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February 22, 2012

40th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2012-Feb-22 (PDF)

L014 - Wed 22 Feb 2012 / Mer 22 fév 2012

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Wednesday 22 February 2012 Mercredi 22 février 2012

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ATTRACTING INVESTMENT

AND CREATING JOBS ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 VISANT

À ATTIRER LES INVESTISSEMENTS

ET À CRÉER DES EMPLOIS

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

ORAL QUESTIONS

PUBLIC SERVICES

PUBLIC SERVICES

TAXATION

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

JOB CREATION

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

RENEWABLE ENERGY

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

PUBLIC TRANSIT

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE

ENERGY POLICIES

FIRE SAFETY

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ACTON EMPLOYMENT

RESOURCE CENTRE

NORTHERN ONTARIO

FAMILY DAY

KRAFT HOCKEYVILLE 2012

ONTARIO PLACE

LAND DEVELOPMENT

ADAM HOLMES

ISLAMIC CIRCLE OF NORTH AMERICA

JOE BAHRO /

ALBERT CORACE

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

SECURITY FOR COURTS, ELECTRICITY

GENERATING FACILITIES

AND NUCLEAR FACILITIES ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LA SÉCURITÉ

DES TRIBUNAUX, DES CENTRALES

ÉLECTRIQUES ET DES INSTALLATIONS

NUCLÉAIRES

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BROCK

DAY ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE JOUR

DU MAJOR-GÉNÉRAL SIR ISAAC BROCK

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

SÉCURITÉ COMMUNAUTAIRE /

COMMUNITY SAFETY

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

COMMUNITY SAFETY

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

COMMUNITY SAFETY

PETITIONS

ANIMAL PROTECTION

WIND TURBINES

DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

CLIMATE CHANGE

LONG-TERM CARE

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

LYME DISEASE

KIDNEY DISEASE

HYDRO DAM

WIND TURBINES

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

HEALTHY HOMES RENOVATION

TAX CREDIT ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE CRÉDIT D’IMPÔT

POUR L’AMÉNAGEMENT DU LOGEMENT

AXÉ SUR LE BIEN-ÊTRE

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ATTRACTING INVESTMENT

AND CREATING JOBS ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 VISANT

À ATTIRER LES INVESTISSEMENTS

ET À CRÉER DES EMPLOIS

Resuming the debate adjourned on February 21, 2012, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 11,

An Act respecting the continuation and establishment of development funds in order to promote regional economic development in eastern and southwestern Ontario / Projet de loi 11, Loi concernant la prorogation et la création de fonds de développement pour promouvoir le développement économique régional dans l’Est et le Sud-Ouest de l’Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Trinity–Spadina.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I’m very happy to make a contribution to this debate on Bill 11. And there’s so much to say, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Just to explain briefly what the bill does, the bill provides the government with the legal framework to continue the eastern Ontario development fund and create a new southwestern Ontario development fund to promote economic development in southwestern Ontario.

I want to say from the outset that we will be supporting the bill, obviously, but we have a series of criticisms that we think the Liberals need to look at and/or correct, and I will speak to those four points in a little while. But I want to say, overall, that I have some concerns about where the government is going, where it went for a long time along with my Conservative brothers, who are committed to market fundamentalisms, and indicate some of the problems connected to that.

Mr. John O’Toole: Fundamentalisms?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I was friendly, I think. I think some of you guys agree with that. If you disagree, please let me know.

I want to indicate that both Conservatives and Liberals have made gross errors when it comes to giving away billions and billions of dollars to corporations without any obligations on those corporations. I consider that to be an egregious mistake.

Toby Sanger, an economist, said that we have given away—not we; you Tories and you Liberals—$20 billion in corporate giveaways from 1999 to the present. That’s a whole lot of money. I can’t even count those zeros, but the fundamentalists can count those zeros. Twenty billion dollars just given away. And the idea of giving away taxpayers’ money, citizens’ money, is that those dollars would create jobs. Why else would Tories and Liberals give our money away? And the evidence is not there to show that jobs have been created. Now, if you listen to Tories, they’ll keep saying, “We need to cut further.” God bless them. And Liberals, unfortunately, have been following the same footsteps.

There was a time when I had a friend in this Legislature, who was a Liberal, who used to agree with me. If I may speak or quote from my former friend:

“What the Conservatives are asking us to do is to cut corporate income taxes—those are taxes on profitable corporations—by $2.3 billion.... That definitely means” —and he’s very affirmative; he says, “That definitely means closing hospitals, firing nurses, cutting education.”

Mr. John O’Toole: That’s Bob Rae you’re talking about.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It could have been.

“It means driving up tuition fees. It means cutting the Ministry of the Environment and the like”—meaning there is more—“and it means running a deficit.”

Can anybody figure that name out? Can any Liberal indicate who that might have been?

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer: Bob Rae.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Bob Rae—it’s another past.

M me France Gélinas: D.M. are the initials?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Sorry?

M me France Gélinas: D.M. are the initials?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It was the Premier.

Mr. John Yakabuski: I’m just going through your list of former friends. I haven’t got there yet.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I have so many former friends.

That was Dalton McGuinty, and it wasn’t long ago. How quickly can a Premier change his mind on something where he was very definitive, where he said, “That definitely means closing hospitals, firing nurses, cutting education. It means driving up tuition fees. It means cutting the Ministry of the Environment” and so on? How could the Premier have changed his mind so radically, so revolutionary—not even evolutionary, but so revolutionary—in a short period of time? Who changed his mind? Who did he speak to that he could have been so definite about what he said and that within a space of a couple of years, lo and behold, he was cutting corporate taxes?

I don’t get it. I don’t understand those things, because it seemed to me that he was lucid at the time, that he had the capacity to understand, and that the little grey cells at the time were working. Within a couple of years, the grey cells simply disappear. I don’t get that, and I’m worried about him, you see? I worry about him.

But I worry more about the little guys out there who are affected by his policies. It’s the little guys I’m worried about, those who earn $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000. Those are the people I worry about, because as we enrich the very wealthy, we, by the very connection, make a whole lot of people poor outside in society.

Just to tell you, in the last couple of years, the Ontario government says that corporate income taxes will hand $535 million to banks and $135 million to insurance companies, because they need our money. You understand banks are in trouble, still. Even though we’ve been through this recession, the banks quite proudly say, “We’ve been spared because of our management practices, unlike America, Europe and so many other countries.” Our Canadian banks still need a break because they’re doing badly. God bless. I’d like to be a bank and make a couple of bucks the way they are.

Mr. Taras Natyshak: Bank of Rosie.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Rosie bank. That’s on top of the $520 million provided to banks through the elimination of the capital tax—God bless—another gift. We just give it away to those who have, because the capital tax—those poor people who own so much capital, so much money; we need to cut the capital tax because they deserve it, they work so hard. We don’t work hard. Regular folks don’t work hard. Bankers, they work hard. Yes, sirree, and we’ve got to cut their capital tax and we’ve got to cut their corporate taxes because they work hard. Even though they manage the economy well, we’ve got to give them some more so they can pay their workers so little.

When my daughter started working at a bank when she was 26 or 27 and she was making—I think she started out at 26,000 bucks as a bank teller. I said, “Steph, what are you doing working in a bank? Why would you, with a four-year degree, work in a bank making 26,000 bucks?” These are the wealthiest—

Ms. Cindy Forster: They’re still paying 12 bucks an hour.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: And they still pay—

Ms. Cindy Forster: Twelve bucks, tellers, it starts at the bank.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Twelve bucks?

Ms. Cindy Forster: Twelve bucks.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: When you add it up—

Mr. Jeff Leal: How is she doing now?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: She’s doing much better. She left the bank.

But these are rich, rich corporations, rich financial institutions that have a whole lot of money that they take from us. They pay their workers so badly and then we give them a tax cut and the Tories and Liberals say, “Oh, that creates jobs.” Oh yeah? How many more jobs have we seen? And, by the way, have the salaries of the workers gone up? I don’t think so.

Just to cite some statistics about who is doing well and who isn’t: If the money did not go to create jobs, where did it go?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Excuse me. Could I remind the members when they enter the chamber that they should acknowledge the Chair? Thank you.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Where did the money go?

There you go, Minister; you just have to acknowledge the Chair.

Where did the money go if it didn’t create more jobs, if salary increases didn’t happen? There’s an attachment here that I want to refer the members to, Mr. Chair—Mr. President.

Profits have increased significantly. CEOs have been awarded significant compensation increases. Dividends for shareholders have been boosted. But the hiring spree that Tories—God bless you—and Liberals—God bless you too—have been promising has not been coming. But, lo and behold, look at the enriched.

Scotia Bank: quarterly profit of $1.2 billion. There was an increase of 19%; CEO pay, $10.6 million. That was an increase of 10%.

Royal Bank: $1.8 billion in profit, an increase of 23%; CEO pay, $11 million. God bless; I’d like to have those—$11 million, think about that.

We are in a good dollar, I have to admit, but not a lot on the menu.

TD Bank: quarterly profit of $1.5 billion, up 19%; CEO pay—John, member from Durham—$11.3 million, up 8%.

Ms. Cindy Forster: What bank was paying $11 million?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: TD Bank.

Bank of Montreal: $776 million, up 18%; CEO pay, $9.5 million, up 28%.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Hey, Rosie, they’re hiring at the bank. You should put your name in.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Yeah. They tend to like Tories better, it seems, and a lot of the good Liberals.

Ms. Cindy Forster: But they want to do public sector wage freezes.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Yeah, we’ll get to that part perhaps.

Sun Life Financial: $508-million profit, up 72%. These are the people who are doing badly these days. They need to jack up the rates because they’re doing so badly. Profits are up $508 million; profits, 72% up. The CEO pay is not available, meaning it’s probably really high. We just haven’t been able to get access to it; God bless. Manulife, same thing; Great West Life, same idea—$580 million, up 20%; the CEO pay is not available.

As you can see, they have done well. The old Premier Dalton McGuinty that I remember understood that giving away billions of dollars to corporations, to financial institutions, was just not going to work. That was the old Premier I used to like; the new one, I don’t know. My impression is that from time to time a whole lot of Liberals think the same way, but you just have to zip it up, because otherwise you would be criticized tremendously—not by the Premier, but by the chief of staff, who wields so much power; and criticized by the banks, of course, the new friends of Dalton McGuinty, the Premier.

So the money doesn’t go in creating jobs; the money does not go in increasing salaries; the money goes to increase the profits of the corporation, and it goes to increase the dividends to those who have money in the institution. But it doesn’t go where it should, including productivity.

One of the arguments the fundamentalists make, along with the Liberals, is that if you invest in the corporations by reducing their corporate tax rates, they will invest in productivity. The evidence from Toby Sanger and so many other economists is that that has not happened. It hasn’t happened. Much of their money is on hold. We are talking, by the statistics provided by Stats Canada—if I can just get a hold of them.

Stats Canada says they have half a trillion dollars in savings because of a variety of issues: profits mostly, but also the $20 billion that we have contributed provincially, by these two governments. So half a trillion, and in the last couple of years another $86 billion has been added to those savings.

We are awash with money. Corporations and financial institutions have billions of dollars stashed away, saved, in cash holdings that could be invested in productivity, and they are not doing it. They’re not creating the jobs. Yet the strategy of the federal Tories and the provincial governments, Tories and Liberals, is to give more of our money away. It’s fundamentally idiotic, and they still are doing it.

To cite another study, by Bill Currie and Elliot Morris—Bill Currie is vice-chairman of Deloitte Canada and Deloitte’s American managing director; Elliot Morris is a senior consultant at Deloitte. They say, “Surprisingly,” we are not investing in productivity. “In the survey, Canadian executives indicated that they are not planning to invest in the types of activities required to improve productivity.

When we look at the actual decisions Canadian business leaders make about activities that bolster productivity, such as investing in R&D”—research and development—“and commercializing innovation, Americans are 13% more tolerant of risk than Canadians, according to the Deloitte executive risk behaviour index.

“Canadian business leaders’ aversion to risk is especially important because it underlies other critical contributors to our growing productivity gap, including a lack of risk capital for start-ups, chronic underinvestment in machinery and equipment, insufficient levels of private sector R&D, and an unwillingness to engage international markets,” they say.

“We need business leaders to be more willing to undertake intelligent risk by making investments in R&D, launching innovative products, developing improved production techniques, implementing international best practices, integrating state-of-the-art machinery, and expanding into new markets. Combined, these activities would contribute significantly to Canada’s productivity and international competitiveness.”

Now, Mr. Drummond understands this. He argues we should not invest, as a government, in job creation. He has given up on manufacturing, unlike Germans, who have an incredible commitment to manufacturing because it creates jobs—and good-paying jobs. He’s saying we should give up on trying to shore up our manufacturing base, give up on job creation, and help corporations to increase their productivity.

Good Lord, we’ve been doing that for 15 to 20 years. Both Liberals, from Chrétien to Mr. Harper to former provincial Conservatives—God bless you again—to the current Liberals: All we’ve been doing—all you have been doing—is giving taxpayers’ money away for the last 15 years, and still the result is the same.

They take taxpayers’ money and store it away for a rainy day, for a good day, when they can use those profits to buy up corporations that are crumbling, that are in debt, use our money to buy up whatever is available after the European crisis is over, or while it is still in a crisis, or while the Americans are still with their $2-trillion or $3-trillion deficit. That’s what they use our money for.

We have been giving billions away in order to help the corporations and financial institutions create jobs, but they are not doing that. We’re giving the money away as a way of making sure productivity increases, as a way of maintaining good jobs, possibly increasing them, and they’re not doing it.

And Mr. Drummond is saying we should focus on productivity. There are other ways of doing it—not job creation, but other ways of helping the corporations and financial institutions to help with productivity levels that are so incredibly low. It’s the job of governments to say to the corporations and to the financial institutions, “You have a responsibility on your own to make sure we maintain manufacturing jobs, create manufacturing jobs and good-paying jobs; make a commitment to job security.”

That’s what the Germans do. That is why they’re so good at it. They have a commitment of job security and a commitment to work: manufacturing jobs that keep people employed. And it keeps people employed even in recessionary periods. They don’t fire their workers; they maintain their workers. Germans understand the value of maintaining good and strong workers in the workplace. Not only are they working and buying and earning an income; it keeps the economy going. They are not laid off. German governments make up the difference between the days they lose with a differential in pay so that they remain employed in recessionary periods.

What the fundamentalists do, what the Tories and Liberals are doing, is fire them. What the Liberals are prepared to do, contrary to what McGuinty said a couple of years back, is that they are prepared to make severe cuts, cuts that will compound our debt levels and will make our economic situation worse. Even the IMF understands—the International Monetary Fund; this is one conservative organization run by the fundamentalists in America. Even they understand that we create a spiral when you make, as governments, such strong cuts that lay off workers. We make them unemployed.

We make them collect welfare, meaning it costs more to governments. They are not purchasing, because they have less purchasing power, and what we are doing is creating an economy that is worse than where we find it.

I am a bit worried about where the Liberals might be going, although they’re quite hush about what they’re going to do. Monsieur McGuinty is waiting to see what the public has to say. He’s taking a little bit of cover. He’s waiting for a little bit, until the finance minister brings forth his budget. He said to his caucus, “Boys, don’t say very much”—

Ms. Tracy MacCharles: Boys?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: —“and girls. Don’t say very much. Let’s put this out. Drummond has done his report. Let Mr. Drummond speak. The other four people who were part of the commission: Let them just be there; don’t let them speak—just Drummond, which he has done. Then let this report go out and speak for itself.

Then make sure that, through our Liberal contacts in whatever newspapers we control”—or not control, really—“where we have friends, there are strong articles by Liberal friends and other Conservative friends to say that what Drummond has produced is the best thing, the most miraculous report, that has ever been produced,” as a way of saying, eventually, through Mr. McGuinty, the Premier, that we’ve got to make these cuts. “These experts are saying we’ve got to make these cuts, and the public is saying, ‘Oh, man, if we don’t do this, we’re the way of Greeks. We can’t let that happen; no.’”

I remember so well when we were in power in 1990 and we had a deficit. We used to have Tories and Liberals scream. I remember Chris Stockwell saying, “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.” I hear the Tories say the same thing today, and I hear some Liberals saying that today.

I remember Bob Rae, the then-leader of the NDP, so influenced by the corporate sector, by the financial institutions. They were saying at the time—they even showed us a clip from New Zealand saying, “We have hit the debt wall. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, we have hit the debt wall, and if we don’t make cuts now, today, we are in serious financial trouble.” And lo and behold, it didn’t take much to start talking about cuts that we had to make. Boy, was he influenced by the same people who are trying to influence the Liberals in this scenario.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Where was your voice in all this?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Oh yes, John, because I see you have a lot of clout with the Premier. I can see that, Minister Gerretsen. I can see that he’s probably having a lot of coffees with the Premier on a daily basis, a cappuccino on College, talking about what he shouldn’t do. That’s how much influence he has—with all due respect, of course.

Hon. John Gerretsen: I told you to be quiet about that, Rosie. You promised.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It’s the Premier and the chief of staff who have the power; you know that, and all the Liberal backbenchers know it. That’s why they’re grumpy. And even ministers are grumpy, because they know where the power lies. So where are you, Mr. Gerretsen, Minister, in this whole thing? I understand—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): The member will take his seat for a minute. I’ll remind the member not to use names. It’s ridings. Thank you.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: You’re so right, Speaker. I was talking about the Attorney General. You’re so right.

It’s just that I don’t think you guys have much power to influence those things. My point is, Bob Rae then was influenced tremendously, as you are being influenced right now, as you are creating, through Mr. Drummond, the scenario of a potential $30-billion deficit.

You’ve got to do that, I understand that, in order to be able to say eventually to the public, “These are the cuts we have got to make. Otherwise, if we don’t do that, we are heading the way of Greece.” You’ve heard that argument. I know that some of you wouldn’t say that, because so many of you are so smart. You wouldn’t say that, but you allow others to be the foil for the things that you will do eventually.

We haven’t done so well in this regard. We have not tied corporate tax cuts to job creation. That’s what New Democrats said during this election. We are supportive of giving support to corporations that create jobs, that give us job guarantees. If you create jobs over the long term, you have support. We think this is a correct policy. China has been doing it for quite some time. Contrary to the Washington fundamentalists who say that should not be the case, the Chinese have been investing in areas where they believe jobs will be created, and they control that.

Mr. Grant Crack: A dollar an hour?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: They control that. They control the investments.

Some Liberals look quizzically at the statement. They—we Canadians—are so lucky that China is doing so well that they should want our resources, at whatever price, it seems, to the corporations who love to send our jobs away to them at a dollar an hour.

What we need is a commitment in this country to keep jobs here. What we need are corporations who have an obligation to Canada and to Ontario to keep the manufacturing jobs here and not send them away for a profit—for their profits, for their shareholders’ profits—that gives very little to the little person who’s worried about making ends meet, to the little person who’s struggling to pay the mortgages on housing prices that have gone through the roof.

Debt levels for individuals have increased in proportion to their wages. They have gone to levels that we never dreamed of. The debt levels of homeowners have skyrocketed, yet shareholders’ profits have skyrocketed too, it seems. The profits of the CEOs, the financial institutions—they are doing well, and that money is not trickling down; it never does.

That’s why we can’t give our money away willy-nilly. That’s why we say that if you’re going to give money, tie it to jobs. Those are important incentives that we can give. Those are governmental regulations and governmental strengths that we have that will maintain jobs in this province. I’m all for that.

So this little measure, Bill 11, is a good little measure. We are talking $20 million a year. It’s not a bad thing; it’s a good thing. We’re not talking about huge amounts of money, but it’s still a very useful thing to do as a way of helping different regions of Ontario.

Here are some of the concerns that I have with respect to the bill. The job guarantees are a real concern. The past Liberal job creation programs have been weak in this regard, and until we see the actual language used in the contracts, we don’t know if the promised job guarantees are strong enough. This is one of the first arguments we make.

The civil servants who talked to us about this particular bill said, “We will create job guarantees.” I take them at their word, and I will take that to mean the Liberal government is committed to making sure that there are job guarantees. Thus far, I have not seen anything that you Liberals have done to have worked.

Is this commitment toward job guarantees, as we release this $20 million a year—given the take-up, if there is a take-up. Will the government put in this commitment that there will be job guarantees? I am not sure.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Absolutely.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It is why, Attorney General, I said that thus far, you have all failed so miserably as it relates to so many parts of Ontario where we have seen these failures. The Attorney General says, “No, absolutely,” and that’s what I would expect you to say.

We had a commitment from the civil servants, when we met with them about three and a half months ago, that they would send us the language. Thus far, we have not received it, as you might imagine and as you probably would expect. That is the history. What they tell you in a little gathering, however nice they are, when they go back to the political leaders saying, “They requested this; we said we would or we could, as civil servants”—once you’ve done that, the politicians are going to tell you, “No, you can’t. You won’t do that. No, you can’t do that.” And, as would be the case, we haven’t yet seen any language.

Will we ever see it? I don’t know. But that is one of the concerns that we have raised with staff and that we raise here in this Legislature today.

So the first concern was, $20 million is not a pile of money, but better than nothing; the second was job guarantees. The third is that the southwestern fund is being financed by reallocations from other programs within the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation.

That’s a problem for me. What it means is that we take money from an existing fund and put it in another fund and we make it appear that it’s a new fund, that this is a new program. It’s not the case. These are offsets.

I love these words, because they mean absolutely nothing to people until they understand it. “Offsets” means that you take from one pot, put it in another pot, you call it new, and lo and behold, to the public we say, “New money for western Ontario.” It’s not new money: We simply rob different pockets of funding from different areas, and in particular this one is the strategic jobs and investment fund. There are probably two or three other funds that they steal money from, but this is the biggie. And I believe the strategic jobs and investment fund is a good one; I really do.

So we could have continued to fund some development in Ontario through that fund, but what we do is create a western Ontario development fund and we call it new, because it helps. It helps the politics of it; it helps the government in power. It makes it appear like they’re going to be leveraging huge amounts of money—which they do, by the way. Some study has indicated that when you created this in eastern Ontario, this $20 million a year generates $487 million in leveraging dollars, which is a good thing. You put some money up front, it leverages dollars from other areas and it creates jobs. It’s a good thing.

My point is, if you already have that money working in some other program, just taking it and moving it somewhere else—I don’t know, right?

Mr. Grant Crack: The program doesn’t work now.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Oh, no, no; it does. It does, member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell—a big riding. That’s where you may have been wrong—if I heard you correctly, because my hearing gets complicated as I get older. By the way, you are continuing with the eastern Ontario development fund; that continues.

Mr. Grant Crack: Because it works.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Ah. No, but we didn’t oppose it. Are you following my arguments? We didn’t oppose it, right? Okay. So we’re now doing the same in another part of the province, at the other extreme. All I’m saying is, you’re taking money from an existing pot.

Mrs. Teresa Piruzza: It makes sense.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It makes sense; right. It makes sense; okay. So that’s the third concern that I raised.

The other one is that we argue that both of these funds, both the eastern and western funds, should have independent boards. Member from Glengarry, what do you think? It seems like you’re going to be speaking for the two minutes—because I see him taking notes. You’re taking notes. I can tell when somebody is about to do a two-minuter.

We argue they should have independent boards. Implicitly and explicitly, I would think that you would agree. The whole idea of having independent boards is so that they are responsible and would be responsible for approving funded projects. This is how it’s done in northern Ontario heritage. You know that, right? Yes. And you probably agree with that, right?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I wasn’t listening to everything you said. My ears perked up.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Exactly. You have an independent board that manages the northern Ontario heritage fund; right. There’s a logic to it. The idea is that they decide where the funds go, on the basis of some objectivity. We can never eliminate objectivity altogether, because the people you appoint could be either Tories or Liberals and very few could probably be New Democrats, but the objectivity will never been terminated. But on the other hand, an independent board is less likely to be influenced by government—not entirely, but less likely.

We have a precedent. So if the northern Ontario heritage fund has an independent board, we are urging you, good Liberals—some—to establish the same kind of criteria. It would look good on you. Because if you don’t do that, what you are saying is that these funds are subject to politics. They are subject to leanings, propensities, proclivities by those in power. At the moment, it just so happens that it’s you, but if it were the Tories, they would do the same. So we’re saying that, to eliminate political influence by the Premier or the minister or the local members, it would be preferable to have an independent board.

These are the four areas that we believe would improve the bill. My suspicion is, you’re not going to do any one of those things. I have an inkling. I could be wrong. Sometimes my sense is that you might take one or two of the suggestions as a way of saying, “You see? We listened.” The jobs guarantee promise: You might do that, but I await the result of that, but I don’t know whether it will happen.

So, this bill: not so bad. There are some problems. It could be improved, but the arguments I make are very valid, and I would hope that some Liberals would listen to the arguments that I put forth.

I remind the government that what New Democrats have promised in this election is that we should stop the corporate tax giveaways. It’s a big gravy train, as I hope I indicated in my arguments earlier, but we would stop that gravy train. Rob Ford understands gravy trains. Hopefully, Liberals understand that this is one of the biggest gravy trains that we have ever established, that we have given so much more than Liberals could ever dream of, because I know that half of you are divided on this. The other half, the Conservatives over there, think it’s a good idea, but the other half believes that where you have gone and where you’re heading is wrong.

Many Liberals, I know, understand that Ontario, compared to American jurisdictions, stands at a much, much lower rate of corporate taxes, and I think that’s something that you need to listen to and that I think some of you understand. When you look at the chart of the combined corporate tax rates for selected US states and Ontario, Michigan, with a combined tax rate, is at 38.2%. New York is at a combined rate of 36.1%. Ontario is at 28.5%. Pennsylvania is at 37.8%. The Great Lakes weighted average is 36.6%.

The point of these numbers is that it shows that our tax rates are very low. They’re incredibly competitive. They should not go any lower. You Liberals and we, the public, need those billions of dollars that you have given away, that you plan to give away. We need them to deal with the deficit that the recession has left us and that many of you have left us because of your policies. You need to stop that, and I’m hoping you’re having those discussions.

I have a strong inkling, once again, that the Premier is likely to freeze those corporate giveaways. He has hinted at it a couple of times. The finance minister has hinted that this New Democratic idea—he wants to make it clear it’s a New Democratic idea—about freezing corporate taxes is something that they’re looking at. My sense is that you are looking at that. It will bring in savings. It will bring us money that we desperately need.

And then you’re going to make some incredibly strong cuts to please the Tories, because you need to do that, and the fiscal conservatives in the Liberal caucus are happy to do that. Half of you are with that caucus over there, the Tory one, the Conservative one, and the other half struggles to say, “Man, I’d love to be a New Democrat when we’re dealing with these problems.” And I’ve got to tell you, if half of you thought that New Democrats could win elections, you’d come here in a hurry. I believe that very strongly.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Oh, no.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I do.

And so I argue with you, plead with you, literally: Don’t keep giving money away. We need it. It will help our economy. It will help with jobs. It will help to ease the pain that so many are suffering in Ontario. Remember that wages have pretty well flatlined since 1990. We are talking 20 years. When you take inflation into account, wages have flatlined. Our workers are not doing very well. If workers are not earning a good wage, they will not spend. If they do not spend, our economy crawls. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t grow. Prosperity is gone.

So I appeal to the 50% of the Liberals who might have this kind of conscience to consider the troubles our workers are facing, men and women who are struggling to make ends meet, as there is a strong appeal from the fundamentalists to get rid of middle-class jobs, unionized jobs, the very things that maintained our middle class. As they appeal to erode and get rid of that class by eliminating the manufacturing, unionized jobs, I say to half of you Liberals: Don’t let them do it. Don’t let the Premier do that. We need to maintain those jobs. We need to make sure they have well-paying jobs as a way of making sure they have the spending power to keep our economy growing, to keep it prosperous.

I wanted to refer to the stat that I couldn’t find, but I know that my mind was very correct in that. But I wanted to say to people, “According to Stats Canada, corporate holdings of cash and similar assets reached nearly half a trillion dollars by the third quarter of 2010.” I was right on that. “Since the beginning of the recession, businesses added $83 billion to cash holdings. No-strings-attached corporate tax cuts will only boost already astronomical cash holdings levels.” This is Toby Sanger, an economist, who said that.

There are a lot of economists who are very worried about where we are headed, and I think we need to listen to them. We have to worry about the direction we are going in, and the direction that Premier McGuinty is headed in is the wrong one.

It is my hope that there will not be cuts that will throw people out of work. You have already begun that process. You have quietly fired thousands of civil servants. I hope that doesn’t continue, because it’s not good for working men and women. I hope that the program cuts you have in mind will not lay off or fire people, because that will hurt our economy even more. I’m hoping that the kinds of things that you will consider in that Drummond report will make our economy and our government function more efficiently without the loss of jobs. And where you do that as a government, you will have my support.

If we make governments more efficient while we keep our employees where they are, that’s a good thing. But if you’re firing people, laying off people, that, in my view, is a huge problem, and it would be an idiotic mistake for this government to make.

So, Speaker, I want to wind up. I think I’ve covered most of the thoughts or most of the issues that I wanted to raise. I’ve raised my concerns about Bill 11. Some of it, I think, the Liberals might want to take into consideration, which I hope they do. Most of them I think will be rejected, but we made, I think, a good attempt at raising some of the problems that this bill has brought forward. Merci beaucoup.

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

Mr. John Yakabuski: No, no; questions and comments.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments? You’re at your seat now?

Mr. John Yakabuski: Yes, I am.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Wait a minute, here. We seem to have a—are we ready now? Questions and comments?

Mr. John Yakabuski: A pleasure to respond to the address from the member for Trinity–Spadina this morning.

He talked a lot about friendships, and so many times he’s given me that sign that we are inextricably linked here, but there are times that we seem to be on opposite sides of the scale. But in this one, we do agree that we’re both going to vote against this bill because of the myriad problems and ineffective inefficiencies.

Interjection: That’s not what he said.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: Yak, you weren’t listening. He said he’s supporting it.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Oh, is he going to—are you supporting it? Yesterday, you guys were against it. Yesterday, the NDP were speaking against the bill when they were doing their questions and comments, so we’re not really sure what they’re doing.

But I’ll tell you one thing: Every time I see this government bring in a piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, it clearly follows one mantra: What are the political considerations and what is best in furthering the goals of the McGuinty government in being re-elected and systematically picking off stakeholders here and stakeholders there?

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Order. Could I please ask the members to show some respect and have a little order? I can’t even hear the speaker who’s talking. Thank you.

Mr. John Yakabuski: I could hardly hear myself.

It fits into their mantra of continuously doing things for political reasons. And you know what? Ontario is in a different world today. You’ve got to stop acting on that basis. You’ve got to actually stand up over there, take the bull by the horns and do the things that are right for this province and its people. The political games should be over; you’ve got to stop playing them over there. This problem is far too big for you to keep behaving like that in that fashion.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments? The member from—oh, the minister. Sorry.

Hon. Christopher Bentley: Thank you very much—and the member from London West. I want to thank the member from Trinity–Spadina for his comments.

The approach here is pretty simple, isn’t it? The bill really represents an opportunity for the people of southwestern Ontario to get some assistance to partner with each other, with a little bit of financial assistance, to create jobs and economic growth. It is an area that has been hit by the world economic recession and the downturn in the auto industry. We need some assistance down there.

I’ve been to a couple of the consultation meetings, and we’ve had people from a lot of ridings held by members on the opposite side of the House, in the opposition, turn up at those meetings and say, “We’d appreciate some financial assistance from this fund. We’ve got some good ideas to create jobs.” Our communities, like Strathroy, like Wallaceburg, like the Haldimand area, like St. Thomas, like Chatham, they’re all down there saying, “We see a real opportunity here.”

The real question for the people on the opposite side of the House, the opposition, is: Are they prepared to support jobs in those communities, like Strathroy, Wallaceburg, Sarnia and Chatham?

I’m really looking forward to working with the members from the NDP on how to make sure that this is as strong as possible, make sure that this bill is as good as possible, make sure that this bill is as good as possible, make sure that we can deliver jobs and economic opportunity and optimism for the people in a region that has been hard hit and is looking for a little bit more assistance.

I don’t think it’s going to wash if the members of the opposition say no to southwestern Ontario. I don’t think it’s going to wash in Strathroy or Wallaceburg or Clinton or Sarnia or Chatham. I don’t think they’re going to be able to say they’re doing nothing for jobs in that area—and get off their high horse and start supporting jobs in the southwestern Ontario region.

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

Mr. Rob E. Milligan: I’d like to thank the member from Trinity–Spadina and the minister. Quite frankly, however, we have to point out that this is divisive policy by the government across the way. It’s pitching one region of Ontario against another, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair to the voters in southwestern Ontario, western Ontario, eastern Ontario or northern Ontario. This is one province. This kind of politics needs to stop.

We understand that businesses are the backbone of the economy here in Ontario. We support small businesses, business growth, business development, not just in southwestern Ontario, eastern Ontario, northern Ontario, but Ontario as a whole, collectively. If this province needs to get its strong footing back, put ourselves back in the place where we should be, as the economic engine of Confederation in the great nation of Canada, we need to start looking at this as a whole, not region against region. The time for politics is over. We need to move forward. We need to move past this. We need to be progressive.

We are supportive of businesses, business initiatives, helping businesses with tax cuts that are going to create and retain jobs here in Ontario—not just southern Ontario, western Ontario, northern Ontario, eastern Ontario, but Ontario as a whole, collectively. It’s important. The divisive politics—this is enough. It’s over. The government needs to realize—we need to work together as opposition, as well as our NDP members—that we need to work collaboratively to ensure that businesses stay here, that we don’t have another Caterpillar on our hands.

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

M. Taras Natyshak: Monsieur le Président, merci, finalement. Et merci à mon collègue, le député de Trinity–Spadina, pour ses commentaires courageux, vraiment—courageous in that he’s not bound by the constraints of the big banks, as he mentioned, of the insurance companies, who seem to be dictating policy that comes from the other side. What he proposes, I think, is the Ontario tragedy in reference to what’s happening in Greece—the road that we are going down, the road paved by successive Liberal and Conservative regimes, and a cautionary tale to not go down that road.

There are models that have bucked the trend. I would point to Iceland, who did not buckle under the pressure of the IMF, who did not slash and burn their social programming, who actually said, “No, we’re going to do it differently. We’re going to maintain those fundamental pillars of our society.” Lo and behold, they’ve come out of the recession, come out of the crisis, with a 7% unemployment rate, an economy that’s bolstered by social programming and a decent quality of life.

This program in the bill, I think, references—and here we are in 2012, and we are finding out that the government wants to pay attention to southwestern Ontario, finally. Why not 20 years ago when the effects of the free trade agreement, NAFTA, and deregulation were playing their role in the erosion of manufacturing jobs? So let’s ensure that Chatham, yes, requires support, but that we don’t have another Navistar on our hands, where a company leaves town with money in hand, laughing all the way to the bank.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate? Oh, sorry—two-minute response.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Is there another turn?

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Two-minute response.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: I listened—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Sorry, there’s a problem here. Mr. Marchese is supposed to respond. We’ve had our four rotations. Mr. Marchese, please.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Very helpful there, Attorney General.

Speaker, I don’t agree with my Conservative friends: the member from Renfrew–Nipissing or the member from Northumberland–Quinte. I understand what they are saying, but Ontario is a big province. It is not easy to administer politics from one central area, which is usually Toronto, and I’m not knocking Toronto, because I’m from here and I love Toronto. But it’s hard to run everything from Toronto. Ontario is three times bigger than Italy. Italy has 56 million; we have 13-plus. It’s a big territory.

All I argued—and you will know that there was already a fund in eastern Ontario, and it continues. They haven’t taken that away, just in their defence, and now they are creating a western, and we have a northern Ontario fund. So most of the regions are being taken care of in a local way. All I have raised in terms of all the arguments I made—and some of them were longer, and I don’t have time—is to say, look, there are a couple of things you’ve got to do. We need job guarantees, so we need to look at the language to make sure you’ve got that, because we haven’t seen good results coming out of some of your policies so far in this regard.

The other one is that we need independent boards. If you have an independent board, it deals with what the Tories and New Democrats are saying, and that is that there should be no political favouritism by the minister or anybody else. I don’t see why you can’t create independent boards. The program is a good idea, but if you have an independent board, you then take away the opposition from the opposition parties, because once you’ve done that, then you deal with many of the problems that we have raised. If you can do that, we think you will have improved Bill 11.

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

Hon. John Gerretsen: I’m very pleased to speak about this bill because I’ve lived with the eastern Ontario development fund in eastern Ontario for the last seven or eight years that it’s been operating, and it is a great program. Let’s take all the politics out of this and let’s just see how all of this started. Let’s just see how all of this started.

There used to be an eastern Ontario development fund to help rural eastern Ontario, because all of the development was taking place in the GTA, and that program was cancelled during the Mike Harris years, in the late 1990s.

Okay. So what happens next? I’ll tell you what happened next. The eastern Ontario wardens, who are the leaders of all of the various municipalities in eastern Ontario, got together and basically said, “How do we get economic development going with some government support in eastern Ontario?” It was their idea. It was the eastern Ontario wardens—all of you have been at their various meetings—that actually came up with this idea back in 2003-04.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): I would ask the member to get in his seat if he wants to make comments.

Hon. John Gerretsen: They had this great idea of this fund. We adopted it—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Minister, I’m still standing. Thank you.

Hon. John Gerretsen: The government adopted this as a program back in about 2003-04, and basically the way it’s set up is this way: It’s an $80-million program. Now, the Tories will say we didn’t spend the entire $80 million, and that may be true. I believe we spent about $55 million of it during a four-year period of time, but it’s better than nothing that would have been spent during your period of time.

There have been about 60 different loans made across eastern Ontario, and it’s all been administered by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. There is a woman in the Kingston area, Rita Byvelds, who is the administrator of the program and who has done an excellent job. And who does she work with? Well, she works with the individual smaller companies that are looking for some sort of a loan idea in order to expand and create jobs. This is all about creating jobs. Rather than taking this political attitude of, “We’re against it,” etc., I’ve been to some of your ridings and made those announcements.

And who was there? Your own members were there. Steve Clark was there in Brockville when I made an announcement.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Minister, when I stand up, you’re supposed to stop talking.

Secondly, I’ll ask you again: Use ridings, not names.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Leeds–Grenville.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Thank you very much.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Okay, the member from Leeds–Grenville was there and he thought it was a great idea that this cable company in Brockville got some support.

How does the program work? Let’s talk about how the program works. The program basically gives about a 10% top-up to the investment that is going to be made by a local company to expand. What does the company have to do for that 10% top-up? They have to create a minimum of 10 additional jobs, and that is what has been happening.

Who are the main proponents of this? The economic development officers in each and every one of your communities; they are the people who are driving the process. They work with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, and they approve the applications. I can tell you there has been very little, if any, political involvement in actually approving the applications. I know that for an absolute fact.

In my own community of Kingston, there have been some excellent small companies, high-tech companies, that have benefited from this program and that have created the new jobs. Let me just mention a few of them.

MetalCraft is a company that makes emergency boats—fire boats and rescue boats etc.—that are literally being sold all over the world. About 10 or 15 years ago, they were a company of about five or 10 people; right now they employ something like 150 people in high-tech jobs. They wanted to expand a number of years ago, but they needed a little bit of government help to actually make that expansion go, and we basically said, as a government, here is—I can’t remember the exact amount, but it seems to me it was about $500,000 or $600,000.

They created the additional jobs and as a result of that, that company has grown, and it’s providing tremendous employment for people in my community and in the adjacent communities. Sometimes it goes to a particular riding, but it doesn’t really go to the riding. The people that work there come from all over the place.

Let me mention a number of other companies in the few minutes that I’ve got left. Bombardier; yes, Bombardier got a loan to basically come up with the new high-tech vehicle that’s needed for the future. They created a minimum of 20 to 30 jobs with the amount of money that they got a while ago.

George A. Wright and Son—what does George A. Wright and Son do? They’re a company in Kingston that’s been around for about 100 years that make tool and die operations. They are expanding that particular business. They are creating new jobs.

We have Eikon. Eikon is a tattoo manufacturing organization. They don’t actually do tattoos but they basically make the machinery that is necessary to create tattoos, which they now supply all over the world. Now, you may or may not like tattoos but, I’ll tell you, it’s an expanding business. They went from an operation of about two or three people that worked out of the back of their garage into an operation that now employs, in making this tattoo machinery, about 50 or 60 people. That’s all good economic development.

There’s GS Solutions. I mentioned Centennial Global Technology; they manufacture solar panels. Small, little companies started in a small, little location, at one time hired about 20 or 30 people; right now close to 100 people work there. How did they get that way? In part because of the economic opportunities that were provided to them under the eastern Ontario economic development fund.

These are just some examples. I think there have been about 60 loans in eastern Ontario. There have been well over 2,000 to 3,000 jobs created as a result of that. They are good programs.

So what are we doing with this good program? We’re basically saying, “Okay, southwestern Ontario, you’ve got your own issues, issues that are separate from the kind of economic issues that we have in the GTA. We are going to give some help to the companies that want to expand there.”

This isn’t a corporate giveaway. Companies have to show that they’ve actually hired additional people as a result of this loan. The money isn’t just being given away to them.

All I would suggest to the people on the other side—and I know it may be a little bit difficult, particularly for the Conservative members from eastern Ontario, many of whose ridings have companies in them that are high-tech companies that have benefited. Because of the politics involved, you may not want to approve this. You may just want to absent yourself from the House that day, because I can tell you, when you go back and talk to eastern Ontario wardens—and I know many of you, particularly those of you of a municipal background, have got a close connection with these people—they may not like the position that you’re taking if you vote against a continuation of this program.

We insisted—the members from eastern Ontario—that this program has been so successful over the last four years that we want it to continue. That’s why this is sort of a double-jointed bill; on the one hand, we want to set up the southwestern Ontario economic development fund, but we want the eastern Ontario development fund to continue.

Now, I’ve heard the member opposite talk about setting up a separate board and a this and a that, and who would appoint the people to these boards. That is not where the decisions are made. The decisions are made by the economic development officers, working in conjunction with the economic development ministry folks, to determine what are the good applications that will actually lead to job creation opportunities as a result of these grants being handed out to these corporations.

I can tell you without any doubt at all that this has been a great program for eastern Ontario. Many communities have benefited from it. They’re all about only one thing, and that is creating more jobs. I can tell you from a practical experience, it’s happened in my community and it’s happened in every other community in eastern Ontario, because these loans have not just been handed out in Liberal ridings; there are just as many in so-called Conservative ridings, or whatever.

They are all determined by the strength of the application that the individual company puts forward and by the amount of money that they themselves are willing to put into it—because for the capital investment to take place, the companies themselves have to come up with 85% to 90% of the money.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: So what’s the problem with an independent board? I don’t get it.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Well, you don’t need an independent board. You’re just making it more—

Mr. Rosario Marchese: So make me happy.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): I would ask that the members go through this party and not talk directly to each other. They’re veterans; they should know better. Thank you.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Speaker, I just simply want to—I know I get a little bit excited about this particular program, because it has worked so well. It has worked extremely well. It has worked well in Brockville; it’s worked well in Northumberland; it’s worked well in Prince Edward–Hastings, in the Belleville area; it’s worked well in the Pembroke area; it’s worked well all over eastern Ontario. We’ve got a map to show you where all of the various grants have been made to these companies.

These are all small companies that want to expand, but they want a little bit of help. What they have to put up is a guarantee of X number of jobs—10 jobs or more—for every application. It’s a great program and anybody that would vote against this program, particularly if you’re from eastern Ontario or from southwestern Ontario, you are not doing your communities any good by doing so. I would strongly suggest to the Conservative members that they really rethink this.

This idea came from the eastern Ontario wardens; many of your buddies are there. Many of your communities have benefited from them. Please do not vote against your communities’ best interests. Thank you.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Due to the fact that we’re close to 10:15, this House stands adjourned until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1013 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: In the west members’ gallery today, I’d like to introduce Jenn Hartman and her husband, David Smith. Jenn is the co-chair of the Campaign for Pediatric Ophthalmology at McMaster Children’s Hospital. They’re trying to create the province’s largest centre of excellence for specialized pediatric eye care. I welcome them to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Welcome.

Mr. Reza Moridi: Mr. Speaker, it’s my pleasure to introduce His Excellency Ali Riza Guney, consul general of the Turkish Republic, at the Speaker’s gallery.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We welcome our guest.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: I’d like to welcome, in the members’ gallery, from the Ontario Harness Horse Association, Jim Whelan, the director, along with Brian Tropea, Kathryn Tropea and Jojo Chintoh.

Speaker, also with us today is Jody Jamieson. He’s a horse owner and driver. Jody is a two-time and reigning world driving champion of this current year.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We welcome our guests.

Mr. Bill Mauro: I’d like to welcome to the assembly today, sitting in the members’ east gallery, an old friend of mine from Thunder Bay, Peter Buchan. Peter is here today to watch his son, David Buchan. David is, I think, the page captain today. I don’t see David here right now, but I know he’s here, and I’d like to welcome them both to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Jim McDonell: Speaker, I’d like to introduce Joanne Haley and her sister Heather Stang. They’re here to see Joanne’s son Ryan, who is a page here today.

Mr. Jack MacLaren: I’d like to introduce Heide Hochgeschurz, who is the grandmother of page Katelyn Hochgeschurz. She is in the public gallery.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I’m delighted to welcome Marilyn Heinz from Burlington to the Legislature today. Welcome, Marilyn.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: It’s a great honour for me to introduce Mr. Zhengfei Chen, father of Judy Zhengfei, from Toronto Centre, who is one of our pages. They’re in the gallery behind me—her parents. I’d like to welcome them.

Mr. Bob Delaney: It’s my pleasure to introduce Mr. Rashad Vahed, in the members’ gallery. He is the father of page Marium Vahed and a very good and old friend of the member for Ottawa Centre. I’d like to welcome them to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): It’s my pleasure to introduce, in the members’ west gallery, the former member from Brant in the 32nd and 33rd Parliaments, Phil Gillies. Welcome, Phil.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Never mind.

I have two introductions to do, so I’ll start with this one. In the press gallery today, we have visiting journalism students from Sheridan College. I, like you, will remind them not to listen to everything that they’re told by the people up there. Anyway, they are here at Queen’s Park today to be shadowing and learning from the Queen’s Park reporters.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Today we have—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Hence my

preamble.

Today we have Katie Breen, Brent Brown, Benjamin Carter, Melissa Dapaah, Mackenzie Fowler, Amanda Galbraith, James Garcia, Justin Grant, Emily Johnson, Matthew Koehl, Michael Mcbride, Brian Oliver, Michael Owusu, Natalie Rutherford, Danny Schertzer, Ashley Stennett, Colin Van Ooyen, Stefano Vito and Riley Welch. Welcome.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): And now if I could have our pages assemble for introduction. This, by the way, is what I consider to be a very good tradition that we started with the previous Speaker, and deserving.

I would ask the members to join me in welcoming this group of pages serving in the first session of our 40th Parliament:

David Buchan from Thunder Bay–Atikokan; Judy Chen from Toronto Centre; William Cooper from St.

Catharines; Michael Davidson from Ottawa Centre; Shirley Fan from Markham–Unionville; Grace Glennie from Whitby–Oshawa; Ryan Haley from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry; Katelyn Hochgeschurz from Carleton–Mississippi Mills; Jason Huang from Willowdale; Adrian Hucal from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek; Mackenzie Hulme from Algoma–Manitoulin; William Hume from Ajax–Pickering; Samantha Mariano from Vaughan; James Newman from Scarborough–Guildwood; Kriti Ravindran from Richmond Hill; Ryan Ripsman from Thornhill; Rachel Rynard from Simcoe North; Sophia Sengfah from Bramalea-Gore–Malton; Marium Vahed from Mississauga–Streetsville; Patrick Williams from Dufferin–Caledon; Darren Yanni from Sault Ste.

Marie; Ruby Yee from Barrie; and, for the sake of Phil Gillies, Grace Zhou from Brant. Welcome. Reassemble.

It is now time for oral questions.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PUBLIC SERVICES

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Premier: Yesterday, you weighed in on the Toronto transit issue, saying that the time for talk is coming to an end. The vote, I remind you, on Toronto transit was two weeks ago. However, we have now been 20 weeks since a provincial election campaign. You’ve had the Drummond report for some six weeks. I’m worried that you’re setting a bit of a double standard here.

So, Premier, by your own standards, if two weeks takes too much time for debate, I’ll ask you, why aren’t you bringing forward your plan to finally reduce the size and cost of government? Will you table it today?

Interjection.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, I welcome the question—and the enthusiasm from my colleague in the Ottawa area.

We’ve made it clear that we will be providing our answer to Drummond through our budget, to be delivered in this Legislature at the usual time. What we’re doing with this valuable period, of course, is listening to Ontarians. We’re very hopeful that shortly we will strike a legislative committee that will take responsibility for giving full consideration to the Drummond report.

I’m also very open to advice being offered by my colleagues in the opposition parties. I think we have a shared responsibility to be fair and thorough and, I would argue, exhaustive in terms of addressing the significant challenge before all of us. We need to tackle that deficit. We need to strengthen health care and education, and we need to do it all at the same time.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: The Premier describes this process as “exhaustive.” Frankly, Premier, it’s exhausting to see you now delay for a year. It was a year ago that you appointed Mr. Drummond. You said, “We won’t make any tough decisions on reining in the size and cost of government for a year.” It has been 20 weeks since the election campaign. You’ve had the Drummond report for six weeks. It’s almost like you walked into your office after Drummond said, “My goodness, who spent all this money?”

Premier, let’s be serious. You’ve been sitting on this issue for a long period of time. The time for dithering and delay is well past us. I ask you, will you act today before we get into a deeper hole? Put your plan on the table to get our books back in balance in the province of Ontario. The time for action is now.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I appreciate my colleague’s impatience, but I think responsibility, or a responsible approach to dealing with the challenge before us, demands that we take the necessary time to get a response both from the opposition parties and the public in general on the Drummond report, and a bit of consistency would be helpful in that regard.

My honourable colleague began in his initial response to the Drummond report by saying that it’s important not to cherry-pick. It needs to be adopted in whole, holus-bolus. But now we hear that they stand against the recommendations connected to LHINs. They stand against the recommendations connected to horse racing. They stand against the recommendations connected to the approach we need to bring to doctors’ compensation, and they stand against a competitive process for school busing in rural Ontario. Those were all specific recommendations in there. First he says, “Buy the whole thing.” Now he’s saying he has got some reservations. A bit of consistency would be helpful.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: Well, Speaker, back to the Premier: The problem is, the Premier stands in one place only, and that’s paralyzed. You described this report as a “road map,” but you’ve taken us nowhere. For a year now, you’ve dug a deeper and deeper hole and not put your plan on the table.

So, with all due respect, what you describe as our “impatience for action” I simply say is prudence, and that prudence is shared by the Dominion Bond Rating Service, which, the day after Drummond, said this: “[L]ack of resolve and” drastic “efforts to significantly curb spending growth in the next budget could be a cause for increased concerns for DBRS.” A lowering of our status is going to imply more interest payments on debt and challenge further our ability to provide front-line programs.

So, Premier, I’ll ask again: It has been a year now. You’ve had the Drummond report for six weeks. Will you table your actual plan today?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, a couple of points in response to that. First of all, as Mr. Drummond and his team made abundantly clear—and I can refer my honourable colleague to the specific pages in due course. But I can tell him now that in relation to GDP, as a matter of total government spending, we’re the third-lowest in Canada. In terms of our tax burden, we’re the second-lowest in Canada. In terms of per capita spending, we’re the lowest in Canada.

Now my colleague opposite says that we should move immediately and table our specific plan. I would argue that he needs a bit more time to develop some consistency with respect to his approach. Either we adopt it in whole or he puts forward a series of objections to specific recommendations. We await the outcome of that internal debate.

PUBLIC SERVICES

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Premier, Speaker: It is, I will add, disturbing that the Premier continues to pat himself on the back for fiscal responsibility when he seems to be the only person, including Mr. Drummond and Mr. Jack Mintz—your adviser on some economic issues, who says that you have spent far too much money too quickly, and you seem to have no plan to get it back in balance.

The Premier has actually responded to one recommendation in the Drummond report. He said he will not follow Mr. Drummond’s recommendation on full-day kindergarten. The implication to the fiscal plan is $1.5 billion. So, Premier, I think you have a responsibility then; if you’ve taken that off the table, is your $1.5 billion going to be in increased taxes or in spending reductions? You owe it to us to tell us. If that $1.5 billion is off the table, what is your plan to replace it with something of equal value?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, we’ve made it perfectly clear, when it comes to full-day kindergarten, we are absolutely committed to that, come heck or high water. We think it’s very important in terms of the basis for a strong economy that is built on the skills and education of our people. That’s our strength. It’s not oil; it’s not gas; it’s not the forestry; it’s not the fisheries. It’s the people of Ontario. I think that’s very important for us to understand together, and I’m going to invite my friend to share that.

I say to my friend, of course we will have to find alternate sources of savings, since we intend to adopt that. We’ve been very clear.

What I’m not sure about is where the opposition stands with respect to the Drummond report in its entirety. He says that we cannot cherry-pick, but now he says that he’s against the horse-racing recommendations. He’s against the recommendation in regard to doctors. He’s against a number of other recommendations. So we’ll give them the time in order for them to get their act together.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): A reminder again: Inside voices, please.

Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, with all due respect, this is the only plan you’ve put on the table. If you don’t like your own plan, then put forward your plan. That’s what I’m asking about each and every day in question period.

Mr. Drummond did say in his report, on page 9, “Message from the Chair,” that “we expect that many of our recommendations will be rejected. We accept that, but each rejected recommendation must be replaced not by a vacuum, but by a better idea—one that delivers a similar fiscal benefit.” I agree with Mr. Drummond. I assume the Premier does as well.

Premier, you’ve backed away from $1.5 billion in savings on full-day kindergarten, and now your education minister is backing away from eliminating the hard cap on class sizes and eliminating a number of education bureaucrats.

So, Premier, is this a new policy development, and if you are taking these recommendations off the table, where will you find the additional savings?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, Speaker, I think what my honourable colleague is saying is that he’d like us to present the budget here today. We don’t intend to do that.

What we would like to receive is some consistency in terms of the representations being made by the opposition. The leader of the official opposition says that you can’t cherry-pick from this document; you have to adopt it in its entirety. Yet, at the same time, we’re hearing that they’re not in favour of the LHIN recommendations. They’re not in favour of those recommendations relating to horse racing in Ontario. They’re not in favour of the recommendations with respect to firm but fair bargaining with Ontario doctors and the way that they receive their compensation. They’re not in favour of moving towards a competitive process for busing in rural Ontario.

Again, as we work together to develop the content of our budget, it would be most helpful if we were to receive some consistency in terms of the position being adopted by the official opposition.

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

Mr. Tim Hudak: You know, sadly, Speaker, in spite of the fact that I’m asking very serious and direct questions, all I’m getting back from the Premier is more Liberal talking points and no answers for taxpayers in the province of Ontario.

Let me ask you again, Premier. I’ve asked you where you’re going to find the $1.5 billion in savings. You have dodged that question. Your education minister is now saying you’re backing away from the Drummond recommendation with respect to the hard cap on class sizes; that is $500 million in savings. And your education minister is backing away from the Drummond recommendation to eliminate 70% of non-teaching staff; that’s a further $600 million. So your education minister now is taking an additional $1.1 billion off the table. Combined with full-day kindergarten, that’s $2.6 billion, Premier.

Don’t you have an obligation to tell us where you’re going to find those savings? Are you going to increase taxes? Please tell us exactly where you stand if you’re taking those three items off the table.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, we do have an obligation, and we will respond to that in the budget. I keep saying that to my honourable colleague.

What we’re looking for at this point in time is the best advice that the opposition parties, and Ontarians in general, may have to offer. So I say again: Give us your best advice. Allow us to move this work into a legislative committee so that all members can make representations and so that we can hear from the people of Ontario. The Minister of Finance will continue his pre-budget consultations. I think we all have a responsibility, as members of provincial Parliament, to hear from our own constituents and bring all that wisdom to bear on the final product. So I say to my honourable colleague, I look forward to receiving his advice.

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Premier. For years, the Premier argued that corporate tax giveaways and an unfair HST were necessary if we were going to compete with other provinces like British Columbia. He claimed, in fact, that Ontario was leading the way and that BC was scrambling to catch up. My question to the Premier is: Does he still have that opinion?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, I want to commend the government of British Columbia for modelling a new initiative on our healthy homes renovation tax credit that we’re trying to move forward with here in Ontario. I would appreciate my colleague’s support in regard to that particular measure.

One of the things that we have committed to is, we have put forward a number of principles which will inform our approach that we’re going to take in dealing with our deficit. We said we’re going to protect health care and education. We’re going to reject across-the-board cuts. We’ve insisted that reforms must get better value for money by improved efficiency and greater productivity. I say again to my honourable colleague that we’ve also specifically said no to tax increases. We will not be taking money out of an economy we’re trying to get going. Finally, we will not pursue austerity measures that hurt the economy. Those are the principles that will guide us.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: As the Premier knows, British Columbia abandoned the HST last year, and yesterday BC’s Minister of Finance announced that they’re prepared to raise the corporate tax rate to help fight the deficit in that province. Now, the fact is that even the Liberals in BC are realizing that they’ve invested enough in corporate tax giveaways and that it’s actually time to start looking at other options.

Is the Premier going to start waking up to that reality any time soon, or does he plan to continue to stand arm in arm with Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper to the bitter, bitter end?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I don’t know if that’s unparliamentary, Speaker, but I think it’s on the line.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Bordering, bordering.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I think it’s bordering.

My honourable colleague has been nothing if not consistent in terms of her desire to raise taxes. One of the things she has been advocating, for example, is that we, at a minimum, freeze corporate taxes. Let’s consider that, if you will, for just a moment.

If we were to do that, that would save us $800 million. We need to save $16 billion. So that proposal represents 5% of the solution. I’ve heard from my honourable colleague with respect to the first 5%, but what I’d ask her, on behalf of Ontarians, is: What do we do to solve the next 95% of the problem?

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Gee, Speaker, if he took my advice earlier, it would maybe be closer to $20 billion in tax giveaways that he’s given out already, but that’s beside the point.

For three years, the Premier has promised Ontario families that tax giveaways to corporations were going to create jobs in Ontario, and for three years people have continued to watch good jobs leave Ontario. We’ve been more than competitive with other jurisdictions, with other provinces—more than 10 points lower in our corporate tax rate than the Great Lakes states—but that simply has not solved our problem in terms of jobs. We continue to see jobs leave the province.

Is the Premier finally ready to admit that the jobs plan that he has been trying to sell Ontarians simply isn’t getting people back to work?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, we’ve gained some 300,000 jobs since the depth of the recession. We’ve more than made up for the jobs that we’ve lost. Last year, I believe we gained some 121,000 more jobs. We continue to create more jobs in Ontario than any other province, of course.

My honourable colleague, I know, is wed to the concept of taxes. As I said specifically, if we hold the line on corporate taxes and we don’t proceed with the next reduction, that saves us $800 million. We have a $16-billion challenge. Eight hundred million dollars is only 5% of the solution. So again I say to my honourable colleague: What about the remaining 95%? We’d love to hear, and I’m sure Ontarians would want to hear, about a comprehensive, thorough plan to address a $16-billion deficit.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, I can’t account for the folly of the Premier’s ways over the last couple of years with his commitment to corporate tax cuts that haven’t gotten us anywhere, but nonetheless, my next question is to the Premier.

In November 2010, the Ministry of Health informed MPPs on the Standing Committee on Estimates that an operational review of Ornge had just been completed. Somehow, this review didn’t flag any of the problems that have since been found at Ornge.

My question is a very simple one: Will the Premier have the minister table that review that she spoke of at estimates to the public today?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you to the member opposite for the question.

You know, I think the people of Ontario have three questions they want answers to. The first one is: If someone I love, or even if I, need an air ambulance, will it be there for me? The answer to that is: Absolutely, yes. Ontario has one of the finest air ambulance services in the world, and it continues to strengthen.

The second question that people have is: What did you do when you discovered there was a problem at Ornge? Speaker, the answer to that is that I sent in a forensic audit team. I told them to follow the public money. I replaced the CEO, replaced the entire board at Ornge. I worked co-operatively with the Auditor General and, in fact, I have asked the Auditor General to release his report as quickly as he can under

section 17.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, I thought it was a pretty simple question, which is: Would the minister make available for review today the report that they spoke of back in 2010 in November? I certainly didn’t hear an answer to that question.

Last summer, in response to a freedom-of-information request, the Ministry of Health confirmed that they possessed documents at that time concerning Dr. Chris Mazza’s salary at Ornge—but they refused to release those documents. Can the minister make those documents public today?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Again, I want to speak to the people of Ontario. They want to know what we’ve done to fix the problems. We appointed a forensic audit team. They had a team of over 30 people working for several weeks. They submitted an interim report which led me to the very unhappy conclusion that it was time to involve the Ontario Provincial Police. Let me tell you, Speaker, that is a step that no minister takes lightly, but it’s vitally important to get to the bottom of this, to get the facts on the table so that justice is done.

I respect the work of the Ontario Provincial Police. I want them to do a full job. They will do a thorough job, and that is vitally important.

When the new board was put in place, I gave them three instructions. The first priority has to be patient safety, and they’ve taken important steps in that direction. The second thing is—

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the minister is asking us to believe an unbelievable story. They’ve been sitting on information about Ornge that they refuse to share with a sceptical public. In November 2010, the minister dodged committee questions about Ornge, promising to look into it. Five months later, she dodged questions in the House, promising to look into it.

Now, these problems were first flagged by whistle-blowers back in 2008. In most jobs, when you tell people you’re solving a problem and then you never actually do it—you never actually get to the solving of the problem—you actually don’t get to keep your job. Does the minister think she should be keeping hers?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: The reason the salary information was not released was because we did not have it, and that is why we are moving forward to strengthen accountability at Ornge, to make sure this situation is fixed and does not happen again.

Speaker, we are bringing in a stronger performance agreement with Ornge. The elements of that include: that any changes to the corporate structure require the minister’s approval; that all employees will be subject to the Broader Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act; and that we will have much more oversight and require much more transparency when it comes to the financial issues at Ornge. Ornge will have quality improvement requirements, just like our hospitals do; they will have a patient advocate, just like our hospitals do; we will have debt control provisions to ensure that any debt increases do not happen without approval. We’re fixing the problem.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Health: Speaker, we want to speak to the public as well. We want to speak to the public about what the minister has not done when it comes to the Ornge scandal.

She was first told about this in November at a committee hearing and promised to get back to members of the Legislature with responses. She didn’t do anything. She was again warned, on three different occasions, in this House in April 2011. She promised to look into it; she did nothing.

On May 4, 2011, the minister received a five-page letter from the Ontario Air Transport Association listing numerous failures on the part of Ornge to comply with competitive procurement practices and—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Question?

Mr. Frank Klees: —“compromised patient care and created serious personnel and cost issues for hospitals.” What did she do? Nothing.

I ask the minister this—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. Order.

Now again, I remind: When I say “answer” or “question,” you only have a few seconds to finish it. Please get to that point. When I stand, you sit down.

Minister.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, perhaps the member opposite thinks that the minute he asked a question in question period, I should’ve gone directly to the police. I don’t agree with that. I think there was an important due diligence to follow before we got to that point—and we did that due diligence, which took us to where we are today.

The people of Ontario want to have confidence in our air ambulance service. I can tell you that yesterday, Speaker, 61 patients were transferred using air ambulance. They travelled over 30,000 kilometres, bringing people to the care they needed. The work that Ornge does is so vitally important in our health care system. It’s vital that we move quickly to strengthen oversight at Ornge. That is why we’re going to be introducing legislation, Speaker, that will entrench in law oversight and requirements that Ornge—

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

Mr. Frank Klees: Speaker, had the minister done her job three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, there would be no need for a criminal investigation today. It’s a fact that the minister didn’t do her job.

Unfortunately, it’s now up to whistle-blowers to provide oversight of our air ambulance service. Here’s the latest report that I received just yesterday: The London helicopter was out of service four nights in a row last week because there were no pilots. The Sudbury helicopter was out of service for three of those same nights for the same reason. I have a list of 13 other incidents over the last few weeks; I’ll ask a page to take them over to the minister.

They deal with incidents such as this: a helicopter sent to the wrong hospital in London, resulting in a lost bed for a pediatric patient due to a three-hour delay on the part of Ornge. A London helicopter sent to Simcoe helipad that had no lights because the dispatch department didn’t know it.

I ask the Premier this: Is this the kind of decisive action that you expect from your minister, or will you ask her—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Minister?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you, Speaker. What I can tell you is that every complaint that is made when it comes to Ornge is investigated. That is a clear responsibility of Ornge.

What I can tell you: When we put the new board of directors in place at Ornge, we paid special attention to patient safety. Ian Delaney, an impeccable business leader in Ontario—internationally, actually—is the chair of Ornge. Charles Harnick is on the board. Patricia Lang is the former president of Confederation College. Dr. Barry McLellan, who’s the president and CEO of Sunnybrook Hospital and an expert in trauma care, is personally taking responsibility for safety issues at Ornge. Maneesh Mehta, Speaker, is on the board—Patrice Merrin and Patricia Volker. This is a top-notch board who takes their responsibility extremely seriously, Speaker, and I have every confidence that—

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

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

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

I think it is now clear to anybody looking that a lack of accountability was at the heart of the province’s agreement with Ornge. In 2010, in a letter to our party that was copied to the minister, Ornge justified their refusal to release executive salaries, saying they are “free from restrictions” and “able to pursue whatever business model its board deems appropriate,” whether for-profit, not-for-profit. It didn’t matter.

The minister has been responsible for overseeing Ornge for the last two years—overseeing the Ornge agreement as well. Is it safe to say that in her view, this agreement became unacceptable once it hit the front page of the paper?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, there is no question that with the benefit of hindsight, all of us agree that the original performance agreement was not strong enough. It did not provide the transparency and accountability that we demand today. That is why we’re bringing in a new performance agreement.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Look, I’m hearing some really nice quiet while the questions are being put. It’s very difficult to hear the answer. I’m asking the members on this side: Tone it down. I’d like to hear the answer, and so should you—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You, sir, will be named the next time you do that to me. In the middle of a sentence, you speak when I’m standing? Not acceptable.

Minister.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, we are developing a new performance agreement with the new leadership at Ornge, because the people of Ontario demand greater transparency and greater accountability. I demand greater transparency and greater accountability. The fact that our government was stonewalled by the people at Ornge when we investigated questions and we were not provided with answers; when the Auditor General was stonewalled in his request for information; that led to this chain of events that takes us to where we are today.

The important thing, Speaker, is that we move forward with a stronger performance agreement so this—

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

M me France Gélinas: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It will be very interesting to get to the bottom of who knew what when, because in January 2011, there is a letter to your ministry from Ornge that says, and here, again, I quote: They are “seeking nothing from the government except to make it aware of what it has done and is intending to do” with their for-profit pursuit. They were telling the government that they could do whatever they wished with $150 million that the taxpayers were giving them.

This should have raised red flags to anybody; to any minister who’s doing her job. This should have raised red flags, along with everything else that had been going on: the questioning that had been going on in the House, at estimates. The letters that were piling up from Ornge saying, “We don’t have to give you any information,” happened in 2010.

Why, after two years of doing nothing, does the minister believe that she should keep her job?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Because, Speaker, when Ornge was established back in 2005, there was a hope, there was a dream that Ontario’s world-class air ambulance service was a product that could be commercialized and sold internationally. That was what we were trying to do at that time.

In hindsight, Speaker, the accountability agreement, the performance agreement, was not strong enough, and the other component, of course, was that the leadership at Ornge—a handful of senior executives—forgot that their first responsibility was to the people of Ontario; their first responsibility was to deliver air ambulance care to people who desperately need that air ambulance service.

So that is why, going forward, we are winding down all of the for-profit entities. That is the work of the board. They are doing that as we speak.

JOB CREATION

Mrs. Teresa Piruzza: My question is to the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation.

Despite the resurgence in the auto industry and the shift toward green energy manufacturing in Windsor and Essex, people in my riding are in need of jobs. Jobs and economic development continue to be the priority. It’s well documented that the unemployment rate in Windsor-Sarnia is higher than the provincial average. In January, unemployment was 9.7% compared to provincial 7.4%, and of course Windsor continues to have a very high unemployment rate. Can the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation please explain what is being done to create jobs in southwestern Ontario, an area particularly hard hit by the recession?

Hon. Brad Duguid: The McGuinty government recognizes the priority of job creation across the province. And we’ve acknowledged, as the member just said in her question, that this is a region of particular need. That’s why we are committed to creating the southwestern Ontario development fund, modelled after our successful eastern Ontario development fund, which is leveraging $500 million from the $53 million that we’ve invested so far and has created and is retaining 11,700 jobs. The southwestern development fund will leverage much-needed private sector funds and create much-needed jobs in southwestern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, as the member will know, this bill’s presently before the House. If passed, it will establish the southwestern development fund as a permanent economic development tool for southwestern Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Teresa Piruzza: Speaker, I understand that thorough consultations have been taking place throughout southwestern Ontario. The meeting in Windsor was well attended and very positive. The feedback I’m hearing in my riding from my constituents is that we need jobs and the investments. They need this fund and they need it now. Can the minister assure my constituents that the southwest economic development fund is on track to be in place this spring?

Hon. Brad Duguid: That is my expectation, Mr. Speaker. The only thing standing in the way of those important jobs and those important investments would be if the opposition should decide not to support the bill that is before this House. And I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I was a little concerned to hear the member for Lambton–Kent–Middlesex say during second reading debate yesterday—this is what he said—“My riding [has] been especially hard hit with the downturn of the manufacturing sector.

My constituents are coming to me every day, asking why the McGuinty government is doing nothing to repair the economy and nothing to turn things around in southwestern Ontario and help get people back to work.” Mr. Speaker, that’s just wrong. The member knows we’re taking action in southwestern Ontario to create jobs, to attract investment. He’s got to be straight with his constituents. He and his leader are standing in the way of that important—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. The tradition of this place is not to reference anybody else when the question period is on, so I will try to remind you that you’re answering the question for your colleague.

New question.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Health, Speaker. There is something called the emergency health services branch at the Ministry of Health. Can the minister tell us how many people are employed there and what their mandate is?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I will certainly be happy to get that information for the member opposite.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: Speaker, this is confounding. Not only does the minister not know what is going on at Ornge; she doesn’t know what’s going on in her own ministry departments. Here is what the emergency health services branch does, according to the website: It is the strategic manager of the land and air ambulance system for the province of Ontario. It is responsible for ensuring the existence throughout Ontario of a balanced, seamless and integrated system of ambulance services and communication services.

I want to know this: What have the more than 100 staff, the assistant deputy minister and the deputy minister, who are responsible for this platoon of overseers, been doing while the scandal at Ornge has been brewing and why doesn’t she know that they even exist?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I’m just going to let that sit. The member opposite will know that I’ve had meetings with that branch in particular. They have been working extremely hard throughout this whole process. In fact, it is thanks to the good work of the people at the emergency services management branch that we are developing this new performance agreement. I can tell you that the people at that branch, headed up by the very capable Patricia Lee, have been working very hard to get the information that we need. And it is thanks to them that we are where we are today, which is moving forward with a strong performance agreement, moving forward with new legislation.

I hope the member opposite will commit to supporting the new legislation that we will be introducing, which will bring transparency and oversight to Ornge.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Speaker, through you, this question is to the Premier. The health minister claims that she knew nothing, that she heard nothing, about Ornge. We all know that this is not the case. As we’ve heard today, in 2008, the province was warned about this. An accountant told the province that Ornge was handing out money like water. In 2010, Howard Hampton asked the health minister: Why is it that Mr. Mazza’s salary is not being disclosed? In 2011, the members of the opposition raised this issue in this House, asking the health minister to do something about what was happening at Ornge.

After the minister was repeatedly warned about this issue, how can she say that she has done her job?

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I’m doing my job because I’m fixing the problems at Ornge, and that is exactly what the people of this province expect me to do.

Let’s review again what it is that we’re fixing. We have brought in new leadership, a new CEO and an excellent new board. We have been working with the forensic audit team, the Auditor General and now the Ontario Provincial Police. We have brought in new oversight and new safety protocols.

The most important thing is this: If someone you know, someone you love, needs an air ambulance, is it going to be there for you? And the answer to that is: Absolutely, yes. The next most important thing is: Are your taxpayer dollars being used to provide patient care? That is the issue that we gave to the forensic audit team and we have charged the Ontario Provincial Police with, and they have accepted the responsibility for that investigation. Speaker—

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

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Speaker, again, through you, to the Premier: How can the Minister of Health say that she has been doing her job? When she has known about this issue for at least three years, how can she say that she has been doing her job? In fact, the only thing that’s transparent in this government is the lack of oversight and accountability. We know that executives at Ornge have been lining their pockets for years and we know the Minister of Health has ignored repeated warnings.

The former Minister of Health didn’t get to keep his job after the eHealth scandal. Why should this minister be able to keep hers?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I have taken the responsible action every step of the way.

I do want to take this opportunity, however, to remind all people who work in health care across this province that, if they have a responsibility to provide patient care and if they are entrusted with tax dollars, they have a responsibility to remember every single day what that responsibility is. They have to remember every single day who it is they’re there to serve. Very occasionally, we get someone in a leadership position who forgets that they have a fundamental, sacred responsibility to the people of this province. This is a good opportunity to remind everyone who works in health care and beyond that people are trusting you to do your job. Live up to that trust.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Mr. Phil McNeely: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy. Minister, Ontario’s clean energy economy is helping the province to replace dirty coal-fired generation with cleaner sources of energy. Our investments in clean energy are creating jobs and cleaning up the air we breathe, ensuring that our children and grandchildren have a bright and healthy future. Our clean energy economy has also brought in $27 billion in private sector investment and created over 20,000 jobs in the province.

The feed-in tariff review that is currently taking place is expected to build on the success of the program and to help grow Ontario’s clean energy economy. I know that my constituents are eager to see the review and learn about the enhancements to the FIT program.

Minister, can you please tell this House when the FIT two-year review will be complete?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: I want to thank the member from Ottawa–Orléans for the question. It is enormously important because we want to keep the momentum that’s been generated. We believe in clean energy, clean air and clean energy jobs, so we’ve conducted a very extensive consultation approach. We’re working as hard as we can.

I’m really hoping that toward the end of the first quarter we’ll be able to speak to this in more detail, but we want to keep the momentum of those 20,000 jobs touching every part of the province. We want to keep the investment coming into the province. We want to keep protecting the health of Ontarians, generating jobs for local communities and producing a clean energy source for today, for tomorrow and for generations to come.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Phil McNeely: Thank you, Minister. I’m looking forward to reading the review.

I know that the review is considering a wide range of issues, such as the FIT price schedule, rules around clean energy procurement, the role of new technologies in Ontario’s electricity system, and the renewable approvals process. These are very important aspects of our extremely successful FIT program, and I know there’s room for improvement.

Minister, my constituents are concerned that changes to the program will make an impact on both ratepayers and our clean energy economy. They would like to know what is being done to bring prices down while maintaining the necessary investments in our North-America-leading clean energy economy.

Can you please tell us what is being done to ensure that the FIT two-year review balances the interests of the Ontario consumer with the need to create jobs in our clean energy economy?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: The member has spoken very eloquently to the balance to make sure that you have a strong foundation—a strong foundation for jobs, a good amount of clean energy coming in and protection of the ratepayer.

You know, we heard from 2,900 individuals and organizations online; 130 separate submissions apart from online; over 100 meetings—a lot of good advice covering the wide spectrum. We want to make sure we have a solid foundation to grow those 20,000 jobs to 50,000, to encourage even more investment in the province of Ontario, to make sure we protect the ratepayer and to build a foundation for the next generation of innovative jobs for the future.

The world is going green. Ontario wants to be a leader. The jobs are for leaders, not followers.

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: My question today is for the Minister of Finance. It’s no wonder the McGuinty Liberals are on track for a $30-billion deficit. Minister, after eight painful years of Liberal mismanagement, I expect that you would like to find areas where you could eliminate waste, maintain jobs and save money.

The College of Trades is asking you for $31 million this year so that you can continue to destroy jobs in the skilled trades and construction industry. They are doing this by creating compulsory certification of existing construction trades, no grandfathering of tradesmen in these trades and a biased review of a distorted ratio system.

When will you do what is right and scrap this looming boondoggle that you call the College of Trades?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Our government is very proud of our record of doubling the number of apprenticeships in Ontario. I can assure the member opposite that we will continue to make important investments in job skills and training. It is essential to the growing economy of the future as we move forward.

That party’s approach to cutting back in training, colleges and universities is wrong-headed, it’s the wrong direction and it’s inconsistent both with Drummond and with what most proper-thinking people in Ontario feel about post-secondary education.

We’ll continue to make the important investments in apprenticeships and apprenticeship training to build a better future for Ontario and all of our people.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: Well, Minister, we know you have favours to repay, but surely you understand that the governance or the proposed membership requirements of the College of Trades is not representative of the industries here in Ontario. Transferring one more penny to this group is like telling thousands of businesses and construction workers they are not wanted in this province and you intend to destroy their jobs.

By allowing this college to expand compulsory certification and without the grandfathering of tradesmen with decades of experience, that will be the death of tens of thousands of jobs right here in this province.

Minister, will you do what is right—kill the College of Trades now—or will Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs have to do it for you and save thousands of jobs right here in the province of Ontario?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I let the question finish. I’m going to ask the member to withdraw the one part: the word that he used about the government.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: I’m not sure what I’m withdrawing, but I’ll withdraw it.

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

Hon. Dwight Duncan: To the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe I can just start by quoting a former colleague, a former member from Brant—a member of the party opposite—who said very articulately and accurately, Mr. Speaker: “Instead of being critical of the process, what they”—the lobbyists—“should do” in the party opposite is “become an active part of the process and feed us as much information as they feel that they need to convince the independent panel of adjudicators that the ratios should be set in the way they feel.” He has gone on, and points out that only 34 of the 150 trades have journeymen ratios, and has supported it.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I have been meeting now with the College of Trades, with almost every sector, and I can’t find people out in industry or in labour or in training who are not supporting it. We have 80% of our trades now that have one-to-one ratios. We have gone from 60,000 to 120,000 people in the trades—and 30,000 people every year. This is twice as good a record as the party opposite had when they were in power.

PUBLIC TRANSIT

Mr. Jonah Schein: Speaker, through you to the Premier: Yesterday, the Premier complained about changes to Toronto’s transit plans. He made it seem like Toronto’s city council can’t make up its mind on transit, but it’s the McGuinty government that gutted Transit City, the original plan, by $4 billion in 2010. He then proceeded with the mayor’s plan before council even had a chance to discuss it. Will the Premier stop pointing fingers and commit to move ahead now with light rail on Eglinton and Finch and renew the Sheppard RT, regardless of the decision on Sheppard?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Transportation.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: We kind of expected that question, Mr. Speaker, from the opposition.

Since 2003, our government has invested $13.4 billion in public transit, more than $6 billion enhancing GO Transit and more than $3.8 billion in the TTC. We have a very strong transit-first Toronto Liberal caucus. They advocated for and were successful in obtaining $8.4 billion to invest in the city of Toronto’s transit.

We need a partner to implement that, and all we’re saying is: Honour the memorandum of understanding, which said it was conditional on approval by city council in Toronto. We respect that cities are an order of government and we respect that they have the obligation to partner with us and to act responsibly.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jonah Schein: Thank you, Speaker. Back to the Premier: He says he’s impatient with the city of Toronto, but Toronto transit users, we’re impatient with the McGuinty government. Lack of support has contributed to fare hikes and to service cuts in the city, and the Premier’s acceptance of the Ford plan without due diligence has further delayed transit expansion. Will the Premier stop pointing fingers and commit now to construct light rail on Eglinton and Finch and to renew the Scarborough RT?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Our government has been extremely supportive of the TTC and the city of Toronto, and all things transit. As I’ve mentioned, we put $8.4 billion on the table. We’ve had strong advocates in our caucus who have convinced this government to invest $8.4 billion. We negotiated, firstly with the previous administration in the city of Toronto and subsequently with the new administration. We listened to what they wanted. We partnered with them. We simply made it conditional on approval of city council. City council has the authority to make that decision, not the mayor.

So we simply asked them to get the authority of council to enable us to partner with them to spend $8.4 billion in their city.

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE

Mrs. Laura Albanese: My question is to the Minister of Government Services. Many young people are coming up to the end of their final high school year and are giving serious consideration to what kind of studies they should focus on as they prepare for their careers. Many of these students are starting to research potential employment opportunities and employers before making the final decision on what field of study they should focus on.

Some young people in my riding are concerned, though, about barriers they might face once they enter the workforce. Just recently, I have read that the Ontario public service has received a number of top employer standards. Could the minister explain what this means and could mean to young people in my riding and in all of Ontario who are considering a career in the Ontario public service?

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased to take this question from my colleague for York South–Weston.

I’m also very, very pleased to inform the House that in the last three years, the Ontario public service has received numerous recognitions from outside organizations. Let me just name some of them. The OPS has become one of Canada’s top 100 employers, one of Canada’s best employers for new Canadians, and very recently, the OPS has been named as Canada’s best diversity employer. We have got this recognition five years in a row. This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the people who work in the OPS, and their leadership.

I also want to say that this is also a testament to our ongoing efforts to build an inclusive, supportive and barrier-free workplace that reflects the diversity of the Ontarians we serve. I would like to encourage all the young people to consider the OPS as a viable option for their careers.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Laura Albanese: Again, my question is to the Minister of Government Services. It is encouraging to know that these types of programs are in place, and I’m glad that the Minister of Government Services is championing diversity through his ministry and ensuring that the hard-working employees in the OPS are representative of the people we serve. Creating a barrier-free workplace is important for anyone exploring a career in today’s society.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to many groups of people in my riding who appreciate and would benefit from programs just like this in their employment sectors. I would like to ask the minister if he could share some details of the specific programs currently available to encourage an open and inclusive Ontario public service that serves all Ontarians.

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: Let me just start by saying that the OPS is composed of hard-working Ontarians with unique backgrounds, experience and perspectives.

Let me just talk about three programs that we have. One is the mentorship program, which allows new employees to work with the established leadership to learn good practices in the OPS. The other is the OPS Inclusion Lens, which helps to identify potential barriers when developing policies, programs and services. We also have a program which we call “quiet places,” where employees of diverse backgrounds can go to observe and practise their faith.

But at the same time, we want to make sure that people of all diversity are actually recognized in the OPS as well. Respecting each other’s diversity, experience and talents allows us to achieve great things for Ontarians together.

I would like to ask all the members in the House to join me in congratulating the OPS for their tremendous contribution.

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. Victor Fedeli: My question is for the Premier. The Drummond report finds cuts and savings in many areas, but it ignores the pain to families caused by your Green Energy Act.

Mr. Drummond has thrown up his hands and told Ontarians to open their wallets even wider and pay even more for energy that’s already too expensive. Despite what the Auditor General told us, you’re telling us it’s okay to force expensive wind and solar onto the grid, creating surplus power we sell at a loss, and higher energy bills for our seniors.

Premier, how can you tell Ontario families who can barely afford their energy bills now to just sit back and take it?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Christopher Bentley: We are committed absolutely to clean energy, clean air and clean energy jobs. We know the health care costs from burning dirty coal. We know they invested in dirty coal when they were in government. We know they invested in more dirty air, but the huge health care costs—$4 billion a year for the health care system and the environment—are not worth it. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it.

So we’ve launched the Green Energy Act and we’ve not only been able to clean up the air, we’ve not only made a commitment to get out of coal; we’ve shown leadership for the world. The world is investing in Ontario. We got jobs for Ontarians.

And I wouldn’t be surprised, Speaker, if the member opposite, before he got here, was in favour of clean energy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took some initiatives in his own jurisdiction to talk about how important clean energy was to the future of the people of his community and the province of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Speaker, let me remind our friends that it was our party that asked for and initiated the closing of coal plants in Ontario. Now the Liberals are replacing coal with natural gas because wind turbines generate at night; they make power when we don’t need it. So the bloated subsidies which clearly pay for energy we don’t need are adding billions of dollars to our costs. No wonder the McGuinty Liberals have a $30-billion deficit coming.

Premier, it’s time to admit that your energy plan has failed. Will you please cancel the FIT program now, and restore clean, reliable, affordable energy for Ontario families and businesses?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of Energy.

Hon. Christopher Bentley: Thank you, Speaker. And, you know, affordability is enormously important: affordability of energy, affordability when you consider the $4 billion a year that we were spending in health and environmental costs. When the party opposite was in power, they might have had a plan on paper, but they increased the use of coal by 127%. They were burning it, and when they ran out of coal generation they added diesel generators in communities like mine. We’re all in favour of clean air, surely. We’re all in favour of the thousands of jobs it brings, surely. We’re all in favour of clean air.

In fact, if I go to North Bay now, I wouldn’t be surprised, if I go to city hall, if I saw solar panels on the roof, and I would ask, who was the mayor who put solar panels on the roof at city hall?

Interjections.

FIRE SAFETY

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. Order.

Proceed.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. I’m standing. He’s getting the question. Member?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: My question is to the Minister of Community Safety. Minister, you will know that last year in the city of Timmins there was a disastrous fire at Rainbow Suites, one of the seniors’ residences in the city of Timmins. Unfortunately, the life of Madame Levesque was lost in that fire. Here we are about 11 months after the fact and there has yet to be an inquiry as to what we can learn from what happened in that fire so it’s not repeated, not only in the city of Timmins but across this province.

My question to you is simply this: When will you call that inquiry so that we can make sure the tragedy that happened at Rainbow Suites and the passing of Madame Levesque as a result of that fire doesn’t happen anywhere else in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: Thank you very much. That’s a very important question and I’m sorry to see what happened, you know, with this lady, Madame Levesque, and all those who have been suffering from this incident. However, I don’t call the inquiry. The fire marshal is independent. If need be, there will be an inquiry, but it’s going to be called by him.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): There are no deferred votes. This House stands recessed until 3 p.m. this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1140 to 1500.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ACTON EMPLOYMENT

RESOURCE CENTRE

Mr. Ted Arnott: A few days ago, my constituents were surprised and disappointed to learn that the employment resource centre in Acton is slated for closure. This local employment counselling service, funded by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and delivered by Links2Care, has helped countless Acton and area residents with job searches and resumé writing. The work they do creates hope where there was once despair and turns lives around for the better when clients hear the simple words, “You got the job.”

Upon hearing the news of the pending closure of the Acton Employment Resource Centre, I immediately wrote to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities to protest. Subsequently on February 9, the town of Halton Hills council passed a resolution which strongly supported the Acton jobs centre.

Let’s remember that many people who are out of work in Acton don’t have cars and there is no public transit in Acton. I dropped in to the Acton jobs centre unannounced on February 15, meeting some of the staff and one of the clients who spoke in glowing terms about the help she’s receiving.

In today’s uncertain economy, with its stubborn high unemployment rate, a jobs plan should be one of the gover