasty event at Italpasta for that kickoff—not sure where I was that day—and, starting in December, we’ll be kicking off the financial services consultation. It will be followed by consultations on the mining, chemical manufacturing and forestry sectors.

As each round of the challenge closes, we will be publishing a

summary of participation. We will review all the comments and ideas submitted, and create a plan to improve regulations while, as I mentioned, ensuring we are still protecting the public interest.

These burden reduction efforts will entail working with technical experts to analyze the ideas submitted, prioritize the changes that will save businesses the most time and money, and research best practices from other jurisdictions. Individual ministries will then assemble action plans to address the items related to their respective work, and those plans will be presented to the Regulatory Modernization Committee, an advisory body with a role to challenge plans that fall short of demonstrating significant improvements. Once the Regulatory Modernization Committee has signed off, all of the ministry plans will be combined into a government-wide plan to address red tape.

As the stakeholders quotes I shared earlier indicate, the regulatory modernization ecosystem we are continuing to hone is garnering widespread support and praise from the business community. In fact, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business awarded the province the second-highest grade in Canada as part of its annual Red Tape Awareness Week.

In addition to the Red Tape Challenge, we have created an internal committee chaired by the secretary of cabinet and the Premier’s business adviser to push ministries to cut red tape and listen to the good ideas that come from our consultations. Ministries will be asked to change practices or provide a reasonable explanation why the status quo must be maintained.

We’ve also created a regulatory centre of excellence housed within the Ministry of Economic Development and Growth. This team will help the ministries consult and learn from international regulatory best practices to ensure new policies are not overly burdensome.

This bill, if passed, will be an important part of our ongoing efforts to make Ontario a great place to do business. Our overarching priority is to help foster an environment where people want to invest and grow their businesses. We want to help Ontario businesses scale up and grow, and we want to attract even more new investment. We want to create quality, high-paying jobs for the hard-working people of Ontario, and we want to ensure that none of those efforts ever sacrifice the health, safety and prosperity of the people who call Ontario home.

Those are the principles that underpin our burden reduction efforts. Thanks to the Minister of Economic Development and Growth for making this a priority for the ministry and for the government in introducing this bill. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to further debate.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments?

Mr. Jim McDonell: It’s always a great privilege to rise in this House and provide feedback to the government’s bills.

I know that the polls are bad, and now they have to actually push comments across the other side—“fabulous minister.” I don’t hear those comments at home. I hear comments at home—people are frustrated. Anger is the feedback I’m receiving; questions about what people can do. Unfortunately, there are about 20 months left.

It’s interesting that in 13 years, the regulation in this province has almost doubled under this government. They have not seen the reductions, we hear. Who remembers the church suppers and the farmers’ markets? At one time, this government had passed regulations that were banning these institutions that have been the cornerstone of our economies for years. That’s the regulation we’ve seen from this government.

Thirteen new acts. Of course now we have new acts that are helping businesses come in. Actually, there are more sales offices, because nobody wants to manufacture here. It’s just too expensive. I know this is a bill that’s made to sound good and it sounds like there are a lot of points in this, but you’ve made business so expensive to operate here, it’s leaving. It’s just more difficult and tougher to work in Ontario.

It’s interesting that you’re allowing the OEB more flexibility. Well, they have a lot more time now because after your legislation in the spring, they no longer provide advice to the government. The government found this advice embarrassing because they weren’t following it so they changed the legislation so that they no longer have to provide this information or this advice.

We’re looking forward to seeing the details of this.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: This is a fairly extensive act. One might even call it an omnibus bill. I had an opportunity to listen to the member speak about the act. I have to say he’s the only person I’ve heard slagging regulation as much as the presidential candidate in the United States, Mr. Trump, who also thinks that regulation is bad for business and society.

There’s a lot in here. I’m not in a position to critique all of it but I do note that when it comes to amendments regarding the Ontario Energy Board, there seems to be a loosening-up of the ability of the board to support ownership of generation facilities by transmitters or distributors. My analysis isn’t in-depth here. Others may come with something more comprehensive and more profound. But on the face of it, it looks like this will allow Hydro One to start buying up generation facilities as a privatized distributor and transmitter able to build an electric empire here in Ontario in private hands rather than public hands, which has been critical to our development over the last century.

That’s a worry, Speaker. This is a government that has already shown it is in love with privatization and would sell anything that it could. It looks like it’s making things easier for private distribution companies, Hydro One, to buy generation facilities in the future, maybe setting the stage for complete privatization of the whole electricity sector here in Ontario. That’s a concern. I think that as we go through this bill, getting clarity on what is actually meant here is going to be critical in terms of our assessment of whether this bill is a negative or a positive. On the face of it, this is extraordinarily concerning.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments?

Hon. Jeff Leal: I heard a portion of the honourable member’s speech. We’re talking about burden reduction, of course. It’s so relevant this week, Agriculture Week in the province of Ontario; 52,000 family farms. Along with my colleague, Minister Duguid, we announced the Red Tape Challenge just a little while ago, in terms of looking at the regulatory impact within the food processing sector in the province of Ontario. Mr. Speaker, as you well know, in the great city of Hamilton, we did some work with a company, P&H Milling, a short time ago.

Of course, it’s the first time there’s been a substantial investment in milling in the province of Ontario for over seven decades. I know, Mr. Speaker, as a great labour leader from Hamilton, you were very excited about that investment in Hamilton Harbour as part of the renewal.

We can make things work, with burden reduction, to make sure, in many ways, as they—I think it was the government of Tony Blair in Great Britain. As you know, Mr. Speaker, he was a great member of the Labour Party in Great Britain. He did a lot of work on smart regulations in Great Britain.

I think it’s important for us here in Ontario to look around the globe and see what they’re doing in terms of smart regulation, looking at ways and—the bottom line is, as my colleague the Minister of Labour would say, it’s all right to embark upon that, but we want to make sure that we keep those workplaces safe in the province of Ontario. We want to make sure that environmental regulations are being followed. But there is a practical way that we can look at these kinds of things, and in the debate this morning, my friend who just spoke there, the honourable gentleman, is looking at ways that we can see this in a very practical way.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for giving me this two-minute opportunity.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): The member from Dufferin–Caledon.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: I’m probably not going to be quite as effusive in my praise.

Bill 27 is promoted as the Burden Reduction Act, but in fact, as was raised with the other members in the House, it covers an awful lot of different ministries. It’s actually quite curious that the Minister of Economic Development and Growth has brought this forward, because it truly is an omnibus bill. It covers Attorney General changes—all kinds of different areas where I think they want us to focus on the red tape reduction. I think there’s a little bit too much of, “You tell us what’s wrong, businesses and manufacturers.” That is, quite frankly, our responsibility.

It’s fine to seek input, but to suggest that our manufacturers and our small businesses have time to do the government’s job, I struggle with.

I do a lot of tours in businesses in my riding. I’m sure you do, Speaker; I’m sure most of us take those opportunities to get feedback. And I can tell you, the number one issue that people raise with me when I’m touring their manufacturing facilities, when I’m speaking to small businesses, is hydro, the cost of hydro, the fact that it keeps going up and there’s no way to measure or anticipate what it’s going to be.

Red tape reduction in principle is a good idea, but we have to remember the large issue. The big focus has to be on how we make it more affordable for people to build jobs, build industry and create wealth in the province of Ontario. While Bill 27 has some positive things in it, I think that there’s a lot more that could be happening.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): The member from Davenport, two minutes.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: I want to first start off by thanking the member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry, the member from Toronto–Danforth, the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the member from Dufferin–Caledon. I’m glad to hear—at least, I think that’s what I heard here just now, especially from the member from Dufferin–Caledon—that in principle, this is a good bill, and that there is work to be done.

We know, Mr. Speaker, that there is more work to be done. That’s why we are consulting with many of the businesses in Ontario. We’re not asking them to do our job; that is not the intent. But we’re asking them to tell us what impedes them on a day-to-day basis from growing their business, from bringing more investments into Ontario, from helping us really grow this province. They’re the ones that are on the ground. They’re the ones facing the challenges day in and day out, and they are the most knowledgeable to tell us all those little nuances that we, as government, do not have that expertise in.

That’s why the Red Tape Challenge that we launched earlier in the spring, and more recently in the agriculture sector, is actually being received very positively by those in the sector.

We also heard the fact that this bill touches on many different ministries. This is a good thing that we’re doing. I came from the private sector. It really astounds me at times, how long it takes for things to happen in this place, how long it takes to get things from ministries and how they sometimes tend to work a little bit in silos. Together now, through this bill, we’re hoping that ministries are working together, that they’re streamlining their processes, that things get done quickly so businesses can continue to invest and businesses can continue to attract the investment that we want here in Ontario to ensure that we continue to grow Ontario up.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate?

Mr. Monte McNaughton: I’m extremely pleased to be speaking to this bill this morning and to join the discussion of red tape, which is something that I hear often about as the economic development critic. Also, as the MPP for Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, many businesses of all shapes and sizes come forward on a daily basis to my office to complain about the ever-growing red tape in the province of Ontario.

I also come to this debate with the background of running a small business and owning a small business in Ontario. Growing up in a small business family, in our small business, we often discussed how government got in the way and prevented our business from growing even faster than we did, Mr. Speaker. That’s the problem with the red tape in this province: the overregulation of the business community. It prevents employers from creating jobs, from growing their business, which ultimately results in higher wages for workers in Ontario, if government gets out of the way.

I applaud the government, though, for bringing in a bill to help lessen the burden that regulation is currently placing on this province, although I think there is much, much more that can be done, that should be done, and there’s a lot missing from this piece of legislation. It’s interesting, Mr. Speaker—and I’ll talk about this more over the next, I guess, 58 minutes. The government is introducing this bill, but there are other pieces of legislation that have been passed recently and that are set to be passed by this Liberal government that are actually going to increase red tape in a very detrimental way for businesses in Ontario, so we’re going to touch a bit on that.

I also want to put on the record that this government has been in office now for 13 years, and if you ask any small business in the province—any business, actually, small, medium and large—they know that government has grown. I think the last statistic I heard is that this government has increased the size of the public sector by 300,000 workers. At the same time, we’ve lost, I believe, 350,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs in the province. When you grow government to that degree, you know there are a lot more rules and regulations in place. It has killed jobs in the province, and it’s continuing to prevent more jobs from being created.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I think the priority we see in this bill is reducing the burden of red tape for government rather than for individuals or businesses. I think that’s important to note, that this is going to be easier for the government but not necessarily much better for individuals and businesses. I hope, as the government moves forward with its Red Tape Challenge, that we’ll be seeing more measures taken to offer some substantive change for the private sector in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, it’s my understanding that this bill came from the suggestions drawn from the Business Growth Initiative, ministry requests, the Regulatory Modernization Committee and requests for clarification of existing regulations, which to me sounds like quite a bit of bureaucracy to tackle the problem of bureaucracy in Ontario. Given how comprehensive the government says it has been in looking for places to cut red tape, I would have expected much more than we see in this bill. I don’t know much about the process that was undertaken, but again, Mr. Speaker, I hope to see more once the participatory process of the Red Tape Challenge has actually been completed.

There is a natural reliance in Liberalism upon bureaucracy. After 13 years of this Liberal government, there is hardly a facet of life left untouched by government intervention in Ontario. It seems that at every turn, the government is there to throw up a barrier and ask for a payment. It’s almost as if this government, having been in power for 13 years, is getting desperate for new things to regulate. This addiction to generating red tape has been a huge hindrance on manufacturing in particular—on all businesses—and has contributed to the loss of more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs.

The proposals in this Burden Reduction Act are unfortunately absolutely dwarfed by what we’ve seen come forward in the Changing Workplaces Review interim report. As we know, this is an interim report. There will be lots of input given from the business community. I know since that report has been released, our office has received more and more calls on a weekly basis about this report and the concerns that businesses have.

The regulations and red tape, the proposed changes to the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act, would burden small and medium-sized businesses, which is outrageous. Obviously, it’s an interim report, like I said, and consultation is hopefully ongoing, but from the comments I have heard from the Minister of Labour in this House, it sounds like the drafting of legislation may already be well under way.

The minister has talked about bringing in legislation that governs employment law and that governs labour relations up-to-date so that employers and employees are all “brought into the same fold.” It seems to me the fold he’s referencing is a distant past because most of what is in that report seems totally out of touch with the actual workplaces of today.

If the government is going to insert itself into every facet of employer and employee relations, it’s going to be detrimental for everyone involved. For example, proposed changes to scheduling, such as requiring employers to

schedule workers two weeks out and face fines if this

schedule changes, make no sense when survey after survey regularly shows that employees value flexibility.

One recent survey by Softchoice showed that 70% of employees would leave their job for one that offers more workday flexibility. Global Workplace Analytics reviewed thousands of studies and reports on agile work and found that 36% of employees would choose flexibility over a pay raise. They also reported that Gen Yers are particularly attracted to flexible work arrangements.

There are many economic, environmental and social benefits to agile work for employers, employees and society as a whole. But this government seems to inhabit a fantasy world where everyone is employed by large corporations in a lawless land. That’s just not the case in Ontario. Employers are very responsible and very good to employees, but yet, this government just doesn’t view employers and job creators in a positive light. I think that’s quite despicable.

The reality is that this province has over 407,000 small businesses and over 87% of people in Ontario are employed by small or medium-sized businesses. The reality is that 85% of small businesses in this province already offer flexibility to accommodate employees having personal issues. Two thirds of Ontario small business owners identified employees as the most important element to their success, above even hard work as a factor. Mr. Speaker, as a small business owner before I got here to Queen’s Park, I can tell you that is true. We value our employees and that is generally how employers view their employees.

Hon. Jeff Leal: Home Hardware.

Mr. Monte McNaughton: The Minister of Agriculture mentioned Home Hardware, a great company. There are thousands and thousands—407,000 small businesses in the province of Ontario. They are well run and treat their employees with respect. I would caution the government as they move forward with this workplace review.

What this points to is that the vast majority of employees have positive relationships with their employers. Yet the government is poised to jump in and redefine that relationship.

There was quite the

article today in the National Post by Philip Cross talking about how labour law changes could gut Ontario jobs in the province. I’m going to read a bit from that article. It’s quite interesting and should be on the public record. Philip Cross is a former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, very reputable. He says: “Under the auspices of its Changing Workplaces Review, the Ontario government is considering a sweeping overhaul of the labour laws covered by the Labour Relations Act and the Employment Standards Act.

“At a panel discussion in which I participated last week, I repeatedly heard that the changes were motivated by the desire to create an environment in which your son or daughter would want to work. However, the changes envisaged mean that for many of Ontario’s sons and daughters, their environment is going to continue to be living in mom’s basement as they wait for an entry into the workplace.

“The fundamental error of the lawyers and human resource specialists who are driving this misguided process is the belief that pursuing lofty goals about social justice and equity can repeal the basic laws of economics. It can’t. If the all-in costs of remunerating an employee ... exceeds what an employee produces, it is impossible for the employer to create sustainable jobs.

“Impossible, because even if a well-intentioned but naïve employer hires workers at a cost that exceeds their productivity, by definition the firm will lose money and eventually go bankrupt. This truism of business life apparently escapes the Wynne government’s analysis.

“Simply wanting better outcomes for public policy does not in itself produce them—in fact, it often leads to the opposite. Already in Ontario there has been a sharp decline from about 1.4 million to 1.0 million in the number of employees paid less than $12 an hour as the minimum wage and other legislated labour costs have mounted since 2003.

“Employers increasingly will only hire and keep their most productive workers, content to let technological advances replace or automate lower-skilled jobs.” That’s a very important point, Mr. Speaker, and I hope the government is listening. “This actually worsens the outcome for the very class of workers government wants to help. A similar dynamic is in play in Alberta, where the Notley government”—the NDP—“is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour as it sacrifices a generation of young workers on the altar of union support during the election.”

I’ll come back to this, Mr. Speaker, but this is a very alarming article. I can tell you, it’s going to be detrimental to the province of Ontario if some of these initiatives come forward. We’re going to see it in Alberta.

We’re at a place in time where, after losing 350,000 workers in the province, we need a government with an economic plan that’s going to create jobs, not create an unstable environment for expanding. We’ve heard this statistic many times, but red tape costs our economy over $14 billion each year. While with one hand the Liberal government is trimming regulations here or there with things like this Burden Reduction Act, with their other hand they’re making more red tape in Ontario.

With changes to labour laws on the scale proposed by the Changing Workplaces Review, lawyer fees and paperwork are going to be a significant draw on the resources of small businesses. I want to highlight the years 1993, 1994, and 1995, because, in that report, that window of time is referenced 42 times. It’s clear to me that this Liberal government is preparing the province for the jobs of yesterday, not the jobs of tomorrow.

Even the measures we see in the Burden Reduction Act which will modernize the workplace, such as legitimizing electronic documents, are actually years overdue. One

schedule in this bill proposes—and listen to this, Mr. Speaker—to implement the United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, a convention that dates back to the year 2007. The United Nations is not a body known for expediency, yet it took Ontario another 10 years to come around to implementing the international standard on modern communications in trade. That’s actually in this legislation—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Continue.

Mr. Monte McNaughton: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would hope that the Liberal cabinet ministers would listen because this is a serious concern for the business community in Ontario. I know it’s easy to sit in the bubble at Queen’s Park and think things are fine out in Ontario, but they’re not. When you’re talking to the men and women running our valued small businesses, medium-sized businesses and large manufacturers, they have real issues with red tape in the province.

As I said, the United Nations is not a body known for expediency, and it took this Liberal government 10 years to come around to implementing this so-called international standard on modern communications in trade.

The Business Corporations Act is only now being amended to allow a corporation to maintain records of email addresses to facilitate electronic communications between the corporation, its shareholders, debt obligation holders and holders of warrants.

CFIB has reported that more than three quarters of Canadian farmers, 76%, in fact—and I’m glad the Minister of Agriculture got up to speak for a couple of minutes on this bill—named government regulation and paper burden as a serious concern for their businesses. It’s a complaint I hear regularly from farmers in my riding.

Most recently, we’ve seen crop management specialists disqualified by out-of-touch regulation. Approximately 80% of the accredited crop management specialists are ineligible to do required tasks because they work for seed companies. This leaves about 80 trained and licensed crop management specialists to do all the required work in the entire province.

My colleague the member for Huron–Bruce has brought forward a bill to offer some relief to farmers on this. I hope the government will be supporting this important initiative and will continue to support my colleague’s call from Huron–Bruce to help farmers carry on with their important work.

Despite all these examples of low-hanging fruit where this government could easily have acted to ease the burden for farmers, there’s only one proposed change in this bill that falls under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. That change is to eliminate—and listen to this, Mr. Speaker: That change is to eliminate the need for the ministry to obtain an order in council to establish or amend funding programs. That’s it. In the entire bill, that’s the only regulation that’s going to be impacted regarding the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

There is much, much more work that could be done. With all due respect, this government has been in power for 13 years and when 76% of farmers are overburdened with paperwork, urgent action should have been taken many, many years ago.

So when it comes to red tape—

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Guess who? Yelling across the floor. I know you can’t hold it back. We’ll try and do a little better. Thank you.

Mr. Monte McNaughton: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

When it comes to red tape reduction in agriculture, the only action the Liberal government has actually taken with this bill is to make things easier for—guess who, Mr. Speaker?—the Liberal government. It’s a slap in the face to the farmers of this province and, sadly, they probably won’t find it surprising. It’s what rural Ontario has come to expect from this Liberal government. While farmers struggle with high hydro, rising natural gas costs—January 1, a huge increase to natural gas bills—and excessive regulation, the Liberals will continue to take care of themselves.

Regulation is also dramatically stifling innovation. By stifling innovation, the government is holding back our economy and jobs of the future. The former MPP for Niagara West–Glanbrook, Tim Hudak, introduced the Opportunity in the Sharing Economy Act to help clear away some of the regulatory barriers to that innovative new sector of the economy.

As economic development critic, I have certainly heard from entrepreneurs and innovators who are having trouble getting their business off the ground in Ontario, even when similar businesses are operating in comparable jurisdictions, because the regulations in place don’t reflect the current reality.

I’m sure the Liberal members of this House have similar cases as well; yet, action to tackle these 21st century challenges and opportunities had to come from an opposition member’s private member’s bill; a bill that unfortunately died after passing second reading because this government prorogued the Legislature last month.

Speaker, I want to see Ontario be a leader again. Our economy has changed dramatically following the loss of hundreds of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs. With no real economic plan from this Liberal government, soaring hydro rates and the looming spectres of increased CPP and the cap-and-trade scheme, businesses are finding a lot of disincentives to investment. The very least the government can do is get out of the way and allow the innovation and hard work of the people of this province to fuel economic growth and the creation of new industries, companies, jobs, products and services.

In a similar vein, I have also heard a lot about innovation being stifled by the inability to efficiently transfer science and engineering breakthroughs from the lab to the commercial marketplace. Optimizing technology transfer at our universities would help foster the growth of new companies and jobs.

There have been some efforts to streamline tech transfer with MaRS Innovation, but it’s still a very bureaucratic process. As an innovator, if you want to patent your innovation from a university, it can be quite confusing where to go, because there are overlapping tech transfer offices.

As a company or investor, if you’re looking to transfer technology from a university, the overlap in agencies can make the whole process very complicated and time-consuming. You want to make this as accessible as possible for businesses and investors.

In fact, in the United States, we’ve seen the introduction of metrics and performance goals to track government’s activity in tech transfer. This is highly relevant to Ontario. We spend a lot of public dollars on research and universities. If we have a common standard for measuring progress of monies invested in terms of their commercial application and impact on job growth, we can ensure the best possible policies are actually in place.

The one thing that I think everyone has seen time and time again is a failure to track outcomes. The Auditor General certainly noted it in her report last year. Because of this lack of metrics, we’re deprived of a powerful tool for optimizing our regulations and policies. Instruments for enhancing quality, accountability and transparency, integrated risk and impact assessments, outcome-based regulations, regulatory tiering and an equivalence of performance test have long been advocated by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to address exactly this issue.

This government talks a good game about wanting to create an innovation-driven economy. In fact, we know that ministers love to be dispersed across the province and hand out those cheques to those companies. I’ll put it on the record again: Often, they’re handing out cheques to companies because those companies have been invited to apply. There’s no transparency to that program and to various granting programs to private companies through the Ministry of Economic Development.

Speaker, we all want to see an economy flourish here in Ontario where initiative and creativity can drive growth and where education, skills and hard work bring success. But too often, entrepreneurs and creators are discouraged by the inertia of government regulation and an outmoded set of rules.

Harnessing the research and development already going on in the province to build economic opportunities just makes sense. Streamlining the tech transfer process would be another way for this government to clear out some of the regulatory impediments to collaboration between the public and private sectors.

Another major complaint that I’ve been hearing from stakeholders in a wide variety of industries is the lack of harmonization in regulations between the provincial and federal levels of government. Often, businesses are subject to redundant regulations that create confusion and are a drain on the resources of these private companies. It would be a huge help to businesses if the government were to prioritize the horizontal and vertical coordination and harmonization of regulation. I think that this is a huge opportunity that the government could work on, and that’s getting provincial and federal governments together to harmonize some of this regulation and get rid of the duplication.

Just two stories that highlight this issue: Over the summer, of course, we had, in my riding of Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, the Arva Flour Mill, which has been in business for around 197 years. A federal inspector was actually out visiting a farm in the area, and he noticed the Arva Flower Mill and went in. The flour mill, for over a hundred years, has been operating pulleys with leather belts in a secure room. Customers and staff didn’t work around these pulleys. Of course, the inspector went in, the federal inspector, and shut down the Arva Flour Mill. The Arva Flour Mill has a perfect safety record. It’s the oldest operating mill, I believe, in Canada.

I will also put on the record that I’m thankful for my counterpart, member of Parliament Bev Shipley from Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, who has been a real champion for the Arva Flour Mill and has been working with the federal government to ensure that the government recognizes that the Arva Flour Mill is a historic business operating in Canada.

But again, this business deals with provincial inspectors and federal inspectors, and I think there could be some harmonization opportunities there.

We have seen a couple of major policy points lately where the federal and provincial governments are completely out of step, which has created tremendous uncertainty for the private sector. The provincial government brought in its plan for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, which had businesses bracing for a huge economic impact and scrambling to incorporate this bombshell into their budgets and short- and long-term plans, only to have it set aside for a proposed enhancement to the CPP—which actually remains an enigma.

With British Columbia still refusing to get on board and serious concerns being raised—they are raising some concerns, as the public understanding of what the CPP enhancement would entail grows. It leaves businesses in a continued state of uncertainty. Will they be faced with the ORPP once more if the CPP enhancement fails? We’ve seen businesses leaving our province to escape the high rate of hydro. The spectre of an Ontario-only pension plan still looms and may be the straw that breaks the backs of some of our businesses.

We’ve seen a very similar situation play out with the proposed carbon tax, federally. The Liberal government has put forward plans for what they want to spend all the revenue from their cap-and-trade scheme on, but carbon auctions haven’t proven nearly as profitable for California and Quebec as they projected. Ontario businesses are left wondering what they will be on the hook for, both for the price of carbon as well as potential additional taxation to make up for the shortfall in the Liberals’ spending plans. Now we have the federal government coming in with promises to regulate carbon as well.

Speaker, how can the private sector be expected to formulate a business plan under these conditions? Uncertainty and having these proposals coming at them from both the provincial and federal levels of government make things much more difficult than they actually need to be.

Unfortunately, the problem of redundant regulations isn’t limited to overlap between the federal government and the provincial government. This problem also exists between ministries across the Ontario government. To give one specific example, companies in the trucking industry are concerned that different hours of work requirements mean that they need to keep two different logs, one for the Ministry of Labour rules and one for the Ministry of Transportation rules. One company received notice from the Ministry of Labour about an infraction, but seemed to be compliant with the Ministry of Transportation.

In this case, the government’s inability to find internal efficiencies results not only in essentially the same work being done twice on the government’s side, needlessly expending additional taxpayer-funded resources, but also in the private sector having to put resources into completing the same work twice for the same level of government.

But it doesn’t stop there. Not only can Ontario ministries not seem to get on the same page, but I have also heard cases of officials within the same ministry working with different sets of standards. As always, it’s the private sector, the private citizen or company who pays the price.

I’ll give you a specific example, Mr. Speaker. A motor vehicle parts manufacturer had a Ministry of Labour inspector shut down production on one of their lines for more than two weeks because he said the machines were unsafe—which might be reasonable, except that a previous inspector had signed off on $10,000 of improvements from the previous year that had been done at his insistence. When the manufacturer showed the second inspector the certification from the previous inspector, he said, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The manufacturer was then compelled to rip out the previous safety system and spend an additional $15,000 to comply with the second inspector’s standards.

This is happening all over Ontario, and again, this bill does nothing to address these real-life concerns that these manufacturers have. It’s absolutely outrageous. That is $10,000 to $15,000 spent for absolutely nothing, not to mention the lost productivity from a manufacturing line being shut down for two weeks. They would have been better off taking the cash and having a bonfire, quite frankly.

Sometimes reducing the burden on businesses means not only reducing regulations, but ensuring that the regulations that are in place are being properly and consistently enforced. Yet another example of a failure in this regard was brought forward by a tobacco products wholesaler. A TSSA inspector visited their plant and told them their boiler needed to be alarmed, monitored and required extensive paperwork daily because of its size. It turned out that this inspector did not know how to rate boilers properly and that their boiler was small enough that the current procedures were within the law. They spent almost $10,000 to find out this error.

Mr. Speaker, I know I only have a few minutes left, but I also want to bring forward to the House a real-life example, again, from my riding, and it has to do with the TSSA. There is a small business that had a propane refill station, and years ago, because of the regulations regarding propane—the overregulation of that industry, quite frankly—the small business in my riding removed that refill station. Three years after removing the refill station, the TSSA sent an invoice to a small business in my riding saying, “We recently visited your small business. Here’s an invoice for $1,000.

Your propane refill station is operating perfectly. It’s perfectly safe.” That refill station wasn’t even on the property; it was removed three years before. This is exactly what’s happening. We have all kinds of complaints, and again, this bill is going to do nothing to help any of these situations that are happening in our communities.

I’ll end on this note, Mr. Speaker. I know we have about another half an hour to come back to this bill on another day. We’ve got more real-life examples. Speaker, this is what happens when government is too big. This is what happens when government hires 300,000 more public sector workers. This is what happens when we have a government that’s been in power for 13 years. This is what happens when a government becomes completely out of touch with real-life people in the province. They have no idea what’s happening in cities and towns and villages across the province.

Individuals and businesses are being strangled by big government, red tape and overregulation of every facet of our life in the province of Ontario.

With that—I know the clock is nearing a quarter after 10—we will continue this debate another day.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): It being close to a quarter after 10, this House stands recessed until 10:30 a.m. this morning.

The House recessed from 1013 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mr. Monte McNaughton: I’m really honoured today to have with me relatives of my wife, Kate. I’d like to introduce Caroline, Rick and Halina Przybysz. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Taras Natyshak: I’d like to welcome some friends who are joining us here today on OFL lobby day: Krystle Sinnapan, Brandon Haynes, Julian Di Benedetto—I’m going to mess a lot of these up, Speaker—Zenee Maceda, Alexandra Pinosa, Tefere Zemene, Jana—this one’s tough—Papuckoski—someone’s going to beat me up on that one—Kingsley Kwok, Beverly Beekoy, Filomena Ferraro, Amandeep Singh Buttar and Jerry Jarosz. Thank you. I welcome them to Queen’s Park today.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: It’s with great pleasure that I introduce Chris Buckley, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, along with other members of the OFL. The OFL is having its lobby day here. I’d also like to greet Dave Millar, who comes from Burlington.

Please welcome Chris and the members of the OFL to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Peggy Sattler: I’d like to welcome three friends from London who have joined us today as part of the OFL Lobby Day: Dani Bartlett, Eric Johnston and Stewart Wise. Welcome. I’d also like to acknowledge Patty Coates, secretary-treasurer of the OFL.

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: I would like to welcome to Queen’s Park the grade 10 students from St. Marcellinus Secondary School in the great riding of Mississauga–Brampton South. They are here to learn more about their provincial government. I hope they enjoy it.

Mr. Bill Walker: It’s a pleasure to introduce Marilyn Morris. Marilyn is a valuable volunteer in the town of Meaford and the initiator of the Meaford Scarecrow Invasion and Family Festival, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary on the weekend. We also have her daughter Regan Moore, and Keith Grein, father of page—I’ve got to think of his first name—our page Mr. Grein. I can’t get his first name out. I’ll come back.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I think people have already mentioned that it’s lobby day for the OFL. We wanted to welcome Chris Buckley, the president of that organization; Patty Coates, secretary-treasurer; and Ahmad Gaied, executive vice-president.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I too would like to welcome Chris Levitt, from Northumberland–Quinte West. Welcome, Chris.

Mr. Bill Walker: I want to correct my record. It is Paul Grein.

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s my pleasure to welcome the family of one of today’s page captains, Zoe Suderman, to Queen’s Park. Her parents, Rebecca Seiling and Derek Suderman, are here in the members’ gallery, along with all four of her grandparents: Ron and Jeanette Seiling and Jack and Irene Suderman. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: It is my great pleasure to welcome all the teachers who are visiting the House today and all of those who are watching, given that it’s World Teachers’ Day. Thank you for all the great work of all our teachers across Ontario.

M me France Gélinas: I have a visitor all the way from Australia, who is in the west gallery with us. His name is Davy Perry. He is with the Health Services Union of New South Wales. Welcome to Queen’s Park. He is with Clarke Eaton, Phil Pollard, Sara Labelle and Steve Ward from OPSEU. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. James J. Bradley: I’d like to welcome members of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, who I anticipate will be here shortly in the gallery, and congratulate them on their victory over Baltimore and their entry into the first round of playoffs.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s my pleasure to rise on behalf of the Conservative caucus to wish the Trudeau slayer, Lorne Coe, a happy birthday.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Many happy returns of the day.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Please join me in welcoming the Canadian Nuclear Association, who are here for their lobby day today. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Han Dong: Please join me to welcome two of my constituents, a female entrepreneur and a newcomer to Canada, Shirley Sun, and her colleague Wells Wei. Welcome.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: I would like to welcome page captain Tegan Elliott. Her mother, Christy Cowan, is here today. She will be arriving shortly in the gallery. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: I would like to welcome to the Legislative Assembly Jackie Manthorne from Ottawa West–Nepean; Germaine Gould and Preston Harris, both from Essex; and Antoinette Brind’Amour from Quebec—and excuse my terrible accent. They’re here from the Canadian Cancer Survivor Network, and we invite you to the reception this evening in room 228.

Mr. John Yakabuski: I would like to welcome representatives of the Canadian Nuclear Association, who are here today for their nuclear day at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I’d like to welcome a couple of friends of mine who are here for the lobby day today: Jason McMichael from Sarnia, Matt Whelan and also, from the Canadian Nuclear Association, Steve Coupland.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I would like to introduce in the Speaker’s gallery this morning guests of mine. Please join me in welcoming Joseph Paquette, Guy Mandeville, and Senator Alis Kennedy. These are World War II veterans from the Métis Nation of Ontario. Welcome. Boozhoo.

Also, in the Speaker’s gallery today is the Consul General of Israel at Toronto, Galit Baram. Please join me in welcoming our consul general.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: And Stan. Don’t forget Stan.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you—and Stan. That’s on the record.

The member from Simcoe–Grey on a point of order.

Mr. Jim Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to move a motion concerning the unaudited consolidated financial statements for the province of Ontario for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Mr. Wilson is requesting permission for a unanimous consent without notice of motion. Do we agree? I heard a no.

Therefore, I will do a last call for introductions. I know people were just gathering. Are there any other last introductions? Seeing none, it is now time for question period.

Oral Questions

Energy policies

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. The people of Ottawa deserve a government that is going to stand up for them. As I said on Monday, Hydro Ottawa has requested a rate increase for families who conserve energy. It makes no sense that if you conserve energy, you would pay more, yet this government won’t condemn that plan.

Mr. Speaker, here is another chance directly for the Premier to admit, to say here in the Legislature, that that plan is absurd. Will the Premier tell the OEB that families shouldn’t be punished for conserving energy?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I’ve said to the Leader of the Opposition, those decisions, in terms of increases or not, are made by the Ontario Energy Board. I think he knows that. It is up to the Ontario Energy Board to look at the factors that are laid before it and to make that decision. As we know, sometimes the OEB grants an increase and sometimes they do not. It’s up to them to make that decision.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: When the Premier wants to get involved and have her PST rebate, then she can get involved in hydro. But right now, all of a sudden, she can’t get involved because she thinks it’s appropriate that the people of Ottawa are charged more for conserving energy. It’s absurd. But then again, Mr. Speaker, this is the same Premier that has overcharged the people of Ontario by $9.2 billion for renewable contracts. This is the same Premier, this is the same government, that has taken $1.3 million in donations from some 30 companies for the Ontario Liberal Party, for bad policy.

My question is: Rates are going to go up on November 1, long before any band-aid solution. Will the Premier do the right thing? Does her government refuse to condemn this possible rate increase? Do the right thing. Help families suffering with your disastrous hydro policy.

Interjections.

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

A gentle reminder for everyone: please, to the Chair. No personal conversations. Everything is put to the Chair, both answer and question.

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I had the opportunity this morning to meet with the governor of Arizona. We had a number of very fruitful conversations about issues that we are both dealing with in our jurisdictions. But one of them we had was about energy. We talked about the fact that in Ontario we have shut down the coal-fired plants and we have invested in our electricity grid. The folks in Arizona are looking at jurisdictions like ours as they make decisions about climate change.

We have taken steps in this province. We have a 90% emissions-free grid. We’ve invested in what was an unreliable and a dirty electricity grid—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Keep it down, please.

Finish.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: No smog days this year— that’s because of decisions that we have made on the electricity grid in Ontario.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Just before you rise, right after I asked for—and I hear something else and it’s just a signal that you’re not going to listen. So if that’s going to happen, I’m going to move to warnings. You now have your first warning about warnings.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Again to the Premier: The Premier can speak to any governor she likes. She can speak to any Premier she likes. They’re all happy with Ontario’s energy policy because we’re sending jobs to every other state and jobs to every other province because our energy policy is a disaster. We are giving away electricity under this Premier’s hydro plan, and she does not appreciate how it’s hurting families.

Just last week in committee we heard stories about how this is hurting Ontario. Norma Schmidt told the legislative committee that this Liberal plan is “a slap in the face” to Ontario. Marguerite Thomas from Brussels said that when it comes to hydro, “There is no joy in rural and northern households.” Terrance Green, who lives in Ottawa South, called the rebate simply “window dressing.”

Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard it at committee. We’ve heard it around the province. Why won’t the Premier act? Why won’t the Premier help? Is it because she took $1.3 million in donations? Is that the only reason she refuses to actually fix the hydro problem?

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

The previous way in which the leader was making reference to that issue was okay. Now he’s getting close to impugning motive and assigning blame. I’m going to remind him that if it happens again I’m going to ask him to withdraw.

Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: I’m very pleased to rise—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m looking for people to understand that this is an opportunity for me to hear clearly. I don’t want the interjections to stop me from hearing and making announcements in the House.

Carry on.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I’m pleased to rise to address the questions by the Leader of the Opposition.

As we’ve said, we’ve invested in a modernized electricity system. We took a dirty system and made it clean by completely eliminating dirty coal-fired generation, meaning Ontario has a cleaner future. We don’t have to send out warnings anymore, telling people not to go outside and breathe, something that that government, when they were in power, had to do almost on a daily basis.

You know what, Mr. Speaker? Families in Ontario will now have the Ontario—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): That’s not being helpful, either. Next time, we’re moving to warnings.

Finish, please.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That act is instant and permanent: come January 1, an 8% reduction to all families right across the province. That’s the one thing that’s benefiting families.

Special-needs students

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. This is a government that has lost its way. This is a government with misplaced priorities. The Liberals have no problem paying $4 million to the CEO of Hydro One while the Quebec counterpart in that same position gets $400,000. The Liberals have no problem spending nearly $7 million for high-priced consultants just to tell them how to sell Hydro One. But when it comes to helping people in need, when it comes to helping Yes I Can nursery, which helps children with autism, the government’s voice is lost.

Soon 130 children with autism—their child care spaces will be gone because of this government. Does the Premier value a $4-million CEO more than 130 children with autism in her riding?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I have said to the Leader of the Opposition, I have worked very closely with Yes I Can Nursery School over the years. I think it is a terrific program. It’s a mixed program. Not all of the kids at Yes I Can are on the autism spectrum, but a number are. There is $300,000 of provincial money that flows to the municipality of Toronto and that goes to Yes I Can. That support stays in place.

We’ve been very clear that if the leadership at Yes I Can will sit down with the city of Toronto, provincial officials will find a way to work with them so that there’s a budget and a sustainability plan over the next few years.

We’ve been very clear about that. As I said, in the interim, that $300,000 a year continues to flow to Yes I Can.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: It really is incredible hearing the Liberal talking points. They’re saying that Yes I Can still gets funding. Yes I Can has said they have no funding. The city councillor says there’s no funding. The government, in their own correspondence, asked Yes I Can nursery for a wind-down plan, and yet they’re here today saying, “Nothing has changed.” But 130 children are going to lose their child care spaces, and we have a Premier who’s oblivious to it. You asked the nursery for a wind-down plan. They’re going to close. They’re going to close their doors in your riding. It is wrong. Those children need help.

My question to the Premier is: Nine years ago, she stood up for this nursery. Nine years ago—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. We’re moving to warnings.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Right after I say it, the member decides he just wants to do it. Watch it. We’re moving to warnings.

Finish your question, please.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Nine years ago, the Premier promised these families and promised these children that the provincial government would be by their side. My question is: Today, the nursery is about to close because of this government’s decision, because of this government trying to pull the funding. Will the Premier stand up today in the Legislature and say that she will not allow the nursery to close?

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: For 25 years, I’ve been advocating for a strong, publicly funded education system. Nine years ago, the Leader of the Opposition was a member of a government that had no interest in a child care policy across this country.

The reality is, I believe in the program at Yes I Can. I believe it’s a strong program. I believe we should continue to fund that $300,000 that flows to the city of Toronto.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville is warned. The Minister of Transportation is warned.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): And there are others. If I saw who just did that, they would be warned too.

Please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Those are provincial dollars that flow to the city of Toronto and go to the nursery school.

There needs to be a process whereby Yes I Can sits down with Toronto city officials and with provincial officials to come up with a budgeting process that will make the nursery school sustainable. That’s what I have said all along. Nine years ago and—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’ll do it. The member from Dufferin–Caledon is warned.

You have one sentence.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I’m fine, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Patrick Brown: The Premier says there is some flow-through funding. The executive director of the nursery says that there is no flow-through funding. Liberal senator Jim Munson says this is absolutely a callous decision of the government. Liberals are saying that to this Liberal government. And then you’ve got the Toronto city councillor saying the Premier is unequivocally wrong that there is a municipal mechanism for funding.

The government has asked for a wind-down plan from Yes I Can nursery. This is the same government that took families with children with autism to court. This is the same government that was going to kick kids off of wait-lists for IBI therapy.

They recognized in the spring that their cuts to autism were wrong. I’m asking them today, on behalf of the children with autism in Don Valley West, will they do the right thing—just like they did in the spring—acknowledge that they are wrong, and make sure that these children are not abandoned? Do the right thing, please.

Interjections.

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

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Yes, you know what’s coming. The member from Huron–Bruce is warned.

Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Associate Minister of Education (Early Years and Child Care).

Hon. Indira Naidoo-Harris: Mr. Speaker, I want to start out by saying that I find it a little bit rich that the member opposite is actually talking about child care and child care plans, because the member opposite and the party opposite have no plan when it comes to child care.

We not only have a plan; we have been supporting child care in this province to the tune of $1 billion annually. Of that money, $351.7 million is going to the city of Toronto to support child care. So I really think that the member opposite needs to look at the figures and understand what is happening when we talk about money flowing.

The city of Toronto flows $300,000 to the Yes I Can child care centre, and they have that funding there. What the member opposite has been talking about is limited funding that was there for a sustainability plan with limits and that was in a timely fashion—

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

Interjections.

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

New question.

Privatization of public assets

Ms. Andrea Horwath: For 100 years, reliable, affordable public electricity powered an economy that led people from across the world to come to Ontario to build a life. It’s one of the reasons my dad came here from Slovakia. But the cost of electricity today has businesses moving away, life getting harder and people losing hope.

People are being forced to choose between necessities because their bills are so high. I believe in Ontario, and so do the people I talk with every day. But they need to see change, and they need to see it now.

Will this Premier listen to what people need and stop the privatization of Hydro One?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The leader of the third party talks about the history of this province. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, if Conservative and NDP governments had made the investments that were necessary in our electricity and in our infrastructure, we wouldn’t have been in the mess that we were in by 2003.

The reality is, we had to invest in a neglected electricity system. It needed to be cleaner and it needed to be upgraded. We did that. We recognize that there’s a cost associated with that, but we also recognize that had we not made the decisions that we made, had we not shut down the coal-fired plants, had we not invested in renewable energy, we would not have the clean air that we have now. We would not have avoided $4 billion in health care and associated costs.

And the decision around Hydro One: Had we not made that decision, we would not be able to invest in the infrastructure that, again, has been neglected by previous governments.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, had we not had consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments privatizing our electricity systems, we wouldn’t have the kind of rates that we have in the province of Ontario today.

Let me tell you about Ernest Warner. He lives in my riding. He and his wife are retired, and they are on a fixed income. Ernie has gotten in touch with my office because his wife is on dialysis and they’ve seen their hydro bill increase by 20% in just the last couple of months. Ernie wrote, “My last bill was for $540 plus an added $220 in the so-called delivery and regulatory charges.” They don’t qualify for any help, Speaker. They don’t qualify, but they still need to run that dialysis machine, whether it’s peak hours or not. She needs that dialysis. The Warners cannot afford privatization.

Will this Premier stop any further privatization of Hydro One?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Let me just address the issue of this family who are in distress. I hope that there has been a full exploration by them, with the help of the leader of the third party, to look at what actually they might qualify—

Interjections.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —because there are a number of programs. I don’t know the details of the situation, but in terms of the Ontario Electricity Support Program and the property tax and electricity credit, they certainly will qualify for the 8% reduction on their bill.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize, in a situation like that, that is a family that does need support, and as I’ve said, I hope there would be a full exploration with them of what the options might be.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: This Premier is not listening, once again. They don’t qualify for any of the programs. They still have to put the dialysis machine on. They can’t afford to do that.

Students can’t afford to pay for hydro and pay off their student loans. Families can’t afford to pay for hydro and pay for child care in this province at the same time. But instead of stopping the sell-off of Hydro One, the Premier is now greasing the wheels for the privatization of local hydro—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m sorry, but there’s dialogue going between both, so I’m just going to ask for everyone to rest, please.

Leader?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The Premier is now greasing the wheels for the sell-off of local hydro utilities. People cannot afford privatized for-profit hydro in the province of Ontario. Will the Premier stop all of these sell-offs now?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: There are many programs that are out in the province right now to help families who are having a difficult time with some of the costs of electricity, and we recognize that, Mr. Speaker. That’s why we acted with our three-point plan to help them, come January 1 when we get the legislation passed, to ensure that there’s the 8% reduction, to ensure that there’s a 20% reduction for families in northern, remote and rural communities.

It’s also very important to note that the OESP is there to help families that need to use medical equipment. It goes up to $75 a month, so I encourage every MPP and every family that needs this type of assistance to follow up with their local utility, because they can make sure that there are systems in place to help these families. The utilities and the government are working together to continue to help families.

And when it comes to Toronto Hydro, Mr. Speaker, that’s a decision for council. We’ve been saying that over and over again.

Minimum wage

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Premier. Many Ontarians are finding it harder than ever before to pay for things like decent child care, paying off student loans and paying their hydro bills. Many are finding it much, much harder to secure a future for themselves and their children. While bills go up, however, wages are staying flat. One in three people in Ontario earns a low or minimum wage.

Will this Premier take action and agree today that instead of raising the minimum wage by 15 cents, she raises it to $15 an hour?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, I know that the Minister of Labour will want to speak to the process we’ve put in place that raises the minimum wage in a way that looks at the cost of living and removes it from a political decision-making process that meant, for over a decade, there was no increase in the minimum wage.

But the leader of the third party talked about some of the things that challenge people. Those issues, like the cost of tuition, are exactly why we have put in place free tuition, as of September 2017, for 150,000 students in Ontario.

The announcement we made the other day about hospital parking: I had someone come up to me last night and thank me for that decision.

We understand that there are challenges that people are facing. The changes that we are making, including one that the leader of the third party advocated for, which is taking the provincial portion of the HST off electricity prices: We’re doing those things for exactly the reasons that the leader of the third party outlined.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek is warned.

Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, the process that this Premier is so proud of will have the minimum wage go to $15 an hour at some time 20 years from now. Twenty years from now or more, this province will have a $15 minimum wage under the Liberal plan. It’s not good enough.

There are things that we need to do now to make sure people can have a decent job and a decent living. We’ve called for some of those things, of course. The $15 minimum wage is one of them. We want to make it easier for folks to join a union, which is the best ticket into the middle class in this province, and make sure that they can get a first contract when they do so. There’s no reason in this province why temp workers should not be paid the same rate and get the same benefits as the people that they’re working right beside in the same workplace.

The list goes on and on and on. When will this government start taking action to improve the quality of work in this province, like, for example, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Labour.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: It’s a pleasure to rise in the House and address the questions from the member opposite. I think when you look at the province of Ontario, what you have in place is a model that other provinces are starting to emulate. They’re looking at the predictability. They’re looking at the stability.

What we did before we put these rules in place that allow the minimum wage to increase year after year—we went out to the community. We talked to business. We talked to labour. We talked to poverty advocates. We talked to everybody who had an interest in this.

The people who appeared not to have an interest and didn’t make one submission to the panel were the New Democratic Party. If there was one party that I would have thought stepped up when the time was right to give their opinion on how to have predictability and stability in the minimum wage process, it would have been those people who are asking the question. They can do better than that. Ontario is doing better today.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: They’re doing a lot of looking and a lot of talking but they sure aren’t acting to make change in this province to bring people who are working out of poverty. It is shameful that people working full-time in this province do not earn enough money to put food on the table and a roof over their head.

The Premier likes to talk about her 15-cent increase to minimum wage, but people in Ontario are at a breaking point and they know that 15 cents simply is not enough. People need good jobs and they want to know that the next generation is going to have the kind of jobs that you can actually build a good life on right here in this province.

They need a $15 minimum wage. They should be able to join a union. They should be paid fairly for the work that they do. People want to know there’s a future for them and for their kids here in this province. Will this Premier take the first step today and make the commitment to bring Ontario’s minimum wage to $15 an hour?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you once again to the member for this question. The Changing Workplaces Review that we put in place with two expert advisers is addressing a lot of the issues that are being raised in the House today. The OFL has been a partner in that. They’re stepping to the plate. They’re bringing forward good ideas. They’re bringing forward recommendations as to how we can make this province a competitive province globally with good jobs, with decency in the workplace.

I would remind the member that between 1996 and 2003, people who earned the minimum wage in this province received not one single increase—zero, frozen at $6.85. Since we’ve been in power since 2003, we’ve increased the minimum wage 10 times. Up until very recently, we were the leading province in Confederation. We’ve put predictability into the system and stability into the system, and it’s working. It’s about time the New Democrats got on board.

Fiscal accountability

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the President of the Treasury Board. I think the headline of the Toronto Sun’s editorial summed it up best. Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Order, please. At the right moment, you won’t know when I’m going to offer you a free warning.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: So let’s go back to this: “Lysyk More Credible Than the Liberals.” They asked themselves, “Who to believe?” and quickly came to the same conclusion everyone else in Ontario did. They said they “believe Lysyk, an independent, non-partisan officer who works for the Legislature, not the ruling Liberal Party”—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of Agriculture is warned.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: The Auditor General is “a chartered accountant and certified internal auditor, with a master’s degree in business administration.” What does the government have? Well, $305 billion and growing in debt.

Mr. Speaker, I know who we believe on this side of the House. But I ask you, why would or should anyone in the province of Ontario believe in this Liberal government’s numbers?

Hon. Liz Sandals: Let’s just try this one more time. We use the Auditor General’s numbers. The numbers we presented in the unaudited financial accounts show a $5-billion deficit. That is the number proposed by the auditor. We showed her accumulated debt number, the number proposed by the auditor. So if you believe the auditor, you believe us.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I thought I was at the Ontario Legislature, not at Second City right now.

Despite their best efforts to bully the people of Ontario through the Auditor General, the Minister of Infrastructure, during his time at energy, decided he would attempt to bully the Auditor General as well. Now the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance are trying to bully her and trying to get her to change her numbers, and it won’t work. They actually still owe her disclosure forms. They know that but they’re not forthcoming.

As the minister said, “Given the discrepancy of opinion, we do need to get some independent third-party advice to help us sort this out.”

So here’s the reality: We already have an independent third-party auditor. Her name is Bonnie Lysyk, and we support her on this side of the House.

I ask the President of the Treasury Board, will she cancel the third-party external audit immediately? Will she stop wasting taxpayer dollars and will she accept the auditor’s numbers immediately?

Hon. Liz Sandals: Let’s replay this one more time. We have an opinion from the public servants of Ontario, whom we hold in the greatest regard. The opinion of the public servants gives us one set of numbers, which are the set of numbers that have been used and approved by auditors and the public service for 14 years, which have been approved for the last 14 years by four auditors, including for two years by the current auditor. On the other hand, we have a new opinion from the Auditor General on a different accounting treatment from the one that has been used for the last 14 years.

Cabinet had to figure out what to put in the account. We had two conflicting pieces of advice and we chose, by regulation, the auditor’s number. So I repeat, we chose—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m standing.

New question?

Fiscal accountability

Ms. Catherine Fife: My question is to the Premier. For the first time in history, a provincial government is trying to go around the Auditor General by releasing an unaudited version of the public accounts. And if that wasn’t unusual enough, there are whole sections missing. There are no statements from the Ontario Electricity Financial Corp., and so we have no idea what happened to the Hydro One proceeds that were supposed to pay down the hydro debt, or what happened to the $2.6-billion departure tax that the government paid to the OEFC on Hydro One’s behalf.

The OEFC exists entirely within the treasury. They work just down the hall from the same people who prepared these unaudited public accounts. So I ask, where are the OEFC financial statements?

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

Hon. Liz Sandals: What I would like to assure the member is that when we tabled the public accounts—as I explained yesterday, once we have the advice of the auditor in terms of her audit opinion and have gone through the various legal approval steps that have to follow along with that, we will be formally tabling the public accounts.

I wish to assure the members that if there has been one or two of the agencies that have inadvertently been omitted, they will certainly be in the public accounts.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Ms. Catherine Fife: That does not instill a lot of confidence in the public accounts, and it’s not acceptable to the people of this province.

The OEFC statements weren’t the only thing missing. They were not the only report that was missing: so were the statements from the former Hydro One Brampton, and so were the statements from the WSIB.

The CEO of the WSIB is Tom Teahen, the former chief of staff for the Premier. My question is to the Premier: Why couldn’t she persuade her former chief of staff to submit the WSIB’s financial statements on time?

Hon. Liz Sandals: All of the information is available, and it will be available when we table the public accounts. As we have explained before, the public accounts require the opinion of the auditor. When we have the opinion of the auditor, we will go forward with the formal process that completes the finalizing of the public accounts. That will involve going to cabinet, going to the Lieutenant Governor and, obviously, having the formal printing. When all that has been accomplished, we will table the public accounts.

At the moment, I’m awaiting the audit opinion from the auditor. But the public accounts will obviously include all of the required information.

Employment standards

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: My question is for the Minister of Labour. We continue to hear more and more about precarious work and the nature of changing jobs in our province. In today’s workplace, people are no longer keeping traditional nine-to-five business days or taking weekends off. It is common for Ontarians to be self-employed or have part-time and temporary employment.

As a government, we need to ensure that we do all that we can to provide support for these changing workplaces. People in my riding of Barrie are asking for change. Businesses and workers want our laws to reflect the realities of modern economy, and we must ensure that we do just that.

When the minister announced this government’s Changing Workplaces consultations, I was happy to hear that this is something we are taking seriously. Can the minister please provide this House with an update on these consultations?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you to the member for that excellent question. I’m really happy to stand in the House to provide the House with an update on our Changing Workplaces consultations. I’m especially happy to be here to thank Chris Buckley and the OFL for the attitude and the approach that they have brought to this consultation. They’ve been a very strong partner throughout the whole process. They’ve attended consultations. They’ve given us a report with 24 recommendations attached. They continue to engage with us. They bring forward constructive ideas on how to make Ontario the best province to do business in, and to work in, as well, at a decent wage.

We’ve also heard from businesses, from hundreds of other individuals and from groups from all areas of the province. After speaking with all of these different groups, the advisers have put together an interim report. They’ve outlined the ideas that were shared with them. The consultations close October 14. I would urge all members to make sure that they have their views in.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: Thank you to the minister for his answer. I’m happy to hear that so many people are engaged with the special advisers on the Changing Workplaces Review.

As the minister has said before, the Changing Workplaces Review is the first comprehensive review of Ontario’s Labour Relations Act, 1995, and Employment Standards Act, 2000. This is an exceptional opportunity that we have to make sure that we provide protection for workers and that we help businesses prosper in our province. I know that the people of Barrie work hard each and every day and are looking forward to seeing how the Changing Workplaces Review will make their everyday lives that much better.

Can the minister please tell us more about the interim report and what the next steps are in updating the Labour Relations Act and the Employment Standards Act?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I’d like to thank the member for the question again and also thank her for her own personal involvement in the important review. The special advisers have heard more than 200 presentations and received about 300 submissions to date from stakeholders and other groups. After reading the submissions and speaking to all of the different groups, the advisers put together an interim report outlining all the ideas that have been shared with them.

It’s important to remember that these ideas are not final recommendations; they’re some of the options that people brought forward to the special advisers. They’re considering these options, they’re combining them with ongoing information and they’re bringing in the years of knowledge and the expertise that they bring to the task. The recommendations are going to help us protect workers and support business in the province of Ontario. Ontario needs to remain a place where workers feel safe and secure and business is competitive.

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: My question is for the Minister of Finance. Through a freedom-of-information request, we learned that yet another government initiative has ended in failure. After more than two years, the government abandoned their plans to modernize OLG, but not before sticking the Ontario taxpayers with another hefty bill. OLG’s annual report indicates that the government spent $190 million towards modernization in 2012-13, $69 million in 2013-14 and a further $49 million in 2014-15.

When asked where the money was spent, the government said, “Access to the records is denied”—some $308 million spent with no paper trail and absolutely nothing to show for it in return. So I ask the minister, will you release the detailed account of where that money went?

Interjections.

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

Hon. Charles Sousa: As the member opposite has just noted, there are a tremendous amount of contributions that the OLG makes to the province, a dividend that’s used to supply and support schools, hospitals and communities to the tune of $2 billion last year alone. As we proceed forward, the release of those reports is being made, and all of it is open and transparent. We recognize that we need to continue to modernize and provide further savings.

What the member opposite doesn’t talk about is the degree of investment necessary right now to bring some of those establishments into the modern era. We’re continuously looking at that, as we did with the lottery. We recognize the importance that it has for Sault Ste. Marie and its employees. We want to ensure that the communities that are providing some of these services have the investments necessary to, again, provide better service as well as appropriate social programs to protect consumers in those areas.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the minister: The failed ORPP scheme cost Ontario taxpayers $70 million and delivered zero dollars in benefits. But through our information requests, we learned that the government spent $308 million on another abandoned initiative. It’s funny that the minister mentioned hospitals, because, to help pay for this blunder, the government cut $107 million from OLG’s transfer to hospitals. They’re cutting front-line health care services that Ontario families and seniors rely on most. They’re attempting to balance their budget on the backs of our most vulnerable.

Another $308 million has been spent, with zero accountability, and our hospitals are now paying for the Liberals’ waste, mismanagement and scandal.

I ask the minister, what else are you hiding?

Interjections.

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

Hon. Charles Sousa: As we noted, we’re modernizing the OLG, recognizing that more can be available to help Ontario communities. In fact, lottery sales last year were a record $3.8 billion. Since 1975, OLG has provided $42 billion to the province and to the people of Ontario. All of these payments go to support hospitals, schools, as well as prevention for gambling and other matters, Mr. Speaker. We have continuously noted that we need to do more in order to provide for some of those services to those communities.

When the member opposite talks about disclosure, we have been doing just that. In fact, we did it recently, ensuring that we have information available to the public, notwithstanding the time delays that may occur. That is all the more reason why we provided the year-end financial statements to the public and to this House. We’ll continue to do so, Mr. Speaker.

The Auditor General, even today, was asked if the numbers were correct, and she states: “I think they got it right on the bottom line.” She, too, has noted that the numbers that we presented were her numbers, Mr. Speaker.

Poverty

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: My question is to the Premier. A new report shows that London has deep, entrenched poverty, a situation the report authors call “brutal”: 35,000 Londoners live in extreme poverty, and almost 8% are jobless. For individuals, that equates to an income of $11,000 and, for a lone parent, $19,000 per year.

The city of London has taken a stand against poverty by calling for an end to poverty in one generation and by establishing a living wage. When will the Premier agree to a $15 minimum wage to help raise those 35,000 people out of extreme poverty?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister responsible for poverty reduction.

Hon. Chris Ballard: I’d just like to take a couple of minutes. It is deeply troubling to hear about those struggling in poverty, those sliding into poverty, and those that, through our Poverty Reduction Strategy—we’re on our second Poverty Reduction Strategy; there’s an awful lot of good news coming out of that. The—

Interjections.

Hon. Chris Ballard: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to remind the members that the 2016 budget advances our Poverty Reduction Strategy, with commitments to provide people with the tools and the supports they need to meet their potential. I can refer back to the poverty reduction report of last year that speaks to 47,000 children across this province raised out of poverty.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Back to the Premier: When people get a fair paycheque, it means they can plan a future for their families. My city has been a centre of commerce and was once a hub for good-paying manufacturing jobs in southwestern Ontario. Londoners are skilled and hard-working people, but as you have heard, there are too many who are vulnerable. People need hope for the future. Does the Premier support a $15 minimum wage?

Hon. Chris Ballard: Minister—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of Economic Development and Growth.

Hon. Brad Duguid: Mr. Speaker, this job is bent on ensuring that we continue to create jobs across this province. But southwestern Ontario is very much on the upswing when it comes to job creation and London is a very big part of that. With our Southwestern Ontario Development Fund, we’ve invested $43 million. There’s $573 million of private sector investment we’ve brought forward. That’s 2,100 jobs created in that region alone from those investments. So we care very much about that part of the province.

We’re working very hard to continue to grow the economy, because the key to helping those folks who are out of work is to find them employment. That’s why we’re leading the country in growth, because we continue to work with our business community to ensure that we continue to grow those jobs, and with our local communities to help them grow those jobs. London is a shining example of that.

Ontario Municipal Board

Mr. Granville Anderson: My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Ontarians deserve well-planned, sustainable, vibrant communities, such as we have in the riding of Durham. That’s why our government has been reviewing its land use plans and the province’s land use planning system, to ensure that the system is evolving to best meet the needs of Ontarians. For example, changes in Bill 73, the Smart Growth for Our Communities Act, passed last year, gave greater deference to municipal decisions at the Ontario Municipal Board.

I understand that we are building on these efforts. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of the Attorney General are conducting a comprehensive review of the Ontario Municipal Board. This morning they made an announcement about the next stage of the review. Would the minister please outline the details of the announcement he made this morning with the Attorney General?

Hon. Bill Mauro: I want to thank the member from Durham for the question.

As he mentioned, this morning the Attorney General and I made a joint announcement downstairs in the media studio about the next phase of what Ontario will be doing when it comes to reviewing the Ontario Municipal Board. We’re moving forward today, officially, with the launch of a public position paper that will be out for consultation on proposed changes and amendments to the OMB.

I do want to state, though, for people, that while we made an announcement today on the next phase of what we’ve been doing, this is not the beginning of our work on the OMB. There have been significant other pieces of legislation and policy work that have been out for consultation. Those legislative pieces and policy pieces, during their consultation phase—also coming into that work—were informing us on what we would be doing on the OMB. That work has found its way into this particular consultation paper, and we look forward to bringing that to the people of the province over the next 75 days.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Granville Anderson: Thanks to the Minister of Municipal Affairs for the answer.

I know that many of my constituents will want to participate in this consultation, especially my constituents at Wilmot Creek and Canterbury Common.

The minister mentioned that there will be a number of town halls across the province. These will provide opportunities for people to understand more about the changes we are considering and to provide feedback of their own. I am glad to see that our government is taking steps to improve the OMB so that it works better for all Ontarians.

While the minister and Attorney General are working to improve the OMB, some have suggested getting rid of the OMB altogether. How would the minister respond to some of those calls to abolish the OMB?

We are, however, referencing and trying, we think, through our proposed amendments to provide potential deference for local decision-making. My half of the review will deal with a scoping exercise. That will mean that we are going to consult on potential changes to the OMB where we may not allow specific pieces to be appealed that currently can be appealed to the OMB. Through that mechanism, we’re hoping to allow more deference for more local decision-making. As I said, we look forward, over the course of 12 town halls in the next 75 days, to bringing this to the people of the province.

Road safety

Mr. Michael Harris: My question is for the Minister of Transportation. Two weeks ago, the minister’s refusal to address the long-simmering dispute of dump truck load restrictions spilled out along GTA highways over three days of a costly protest. For three days, the minister remained silent as highways jammed and aggregate pits were picketed, with motorists and truckers paying the price in time and long-delayed transport delivery. That’s because, after years of failing to address axle weight restrictions that had long been under a moratorium, instead of developing a solution with dump truck operators and contractors, this minister simply pulled the rug out and began issuing tickets.

Now that the protest has forced an about-face, will the minister explain, after his government’s decade-plus of failure on load restrictions, why we should believe that the talks he has now proposed are anything more than spinning the wheels?

Hon. Steven Del Duca: I guess I would begin by saying that I suppose this question is better late than never, given that this issue was resolved a number of days ago. I had the opportunity, as did officials at the Ministry of Transportation, as did a number of members of the government caucus—we had opportunities to speak with the industry and to speak with those who were directly affected. It was important at all times, from my perspective, to make sure that the system continued to move—literally, Speaker—to make sure that jobs weren’t put at risk and also to make sure that we could continue to build out, as we are doing here in the province of Ontario in the infrastructure realm.

I will say that I have said to industry—and I look forward to the opportunity for us to sit down together and to continue to have a discussion to make sure that we can land in a spot that’s appropriate so that this vitally important industry—and I’m talking about the entire infrastructure spectrum here—can continue to do its work, can continue to create jobs and can continue to work closely with us in building Ontario up.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Harris: Going back to the moratorium really isn’t a solution or a fix whatsoever. In fact, this government has had over a decade to fix it. He as minister himself has had two years, and instead of brokering a solution, the best he came up with was to begin enforcement of a regulation he knew would put operators in violation. Then, when the impact of his decision played out in long, costly traffic delays stretching down the 401, he remained mute before finally taking us back to where we started: no solution, no timelines for a decision, no end in sight.

Will the minister continue to kick the can down the road or will he commit to ensuring that promised talks with stakeholders lead to a permanent solution on this important load restriction?

Hon. Steven Del Duca: Again, I thank the member opposite for the follow-up question. I don’t think anybody who knows me in this chamber or elsewhere would ever accuse me of being mute, but I do appreciate the question. I will say that I feel that on this matter, there’s a twofold responsibility for the Ministry of Transportation. The first thing for me to consider at all times, of course, is to make sure that we maintain road and highway safety and to make sure that our roads and highways right around the province that this government is investing in remain in good working order, so that’s number one.

At the same time, we want to make sure that everybody in the infrastructure spectrum that is so crucial to Ontario’s economy can continue to function responsibly, safely and productively. That’s the work that the Ministry of Transportation is currently involved in with this industry, and we’ll continue to work hard on it until we get it right.

Hydro rates

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour le ministre de l’Énergie. For weeks now, people from northern and rural Ontario have been told by this minister that they are going to get a 20% reduction on their hydro bill. The minister stood in this House on September 27. He said, and I quote from Hansard, “A 20% reduction for families in rural, remote and northern communities, like in my part of the province, will actually be a significant savings for many families.” The minister lives in the riding of Sudbury and not one of his constituents will qualify for the 20% savings.

Will the minister correct his record and tell the people in his riding that they are not and will not be eligible for the 20% in savings?

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: I’m very happy to rise and answer this question because, as we do live in the city of Greater Sudbury, many of the people that live in her riding will qualify for that 20% reduction, like the 330,000 families right across the province. So I’m very happy to rise up and talk about the great work that we’re doing when it comes to making sure that we’re putting an 8% reduction for those families right across the province—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): It doesn’t matter where he’s sitting, the member from Lambton–Kent–Middlesex is warned.

Carry on.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: The purpose of the 20% reduction is to make sure that those who do live in rural, remote or northern communities get that benefit—

Interjection: R2.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: —that are under R2—to make sure that they can actually have some savings on the delivery cost, which is high. Northerners are very happy to have this benefit and I wish that the NDP would be, too.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Well, the people of Sudbury are not the only ones. The great majority of the 1.8 million peo