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September 15, 2020

42nd Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2020-Sept-15 (PDF)

L180 - Tue 15 Sep 2020 / Mar 15 sep 2020

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 15 September 2020 Mardi 15 septembre 2020

Orders of the Day

Legislative reform

Members’ Statements

Education funding

Hospital funding

Assistance to persons with disabilities

Whitby Sports Hall of Fame

Student safety

Wolf Lake

Women’s issues

Noise pollution

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Judith Anne Campbell

Nathan Greene

New Brunswick election

Question Period

Long-term care

Education funding

Hospital funding

Child care

Women’s employment

Long-term care

Mining industry

Education funding

Education funding

Correctional facilities

Education funding

Skills training

Home care

Broadband access

Front-line workers

Introduction of Bills

Magna Carta Day Act (In Memory of Julia Munro, MPP), 2020 / Loi de 2020 sur le Jour de la Grande Charte (à la mémoire de Julia Munro, députée provinciale)

Statements by the Ministry and Responses

Post-secondary education and research

Petitions

Long-term care

Fish and wildlife management

Public sector compensation

Agri-food industry

Long-term care

Economic recovery

Optometry services

Multiple sclerosis

Economic recovery

Long-term care

Anti-vaping initiatives for youth

Orders of the Day

Legislative reform

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Legislative reform

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Government House leader.

Hon. Paul Calandra: I move that the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly be amended as follows:

Standing order 7(

d) is deleted and the following substituted:

“7(

d) Such motion may stipulate that the House shall continue to meet to a specified time not later than midnight.

“Such a motion may apply to one day or to more than one day and, in the latter case, shall specify whether a different specified time applies to different days. The question on such a motion shall be put forthwith and without amendment or debate. If a recorded vote is requested by five members, the division bell shall be limited to five minutes.”

Standing order 9(

a) is deleted and the following substituted, subject to the proviso noted below:

“9(

a) The weekly meeting

schedule for the House when it is in session shall be:

Day

Time

Proceeding

Monday

10:15 a.m.

Morning routine:

Members’ statements

Introduction of visitors

Question period

Deferred votes

Following morning routine

Recess

1:00 p.m.

Afternoon routine:

Introduction of visitors

Reports by committees

Introduction of bills

Statements by the ministry and responses

Motions

Petitions

Following afternoon routine

Orders of the day

6:00 p.m.

Adjournment

Tuesday

9:00 a.m.

Orders of the day

10:15 a.m.

Morning routine:

Members’ statements

Introduction of visitors

Question period

Deferred votes

Following morning routine

Recess

3:00 p.m.

Afternoon routine:

Introduction of visitors

Reports by committees

Introduction of bills

Statements by the ministry and responses

Motions

Petitions

Following afternoon routine

Orders of the day

6:00 p.m.

Private members’ public business

Following private pembers’ public business

Adjournment

Wednesday

9:00 a.m.

Orders of the day

10:15 a.m.

Morning routine:

Members’ statements

Introduction of visitors

Question period

Deferred votes

Following morning routine

Recess

3:00 p.m.

Afternoon routine:

Introduction of visitors

Reports by committees

Introduction of bills

Statements by the ministry and responses

Motions

Petitions

Following afternoon routine

Orders of the day

6:00 p.m.

Private members’ public business

Following private members’ public business

Adjournment

Thursday

9:00 a.m.

Orders of the day

10:15 a.m.

Morning routine:

Members’ statements

Introduction of visitors

Question period

Deferred votes

1:00 p.m.

Afternoon routine:

Introduction of visitors

Reports by committees

Introduction of bills

Statements by the ministry and responses

Motions

Petitions

Following afternoon routine

Orders of the day

6:00 p.m.

Private members’ public business

Following private members’ public business

Adjournment

Provided that until the end of the spring 2021 meeting period, the following is deemed to be part of the chart in the new standing order 9(a):

Day

Time

Proceeding

Monday

9:00 a.m.

Private members’ public business

Following private members’ public business

Orders of the day

Standing Order 10(

b) is deleted and the following substituted:

“10(

b) At the points each day when the House arrives at a transition from one proceeding to another, as set out in standing order 9(a), the Speaker shall interrupt and call the next proceeding and, if applicable, the matter under consideration at the point of interruption shall be deemed to be adjourned.”

Standing order 27 is amended by adding after the first sentence, “This time will be reduced to five minutes for speeches to which less than 10 minutes is allotted.”

Standing order 30(

i) is deleted and the following substituted:

“30(

i) Divisions requested on motions to adjourn the House or the debate, or that the Chair of a Committee of the Whole House report progress and ask for leave to meet again or leave the chair, shall not be deferred.”

Standing order 35(

g) is amended, for the duration of the 42nd Parliament only, by adding, “In addition to the Speaker’s allotment of questions to independent members under this standing order, the Speaker may also allot to independent members the slots for what would otherwise be the fourth and fifth questions allotted to government members.”

Standing order 36(

a) is amended by deleting the words “on the adjournment of the House” and “at the time of adjournment that day.”

Standing order 36(

b) is deleted and the following substituted:

“(

b) Where notice has been given and reasons filed, as provided in clause (a), following private members’ public business on any Tuesday or Wednesday, the Speaker shall call for the matter to be debated for not more than 10 minutes, five minutes to be allotted to the member raising the matter and five minutes to the minister or to his or her parliamentary assistant to reply if he or she so wishes.”

Standing order 36(

c) is deleted and the following substituted:

“(

c) No more than three such matters of which notice has been given and reasons filed shall be debated on any single sessional day. No motion may be moved and no other business may be conducted during the time provided for in this standing order. At the conclusion of such debate or debates the Speaker shall adjourn the House to the next sessional day or, pursuant to standing order 7(

d) or 47.1, call orders of the day, as the case may be.”

Standing order 36(

e) is deleted and the following substituted:

“36(

e) When an evening meeting period has been scheduled on a government motion as provided in standing order 7(d), the evening meeting period shall begin following the conclusion of the adjournment proceeding under this standing order.”

Standing order 36(

f) is deleted.

Standing order 37 is deleted and the following substituted:

“37. Any divisions deferred under standing orders 10(c), 30(

h) or 101(

d) shall be disposed of consecutively during the proceeding ‘deferred votes’ and the bells shall be rung for five minutes prior to each division.”

Standing order 38(

a) is deleted and the following substituted:

“38(

a) The report of a standing or select committee on any bill shall be taken into consideration immediately and the Speaker shall put the question on the motion for the adoption of the report forthwith, which question shall be decided without amendment.

“(a.1) If 12 members stand in their places when the Speaker puts the question on the motion for adoption of a report on a government bill, 30 minutes shall be allotted to an immediate report-stage debate on the motion. The time for the debate shall be allotted equally among the recognized parties, after first allotting six minutes to the independent member(

s) of the House, if any. Only one report-stage debate may be requested on any single sessional day.

“(a.2) If a recorded vote is requested on the motion for the adoption of the report on any bill, the division bells shall be limited to five minutes.”

Standing order 44 is deleted.

The following new standing order is added:

“47.1(

a) A minister of the crown, following consultation with the House leaders of the recognized parties, may place a substantive motion on the Orders and Notices paper identifying an issue to be debated in a take-note debate.

“(

b) The motion in clause (

a) shall set out the day and time for the take-note debate.

“(

c) The debate indicated in the notice shall be taken up

“(

i) upon the commencement of orders of the day in the afternoon of the designated day; or

“(ii) at the ordinary hour of adjournment on a Monday; or

“(iii) following private members’ public business on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, whichever the notice in clause (

a) specifies.

“(

d) A take-note debate shall not be designated to be taken up during afternoon orders of the day on a day on which notice of an opposition day has already been given.

“(

e) Notwithstanding standing order 26(a), no member may speak for longer than 10 minutes.

“(

f) The Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and declare the debate concluded,

“(

i) At 6 p.m. for a debate that takes place pursuant to clause (c)(i), or

“(ii) After no more than four hours for a debate that takes place pursuant to clauses (c)(ii) or (iii).

“(

g) No motion may be moved during a take-note debate.

“(

h) When a take-note debate is designated to be taken up at the ordinary hour of adjournment on a Tuesday or Wednesday, the adjournment proceedings under standing order 36 shall not apply.”

Standing order 49(

d) is amended by adding at the end “nor shall such a motion be made more than once during a single speech, within the meaning of standing order 26(d)”.

Standing order 51 is amended by deleting the words “Except as provided by standing order 10(c), the vote on a motion for closure shall not be deferred” from the end.

Standing order 61(

c) is deleted and the following substituted:

“(

c) Private members’ public business will not take place on the day the budget is presented.”

Standing orders 74(

b) and (

c) are deleted.

Standing order 84(

c) is deleted and the following substituted:

“(

c) Without unanimous consent, no government bill shall be considered during orders of the day during an evening meeting of the House if that same bill has been considered on both the morning and afternoon meetings of the House on that same sessional day.”

Standing order 92 is deleted and the following substituted:

“92. The Clerk of the House shall publish five calendar days’ notice of the date on which any private bill is to be considered by the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills.”

Standing order 101(

a) is amended by deleting the first paragraph and substituting the following:

“101(

a) One item of private members’ public business shall be considered at the times as set out in standing order 9(a), and the time provided for each shall be allotted as follows:”

Standing order 101(

d) is deleted and the following substituted:

“101(

d) The Speaker shall cause any recorded division required upon any item of private members’ public business to be deferred to the proceeding ‘deferred votes’.”

Temporary standing order 116(

e) adopted on December 4, 2019 is deleted.

Standing order 116(

e) is deleted and the following substituted:

“(

e) A temporary substitution in the membership of a standing or select committee may be made provided a notification thereof, signed by the member acting as the whip of a recognized party, is filed with the Clerk of the Committee either before or within 30 minutes of a committee meeting being called to order. In the case of independent members, the notification must be signed by the independent permanent member and the independent substituting member.

“(

f) If a committee meeting is divided into morning and afternoon segments on the same sitting day, clause (

e) applies to each segment individually.”

Standing order 117 is amended by deleting the words “post in the Legislative Building” and substituting “publish”.

Standing order 128 is amended by deleting the word “session” and substituting “Parliament”.

Standing order 138(

d) is amended by deleting the words “post on all notice boards” and substituting “publish”; and

That the Clerk is authorized to re-number the standing orders and to make such other consequential, editorial or other minor changes as may be required to ensure a consistent form of expression throughout the standing orders; and

That the terms of this motion shall come into force at 12:01 a.m. on the Friday of the week following the week in which this motion is adopted.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Mr. Calandra has moved government notice of motion number 88. Mr. Calandra.

Hon. Paul Calandra: I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I will be splitting my time with the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville and the member for Burlington.

I do appreciate the opportunity to speak on this and to continue down the path of what I believe is updating the rules of the Legislative Assembly to allow for a greater amount of debate and to return the emphasis to where it rightfully belongs: into the hands of the members of the Legislative Assembly.

We have been doing a number of changes to the standing orders of the assembly over the last year. I know this is the second very robust series of changes that the assembly will be considering in less than a year, and I want to thank all of my colleagues for their help and participation in the consultations that I have been able to receive, some positive and some negative, from both sides of the House, which have helped us get to what I think is another step on the evolutionary path, as I said earlier on, of making this chamber work better for members of the assembly.

Mr. Speaker, as you will recall—and I think it’s worth repeating as just a reminder—we did make a series of changes last year to the standing orders that I think by and large have been very well-received from all members of the House. I want to highlight one, because I just want to do it off the top. One of the changes that we made last year was made to allow a better flow of how debate happens in this place. Prior to the change that we made together last year, an item that was debated in the morning could not be debated in the afternoon.

It made for what I believe—and I think many of my colleagues would agree with me—was a choppy form of debate. We changed the standing order, and if I’m not mistaken, this was a hold-off—before we changed the standing order, it was a holdback from when this House used to sit in the afternoon and, I guess, would begin sitting at 1:30 p.m. and would sit well into the evening. When the House began sitting in the morning, the standing order at the time wasn’t updated. The last change we did updated that so that we could debate things in the morning and in the afternoon.

An amendment from the member of the Green Party—and I think it was an amendment that this House unilaterally approved—after debate on the standing order changes was voted on, if I’m not mistaken, the member of the Green Party rose and offered an amendment to the standing orders just to clarify that the government could not pass a bill on the same day. So it could not call a bill in the morning and in the afternoon and at night. We agreed to that change. I think that was unanimously agreed upon by all members of the House.

But, inadvertently, we discovered in July when a motion was put forward to have evening sittings of the legislation, it appeared that it did allow for a loophole that would have allowed the government to call a motion in the morning and afternoon, and when the House didn’t adjourn for a break—I guess it’s tradition in this Legislature that between the afternoon and any evening sitting, there is typically a break—the motion was drafted in such a way that there would be no break, that proceedings would continue. That allowed the government, in essence, for the month of July, to pass a bill in one day.

That was obviously not in the spirit of what we had all agreed upon unanimously in this House. This motion today, the standing orders today will fix that by codifying it in the standing orders that the government is not able to bring reconsideration of a bill in the morning, afternoon, and at night regardless of how a motion is drafted by the government or members. I think that is a very, very important part of it, and it shows how we were able to work together.

I just want to go over it because I do have some time, Mr. Speaker. I want to go over, as I said earlier, a refresher of some of the things that we did last year. I hope the members will agree that much of what we did was, as I said and I will keep repeating, to give members of this assembly more say, more opportunity to debate, and to allow for more vigorous debate on issues that we disagree on, or on things that we agree on.

We had really wonderful debate yesterday in this chamber. The member for Mississauga East–Cooksville brought a private member’s bill forward that we brought into the chamber during government orders. Whilst we all agreed on that bill, there are a lot of bills that we don’t agree on. Congratulations to the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville for having his private member’s bill passed yesterday with the unanimous support of all members. It really was a good day, Mr. Speaker, for everybody to debate on that bill.

As I said, the changes that we made are to help members have a better say. One of the things that we did in this place was—and I’ll go over them in order—we changed how members’ statements are delivered in this House. Prior to the last set of changes, members’ statements would happen at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, and typically 1 o’clock is when people are at committee, other things are going on, or it would be in the afternoon routine, so 1 o’clock or 3 o’clock. We believed, and this Legislature ultimately approved, that members’ statements would be switched to just before question period.

The rationale for that, Mr. Speaker, at the time, and I still think is a valid one, is that typically when we’re not in a COVID-related world, the galleries are full of people from across the province, from our communities and from our hometowns. And when members are up raising on important points and they give members’ statements, they want to speak not only to the people who are in the gallery, but I think it shows respect for all parliamentarians when they’re doing their members’ statements that the House is full. It is preparing for question period.

I believe, and I hope members will agree with me, that it has elevated the prominence of members’ statements. Often a member’s statement can lead into question period and the vigorous debate that happens during question period. Again, as I said, I hope all members will agree that that was and continues to be an important change.

Of course, we added the royal anthem to the singing of the national anthem.

We allowed for and explicitly permitted the use of laptops, tablets and smart phones in a non-disruptive manner in the chamber. I know that might seem like a little thing since we were all doing it, for the most part, but the standing orders had not been updated to specifically allow members to do that.

We also changed the way in which members were introducing visitors. That’s an important and unique feature of this Legislature, as far as I know, that members do rise for a period of time to introduce people from their ridings who are here watching question period or in the afternoon routine. But I think all colleagues would agree that while it was supposed to be five minutes, it was going a little bit long. It was sometimes going 10, 15 or 20 minutes. So we went back to the prescribed—what was really already in the standing orders. We codified it so that members, including myself, would be forced to follow the rules on how that was done.

We also eliminated the need for a minister to verbally refer a question to a colleague during question period, as is the practice in all Legislatures. I always felt that that was just a time-killing mechanism, frankly. I think colleagues will agree. Virtually every question would come in and on this side of the House, you could rise slowly and then refer the question to somebody else. That person would then eventually get up and answer the question. That was tradition in this place for a very long time. It was not done in the federal Parliament, it’s not done in any other Legislature, so we eliminated that.

Now, the consequence of eliminating that, Mr. Speaker, was that question period went quicker and we are getting through more questions than we ever have before in this place. At the same time, we are able to get question period done and still get to deferred votes when they happen, so we’re gaining time. We’re getting our colleagues out of here a touch earlier so that we can get into deferred votes, and we’ve added more questions to question period.

We also eliminated the requirement for written authorization of a parliamentary assistant to answer questions. Again, that was a kind of unique feature of this House, that the Premier of the day had to authorize a parliamentary assistant to answer questions on behalf of a minister. We eliminated that. That will eventually lead to parliamentary assistants, as has been the case in the past, being able to answer questions on behalf of their ministers in the absence of a minister. I think that that adds a level of accountability that otherwise would not be there, Mr.

Speaker, and I think it provides a needed reassurance to the members opposite in the opposition that their questions will be answered by the appropriate minister or the representative parliamentary assistant to that minister.

Small things like allowing electronic distribution of background materials to reports and sessional papers tabled in the Legislature, which is obvious: That’s something that had been done and is codified.

We provided time for a reply to an opposition day motion for independent members. Again, that’s something that is important. This House has more independent members than is—in my experience, anyway—typical in a Legislature. The large cadre of independent members requires us to treat them with respect. This House has done that, I would argue. We codified it in the last standing order changes, and we are doing that additionally in this latest update.

The other thing that we did, Mr. Speaker, in the last session was that we allowed for co-sponsoring of private members’ public bills by up to four members, including members belonging to the same party. That, Mr. Speaker, is something that actually is quite important in helping people, I believe, to develop relationships across the floor and for members to be able to work together. We’ve seen a lot of instances where members—and perhaps even the Speaker; I know he has—have benefited from working across the floor and across the aisle.

It doesn’t always happen, but when ideas come and this House can work together to push for something that is important to all of us or that might be unique in a certain number of ridings, that amendment allowed us to do that not only with members across the aisle, but with members within our own party. It really helps address regional issues or other issues that are of importance to members, and again, I believe it elevates the importance of private members’ business.

We didn’t talk about committee substitutions, but we’re codifying that in this.

One of the biggest enhancements that we made after the last standing order changes, Mr. Speaker, and the one that I enjoy the most, frankly, has been the elimination of what we used to call the two-minute hits. I’m not sure what the opposition would call them, but it was the reply to a speech. It would be a two-minute response back and forth. We eliminated that and went to a question-and-answer period where the person who was providing a speech had to defend their speech in questions from their colleagues and members of the opposition.

That modification alone has been one of the ones, I think, that has certainly been the most exciting for me to see in this assembly. I believe the quality of debate, because of that change, has certainly improved. It also gives a tremendous amount of leeway, or more leeway, to the Speaker to ensure that the debate is on topic and that the questions and answers are on topic.

I would also argue it gives the Speakers more ability to control the type of debate that we’re getting in the House, because the Speaker has the ability to recognize members. Members stand and the Speaker can recognize them or not recognize them based on how things are going in the House. I know that on occasion—and I plead guilty to it as well—if members opposite say things that get me particularly upset, trying to stand in a question and answer, a Speaker might not recognize me because of the fact that I was not behaving in a fashion that the Speaker enjoyed at the time.

So I think it gives the Speaker more opportunity to control that type of debate, but more importantly, it gives members the opportunity to debate back and forth, which was certainly missing in this place. As far as I know, now that I’ve spoken with many of my colleagues on both sides of the House, that is the one change that most colleagues would agree with me has been the most well-received.

I want to get to some of the changes that we’re introducing. A lot of the changes that we’re introducing today, as I said, continue on in this vein of what I believe is enhancing how this place works, making it better for members and making the chamber more effective than it was in the past.

Now, as times change, obviously the standing orders of the House need to change to reflect that. One of the things that we’re doing right off the top, which for now is going to be a temporary measure until June of next year, is the addition of a private member’s bill every Monday morning so that we can deal with four private members’ bills in a week.

I think this is something that is very important. As I mentioned in debate yesterday, it was with appreciation that the members opposite allowed the House to move in a quick fashion over the last number of months, but a commitment was made that we would do everything in our power to try to catch up so that private members’ business could be dealt with in an effective fashion. The addition of a fourth PMB, which is every Monday morning, I think will get us well down that path of catching up by next June.

As I said yesterday in debate on this, PMB, private members’ business, is very, very important. It’s one of the most important things that we do in this House, because it really becomes the voice of the member for their community or for something that they’re very, very passionate about in this chamber, as we saw yesterday, with the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville. I know today, if I’m not mistaken, applications close for the poet laureate position for Parliament, I believe. That was a bill that was championed by the Speaker in many Parliaments and was passed last December—again, if I’m wrong, Mr.

Speaker, but I do believe they close today, applications for that—and something that will forever change how this Parliament looks: the addition of a poet laureate.

I know we also passed a private member’s bill from the member for Whitby, in co-operation with the leader of the Green Party, reflecting on how electric vehicles and charging stations would be operated going forward, another important piece of legislation. The member for Eglinton–Lawrence passed an important bill on defibrillators.

I know that in the very near future, the House will be giving consideration to three additional private members’ bills, one of which will be from the member for Mississauga Centre, one from the member for Parkdale–High Park and another from the member for York South–Weston—all very, very important bills for a various number of reasons. All had to be delayed because of COVID, but we are going to catch up.

Not to prejudge how it goes, but I think it will give us an opportunity—by the time we see this next June, I am hoping that we could table some additional standing order changes that might make that slot a permanent thing. But my colleagues and I can work on that once we catch up.

Also on this series of reforms, there are changes to how private members’ business is handled. Not only are we adding a Monday private members’ slot, but we are shifting the consideration of private members’ business to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6 o’clock to 6:45. Why is that important? It’s important to me because—and again, if colleagues disagree, I guess we’ll hear that in debate.

Speaking with a lot of my colleagues about this, I found the Thursday time, with three private members’ bills happening on one day at a time when many members are also trying to get back to their communities, for obvious reasons—I know for a lot of the northern members, it’s a heck of a lot of travel, but I’ve always felt that that diminished how private members’ bills were handled in this place.

By putting the focus on one bill a day, I believe it offers a number of things. It offers us, yes, the opportunity to focus on that bill. It offers the member who is introducing the bill the unique opportunity not to be competing with other colleagues in promoting his or her bill.

By shifting the time to when we’re doing it—again, when we’re in a post-COVID, back-to-normal in this chamber—it allows members to have individuals from the communities that they may represent or the people who are impacted by their bill in the House, in the Legislature, following what could hopefully be the successful approval of a PMB by the people in this chamber. I believe that it truly elevates the prominence of private members’ business.

Also, what I think it does—because we’re allowing votes on PMBs to be deferred. We’ll hear during debate, and this is my opportunity, so I’ll give my own opinion. I found it very disappointing—it’s not individual; all caucuses combined share this, I would suggest. I believe that PMBs, private members’ bills, should be voted on by all members in this House. You might not agree with it; you might not want to have a vote; you might want to abstain.

But if you’ve taken the work and taken the time as a private member to consult with people in your community, to build support amongst your colleagues in your own party or perhaps colleagues on the opposition benches, whether a good bill or a bad bill, whatever your judgment is, it is my belief that this entire House should have the opportunity to vote.

The old system did not always offer or afford us that opportunity because quite often it would—it certainly disadvantaged many of our northern members who had to get flights and get out of this place in order to get back to their communities in time to be here on a Thursday evening for votes.

But again, by allowing us to shift when the vote for a private member’s bill happens, which will be deferred votes after question period, you’re voting on one bill, on a unique bill which a member has taken time to work on, when the member has done a lot of work on the bill. I think this is a much better way, and if members disagree with me, I look forward to the debate on that. But I think this really elevates the prominence of private members’ business in this House.

Look, we can say it on both sides: Sometimes when you’re in government, if I’m being fair, you worry that the opposition will bring a bill that might wedge you into making a decision that you might otherwise not want to make, and the same goes for the government members with respect to private members’ bills that we might bring forward. But I do believe that is the essence of what we do. It’s about making decisions in this place and being accountable for the decisions that you make. As I said, good or bad, your vote should be noted.

With that, too, I should also say, as a bit of a segue, I want to assure all members of this chamber that the moment we can return back to the pre-COVID normal in this place—which is voting inside this chamber, galleries open and this building open to the people of the province of Ontario—we will move back as soon as we possibly can and it’s safe. And that goes for committee hearings on Zoom. This is not the new norm for the province of Ontario. This is a temporary measure that we’re taking. But we want this Legislature to go back to the way it was, and we’ll take some of the better parts of what we learned and move forward.

I don’t want to take too much time on PMBs, but I do think it’s just something that’s very important. It’s something that I found was diminished by how the rules had changed in this place over time. I certainly hope that members will support me on those changes and will support us on those changes.

I also wanted to talk briefly about the take-note debate. That is something that we don’t have here which the standing orders will be putting in place. The take-note debate is something new that we are proposing. In certain circumstances, there may become an issue that is of such importance that members want to have the opportunity to speak to it. It can either be in a partisan fashion or a non-partisan fashion. Whatever the case may be, it becomes of such importance that the government and members may feel that we should have an opportunity to speak to it.

Recently—I think just yesterday—the member for York Centre talked and gave a member’s statement on 9/11, and so the example just comes to mind, Speaker. But with 9/11, there are so many different things that we can talk about.

I think if you talk about community service and what we saw from people across this country in the post-9/11 time, communities opening up their homes, whether it was in Newfoundland or in other parts of the country where planes had landed, people opening up their homes, a take-note debate gives this Legislature the time to express their opinions—up to four hours—on a subject that is of vital importance to the province at that time, in a fashion that we do not currently have.

I think it’s a long overdue addition to the standing orders, and I certainly hope that it will be well received by all members of the Legislature. Again, it’s something where, under the rules, ministers of the crown, in consultation with the House leaders of all recognized parties and, of course, any of the independents, can bring forward a matter of importance for debate, and there can be up to four hours of debate on what we call the take-note debate. I think that is a very important addition.

The other item I wanted to talk about was, again, creating more opportunity for debate. Let me hit head-on what I believe will be the part that bothers the opposition the most. In these packages of reforms, Mr. Speaker, you will see that we are also eliminating what is called the reasoned amendment. We are proposing to eliminate that process.

I know that yesterday, the opposition House leader expressed his opinion on that. In a press release from the opposition House leader through the NDP caucus, the headline was that the Premier gives himself the power to ram bills through overnight. The quote from the opposition House leader is that the Premier—he uses his name—“has made another move to grab power under the cover of the global pandemic.

Ford and his government are eliminating reasoned amendments, giving themselves the power”—this is an important part and I hope that we’ll hear from the opposition House leader on this—“to ram through their bills practically overnight, with no consultation, no public input, no time for media or the public to read them, and no notice given to the people those bills could hurt.” That is the press release that came out from the opposition House leader.

I anxiously await his explanation on how this could actually happen. I have certainly consulted with experts and I have consulted with former House leaders to try and rack my brain on how these amendments that we are proposing could see the government ram through a bill overnight without consultation, without the media being aware, and I have found no way that the government could possibly do that.

In fact, we’ve actually tightened it up, if anything, by eliminating the ability and codifying the ability that a bill could be debated in the morning and afternoon but not in the evening—two of three potential sessions. I do anxiously await the opposition House leader’s explanation as to how that could happen.

I wanted to speak a little bit further about why we’re eliminating the reasoned amendment. For those who don’t know, a reasoned amendment is something that is an opportunity for the opposition after the government has introduced a bill. They can offer a reasoned amendment, which for all intents and purposes delays debate in this chamber on the bill for two days. it unilaterally delays debate. What we’re proposing is that we would be eliminating that, but the bill would still have to be published before it could be debated. So for all intents and purposes, the bill could not be debated on the same day.

It would have to be debated at earliest the next day or until it is published in the Orders and Notices paper. True, we could debate things by one day sooner.

But what is the reasoned amendment? The vast majority of reasoned amendments obviously come from opposition members. It might surprise you, Mr. Speaker, to know that—where are we at in reasoned amendments? In the 42nd Parliament, there has been an over 400% increase in the use of reasoned amendments; in the 41st Parliament, the Parliament preceding this one, there were six reasoned amendments; in the 40th Parliament, there were no reasoned amendments; the 39th Parliament, seven; and in the 38th Parliament, one reasoned amendment.

So 2003 to 2007, one; 2007 to 2011, seven; 2011 to 2014, there were none; 2014 to 2018, there were six; and in the 42nd Parliament, the NDP have offered 17 reasoned amendments, in this Parliament alone—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: It speaks to your legislation.

Hon. Paul Calandra: —the Liberals, five; the Greens, two; and Mr. Hillier, two. I think that’s an over 420% increase in the use of reasoned amendments.

Now, the member opposite is going to say, as he shouted out, that it speaks to the legislation, which really, then, highlights two things. What we’ve been saying all along is that the Liberals and the NDP really are friends in very many ways. I know they get really upset when we talk about how in previous Parliaments they supported them ad nauseam and they kept them in power for far longer than they had to, especially during minorities.

Now, here we have certain proof of that, that they would do everything in their power to make sure that the Liberals stayed in power, because over, what, 20, 25 years, they offered more reasoned amendments in two years than they did—let’s put that into context: We’re two years into this Parliament, and there has been a 420% increase in the use of reasoned amendments over only two years.

Again, I look forward to the member opposite explaining or highlighting how the statements in the press release are accurate. I don’t believe them to be, but I’m sure he’s going to give the House his appraisal of how the government could ram things through without oversight, without anybody knowing and do it overnight. That’s just not the case.

So we’ve eliminated the reasoned amendment. Can bills still be amended? Absolutely, bills can obviously still be amended. Bills can be amended at committee. One of the things that this allows us to do is begin debate on issues much quicker than we would have otherwise. This is something that we talked about through the last standing order changes. It’s almost like the boy crying wolf over there, constantly. We heard, from the last standing order changes, that the world was going to fall apart, that the government would ram things through in one day—same argument then. It actually didn’t happen.

We saw the rates of time allocation fall dramatically after the last round of standing order changes. We are getting to closure far more often on almost all of the bills that we are doing. We have seen debate collapse on some bills. We are getting to record levels of private members’ bills being considered in this House. I think what we’ve seen is actually some very, very good changes that have given all members the opportunity to participate.

By eliminating the reasoned amendment, Mr. Speaker, a bill will go to committee, and if there are positive amendments that come out of committee, we’ll have those passed at committee and brought back to the House. But here’s the difference, Mr. Speaker: What we’re also allowing in this is for a debate at the report stage on committee. It’s not something that has been done here before.

Members will know that when a committee Chair gets up to report a bill back to this House, five members can stand and that triggers the bill. That’s the limit of the amount of debate that comes post a bill reporting back from committee. Under the changes that we are proposing, if 12 members were to stand at that point that would trigger an automatic debate of up to 30 minutes, split up amongst the recognized parties, on that report back from the committee, on what members heard at committee.

Mr. Speaker, as I was mentioning, in consultation with colleagues on my side and on that side, it is another opportunity for members on both sides of the House to highlight some of the positive things. But if there are things that the members opposite or members on this side were not happy about with respect to how committees progressed or a viewpoint that they didn’t feel came out appropriately or if they wanted to highlight a minority opinion or a dissenting opinion to a bill, they can highlight that for the first time in this assembly. It is codified in the standing orders, Mr. Speaker, and it is a 30-minute debate on that.

I think that alone is a very, very significant change which helps in not only modernizing this place, but in giving members on both sides of the House an opportunity to participate in debate in a way that they would not have otherwise been able to do. And not only are we doing it for the government members, for the official opposition, but we understand that in this House there is a large cadre of independent members. We’re codifying it in there so that the independent members also have the opportunity to have that say.

What we’re doing by eliminating the reasoned amendment is—are we giving ourselves the opportunity to have an extra day of debate? Absolutely we are, Mr. Speaker. Many of the reasoned amendments, and I started highlighting them in the last session, are all the same. It’s cut and pasted to the bill. It adds the new bill number and just says, “The bill should not go forward,” and, “Send back for consultations.” They’re not substantive amendments.

Other Legislatures, perhaps, in making these amendments, have more substantive ones, but that has not been the case here, and it is something that I think will certainly lead to, again, more debate, not less debate, in this chamber. Allowing for debate at the report stage, I think, is a feature that all members will certainly come to appreciate.

In recognition of the large, independent caucus or independent members here, the government has decided unilaterally to provide two of its allotment of question period questions to the independent members, Mr. Speaker. I think that just is a reflection of the need to give every opportunity for the opposition to hold the government accountable for the decisions that it makes. Especially in light of the fact that for many months with COVID—from March through to late June—this House moved in, really, an unprecedented fashion, Mr. Speaker. This is a reflection of the fact that the House moved in a fashion that it would not have otherwise done.

As the Premier said to me on countless occasions—when we headed into this, last March, the Premier said a number of things. He said, “First and foremost, on the private members’ business, if we’re limiting that because of a pandemic, then you find a way to catch up,”—this does that. The Premier also said, quite clearly, that, “Yes, while we’re in government, we’ve got to move quickly. They’ve got a job to do, let them do their job, find a way to let them do their job, even in a pandemic.” And, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, the opposition has always done that even when moving at that speed.

By providing two additional questions, it allows two more opportunities to hold members accountable.

Another change that we’re making, and I did this in consultation with the independents—another little hiccup from the last standing order changes. I mentioned earlier, in the debate back and forth after a 20-minute speech, you’d have 10 minutes of questions and answers. Inadvertently, I allowed the independent members, who would speak maybe for a minute or two minutes, to also have 10 minutes of questions and answers, which put, I think, the timing out of whack, so we’ve modified that so a speech of under 10 minutes—and that’s for all members—will have a five-minute question-and-answer period. I think that’s just fairer for all of the people in the House.

Again, much of this is workflow. I just think that the Legislature works better when we have the opportunity to have proper debate on things and when the House can focus on things that are important to it. By giving ourselves more time to debate, I’m uncertain—and I look forward to consideration from all members—how members on either side of the House will be able to argue that giving ourselves more time to debate important bills somehow runs counter to democracy.

That’s really what we’ve done: We’ve given ourselves more time to debate issues of importance, we’ve given more time for the opposition to express dissenting opinions, we’ve given more time for the consideration of private members’ business, we are closing the small loophole that existed in the transition from the afternoon session into an evening session to ensure that it was considered a unique session when in consideration of a bill and we’re enhancing the role of independent members. Part of that, and that we heard from the independent members, is allowing them to make substitutions on committees.

It obviously makes sense, when there are 12 independent members, if they can organize their affairs amongst themselves that they should be able to do that. It was a temporary provision that we did last December, but we’re making it a permanent change in these standing orders.

As I said, I’m splitting my time with two other members, so I’ll just try to summarize. I do look forward to hearing some of the comments from colleagues on all sides of the House on this.

Just to reiterate, what this does—and I’m very proud of the fact that we have been able, not only in the last iteration of changes but in these changes, to put the focus where it belongs: on private members’ business. Elevating the private members’ business and elevating the role of all of the members to work uniquely and to work together by allowing members to co-sponsor bills together in their own party and across the aisle, up to four people. I think it allows us an unprecedented ability to collaborate where necessary or where it is important to do so.

By eliminating an unnecessary delay of a reasoned amendment, which has increased, as I said, by over 420%, it allows the government to move to debate on a bill faster, yes, but not before a bill has been published into the Orders and Notices paper. Members will still have the opportunity to read a bill before it is debated in this House.

By making the changes to the report stage, we’re adding—as I said earlier on, when we did questions and answers back and forth, that almost went seamlessly. I was surprised at how well that went. After having gone the two-minute statement for so long, members really picked up on that very quickly, and I think immediately the quality of debate improved at that point. I think the report-stage debate will also be a very unique feature that will allow us to really highlight things.

What’s most unique about this, as I said, is that when 12 members stand there will be a debate on a report back. What that allows is the members who are on committee, the members who’ve heard the most about a bill, the members who are most knowledgeable or most passionate about something to get in this place at report stage and have a say before we go into third reading, Mr. Speaker. I’m quite confident that all members will embrace that change. When taken in totality with the changes that we introduced last December, again, I am hoping that we will receive unanimous support from all members on both sides of the House for this particular series of changes.

I have to admit, Mr. Speaker, I was surprised when I did see the press release from the opposition House leader yesterday. The headline does speak for itself, really, so I’m anxious to get progress on this, “The Premier gives himself the power to ram bills through overnight.” It just does such a disservice, a headline like that. But having said that, hopefully the member opposite will explain his rationale for such an aggressive press release. But it does a disservice to this place, when the government tries to make changes, which by and large have been looked at unilaterally.

I know the member for Lanark praised them as being—in the last iteration, I think he said that it was the first time he saw standing order changes where the government wasn’t self-serving and trying to benefit itself. I think people will find that these changes are a continuation of that, Mr. Speaker.

I hope all members would agree that under this Premier, there has been an elevated importance of the role that members of Parliament play since Premier Ford came into office. In just a very, very short period of time—and I’m quite proud of this, Mr. Speaker—and over the next couple of weeks, we will have considered and dealt with private members’ business at a rate that I’m uncertain that this House has ever seen before. Much of it is done in a way that all colleagues on both sides of the House can agree on bills that we can agree upon and are very important to the people of the province.

I think that’s something that we should be proud of. It’s something that we should celebrate, and that’s why these standing orders are so important, so that we can put the prominence on those bills so that members can have their say and members can highlight things of importance to them.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I think I will yield the floor. I anxiously await a reply from the opposition House leader. But with that, I’ll yield the floor to my colleague from Mississauga East–Cooksville.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): At the beginning of his remarks, the government House leader did say that he would be sharing his time, so I turn now to the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville.

Mr. Kaleed Rasheed: Thank you to our House leader for this morning’s debate.

Mr. Speaker, one of the many great changes that I’ve found in these standing order changes—and I actually did thank the House leader—is the use of electronic devices. For me, that was the one of the best changes. When I came into this Legislature back in 2018, during orientation, I asked the individuals, “Can I use my electronic device when speaking?” Coming from a technology background, I was informed, “No, you cannot,” and I felt like, “Wow, in this day and age today we cannot use our electronic devices.” Because sometimes, Mr.

Speaker, when you are speaking and you want to back up your speech with some notes, or real-time backing that you want to present with your speech—just like one of my colleagues yesterday when he was speaking. He was giving real-time examples on my private member’s bill. I think this change that was brought forward was—in my opinion, I really enjoy it. When we talk about the environment, I think the less paper we are going to use, the better it is for the environment as well. It shows how environmentally friendly our government is. I really, really enjoy this change.

But also, this new change that we are bringing forward, as mentioned by our House leader, is allowing our independent members to ask two more questions and hold us accountable. This is a real change. That we are giving up two of our questions and allowing the independent members to ask them shows that we want to be held accountable. It’s a great way of us giving our side of the story and positioning ourselves in front of the public.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am actually going to bring an amendment to this standing order. See, I wish I could be reading this with my electronic device rather than on paper, but I move that the motion be amended by adding the following in the table depicting the Thursday meeting

schedule of the House in standing order 9(a):

A row in the “Time” column between “10:15 a.m.” and “1:00 p.m.” containing the words “Following morning routine”; and

A row in the “Proceeding” column between “Morning routine” and “Afternoon routine” containing the word “Break”.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Mr. Rasheed has moved an amendment that the motion be amended by adding the following in the table depicting the Thursday meeting

schedule of the House in standing order 9(a): a row in the “Time” column between “10:15 a.m.” and “1:00 p.m.” containing the words “Following morning routine”; and a row in the “Proceeding” column between “Morning routine” and “Afternoon routine” containing the word “Break”.

Back to Mr. Rasheed, the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville.

Mr. Kaleed Rasheed: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As I said, I’m really excited with these new standing order changes. As a whip—the deputy whip and the chief whip are sitting here—sometimes, it makes our lives much easier when we are looking at votes as well. And also, my colleagues on the opposition side—I think they’re going to enjoy this and these positive changes coming forward.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask my colleague from Burlington to continue and take over this debate.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): When he began his remarks, the government House leader did say that he would be sharing his time with the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville and the member from Burlington. We go now to the member from Burlington.

Ms. Jane McKenna: Speaker, I have an amendment to the amendment. I move that the amendment be amended by deleting the word “Break” and substituting the word “Recess”.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Ms. McKenna has moved an amendment to the amendment that the amendment be amended by deleting the word “Break” and substituting the word “Recess”.

I turn back to the member from Burlington.

Ms. Jane McKenna: That’s it. Thank you.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Further debate?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I’ve got to say, I’m not exactly excited about speaking to this particular motion in regard to yet another change to the standing orders. It is pretty clear, when you look at what has happened over successive years and what has especially gone on since this administration has come to Queen’s Park, that the standing orders, more and more, are being shaped in a way that the government can move its business through with little scrutiny by all members of this House.

Not just the opposition, but even some of its own members, because, as you well know, every government, including this one, has had members who disagreed with what the government was doing and voiced that in their debates and also voiced that in their votes.

When a government does what this government is doing to yet restrict even more the ability for individual members of the House on either side to be able to hold the government to account and to give greater scrutiny, I think that’s just a direction that we shouldn’t be taking. I think, in the end, what we want to have happen here is to understand, first of all, that a government who was elected by a majority has the right to decide what business is going to come to the House, and, in the end, they must be able to pass their legislation. I think we all understand that.

It’s the way the British parliamentary system works. But the beauty of the British parliamentary system is that it was designed in such a way that allows the government to be able to get its business through the House, but provides for proper scrutiny by way of the work that we do in this House and the work that we do in our committees. Unfortunately, much of that has been weakened over the years, and especially under this administration, by way of practice and by way of changes to standing orders.

When I first got here some 30 years ago, it was very normal, especially for a controversial bill, to be ordered to committee and then to have public hearings that travelled through Ontario. So if the government, be it NDP, Liberal or Conservative, had a bill that was substantive and that there was some concern about, the bill would travel around Ontario, and that was a very normal thing to happen. They would travel, on average, at least a couple of weeks.

There was one swing through the north and maybe two swings through southern Ontario in order to give communities in those areas an opportunity to have people come forward and give their thinking as to what was good with the bill and what was bad with the bill. This government has very little regard to allow the public to have their say in their legislative process. I think that’s rather unfortunate, because this Legislature is about the people of Ontario.

If we’re not prepared, because the government won’t allow committees to travel and to do the work that they used to do, I think what it does is it reflects on the government’s insecurity of its own legislation. I think it’s as simple as that. So that’s the first part.

The second

part is, much of what the government proposes inside these particular rule changes that they brought before us now are all about maximizing how much time they have to debate legislation in order to speed up the process of passing legislation. Again, nobody argues that the government has the right to be able to pass their legislation. My argument—and the argument of many in this Legislature—is there have to be checks and balances.

For example, getting rid of the reasoned amendment provisions within our current standing orders I think is problematic, because what you’re going to have happen is, the government introduces a bill, let’s say, on Monday, and we could be debating it the very next morning at 9 o’clock, which means that we’ll be in a situation where there will be little time to be able to examine the bill, to consult with stakeholders and do the work that we need to do on both sides of the House when it comes to scrutinizing the bill.

Unfortunately, the government has not allowed us, by way of doing their own two amendments—which they have the right to do, I’m not arguing; that was their right to do that. But we were going to propose that if the provincial government, in this case, was trying to follow the lead of what they do in Ottawa, there should have been a 48-hour provision after the introduction of a bill. In Ottawa, once you’ve introduced a bill, you have to give 48-hours’ notice to the assembly as to the name of the bill and what it’s all about. I think that’s only a reasonable thing.

Speaker, I see you’re about to get up, so I’ll sit down at this point.

Debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Thank you. I am sorry to interrupt, but we’re at that period of the morning where it is time for members’ statements.

Members’ Statements

Education funding

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: The return to school and the need for smaller class sizes that allow for safe physical distancing is the number one concern I’ve heard from parents, students and education workers. While education workers and boards scramble to get everything in place for in-person and virtual learning, the Ford government has taken a back seat and watched the chaos around them—chaos that they created.

Yesterday, a constituent said that when his son woke up for virtual first-period class, he still hadn’t been provided a

schedule or told what class he was about to participate in. Why is that? Teachers from OSSTF in Windsor say it’s because very few teachers have been assigned to virtual classes yet. It’s chaotic for education workers, who have no idea how to prepare, and for the students, who have no idea what to expect.

Students with disabilities are being left behind without individualized lesson plans or accessible formats that meet their specific needs.

COVID cases are going up, and if the government doesn’t act quickly to reduce class sizes, our kids are going to get sick or lose another school year. Ontarians are looking for reassurance and for action. While the Ford government sits on $6.7 billion in unused COVID relief money, families are struggling. To my constituents, it is clear that this Conservative government is focused—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Order, please.

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: —on setting the stage for private schools, not investing in our public education system.

On behalf of the people in Windsor West, I again ask the government to invest the funding and resources needed to ensure schools run smoothly and safely for our kids and education workers.

And I ask the members on the other side to actually listen to what I’m saying rather than having loud side conversations.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Members on both sides of the House, when we agreed to do statements at this time, it was understood that we would give our undivided attention to those who had the floor and were recognized to speak. So, please, listen to what is being said.

Hospital funding

Mr. Robert Bailey: I’m pleased to rise today and speak about another important investment by the Ontario government in Sarnia–Lambton. Yesterday, the Minister of Health announced new investments of $175 million this year to address critical upgrades, repairs and maintenance in 129 hospitals across this province.

I’m extremely pleased to share that as a part of that announcement by the Minister of Health, Sarnia–Lambton’s Bluewater Health will receive $2,446,000 through the Health Infrastructure Renewal Fund, otherwise known as HIRF, for critical infrastructure projects at both the Sarnia campus and Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital in Petrolia. This important investment is in addition to nearly $1.8 million in health infrastructure renewal funding that Bluewater Health received in 2019.

I’m very proud that our government is acting on its plan to build a connected and sustainable health care system centered around the needs of patients. Renewing and modernizing hospital infrastructure is one more example of how the Ford government is working toward ensuring the residents of Sarnia–Lambton have the health care services they depend on today and in the future.

Mr. Speaker, this is a terrific investment by the province, and great news for everyone in Sarnia–Lambton.

Assistance to persons with disabilities

Mr. Joel Harden: August 6, 2020, was an awful day for people with disabilities in Ontario. Why? Because the Premier of this province made excuses for cancelling a $100-a-month benefit during COVID for people on the Ontario Disability Support Program. He said, “If they’re healthy,” get a job. And he went further: He said those on ODSP and CERB at the same time were “a few hundred dollars” a month ahead.

Fact check: A tiny minority of people on the ODSP collect the CERB because they are too disabled to have full-time paid employment.

But, Speaker, what was the Premier of this province actually saying? That disabled immunocompromised people should go find paid employment during a pandemic? That they should risk their lives for billionaire owners like Loblaws? Was that truly the point the Premier was attempting to make? Speaker, people with disabilities in this province live in poverty, and it’s because of legislation this House puts into place. They deserve so much better.

Poverty is expensive for the province of Ontario. Studies tell us it costs as much as $33 billion a year, and it’s humiliating.

Speaker, on a personal note, I said something and did something that I apologized to the Premier for last December. But it’s time for him to apologize to people with disabilities in this province for what he said, and to restore the $100 a month they urgently need. Premier, I await your reply.

Whitby Sports Hall of Fame

Mr. Lorne Coe: I believe that there is a place in this chamber to recognize those Ontario residents who have accomplished great things. Regretfully, the COVID pandemic has forced the cancellation of many events and celebrations across Ontario.

Over the years, the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame has honoured many homegrown athletes and sports stars. But after 22 years, the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame has delayed its dinner honouring new inductees until 2021.

This dinner has been an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the achievements of our talented and hard-working athletes. Speaker, we’ve seen so many great athletes from Whitby represent our community, our province and our country at the highest levels, and this dinner has been an opportunity for their parents, neighbours, childhood coaches and friends to honour their outstanding athletic accomplishments.

I’m pleased this morning to congratulate Gil Nieuwendyk, Shawn Williams and Carolyn Mountjoy for their now soon-to-be induction into the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame and Whitby history.

Student safety

Mr. Faisal Hassan: For weeks, parents, educators and public health experts have raised concerns with the government plans for a safe return to school reopening. Concerns over crowded classrooms, poor ventilation in schools—and especially in particular the many aging schools that are in our community of York South–Weston—how children are to be safely transported, how safe hygiene can be maintained and the lack of child care availability for working parents were just some of the issues I heard about during our town hall meeting on September 3.

Mr. Speaker, smaller class sizes in schools with proper ventilation and access to cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment is the only way to have hope of our schools being safe.

Special-needs children have unique needs, and they have been left behind during the past few months of remote learning.

We need a responsible plan that does not jeopardize the efforts we have made the last several months, coping during this pandemic. I believe all Ontarians deserve health care they can count on, high-quality senior care and public schools that give all of our children a great start.

COVID has been very stressful for economic, social and health reasons. The safety of our children to continue their education in the securest of conditions should always be a top priority.

Wolf Lake

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I rise today to ask the government to reject a proposed mining exploration permit that would damage Wolf Lake, the largest old growth red pine forest in the world.

I love Wolf Lake. I love the ancient forests; I love the blue water. As a matter of fact, I took my daughter there this summer on our annual daddy-daughter canoe trip.

Only 1.2% of old growth red pine forests remain, making them critically endangered. This is what makes Wolf Lake such a special place and an irreplaceable ecological gem. That is why former Premier Mike Harris promised to make it a provincial park. But existing mining claims prevented him from doing it, and the Liberal government dealt a blow to Wolf Lake in 2012 when they renewed the leases on those mining claims. Friends of Temagami were heartbroken last fall when the Ford government allowed unconditional mining exploration permits in Wolf Lake. Now there is another application for a mining permit.

Speaker, I support mining. We need mining. But enough is enough. Wolf Lake is an irreplaceable ecological gem, and sometimes you just have to say no to protect the places we love. Now is one of those times.

Women’s issues

Mr. Stephen Crawford: I’m honoured to rise today to acknowledge the recent measures to support and encourage women to enter the skilled trades, and initiatives from members in my riding that are contributing to the advancement of gender equality.

Our province will be confronting a challenge where there will be more skilled trade jobs than people to fill them. A significant group that will be essential to reverse this trend is women. The recently announced funding to the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario is encouraging, and will be used to support women in the skilled trades.

It is a privilege, also, that the district council of LIUNA is based in my riding of Oakville. This union, whose members are building our infrastructure, has been instrumental at supporting women who are joining the trades. LIUNA has implemented the Women in Trades program with private sector partners, such as Aecon. I want to thank LIUNA for their leadership in breaking barriers in the skilled trades.

I would also like to bring attention to an event in Oakville next week that will be occurring on September 23. I will be participating in the premiere of the Hollywood movie Misbehaviour, which is the story of Oakville resident Jennifer Hosten and will be taking place at the local movie theatre, Film.Ca. Notably, some of the proceeds raised from the ticket sales will be going to Plan Canada’s Because I Am A Girl campaign, which is an admirable organization that supports gender equality in Canada and internationally. Their fundamental objective of gender equality is one that I fully stand behind, and I’m excited for this event on September 23.

Noise pollution

Ms. Suze Morrison: Residents in my riding of Toronto Centre are pleading with this government to reverse their suspension of local noise bylaws. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, construction has continued unabated on developments right next door to where people live. The persistent noise is making it impossible for nearby residents to get a good night’s sleep.

Speaker, my constituents are exhausted. I have heard from residents with medical conditions who are suffering from headaches because of the persistent and prolonged noise. I’ve also heard from people who have to work from home because of COVID-19 and are struggling to keep it all together with constant noise disruptions in the background of their Zoom meetings and phone calls.

People in my community are already being asked to take on the monumental task of juggling work and child care from home in a global pandemic, and the constant noise is making an already difficult situation simply unbearable. People in my community are burnt out. They’re angry that this government would take advantage of an emergency measure to give their developer friends an 18-month extension on construction hours.

In the interest of the health and the quality of life of the people in my community, I’m calling on this Conservative government to immediately roll back the extension on construction hours and restore reasonable noise limits in our neighbourhoods.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Ms. Jane McKenna: Today, six children in Canada will be diagnosed with cancer. And while childhood cancers account for less than 1% of all cancers diagnosed, it takes a significant toll on families.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Across Ontario, people are building support, raising funds and creating awareness of childhood cancers. The Maggie Project, sponsored by South Dorchester residents Dave and Maureen Jenkins, honours their daughter, Maggie, who died at 12, and helps keep her memory alive while promoting research, cures and treatments. The gold ribbon is the international symbol of childhood cancer awareness. Dave and Maureen have once again sent gold ribbon pins for us to wear in the Legislature.

All month long, Childhood Cancer Canada and the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation are lighting up 37 landmarks across the country, including the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and, Minister Yurek’s favourite, Jumbo the Elephant in St. Thomas.

Here in Burlington, Halton Regional Police officers Tamara and Jeff Sandy created Chase’s Gift, a charitable organization inspired by the support they received during their son Chase’s battle with cancer.

Speaker, a child with cancer needs the help of five blood donors to support their care. That’s why Canadian Blood Services is also encouraging Ontarians to donate blood this month in honour of children affected by childhood cancer. Together, we can support these children and their families on their journey.

Judith Anne Campbell

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: It’s with a heavy heart that I rise today. On August 13, 2020, Judith Anne Campbell came to the end of her road, paved with passion, generosity, and a solid commitment to giving back to her beloved community of Stittsville.

Judith Campbell was the president of Stittsville Legion Branch 618. I first met her years ago when I began campaigning, and as soon as I met her, I was in immediate awe of this short, spunky, tough and very formidable woman. As president of the Stittsville Legion, she made sure that the Legion was well-involved in the community and, in fact, the Stittsville Legion is a community staple.

Carleton has 10 Remembrance Day ceremonies, staggered over a three-week period, but every year for Remembrance Day, I would always end it in Stittsville. It would always be a chilly day and the ceremony was outdoors—last year, it was actually snowing—but about 300 or 400 of us would gather there, without fail, to honour our veterans and our Legion. Afterwards, we would all go back to the Stittsville Legion for some amazing home-cooked clam chowder and chili. I would always spend that time catching up and chatting with Judy as we warmed our fingers with hot bowls of chili.

My deepest condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of Judith Anne Campbell, as well as Stittsville Legion Branch 618. Remembrance Day won’t be the same without her this year, but I know that Barb and the rest of the Legion will do Judy proud.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): It’s maybe a bit late, but I’m going to remind the members that when we’re in members’ statements, I would ask you to keep your private conversations as quiet as possible, so that we can hear the member who has the floor.

Nathan Greene

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I know that some members have already noticed the new mace stands which sit on the table. They were installed to be ready for yesterday’s resumption of sittings. Members will be interested to know that they were created and carved by the assembly’s very own skilled master carpenter, Nathan Greene. Nathan is here with us today and he’s joined by two colleagues from the Precinct Properties branch, Jelena Bajcetic and Rick Boon.

Nathan used mahogany for the stands and repeated the theme of the raised ornamental leaves on the mace itself by carving them into the wood on both stands. The mace is now much more prominently displayed, but it’s also much more securely perched at the end of the table.

Nathan previously added his work to the chamber by creating the spheres at the top of the finials held by the two lions which are above me. Those spheres existed originally going back to 1893, as photographs will prove, but they disappeared at some point in our history, and Nathan recreated and installed them to properly restore these symbols of courage, loyalty and justice.

Nathan’s work can be seen in many other parts of the building, but since this room is our intimate daily workplace, I wanted to ensure this special addition was properly acknowledged. We are fortunate indeed to have someone so skilled at fine carpentry among the talented Legislative Assembly staff. Once again, thank you very much, Nathan.

Applause.

New Brunswick election

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Attorney General has informed me he wishes to raise a point of order.

Hon. Doug Downey: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to extend congratulations to all those in New Brunswick who put their name on a ballot, and in particular Premier Higgs and my friend Andrea Anderson-Mason, the attorney general, who won with a sizable majority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Question Period

Long-term care

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My first question is to the Premier. Two months ago, on July 15, the Minister of Health stood in this House and said, “I want to assure the leader of the official opposition that there is a detailed contingency plan in place for a second wave.”

Can the Premier tell us when we will see the detailed contingency plan which supposedly has been ready for months?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Deputy Premier and Minister of Health to reply.

Hon. Christine Elliott: I can certainly assure the leader of the official opposition and everyone else in Ontario that the health, well-being and safety of Ontarians is our top priority, and always has been. To be clear, we will say that the latest increase in numbers has raised some concern. However, we are ready to deal with them.

First of all, based on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, we have decided to cease the opening of any further businesses or any other organizations for the next 28 days, or two incubation periods, in order to be able to reassess and take a pause to avoid having to return to a broad-scale closure, which nobody wants to see. If we have to, we will, but we don’t want to.

What I would say is that wave 2 of COVID is going to be more complicated than dealing with wave 1, first of all because we have flu season also approaching. We know that also results in increased hospitalizations. We also have an increase in numbers of people coming from long-term-care homes back into hospitals to make sure that we can follow up on the infection, prevention and control measures that we need to follow to continue their safety. We also have an increasing number of people who are requiring surgeries and procedures that were postponed from wave 1 who are dealing with capacity issues, but I’ll respond further to the member’s question in my supplemental answer.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I’m pleased that the minister actually acknowledged long-term care, because the second wave is specifically concerning when it comes to seniors in long-term care.

A new outbreak is under way, as folks might know, in the for-profit Extendicare West End Villa in Ottawa, where once again the private operators are telling families that they are facing staffing challenges as the number of infections in that home continue to rise. It’s my understanding that that number now sits at 29 seniors in that home with COVID-19.

Back in July, the government released a long-awaited study on the dire situation in staffing in long-term-care homes. What has this government done to implement any of the recommendations that the report has put forward, especially now that the second wave is hitting our long-term-care homes?

Hon. Christine Elliott: We do have a comprehensive fall preparedness plan, which will be released very shortly; it certainly does address the issue of health human resources. We know that there are issues that need to be dealt with there, but it is a plan that is going to build on some of the successes that we’ve already seen. We know that we have developed a robust testing strategy, for example, which has allowed us to achieve over 25,000 tests, roughly, per day. We’re increasing that for the fall. We have had over three million Ontarians tested to date, and we’re going to continue to increase that number.

We have also seen 148 dedicated assessment centres be created. We are going to build on that as well, because we know there are areas where there are some wait times that are over the times that we would like to see, because we want everyone to get tested who needs to be tested.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, the most important thing that we can do is for all Ontarians, all 14.5 million of us, to continue to follow public health measures, to continue to make sure that people follow physical distancing, that they wear masks where that’s not possible, that they follow hand hygiene, and if they’re not feeling well, please don’t go to work. This is vitally important for all of us in the province, and our plan is going to continue to build on that. All of the other health measures that we have in place, we’re going to continue to emphasize them over the fall.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, anybody who says the word “success” in the same sentence as “long-term care” has not got a check on reality in terms of what happened here in our province. It was a failure, a failure from the get-go.

The government has a blueprint for change in hand, apparently, but despite the Premier’s promises of an iron ring around long-term care and that the lessons were learned, they have not been learned. Change has still not come to the long-term-care sector, and once again, overburdened, underpaid staff in long-term-care homes are scrambling to deal with new outbreaks.

The Champlain Region Family Council Network recently wrote the province asking, “Where is Ontario’s plan? Have long-term-care staff been recruited and trained to supplement the already overburdened and underpaid staff in Ontario homes?” I’d say that’s a pretty darned good question, Speaker.

We saw the nightmare that happened over the first couple of months of COVID-19. We watched family members beside themselves, in tears, horrified by what was happening in long-term care. It took the Canadian Armed Forces to turn back that curtain and show Ontarians the failure of this government and previous governments when it comes to long-term care.

Now the second wave is here and the question is, where is the plan for long-term care? With the second wave coming, is there an actual plan? Can they answer the questions of this family network?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Minister of Long-Term Care to reply.

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you for the question. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the very important work of our staff and our front-line workers in long-term care under a very challenging circumstance that has never been seen in this world.

I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge all of the homes in Ontario that have done very well. We need to acknowledge their success. We need to acknowledge where we have challenges and where we need to do better. We must not diminish the efforts of all the people who are working so hard on the front lines, looking after our loved ones every single day.

We have challenges and we are adjusting them in an integrated way through the Ministry of Long-Term Care, the Ministry of Health, Public Health Ontario and the Ottawa Public Health unit. I can say we’re in regular contact to make sure that we’re offering absolutely every piece of support that we can for our homes, including N95s, the valuation of—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you very much.

The next question.

Education funding

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also to the Premier, but I have to say, it’s the efforts of the government that were failing people in long-term care, not the efforts of the front-line workers. The efforts of this government failed the people in long-term care and their family members.

But it’s not just in long-term care where the Conservatives are ignoring expert advice that could protect us in a second wave. Yesterday, health experts with the Hospital for Sick Children released findings of their study into classroom COVID safety. What they found is alarming. It is alarming, but it is not unexpected at all—or it shouldn’t be. Among other findings, the experts conclude that it is “not possible” to maintain a two-metre distance between students and accommodate more than 12 to 15 students in a typical classroom, even with the desks around the walls.

Can the Premier explain why the government’s back-to-school plan allows more than 15 students in a classroom, knowing that this is not a safe way to go when experts are telling us it’s not possible to follow social distancing guidelines with more than 15 students in a classroom?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Minister of Education to reply.

Hon. Stephen Lecce: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. I am pleased to confirm that in every single school board in the province of Ontario, classroom sizes have been reduced—in every single school board without exception, every school without exception. We’re seeing school boards work very hard to go well below the provincial average.

Mr. Speaker, we’re providing $200 million to hire over 2,000 new educators in a one-time expenditure to respond to this unprecedented challenge of COVID-19. In the Toronto District School Board, for example, in those higher-risk communities, they are capped at 15 from kindergarten to grade 3. Between grades 4 and 8, they are capped at 20—well below the average—to ensure distancing, to ensure a stronger routine of hand hygiene and, yes, to ensure that masking is in place. We’re the only province to do so within the classroom.

What SickKids calls for is a comprehensive suite of actions, a multitude of actions to prevent the risk. That is what we’ve adopted. We will continue to follow the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, this government actually told the school boards to try to find the money in their contingency funds to get school classes down to a smaller size. That is completely irresponsible. They didn’t want to fund it. They don’t believe in funding public services. They’d rather give their friends tax breaks.

What I’m saying is that we have a similar problem now, not just in the classrooms but on school buses. We all know that. In Ottawa this morning, six more school bus routes were cancelled on top of the 38 school bus routes that were cancelled yesterday.

This is a failure to protect our kids, and that failure ended up with 200 kids and families having to self-isolate after health experts feared that COVID-19 exposure was happening on school buses. That’s 200 families who have now had to scramble to figure out what to do: take time off work, socially isolate, make other arrangements. It’s completely unacceptable.

The number is only going to grow as outbreaks continue to spread like wildfire across our province. How does this government expect families to believe they have a plan for the second wave when their current plan is actually unravelling before our eyes and exposing students, parents and education workers to the virus?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: It is this Progressive Conservative government that has allocated $4.3 billion to combat COVID-19 and increase health expenditures. It’s this government that put $1.3 billion, invested to ensure we can respond to keep our schools safe.

In the context of social services, we are investing more to ensure that all families, all students remain safe as we respond to this unprecedented challenge.

In the context of busing, it’s a billion dollars, on an annual basis, that we’re putting in place, but in addition, to respond to this challenge, $40 million to increase cleaning, assigned seating of every bus in the province of Ontario, PPE for all staff, training for all bus drivers, and the driver retention program, $40 million to incent them to participate and to stay in as workers—we’ve provided that extension, Speaker—and $25 million for route protection.

In each and every area, we lead this nation because we are fully committed to the protection of all staff and all students in Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, Speaker, I think what it is that the education minister just admitted is that their plan is failing. Their plan is failing, because kids are getting sick and families are having to isolate. That’s what’s happening in reality.

For months now, we’ve been telling this government—for months—that without schools and without child care, the everyday Ontarians who actually drive our province forward can’t get to work, and our entire economy, the entire economic recovery is going to actually be at risk because they have not done the right thing.

The Premier keeps insisting that no expense is going to be spared or that no expense has been spared. But students and their parents see crowded classrooms every day, cancelled bus routes and case counts that keep climbing. Why does the Premier have his head in the sand waiting for a second wave to hit instead of taking the action that he knows would help Ontarians, the action that he knows could stop the spread of COVID-19 in our schools, in our work places and buses and everywhere else around the province?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: The Minister of Health only days ago put a four-week pause in this province to ensure that the children of this province come first. It’s the Minister of Health who confirmed that a plan is forthcoming in the context of the second wave. It is this government that put $50 million to respond to influenza, and other issues that will arise within our schools—$1.3 billion.

To the Leader of the Opposition, we are spending twice the rate of what the New Democrats are in British Columbia by any measurement. We are fully committed to the safety of our—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Order.

Hon.

Stephen Lecce: And in this province, as one of the members opposite wants to know more about what we’re doing and what the other provinces are not, we are the only province to have invested this level of funding in cleaning; the only province to have the most comprehensive masking protocol, insisting in classrooms from grade 4 and up; the only province dedicating more funding to student mental health; the only province in the federation with a testing capacity for asymptomatic students in high school; and yes, we’re the only province that financed and mandated health and safety training for every single educator and every single supply teacher.

We will do whatever it takes to keep kids safe.

Hospital funding

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour le premier ministre. The situation at Health Sciences North in Sudbury is getting more dire by the day. The hospital is presently operating at 104% capacity. Last week, they had to cancel every single elective surgery due to overcrowding. The government says that they have a plan to clear the surgical backlog, but what is clear is that they either do not have a plan or the plan is not working.

Will the Premier commit today to providing additional, adequate funding to relieve the strain on Health Sciences North and help the people who are sick and in pain get the surgery that they desperately need?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Minister of Health.

Hon. Christine Elliott: Thank you very much for the question. We certainly understand that there are capacity issues in many hospitals across Ontario, with Health Sciences North being one that’s experiencing particular capacity problems. It is a part of our fall preparedness plan that we want to make sure that hospitals are going to be able to expand their capacity, particularly for critical care beds and for vented beds. We have made an investment in a significant increase in the number of ventilators that are going to be available.

We want to make sure that every hospital is going to be able to meet these challenges, that they have the supplies, that they have the space that they need. That will be a significant part of our fall plan, which is going to be released very shortly.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary.

M me France Gélinas: With no help and no plan in sight from the government, the situation at Health Sciences North is only going to get worse. August and September are usually the quiet months at the hospital, but fall and flu season are coming up quickly, and a second wave of COVID would make things worse, if not disastrous.

The Premier and this minister cannot leave our hospital to cobble together a plan on their own. Our community, our health care system needs our hospital to be functional, and they need it to be able to withstand the surge in illness coming in a couple of months.

Will the Premier and the minister provide the Sudbury health care system and Health Sciences North with the funding needed to end the overcrowding, catch up on the cancelled surgeries due to COVID and withstand the increase in the fall surge?

Hon. Christine Elliott: As I indicated earlier in a previous question, the response to wave 2 is going to be more difficult and challenging than the response to wave 1 for the very reasons that you’ve outlined. We have thousands of surgeries and procedures that were postponed during wave 1 to create that capacity in our hospital system. We don’t want people to have to wait any longer for those surgeries. We know that they need them, whether they’re orthopedic surgeries, cancer surgeries, cataract surgeries or cardiac surgeries—whatever else that they need. We want that to continue. We know we need to create extra capacity in our hospital system.

We also know that flu season is coming forward. We’re preparing for a very, very significant response to flu season to try and keep people out of hospitals. We also know that we have some people who have come back into hospital from long-term care because we need to create that capacity in the long-term-care homes to have that infection prevention and control.

We know that there are a lot of hospitals that are waiting for that response. We are addressing that in our fall preparedness plan to allow hospitals to have that additional financial ability to create that capacity. That will be detailed in our fall plan, which is going to be coming forward and released very soon so that—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you very much.

Next question.

Child care

Mr. Dave Smith: My question is to the Minister of Education. Many people in my riding have spoken to me about the importance of access to child care spaces. I’ve been holding regular meetings with various child care operators in my riding where we discuss our common goals in providing the very best child care for families in Peterborough–Kawartha.

I would like to recognize some of the incredible leaders in child care, especially over the last few months with the closure of the centres and then the subsequent reopenings. A special and heartfelt thank you to Ann Cathcart-Andrews, Teresa Burke, Kathy Hamilton, Tanya Lunn-Duggan, Moira Vance and Ashley Collins.

I know that across the province, child care centres and home care operators are doing a fantastic job. Can the Minister of Education please tell this Legislature what our government is doing to support these incredible people and child care across the province?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: I want to thank the member from Peterborough–Kawartha for his incredible leadership for the next generation, for affordable child care in his community and across our province.

Speaker, I want to recognize our ECEs and staff within our child care centres who have gone above and beyond from the beginning of this pandemic, when our government opened child care for emergency workers to support our front-line women and men who served heroically then and continue to do so in this pandemic.

We systematically expanded cohorts, doing it methodically, listening to evidence and listening to the Chief Medical Officer of Health, who permitted us to expand those cohorts, enabling more parents, more moms and dads, to have reliable and safe and accurate child care in every region of the province. We also ensured child care remained affordable by denying operators from charging parents during that period for services not rendered. We took a consumer protection lens and a safety lens, and we are doing what we can to make sure that child care operators remain sustainable for decades to come.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Mr. Dave Smith: Speaker, through you, I would like to thank the minister for that fantastic answer. It’s heartening to know that our government is taking child care so seriously.

Speaker, COVID-19 has brought challenges that no one could have imagined before the pandemic, including the temporary closure of a majority of child care centres across the province. But we, as a province, and the sector persevered. Centres are now operating with enhanced safety measures to protect staff, kids and families.

Can the minister please tell this Legislature why reopening child care centres is so important, and expand on some of the safety measures our government has put in place?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: Speaker, we know how integral child care is to enabling parents, moms and dads, in this province to return to the labour market. We also recognize that they want to return to work with confidence that their child can be safe.

At the very beginning of this pandemic, we signalled and provided financial support and operating support to help backstop our operators, who faced unprecedented challenges of closure and rising costs. That’s why we provided them with more operating dollars. It’s why we provided them with training and PPE for all of their staff. In addition, as of September 1, to align with the changes and the reopening of our schools, we have expanded cohorts within our child care very safely while maintaining a strict health and safety protocol to keep the staff and likewise our kids safe.

We will continue to be there for our child care sector. We just announced with the federal government, with Minister Ahmed Hussen, an additional $234 million in restart funding to ensure that our child care operators are sustainable and that our parents have access to affordable child care in every region in Ontario.

Women’s employment

Ms. Catherine Fife: My question is to the Acting Premier. The economic crisis created by COVID-19 has led to women’s labour force participation falling to its lowest since 1990. Why? Because shutdowns and layoffs have had a larger impact on sectors that traditionally employ women. These businesses led by women tend to be newer, smaller and less well-financed than those owned by men, and many women have been slower to return to the workforce as they grapple with the double burden of working and caregiving.

For example, employment among women with toddlers and school-aged children fell by 7% between February and May. The pandemic has been hardest on racialized, Indigenous women, single parents, low-income women, newcomers and women with disabilities. It is unacceptable to leave whole sectors of our society behind.

Is this government willing to acknowledge and address this she-cession?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Associate Minister for Children and Women’s Issues.

Hon. Jill Dunlop: Thank you to the member for that question.

We recognize that women have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic—women in the hospitality and tourism industry, women in the retail industry. With the opportunity to hold round table consultations in my own riding, I heard first-hand from women entrepreneurs such as Sarah Kitchen, who owns a hair salon; Ashley, who owns our local fitness club that I belong to; and also Nicole, who owns the Studio Eleven retail clothing outlet in Orillia. I commend these women for the amazing work that they have been doing during this pandemic, the creativity they have taken to put their businesses online, to offer delivery to households. That creativity is so important.

We know that women have been disproportionately affected, and we will continue to work amongst all sectors to hear first-hand from women business owners what we can be doing to support them through the pandemic.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Speaker, women don’t need a round table. They don’t need more consultation. They need affordable, accessible child care.

The COVID-19 crisis has turned the clock back 30 years on women’s economic rights—30 years. The Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey has shown us the data of the she-cession. The Canadian and Ontario chambers of commerce have produced reports on next steps. Without immediate policy action, economists predict that Ontario will head into a prolonged recession. We need to be proactive now to prevent bigger issues down the road. There will be no economic recovery in the province of Ontario without a she-covery, and we should all know this.

So to the government: Where is the plan to increase women’s participation in the workforce in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Jill Dunlop: Thank you to the member for your supplementary question.

We know that women are overrepresented in precarious work and low-income positions such as retail, hospitality and tourism. But we also know that women are underrepresented in positions such as skilled trades, where only 4.5% of workers are women; in the STEM sector, where only 23% are women. These are high-paying, good jobs that lead to long-term security. That’s why this government is investing $37 million to support 15,000 workers moving into the skilled trades. We know there’s an opportunity here to put women into these jobs, where we know, right now, there are thousands of jobs that are left open.

These are good-paying jobs, and this government is working with the private sector to move women and give them the opportunity to work in the skilled trades and to get this economy moving and to support the infrastructure that is happening in this province.

Long-term care

M me Lucille Collard: My question is for the Minister of Long-Term Care. Last week, I held a forum with experts and residents across Ontario and from my riding of Ottawa–Vanier on their concerns for our long-term-care system. We heard from leading experts in long-term-care reform and from workers who have seen the effect of COVID-19 on the ground in these homes.

One piece of feedback was clear across the board: The system needs fundamental changes to ensure that long-term-care homes are safe, secure and supportive places for residents. From training and employing more nurse practitioners and PSWs in homes, to revising building standards, there are many ways that we can improve the system to better equip long-term-care homes for the realities they face.

After a lifetime of hard work, our seniors deserve to be cared for safely and with dignity. How has the ministry committed to fixing systemic issues in long-term care to better protect our province’s seniors?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you very much for that question, and thank you so much for raising this issue. It is an issue that all of us in society have an obligation to address.

Our government is fully committed to our seniors and to our long-term-care-system reform. That’s why a new ministry was created in the summer of 2019—to address the capacity issues that had languished for so many years, to address the staffing issues. We started right away, as soon as we became a ministry, to do that.

We are continuing not only to deal with the COVID-19 fallout, but to modernize long-term care. So we’re doing this in parallel, and it is a daunting, challenging task. Looking at how we have the expert panel on staffing to inform a comprehensive staffing strategy, a modernized funding model to address the capacity issues, the integration with our hospitals so that we have a higher level of medical expertise for the complexity of our most frail and most vulnerable people—this is ongoing. I am committed. Our government is committed.

Thank you for caring.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary question.

M me Lucille Collard: Again, to the Minister of Long-Term Care: I understand that the ministry has a lot of responsibilities that they need to meet. But as Ontario experiences an uptick in daily COVID-19 cases, we are already beginning to see a resurgence of COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term-care homes. In Ottawa alone, there are currently 11 long-term-care homes that are battling outbreaks again.

Having seen the devastating effects of the first wave in our province’s homes, it is critical that we use every available moment to improve long-term care, to protect the safety of our province’s seniors in the wake of a likely second wave. What is the minister doing to prepare long-term-care homes to safely weather a second wave of COVID-19?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you once again.

I want to make sure that everyone understands that in long-term care an outbreak means one person who has tested positive. That could be a staff member who is self-isolating at home. There could be absolutely no cases in the home itself. That is the case right now with the outbreaks we have in Ontario. The majority have no cases in the home, or one resident case.

There are a couple of homes that are struggling, and that is exactly where our attention is focused—to improve the IPAC, to make sure the staffing is stable, to provide support for the home, whether it’s through the $240 million that has gone out the door to address the surge capacity staffing; making sure that there are additional measures for infection control; integrating with our expertise across the medical system; working with our Ontario public health units; making sure our medical officers of health are in contact with us so that we know exactly what’s happening in those homes; and getting them the support that they need. This is ongoing, and we’ll continue to do that.

Mining industry

Mr. Norman Miller: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines and Minister of Indigenous Affairs. We know that Ontario is a leading global jurisdiction in mineral exploration and production. Over my years as an MPP, I have had the pleasure of visiting a number of mines and seeing the impact they have on local economies.

Ontario’s mining sector supports 71,000 jobs in mine production and processing, mineral exploration and mining supplies and services.

Can the minister share with this House the significance of last week’s groundbreaking announcement at the new Côté gold mine in Gogama to the local and provincial economy?

Hon. Greg Rickford: I’d be pleased to.

I want to thank the member for Parry Sound–Muskoka for his incredible work, not just in his constituency, but with our plans for northern Ontario moving forward in an economic COVID-19 recovery.

Mr. Speaker, let’s just throw out a couple of numbers. On a beautiful day in Gogama, blue sky, seven million ounces of high-grade gold in the ground beneath us—together with the folks from Gogama, Flying Post First Nation, Mattagami First Nation and others—realizing an incredible opportunity. Over the course of this lifetime, we’re looking at $5 billion in wages for local workers, $10 billion to the province of Ontario’s gross domestic product. And that’s in the first 18 years; there’s an incredible opportunity for this to go more than 30 years.

And 1,000 construction jobs, Mr. Speaker: 1,000 people got the call this week and next. They got the job to help to build that mine, and 450 people will work long-term at that site. We’re so proud of Côté Gold and the local communities for their work on this project.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Mr. Norman Miller: Thank you to the minister for that answer and for leading the development of this project which will bring prosperity and employ so many in northern Ontario.

Can the minister please share the specific ways we’ve been able to accelerate this and several other mining projects in Ontario in the past two years?

Hon. Greg Rickford: It’s true that about 18 months ago, this project had a high prospect of being shelved. Bogged down in red tape and legislation from the previous government, this mining site, like other mining sites across northern Ontario, wasn’t going anywhere.

Unfortunately, what this project had in common with the Sugar Zone—the Premier and I visited it. How sweet it was to see that line go live, and as well to see the Newmont Goldcorp’s Borden mine completely electrified. What they had in common, Mr. Speaker, was a frustration of a decade and a half of red tape, bogging down and not letting these projects go forward. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this government in the past couple of years has done more to move mining operations to critical milestones, get people to work in communities across northern Ontario—despite the fact that the NDP and the Liberals consistently voted for legislation to stall or—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you.

Next question.

Education funding

Mr. Kevin Yarde: My question is to the Acting Premier. Parents in my community are so worried about the Conservatives’ bargain basement education plan that over 10,000 students got pulled from the classroom by their parents. So many families changed their minds that the school board had to delay the start of school. But who could blame them, Mr. Speaker? Case counts are going up, but we still don’t have access to enough testing.

The government isn’t doing a thing to keep families safe. The Conservatives’ failure to plan now means that thousands of families are scrambling to rearrange work schedules and child care arrangements so they can send their children to school online. What does the Premier have to say to the thousands of families in my riding of Brampton North and in Peel region who have been hurt by this government’s decision to save money on the backs of our kids and teachers?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Minister of Education.

Hon. Stephen Lecce: Mr. Speaker, under our government’s leadership and under the Premier’s leadership, we have unlocked for Peel District School Board alone $64 million in additional funding to hire more educators, to space out these classrooms, to ensure air ventilation HVAC capacity is improved and to hire more custodians and cleaning staff. That is just a matter of fact provided by, yes, reserve funding and federal funding and, of course, the province stepping up significantly to respond to this unprecedented challenge.

In Peel District School Board, where I met with the associate medical officer, where I met with the head of public health nurses in that health region, we’re hiring, more than doubling the capacity of public health nurses: 64 more nurses hired in that region, delivering critical supports for families in Brampton, Caledon, Mississauga and all regions of Peel.

We are absolutely committed to those families. We are committed to expanding testing, to putting a four-week pause on any future expansions. We have set aside $50 million to deal with influenza. We have demonstrated in word and deed that we will be there for our kids.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Brampton is being called an epicentre for the virus. As case counts in our community continue to rise and the likelihood of a second wave gets closer, it’s not just the parents in Peel who are going to be pulling their kids out of school. Just yesterday, the Toronto District School Board announced that they had to delay the start of online classes after their numbers of kids opting out of the classroom also jumped.

Premier, parents, students, teachers and schools in Brampton and across this province are all paying the price because the Conservatives failed to do the right thing: hire more teachers, cap classroom sizes at 15 kids and invest in the safe schools that everyday families are begging for. Mr. Speaker, why doesn’t the government think that these schools’ families are worth investing in? Why won’t this Premier do everything he can to keep Ontarians safe?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: The safe reopening plan that has been brought forth for the schools of the people of Ontario has been fully supported and endorsed by the Chief Medical Officer of Health of this province, the senior-most authority who has ably guided our province through the worst of this pandemic. What he has said is—likewise, what many other institutions, including SickKids, have made clear—you need to have a multitude of actions and preventative actions to mitigate the spread within our classes. That is the basis for hiring 2,000 more educators; $200 million to achieve that in every board. We’re seeing that in Peel, and likewise in Toronto.

The member opposite asked about the Toronto District School Board and set it out as an example. In those communities at risk, there is an absolute cap imposed, at 15, between kindergarten and grade 3—let me just reemphasize that—and between grades 4 and 8, an absolute cap of 20, and 15 in high school. We are absolutely delivering funding to ensure we maximize safety, and we’re doing everything possible to keep kids safe.

Education funding

Mr. Michael Coteau: My question is to the Minister of Education. Preliminary results from the COVID-19 classroom simulation study run by SickKids Hospital could not be clearer. They found that, “it was not possible to maintain a two-metre distance between students and accommodate more than 12 to 15 students in the class,” even when desks were put against the four walls. Back on June 19, the minister actually agreed. During a COVID-19 press conference, he told Ontarians that classroom sizes would be “no more than 15 students.”

Speaker, through you to the minister, what has changed?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: Let me just repeat what Dr. Williams, the Chief Medical Officer of Health, responded when that question was raised:

“We were only doing about less than 10,000 tests a day. Our per cent of positivity was then well over 4% to 5%. So we were looking at that. We saw it in the migration of everybody coming back from March break. We became aware of that. In fact, even though we were told originally that there was no evidence of infection on the eastern seaboard, there actually was, undetected, and so there was a great concern about the amount of spread. Our numbers rapidly moved, as you noted in the numbers you said.

We were going up by over 100% almost every other day, to three to four days, from 20 to 60, to 150, and then, the week after, you noted, we were around the corner of 350, and we were right up to 600 fairly soon after.”

Clearly, there have been changes in the risk profile. We have ensured boards have $1.3 billion of funding. We’re giving them resources to hire educators, hire custodians and ensure all kids remain safe in this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question.

Mr. Michael Coteau: Last week, I met with a bunch of parents from Don Mills Middle School, and they were worried because their grade 7/8 classes were at 36. Thankfully, an extra teacher—which the minister keeps talking about all this money. They got an extra teacher, and the classroom sizes have fallen to just below 30.

The government’s plan is flawed. The minister has said that we have the best science backing our plan. Well, the Hospital for Sick Children is at the forefront of child health sciences.

Speaker, through you to the minister, in light of the preliminary results of this study, will the government re-examine their plan, take expert advice and reduce class sizes? Twenty-nine students, even with your allocated funding, is way too high.

Hon. Stephen Lecce: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. I think we have demonstrated, by setting aside an additional $50 million to respond to influenza and the second wave, we are clearly underscoring our commitment to continue to scale up, invest more and do everything humanly possible, including a $360-million allocation, as of January 2021, of further funding to do what the member opposite called for, something that we agree with.

The reason why boards in this province are hiring over 2,000 educators is because we provided a significant infusion, a one-time investment of $1.3 billion, supported by the feds and, of course, board resources. We have put investments in place for hiring of new educators, for more distancing, for more custodial staff, for expanding testing—in every area, we lead in the nation—and we’ll continue to demonstrate to parents, as this risk and as this challenge continues in our province, we’ll invest more and do whatever it takes to keep our kids safe.

Correctional facilities

Mr. Jim McDonell: My question is to the Solicitor General. Last month, the Solicitor General made an exciting announcement when it comes to the province’s correctional system in eastern Ontario. The announcement included a new jail to be built in Kemptville, next to my riding, as well as rebuilding the Brockville Jail and improving the St. Lawrence Valley treatment centre in eastern Ontario.

These are significant projects, and I know that they will make an impact on the ongoing issues facing the correctional system, but it’s important that the part of the design and construction of such large infrastructure projects, input and consultation from all community partners and stakeholders be given consideration.

To that end, can the Solicitor General explain what consultations will go into these projects and how the feedback can be incorporated into these projects?

Hon. Sylvia Jones: Thank you to the member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry for the question. It was a real pleasure for me to be able to join my colleagues Minister Fullerton, Minister Clark, the member from Carleton and the member from Ottawa West–Nepean.

Interjection.

Hon. Sylvia Jones: You’ve got to keep listening.

I was pleased to join many local leaders in eastern Ontario to announce our corrections strategy, and the member is absolutely right: Input from our partners is so incredibly important for the success of these projects, and he knows that very well as a former mayor himself. That includes municipal leadership, our front-line correctional officers and justice sector partners, and the wider community across eastern Ontario. As our partners at OPSEU Corrections Division indicated, this investment will go a long way to ensuring professional service delivery across eastern Ontario.

As these projects move through the design process, we will be hosting engagement sessions that are critically important to make sure that we get this infrastructure right.

The Speak