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February 23, 2012

40th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2012-Feb-23 (PDF)

L015 - Thu 23 Feb 2012 / Jeu 23 fév 2012

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 23 February 2012 Jeudi 23 février 2012

MEMBER FOR LANARK–FRONTENAC–LENNOX AND ADDINGTON

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FAMILY CAREGIVER LEAVE ACT

(EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

AMENDMENT), 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE CONGÉ FAMILIAL

POUR LES AIDANTS NATURELS

(MODIFICATION DES NORMES D’EMPLOI)

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

PUBLIC SERVICES

PUBLIC SERVICES

TAXATION

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

COMMUNITY SAFETY

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

EDUCATION FUNDING

ABORIGINAL LAND CLAIMS

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

HEALTH CARE

DEFERRED VOTES

HEALTHY HOMES RENOVATION

TAX CREDIT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE CRÉDIT D’IMPÔT

POUR L’AMÉNAGEMENT DU LOGEMENT

AXÉ SUR LE BIEN-ÊTRE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

HORSE RACING INDUSTRY

HEALTH PROMOTION

RIDING OF NIAGARA FALLS

DOG OWNERSHIP

REFUGEES

ED ARNOLD

LIVE BAIT INDUSTRY

SUICIDE PREVENTION

TOWN OF GODERICH

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

RADON AWARENESS

AND PREVENTION ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LA SENSIBILISATION

AU RADON ET LA PROTECTION

CONTRE L’INFILTRATION DE CE GAZ

ONTARIO SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION

OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

AMENDMENT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA SOCIÉTÉ

DE PROTECTION DES ANIMAUX

DE L’ONTARIO

MOTIONS

ORDER OF BUSINESS

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

QUEEN ELIZABETH II DIAMOND JUBILEE MEDAL

PETITIONS

RURAL SCHOOLS

DOG OWNERSHIP

LONG-TERM CARE

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

DOG OWNERSHIP

DOG OWNERSHIP

RENEWABLE ENERGY

CHILD CARE

RENEWABLE ENERGY

TUITION

DOG OWNERSHIP

RENEWABLE ENERGY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’

PUBLIC BUSINESS

CHILDHOOD OBESITY

PUBLIC SAFETY RELATED TO DOGS

STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À LA SÉCURITÉ

PUBLIQUE LIÉE AUX CHIENS

JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE MOIS

DU PATRIMOINE JUIF

CHILDHOOD OBESITY

PUBLIC SAFETY RELATED TO DOGS

STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À LA SÉCURITÉ

PUBLIQUE LIÉE AUX CHIENS

JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE MOIS

DU PATRIMOINE JUIF

JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE MOIS

DU PATRIMOINE JUIF

PUBLIC SAFETY RELATED TO DOGS

STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI A TRAIT À LA SÉCURITÉ

PUBLIQUE LIÉE AUX CHIENS

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

MEMBER FOR LANARK–FRONTENAC–LENNOX AND ADDINGTON

Hon. James J. Bradley: Speaker, I seek unanimous consent that the member for Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington may speak and vote from his place while seated.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We’ve been asked for unanimous consent for the member to remain seated during his presentations. Do we have agreement? Agreed.

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

Hon. James J. Bradley: I have a motion; I think we have unanimous consent to present this motion from the opposition parties—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Do we have unanimous consent to present the motion? Agreed? Agreed.

Hon. James J. Bradley: When I move the motion, I have to read a lot of names. Remember, this is the first time I have read all the names, so if you think you have a hard time, Mr. Speaker, we’ll see how I make out.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Jim Wilson’s willing to assist.

Hon. James J. Bradley: I can say Wilson. I’m used to saying that one.

Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to move government notice of motion 17, and that up to 30 minutes be allotted to debate on the motion, divided equally among the recognized parties, at the end of which time the Speaker shall put the question without amendment.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Is there consent for the motion to be put? Agreed.

Hon. James J. Bradley: I move that, notwithstanding standing order 108 and pursuant to standing order 113, the following standing committees be appointed and that the membership of these committees be as follows:

The Standing Committee on Estimates: Kim Craitor, Grant Crack, Vic Dhillon, Mario Sergio, Rob Leone, Rick Nicholls, Michael Harris, Michael Prue, Taras Natyshak;

The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs: Bob Delaney, Yasir Naqvi, Teresa Piruzza, Soo Wong, Peter Shurman, Monte McNaughton, Vic Fedeli, Michael Prue, Cindy Forster;

The Standing Committee on General Government: David Orazietti, Michael Coteau, Joe Dickson, David Zimmer, Laurie Scott, Jeff Yurek, Todd Smith, Rosario Marchese, Sarah Campbell;

The Standing Committee on Government Agencies: Bill Mauro, Donna Cansfield, Helena Jaczek, Phil McNeely, Jim McDonell, Lisa Thompson, Randy Pettapiece, Peter Tabuns, Monique Taylor;

The Standing Committee on Justice Policy: Laura Albanese, Lorenzo Berardinetti, Mike Colle, Shafiq Qaadri, Frank Klees, Jack MacLaren, Rob Milligan, Paul Miller, Teresa Armstrong;

The Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly: Laura Albanese, Bas Balkissoon, Donna Cansfield, Jeff Leal, Garfield Dunlop, Lisa MacLeod, Steve Clark, Gilles Bisson, Jonah Schein;

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts: Phil McNeely, Reza Moridi, Liz Sandals, David Zimmer, Norm Miller, Toby Barrett, Jerry Ouellette, France Gélinas, Jagmeet Singh;

The Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills: Michael Coteau, Grant Crack, Vic Dhillon, Mario Sergio, Randy Hillier, Rod Jackson, Bill Walker, Peter Tabuns, John Vanthof;

Standing Committee on Social Policy: Dipika Damerla, Kevin Flynn, Amrit Mangat, Tracy MacCharles, Ernie Hardeman, Ted Chudleigh, Jane McKenna, Cheri DiNovo, Michael Mantha; and

That, except for its responsibilities set out in standing order 111(b), the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly shall consider no other business prior to the completion of a study and the tabling of a report on the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario; and

That, notwithstanding any standing order, no government bill shall be referred to the Standing Committee on Estimates or to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts; and

That, the terms of this motion shall terminate on the day before the first day of the 2012 fall meeting period.”

I’m pleased today to stand, on behalf of the government, having gone through that. I think the members of the Legislative Assembly will know when you are actually reading names from a list, they probably end up having a hard time saying “Yakabuski,” who is sitting across from me, let alone others, but of course he has been here in this House, and I had the opportunity to serve with his father—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister, we have to complete the motion.

Is it the favour of the House that the motion carry?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: No, you’re getting ahead of yourself.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Mr. Bradley has moved motion number 17, and now we will enter into debate.

Hon. James J. Bradley: Do not delete the name “Yakabuski” from the record. He is here this morning, so his constituents know. He’s sitting right across from me trying to throw me off, but he’s sitting across from me nevertheless.

I’m pleased to speak on behalf of the government. This morning, I think the members of the assembly will say, “At long last,” to establishing this Legislature’s nine standing committees. For those who follow the ins and outs of this place, they will know that the three parties have been at, shall we say, something of an impasse—I think might be what we might use—for the past several months over committees, each with an interest in seeing the committees work as well as possible.

I won’t go into the details of the impasse. They are details that could leave even the most learned political expert confused. Even my friend Mr. Kormos, who was a previous House leader here, might have struggled on some days with the intricacies of this issue. He is gone from this place, but his spirit revolves somewhere in the building, I think, even though the present member, Ms. Forster, is doing a marvellous job for her constituents. His memory will fade at some point in time; don’t worry. There are those who might—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: That’ll be in the leaflet, Jim.

Hon. James J. Bradley: That’s always dangerous. The interjection was that whenever you say something good about a member of the opposition, it can appear in an election leaflet saying what a good job the person is doing, or in a constituency newsletter.

It says here that there are those who might stand in their place and point out that the agreement we’ve reached is nearly identical to the agreement the government first put on the table three months ago. I know Mr. Yakabuski was noting that as he walked in this morning.

Now, such a person would say that the opposition has at long last agreed to follow the rules of the House. I wouldn’t say that, of course, because that’s not really what happened. But the rules say two important things: (1) committees can have no more than nine members; and (2) committee membership must be in proportion to the representation of the parties in the House. I know that that is reflected in this particular motion.

I will say this, however: All of us in this House, I think, have an opportunity at this time. It’s an opportunity to make this House and its committees work in a way they haven’t in a long time—may I explain briefly for, perhaps, those who might be watching at this time or new members of the House?

My experience has been, particularly in a majority government, that the committees are pretty perfunctory. In other words, the government members tend to pursue the government line and vote with the government, as the whip says, and the opposition members do the same. There are a lot of windy exchanges, but not necessarily a lot happens, although I think there has been some good work done, particularly by members who have been here a longer time; I would say particularly with, I think, select committees, we’ve seen some good work done.

What happens in a minority Parliament, in essence, is that the government has to be more responsive to the opposition because the government doesn’t have a majority of the votes. The opposition, it means, has to be more responsive. I mean, when I was in opposition, it was easy just to oppose everything the government did because there weren’t consequences to that. Today, we have to try to develop a consensus.

It’s not going to happen on every bill or every motion, but what I think is going to be better about this kind of Parliament, this minority Parliament—if there are good things about minority Parliaments—is you try to develop that consensus and you recognize, in government, that not all the good ideas reside on the government side.

I’ve even got a couple of things I’ve said to the opposition members. My critic, for instance—we’ve got a bill we’d like to present sometime in the session on the Great Lakes and the protection of the Great Lakes. So I phoned both the opposition critics and said, “Do you have any good ideas on this that we should include in it?” I think that kind of across-the-aisle opportunity should be followed as often as possible, because there are some good ideas from members of this House and I’d like to see us be able to work together.

There are still going to be partisan clashes. That’s part of the place; we understand that. But I think there’s a good opportunity to make the House work, and I know that Mr. Yakabuski is the one who will lead that particular charge.

Mr. Jeff Leal: He’s always been a voice of moderation.

Hon. James J. Bradley: Always a voice of moderation. I like hearing that.

So whether it’s a government bill or private members’ legislation, or perhaps an idea to study a public policy item that is in dire need of review, we’re going to have to work together to make this happen. That is why I think it was good advice that former Premier Bill Davis provided to Premier McGuinty back in the fall, when he suggested that we set up a parliamentary working group. I think it was a good move when Premier McGuinty moved ahead with that particular idea suggested by Premier Davis.

For those who don’t know, every week when the House is sitting and every two weeks during the intersession, four members of each party get around a table and talk about how we can work together in the best interests of Ontarians. As a member of that group, I can tell you that slowly but surely, we’re finding some common ground. Sometimes the common ground is on minor items, such as ensuring the government provides more information and technical briefings to the opposition before legislation is introduced, but there are more significant items on the table as well.

For example, we’re currently working to set up a process for the reconciliation of two anti-bullying bills before this House, one from the Liberal government and one from a Conservative member. I’m optimistic, and the fact that we are here today establishing committees gives us that much more reason to be optimistic.

I say in the period of time that I have remaining that I know many of the members of the House, except for the new ones; but the longer-serving members. This is my 35th year in the House now, and I have met a lot of people over the years. I think we can actually make this work, and I like the kind of dialogue we’re going to see.

Listen, in question period, it’s going to be the cut and thrust, the usual. There may even be the odd partisan speech. But I am confident that the opposition will have a better opportunity to hold the government accountable, and that’s positive from a public policy point of view. But I’m also optimistic that the opposition is going to want to play a role in actually seeing legislation moulded and changed in the right way. I mean, if the government comes in with bills that are clearly going to be unacceptable to the opposition, I can tell you what my expectation would be.

However, one of the dangers in this situation is that we could get into gridlock. The government is the government. Whether people around the province like it or not, the government is the government, so we’ll have to pursue things, particularly in the situation we find ourselves in today, where I think people are looking for somewhat urgent action. They know there are extremely important issues confronting the province and so they are going to be looking out there—I think the people who are watching today, the people we talk to on a daily basis—for that consensus that we don’t see, frankly, south of the border.

I think it’s absolutely appalling, watching particularly the Congress of the United States at the present time and the hyperpartisanship that’s taking place there. I don’t think people want to see that duplication here and I don’t think it’s necessarily going to have to happen.

I know it’s a different Parliament. People have pointed to the Davis government of 1977 to 1981, and I remember that very well. It worked exceedingly well, again, because the government was responsive and the opposition responsible. My assessment is that there was a much less partisan House. The ideological division was not nearly as great in those days as it is today. Many of the people who sat in that House could have sat in any one of the three parties at that particular time, and there was much collegiality that took place. Perhaps because of the days of the sitting of the House or whatever circumstances, there was much collegiality that took place. That is not the situation today.

So I don’t think we can say that we can absolutely duplicate what happened from 1977 to 1981. There were different personalities, different ideological bents.

Mr. John Yakabuski: You were younger then.

Hon. James J. Bradley: I was here with Yakabuski’s father at that time, Mr. Yakabuski’s father, who was a much more agreeable person, in many ways, to those things happening. I was actually here with Norm Miller’s father as well, and David Caplan’s mother. There are a lot of people I was here with whose sons and daughters are here today.

But I’m looking forward to it. You know, a lot of people say, “Well, aren’t you grinding your teeth at the fact that the opposition has more people than the government?” And I say, “I’m not grinding my teeth over that, because I know the personalities and I’m confident that we can make this Legislature work.”

Listen, if I talk to the public, that’s exactly what they want to see, and knowing the personalities in this House, I’m very confident that this committee structure will work in such a way as it will benefit the people of this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Simcoe–Grey.

Mr. Jim Wilson: The Progressive Conservative Party caucus, under the leadership of Tim Hudak, is also committed to making this Legislature work. That is why the Progressive Conservatives worked tirelessly alongside the NDP and with the government to form a new set of committee structures. For the first time in decades, the opposition will have a combined majority on legislative committees, which is indicative of the current makeup of this House.

Did we get everything we wanted in negotiations? No. Did the NDP and the government get everything they wanted? No. But through negotiation, compromise and hard work, our caucus is prepared to support this motion to form the standing committees of this legislative session. Ontarians can rest assured that Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, under the leadership of Tim Hudak, will do its job to hold this government accountable in committees, improve government and private members’ legislation in committee, and work hard to study and change the standing orders of this House to ensure that it works better for the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my House leader colleagues from the government side and the third party, and all the respective House officers and staff who helped to make this motion come to fruition. Thank you very much.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Timmins–James Bay.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I asked that this particular motion be tabled in this manner, rather than doing unanimous consent, for a couple of reasons. One was, I thought it was important that we actually are very clear about the motion, when it comes to the table, that we’re dealing with the motion we actually negotiated. But the bigger issue is that I thought it was important to put on the record how we got here, and I think that’s fairly important.

First of all, let’s recognize what happened. There was an election on October 6, and the result of that election brought a minority Parliament for the first time since 1985. There are only two members in this assembly who sat in minority Parliaments: Mr. Bradley is one and Mr. Kwinter is the other. This is new territory for many of us—the majority of us—who, like myself, have been here for 22 years but never sat in a minority Parliament. I think everybody has to try to find a way to adjust.

What was clear in my mind was that when the government, after October 7, was out speaking to the media in regards to where they were going, it was clear that they were trying to copy the Harper minority style to the Ontario Legislature. The comment that I made to many of those in the media of the day who asked me is that you can’t compare the federal House to the provincial Legislature. They are two different beasts, as you might say. The federal House, at the time, had more than three parties. At one time, they had as many as five parties, but they had three opposition parties to a government.

You’re talking about a Legislature that is three times the size of this one when it comes to membership, and a committee structure—this is the point—that is very, very different to the committee structure that we have here in Ontario.

What a lot of people didn’t recognize is that the committee structure federally essentially is controlled, even in a minority, to a certain extent by the government because of the way the rules are written. But in Ontario, our legislative committees are structured in a very different way because we are trying to find that congeniality, to a certain extent, so that members can do their jobs on committee.

So the government started out by saying, “Well, you know what? We’re going to model ourselves on Stephen Harper, and we’re going to act as a major minority,” if you remember that whole discussion. Myself and my colleague Jim Wilson had some exception to that because we said, “Listen, this is a minority Parliament. We need to be able to find a different way of moving forward.” And the point that I made as House leader—and I’m not going to speak for the Conservatives because it’s up to Mr. Wilson to say this part—is that I believe that what would work in this place is trying to find compromise.

I went into those negotiations at the beginning, as the House leader for Andrea Horwath and the New Democratic Party, with a pretty firm position: that we copy what Bill Davis had essentially done. Bill Davis, in a minority of 1975 and 1977, had a model that said, “When we strike our committees, it will be committee membership plus one in order to replace the Chairs,” so that there is never a tie when it comes to a vote on committee.

That was the compromise that quite frankly was gotten between the Conservatives, at the time of Mr. Davis, and New Democrats and Liberals, who were in opposition, because they recognized that having tied committees would offer a certain difficulty for the government, especially when it came to trying to amend bills, if there should be a tie on committee.

So we took a position that we thought was well thought through. It was based on the experience of Ontario and on the reality of the rules of the House. The government took a completely different view of just doing what it is that they would want to do as far as striking committees just under the way that the standing orders called, for now, but to use those standing orders in such a way that would give them a slight advantage by tying up those committees.

So we went through an entire process. I always remember probably one of the most gruelling and most frustrating processes that I’ve seen for House leaders in a long time: trying to get the government to say, “Listen, there is a minority Parliament in this Legislature and we’re going to have to compromise if we’re going to move forward.”

The government—I give them some credit—back in December, did show some movement as far as compromising. They put an offer on the table, and I’m not going to get into the details; it’s too long. But they put an offer on the table. I remember sitting at the meeting with my colleague Madam DiNovo as the whip. We had our deputies there, France Gélinas, and we had Cindy Forster with us and our staff. I remember sitting there and listening to the compromise. I said, “Well, you know what?

The government has moved, and it’s incumbent upon us, the opposition, to take that offer seriously.” At that time, I said, “I’m not saying we’re going to say yes at this point, but this is movement. Let’s see if we can work our way forward.”

I got on the phone and talked to our people within the caucus. We figured it was a good compromise because we recognized that, at the end of the day, that’s what it was going to take to get an agreement. I called the government House leader and said, “Okay, we’re in. That’s fine. If we do it the way that you suggest, we’ll be fine.” Much to our surprise, the government withdrew its offer, at which point I’m sort of standing there scratching my head, along with my colleagues, saying, “Hang on a second. What’s going on here? Was the government only testing us, thinking that if we were to say no then all of a sudden they’d make us look unreasonable? Was it a game that they were playing?”

I have to think that’s a little bit of what was going on, and I think that was unfortunate, because the government had to get into this process somewhat to recognize that there is the reality of October 6 and there is a minority Parliament. The opposition does control the majority of the House when it comes to what the votes in this House will be. We’ll essentially have a fairly significant role when it comes to what happens in committee.

So we went through this dance of the seven veils, as I would call it, where we went to I don’t know how many meetings after that December meeting and couldn’t come to any kind of movement. I always remember, we’d go to these meetings, we would meet for an hour, nothing much would come of them, and we’d all be repeating our positions, until eventually I think the government understood. I think at one point the government started to say, “Well, we need to find some way forward,” so they compromised on their original compromise and said, “Well, what about you do this?” at which point the opposition, Mr.

Wilson and I, said, “Well, here are a couple of other conditions that we want to put in,” and I just want to speak to those very quickly.

One is that we time-limit this motion. This is not new to the Legislature. We have sessional motions that we’ve done before, but it’s not normally the way things are done. My thinking at the time, and I want to put it on the record today, is that time-limiting the motion so that the government has to come back and create committees all over again in September puts the government on notice that they better be having good behaviour. They’d better not try to use committees in the way that I think they initially anticipated doing them, because in the end, it’ll be more difficult for them once we get to September.

So I think what this does is it forces all of us in order to try to make this work—the opposition and the government—because at the end of the day, we need to respect what happened on October 6. The people of Ontario have spoken. People may like it or people may dislike it, depending what side of the House that they’re on, but at the end of the day, they’re the boss and we’re their servants. We are here to do their work. Andrea Horwath has said that right from the beginning: The reason that we’re all here now is to do what’s right by the people of Ontario.

I hope in striking the committees in the way that we have, where the government is somewhat limited to what it can do when it sends bills to committees—probably not as much as Mr. Wilson would have liked to have limited you, but we see that as a compromise. We have to move; you have to move: That’s what this was all about. We have struck a committee in order to take a look at the issue of how we approach changing the rules in this Legislature so that we truly can give the members the kind of ability that they need, by way of the rules, so that this place can work better.

One of the things that we hear a lot by all sides of the House, because we’ve all been government or opposition at one time or another in the last 20 years, is that members, including government members, are frustrated by the amount of control that the Premier’s office has on members when it comes to what happens in this House and what happens on committee. It was true for Bob Rae; it was true for Mike Harris and Mr. Eves; and it certainly is true for Mr. Dalton McGuinty.

I think if we’re able to go in and we’re able to look at the rules of the Legislative Assembly, this House, understanding that, at the end, the government is the government and they must have their way in the sense of being able to do what their responsibility is as a government—but at the same time, members have to have the ability to do their jobs and to hold the government accountable in a way that makes some sense.

We can maybe move those rules to a place that brings us back to how this Legislature used to work some 20 years ago, where there was much more congeniality across the aisle, where members were able to work on issues to the benefit of Ontarians and not just necessarily have to defend the government line or defend the opposition line. So I look forward to what may happen on committee as a result of changing the standing orders.

The last point I would say is that for the government and the opposition, I think it was our sort of first, how would you say—it was the first test of this Parliament in the sense of, how are we able to move forward in a way that makes some sense? And I want to say to the government across the way, congratulations; you compromised. Congratulations to us; we compromised. Together, we were able to find something that nobody is totally happy with. I’m sure the government would have liked something different, and I’m sure the opposition wanted something different, but that’s what compromise is all about.

When you walk away from the table and nobody is truly excited, you know that maybe you’ve done something right.

So I look forward to what will happen on committee because, in the end, that’s where the compromises will be made, and I look forward to the work that we’ll be doing on committee this spring.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Mr. Bradley has moved government notice of motion number 17. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FAMILY CAREGIVER LEAVE ACT

(EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

AMENDMENT), 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE CONGÉ FAMILIAL

POUR LES AIDANTS NATURELS

(MODIFICATION DES NORMES D’EMPLOI)

Mrs. Jeffrey moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 30,

An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 in respect of family caregiver leave / Projet de loi 30, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2000 sur les normes d’emploi en ce qui concerne le congé familial pour les aidants naturels.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Mrs. Jeffrey has moved second reading of Bill 30.

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: Mr. Speaker, may I say how well you look in that chair? It’s nice to see you there.

Mr. Speaker, it is again a pleasure to rise for the second reading of the Family Caregiver Leave Act (Employment Standards Amendment), 2011. I will be sharing my time with my parliamentary assistant, the member from York South–Weston.

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to welcome Scott Allinson. He’s the vice-president of public affairs for the Human Resources Professionals Association. Thank you for being here.

This morning, I’m going to be speaking about proposed legislation which speaks to the heart of what government should do. The Family Caregiver Leave Act, if passed, would provide up to eight weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave so that employees can care for loved ones who are seriously injured or ill. The hard-working people of our province and those that depend on them deserve no less.

Every member of this House and all those who are listening or watching these proceedings share a common life experience: We are all either sons or daughters; we have grandparents; we may have children and spouses. In short, we’re part of a family, and when somebody in our family becomes seriously ill or injured we want to be there because we need to be and because we care. When someone we love faces such a crisis, time stands still and nothing else matters—certainly not that email or project or that deadline we thought needed our full attention—because at such times our hearts and our minds are elsewhere. We’re distracted because we want and we need to be with our loved one who is suffering.

This bill, if passed, would give working Ontarians the right to take care of their loved ones during those very difficult times without having to worry about losing their job. This legislation, if passed, would protect both full- and part-time employees, and even those on contract, and it would protect our families. We have asked the federal government to better support these families by allowing qualified employees to draw employment insurance while on this proposed leave, just as they do under the family medical leave legislation. We want to encourage our federal government to enter into a partnership with us in Ontario so that caregivers would also have the income security they deserve.

This legislation, if passed, would give the province’s working people time—time to be with their hospitalized child and time to care for their elderly parents; time to be with their spouse who has had a stroke or a heart attack. Whether you’re an employer or employee, emergencies arise that you cannot predict, and sooner or later we all face situations where our loved ones need our care.

There’s an obvious need for this legislation that is all too familiar to anyone who has ever faced the challenge of juggling work commitments with the need to be present for a family member who is seriously ill or injured. I’ve personally known this to be true from my own experience. After my grandfather passed, my grandmother tried to manage by herself, and for a while, she seemed to be able to be coping. She lived in a small, rural village in England, the type of community where neighbours would pop in every now and then to see how my grandmother was doing.

But gradually she started having falls, and my mother realized on one of her visits that my grandmother was in need of immediate assistance in order to be able to stay in her own home and avoid serious injury.

My mother was constrained by time and distance. She had only a two-week vacation from work in Canada to navigate a system in England that was unfamiliar, so she had to get an assessment, set up home care and ensure that someone was able to check on my grandmother every day.

The hardest thing, my mother told me, was that she felt that the clock was ticking. My mother felt rushed in navigating and setting up a support system that was necessary for my grandmother, and making such drastic changes in my grandmother’s life so quickly was not easy. My poor mother felt guilty about rushing through the process, but she had no choice: She had a job in Canada that she had to get back to.

That was more than 10 years ago, and really, the world hasn’t changed much. We now have what is commonly known as the sandwich generation: busy parents who are often both at work and are trying to care for younger children. At the same time, they’re facing the additional challenge of caring for aging parents, one or another, when they’re seriously ill or an injury strikes. It’s then that we realize how much we need and rely on the social safety net that government can provide; it’s then that we realize how important, how critical it is to have our jobs protected when serious injury or illness occurs to the loved ones who need us most.

In my case, my grandmother was proud. She didn’t want to admit that she needed help. It’s understandable: Our parents have traditionally been the ones looking after us, and it can be a difficult transformation switching roles and admitting that you need help. Sometimes our parents are legitimately worried that they’re taking us away from our jobs. I know this to be true from my own experience with my parents. They don’t want to ask for my time and help, because they know I’m busy as the Minister of Labour. But I reassure them and let them know that I’m also the minister responsible for seniors, so helping them is actually part of my job.

For the family, for the parents of working Ontarians, this reluctance to reach out and ask for help can come from the knowledge that their child or their spouse does not currently have the job protection that they need. They may fear that a request for help might leave their loved one vulnerable or even unemployed. These fears are not unfounded, and that’s why we’re proposing this bill. But there are also other pressing reasons. Because, as I stated earlier, I am also the minister responsible for seniors, I’d like to speak about some of those who need care from their working adult children.

We all know that we have an aging population that is growing. We’re going to have 43% more seniors a decade from now and twice as many 20 years from now, and that’s a good thing. I’m sure there are many in the House who hope to be among that important cohort. Of course, as people age they need more care, and there are times of serious illness or injury when that need is critical and time sensitive. Our seniors, our aging parents, understandably want to be home as long as possible. It is care by family members that helps ensure that they can indeed stay at home, where they are most comfortable; at home, where there’s less expense for our health care system.

Our government, through my cabinet colleague Minister Deb Matthews, has launched a care strategy to help seniors stay healthy and provide better-quality care in the home, where they want to be. Our proposed family caregiver leave recognizes the vital role that family members play in health care. But to provide that care and to fulfill that role, working Ontarians need to know that their jobs will be there when they look after their loved ones.

On the day that this legislation was introduced, I made an announcement at Princess Margaret Hospital. At that event, a young woman by the name of Marcella Robless came forward. She came forward to give a very personal and touching account, and I’d like to read the remarks she made that day at Princess Margaret Hospital. She said:

“I took care of my mom for about three years. I am the sole caregiver for her. I’ve been in Canada now for about 28 years. The only family that I have now is my brother who is in Montreal and my mother who lives with me. We’re not fortunate to have a lot of relatives [here] so all of the pressure and her care is on me. Two years of the three that I’ve been taking care of my mother I was in a full-time job. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to do both things.

“Those very same two years were the worst years for my mother. She was on radiation, chemotherapy, surgery. But what I have to say is that caregiving is not just bringing them to the appointments or bringing them to CT scans or MRIs—being a caregiver is also being there in the middle of the night, being there all the time. We don’t have a break, you can’t tell a disease…, ‘Okay, I need a few days off and then I’ll be back and take care of you.’ So I really hope that you will support this bill.

“As caregivers we are not invincible, and we need support. I definitely need to feel, if I get a full-time job and my mother winds up being eligible for surgery, I can be there for her and not worry about it. Right now I’m in a part-time job, and this is something I have to think about every day.”

That was Marcella’s true and touching account, which resonates with many of us who have aging parents or other seriously ill or injured loved ones, at the same time trying to juggle work responsibilities. Marcella’s words put a human face on the need for this bill.

I was also touched by the personal account given by the member from Essex in response to the introduction of this bill. The member told this House about the catastrophic injury his brother suffered, leaving him in urgent need of care. I thank the member for his thoughtful and candid comments when the bill was introduced.

Our heart goes out to all those who struggle through difficult and challenging situations in the hopes of caring for their loved ones. Again, I know from my own experience that when a crisis happens, we need time to care for our loved ones. When my grandmother was in the midst of her health care crisis, it took time to assess her needs, arrange for home care, get her a walker and outfit her home with grab bars. I remember how frustrated my mother was with a health care system that didn’t seem to react quickly enough when her mother was struggling. Looking back, my mother actually achieved a lot and did a remarkable job in a very short period of time.

A health care crisis can be very stressful and very difficult for working Ontarians when they don’t have the security of knowing that their employment, their means of providing for themselves and their family, is protected and secure. At times like this, the last thing we need to worry about is being out of work. We shouldn’t have to worry about being unemployed on top of coping with the medical crisis of a loved one that we’re trying to deal with. When the chips are down, you want to know that someone is in your corner, and that’s what this proposed legislation is all about.

If passed, our bill would assist people and the economy in other ways. It would help protect and retain skilled workers who might otherwise have to leave their employment or who might lose it. Keeping skilled labour is good for employers, employees and the Ontario economy alike. Skilled labour is what keeps our province competitive, and that’s important in these challenging times. Job-protected leave during periods of crisis is one thing we can do to help keep skilled labour on the job.

Mr. Speaker, this proposed legislation would provide reasonable protection for both employers and employees alike. This unpaid leave would require that a physician issue a medical certificate. And while we’ve asked our federal counterparts to provide employment insurance to those who would be eligible for the leave, it would currently be unpaid.

In the time since this legislation was first introduced, my ministry staff have had the opportunity to sit down with a variety of business stakeholders to get their feedback on the proposed leave. A few weeks ago, in Toronto, I was asked to speak at the Human Resources Professionals Association, and I spoke about the family caregiver leave. Later, they shared with me a recent survey that they had sent out to their membership. Of the over 600 people who responded, 95.6% supported the idea of family caregiver leave.

The Human Resources Professionals Association told us that this leave is an excellent retention initiative. They pointed out that it’s costly to recruit, select and train new employees. It’s better to allow for family caregiver leave rather than the alternative of having to go through the process of hiring a new employee. This legislation would benefit all workplace parties. Whether they’re employers or workers, we’re all part of a family, and we understand what families go through in times of serious illness or injury.

This bill is for the young family or single parent needing to care for a child in hospital diagnosed with a serious medical condition. It’s for the wife helping her husband through a difficult period of chemotherapy or radiation. It’s for someone caring for that elderly parent who has suffered a broken hip. This proposed legislation, Mr. Speaker, is our way of saying to the people of this province that we will be there to help protect you as you protect your loved ones.

That same spirit of compassion that inspired this bill also led to our government introducing family leave back in 2004. The current family medical leave legislation provides job-protected leave for employees when a family member is facing a terminal condition. Our proposed family caregiver leave would complement this legislation and would apply in cases of serious illness or injury, even when there’s no significant risk of imminent death. The proposed family caregiver leave would be in addition to the family medical leave.

That means that if you’re caring for a loved one under the proposed family caregiver leave and their condition becomes terminal, you would also be entitled to the family medical leave.

Speaker, this proposed legislation would, if passed, assist Ontarians who are most vulnerable, and that’s because the burden of caregiving usually lies most heavily on those without the financial resources to provide care. Our bill would assist the poor. It would help the immigrant family new to Canada, already struggling with adapting to a new home. It would assist single parents. And it would assist women, to whom we all know a disproportionate share of the responsibility of caring for family members still falls.

With this proposed legislation, we’ll be able to tell working Ontarians, “Go and take care of your loved one’s needs, and you can make them a priority. Go and be reassured that your job will be there when you return.” It says, “We understand why you care and why you need to be there.”

Speaker, this bill is simply the right thing to do for the working people of our province and for those they love.

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

Ms. Cindy Forster: I’d like to talk a little bit about this caregiver leave. I think it’s an interesting proposal. You know, we do have some other leave provisions under the Employment Standards Act.

Many people find themselves in difficulty when they have family members who have a serious illness or injury. However, I think there is a need to ensure that we have appropriate health care in place as well in this province. We have 10,000 people waiting on a home care list who need home care in the province. There is a need for more personal support work for seniors, more health care aides hired in the home care setting to provide some of this.

The problem I see right off the top with the bill is the fact that there are many people working in minimum wage jobs here in the province of Ontario, particularly over the last few years, as we’ve lost thousands of jobs, who couldn’t afford to take advantage of this initiative. When you’re making 10 bucks an hour at Tim Hortons, you can’t take a day off to look after your family member if you’re a single support parent. So I think there needs to be something built into this proposal that would provide people in those situations the opportunity to get some income replacement.

The theory is good because the existing legislation really only applies to end-of-life types of situations, but I don’t think that it necessarily goes far enough at this point.

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

Minister, you have two minutes to respond.

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: I just want to thank the member from Welland for her comments. I appreciate that she’s trying to find solutions on this bill.

I think at the end of the day we all recognize that there are many families across this province who, through no fault of their own, struggle to try and juggle a family member who’s injured or ill, or a serious crisis happens in your family and you need time away. We believe this piece of legislation will give that comfort to an employer and employee that they have certainty about the job being protected.

We think it’s important to have those conversations. Obviously we’ve been out talking to stakeholders, and I appreciate the advice given on this issue. Certainly we know that caregiving usually often falls disproportionately to women because they’re often the caregivers in the family. The woman I spoke about at Princess Margaret who had to juggle her job and her mother’s situation ended up having to leave her job. I know that caused her economic hardship.

We believe this piece of legislation will help assist those individuals. We want to make sure that Ontarians know that we have their back, that we’re going to protect them and that we’re proposing a piece of legislation that will help ensure that they know that when they leave to take care of someone they love, they don’t have to worry that their job isn’t going to be there when they get back. We are going to put something in place that will reassure them that their job will be there, and that certainty, I think, helps all employers.

We all know that skilled employees are important to the economy of Ontario, and we want to make sure that we provide certainty to the employer and to the employee that, should something catastrophic happen in your family, this piece of legislation would provide them that comfort, knowing that they can’t be thrown out, that they can come back. When everything is restored in their family, they can come back to a workplace that they have a valuable contribution to provide.

I hope to listen to any other comments the other side has. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Mr. Jack MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make comments or to address the Family Caregiver Leave Act. I find little merit in that act, and I will not be supporting it. That is the end of my comments to that.

However, I would like to say thank you to the House leaders of the government and to the third party for accommodating me with time to make my maiden speech, which I would like to do at this point in time. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to address this esteemed House. This will be my maiden speech.

It is a great honour and a privilege to sit here in the Ontario Legislative Assembly as the elected representative for the riding of Carleton–Mississippi Mills. Carleton–Mississippi Mills is a wonderful mix of rural and urban, of old and new. The population is 25% rural and 75% urban. The city of Kanata is the biggest urban area in the riding and is growing rapidly. There has been a population increase of 16,000 people in the last five years. Many of the people are new Canadians in our riding, and the biggest share of that population is Chinese people.

There is a broad spectrum of industries in Carleton–Mississippi Mills, ranging from farms in the rural area that were established in the early 1800s, to construction companies, to the high-tech industry.

Kanata is the high-tech centre for Canada. It is a proud testimonial to the resiliency of the high-tech industry that they have been able to rebound after the failure of Nortel 10 years ago. They have created enough new jobs to replace all the jobs that were lost during the high-tech meltdown, only now, there are twice as many companies as there were back then. New, smaller companies created these jobs. This is innovation at its best.

Many of the residents in the riding are also employed by the federal government, which is a very large employer that adds great long-term stability to our local economy.

Carleton–Mississippi Mills is in the Ottawa Valley, with the Ottawa River as its northern boundary. As one stands on the shore of the Ottawa River, gazing across the majestic mile-wide body of water at the beautiful Gatineau Hills in Quebec, you can imagine the early explorer Samuel de Champlain canoeing up the river 400 years ago, as he headed west.

A few words about my family and our history and experience in the riding. My wife, Janet, who is here in the gallery today, and I have been married for 32 years, and we have three daughters: Jessica, Rachel and Alexis. Janet and all three girls are registered nurses, and I’m very proud of them. Janet and Alexis—and Alexis is here, sitting beside my wife—work at the Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa. Rachel is working at a hospital in San Diego, and Jessica works at a hospital in Calgary.

I graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in civil engineering. I worked in engineering and construction in Vancouver for three years and Calgary for seven years. I experienced the economic downturn of the oil industry in 1981. I lost my job in 1982. We had two babies and a mortgage, nobody was hiring, and house prices were falling fast. It was a terrible time for my family. I learned how devastating bad times can be.

We came back to the family farm at MacLaren’s Landing in 1982 and have been proud to be farming ever since. I lived and worked and raised my family in Carleton county, as did my father and his father before him and his father before him. Our farm was a crown grant to our family in 1826.

In our house, it was always understood that with the enjoyment and benefits of a healthy community comes the obligation to contribute to the community. For several generations, my family has been actively involved in politics at the municipal and provincial levels.

When I was a boy, I can remember my father talking to Erskine Johnston, who was the MPP for the riding at the time. My father was one of Erskine Johnston’s strongest grassroots supporters and communication links to the local community. Erskine was a great MPP. He was accessible to his constituents and helped his constituents. He was well thought of and respected in his community. He was an excellent role model.

Over the past 30 years, I have had leadership roles in several community organizations. Most recently, I was president of the Ontario Landowners Association. Through these organizations, I have had experience dealing with bureaucrats and politicians from all three levels of government. I have travelled Ontario from Glengarry to Niagara, to Essex, to Manitoulin, to Sudbury, to Toronto and places in between to answer calls for help, calls for help from people who have government knocking on their door.

We have become an over-regulated society with regulations that are unnecessary or wrongful. This tells us what we already know: that the fight for freedom, justice and democracy will never end; that if we relaxed our democratic guard, our freedoms would be taken away from us by those who think we should be controlled.

We all know government has become too big, too expensive and too controlling. It is time to take control of the business of government. We must reduce our spending and our debt. We must eliminate the unnecessary regulations that interfere with the abilities of people, businesses and communities to thrive. People must be free to be creative and innovative. I believe in small government, low taxes and minimal regulation. I believe that government should exist to serve people, not rule over them.

I believe it is the basic nature of men and women to do good, and men and women should be free to do what they want so long as they do not hurt anyone or the environment. Ontario must once again become a welcome place to live and work and play.

We must remember that the foundation of democracy is the Magna Carta of the year 1215. That wonderful document of 800 years ago defined that the common man had rights: the right to life, liberty and property. It defined that government should serve people, that government was nothing but the instrument of the common man. The intention of the Magna Carta was clearly stated in William Pitt’s oft-cited address to Parliament in 1763: “The poorest man may in his cottage do defiance to all the forces of the crown.

It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his forces may not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!”

But somewhere along the line, government seems to have forgotten that freedom and democracy are the guaranteed right of the common man. This right is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This guaranteed right is centuries old, the product of hard-won struggles and well-established jurisprudence. We have become an over-regulated, over-governed society. There are 500,000 regulations in Ontario. Government has become too big, has gone too far, and is intruding into people’s lives and businesses in an unwanted and wrongful way. Government has taken freedoms away from the common man. This is a problem.

What do we do? As lawmakers, we must do something. We must remember that we are nothing but the servant of the common man.

I would like to talk to you about some of my experiences with the Ontario Landowners Association, to tell some stories of wrongful actions by government.

Mike Westley, who is in our members’ gallery here, and 60 of his neighbours in rural Ottawa fought the city of Ottawa, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority for six years to prevent their properties from being wrongfully designated as provincially significant wetlands. The problem developed over many years, as all three agencies issued permits for new development of quarries, highways, housing subdivisions and streets that caused more and new runoff into the creek that flowed through Mike’s and his neighbours’ properties. The result was that the increased water flow flooded their properties.

Then, the three agencies of government said their properties were a wetland and they intended to designate their lands as provincially significant wetlands. The Drainage Act states that a neighbour cannot increase or decrease the amount of water in a watershed that would harm a downstream neighbour. This position has been upheld in court, which is the basis of common law. Mike and his neighbours hired a large backhoe and they dug out the creek to increase the capacity of the creek. The drainage problem has been resolved.

Wendell Palmer, who is also here in our members’ gallery, of the Niagara area had an old and very large, exotic breed of pig. The pig waddled when it walked and had a slight limp. Wendell’s veterinarian said the pig was healthy, just old. An OSPCA inspector came to Wendell’s farm and said the pig was in distress and must be destroyed immediately. Over Wendell’s protests, she shot the pig 17 times in the head, but the pig was still alive. She went back to her office for a bigger gun. Wendell was left to the task of slitting the pig’s throat to end its suffering. Wendell was charged with animal abuse.

Steve Straub, a farm labourer of the St. Thomas area, owned and cared for a variety of unusual birds and animals on his father’s five-acre home and property. The OSPCA handcuffed Steve and threw him into the back of the police cruiser as they seized his birds and animals. He pleaded guilty to the terrible crime of having a budgie birdcage with a dirty floor. The OSPCA order was written in the names of Steve and his father, John, because his father owned the land and the house, the only significant asset the family had.

The OSPCA then sent invoices for the care and housing of Steve’s birds and animals to Steve and John Straub jointly in the amount of $168,000. The OSPCA took Steve and John to civil court to collect the bill. The judge threw out all the invoices, except for $5,000.

Ed Embury, a farmer near Napanee, has been hounded by the Kingston Ministry of the Environment for seven years over a minor manure spill on to a neighbour’s farm field. The MOE persisted over the years with inspections and charges and took Ed to court many times. Recently, the justice of the peace threw out all of the charges, saying they were frivolous.

In November 2009, Major Mark Tijssen—and Mark’s mother, Linda, is here in the gallery with us today—was charged under four different sections of the Food Safety and Quality Act because he bought a pig from a local farmer and slaughtered it to feed his family. A Ministry of Natural Resources enforcement officer sat in a neighbour’s tree stand for five days watching Mark and his children in their home with night-vision goggles. The MNR then raided Mark’s home, with six squad cars with lights flashing.

The maximum fine was $100,000, but Mark was told that the fine would be reduced to $1,000 if he pleaded guilty. But Mark said he didn’t do anything wrong and decided to fight the charges in court. Major Tijssen acted as his own attorney, arguing that he had a constitutional right to choose the food he wants to eat. On December 6, 2011, the MNR delivered a letter to Major Tijssen, stating that they intended to drop all charges after two long years of court appearances.

Bob Mackie of Beamsville, who is in the gallery with us today, set up a small archery training business on his nine-acre rural property. About seven years ago, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, which is the local planning authority, ordered Bob to stop his archery business because his land had an agricultural use designation in their official plan and archery was not mentioned as a permitted use on agricultural land. The official plan doesn’t mention archery as a prohibited activity; it just doesn’t mention it at all.

This is contrary to common law which is practised in Ontario, which states that a man can do whatever he wants unless it is prohibited by law or regulation. Bob continues his seven-year fight for his rights in court.

George Eng and his neighbours own land at Mount Albert; they excavate and sell peat on their land. That is their business, their livelihood, and they have been doing it for over 40 years. Four years ago, the Lake Simcoe conservation authority designated their properties as provincially significant wetlands and told George and his neighbours they were breaking the law by excavating peat. They were told to stop doing business. George and a few neighbours have been charged and are in court fighting for their rights and their livelihoods using their crown land patent grant as their property rights defence.

These are examples of the negative effects that some of the 500,000 regulations that we have in Ontario are having on people’s freedoms and rights. We need to make changes that will restore these lost liberties and property rights. Life, liberty and private property ownership are the foundation of any successful democracy. The law, which is the collective will of individuals, is intended to provide justice, to protect liberty and property. If a man takes another man’s property without his permission, it is illegal theft, or plundering.

If government uses a law to take a man’s property without his permission, it is legal plundering, but it is still plundering and that is wrong. Such a wrongful law must be struck down.

Thank you. I will be sharing my time with the member for Chatham–Kent–Essex.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Chatham–Kent–Essex.

Mr. Rick Nicholls: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the minister for her presentation. I listened intently. As a member of the PC caucus, we are extremely compassionate to the needs of Ontarians.

We all know that there have always been seen and unseen benefits and consequences to each and every bill that is passed by the Legislature. The seen benefits in each piece of legislation are held up as triumphs; the seen benefits are what families read about in the next morning’s newspaper. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we on the opposition side of the Legislature believe that the unseen consequences of this particular bill deserve close and careful scrutiny. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is my opinion that the ministry has not done its due diligence in investigating and recognizing the unseen consequences of this bill.

Following ministry briefings and discussions with my colleagues, I’m left with the distinct impression that the purpose of this bill is not to correct or solve a defect within the legislation it seeks to amend, nor to address a looming and credible threat to the well-being of Ontario families. Frankly, it is my opinion that this bill, while bearing all the trappings of being well-intentioned and designed for the good of Ontario workers and families, is instead a document designed for political posturing on the part of the government. Allow me to explain how I and my colleagues have arrived at this conclusion.

According to ministry personnel, they have little or no empirical, statistical or anecdotal evidence that there are people being denied time off from their employment to provide care for their loved ones. Not only have there been no studies, there aren’t even mechanisms in place to collect the kind of data that would give the members of this House—and the Ontario taxpayers who must pay for it—a clear idea of any real or imagined problem this bill claims to solve. Furthermore, this bill neither creates nor empowers the collection of such data. For all the information that has been provided to the members of the opposition, Mr. Speaker, this bill may as well have been created in a vacuum.

In short, we will never be able to ascertain with any degree of accuracy whether this legislation, should it be passed, provides the people of Ontario with any tangible benefits or, on the other side of the coin, addresses the consequences of not passing it.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I find it astounding for two reasons. First, nobody should know better than this government the perils of not doing your homework before introducing legislation. The headlong rush into the creation of this bill reminds us all of the lack of consultation with local communities and business owners that has given rise to unwanted industrial wind turbines across the province, including in my own riding of Chatham–Kent–Essex. You would think this government would have learned by now of the loss of trust in government that will undoubtedly result from not doing your homework.

And as deputy critic for labour, I find it astounding that this government would introduce a bill that not only fails to make a case for its own existence but approaches the suggestion that Ontario employers and job creators are somehow mistreating their own staff by denying them job-protected employment leave, a proposition that, as I’ve said, is completely unsubstantiated.

Ontario’s entrepreneurs and small business owners deserve better than to be viewed with suspicion, yet it is my fear that by allowing this bill to proceed in the manner it has, without backing up the ministry’s claim, it is accomplishing exactly that negative effect. As I stated a few moments ago, it is our duty and the duty of every member of this House to fully investigate both the seen and unseen benefits and consequences to every piece of legislation brought forward for debate.

It is to the unseen consequences of this bill I would like to now turn, and one in particular that we ought to safeguard against. This bill has all the hallmarks of shifting the responsibility for family care from the individual onto the collective shoulders of the taxpayers. That is something that should be of concern to all Ontario families. As a husband, a father and a grandfather myself, Mr. Speaker, I tell you that a bill that alters this relationship must be examined very, very closely.

I’ve also had the great privilege, like many of my colleagues on this side of the House, to have been an employer in my lifetime. I draw from that valuable experience when considering any piece of legislation that seeks to affect the relationship between job creators and the Ontarians they employ. I can tell you, as an entrepreneur, that that relationship is based on the firm ground of mutual respect, mutual benefit and accommodating each other’s priorities and individual needs.

As I mentioned a moment ago, it was clear to me that in developing this bill, the ministry had prepared little in the way of case studies citing a need for new legislation. Yet I believe we owe it to Ontario workers and families to base our debate proceedings on firm evidence drawn from real-world experiences of the folks who sent us here.

I took the liberty of researching this issue myself to see what business owners in my riding of Chatham–Kent–Essex would tell me about their approach to their employees’ needs in the case of illness in the family. Some were unionized, while other smaller businesses were not. With unionized firms, I was told that situations requiring time off to care for a loved one were covered through the collective agreement or through passed legislation. For the non-unionized businesses, it was a matter of using the strong relationship between employee and employer to find a unique solution without setting precedents.

I discovered that mutual understanding and respect, demonstrated on both sides, often resulted in the employee being given the needed time off to attend to their loved ones, a very compassionate gesture on the part of the employer. It is my firm belief that by replacing this relationship with a rigid and prescribed legal code, all the requirements for flexibility, mutual consideration and mutual respect will be removed from the relationship between the employer and employee. It will become just another area of life in Ontario in which this government seeks to have its say.

Next, from my discussions or those of my colleagues with the ministry, there is some desire to work with federal counterparts to recognize time off provided by this bill as an insurable benefit under the federal employment insurance program. Yet it is deeply troubling to me that this bill has reached second reading without an agreement of terms with the federal government. Frankly, there has been so little discussion with the federal government on this topic as to be negligible. What will the costs be? We don’t know, and this ministry cannot tell us.

What happens if the federal government does not accept the terms? We don’t know, and this ministry cannot tell us. Where are the safeguards against abuse and fraud? We don’t know, Ontario families don’t know, and Ontario employers don’t know, because this ministry cannot tell us. We ought to be cautious of this. We owe it to Ontario families and workers, who have seen the cost and size of government go up and up, to give this bill the close scrutiny that it clearly requires.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The clock is now at 10:15 and this House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mrs. Christine Elliott: I would like to ask all members to help me in welcoming Mr. Mike Glennie and family friend Mr. Mao, who are in the gallery today from the great riding of Whitby–Oshawa. They’re here to observe page Grace Glennie in action today.

Hon. James J. Bradley: I would like members of the Legislature to join me in welcoming, in the members’ east gallery, Rosemary and Robert Cooper, parents of page William Cooper from Canadian Martyrs school in St. Catharines, as well as William’s cousin Candace Cooper. We welcome them to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Soo Wong: Today I would like to welcome to the House Mr. Jeff Mole, a constituent of mine. Mr. Mole is the founder of the Trillium Energy Alliance, which seeks to create a province-wide network of local energy generation co-operatives. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Mole to the House.

Mr. Jack MacLaren: I would like to welcome guests here that have come to join us in the Legislature today: my wife, Janet MacLaren, on the left here, and my daughter Alexis MacLaren beside her, who are both registered nurses working in hospitals in Ontario, and I’m very proud of them; Yvette and Bob Mackie from Beamsville; Mike and Dawn Westley from Ottawa; and Linda Tijssen, mother of Mark Tijssen.

These people all came to hear my maiden speech a little earlier this morning, Mr. Speaker, and they are all members of—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Brilliant.

Interjection: Great speech.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Mr. Jack MacLaren: It was a great encouragement for me to have them here as friends and family. I would like to say they are all proud members of the Ontario Landowners Association as well.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew heckles his own members.

Minister.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I would like to introduce to the House my good friend from Thunder Bay, in northwestern Ontario, and a very active northern Ontarian entrepreneur, Mr. Shane Diakunchak. Shane, thank you, and welcome.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): In the press gallery today, we have a new group of visiting journalism students from Sheridan College. Again, my

preamble is that they’re here at Queen’s Park today to shadow and learn from Queen’s Park reporters. Today we have Nasr Ahmed, Chelsea Andrade, Mary Katherine Bowyer, Meron Gaudet, Justin Goulet, Christopher Haley, David Larocque, Lily Martin, Geoff McGregor, Colin Meenagh, Priscilla Monachese, Chanelle Ouellet, Nathan Peters, Stephen Pike, Rosemond Quartey, Gurnek Nick Singh and Andrea Stathers. Welcome.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PUBLIC SERVICES

Mr. Tim Hudak: Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Don Drummond, your hand-picked adviser, said on page 9, in his message from the chair, that “each rejected recommendation must be replaced not by a vacuum, but by a better idea—one that delivers a similar fiscal benefit.” The Ontario PCs agree with Mr. Drummond in that respect.

The Premier has already announced that he’s taking $1.5 billion off the table from Mr. Drummond’s recommendations, to finance full-day kindergarten. I asked the Premier yesterday how he’s going to make up that $1.5 billion. He didn’t answer me, Speaker, so I’ll ask him again today. Premier, to make up that $1.5 billion, are you contemplating further spending cuts or are you contemplating tax increases?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the question, once again, and my answer is the same. The answer will be contained in the budget itself. We will use this period of time, pre-budget, to hear from the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the third party, a legislative committee, Ontarians generally. The finance minister will continue his pre-budget consultations, and I fully expect that all MPPs will, as part of their responsibilities, reach out to their own constituents.

Again, I say to my honourable colleague that if he has any particular pieces of advice with respect to which of these provisions he recommends that we adopt and which he recommends that we reject, we would of course be more than pleased to hear from him.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: As the Premier knows, we’ve gone farther than that. We’ve put on the table ideas to save $2 billion—and a mandatory public sector wage freeze, by way of example. We’ve talked about arbitration reform. We’ve talked about competitive bidding across government. Hopefully, the Premier will in fact finally take up these ideas that he has rejected to date.

Premier, I think you’re feeling the magnitude of the mess that you’ve dug us into. For over a year now, you’ve increased spending when you said you’d go the opposite way. The deficit is up, not down. All but two ministries are actually up in spending instead of going down, as you promised. And now you’ve taken $1.5 billion off the table for full-day kindergarten.

The question I also had that you failed to answer, Premier, is, your education minister, in a February 21

article in the Toronto Sun, was also backing away from Mr. Drummond’s recommendation on ending the hard cap on class size—another $500-million hole you have to fill. I’ll ask you, Premier: Will it be filled with tax hikes or spending reductions?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, I find it disappointing, frankly, that the leader of the official opposition’s go-to place, when it comes to government cuts, is public education. We have a different value set in that regard. I think the single most important thing that we can do for our families is to invest in our children by giving them a great-quality education, and the single most important thing that we can do to grow our economy in a knowledge-based era of globalization is to invest in a skilled workforce. That speaks to the high value that we attach to publicly funded education in Ontario.

Again, I say I find it disappointing that the leader of the official opposition’s go-to place for cuts is publicly funded education for all our children.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: Speaker, the Premier knows full well these are recommendations by Mr. Don Drummond, your hand-picked adviser. For some time, Premier, you basically described him as your white knight. He was going to save you from the $30-billion hole. Now you’re treating him like some distant relative you may see at the occasional family reunion.

Parsing through the Premier’s speaking points is often challenging. Let me see if I understand his comments today. You seem to be signalling, Premier, that similarly, the hard cap on class size recommendation of Mr. Drummond—the $500 million is now off the table, and you seem to be recommending that Mr. Drummond’s target to reduce the number of non-classroom teaching staff by 70% is off the table. Premier, that’s about an additional $1.6 billion, and partnered with full-day kindergarten, $2.5 billion.

So am I reading you correctly, Premier? Are those additional recommendations by Mr. Drummond now off the table?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, it’s going to be a long time for my honourable colleague if all he does between now and budget day is ask me what’s going to be in the budget. I’m not going to divulge that. It’s a work in progress. It’s something that we think is important to consult Ontarians on. We continue our deliberations, but we remain very much open to advice.

My concerns are the inconsistencies that are coming from the opposite bench. At first, the leader of the official opposition says we need to adopt the report in its entirety, that we should not cherry-pick. And now he’s saying no, he’s not prepared to adopt the LHIN recommendation; he’s not prepared to adopt the recommendation that says we bargain firmly but fairly with Ontario doctors; he’s not prepared to adopt the recommendation that says that we ought to put into question the $345 million we invest in supporting the horse racing industry in Ontario. Again, a clear message would be very helpful.

PUBLIC SERVICES

Mr. Tim Hudak: You know, what’s truly disappointing is the Premier’s seeming lack of understanding of the depth of the problem he has dug us into. We are in a debt crisis in the province of Ontario. Premier, according to your own adviser, Mr. Drummond, we’re on track to a $30-billion deficit. You are on the verge of having Ontario triple its debt, to $400 billion. This is very serious.

I know you’re trying to stick to your talking points here, you’re trying to avoid the tough questions, but you have made some commitments. You’re going to add on an additional $1.5 billion in full-day kindergarten. You now appear to be backing away from Mr. Drummond’s recommendations on the cap on class size and the non-teaching personnel. That’s about $2.6 billion. If you want our advice, let me ask you again, are you asking us to find an additional $2.6 billion in savings because those items are now off the table?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I would say to my colleague that we look forward to answering all of his questions and then probably a bit more through the budget.

I do want to quote a little bit from the Drummond report because I think it’s always helpful. In particular, he said that “spending is neither out of control nor wildly excessive. Ontario runs one of the lowest-cost provincial governments in Canada relative to its GDP and has done so for decades.” It also goes on to make some interesting findings. In relation to our GDP, total government spending in Ontario is the third-lowest in Canada, the tax burden is the second-lowest in Canada and per capita spending is the lowest in Canada.

So again, I say to my honourable colleague, yes, there is a real concern in front of us. It’s important that we tackle the deficit. It’s important to understand our fundamental underlying strengths as well.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Well, it seems like, sadly, the Premier is the only person in Ontario who thinks that spending is under control. In fact it’s the opposite. I’d remind you, Premier, that you’re spending $1.8 million more every hour, 24 hours a day, than you take in in revenue; and since the Drummond report alone, you’re over $250 million further in the hole. All I see from the Premier is Liberal talking points and continuing dithering and delay.

We would have a very different approach. I said I would have reduced the size of my cabinet down to 16 members. I would have called the Drummond report immediately so we could have brought in a fall economic statement that actually would have reduced spending instead of your bills that are increasing spending. We would have brought in a public sector wage freeze and saved $2 billion off the top.

Premier, since you seem to be dithering and delaying and taking things off the table on Drummond, will you at least accept our proposals to rein in spending, including a public sector wage freeze to save us $2 billion off the top?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I’ll remind my honourable colleague that the Drummond commission in fact recommended against that very specifically. He called it—I’ll use his word, Speaker—“dumb.” That’s a direct quote; it’s in the document itself. So we’re not going to go there for all the right reasons.

But I think there is an important and sharp contrast to be had between their values and our values. They support the $345-million subsidy to the Ontario horse racing industry. We think we should consider redeploying that money so it supports our schools and our health care. That’s a question of fundamental values. I think it’s an important contrast between that side and this side, and I would dare to say that our values are in keeping with those shared by Ontarians.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, frankly, here’s the contrast: Instead of dithering and delaying, we would have acted immediately to rein in spending in the province of Ontario: a public sector wage freeze to save $2 billion; an end to your feed-in tariff program that is driving up hydro bills and impacting on the finances of the province as a whole.

Premier, you’ve gone even beyond cherry-picking; you’re taking out entire bricks in the foundation that Mr. Drummond laid out for you. You’re taking out the full-day kindergarten brick and now it sounds like you’re taking out the bricks when it comes to class sizes and the 70% reduction in non-teaching personnel in education. That’s about $2.6 billion right there. Plus, you’ve brought in new spending initiatives totalling $2.5 billion.

I know old habits are hard to break, Premier, but will you please tell us, are you going to make up that difference through tax hikes, or where will you find additional savings that pay for all your additional spending?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, again, we were very clear from the outset that the Drummond commission’s responsibility, as we saw it, was to advise, and our responsibility in government is to decide. I would say to my honourable colleague that the responsibility of government is to bring judgment to bear on the advice that we receive, so there are some recommendations here that we are going to accept, others we will accept with modifications, others we will outright reject, and others we will send for further study. I’ve made that very clear in my meetings with Don Drummond himself.

My honourable colleague said that no judgment is required here, that there’s no value set to be brought to bear on these recommendations. He says we should adopt these holus-bolus, notwithstanding the fact that we hear over and over from his caucus about different reservations they have with respect to different recommendations. I say again: They advise; we decide. We’ll bring Ontario values to bear in our decision-making.

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, the Conservatives tabled a motion calling on the government to maintain the Premier’s scheduled corporate tax giveaways. My question is a pretty simple one, Speaker: Will the Premier side with struggling everyday families, or will he side with the Conservatives?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the question, Speaker, and—

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: We’re always right. Side with us.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: It’s good to be wanted. What I must say and what I can say is that the responsibility that we share here in government, of course, is to listen to both sides and to draw what wisdom we might from those, and then to inform our decisions with, I think, a broad value base shared by Ontarians. I think that this is what they want at this point in time. They want us to tackle the deficit in earnest. They want us to do it in a way that ideally improves the quality of our schools and our health care system. They want a strong foundation for growth and they want us to create more jobs.

That’s the mindset and the value set that we’ll bring to bear as we receive conflicting advice from my opposition parties.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, I can certainly understand the Premier’s dilemma. On the one hand, the Conservatives are endorsing the Premier’s very plan; on the other hand, it’s a reckless plan. It’s a plan that has not helped create more jobs for people in this province and it is not a plan that’s a priority for families.

Can New Democrats expect the Premier’s support next week when this motion comes to a vote in the House? Can we expect the Liberals to be with us in voting against the Conservative motion?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I understand my honourable colleague’s devotion and perhaps even obsession with the tax issue. Taxes are always an important part of the balance that forms the foundation for growth and prosperity.

But again, I say to my honourable colleague, she says that we should freeze corporate taxes. That would save us $800 million, but we have a $16-billion deficit, so that constitutes a 5% solution. So I say to her again, what about the other 95%? I know where she stands on the first 5%. She has been very clear and very consistent, and I give her that. But what I ask her again is, what are her proposals with respect to the remaining 95% of the savings that we need to find?

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, I’ll remind the Premier that he shouldn’t have gone down this misguided path in the first place and stuck with his guns. He used to believe that corporate tax reductions were not the way to go.

Nonetheless, families across this province are still reeling from the recession. London’s unemployment rate is at 9%. Windsor’s is at 11%. Sixteen thousand people are out of work in Oshawa. In Toronto, 275,000 Torontonians are looking for work. The answer isn’t more tax giveaways to companies that pick up and head south. It’s a job creation strategy that rewards companies that actually create jobs.

Speaker, will the Premier say today, once and for all, that he will not move ahead with the corporate tax cuts?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, again, we’ll provide our answer in the budget. But what I can say to my honourable colleague is that right after question period, in fact, on this very day, we’ll all have an opportunity to support what I believe to be a very important initiative that will create some 10,000 jobs per year, create $800 million in economic activity every year and provide our parents and grandparents, aged Ontarians, up to $1,500 every year in tax credits for renovations in their home. It’s our healthy home renovation tax credit, and I encourage my honourable colleague to support that very initiative momentarily, right after question period.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is to the Premier. Karen Tzventarny worked at Ornge as a nurse for five years. As a medical professional, Karen was responsible for screening patient transfers for Ornge in the unit dedicated to controlling infectious disease. She said that she complained back in 2009 to the Ministry of Health after the now former CEO of Ornge replaced qualified medical personnel with less qualified staff.

I’d like to know if the Premier knows what the ministry’s investigations of that complaint revealed.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, I’ll be glad to take the first question. I’m sure my colleague the minister will want to answer the others.

I can say that we have been very clear in terms of our disapproval of the activities that took place there, of the fact that the executive, the leadership, lost sight of their responsibility, first and foremost, to ensure that we’re delivering the best possible care to Ontario patients, and secondly, to show respect for Ontario taxpayers.

We have moved together as a government, decisively. My honourable colleague knows that we have referred the matter to the OPP for a criminal investigation. We await the outcome of that investigation.

We have also made it clear that we are providing every co-operation that we possibly can to the Auditor General. That individual’s office will be thorough in its examination of the issues. We look forward to receiving the recommendations and we look forward to acting on the basis of those recommendations.

My honourable colleague also knows that we are moving ahead with a series of initiatives that will increase accountability and oversight to ensure that we provide the best possible air ambulance care to Ontarians.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, I suspect that the Premier’s lack of response about the investigation is because there likely wasn’t an investigation into that complaint.

Reports today indicate very clearly that that was not an isolated incident. Ornge executives replacing medical and aviation specialists with less qualified staff was apparently the norm in that organization. Fed up, this particular nurse, Ms. Tzventarny, ended up quitting her job in light of what was happening there.

Can the minister say how many complaints her ministry received from whistleblowers? And how many investigations did they conduct as a result of those complaints?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you to the member opposite, the leader of the third party. I can assure the member that we take every complaint very, very seriously. And every complaint is investigated, Speaker.

What I can tell you, though, is that we know we need to do more. That is why we have brought about very significant change at the leadership levels at Ornge. We have a new interim CEO. We have a new board. The board is taking the issue of patient safety extremely seriously.

But that alone is not enough. We need to do even more, and that is why I will shortly be introducing legislation that will continue to improve the oversight and the quality of patient care at Ornge.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, day after day after day, the minister ignored the warnings—the warnings from nurses who were seeing a downgrading of the skills of their colleagues at that agency; warnings from accountants about financial irregularities and mismanagement; warnings from pilots and paramedics that the quality of care was being compromised at Ornge as the skills were being downgraded; and warnings from employees and MPPs in the Legislature about executive salaries and questionable contracts.

The minister obviously was not doing her job. Why should she be keeping it?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, my job is to fix the problems that I find, and in the health ministry, the province of Ontario, there are unfortunately problems that arise from time to time. My problem is to fix the problems that arise and take every step I can to ensure they do not happen again. That job is under way. We acted swiftly. We have replaced the leadership. They are very focused on patient safety issues, and so am I.

Speaker, I think it’s important that we think about the patients who have been served by Ornge, and I’d like to share one story, if I might. A university student was at his cottage. He was barbecuing hamburgers and the propane barbecue exploded. After briefly losing consciousness, he realized his arms were on fire. He called 911. Ornge arrived and transported him to Sunnybrook. He says thank you to Ornge.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Health: Speaker, yesterday the minister was alerted to yet more serious gaps in service at Ontario’s air ambulance service. She was presented with a list of 13 recent incidents that put patients and front-line staff, paramedics and pilots at risk. These incidents are happening on a daily basis. Unqualified and inexperienced people are the reason. That’s who’s in charge at Ornge today. The minister may have called for a criminal investigation, but she’s obviously oblivious to the operational gaps that are there in this place today.

Not only has this minister presided over the spawning of a financial scandal, but she has also failed to protect the integrity of our essential air ambulance services. I ask the minister once again: Given her inability to manage this file, will she agree to step aside?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: As I have said, we take every concern that is raised very seriously. I did have the opportunity of sharing the list that the member presented me with yesterday. I have raised those issues with Ornge. They’ve looked into them, and it appears that each one of those incidents had in fact been investigated by the people at Ornge.

The member opposite is playing a political game; I understand that. He wants a minister’s head on a platter.

What I am focused on is patient safety. We have a new board in place. Dr. Barry McLellan—impeccable credentials—is heading up the patient safety focus of the new board. I have every confidence in the new leadership and in the front-line staff that this member seems intent on destroying.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: It’s that front-line staff who are bringing these concerns to my attention. That’s why we’re raising them here: because the minister isn’t listening. It’s this kind of rhetoric that continues to undermine the confidence of that front-line staff.

What we want to know is, why hasn’t the minister put people in charge who are qualified and experienced in air ambulance to get things right? With all due respect—we have the highest regard for Mr. McKerlie. He knows nothing about air ambulance services, knows nothing about air ambulances and knows nothing about the issue. There are people in the public service who have that experience. Why hasn’t the minister put them in charge?

Again, she has shown she’s incapable of dealing with this file. Why will she not admit that she is the single impediment to getting things right at Ornge?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: As I said earlier, the member opposite is playing a game of politics. I understand that. I am focused on improving the quality of care at Ornge. I am focused on ensuring that patients have the air ambulance care that they need.

The member opposite, when the new board was revealed, himself admitted in the media that it was a very strong board. If he now wishes to say that Ian Delaney is not a strong chair, if he now wishes to say that Barry McLellan is not a strong member of the board—if he wants to cast aspersions on a very, very strong leadership team at Ornge, he is free to do that. I stand behind the new leadership and I stand behind the front-line staff.

I can tell you that I have received messages from front-line staff who are very, very pleased with the changes that have been made.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé et des Soins de longue durée.

We’re now looking at bankruptcy documents for one of Ornge’s many, many for-profit businesses, called Ornge Global Holdings. It shows that this company owes nearly $14,000 to a Brazilian law firm. I want to know: Is the minister aware of the Brazilian business that’s going on, and does she think that throwing taxpayers’ money around Brazil is a good use of public health care dollars?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: The member opposite knows that we have turned over—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): That’s enough, please. As I said before, this is a difficult topic that needs to be discussed, and it will be discussed. I need to hear the answers, as does everyone.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, as the member knows, this matter has been turned over to the Ontario Provincial Police. They are conducting their investigation. They will go exactly where they determine they need to go.

I can assure you that the forensic audit team, the Auditor General, my ministry staff and the people at Ornge are fully co-operating with the Ontario Provincial Police. That was a step that, unfortunately, did need to be taken. We must all do what we have to do to see that justice is done, and that means letting the OPP do their job.

What is very important is that we are turning the page at Ornge. I will be introducing legislation that will bring our air ambulance service under the Excellent Care for All legislation, because we believe that quality should be measured and quality should be improved.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Well, families are rather surprised to find that their publicly funded air ambulance services ran a for-profit company called Ornge Global Brazil Holdings. It was only one of a web of for-profit companies created by Ornge, by a team of high-priced lawyers. All of those private companies always meant the same thing: They meant big bucks for well-connected insiders. Former Liberal Party president Alfred Apps has received $9 million so far for his work for those private companies, and the document shows that he’s still owed tens of thousands of dollars by Ornge.

When David Caplan faced the same thing, when he let well-connected insiders divert public money away from front-line care, he did the honourable thing: He stepped aside. Why does the minister think that she shouldn’t do the same? Why does she think that she can keep her job?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: What I would suggest is, if the member opposite has allegations, please refer them to the Ontario Provincial Police. This investigation is under way right now.

What I can tell you, Speaker, is when the new board was put in place, they were given very clear instructions: Focus first on patient safety, support the forensic audit process that was under way, and wind down the for-profit. Those for-profit companies are in the process of being wound down because we want the new Ornge to be focused on Ontario patients: getting those Ontario patients to the care they need as quickly as possible.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Grant Crack: My question’s for the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation. The eastern Ontario economic development fund has been a successful program that has provided a tremendous economic boost to communities throughout eastern Ontario, including in my riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell. Our government has invested $53 million in the eastern Ontario development fund, which has leveraged $503 million in private sector investments. That’s an 8 to 1 ratio of leverage that’s created and supported 11,700 jobs.

I was honoured to have the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation visit my riding last week, and together we met with the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus to discuss how the fund could be improved. Speaker, will the minister take the recommendations of the community, including those of the wardens, into account when considering—

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

The Minister of Economic Development and Innovation.

Hon. Brad Duguid: I want to thank the member for his question and for the great tour we had of his riding, an opportunity to meet some of his constituents.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that residents in eastern Ontario understand just how important the eastern Ontario development fund has been as a job creation tool to those communities. Job creation and economic growth are the key priorities of this government and I know that communities in eastern Ontario really do support this.

I would like to thank, as well, the eastern wardens’ caucus for the leadership that they have demonstrated as a champion of this fund, not only on the provincial level but out in their communities as well. I was very pleased with the principles that they put forward, and in fact, one of the principles that they think is key is making this fund permanent, which is exactly what we’re trying to do. I looked forward to their input. It was thoughtful. We had a valuable discussion, and we take it very seriously. I hope, though, that the opposition take their views just as seriously—

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

Mr. Grant Crack: Thank you, Speaker, and thank you, Minister.

Speaker, some members of the House and some in my constituency have raised concerns regarding the levels of available funding under the eastern Ontario development fund. The fund was established in 2008, with the four-year period set to expire in March 2012. As I understand it, the fund was allocated up to $20 million a year for each of the four years. To date, approximately $53 million has been invested, leveraging about $500 million of private investment into the region. While the fund has been a huge success, creating and supporting 11,700 jobs, why was the full amount of each year not spent, and do unspent dollars in any given year carry on to subsequent years?

Hon. Brad Duguid: That’s a good question. The eastern Ontario development fund was designed to provide up to—and I repeat: up to—$20 million annually to those projects that meet our due diligence as well as our accountability criteria. I’m pleased to confirm that I have been advised that every company that applied to the eastern Ontario development fund and that met the criteria has indeed received funding.

Let’s be clear, though: Our budgets are allocated on an annual basis, based on the demand for such projects. Any amounts below the $20-million maximum that are not allocated don’t carry forward into the next year. A great deal of effort is made to ensure that Ontario taxpayers are getting value for these investments. These investments are highly scrutinized, and recipients are held accountable. Perhaps that’s why this really good program gets such a great private sector leverage return—because we scrutinize very, very closely, and we make sure that those companies are very accountable for the investments that we make in them. I hope this clarifies that for the member.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Health: Ontario’s air ambulance service has been embroiled in controversy for months—financial scandal, blatant abuse of tax dollars, senior executives and the entire board of directors fired, daily reports of incidents that put patients and crews at risk. And yet, as recently as yesterday, the Minister of Health, under whose watch this scandal brewed and service levels were compromised, had this to say about that air ambulance service: “Ornge has a world-class ambulance service.”

Speaker, if there isn’t anything more but that statement in itself that shows that this member has lost all perspective, nothing else will. Surely that statement alone should tell the Premier this his minister should resign—

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, the member opposite is free to criticize me—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): It was dead silent during the question, and I want it dead silent during the answer.

Carry on.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, the member opposite is free to criticize me; I understand that. But when the member opposite veers into—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew has a warning.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: —questioning the integrity of the front-line staff, that is where I draw the line. The front-line staff at Ornge are delivering world-class service, and if you want to criticize the people who are saving lives every day, I have to challenge that. The doctors, the nurses, the paramedics, the pilots, those people who are servicing the planes and the helicopters, they are superb public servants of this province of Ontario.

Have there been problems? Yes. Have we addressed those problems? Yes. Do we need to do more? Yes, we do, and that is why we’re introducing legislation that will bring Ornge under the Excellent Care for All legislation that will enshrine oversight in law.

Interjections.

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

Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: It’s those front-line staff who are calling into question the integrity of the minister. That’s why we are here having this debate.

When will this minister put patients and the air ambulance service of our province ahead of her own sense of importance? What makes this minister think that, given her track record of allowing the integrity of our air ambulance service to be undermined, her personal political career is more important than the integrity of the air ambulance service?

I ask the minister—it is her complete lack of leadership that has resulted in the circumstances that we find at Ornge today. Given that, will she put our air ambulance service, those front-line staff to whom she refers—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Question?

Mr. Frank Klees: Will she put them ahead of herself and resign as minister—

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

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: You know, Speaker, we may have our differences, but the member opposite and I also share a very fundamental value. That is that we want the very best care for the people in this province, the people who need our health care system, be it through air ambulance or through our entire health care system.

My responsibility is to fix the issues that arise. I have moved decisively to fix what was wrong, and I am moving decisively on introducing legislation, developing a new performance agreement, that will not only ensure much higher oversight going forward, but attempt to restore the confidence in Ornge that this member seems to try to disparage.

I’m asking the member opposite to support the new legislation that we will be introducing shortly to enhance the oversight and transparency at Ornge.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Taras Natyshak: To the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care: Speaking to reporters last Friday, the minister said that Ornge would be subject to oversight from the Ontario Legislature through the Standing Committee on Government Agencies.

My question is simple: Now that she has had some time to think about it, does the minister still believe that this is the case?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, what I can tell you is that if it is the will of the Legislature that they look at Ornge, I will be nothing but supportive of that decision. In fact, as we introduce legislation to enhance oversight and transparency at Ornge, I have every expectation that this will be the subject of a committee.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Taras Natyshak: The minister sets her expectations quite low, and she knows that despite recent changes, Ornge is not a government agency and cannot be called before committee. They’re also not subject to freedom-of-information rules. That’s no accident: Ornge was strategically designed this way.

Mr. Speaker, why did the McGuinty government design Ornge to be free from public scrutiny?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, what this question indicates to me is that that member, and presumably his party, will be fully supportive of the legislation we will be introducing to enhance transparency and oversight. That is what we know we need to do, and that is what we are going to be doing. So I look forward to continued conversations with the third party and with the opposition party as we do what we need to do to strengthen oversight at Ornge.

COMMUNITY SAFETY

Mr. David Zimmer: My question is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Minister, recently you introduced a bill that would repeal the Public Works Protection Act. I understand that the act is an outdated piece of legislation; in fact, it dates back to 1939 and it was enforced in the context of World War II. But recently, during the G20 meeting in Toronto, there was much criticism—justified criticism—that the legislation was in need of revision.

Minister, it may seem obvious, but for the record, can you explain why you’re proposing to repeal this piece of legislation?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I’d like to thank the member from Willowdale for this important question. Protecting both safety and the rights of Ontarians is a top priority for our government. The McGuinty government is acting to update the legislation that protects our important facilities. In 2010, the McGuinty government called upon former Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry to review the legislation. We are now acting on his recommendations.

The proposed new legislation strikes the right balance between the need to safeguard our courts and power-generating facilities with the need to protect the civil rights of Ontarians. I would encourage all members of this House to support the changes to this legislation to keep our communities safe and protect the rights of all Ontarians.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. David Zimmer: Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that protecting public safety and at the same time respecting individual rights and freedoms is a very delicate balance. Minister, what stakeholder groups have you consulted, what sectors of the community have you consulted with in order to get the balance of this legislation correct so that we have an effective piece of legislation that protects the community and preserves the individual rights of our citizens?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me thank very much Justice McMurtry and the Ombudsman for their good recommendations.

We have consulted with court security officials, the nuclear power industry, our justice partners, municipalities and civil liberty advocates. If passed, the new legislation will maintain the security of our courts and nuclear and other power-generating facilities. It would also require that any new security powers be given through legislation, creating public awareness and accountability.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, we are ensuring the protection of our key infrastructure while at the same time ensuring that all Ontarians are not subject to any more regulation than is needed to accomplish that goal.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer: My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, we now have evidence that a critically ill child, a newborn baby boy in Windsor, did wait four and a half hours for an air ambulance to take him to London. In fact, doctors were so worried about this delay that they sent the baby to Detroit instead, for fear that if he waited any longer he’d die.

We have now discovered that that was not the first time a critically ill or injured patient at Windsor Regional faced transfer delays that caused doctors concern. In fact, they had sent out a memo to staff on January 27, telling people: Send them to Detroit when you deem that a delay is going to be detrimental.

I ask you: The people at Ornge want to do the best job they can, but they can’t if they can’t get to the patient. Minister, is this the world-class air ambulance service that you bragged about yesterday, that Ontarians should expect in the future?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I am familiar with the case that the member has raised. What is important is that that child got the care that the child needed. The interests of the patient will always come first.

You know, Speaker, I have confidence in our front-line staff to make those split-second decisions that they must make when they are dealing with critically ill people. I think it’s important that the member opposite understands that there is a protocol to report and improve quality. We want to do even more, Speaker; that is why we will be introducing legislation to bring Ornge under the Excellent Care for All legislation so that just like hospitals, they will publicly report on quality indicators and they will have a continual plan to improve quality.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer: To the minister again: You acknowledged yesterday that you didn’t know anything about the Windsor and London situations, and we now learn that this is a common problem in Windsor. I also want to remind you that in your own backyard, air ambulance was not available for four consecutive nights last week because there were no pilots.

Minister, the public is concerned that lives are continuing to be put at risk. They have lost confidence in your ability to oversee this urgent care service. Indeed, this loss of confidence was reflected this morning when 83% of the people polled on AM640 said you should resign. I ask you, will you do the honourable thing and resign?

Interjections.

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

Minister.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I suspect that if there was a poll of the people asking, “Do we want to make Ornge stronger?” the answer would be 100% yes, we want to make it stronger. That is why we have put in place strong new leadership who are focused on exactly the issues that other members in this Legislature are focused on.

Under the leadership of Ian Delaney, we have a very strong board, one that Frank Klees himself described as a step in the right direction. These are very competent people. Frank Klees said that, Speaker.

Elizabeth Witmer said, in 2007 when they were debating Bill 171, “I know our party”—their party—“certainly can take some pride in what we have done ... to create a world-renowned air and land ambulance service.” Elizabeth Witmer again—

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

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Today, Premier, you answered a question from the Leader of the Opposition saying that education was the basis for a strong economy. You’ve ruled out cuts to full-day kindergarten, but you haven’t ruled out the Drummond commission recommendations to cut funding to schools by almost $3 billion.

If you indeed believe that investment in education is crucial to a skilled workforce and economic success, why won’t the Premier rule out those cuts put forward by Mr. Drummond?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Education.

Hon. Laurel C. Broten: I’m pleased to have an opportunity to talk about the advice that we’ve received from Don Drummond. Don Drummond has given us a great deal of advice, and we’re taking that into account and looking at it in the context of advice that we get from other important experts in the educational field; for example, how we can continue to see our student success rates go up.

But let’s be very clear: Our government has had a constant focus on increasing the success in public education. Funding has gone up by 46% since 2003. Our students are doing the best in the world. Our grad rates are up. Our test scores are up.

The Premier has been absolutely clear that we will take Don Drummond’s advice in the context of examining that and many issues, and we will make our decisions and make that clear in the upcoming budget.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Well, Speaker, parents are paying higher and higher fees for public education. Schools already lack adequate staffing. Now the McGuinty government is considering cutting 10,000 staff from our hard-pressed school system; cutting funding from classroom supplies, textbooks and computers by 25%; and charging fees for busing.

Parents are anxious; they’re worried about their children’s future. The Premier had to act and speak out that he was going to protect full-day kindergarten. Will he now give parents and their families assurance that these cuts recommended by Drummond will not go forward?

Hon. Laurel C. Broten: I do want to highlight that absolutely yes, we made it clear that full-day kindergarten would go ahead. And why did we do that? Because registration is as we speak. Families are planning for the school year ahead, and we knew that those families needed clarity. I myself have been in those families’ shoes, and I understand the importance of families planning for next September.

But, Speaker, let’s be clear: Our government has invested in public education. We will take Don Drummond’s recommendations in the context of ensuring that the steps that we take to find a sustainable pathway to public education are ones that protect the gains that we’ve made.

My friend opposite rises up and he has a lot of anxiety, but the curious thing is that in the last election campaign, the NDP didn’t even have an education platform. We’ve always been clear about our focus on public education. We will continue to do that, and we will take Don Drummond’s recommendations in that light.

ABORIGINAL LAND CLAIMS

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I’ve got a question today for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. I think there’s an awareness in this House, on all sides, that our many aboriginal issues, particularly when it comes to land claims—that in order to achieve success, we’ve got to work together with our First Nations partners and with the federal government. It came as a surprise recently when the member from Haldimand–Norfolk stated to the media that the federal government has indicated that there is no valid land claim in the Haldimand tract area. Yet just this weekend, the federal MP for Brant stated that Canada stands ready to settle Six Nations land claims.

Mr. Speaker, would the minister please advise this House, the people of Ontario, and clarify this for us and tell us just what is accurate information?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Thank you to the member for Oakville for his question.

I’ve had many conversations on this issue since I was appointed to this role in the fall. I’ve had the opportunity to visit the community, to visit Caledonia and Six Nations to meet with the chief, some council members and area mayors. I can tell you that in all of those interactions, the message is quite clear: The federal government needs to come back to the negotiating table and to resolve this 200-year-old land claim.

Now, the federal government has been absent for a number of years, but I’m glad to see some encouraging words from the MP for Brant. Now we’d like to see action. We continue to urge the federal government to come back. But the land claim is only one part of the solution. We need conversations to happen with the confederacy and the local residents as well—bringing all the community members together is a necessity at this point. Any solution to the challenges in the community has to come forward from the community, and we’re making it a priority to find those practical solutions.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I think we’d all agree that having those conversations is important. Many members of this House travelled around with the Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions and we heard exactly that when we travelled to First Nations communities. Now, constructive discussion and peaceful negotiations are obviously preferable to confrontation or unproductive negative commentary.

February 28 will mark the sixth anniversary of the events at Douglas Creek