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October 22, 2013

40th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2013-Oct-22 (PDF)

L074 - Tue 22 Oct 2013 / Mar 22 oct 2013

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 22 October 2013 Mardi 22 octobre 2013

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WASTE REDUCTION ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LA RÉDUCTION

DES DÉCHETS

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

ORAL QUESTIONS

JOB CREATION

JOB CREATION

NUCLEAR ENERGY

NUCLEAR ENERGY

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

POWER PLANTS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

POWER PLANTS

MINING INDUSTRY

CANCER TREATMENT

MINING INDUSTRY

HORSE RACING INDUSTRY

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

NUCLEAR ENERGY

SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION

WASTE DIVERSION

CORRECTION OF RECORD

CORRECTION OF RECORD

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

HEALTH CARE ACCOUNTABILITY

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

MELVINA WALTER

PAUL COOK

AUDREY TOBIAS

JEAN GOVE-CARBONE

HYDRO RATES

SCARBOROUGH RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE

SMALL BUSINESS

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

VISITORS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

NO NEW TAX FOR BUSINESSES ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 N’IMPOSANT AUCUNE NOUVELLE CONTRIBUTION

AUX ENTREPRISES

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION AMENDMENT ACT (SPECIAL WARRANTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR L’ADMINISTRATION FINANCIÈRE (MANDATS SPÉCIAUX)

GRAND JURIES ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LES GRANDS JURYS

PROVINCIAL OFFENCES STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (JURY TRIALS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES INFRACTIONS PROVINCIALES (PROCÈS DEVANT JURY)

SCHOOL BOARDS COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LA NÉGOCIATION COLLECTIVE DANS LES CONSEILS SCOLAIRES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

TEACHERS’ COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

CITIZENSHIP WEEK

TEACHERS’ COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

CITIZENSHIP WEEK

TEACHERS’ COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

CITIZENSHIP WEEK

PETITIONS

LONG-TERM CARE

TAXATION

DARLINGTON NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION

AIR-RAIL LINK

WIND TURBINES

DOG OWNERSHIP

AIR QUALITY

LONG-TERM CARE

PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES

LONG-TERM CARE

WIND TURBINES

HYDRO RATES

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ENHANCING PATIENT CARE

AND PHARMACY SAFETY

(STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT) ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

AFIN D’AMÉLIORER LES SOINS

AUX MALADES ET LA SÉCURITÉ

DES PHARMACIES

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WASTE REDUCTION ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LA RÉDUCTION

DES DÉCHETS

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 9, 2013, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 91,

An Act to establish a new regime for the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste and to repeal the Waste Diversion Act, 2002 / Projet de loi 91, Loi créant un nouveau cadre pour la réduction, la réutilisation et le recyclage des déchets et abrogeant la Loi de 2002 sur le réacheminement des déchets.

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

Mr. Rick Nicholls: It’s my pleasure again to rise and to finish my time speaking to Bill 91, the Waste Reduction Act. You know, Speaker, it’s actually quite fitting, as recycling seems to be the theme of the day. Yesterday, the Liberals announced a big, new initiative as they managed to say with a straight face that they will open government. They appear to have forgotten that they launched an open government portal a few years ago, but I guess it ended up in the trash like so many other Liberal promises.

At the end of the day, this Bill 91 ignores two main demands of the PC Party for a waste reduction policy. This bill does not remove the eco taxes, nor does it eliminate useless bureaucracy. In fact, Speaker, the bill opens the door to increased costs for both individuals and companies in the form of new taxes or fees.

Beyond that, it would actually increase bureaucracy—bigger government with more taxing power and less accountability. This is truly scary. It’s a very scary thought, actually, for the taxpayers of Ontario.

Waste Diversion Ontario has, time and time again, broken the trust of taxpayers across this great province of ours. Their ongoing failure should not be rewarded with a significantly larger budget and increased power.

So as I wrap up today, Speaker, I would like to highlight our party’s major concerns with this piece of legislation. First, it is unacceptable to members of this side of the House to increase the funding and authority of Waste Diversion Ontario. Slapping a new name on the sign on the door just isn’t enough. We should be reducing the size and cost of government to ensure our vital services are there when we need them.

Secondly, intermediary sections of the bill form an unnecessary interference in the market that will in fact end up driving up costs. The minister stated in his remarks that this bill seeks to “unleash the innovative energies of competition in the marketplace.” Upon closer inspection, we see that this really isn’t the case. These intermediary sections of the bill will hurt the market, limit competition and stifle innovation. They will do more harm than good and should be removed from the bill.

Thirdly, sections 44 and 45 of this bill will not be supported by our party. These sections pit municipalities against producers instead of bringing them to the table to find a solution that works for all sides. As the bill reads today, the waste authority would be permitted to impose new taxes and determine how much businesses will have to pay for the blue box program. We’re concerned that this will only serve to entrench companies and municipalities instead of promoting co-operation.

Finally, when it comes to scrapping of eco taxes, the promise to maybe get around to cancelling them at some point in the future doesn’t cut it. It’s not good enough to leave the wind-down of this unpopular program to the whim of the minister. As we’ve seen over the past decade, you need to get a Liberal’s word in writing to take it seriously. Even then it’s a bit of a stretch. We’ve been told time and time again that issues are being looked into or that rules will be put in place, without being given any concrete details. When it comes to the eco tax scheme, we need it ended as soon as possible.

The people of Chatham–Kent–Essex are tired of picking up the slack for Liberal mismanagement. When this government needs a little extra cash to hush power companies during election time or for a last-minute $500,000 gift to the friends of MLSE, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, they raid the pockets of taxpayers all over the province. The good people of my riding have said enough is enough. We cannot afford to continue paying for your mistakes.

Handing the power to increase eco taxes to an unaccountable authority that the government will simply use to deflect criticism is not something that I personally can support. The Ontario PCs favour a much more straightforward approach to waste reduction. Speaker, under the Ontario PCs, the government would set realistic and achievable recycling targets, establish environmental standards and measure results. That’s it, plain and simple.

On this side of the House, we actually believe that the Ministry of the Environment has the talent and personnel needed to oversee recycling in the province. If the minister were only willing to place his confidence in the staff at his ministry, I’m sure they would prove that they are more than up to the task. At the same time, this would save the province tax dollars without compromising service quality. It’s that kind of bold action that the people of this province expect, and demand, of their government. No need for additional boards, agencies or commissions. Set the targets, establish the rules of the game and simply measure the outcome. It’s really that simple.

Back in November of last year, the Ontario PC Party presented a better way forward to protect our environment, lower costs for businesses and to treat recyclable materials, not as waste but as valuable resources that we should recover and recycle into new products. With products such as tires, the market was able to yield a better recycling percentage than the current regime at a lower cost to Ontario taxpayers. By getting government out of the way of innovation and competition, we would allow the entrepreneurs and trailblazers of this province to revitalize.

At the end of the day, Speaker, this bill ignores two main demands of the PC Party for waste reduction and policy. It does not remove the eco taxes, nor does it eliminate useless bureaucracy. As I wind down, again I want to suggest that Bill 91 isn’t a bill that we, on this side of the House, can support.

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

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: I want to say that I’m happy to comment on the comments by the member for Chatham–Kent–Essex on the Waste Reduction Act.

One of the things we have to keep in mind when we’re talking about waste reduction is that it’s good for the environment and it’s good for communities and it’s good for families. When we’re going to reduce our waste and take that responsibility of making sure that landfills don’t continue to keep overflowing, we’re looking after the next generation.

So, Speaker, this a bill that we need to make sure gets passed in this House so it can go to committee and we can work on this bill and ensure that waste reduction is done responsibly by companies, and that consumers are aware, when they purchase an item at a store or a retailer, that they know that producer is going to dispose of that item responsibly.

So those costs about eco fees that the member was talking about are things that are going to have to be incurred, and that should be dealt with responsibly by the industry, so that when consumers go to buy their item, they’re not going to walk out of the store and get another bill for that service to make sure it’s disposed of. So something the industry does have to address is the eco fees and how to responsibly dispose of items.

Speaker, it’s about progress when we talk about our environment and reducing waste. I was actually reading something last night about how apartment units—multi-residential units—are better at waste reduction and leave less of a carbon print as well, and also how multi-unit residents actually use less hydro. It was very interesting. I was reading it in one of the renters’ magazines we get at our office.

Saying that as well, there are other issues we can look at about waste reduction: maybe affordable housing so that people do have an alternative for living as well.

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

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I rise today to pass comments on the comments that were made by the member from Chatham–Kent–Essex. Frankly, I didn’t hear anything in those comments that would lead me to believe that Bill 91 is not a bill that should be supported.

I think that today, modern business practices tell us that product stewardship, despite what has happened in the past and the awful job the opposition party did when they were in power—I think that now, when you look at modern economies around the world that have kept pace with consumer interest in ensuring that product stewardship is something that is built into a product during the lifecycle of that product, the cost to produce that product is taken into account and also the reality of the cost to dispose of that product at the end of its life cycle.

I spent 18 years on local council dealing with waste issues, dealing with recycling issues, often with a government that was more in the way than of any assistance. I see these changes to be very financially and environmentally sound. They’re the sort of changes that the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario has asked us to take. The opposition parties themselves, over the years, have said there are changes that should be made to the old waste diversion system.

Bill 91, I think, takes into account the modern realities of business today; that is, if you produce a product and you sell that product to the consumer, you should at the same time be thinking: What is the end of life for that product? What’s going to happen to that product at the end of its life? By including the fees in the actual price of the product, you actually incent those companies to be more economical, to be more effective and more accountable to ensure that that product is dealt with in a way that’s safe and responsible so that we know we’re not leaving a bad legacy for those people who are coming after.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments? The member for Prince Edward–Hastings.

Mr. Todd Smith: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and good morning to you. It’s a pleasure to rise and bring comments on the presentation by my good friend from Chatham–Kent–Essex on Bill 91.

Before I get started on my reaction to his comments, I would just like to say what a great job Quinte Waste Solutions is doing in the Quinte region in eastern Ontario. They’re the local provider, or collector, I guess—collecting agency—of recyclable materials, and they are the best in Ontario. So there you go. But there’s a lot of work to be done outside of the Quinte region. They’re the shining example of how things should be done when it comes to this.

Just a few comments for my friend Mr. Nicholls here. He’s right on the money: Bill 91 is going to actually kill jobs in the province of Ontario. If the member from Oakville wants to know why we’re not supporting this bill, that’s the main reason why. We’re talking about creating jobs in Ontario, and this bill is taking us in the wrong direction; it’s actually killing jobs. It’s going to create some public sector jobs, which is what we’ve seen from this Liberal government over the last 10 years. Some 300,000 manufacturing jobs have left the province of Ontario, and what have we created?

Some 300,000 more public sector jobs. Who’s paying for those jobs? It’s the people of Ontario, the taxpayers in this province. We simply can’t afford to continue to build bigger and bigger bureaucracies like this government has done—and they’re doing the exact same thing now with Bill 91.

You know what? All we have to do as a government is set the targets, achievable and realistic targets, for industry to meet. These products have a value, whether they’re tires or old electronics or the tin cans. They have a very significant value on the market, and these companies exist that will look after these and take care of these products.

We need to do better in the province of Ontario, not create more bureaucracy. That’s what this bill does.

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

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s a pleasure for me to respond to the comments from the member from Chatham–Kent. As the critic for economic development, I think this is actually a step in the right direction for creating jobs. It’s not surprising that the Conservatives once again stand up and say absolutely nothing and say no, because that’s the kind of fear-mongering that is consistently coming from that side of the House.

Let’s review what the experts actually say—who are definitely not on that side of the House. The Ontario Waste Management Association says that with every thousand tonnes of materials diverted, it generates 7.3 full-time-equivalent jobs, $711,000 in GDP and $360,000 in wages. The economic benefits are four times greater than the net cost to recycle.

Instead of standing up in this House and saying that this proposed bill will kill jobs, I think that we actually have to be honest about the missed opportunities. We share your frustration that in the last 20 years the progress on waste reduction and recycling has stalled. In fact, Ontario has one of the worst records. Instead of standing up and just saying no, why don’t you support it? Why don’t you get it to committee? Why don’t we make it better and stronger together? Actually, there are some tangible ways that we can do that in committee, because it’s a minority government and the people of the province sent a minority government to this place to try to get some things done.

The environmental benefits of waste diversion are significant as well. I think that on the environmental perspective, on the economic development perspective, we all have a responsibility to make this portfolio successful.

I look forward to further debate and hearing from the member from Welland on this issue.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member has two minutes to respond.

Mr. Rick Nicholls: Thank you very much, Speaker. I’d like to thank the members from London–Fanshawe, Oakville, Prince Edward–Hastings and, of course, the member from Kitchener–Waterloo for their rather bold comments and statements.

I thought, when I heard “the experts”—she didn’t tell us who the experts were, so I guess anybody can be an expert.

Actually, Bill 91, the waste reduction environment act—there seems to be a main theme here, and that main theme—I talked earlier about how it is pitting municipalities against producers. It’s kind of like the wind turbines, where they are pitting neighbour against neighbour and creating all kinds of havoc. It is a job-killer bill, and of course we don’t stand for something along that line.

Again, I’d like to make reference to people who are perhaps watching this at home. Don’t be fooled. Under Bill 91, you’re going to continue to pay massive eco fees to fund redundant Liberal bureaucracies. This is a bureaucracy that we feel is not needed.

Truth be known, as much as I do respect the Minister of the Environment for who he is, I can’t in good conscience support Bill 91, the Waste Reduction Act, in its current form.

I heard the member from Kitchener–Waterloo mention how the people of Ontario put us here to get things done in a minority government. The only thing I see happening in this minority government right now is a coalition that is alive and well. That particular coalition is stifling—

Interjections.

Mr. Rick Nicholls: Now we’ve got him a little bit upset—must be hitting a nerve.

It’s killing creativity, and it’s killing innovation in this province.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Pursuant to standing order 47(c), I am now required to interrupt the proceedings and announce that there have been more than six and one half hours of debate on the motion for second reading of this bill. This debate will therefore be deemed adjourned unless the government House leader specifies otherwise.

Acting government House leader.

Hon. Jeff Leal: Thanks very much, Madam Speaker. You’re doing a great job this morning. On behalf of the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Bradley, and his wonderful bill, Bill 91, I would certainly like debate to continue.

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

Ms. Cindy Forster: It’s a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to this Bill 91 issue. Bill 91 is a step in the right direction, I believe. I want to start by thanking all the members who have been insightful in their comments around Bill 91, particularly the critic for our party, the member from Davenport.

The current system of waste management is not working in this province, and it needs to be fixed. The burden is on municipalities and it’s on taxpayers. This bill addresses the fact that we need to recruit producers to help solve our waste management problems. It all starts in the beginning, at the production level: If we produce less waste, we have less waste to divert and less to manage. Innovation is key to realizing a zero-waste goal.

First we have to prioritize the three Rs. I think we always forget about that first one: We have to reduce before we reuse and before we recycle, and we create a process where there’s less to manage, making it easier to manage. This kind of reminds me of my nursing days and the five Rs: the right dose, the right patient, the right—

Interjection.

Ms. Cindy Forster: Yes, the same kind of theme.

In the past, we’ve shifted the burden of the responsibilities to municipalities and to taxpayers. They simply don’t have the resources or the capability to solve all of the waste issues in this province. To the credit of municipalities, they have made significant infrastructure investments in waste collection. They’re well-placed on curbside collection and other convenient waste diversion options for households, and they have shown themselves to be efficient collectors of waste.

I’m pretty familiar with this because I actually sat as a city councillor, as a mayor and as a regional politician, and I sat on the waste management planning steering committee at the region of Niagara. However, we cannot continue to place the majority of the burden on municipalities and on the taxpayer. It’s not a sustainable model.

This bill proposes shifting responsibility to the producer, and that’s the right direction. This is where innovations are actually going to happen. If waste management will affect the bottom line of a producer, they’ll look for new and efficient ways to make processes more efficient and financially viable. I don’t know about you—my colleagues have probably experienced this—but when you go and purchase, I don’t know, something that isn’t even breakable, and you open up the box and it’s got Styrofoam, it’s got cardboard, and it’s got this fancy box. In reality, it probably could have had some shrink wrap around it, and that would have sufficed to protect the product.

In this House, we talk about our wish to create jobs and to improve the economy, and this is one of those opportunities. Our member from Kitchener–Waterloo spoke about that in the two-minute hit, about the fact that Bill 91 will actually create some jobs that we sorely need. If we work together in this House instead of working against each other, and we bring this bill to committee and we make some important amendments, we can create a system that will not only serve to strengthen our waste management system but also, more importantly I think, our economy.

Right now this bill is just a scenario. I’ve seen it so many times in my two years here. The government brings forward a bill that is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go quite far enough. The PCs oppose it because they can’t be seen as propping up the government, as they say. The NDP want to work together to make the bill better and deliver results that our constituents expect. It’s like clockwork. It happens with every bill.

At this point, the PCs have to realize that no matter how much foot-stomping or nickel-spitting they do, an election isn’t about to happen. Bill 91 is not going to create a confidence motion or a non-confidence motion. So let’s take a step back, make the most of this bill, pass it and get it into committee, where we can actually make some amendments to it.

We need ideas from all three parties on how we can improve our waste management system. This isn’t an opportunity for a political game. It’s an opportunity to change the way our province works and to improve a system that has proven to fall short of what we actually need in this province. We have a chance here to work collectively towards a common goal: waste reduction.

We can all agree that the current system isn’t working and we need to fix it. So how do we fix it? As I said, I’ve been involved at municipal levels with respect to this. It’s not a sustainable system, and it’s time to address the situation. Ontario has the worst diversion record in the country: 75% of our waste goes to landfills, 23% gets diverted, 2% is recovered. But the good thing is, we know why. We aren’t starting from scratch. We have seen the system fail, so we can learn, from those failings, what’s wrong with the current system.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, producers have fought against government regulations on refillable containers, for example. Because producers weren’t responsible for their own waste, they were only worried about the bottom line of their production costs, and it ended there. They also weren’t responsible in terms of who was paying the freight, who was actually paying the money, and that was the taxpayers of this province.

In 1987, the Ontario government, with Minister Bradley as the environment minister once again, reached an agreement that allowed soft-drink producers to dismantle a 100% producer responsibility system of deposit refund and refillable containers, in return for a blue box program. So we are one of the few provinces without a deposit return program for beverage containers.

I can tell you that I lived in Alberta 30 years ago, and there was a deposit return system there for beer bottles, alcohol bottles, two-litre plastic bottles. You name it; they collected them and they got returned. Here we are, 35 years later, and we still don’t have that system up and running.

We’ve forgotten the hierarchy of the three Rs. “Reduce” is first, because if you prioritize reduction, it lessens the extent to which you have to rely on reuse and recycle. It may cost more to manufacture and produce refillable containers and innovate to discover new forms of packaging, but as we’ve seen, the effects of creating the cheap, garbage packaging that we’ve been producing for many years has ended up costing municipalities and taxpayers more money than they need to spend.

According to the Environmental Commissioner in 2010, the current programs “do not encourage producers to focus on waste reduction first, reuse second and recycling third.... there is no direct financial incentive provided to individual producers to reduce their costs through product design, such as designing a product that is easier and cheaper to recycle. The lack of ... financial incentives to improve product design can be an impediment” to getting to that zero waste.

Enforcement is another huge issue. The government currently lacks the authority and the oversight to set clear targets and to fine companies who don’t meet them. In order for the responsibility of waste management to shift to the producer, government oversight and authority is necessary.

Industry-funded organizations have tended to serve industry’s interests, keeping costs to producers down, rather than the public interests of minimizing waste and ensuring that producers cover 100% of the end-life management costs. Funding for blue box programs has fallen on cash-strapped municipalities, meaning that programs are too limited and not convenient enough for families.

When you look at various municipalities across the province or even across the country, the way that the recycling and the blue box programs are set up are very inconvenient for families. Depending on your municipality, sometimes the grey box goes one week, the blue box goes the next week; sometimes they only pick up twice a month. It’s very confusing for people. They have to separate all of the articles, so the cardboard has to be a certain size and it has to be wrapped in twine; the plastic has to be in one box; the newspapers have to be in the grey box.

It’s very time-consuming and very confusing for families who are just trying to get their kids to school and get themselves to work. There are other jurisdictions, however, that use a blue bag, and you can put everything but the kitchen sink into that bag and it gets sorted at some facility. Those jurisdictions are places that actually have a higher rate of diversion, where that kind of stuff is done in a facility, which also creates jobs.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Because it makes it easy.

Ms. Cindy Forster: That’s right; it makes it very easy.

A quote from the Ontario Waste Management Association talking about the oversight and enforcement: We heard from the Tories this morning that the bill is just setting up a new bureaucracy for government and it’s going to create a whole bunch of public sector jobs. It may create a few, and I’m glad, actually, that public sector jobs are available, because with the loss of all the manufacturing jobs that we’ve had in this province, at least the public sector jobs are paying a living wage to people.

The quote from waste management is: “The lack of proper oversight and enforcement of recycling standards in stewardship programs has been an area of continued concern.” This is from the Ontario Waste Management Association. “Under the proposal, producers would provide much of the oversight and enforcement of the Waste Reduction Act through commercial and contractual arrangements.

The concern is, producers have financial and political interests that may not always align with rigorous oversight, enforcement and the achievement of all the benefits foreseeable under the new act. [It] indicates that the new enforcement regime is fatally deficient as it fails to provide any oversight and compliance function relative to recycling standards for waste service providers for designated materials. Producers should not be made to be enforcers of waste reduction or waste service standards vis-à-vis waste service providers.

If these standards are worth enforcing, they are worth enforcing directly against all parties who are responsible for carrying them out, including waste service providers.”

We’ve seen in other sectors, such as unlicensed daycares, how toothless some government policies and inspections actually are, so here we are going into a new bill and I don’t think that we want to be giving this enforcement over to producers.

You know, time runs along very quickly. I’m going to just move now a bit to my area in the province, the Niagara region.

There are three ways to deal with waste in our province: the waste that goes to landfills, the waste that goes to gasification and the waste that goes to incineration. In all three of those cases, most people who live in municipalities—it’s a “not in my backyard” kind of thing, NIMBYism. People don’t want a landfill in their backyard. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have one. I actually have one in my riding of Welland; I have a landfill. That landfill was operated by the city of Welland for many years, and then there was a triple majority vote at the region and the region took on responsibility for waste management back in the mid-1990s.

At the moment, the region of Niagara is trying to get a lift, an elevation, of that landfill site. Most of the landfills have closed across the Niagara region, and all of that waste is coming either to Welland or it’s going to Grimsby. Grimsby landfill—they were kind of smart in their negotiations with the Niagara region; they put a clause in where they would only accept garbage from three surrounding municipalities as well as their own. Welland, at the end of the day, is actually getting the waste from across the whole of Niagara region to this landfill site.

This site, had it been left for Welland alone, would have lasted our municipality for 100 years. But because of the large tonnage that is coming in there, it’s about to close as well, in 2016, unless the environment assessment approves this lift. I can tell you, the people who live around that landfill site, the Welland south people—one of the oldest parts of the city—they’re not interested in having a lift. So that’s another reason why this bill is so important, because if we would divert more, our landfill sites that are there will at least last a few years longer.

I want to spend my last five minutes, though, talking about a meeting that I was at yesterday. I had the pleasure yesterday of actually meeting with Todd Case, county warden from the county of Lambton. Our leader, Andrea Horwath, and I actually met with Todd, and we met with John Innes, the general manager, and Ronald Van Horne, the chief administrative officer. They asked the leader of the third party and myself if we would actually try and get a couple of their issues into this debate, because they haven’t been getting much traction from their meetings with the government.

So the first issue—and this is related, Speaker, to waste diversion. It’s actually kind of a recycling plan. They have a proposed green energy project for the Twin Creeks landfill in the township of Warwick, where they want to use the gas, the methane gas, that is produced from their landfill site to produce energy.

Now, they’ve been talking about this plan—I want to say up front that they said, when the landfill actually opened in this area, they were not a willing host. So it was this kind of NIMBYism kind of thing. Since then, their community has kind of come on side, and they’re very interested in this gas-to-energy project.

They asked me if I would actually bring this up here, because they have been meeting with the government about this, I think, since about 2010, and they don’t seem to be getting much traction. There is no kind of application process for them to apply to at this point. There is kind of no criteria under the Ministry of Energy for them to even get this moved along.

They tell me that when this landfill site, which is 725 acres of land located—it employs 14 staff and seasonal construction workers. The site is fully operational, and the community strongly supports the proposal. They tell me that, at its peak, there would be enough power produced to power 7,200 homes.

Now, that isn’t necessarily their plan. Their plan would be to produce enough energy to actually attract some industry, because the landfill site is adjacent to their industrial park. So they would use this power and give industry a reduction in power rates, and that, in itself, would hopefully attract some business to their area.

I said that I would use some of my time here, because this is really kind of a good-news story. With provincial approval of a landfill site, methane gas is now at a point that they could achieve green energy production, but they don’t seem to be getting any responses to their plans from the Liberal government, so they hope that if we actually got this physically on the record, they might get some responses from the Liberals.

Ms. Catherine Fife: What’s the holdup? Come on.

Ms. Cindy Forster: I don’t know what the holdup is.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Seriously—50 green jobs. Real jobs, not fake jobs.

Ms. Cindy Forster: Yes, that’s right: 50 real jobs—real jobs paying real money.

The second issue that they asked me to raise—it’s related, as well, to landfilling. It’s about the taxes that municipalities actually get for landfills in their areas. I can tell you, it’s a pittance. The taxes that municipalities actually get I think need to be addressed. I understand that there are some negotiations, or some discussions, going on with MPAC at this point in time, but they also have been going on for a couple of years.

I also understand that some of the municipalities have come up with a new way to value landfills in municipalities that would properly compensate them and their municipalities for having landfills on their site and for having trucks running through their towns 10 or 12 times a day. I know that MPAC is one of those arm’s-length agencies, but I think that the government also needs to try and assist municipalities by moving this along and making sure that they are appropriately compensated for having landfill sites in their municipalities.

I’ll just close by saying that this week is Waste Reduction Week in Niagara. It’s a week when residents can learn more about waste reduction. I think that’s part of what this bill needs as well. We need to have more education and more awareness about waste reduction, about reuse and about recycling. The Niagara region is giving residents a chance to find out what happens to all the waste materials that are collected at the curb. They’re offering guided tours. It begins now, and it’s on until November 9. There’s also a drop-off location for reusable goods, and residents are invited to tweet the—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): I’m sorry; the time has expired. Comments and questions.

Mr. John Fraser: I’m pleased today to speak to Bill 91, the Waste Reduction Act. During the debate, as it has gone on, it’s quite clear that inside here, we all agree that the current system is flawed, and there’s a consensus that we need to do something different. That’s why we have the Waste Reduction Act.

The most important principle in the Waste Reduction Act, I think, is that producers become financially and economically accountable for recycling the goods they sell in Ontario. This is important because it puts rigour into the system. It creates an environment for innovation, for reduction of packaging, for using different methods to package and sell products.

The other things that are key in this act are that it’s going to boost recycling in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector, starting actually with paper and packaging waste, which is something which fills up our landfills; we all know that. We do know the success of the blue box program, which is another important aspect of this bill. It’s going to create greater producer funding for the blue box program, which is going to ease the burden on municipal taxpayers and municipalities.

It will also improve oversight and accountability of recycling by clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the individual producers, the provincial government, the municipalities and a new Waste Reduction Authority.

The other thing about recycling is that it creates jobs. Recycling products creates more jobs than just dumping them into a landfill.

I’m encouraged by the debate that we’re having in the House. I’m glad to stand in support of Bill 91.

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

Mr. Michael Harris: I think it’s important to lay out on the line here some of the facts that the members beside me and perhaps opposite haven’t been listening to over the course of this debate. I think it’s important that we talk about jobs, talk about the fact that the Liberals’ best attempt to come up with a job strategy is actually saddling industry and manufacturing with a half a billion dollars in new costs every year.

That’s not a jobs plan, Speaker. You know what? To create a job in the waste management industry, the Liberals actually think, and they’re supported by their friends in the NDP, that they need to kill thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector. This view of the economy shows why the Liberals have, in fact, lost 300,000 good manufacturing jobs over the last 10 years.

Of course, the Liberals’ partner in crime, the NDP, supports creating a half a billion dollars in new costs for Ontario’s manufacturing sector. That means that NDP supports killing jobs in factories and cities across Ontario like Hamilton, London and Kitchener. Not only that; they support forcing hundreds of millions of dollars onto the backs of consumers, who are already saddled with high fees and costs that they’ve incurred over the last 10 years. We’ve outlined numerous amounts of those.

Just for the record, we put forward a plan. We’re not stomping our feet on the ground; we’re proposing—in fact, last November, we talked about how we would create jobs in the recycling industry without sacrificing Ontario’s manufacturing sector. We would start that by scrapping the Liberal eco tax program—one that, of course, the NDP supports—and eliminate the government’s useless recycling bureaucracy.

We believe that businesses should do their part to recover and recycle materials into new products, but rather than create complicated bureaucracy and massive new costs for consumers, we would simply create the right conditions for economic growth. We would do this by having the environment industry set measurable and achievable recycling targets for certain materials, establish environmental standards, measure the outcomes and enforce the rules. That’s it, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member for Kitchener–Waterloo.

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s a pleasure to comment on the 20-minute comments from my colleague from Welland on what this bill can actually accomplish and why it’s so important, and why it’s so important not to just stand by and, yes, not necessarily stomp, but not put forward any solutions. When you actually don’t participate in the process, you can’t make it stronger at committee. Anyway, we’re going to try to do that, because we actually feel that that’s our responsibility.

You just heard—if you were listening—the member from Welland comment on a very progressive municipality, Lambton, that has come to the government. Now, they haven’t necessarily been listened to by the government, but it’s a minority government; we can help them out. They have a jobs proposal around harnessing the methane gas, which is now at a point to achieve green energy production. So you have progressive voices across the province who want leadership and action on waste diversion. I’m really happy that member from Welland brought up this particular example. We have an issue with methane gas in landfills because we have not had leadership on this portfolio for 20 years.

The province of Ontario landfills 9.4 million tonnes of waste a year; 5.4 million tonnes were deposited in Canadian landfills, and then we sent another 4 million tonnes to US landfills. In some ways we are actually exporting jobs. Landfills emit millions of tonnes of methane annually, a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide.

You have a municipality here that has found a green solution to deal with the methane that will also attract jobs to the region of Chatham and create green jobs, and then you even have the municipality onside so you don’t have to move gas plants around like chess pieces.

So let’s listen to the progressive voices at the municipal level. Let’s get this bill to committee, and let’s make it stronger.

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

Hon. James J. Bradley: I was very pleased to hear of the very constructive approach that the member for Welland has taken in her remarks. It is very encouraging to see that.

There was some considerable—I won’t say unprecedented; that’s probably too strong a word—consultation that went on before the legislation was presented to the House or even constructed. We really thought the Ontario Waste Management Association, which encompasses a lot of groups, were particularly helpful in their suggestions. I consulted as well with the critics from the New Democratic Party and from the Conservative Party to receive their ideas. I would like to see this bill as one which is a bill of the House rather than any particular minister or any particular government. I think a lot of legislation would be beneficial if we took that approach.

Whenever you bring forward legislation of this kind, you’re going to have people with a vested interest—and I don’t say that in a negative sense—who are going to come to all of us and say, “Well, if you do this, it will be detrimental to our particular group,” and you’re going to see that happen. What you have to do is try to look at the total picture of how it will affect Ontario. A Waste Management Authority would be an authority which is financed by the producers; that is, those who actually produce the waste in the first place, rather than from the grateful taxpayers at large.

I want to address one comment that comes up quite often, and that is the idea of refillables. In their five years in power, the New Democratic Party did not change to that, and for a very good reason. What happens if you go to a totally refillable system is you take that which is valuable out of the blue box and the blue box is much less attractive. That’s why Ruth Grier and Bud Wildman and others would not have done it on that occasion.

Thanks to all the members for their help in this regard.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member for Welland has two minutes to respond.

Ms. Cindy Forster: I’d like to thank the members from Ottawa South, Kitchener–Waterloo, Kitchener–Conestoga and St. Catharines for their comments.

I think I just want to spend this two minutes talking about: Where do we go from here? There seems to be a concern that there’s a trend of moving government decisions out of the public realm. I heard the member from St. Catharines talking about that there has been considerable consultation, but generally when there is consultation, it’s the people who have a vested interest or who have deeper pockets that attend those consultations. Many individuals and groups lack the resources or the knowledge to participate in that.

There’s also a concern that there will be significant delays in getting the regulations in place and that it’s moving far too slowly already. Given that there has been all this consultation, there’s no need to delay moving forward, getting regulations in place and making sure that we quickly have this process in place to make sure that the waste is being diverted immediately and not five years down the road.

So often, people have narrow interests that are served by weak regulations. We’re certainly proposing that those regulations need to be strong and that we need to serve the broader public interest—the people that are paying the taxes every day in this province.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak to Bill 91.

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

Mr. Todd Smith: It’s a pleasure to rise again and speak to Bill 91.

Before I begin my remarks, let me just tell you this brief story that I came across while I was at the Quinte Sports Centre in Belleville over the weekend. I was standing with a bunch of parents who had children on the ice for a hockey practice. They were headed to Syracuse, in the next couple of weeks, for a friendly matchup with the team from Syracuse. One of the dads was there, and he was planning his trip to Syracuse. While he was in Syracuse, what he was going to do was plan a visit at a tire shop in Syracuse, a garage down there, so that he could get four brand new tires on his vehicle.

Keep in mind: Syracuse is not in Ontario. Syracuse is in northeastern New York. It’s quite a distance from Belleville, I might add. It’s about two and a half hours, probably, to get this done. I can tell you, I live in the Quinte region in Belleville, and there are a lot of garages in the Belleville area that would be happy to put tires on that vehicle, but this gentlemen had done his research and he told me that he was going to save $200 if he went down to Syracuse to get the tires on his vehicle changed. I just want you to keep that story in mind as I move along in my remarks on why Bill 91 is a bad thing for the province of Ontario.

The minister just said moments ago that there are special interests or people with vested interests, but we have to look at the greater good for all of Ontario. I can tell you, if people like this individual are heading down to Syracuse or Watertown or maybe across the border to Gatineau, or down in Windsor they’re heading over to Detroit, and in Sarnia, across the bridge there into Michigan—this is happening all over the province. The reason that this is happening is because it’s cheaper. It’s cheaper to go across the border. And why is it cheaper?

It’s because of the decisions that have been made by this government over the last 10 years, and now we have another one that’s going to potentially kill more jobs. I want you to think about that story as I move through my remarks here on Bill 91.

It is almost laughable if it wasn’t sad to think that this government is calling this a jobs bill. As a matter of fact, it is a jobs bill: It’s a job-killer bill. While we may create a few jobs, a handful of jobs, in the public sector to go out and police these kinds of activities, how many jobs in the private sector are we going to kill in retail, in manufacturing, in industry? They’re going to disappear, because people are going to start to go south of the border, or they’re going to buy on the Internet, which is happening when it comes to our electronics, and they’re not having to pay these eco fees or eco taxes.

This bill is creating more government employees. There’s no doubt about it. They’re creating a larger bureaucracy, as I mentioned earlier this morning. Their own Ministry of Finance, on the Liberal side—their documents show that 122,000 of those jobs, or a city roughly the size of Kingston, are government employees. When you’ve effectively turned government into the only growth industry in the province, it’s pretty easy to create jobs. All you have to do, if you’re the government, is cut another cheque. Keep in mind, though: Our bank account is pretty much empty.

The Auditor General laid out in pretty stark terms exactly how easy these guys on the other side of the House find it to write a cheque. In the words of one member of the press, when it came to the cancelled Oakville power plant, the government “wrestled TransCanada to the ceiling” during negotiations—a $1.1-billion boondoggle and a waste of money for taxpayers in Ontario.

No one that I’ve spoken to about this Bill 91 is denying the fact that individual producer responsibility is a laudable goal for both the government and industry to move toward. It’s called IPR, individual producer responsibility. There are very different ideas about how we get there.

But this has all the hallmarks of being another major Liberal boondoggle. First of all, check one: create an unaccountable government bureaucracy with enforcement authority and an unknown budget—check. That’s what they’ve done here.

Let’s go to number two on the checklist: balloon the size of the public sector by creating dozens of new government employees—check. And I would suggest that “dozens” may be a little bit conservative.

Number three: harass, harangue and interfere with the operation of small businesses—check. We’ve seen this time and time again from this government. They’re making it impossible for businesses to do business in the province of Ontario. We saw last week a story come out about the College of Trades, and our member from Simcoe North asked a question yesterday about the fact that the College of Trades now has cops, essentially, that are going out there and demanding another tax from small businesses. We are just absolutely harassing our small businesses in this province, and it can’t continue or we’re not going to have any business left here.

All of that, that I just mentioned—and I haven’t even hit on the eco fees yet. Up until now, these eco taxes have been on the receipts of consumers, and that’s caused some backlash against the government because when they go to the till or they go to the retail counter, it does, as a matter of fact, say “eco tax.” Not a day seems to go by when a constituent isn’t contacting my office, my constituency office in Belleville, or they send me a message on Facebook or Twitter about the eco fee that they just paid on a television set or, as I illustrated earlier, with a set of new tires for their vehicle. For a television set, they’re paying $40 to $50 in an eco fee.

Parts of my riding are home to a large population of seniors. One of the great retirement areas in Ontario is in Prince Edward–Hastings. For anyone on a fixed income, every little bit counts, and that eco tax just digs a little deeper.

This government, rather than continuing to own eco taxes, has decided to simply bury them in the price so that consumers direct their anger at the business owner for what they think is an inflated price instead of at the government that’s actually responsible for imposing that price.

I touched earlier on the creation of a sizable new bureaucracy as well to enforce this policy. Really, it wouldn’t be a Liberal idea unless the money was being wasted somewhere, Madam Speaker. While no one is all that happy with the current set-up under Waste Diversion Ontario, the proposed set-up creating the Waste Reduction Authority has the potential to be a lot worse than what we’re experiencing now.

As I stated earlier, we’ve got a brand new bureaucracy that’s been left totally unaccountable. This is from the same government that brought you Ornge, Madam Speaker. The government plans to give this agency enforcement powers with the authority to set and collect fees from businesses which will then be passed on to consumers as part of the eco tax displayed on a product’s price tag.

There are some far-reaching powers granted to this new agency as well. Not only will it have the power to impose and collect fees from producers; it has the ability to expand its own scope of affected products and employ inspectors who are mandated to impose fines rather than ensure compliance, and it will also function as a dispute resolution mechanism. So you’ve got a self-funding government bureaucracy, with no oversight, that has the power to tax, fine, inspect and resolve disputes.

It amazes me, Madam Speaker, that after eHealth and after Ornge and after the Pan Am Games stories that have started to trickle out, and all the other scandals that this government has wasted money on, no one else seems to see the incredible potential abuse in creating another government agency with that broad a scope of authority.

But our friends from the NDP choose to bury their heads in the sand and continue to support these ideas that I know they know, in their heart of hearts, are going to end up as another Liberal boondoggle. At some point, throwing good money after bad has to sound like a bad idea to somebody other than us here in the Progressive Conservative Party. But then again, this government has yet to meet a cheque that it wouldn’t cut, or couldn’t cut, and leave to the taxpayers to pay for afterward.

What oversight is suggested by the bill is put entirely in regulation, which, as we all know, is code for “red tape” in the province. Currently, Ontario’s small and large businesses face over 380,000 different pieces of regulation and red tape. The province has over 630 agencies, boards and commissions now, and those agencies, boards and commissions have increased by 300% under the current government. Only this government could think that one more is going to make a difference.

We have regimes that work right now in Ontario, we have regimes in Ontario that need to be fixed, and this bill takes neither into account. It’s only taking a bad situation and making it worse. There’s no mention of existing best practices, no mention of reducing cost to consumers. This is a way for this government to be seen to be doing something. It’s meant to take a little heat off the government when it comes to eco taxes.

Just remember my story, Madam Speaker, about the gentleman going to buy tires in—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Comments and questions?

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I have to say that my colleague from Prince Edward–Hastings has raised a good point in the fact that oversight is an issue that I think we need to turn our minds to. Though I support Bill 91 in the sense that it’s moving in the right direction, there are certainly things we can improve on, and one area in particular is this notion of oversight.

We have seen time and time again in other areas, in other services, in other sectors of this government that oversight simply hasn’t been done, and the examples are plentiful—for example, Ornge and eHealth—so I think we must turn our minds to it.

I think, as a party, we’ve been proactive in this, in that, instead of retroactively looking at mistakes we’ve made—which is important, and which is what the Auditor General does—we also need to be proactive, which is why the Financial Accountability Office will provide some assistance.

Specifically with respect to this, we have an opportunity now, when this bill goes to committee, to ensure we have proper steps and proper legislation in place that will ensure that this new organization, the Waste Reduction Authority, does receive the proper oversight and does have the proper accountability mechanisms. We can do that now. We have the opportunity to prevent anything from happening in the future, so let’s take the advantage of having seen other organizations and the mistakes that have been made, in the sense of lack of oversight, and ensure that we implement those protections now.

But I think that to suggest this bill is going to kill jobs or is a job killer isn’t accurate, given what we know about waste and the way we’re handling waste now. We need to address this issue. It’s something that has been 20 years unaddressed and in the making. Moving forward on this, I think we can certainly improve the—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further comments?

Hon. Jeff Leal: I was intrigued by the comments this morning of my friend from Prince Edward–Hastings.

Now, if somebody in his riding is looking for a tire deal, let me tell you about one. Trevor Dodds has a little operation in Mount Pleasant, Ontario. I just brought four brand new Cooper tires from him for my Jeep, and I also got a rebate. When I did that investigation of tire prices, they’re amongst the lowest in Ontario. So I want to encourage his constituents: Trevor Dodds in Mount Pleasant. Trevor will give you a heck of a deal: four new Cooper tires for a real value. So, Trevor, there’s business to be done right there, and I encourage the member from Prince Edward–Hastings to send his constituent there.

Hon. James J. Bradley: Even though the federal government raised the limit you can bring back.

Hon. Jeff Leal: The Minister of the Environment is absolutely correct. But let me tell you: The safe handling of tires is very important. The Minister of the Environment will know that, back in the late 1980s, we had the famous Hagersville tire fire, which had a tremendous economic impact in the greater Hamilton area. We’ve got to make sure that we have proper disposal of tires in the province of Ontario to avoid the Hagersville problem. In fact, a company in Cambridge, Ontario, takes those tires and turns them into recycled material.

Let me tell you: The new artificial surface at Trent University in Peterborough is made up of those recycled tires. That’s a great way to recycle that particular product.

Just while I’m talking about Peterborough, I’ll get a couple of plugs in today. Just recently, the city of Peterborough was recognized as having the highest diversion rate of any city in the province of Ontario—a very important tribute to Mayor Bennett and his team in Peterborough. Just recently, we’ve taken the methane gas from the Bedford landfill site and we’re now turning that into electricity.

I just want to highlight all the good things that are going on in my riding of Peterborough. Bill 91 will continue to push those forward.

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

Ms. Sylvia Jones: I appreciate providing some feedback on Bill 91, particularly related to my colleague from Prince Edward–Hastings’ excellent presentation. I’m really pleased that he raised the concerns about how much of Bill 91 is left to regulation. It’s a bit of an ongoing theme for me, but the reality is that regulations can be changed very quickly and with very little input. There’s no public participation that is needed for regulatory change or implementation, which is actually the case with Bill 91.

What we have are very generic pieces of legislation that we as legislators are expected to debate, and yet all of the details are in the regulations which we do not have privy to or access to. With the greatest of respect, I actually question whether the Ministry of the Environment has drafted the regulations yet.

We’re only dealing with half the picture, and it concerns me greatly that we are expected to vote, debate, discuss and offer amendments on Bill 91 when the entire picture is not there. I would like the minister to actually bring forward some of the ideas that he has for the actual specifics in the regulations. That would allow this debate to be more fulsome. It would allow this debate to have a lot more value to the stakeholders, the municipalities and ultimately the consumers who are going to be impacted by Bill 91.

I’m really pleased that my colleague from Prince Edward–Hastings raised the concerns with the regulations. I would hope that the minister would take that very proactive, positive suggestion and bring forward some of his ideas so that we can actually look at the details in Bill 91.

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

Ms. Cindy Forster: I want to thank the member from Prince Edward–Hastings for his comments. However, I want to respond to the one about the NDP burying their head in the sand. In fact, it is the exact opposite. We have worked very hard over the last two years while the PCs have sat here and done nothing except enter into a programming motion for Bill 74 that blew up in their faces and has backfired. We’ve got the Premier backing away from support for Bill 74. You have bills in there that would have passed in any event without having to form a coalition with the Liberals, which you accuse us of every day.

In fact, we’ve achieved results for Ontarians over the last two years: in the areas of daycare funding; rural and small hospital funding; increases for home care; youth employment strategies; transitional funding for horse racing, which kept it going to now; and auto insurance rate reductions. All of those things were done because we were working hard for the people who live in this province trying to get some results over these two years.

To say that we buried our head in the sand—I would say it’s the PCs who have actually been burying their head in the sand, doing nothing and getting no results for anybody in this province—

Ms. Catherine Fife: Not even yourselves.

Ms. Cindy Forster: —not even yourselves; that’s right.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: It’s not about us; it’s about the taxpayers.

Ms. Cindy Forster: It is about the taxpayers, and that’s why we’ve worked hard in these two years to actually get results for the people in this province.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member has two minutes to respond.

Mr. Todd Smith: Thank you to the members from Bramalea–Gore–Malton, Welland, my colleague from Dufferin–Caledon and the Minister of Rural Affairs for their comments on my comments this morning on Bill 91.

The facts speak for themselves. If we continue to overregulate and if we continue to create unaccountable bureaucracies in this province, we’re not going to have a province left. We’re headed down the road to financial ruin in this province, and we’re driving small businesses and manufacturers out of Ontario.

What has happened over the last 10 years under this Liberal government is, we’ve seen the deficit increase to multi-billion-dollar deficits year after year, and we’ve seen our debt double under Dalton McGuinty, Kathleen Wynne and the Liberal government here. What we’ve continued to see in this Legislature is the third party supporting this government, which we know is morally bankrupt.

They have added to our deficit and they have added to our debt because, every year, when it comes to the time to make a decision as to whether or not we’re going to have a new team in charge, this third party continues to support a government that we know is corrupt and continues to drive our debt and our deficit through the roof, and waste billions and billions of dollars on scandals like eHealth and the $1.1-billion boondoggle. I don’t know how much more evidence they need in the third party than the bombshell that was dropped two weeks ago that $1.1 billion was wasted on the Oakville power plant scandal.

But no, “Everything is hunky-dory. You know what? We’re going to trust them to bring in another unaccountable bureaucracy, and we’re going to trust them because you know what? We don’t have what it takes to pull the plug.”

We have a team, we have a plan for this province and we need to make it happen.

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

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): It being close to 10:15, this House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1012 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Hon. Jeff Leal: It’s my pleasure to introduce in the gallery today Mr. Tim Williams. Mr. Williams works for the Ministry of Natural Resources, and his daughter Sophia Williams started here as a page at Queen’s Park. She’s a grade 8 student at Adam Scott in Peterborough. We certainly welcome Mr. Williams today to view question period.

Ms. Laurie Scott: I’m pleased to introduce Wayne Hutchinson—Wayne, give us a wave up there—from the riding of Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, more specifically Fenelon Falls. Wayne, thanks for joining us this morning.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member for Windsor–Tecumseh.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, you met page Evan Tanovich. I want to point out today that in the members’ gallery we have his mother, Melanie, his Aunt Jennifer and his very proud grandparents, Dr. and Mrs. Tanovich. Thank you for coming.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, in so many ways I cannot say. I’m very excited, as you know: Louis Frank, from my constituency of Toronto Centre, is one of our pages, and in the gallery is his mother, Naomi Frank. I’d like to welcome her. We share great pride in her son’s accomplishment.

M me France Gélinas: It is my pleasure to introduce to you my intern from OLIP, who will be with me until February. His name is Taylor Lew, and he’s sitting in the west gallery with us this morning.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): At this time, I would like all members to join me in welcoming our group of pages. If they would assemble, we will introduce them.

From Nickel Belt, Jack Derrenbacker; from Essex, Benjamin Diab; from Pickering–Scarborough East, Arianna Dossa; from London North Centre, Jake Drewitt; from Brampton-Springdale, Gurleen Dulai; from Toronto Centre, Louis Frank; from Carleton–Mississippi Mills, Phoebe Gao; from St.

Catharines, Ian Hauber; from Mississauga South, Victoria Meola; from Etobicoke North, Anal Patel; from Haldimand–Norfolk, Owen Ricker; from Oakville, Nicholas Edward Scarcelli; from Markham–Unionville, Sarhan Shafaque; from Kitchener Centre, Kate Strathdee; from Windsor–Tecumseh, Evan Tanovich; from Thornhill, Helen Wang; from Peterborough, Sophia Williams; from Toronto–Danforth, Tristan Winfield-Hicks; from Richmond Hill, Aiden Wong; and from Windsor West, Christina Zhang.

These are our pages.

Applause.

ORAL QUESTIONS

JOB CREATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Premier. Premier, in the nine months that you’ve been Premier of the province of Ontario, we have yet to see any kind of jobs plan to help out the almost one million people who have no job to go to this morning. But in the absence of a jobs plan, you have brought forward 36 different panels for consultation. You have not made the tough decisions to clear the way for job creation. You have not made the difficult but necessary decisions to get spending under control, but you’ve made a lot of decisions basically to postpone making decisions with 36 different panels.

There is clearly a void of leadership in the province of Ontario. Premier, why is it the only way you can get a good job in the province of Ontario is to be on another Liberal panel?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: In response to the first question from the Leader of the Opposition, I will just mention, Mr. Speaker—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Excuse me, Premier.

I’m going to start right away, but I’m going to say both sides, because—the Minister of Rural Affairs, the Premier is answering, and I can’t hear her because of you. I would also mention to each of you that just because she stands up, it doesn’t mean you start yelling.

Carry on, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I would have thought that the Leader of the Opposition would have been supportive, for example, of a $70.9-million investment in Ford that will allow Ford to develop a global platform that will allow them to be competitive around the world right from Oakville. I would have thought that he would have been very supportive of investing $17.6 million to support business in regions across the province, leveraging $133 million in investments and creating 2,800 jobs. I would have thought that he would have been supportive of that. I also would have thought he would have been supportive of supporting manufacturing in their attempt to buy new technology and be able to write those costs off.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Halton, come to order, please.

Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Thanks, Speaker. I think the Premier missed the essential point of my question. There’s certainly time for consultations and there’s certainly time for conversations, but eventually the rubber has to hit the road. You have to make the tough calls. Here’s the difference between your leadership style and mine: When you come to a tough decision, you appoint a panel; I make a decision, and I get things done for jobs in the province of Ontario.

Premier, you did increase the size of your cabinet by 23%. You have a very large cabinet compared to historic standards. I think there are 27 different ministers. I’ve got to ask you: If you’ve appointed 36 different panels, what the heck do your 27 cabinet ministers do all day?

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Further evidence of our plan: We’ve already placed more than 1,500 young people in jobs as a result of the youth employment fund. New jobs since February: Over 60,000 new jobs since February have been created. We’ve introduced the small businesses act, but the PCs are actually stalling that piece of legislation—legislation that would help small business to be able to expand, to be able to hire more people. It would help them with their payroll taxes, but the Progressive Conservatives have apparently not seen fit to support that piece of legislation and to move it forward.

We do have a plan, Mr. Speaker. We’ve got a plan that invests in people, that invests in infrastructure and creates a business environment that brings investment to the province and creates jobs, but we are not going to adopt their plan. We are not going to cut and slash across the board. That’s not the way to the future for Ontario.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: Every decision I make is viewed through the lens of what it will do to create jobs, what it will do to grow our economy. I’m proud that we’ve put a plan on the table that will actually get Ontario first in jobs and last in debt, because right now it’s the other way around. I think of the students who are recent university or college graduates who thought they’d be making the world by now in the province of Ontario who are back home with mom and dad and who are deep in debt.

All we have seen from the Liberal government are more studies, more panels. It’s up to 36.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of Training, College and Universities, come to order.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Surely, 36 panels in nine months has to be some kind of record. I guess all these panels will be reporting in time for your economic statement. We know the economic statement is coming, and finally that economic statement will be a game-changer. We’ll finally see the Wynne Liberal plans.

So, Premier, are all 36 panels reporting before the first week of November, or are you going to kick this can even farther down the road?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I’m happy in the final supplementary in this question to respond to the issue of consultation because if the party opposite, when they were in government—of which this member was part of the cabinet—had consulted, if they had talked to anyone about the sale of the 407, if they had talked to anyone about cutting social assistance rates, if they had talked to anyone about amalgamating cities and amalgamating school boards—

Interjections.

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

The member from Halton, come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): In case the member from Halton missed it, I spoke to you directly.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: Would you like me to respond?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You were to come to order and not argue with me.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: I’m sorry, Speaker.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): And that could end your day here.

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: If the party opposite had turned their chairs outwards and talked to the people who understood how cities work, how social assistance works, how the sale of assets works, we in this province would be in a very different position. But the decisions that were made by that government undermined the social fabric of this province, and I will not apologize for talking to people—

Interjections.

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

New question.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: I guess we now understand what the cabinet ministers do because the panels are doing all the work: They’ve learned to clap once in a while. I wish they would do a job and help create some actual jobs for people in the province of Ontario.

Premier, you’ve described your philosophy: You think your job is to turn the chairs outward. I think that was the phrase you used. I think our job is to create jobs and to grow our economy and get Ontario moving again.

You seem to define jobs by how many panels you can construct. Look, it’s getting to the point of ludicrousness, Premier. I mean, you appointed a panel to study taxes for transit, and then you appointed a panel to study your panel. You can’t make this stuff up.

So let me ask you again. Enough of the panels; 36 has to be enough by far. Will you actually bring forward a comprehensive plan to grow the economy and create jobs and table your economic statement?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Of course we’re going to table our economic statement, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to that document.

What I do not think is rational is to look at a plan, as the PCs would, which would fire 10,000 education workers—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Nepean–Carleton come to order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —would fire 2,000 health care workers and would—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): As you continued talking, I asked you to come to order, member from Nepean–Carleton.

Carry on, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —would drive wages down with harmful right-to-work legislation, Mr. Speaker. That’s not where we’re going to go. What we’re doing is creating jobs. We’ve already placed more than 1,500 young people as a result of the youth employment fund. We’re working in regions across the province. More than 60,000 jobs have been created in the province because we’re investing in people. We’re investing in infrastructure that the opposition doesn’t seem to want to support, but that infrastructure is across the province—

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

Just before the supplementary: The member from Northumberland–Quinte West, come to order, and the member from Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, come to order.

Carry on.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, respectfully, leaders make decisions. They make the hard choices. They don’t keep kicking the can down the road. Quite frankly, you can’t lead the province of Ontario from behind a panel. It’s time to make the calls. I think it’s fair for us to expect that after nine and a half months of delay we’re going to see that. I imagine the economic statement is going to be a watershed moment for the province.

Here’s a concern I had. There was a panel created by your predecessor—the Drummond commission. I think Don Drummond and his advisers did some very good work for the province of Ontario. And with everything we know, I think the vast majority of the recommendations could have actually moved us towards balance. You’ve rejected 80% of the Drummond commission’s recommendations. You’ve tossed all the tough calls down the road. So let me ask you: Why do you create all these panels, and panels to study panels, when you’re not going to listen to the recommendations at the end of the day? Is this a recipe for further drift in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The Leader of the Opposition is simply wrong. We have implemented more than 60% of the recommendations that Don Drummond put in place. Don Drummond recommended that we look at the delivery of physiotherapy services. Don Drummond said we should look at the way horse racing was run in this province. We have made serious decisions and we have implemented, as I say, more than 60%.

If the Leader of the Opposition chooses to read the fall economic statement, unlike his choice not to read the budget, he will see that we are going to continue to refer to Don Drummond and the recommendations that he made. But that is not the only way forward. We must make investments in people and in infrastructure, and we have to talk with business to make sure we create an environment that is going to allow them to thrive. That’s what we’re doing.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, respectfully, you talk about moving forward. You can’t move forward when you’re paralyzed. You can’t move forward when you’re studying everything to death. You have paralysis by panel over there—36, for goodness’ sake. I want to know why you ran to be Premier and leader of the Liberal Party in the first place if you didn’t know the direction you wanted to go.

Our point is clear: to create an Ontario that leads Canada and North America in job creation again. We put our plan on the table to get energy costs under control and taxes down, to tear down the regulatory burden in the province of Ontario, to modernize our labour laws and to balance the budget. We’ve laid out a plan. You don’t need another panel. The plan is done, and if you’re not prepared to lead, then move out of the way, because we are. We’ll make sure that Ontario moves forward and rises again.

Interjections.

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

Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I’ve answered this question in a number of ways, and what I have said is that I am not prepared to cut and slash as the Leader of the Opposition would propose. But, again, I want to look at the assumption underlying this question, and that assumption is that it is not worthwhile for government to speak to people who have expertise in sectors across all endeavours, and I believe that that is a very, very dangerous idea to put into the political discourse.

If, as government, we decide that we have all the knowledge within these ranks, that we can just turn our chairs inward and talk to each other, then we will make mistakes. We will make the kinds of mistakes that that government made—we will amalgamate cities against their will, we will sell off assets and we will cut social assistance. We’re not going there.

Interjections.

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

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. Can the Premier tell us how much public money the government has already spent on now-abandoned plans to build new nuclear plants?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: At the present time, nuclear is producing just over 50% of the energy that we have. The existing long-term energy plan projected down to about 47% use. Our projection by cancelling new nuclear construction is that we will still be generating somewhere between 45% and 47%.

New nuclear is not required. New nuclear is costing us $15 billion. If the leader of the third party wants to increase rates, wants to put that cost on the rate base, then that is going to push it up out of sight.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the government has conceded that $180 million so far was spent on their nuclear expansion plan before it was abandoned earlier this month. Does the Premier actually stand by that $180-million figure?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: In preparation for new nuclear, when it was in the existing long-term energy plan, very significant environmental assessments were done. As a matter of fact, an environmental assessment was approved for new nuclear. That new nuclear approval survives for 10 years going into the future. In subsequent long-term energy plans, if new nuclear is going to be required, they already have a licence in place, Mr. Speaker. It is an option on the future, when we look at every-three-year renewable long-term energy plans.

It’s the right thing to do. It’s us not spending $15 billion when we have surplus electricity to create more electricity. Nuclear will remain.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I’m going to try again, Speaker. It won’t surprise the Premier and the Liberal Party over there to hear that people of Ontario, the people stuck paying the bills, have a hard time believing this government when it comes to the cost of electricity decisions.

Is the Premier ready to put those numbers to the test, the $180 million that they will admit to that has been spent, and now those plans have been cancelled? Is that government prepared to put those numbers to an independent review?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: We have been very transparent with respect to the costs. It is there for everybody to see.

Mr. Speaker, it is the right thing not to build new nuclear at this time. It’s going to cost $15 billion, and we don’t need to create that new generation when we have a surplus. Moving forward, we’re going to be doing refurbishment. Refurbishment will create 15,000 jobs—15,000 jobs. Moving forward to push rates down, we’re not building $15 billion in generation. To move rates down, we have removed $3.7 billion from the Samsung contract. We’re doing the right thing for the ratepayer.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock, please. I’m going to remind all members that I continue to insist that you use their titles properly and their ridings properly. I’ll start to interject even stronger if it continues. I want it stopped. It becomes a spiral down.

New question.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Premier. Last week, New Democrats wrote to the Auditor General asking that she look at how much money was spent on the Premier’s nuclear plans. The auditor indicated that that wasn’t a call she could make on her own, but she made it clear that the Premier could. Yesterday, the Premier said she wanted the government to be more open and transparent. In fact, I think I just heard the Minister of Energy say those very same words, Speaker.

Will she call in the Auditor General so that we can get a real sense of how much the government wasted on the latest electricity misadventure in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I think the Minister of Energy has been quite clear that the costs that have been incurred are costs to get information that will be useful going forward, Mr. Speaker. That is not money that has disappeared; that is money that has been spent on getting environmental assessments and information that we will use going forward in terms of developing a long-term energy plan.

I think what’s surprising is that the leader of the third party doesn’t believe that it’s a good thing to make a decision on new nuclear when we are clear that it is not needed at this time, that it would cost $15 billion and that that would drive rates up. I would have thought she would think it was a good idea to find ways to bring those costs out of the system, Mr. Speaker. That’s the decision that we’ve made, and if the leader of the third party wants information on how that money was spent, the Ministry of Energy will be happy to provide it.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Ontario families and businesses are stuck paying the highest electricity prices in this entire country, and when they look at their government for help, they see a Liberal Party defending a status quo that isn’t working and scrambling to hide the evidence of their mistakes.

The Premier wants to be open and transparent. Will she call in the Auditor General to get some answers on this mess?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, we are doing the opposite of defending the status quo. We’ve made a decision that actually reverses a path that was not the right path to be on.

The leader of the third party talks about increasing energy costs. What we’re saying is, yes, that’s not a good thing. If we don’t need to spend $15 billion on new nuclear, then why would we do that? We’re taking those costs out of the system.

I think that it is very clear that there is no plan for an energy future coming from the third party. We have a plan. We have made a decision on new nuclear, and if the leader of the third party wants more information on the information that has been gathered to date, we will get that information for her.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The information New Democrats want, and that the people of Ontario want, is how much the Liberals spent on a plan that they’ve now cancelled. The mess in Ontario’s electricity system is hitting people hard. It’s costing us jobs. It is draining household budgets.

People who look at the government for some leadership see a tired Liberal Party, scrambling to hide the facts even while they claim they are open and transparent. Will the Premier take one simple step today and call in the auditor to look at this latest electricity mess?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: My understanding is that the Auditor General Act allows the Auditor General to determine what she looks into. If the Auditor General wants to look at this particular issue, it is entirely up to her to do that.

The fact is that, in energy, there has to be planning. The Minister of Energy has made it clear that, right now, there is no need for us to invest in the immediate- to mid- to longer-term future in new nuclear. That’s $15 billion that does not need to be spent, that the leader of the third party thinks should be spent, even though that would cause rates to go up.

What we believe in is finding a way to take costs out. If that new nuclear does not need to be built, then we should not build it. I understand that there are members within that leader’s party who agree with this position.

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

Mr. Douglas C. Holyday: My question is to the Premier. Premier, your setting of a new panel now on openness and transparency is no more than an admission of the fact that openness and transparency under your government does not exist, and the fact that you need to do something about it is apparent. But what you’re doing is really just stalling the matter. You’re trying to confuse the voter, and I think it’s high time you gave the voter an opportunity to have a say in this.

The only thing standing between you and the exit door are your friends here to the left and the fact that you won’t stand up and give the voters of Ontario an opportunity to have a say. When are you going to give the voters of Ontario an opportunity to have a say?

Interjections.

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

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I’ll answer the question that I think was embedded in that little diatribe. I would think that the member for Etobicoke–Lakeshore would remember the days when it was actually impossible to get a meeting with a Conservative cabinet minister to talk about amalgamation of the city of Toronto, for example, or to talk about the amalgamation of school boards that really caused havoc across the province. I would think that the member for Etobicoke–Lakeshore, who was a pretty prominent person in Etobicoke at the time, would remember the damage—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Attorney General will come to order, and the member from Nepean–Carleton will come to order, please.

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: He would remember the damage that was done by a government that refused to consult, that refused to talk—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m going to do this. The Minister of Rural Affairs will come to order. Last chance.

Carry on.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —to people who knew about the issues on the ground.

So I’m not going to apologize for being a government that understands that talking to people outside the walls of this building is a very important aspect of making good decisions. We will continue to talk to people who know the issues on the ground.

Interjections.

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

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m glad you’re anxious, and I want to go to you, but there are people talking while I’m trying to get attention.

Supplementary?

Mr. Douglas C. Holyday: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My supplementary is to the Premier again. Premier, this has gone on long enough. There have been 36 panels that you’ve set up in nine months to review matters. Obviously, you cannot make a decision; your group can’t make a decision. It’s time the people of Ontario were given the chance to make a decision. When are you going to do it?

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Government House leader.

Hon. John Milloy: You know, Mr. Speaker, it’s a little rich, coming from that side of the House that wants to talk about transparency, especially from that particular member, who, last time I checked, opposed the same gas plant that he likes to go on about and is right now involved in a dispute with his former role at city hall.

We have a party opposite which likes to go on and on and on about what has been going on with the gas plant issue but still refuses to have its candidates come before the committee and talk about the costing that went into its decisions, the decisions that they made very clearly and very aggressively that the only way the gas plants would ever be cancelled would be if the Leader of the Opposition became Premier. They went all over the place in the campaign, talking about that, and yet they refuse to go in front of the committee and talk—

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

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m in the middle of a sentence. Would you mind?

The member from Toronto–Danforth.

POWER PLANTS

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is to the Premier. Today Liberal members in the justice committee spent the morning trying to discredit the auditor’s report. I’ll be clear: We take the independent auditor at her word. Is the Premier directing committee members to discredit the auditor?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know that the government House leader is going to want to speak to the supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

I want to just be very clear that we accepted the findings of the Auditor General. I appreciate her work. The questions that are being asked at committee are not being directed by my office; they’re not being directed by me. As I said before, we accepted the findings of the Auditor General, and I look forward to working with her on other issues.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Premier, given that today the Liberals called one of the civil servants involved in the gas plant negotiations, to try and discredit the auditor, and that Liberals tried to get him to defend costing, which undermines the auditor, you have to ask—even the previous Premier didn’t attack the auditor in this way—why is the Premier launching an unprecedented attack on our independent auditor?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Government House leader.

Hon. John Milloy: It is this Premier who asked the Auditor General to look into the Oakville situation and report back to the Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, the committee is seized with the issue, and I think it behooves members on all sides of the House to explore her report, to call forward witnesses and to further examine her analysis that was put forward.

Speaking of examining analysis, we still await the NDP analysis. Why did that very same member who asked that question go around opposing the Oakville plant, opposing the Mississauga plant, and yet refuses to discuss the costing that the New Democratic Party undertook when it made that commitment? The New Democratic Party was as vocal as the PC Party, saying that if they were elected, they would cancel the plant. I think it’s time they came clear with the costing and the analysis that they undertook.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: My question is for the Minister of Finance. Minister, during the constituency week, which was this past week, my office received emails and phone calls from my constituents about the increasing cost of auto insurance. This issue is not a new issue; it has been there for quite some time.

Minister, as you know, in 2011 and then again in March 2012, I brought my private member’s bill that, by cracking down on fraud, we can lower the auto insurance rates. Our government brought reforms and created an anti-fraud task force. The rates came down. And last week, I noticed that rates have come down, but that is a modest reduction. My constituents want to see further rate reduction.

Minister, can you tell my constituents what our government is doing to reform the auto insurance industry and lower the rates?

Hon. Charles Sousa: The member from Mississauga–Brampton South, Amrit Mangat, is absolutely right. Auto insurance rates in Ontario are too high, and thanks to her leadership, she’s championed this by providing a private member’s bill over two years ago on this very issue. I appreciate her tireless commitment to this important issue and her involvement in our government’s ongoing efforts to bring down auto insurance rates in Ontario.

Last week, auto insurance rates were released. For the third consecutive quarter, rates came down. It’s just the beginning. The stabilization of rates is a direct result of our reforms that were implemented in 2010, and we’re on track to see even further reductions.

These initiatives have helped ensure that we’re fighting not only fraud to get rid of excess costs in the system, but that we’re seeing results of those actions to reduce those rates.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: I agree that rate stabilization is important. Premium costs must be controlled. While the reforms that our government has undertaken have stabilized the rates, still the rates are significantly higher than other jurisdictions. And we all know that cars are no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. We need to drive to go to work, to do our groceries and pick up our kids. Families are struggling to keep up with the rising costs.

My constituents want to see further reduction and for our government to take concrete action. Can you please further speak to our government’s ongoing efforts to lower the rates that we announced in budget 2013?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Again, thank you to the member. We’re determined to reduce the costs of auto insurance rates in Ontario drivers by an average of 15%. This summer, we provided the regulator the authority to require those insurers to file for lower rates. Insurers have already started to file for lower rates with FSCO.

Mr. Speaker, we’re also continuing to tackle fraud. We’re taking steps to license medical clinics, to fight fraudulent claims and lower costs.

This coming January, we will see the results—the first results—of our actions. With the measures of our government, and my colleagues, we have put in place what we expect to be a rate reduction of several percentage points, and it will be our first step on our path to bring down rates by 15%.

POWER PLANTS

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the Premier. You like to talk a good game on consultations and listening to people, and you’ve set up these 36 panels. But let’s look at the history of these gas plant scandals, Speaker. I think she needs to listen to what the public wants responses to.

She was the chair of the campaign that made the decision to cancel them. She signed the negotiation contract from the cabinet table. That government withheld documents from my colleagues in both sides of this House who were trying to get information. They obstructed the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Now they’ve created a panel who I’m not sure if it is trying to open government, or trying to figure out ways they can close it even more.

Earlier today, Serge Imbrogno, the deputy minister at the Ministry of the Environment, told us that the government knew all along that it would be $750 million or more to cancel that Oakville plant.

So you say you like to talk and listen to people. If that’s true, why won’t you go out to the people and finally get a mandate from them?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Government House leader.

Hon. John Milloy: The honourable member wants to talk about history. Let’s share some of the favourites here: “The people of Oakville have told you they don’t want the proposed gas-fired power plant ... and I agree with them”—the member from Halton, Hansard, June 1, 2010.

“Oakville residents have called on you to change the location of the proposed Oakville power plant.... I have listened to the people of Oakville, and I agree with them”—the member from Halton, Hansard, September 14, 2010.

“Minister, will you move the Oakville power plant? ... I am asking the minister to consider moving this plant”—the member from Halton, press release, September 14, 2010.

“I was pleased when it was cancelled”—the member from Halton, Hansard, October 19, 2010.

“It was sad that it took so long for the government to listen to the people of Oakville ... it was nice to see that decision overturned”—the member from Halton, Toronto Sun—

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

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Speaker, I’d like to buy an N, as in, “No one cares about your rhetoric.”

I’m asking a serious question of the Premier of Ontario about how she has been riddled with closing down a government to the people that she represents and that she hasn’t sought a mandate for. We’re simply asking her to get that mandate from the people, because they are tired of your $1-billion boondoggles on the gas plants, on OLG and at eHealth.

Ladies and gentlemen of this assembly, this is a Premier who has made a career out of hiding information from this assembly. I am simply asking: Will she stand in her place, will she call an election and will she make sure that the mandate from the people is spoken in this assembly?

Interjections.

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

Government House leader.

Hon. John Milloy: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I have a quote from the mayor of Oakville, Mayor Rob Burton, from a month or two ago, and this is an exact quote: “On October 5, 2011, on the day before the provincial election, in front of the still under construction Mississauga power plant, PC leader Tim Hudak promises to stop the power plant if he wins the election, after only days before warning that he’s sure it ‘may cost another $1 billion.’ Later, in 2013, he insists it was irresponsible for then-Premier McGuinty to have cancelled it ‘without knowing what it would cost,’ even though it cost far less than Hudak says he” thought it would cost, when he himself promised in 2011 to cancel it.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): New question. The member from Manitoulin and—yes.

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question is to the Premier. Last year, the Premier went up to Sudbury to announce that the government had reached a deal with Cliffs, and that it would create hundreds of mining jobs from the Ring of Fire. Only a year later, it has finally become clear that not only did this government not have a real deal with Cliffs, but the company is about to pull out of Ontario because of the mess this government has made of the Ring of Fire development plans.

Why is the government misleading the people of Ontario with this promise of fictitious—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member will withdraw.

Mr. Michael Mantha: I’ll withdraw.

When will this government, in fact, develop a plan for the Ring of Fire and implement it?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Natural Resources.

Hon. David Orazietti: I’m pleased to respond to the member’s question. Certainly, I would think that the member is not suggesting that the government intervene in what has become a legal dispute with respect to one of the companies. I know the member is not implying that. What we are doing, though, is, we are prepared to work with any company who is coming forward to help develop the Ring of Fire and to create jobs in this area.

I have full confidence in Justice Iacobucci, who is seized with the negotiations on this, as well as Bob Rae, who is representing the First Nations in the area. I know that the Premier and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines have met with the Matawa Tribal Council and the First Nations, because they are an integral part of ensuring that this development proceeds and moves forward.

We understand that this is a sizable, very significant development in the province of Ontario, and it will take some time to get this right. Our government is committed to moving this project forward.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary: The member from Algoma–Manitoulin, with my apology.

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question, again, is to the Premier. The Ring of Fire is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the people of Ontario, but it requires transportation, electricity prices, environmental guidelines and consultation—leadership by this government. The Liberal government’s lack of action sends a bad message to companies who are willing to invest in Ontario.

The question is simple: When will we see a real plan for the Ring of Fire development that benefits northern communities, First Nations and Ontario?

Hon. David Orazietti: The member is oversimplifying what is a hugely complex issue in the development of northern Ontario and the Ring of Fire that has the potential to benefit us for decades and decades to come, and benefit First Nations communities. We need to get this right. I have every confidence in Justice Iacobucci and Bob Rae, who are leading the negotiations with the First Nations and are very involved in all of the specific details of this proposal. The Minister of Northern Development and Mines is committed to working with all parties, the communities.

We think there’s tremendous potential for the community of Greenstone to play a very significant role in this development to bring new jobs and new opportunities to Ontario.

While the member might dismiss what he believes is very simple, this is a complex issue that our government is committed to moving forward, and we believe we’ve got the right people at the—

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

I would ask that some of the conversations that are going on in between while the answers are being put or the question is being put to stop, please.

New question.

CANCER TREATMENT

Mr. Phil McNeely: My question is for the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. Unfortunately, too many of us know loved ones who are currently fighting cancer or who are no longer with us because of it. When we hear of loved ones who are diagnosed with cancer, all we can do is wish them the best and hope that they receive the best treatment possible.

Earlier this year, we heard disturbing news of chemotherapy underdosing. It was good to know that the minister took immediate action on this. The appointment of Dr. Jake Thiessen to investigate and report on the causes of the underdosing of chemotherapy drugs was a positive step forward.

Dr. Thiessen’s report was released late this summer. Speaker, through you, could the minister tell this House what action has been taken in response to his recommendations?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you to the member from Ottawa–Orléans for this very important question. Speaker, no Ontarian should have to go through what the family members and patients who experienced this underdosing went through. Nobody should have to go through that.

We need to make sure it does not happen again, and that’s why we appointed Dr. Jake Thiessen to give us advice on how to make sure that something like this does not happen again. Yes, Speaker, this was independent advice that we got from a panel. I want to thank Dr. Thiessen for his hard work. His recommendations are sound; I endorse them all.

Our ministry established a task force to oversee the implementation of 11 of the 12 recommendations he made, and I was pleased to introduce legislation that directly responds to the 12th. I’m bringing it forward for second reading later today. This legislation, if passed, would empower the Ontario College of Pharmacists to oversee and inspect hospital pharmacies.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Phil McNeely: Thank you, Minister. I’m pleased to hear we are taking action on Dr. Thiessen’s recommendations. In his report, he commended the health care system for its fast and appropriate response to this situation.

However, this incident exposed concerns beyond what’s in the proposed legislation, particularly around an apparent grey area in oversight of some drug compounders. Ontarians should always know that they are receiving the best-quality health care; they should never have to second-guess the medical services that they receive. It is important that as a government we continue to address the concerns of Ontarians, including the oversight of some drug compounders.

Could the minister tell this House what steps she has taken to address these concerns and continue to ensure that as a government we are protecting patients?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: As we learned more about this situation, it became apparent that the company which mixed these drugs was overseen neither by the College of Pharmacists nor Health Canada. So working closely with the college, our government stepped up and moved quickly to approve a regulation extending the college’s oversight to large-scale drug compounders. I’m pleased to report that these drug preparation facilities have now been inspected: All of them have passed, and the inspection reports are posted online.

In the long run, Dr. Thiessen has recommended that this situation demands a national solution. I understand that Health Canada is currently considering a nationwide inspection regime for drug compounders. My ministry has co-operated very closely with Health Canada. I look forward to working together with Health Canada as we find ways to further protect patients.

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Norm Miller: My question is to the Premier. You continue to promise that a government under your watch will be more open and transparent, yet on the mining file that’s not the case. Since you have been Premier, more information has become available through the media than from the government or the ministry on what is being done to get the Ring of Fire moving. We have a negotiator that you appointed, we have the Ring of Fire Secretariat you created, several ministries with overlapping responsibilities, and no real progress on the ground.

Premier, now that we have cleared the deck and jobs are waiting to be unlocked in the Ring of Fire, what are you going to do to make it become a reality?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I want to reinforce what the Minister of Natural Resources said, which is that we have a lot of faith in the folks who are involved in building those relationships and in the negotiation with the First Nations. But I want to be clear that it is a very complex thing. I don’t know if the member opposite is aware of how many First Nations communities are involved, whether he’s aware of the need to make sure that the social supports and training supports are in place so that First Nations young people and residents of communities can take

part in this economic growth, and whether he understands that there are a number of companies who have vested interests.

There are a number of moving parts. I can tell you, drawing on my time as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, that if we do not get this right in the first instance, if we do not build these relationships and make sure the training and supports are in place, then we will not be able to develop the Ring of Fire. It’s as simple as that. So we’re going to get it right. We’re going to—

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

Mr. Norm Miller: Again, to the Premier: Just yesterday, Premier, more bad news. One of the major players in the Ring of Fire, Cliffs Natural Resources, described the project as being in a “tenuous state.” They went on to say, “If the company doesn’t have a transportation route, it doesn’t have a project.”

Premier, these are jobs waiting to be unlocked that are being put in jeopardy by your bungling of this file. What are you doing to ensure access to the Ring of Fire?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: There are a number of disputes and issues that have arisen because of, as I said, the complexity of building the infrastructure. Again, if you’ve ever flown over this part of Ontario and spent time—I had the opportunity this summer to be paddling north on the Attawapiskat River to a place where the land of the Ring of Fire begins—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: It is an intricate environmental landscape. It’s laced with water and land. There are enormous concerns about the watersheds and the environmental issues, and, as I say, the ability of the First Nations communities to take

part in the economic development and to be partners. We’re going to get this right. We are not going to move ahead until we have all of those issues—

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

HORSE RACING INDUSTRY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. When it comes to saving jobs at the Fort Erie Race Track, the Premier throws around accusations of playing politics, but it’s her government who is playing fast and loose with the livelihoods of 600 people at the Fort Erie Race Track, not to mention $7.9 million worth of spin-off jobs that depend on horse racing in Niagara.

The Premier insists she wants to help rural Ontario. When will she stop hiding behind her panel, take ownership of her government’s decisions and reconsider the economic consequences of cutting out the Fort Erie Race Track?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I think that the work that has been done on the horse racing file by John Snobelen, Elmer Buchanan and John Wilkinson is a perfect example of government needing to turn to people who have expertise, have relationships within the industry and are able to give us advice that quite frankly has put us back on a sustainable trajectory for the horse racing industry.

I am very pleased that we have made a decision to put $400 million into the horse racing industry over the next few years to allow the horse racing industry—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, come to order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —which I think is a critical part of the culture and history of rural Ontario, but it goes way beyond that. There are tens of thousands of jobs, and we want to make sure that the horse racing industry is sustainable.

The Fort Erie Race Track has the opportunity to work with the ORC. I have said clearly that horse racing needs to be integrated into the work of the OLG, and I look forward to them having a bright future.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, the Premier whistle-stopped in the Falls and in Niagara-on-the-Lake last weekend, but if she would have found her way down to Fort Erie she could have heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. People in Fort Erie are scared of losing their jobs, their savings, their cars, their homes, their kids’ tuition, their farms, their everything.

Last Tuesday at the track, one couple squeezed my hand and looked into my eye and told me that if there’s no racing in Fort Erie next season, they’re going to lose their life’s work.

The Liberal plan to ram private mega casinos into cities over Ontario isn’t working, and it’s causing real damage in communities like Fort Erie. Is the Premier ready to admit that she was wrong, allow the Slots at Racetracks Program to continue, and work with the Fort Erie Race Track so it can keep people working and help the Niagara economy?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I have said repeatedly that there is the opportunity for Fort Erie to work with the ORC to make sure that there is a future for Fort Erie, and it is up to that conversation to come up with a plan to go forward.

Our responsibility was to look at the whole horse racing industry. My predecessor put in place a group of people who knew the industry and gave us advice, and we have now got a plan that will take us forward. There is no plan coming from the NDP in terms of how to have a transparent, sustainable horse racing industry. We have that plan in place. It is going to be possible for racetracks across the province to have a future, as well as the breeders, and that means that there will continue to be jobs and there will continue to be a horse racing industry in Ontario.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Ms. Mitzie Hunter: My question is to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Libraries are a cornerstone of every community. Strong library systems translate into strong communities, as they contribute to the education, literacy and lifelong learning for Ontarians of all ages. Our public libraries help children learn, provide resources for students and assist small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Minister, as part of Canadian Library Month, just yesterday you and I launched the Ontario Public Library Week at the beautiful Cedarbrae library in my riding of Scarborough–Guildwood. This is an excellent chance for everyone to celebrate the many resources and experiences that our local public libraries provide to our communities.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, can he please explain what our government is doing to promote and support our libraries across the province?

Hon. Michael Chan: Thank you, Speaker, for the question. I want to thank the member for helping me yesterday to kick off the Ontario Public Library Week.

Across the province, people gather together at their local libraries to take

part in the fun activities planned for library week. The theme for this year is Libraries Connect. This is the perfect way to describe the role that libraries play in communities all year round. Libraries are about connecting people to information, services, the world of literature and, most of all, connecting people to each other by providing a space for them to come together, interact and share their love of learning. Ontario’s public libraries hold over 160,000 programs annually.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Mitzie Hunter: Thank you for that response, Minister. In my diverse community of Scarborough–Guildwood, there is no doubt that the Cedarbrae library is providing services that are valuable to our community. In fact, they have—in 11 languages spoken—library areas that are providing that service.

These libraries are the hub of our community and our province, and it’s great to see that our government is proud to support them. As we continue into the digital age, where so much information is readily available on the Internet, it’s easy to forget that libraries are still a great source to learn and to provide programming from the wonderful people who run them. Yesterday, we could definitely tell that they serve a very important role, not only for children but for their parents and for all Ontarians.

Minister, you are supportive of Ontario libraries, and I saw that yesterday. Speaker, through you to the minister, what is the Ontario government doing to ensure that the funding to our libraries is sustainable?

Hon. Michael Chan: Thank you again, Speaker, for the question. As part of the 2013 Ontario budget, our government is strengthening its support of the library sector by increasing the base operational funding of its two key library agencies. We are funding $400,000 to the Southern Ontario Library Service, for a total of $3.1 million, and $60,000 to Ontario Library Service–North, for a total of $1.56 million. This increase will help ensure the stable delivery of programs and services in the library sector.

My ministry has also committed to funding an additional $1.8 million per year for e-resources in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Since 2003, we have committed over $435 million in support of public libraries.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mr. John O’Toole: My question is to the Premier. Premier, you’ve messed up the entire energy file. You cancelled the gas-powered generating stations in Oakville and Mississauga; you cost Ontario taxpayers and electricity consumers over $1 billion. First, you tried to cover up the costs of the cancellation; then you said you were sorry.

Premier, last week you suddenly cancelled the two nuclear reactors planned for the Darlington generating station. This has cost Ontario Power Generation and the taxpayers of Ontario over $180 million. Your decision to curtail this project cost jobs and investment opportunities for Clarington, Durham region and indeed for Ontario. Premier, you apologized for the gas plant fiasco. Will you now apologize for the cancellation of the Darlington new build project?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: First of all, nuclear energy is going to continue to be the baseload for Ontario. It is now over 50%; the present long-term energy plan that was adopted in 2010 moves it down to 47%. It’s going to stay in that range.

In the meantime, speaking of refurbishment, refurbishing Ontario’s nuclear capacity will create almost 25,000 jobs and generate $5 billion of annual economic revenue for that member’s community. We’re going to work with that community; we’re going to ensure that it’s not short any jobs. The refurbishment will make up a tremendous amount of that. The refurbishment of Candu reactors will allow Darlington to continue operating until 2055—job security until 2055. It’s right to cancel new nuclear; we don’t need the power. We ought not to be spending—

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

Mr. John O’Toole: It would be more appropriate if you could simply trust this government over here, a new minister particularly.

The former energy minister, Chris Bentley, visited Durham in June 2012. He described the agreement with Westinghouse and Candu Energy as a good first step for Darlington. He was quoted in the local media saying that these early agreements with OPG were very important steps. He said Darlington would “provide clean, reliable cost-efficient power for decade