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February 22, 2011

39th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2011-Feb-22 (PDF)

L083 - Tue 22 Feb 2011 / Mar 22 fév 2011

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 22 February 2011 Mardi 22 février 2011

ORDERS OF THE DAY

STRONG COMMUNITIES THROUGH

AFFORDABLE HOUSING ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 FAVORISANT

DES COLLECTIVITÉS FORTES

GRÂCE AU LOGEMENT ABORDABLE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

ENERGY POLICIES

ENERGY POLICIES

TAXATION

TAXATION

ENERGY POLICIES

HEALTH CARE

ENERGY POLICIES

ENERGY POLICIES

NUCLEAR WASTE

AIR-RAIL LINK

CRIME PREVENTION

STEEL INDUSTRY

RETIREMENT HOMES

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

DISCLOSURE OF TOXINS

PREMIER’S ATTENDANCE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

KINDNESS WEEK

COYOTES

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

PEYTON AND TAYLOR HORNING

THREE KINGS DAY

MINING INDUSTRY

JANE STREET HUB

CAROLYN BROWN

AND DAVID NEWPORT

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

TABLING OF SESSIONAL PAPERS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES RESOLUTION ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 SUR LE RÈGLEMENT

DES CONFLITS DE TRAVAIL

À LA COMMISSION DE TRANSPORT

DE TORONTO

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION

PETITIONS

RURAL AND NORTHERN SCHOOLS

HYDRO RATES

WASTE DISPOSAL

RURAL SCHOOLS

LONG-TERM CARE

PARAMEDICS

OAK RIDGES MORAINE

HYDRO RATES

PARAMEDICS

COYOTES

DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

COYOTES

OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN

DOCTOR SHORTAGE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

HEALTH PROTECTION

AND PROMOTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA PROTECTION

ET LA PROMOTION DE LA SANTÉ

ADJOURNMENT DEBATE

DISCLOSURE OF TOXINS

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning. Please remain standing for the Lord’s Prayer, followed by a moment of silence of inner thought and personal reflection.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

STRONG COMMUNITIES THROUGH

AFFORDABLE HOUSING ACT, 2011 /

LOI DE 2011 FAVORISANT

DES COLLECTIVITÉS FORTES

GRÂCE AU LOGEMENT ABORDABLE

Resuming the debate adjourned on December 9, 2010, on the motion for second reading of Bill 140,

An Act to enact the Housing Services Act, 2011, repeal the Social Housing Reform Act, 2000 and make complementary and other amendments to other Acts / Projet de loi 140, Loi édictant la Loi de 2011 sur les services de logement, abrogeant la Loi de 2000 sur la réforme du logement social et apportant des modifications corrélatives et autres à d’autres lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Further debate?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: It’s an honour and a privilege to start off with an hour lead on housing in this new session. I want to welcome everyone back from the break, which I know for many members of provincial Parliament wasn’t a break, so to speak, but was a chance to get back to our constituencies.

I also want to welcome back the clerks and the staff here at Queen’s Park, and the new pages. I think they deserve a round of applause for all their hard work. Welcome back, everyone. I also want to compliment the Speaker on his new beard; it goes very well with the hat.

Certainly, I think all of Ontario hopes that this last session of this presently constituted government actually affords some change, a great deal of hard work and progress in the province of Ontario. I know that when speaking to my constituents over the break, one of the things that they find very frustrating is the level of rancour in the House. What they would love to see is in fact all sides of the House working together to actually, in this case, provide housing for Ontarians. We have a very dismal housing reality in this province, and certainly it’s incumbent upon us all to work together to provide more housing to those in need in Ontario.

I know that often, the way that we conduct business in political parties in Ontario, one would think that we all want a one-party state, but I hope I speak for everyone in saying that’s the furthest from our desires. Again, hopefully in the last few weeks remaining to us some significant changes are made.

I want to start off talking about housing by talking about an incident that really galvanized my thoughts about the necessity for housing in this province. When I was still in the ministry, actively in the pulpit and in a church, Emmanuel Howard Park, we woke up one day to a trailer in our parking lot. It had no right to be there, so we went over and knocked on the window, and discovered that inside was a young girl and her father who were living in the trailer.

They asked if there was any possibility that they could park their trailer in the parking lot of the church because otherwise they would have to pay for parking somewhere else. Not only could they not afford to pay for parking, it was very clear that they couldn’t afford to pay for housing.

This young girl was about nine years old at the time; she was attending school in our area. Of course, without a moment’s hesitation, the board of the church said, “Let them stay,” and proceeded to try to work with them to find them permanent housing, to no avail.

That was years ago, but that was very clearly an insight into what was going on. The little girl attended school every day and went back to live in the trailer every night. She looked like any other child in school. I’m sure her teachers had absolutely no idea of where she actually spent her nights. Her father was desperately looking for a job. Of course, it’s almost impossible to find a job if you don’t have a residence—and, in those days, if you didn’t have a phone as well. We as a church provided him with a cellphone.

Then, many months later, after the school year was up, we all went to church one day to find that the trailer was gone. Who knows what happened to that little girl, and who knows if that family ever found housing? Such is the state of those who are in need in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world, and that continues to this day.

Before us on the table today is government Bill 140. This is a long-awaited bill; it was supposed to have been delivered in the spring. Finally, months and months later, it was delivered to this House last November. Certainly it was the result of much consultation with housing activists and providers across the province of Ontario. They greeted this with some excitement, only to open the bill and then witness what they didn’t want to see, which was that there was very, very little done.

In fact, in this bill—and I’ll repeat this many times, because this is a critical and central point—there is not one new unit of affordable housing provided. In this bill there is not one new dollar of rent supplements provided. In this bill there is not one new unit of affordable housing built, and in this bill there is no mention of inclusionary zoning whatsoever, which, if we remember, was passed in second reading by this House—my bill, the New Democrats’ bill—and was supported by a vast majority of municipalities across the province, because inclusionary zoning doesn’t cost one tax dollar.

All that my bill allowed was that municipalities could step up to the plate and enact legislation, if they so desired, to have inclusionary zoning. That decision would not then be immediately appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, which is what would happen right now.

So here we have a bill purportedly responding to the lack of affordable housing in this province and, in fact, delivering nothing: not one new unit, not one new dollar, not one new significant change that would allow for one new unit or one new dollar into affordable housing.

A few grim statistics—let’s start with those, to show how bad the situation is in Ontario for affordable housing activists. First of all, 1.3 million Ontarians are precariously housed; that is, 1.3 million Ontarians pay more than 30% of their income on housing. One hundred and twenty thousand Ontario families live in overcrowded housing. Eighty thousand Ontarians live in substandard housing that requires major repairs. I wonder if that little girl who was living in our church parking lot would be included in that number.

One hundred and forty thousand and counting—it’s now up to around 142,000—households are on affordable housing waiting lists. This is a number, by the way, which increased by 10% in one year, from 2009 to 2010—10% in one year. And by the way, when you say “waiting,” we are talking about waits that now exceed 10 years on average, so many people literally die on affordable housing waiting lists.

Housing insecurity is rising, of course, because energy costs have gone up more than 50% in the last decade, and of course, as will be a major topic of this session in this House, we know that energy prices are probably going to go up another 50%. Again, that attacks most those who can afford it least.

The incomes of tenants—just generally, incomes have stagnated or decreased. A wonderful study by David Hulchanski at the University of Toronto looked at the city, the GTA, in terms of how the decline of the middle class has affected neighbourhoods. You virtually see it there, in not so black and white. I think it’s brown and green. You see the areas of poverty increasing and moving to the suburbs. You see the areas of wealth increasing and moving to the interior of the city and you see the middle class emptying out. That’s the tale of our city. That’s the tale of Ontario, as well.

Half of all renters in Ontario pay more than 50% of their income on rent, and more than half of all renters, as you can imagine—so say the experts—cannot then afford to pay for other necessities. They’re scrimping on food or they’re scrimping on necessary school items because so much of their income is going to rent. We know this not only because we see these horrendous statistics, but because we go out into our ridings and we meet with folk who are in exactly that predicament. Of course, it’s not an even predicament either. It doesn’t affect all Ontarians the same.

It affects women far more, children far more; it affects people of colour far more and new immigrants and refugees far more. We know, again, that like the chicken and the egg, lack of housing produces poverty and poverty produces lack of housing etc.

We in the New Democratic Party have responded to this. We’ve responded with several key bills and motions that are before this House. We’ve responded, for one, with something that is, one would think, a no-brainer: that housing is a human right. This is a United Nations statement. This is a United Nations resolution that simply says that housing is a human right. I proposed this in a motion before this House, certainly to no acceptance on the other side. One has to raise one’s eyebrows: Is the government then saying that housing isn’t a human right? I would love to hear from members opposite on this very issue.

Is housing not a human right or is it? Is this House in accord with the United Nations recommendations or isn’t it? If housing is a human right, and if we pass such a motion as a House, then presumably those who are ill-housed, underhoused or not housed at all could then have recourse to force this government into doing what this government should be doing, and that is providing housing as a human right.

We also put on the table a motion to build 10,000 new units of housing a year. This is what all housing activists are asking across the province of Ontario. This very government, in 2003, promised 20,000 new-build units of affordable housing in their first four years. You’ll see, as I continue to speak, how of course that promise has not been upheld. In fact, what’s affordable and what’s not affordable is part of the problem in

definitions, because if you are on Ontario disability, are earning around $1,000 a month and should be paying $250 to $300 on rent, according to anti-poverty activists and in fact economists generally, you’re not going to find housing in the province of Ontario. To make matters worse, imagine if you’re an Ontario Works recipient and you’re earning just over $500 a month. As one Ontario Works recipient said just recently to an interfaith gathering on the topic of poverty and housing, “What does the government expect me to do—steal?” Imagine making $500 a month and trying to live in the city of Toronto.

I mean, we know what that life looks like. It looks like homelessness. It looks like food banks. It certainly doesn’t look like anybody who can afford anything in the way of housing.

We also brought forward—and, as I mentioned, it passed second reading, so presumably there was support on all sides—inclusionary zoning. My bill was a very tepid one, quite frankly.

It simply said, “Let’s get out of the way of inclusionary zoning so that municipalities across the province of Ontario, if they so choose, could bring in inclusionary zoning.” Because inclusionary zoning is in jurisdictions around the world—and even in Canada, in Vancouver—we know that inclusionary zoning—which is, for those who are new to the term, requiring that developers, for example, of over 50 units set aside as rent-to-own or affordable rental units at least 10% of those units. In some jurisdictions it goes up to 25% of those units. It doesn’t cost a tax dollar. In fact, it produces wealth in communities.

In jurisdictions where it’s put into place, like Boston, you see at least 1,000 new units of housing a year being produced.

We, by very, very rough calculations, figured that if inclusionary zoning was brought in across Ontario at the conservative rate of 10%, we would produce—this is based on the number of new units that have been developed in the province of Ontario in any given year in the last 10 years—about 12,000 new units of housing a year. That’s not going to be the entire answer for the 140,000-plus families waiting for affordable housing, but it certainly will be a significant part of the answer, and again, a significant part of the answer without costing a tax dollar.

Even in conversations with developers—when times are tough, this would actually assist developers. Certainly municipalities have been very creative in other jurisdictions when they’ve brought in inclusionary zoning; for example, if they’ve done bylaw changes allowing an extra floor in a building that could be the affordable housing floor etc. There are lots of creative ways of using inclusionary zoning to produce affordable housing at no cost to taxpayers.

Yet even though they said they supported this bill, when it came time to introduce their housing bill, government Bill 140, there is not a mention of inclusionary zoning in it, despite this uniformly being a call from all housing activists across Ontario.

We’ve also introduced a bill on tenants’ rights and landlord licensing. Quite frankly, I’ve spent some of my time during this break—and I will be spending some time this afternoon—going to visit my low-income tenants about the landlord licensing idea. I have yet to find one tenant who objects to it.

What is landlord licensing? Landlord licensing just simply says that where city work orders are held against a building—for example, in one of my buildings, an eight-storey building, there was one elevator out of order for three months, and there were seniors living on the eighth floor. Of course there were work orders against this building. Was the landlord in compliance? Absolutely not. Landlord licensing would force bad landlords into compliance for work orders simply by refusing to renew their licence to rent to new tenants if they didn’t comply. As I’ve argued in this House before, this is one of the only ways of forcing—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt you. I just want to remind members that we have one person speaking and the conversations should be taken outside.

Please continue.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: I’ve argued in this House before that this is one of the only ways we have of really assuring ourselves that landlords are going to deal with that tricky and pesky problem of bedbugs. When I go to see tenants in some of the low-income, privately held housing stock in my riding, they complain of bedbugs, and they complain that they’ve tried to clean up their units, but it’s impossible because it comes in from somewhere else.

Even the good landlords who have taken good care of their properties complain about this, because they say that the building next door, where the landlord hasn’t complied with work orders—the bedbugs infect their properties from next door. So again, we have to have some way, as the province, of forcing people to do necessary work. Bedbugs is a classic instance of a problem that’s not going to stay within a building. If one bad landlord exists, that affects and infects everyone.

Again, landlord licensing is a simple idea, a self-funding idea, that would allow the province to insist on compliance with work orders, something that’s not happening now across Ontario. Of course it’s not happening in the wealthy areas or luxury apartments; it’s happening in the low-income tenanted areas, of which I have many in my riding.

Also, every housing activist—for years now, quite frankly, and certainly in consultation with the government—put forward five essentials for any adequate housing policy. I’m going to go over them in a bit of detail because they’re critical, and I’m going to compare what the housing activists have asked for and then contrast what they’ve asked for with what they’ve received in Bill 140.

Test number one—all the housing activists have asked for this:

“Bold targets and sustained funding

“A long-term affordable housing strategy must ensure an adequate supply of quality, affordable housing for Ontarians, supported by multi-year financial commitments.” The Ontario government should commit to funding a housing program—again, here are those 10,000 new units of universally accessible, affordable non-profit and co-op housing units for 10 years.

By the way, if we want to compare ourselves to somebody who’s doing it right, my husband and I, a few years back, were in Sweden. Sweden, a country much smaller than Ontario—there are nine million people in Sweden; we have about 13 million in Ontario—produced 100,000 new units of affordable housing a year. They called it their million-home program, and it was a 10-year program. Needless to say, they don’t have an affordable housing crisis in Sweden the way we do here. And Sweden isn’t alone in providing that.

Many jurisdictions do better than we do; in fact, we have one of the worst records provincially and one of the worst records internationally. Also, provide funding so that at least 50% of these units can provide rent-geared-to-income assistance.

What’s in this announcement, with government Bill 140? As I said, not one new dollar; as they point out, “no new funding”—not one new unit—“no multi-year commitment, no innovative financing options, no strengthening of development/technical capacity of the sector” to provide housing. These are the housing activists themselves that supposedly this government consulted with.

“Test two: A solid measuring stick

“An effective housing strategy requires a solid foundation of accurate evidence about the scale of housing insecurity and homelessness in Ontario and a clear way to measure progress. Housing measures must track progress on whether actions taken under the long-term affordable housing strategy are systematically reducing the number of households”—but we know that’s not so. We know they’re not reducing the number of households on affordable housing lists. The empirical data is unequivocal on that point. In fact, it went up 10% in one year.

It’s going up every year and the wait is getting longer—“and addressing the housing affordability problem through consistent annual reductions in the percentage of Ontario tenants spending 30% or more of income on housing.” We know it’s going directly in the opposite direction, that more and more tenants are spending more and more of their income on rental.

By the way, coupled with that—because, remember, there was a time in Canada where the middle class dream was to own your own home—is the complete lack of affordability in our major centres for young couples and young families who try to ever even dream of owning a home.

I often tell the story, just by contrast, that I grew up in a Toronto and an Ontario where on one salary you could own a home and pay it off in your lifetime, a car in the driveway and, for a lucky few, a cottage as well. Now it takes two incomes, and even then in the city of Toronto you’re barely able to afford an apartment. Certainly you’re going to have to have two incomes to afford a car, and only the wealthy can afford another rural property or cottage. That is the change in one lifetime in the province of Ontario, and it’s getting worse. We’re on a downward descent. Our children will be worse off than us, and if we don’t stem the tide, our grandchildren even worse off than they are.

Another issue that this policy does not address is improving access to suitable and adequate affordable housing for members of marginalized groups, including aboriginal people, communities of colour, people with disabilities and mental health issues, lone mothers and people living in rural and northern communities.

Here is what is in the bill, according to housing activists: The “Ontario housing measure only covers families with children—the rest of Ontarians” are completely left out. That’s a very sad reality, because in my riding, and I’m sure this is replicated across the province, the greatest demand for housing, as I’ve mentioned before, is often for those on Ontario disability and those with mental health and addiction issues. Often those are the people hardest and most expensive to house in supportive housing, because there’s virtually no supportive housing, and most at risk.

Most of our homeless population at any given time will fall into that category. They are homeless for a reason, and they die on our streets. I know that the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee should be commended for being one of the few groups that actually acknowledges their deaths anymore, that actually remembers them into the community of the living on a regular basis. It used to be considered a disaster in the city of Toronto that we had some 5,000 sleeping on grates at night, and now, again, we’ve come so far—we’ve sunk so far—that we ignore them. We step over them and sometimes don’t even see them anymore.

That’s how routine it has come to be in my city that we see somebody sleeping outside in the cold.

A solid measuring stick: Unfortunately, the measuring sticks that we have show that the numbers are trending in all the wrong directions.

Test three, they say, is accountability. “Ontario’s long-term affordable housing strategy needs to be kept on track, and the plan must remain accountable to the people it intends to serve.” Accountability measures should include: annual public reporting on progress; committing to ongoing public consultation; local control of program design and delivery; setting up a residents’ review committee; and appointing a full-time Minister of Housing to ensure that affordable housing is a government priority—we’ve had four Ministers of Housing since I’ve been here, and it never gets better; it only gets worse.

Here’s what housing activists say, again, about this bill. “Promise of annual reports”—yes, it’s there. The province says, however, that municipalities will have to engage the community; it’s not interested in doing that. And it’s saying that the current minister must share housing and municipal affairs responsibilities. So it’s a devaluing of that particular portfolio.

“Test four: Make housing truly affordable and accessible

“All Ontarians should be able to access housing they can afford....”

Again, the United Nations said it best. Why isn’t the reality here?

They suggest introducing a monthly universal housing benefit for low-income Ontarians, expanding the priority list for social housing, funding retrofits, and providing funding for at least 2,000 new supportive housing units.

In terms of supportive housing, I have a couple of stories from my riding, both from serving there as the member of provincial Parliament and as a United Church minister, about the necessity for supportive housing. One’s a sad tale about a young man who suffered from a mental health issue. He lived in Queen’s Park—I’m sorry, not Queen’s Park. We should have more homeless people living in Queen’s Park. Maybe then we’d take the issue seriously.

He lived in High Park for many years and was finally found housing—he was on the wait-list for a long, long time—but because of his mental health issues, he was unable to keep his housing. I know that those who provide affordable housing often come up against this intractable problem. Those who have mental health issues—those who are hoarders, for example—who really are a danger to themselves and others, need more than just a box to live in. They need supports. They need social workers. They need someone to make sure that they successfully live in affordable housing.

Those supports aren’t there, and those supportive housing units aren’t there.

On the plus side, after many, many years of trying, we finally got the Edmond Yu centre built in my riding—and this is kudos to the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre—providing about 35 units of supportive housing where they had 10 before. In fact, it’s going to be 45 in total. They’re up and running, and I was delighted to finally be at the ribbon-cutting for that, but it took them a decade. As long as I can remember, they have been trying to get the Edmond Yu centre built. For those of you who don’t know the story of Edmond Yu, it’s a classic tale of the necessity of supportive housing.

He was a young man who suffered from mental health issues, who ended up being killed. He was shot by a police officer because he was wielding a hammer on a downtown Toronto street corner. People were genuinely frightened. Here was a young man who had been homeless for so long, who needed supports, who needed a worker, who needed more than just a box to live in. Unfortunately for Edmond, but fortunately for others, the Edmond Yu centre has finally been built—but it took way too long. For 35 new units it took 10 years, with 140,000-plus people waiting.

We simply can’t go about it in that piecemeal, red-tape-buried way that we have in the past.

Again, where does this bill go short? There’s no commitment to the Ontario housing benefit; just a vague promise to explore this and other options. There’s no commitment to new funding for supportive housing. The Ontario emergency energy fund is to be rolled into consolidated initiatives, but there’s no commitment to new funding; no affordable home ownership options. That’s what’s in the bill.

To reiterate my main theme, here is a government housing strategy with not one new dollar for affordable housing, not one new unit to be built of affordable housing, not one new dollar in rent-geared-to-income supplements, and no inclusionary zoning to allow the private sector to fill in the gaps—none of the above.

“Test five: Reform housing legislation to build stronger communities

“Key legislation that governs municipal planning, social housing and the private rental market must be reformed to promote growth in affordable housing, better protect the housing rights of tenants and provide flexibility for non-profit and co-operative housing providers.”

I know that out of my office, we’re trying to work on a new co-op. It may not even be built in my riding. We’ve had a bit of a seed grant to do that. We’ve got people interested. We’re looking for the land right now. I fully expect that this will be a multi-year project, to provide, again, perhaps 80 to 100 new units. But with 140,000-plus people waiting on the affordable housing list, how is this piecemeal approach ever going to get us there?

Again, from the housing activists’ point of view—and they are legion—here’s what they say: Yes, there are some changes to the SHRA on rent rules; those are good. But there’s no promise to amend the Residential Tenancies Act. There’s no inclusionary housing commitment, which I’ve said again, and the promise to expand use of secondary rental units in new and existing developments is all that we have. But again, not one new dollar, not one new unit, not one extra rental supplement—nothing concrete. As one housing activist said, it was like putting up the scaffolding and then walking away from the building site. There’s no house there.

One aspect of this, of course—and I imagine that those who are listening and watching this first day of the session of the Ontario Parliament in action will wonder, “Well, perhaps the reason this government hasn’t been more forthcoming in building rental units”—in fact, not at all; not one new rent-geared-to-income suite, no inclusionary zoning, nothing of concrete status in this new bill—“is that they don’t have any money.” We have to admit, we in the opposition—and the government side, too—that that’s partly true. This government doesn’t have any money.

This government’s working deficit, $18.5 billion or so, is more than all the other provinces’ combined. They’ve actually doubled our structural debt in the seven years they’ve been in office. That’s not a pretty picture.

But here’s the reality of the economy of housing: It costs literally more dollars and cents to keep someone underhoused or homeless than it does to provide housing for them. Here I absolutely give kudos to those who have done these studies. There are now studies done in every major urban centre across North America. A recent one in Vancouver showed the highest cost yet, but let’s take the one that is about seven years old from New York city that showed that it cost about $55,000 a year to keep someone homeless.

That’s kind of counterintuitive, until you start thinking about it. Because to keep someone homeless, you need extra money into the justice system, into emergency health care and, of course, rehab systems. You need shelters. You need more social workers. The actual cost of keeping someone homeless is more than it would cost to put someone into a hotel every night, just about. That’s the stupidity of the current action plan of this government, which is non-action: it’s costing more. Not just in the long run, where it could be argued it costs way more, because again, we’re talking about poverty generation to generation and the cost of that, but it costs more in the short term.

I remember that one of my first committee moments here in this House was when Mr. Gerretsen was the housing minister. It was on government finances, and we got to ask questions about how money was spent and wasn’t spent on housing. He admitted in Hansard, on record, that it would cost less to put someone in a motel or a hotel than to keep the current system going.

We have about 5,000 people on the streets of the city, many of whom will die this winter from complications due to homelessness and poverty. This is insanity. Isn’t that the statement, that insanity is doing the same things you’ve always done and expecting different results? Well, governments—this one included—have for a long time turned their backs on the housing file entirely; done very little, if anything at all; made gestures. And let’s face it; this bill is a gesture in the direction of housing. It’s a gesture. It has nothing concrete in it. It reduces red tape a little bit.

It helps a little bit here and there, tweaks around the edges, but there’s not one new unit, not one new dollar, not one new rent supplement in this bill.

As long as governments continue to tread water on the housing file, the cost mounts. The last study that was done on the cost of homelessness and underhousing in Vancouver showed it costs $75,000 a year to keep somebody homeless—$75,000 a year to keep someone homeless. This is insanity. This is also cruel. I mean, Scrooge comes to mind, eh? “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?” Unfortunately, that is our housing strategy: There are prisons, and that’s where a lot of those with mental health and addiction issues who haven’t got supportive housing end up.

And we all know the cost of keeping someone in prison. Last I heard, it was around the $60,000 mark. So will we provide more prisons, or will we provide more housing? That’s the choice before us, really. We’ve always opted for the prisons. Sad.

When you hear what housing activists who are in the field, who do nothing but housing, who look at housing issues all the time, have to say about this bill, it’s pretty uniform. Here is something from the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, and Harvey Cooper, who is the manager of government relations.

I’m sure everybody in this House knows Harvey; he has visited us all often enough. “Cooper says that this approach,” Bill 140, “fails to recognize that construction of affordable housing has a major stimulative impact and can play a key role in the economic recovery while reducing poverty and providing a valuable public asset for the long term.” He goes on, to quote: “‘We agree with the province that the federal government has a responsibility to continue to support affordable housing as it has done in the past,’” Cooper says. “‘But’”—a critical “but” here—“‘in presenting its vision for affordable housing, the Ontario government should look to lead, not follow.

Its long-term plan should be grounded in a commitment to funding affordable housing as a core, continuing government program.’”

Again, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. If we look at the New Deal, even from the Roosevelt era, how do you respond to economic bad times? Well, this government has responded to economic bad times by giving incredible corporate welfare handouts. This government has given $4.5 billion to corporations, so that we have the lowest corporate tax rate in North America. That’s how this government believes a bad economic time should be dealt with. It’s the old trickle-down theory, and in fact what’s happening is a more gushing-up theory. The poor are getting poorer; the wealthy are getting wealthier.

The trickle-down theory we know doesn’t work. What works, and we’ve seen it over and over again in response to bad times, is to build, build, build. Infrastructure investment, new builds, new housing—that helps. This government isn’t doing that.

Probably the best-known housing advocate and housing expert in Ontario is David Hulchanski. David Hulchanski is a professor at the University of Toronto; he turns out amazing work on housing and has done a phenomenal study on, essentially, Poverty By Postal Code—that was the United Way moniker—and he has provided some background to that. Here is what he says in conclusion: “The provincial and municipal governments could implement specific policies to help maintain and promote mixed neighbourhoods.

These include”—guess what’s first?—“inclusionary zoning, whereby any medium-to-large residential developments must include,” he suggests, “15% or 20% rental and affordable units. Also, the province of Ontario could keep its promise to end vacancy decontrol—the right of landlords to charge what–ever they wish for a rental unit when a tenant moves,” and thereby discourage “the displacement of low-income residents in gentrifying areas.” We certainly are seeing this in Parkdale. Certainly, we’re seeing this. Certainly, we’re noticing gentrification.

It almost sounds like a black joke that those who live in rental accommodation in Parkdale, which used to be one of the most affordable areas in the downtown core, can’t afford to buy and can’t afford to rent in Parkdale anymore. Down on Jameson, which is where most new immigrants and refugees end up living—because still there are about 10,000 so-called affordable housing units; that is to say, one-bedrooms renting at around the $900 mark.

So you find new immigrants and refugees housed together, many of them who let others in their communities know, and pretty soon you have a whole building, for example, almost full of Tibetans, which we have in south Parkdale. It used to be that’s where they’d start, but unfortunately, that’s where they’re ending up now because they can’t afford to move out.

If they do move out or they can’t afford even the $900 a month, which often happens, and they get evicted eventually, guess what happens to that unit? New appliances go in, a coat of paint gets slapped on, the foyer gets jazzed up and the unit goes from $900 a month to $1,500 a month. And guess what? It’s not occupied by new immigrants or people of colour or single-headed families anymore. It’s now occupied by a whole other group. In fact, we’re seeing that happening in those buildings: the gentrification bit by bit of buildings that were built in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and on.

This is a sad day, because it means again that David Hulchanski’s study is even more right: that poverty is being moved out to the 905 areas. It’s being moved out to the edge of Toronto, and the downtown core isn’t for the poor anymore. That’s the sad reality, a reality that certainly affects my riding. In our local high school, Parkdale high school, we have 65 mother tongues spoken. And that will change. It will change substantially not only the tenor of my neighbourhood but the tenor of all the downtown core, which we celebrate as being multicultural.

Well, that multiculturalism is based on some affordable housing prices still, and as that affordable housing goes, so goes the multiculturalism. And that’s sad. That’s sad, and that’s happening. It’s happening under our eyes.

If anybody doubts my word, I highly recommend The Three Cities Within Toronto, which is about income polarization among Toronto’s neighbourhoods and is a real landmark study—again, David Hulchanski. That’s what he says. He says, “What do we need?” He says we need, first and foremost, inclusionary zoning.

Here’s what other groups have to say about Bill 140. The Housing Network of Ontario says: “The Ontario government has proposed some new legislation and administrative procedures that are useful and important, but the essential items for a long-term affordable housing plan—targets, timeline, and, most of all”—money—“funding over a multi-year period—are missing.” This is where I got that quote. “It’s like they’ve put up the scaffolding but then forgot to give the workers the tools that they need to get the job done.” That’s from perhaps the largest of our housing activists.

We all know ACORN as being an incredible group of people across North America who have worked with low-income tenants as their primary group and primarily advocated for affordable housing. This is what they said about Bill 140: “There was much hope that after more than six months of consultations, over 1,000 written submissions, and a full year of writing, that Premier McGuinty and his administration would provide a bold vision for affordable housing in Ontario.

“They did not. Instead, they opted to package a handful of reforms as a comprehensive housing plan while failing to act on key areas that ACORN members, tenants, housing experts and others had been advocating for.”

Again, they say: “There is no commitment to new provincial operating or capital dollars for housing;”—none whatsoever—“no mention of inclusionary zoning enabling legislation even after key members of the provincial government voted in support of an NDP private member’s bill on the subject; no housing benefit to address the rising cost of housing among the working poor.” A housing benefit is a direct subsidy to low-income tenants to help them pay their rent. That’s what ACORN says.

Here’s what the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, which comprises 755 member organizations, says about Bill 140: “While the strategy includes a focus on streamlining some administrative aspects of the rent-geared-to-income housing system and increased flexibility for both local communities and tenants, it does not address the critical need for increased investment in new development and the ongoing maintenance of existing properties—key public assets that must be protected for future generations....” However, “‘the potential of any strategy cannot be fully realized unless it is properly funded....

We would encourage the government to continue providing even limited funding in this current economic climate and to adopt some of the innovative financing solutions that the community-based housing sector will be proposing.’”

I mean, sometimes when you hear these housing activists, you detect a hint of pleading now, pleading in their quotes and their write-ups of this bill, because after seven years of coming, weeping almost, to the doors of power here, this is what they get. This is what they get: a little rescinding of the red tape, but not one new housing dollar, not one new housing unit, not one new rent-geared-to-income supplement, and no inclusionary zoning. This is what isn’t in this bill, and this is what is critical in any sort of housing policy.

Often what’s sad in beginning a political life is that you realize that that great quote is so true: “Politics is the art of the possible.” But really, what’s possible and what’s delivered by this current administration are now even chasms apart.

What’s possible for this current administration is to actually look at the numbers, to understand that investment in housing pays, that it doesn’t cost; to understand that infrastructure investment—new builds, like they originally promised back in 2003—works to help the economy; that giving away money in terms of corporate tax cuts to the largest and most profitable corporations in the province of Ontario doesn’t work in creating jobs, in providing housing and in alleviating poverty. That doesn’t work, but infrastructure development does. That’s what’s lacking here.

It’s really also not even about partisanship, because I remember—my goodness, I’ve said it before here: Bill Davis looks like a socialist in comparison to Dalton McGuinty. In Mel Lastman’s day we had more housing going on in this province, new-build housing.

We had, in fact, David Crombie—a tiny, perfect Conservative mayor—come to speak to our Parkdale Visioning. We had him come to speak to us about how he ever got the St. Lawrence Market rebuild off the ground, kind of the gold standard for housing of its day. It still is, unfortunately, across North America and sometimes around the world. How do you take these old, often polluted, lands, turn them into a mix of co-ops and affordable market-driven places to live, and make it a wonderful place to live around a landmark like the St. Lawrence Market? This is the gold standard.

We had him come to talk to us about how he did that. He gave us some sad news. He said that you have to have governments on your side.

Well, we don’t have this government on our side. Otherwise, we would see exactly that kind of redevelopment, and we would see it frequently, because it’s what is needed in all areas of Toronto. Otherwise, we will be doomed to David Hulchanski’s vision of our future, because it’s happening as we speak; that is, a polarized, divided Ontario, where the wealthy live in little gated enclaves, where the poor live in substandard housing—if they live in housing at all, or sleep on grates in our city streets—and where the middle class disappears, empties out, because nobody can afford being middle class anymore.

They can’t afford the house and the car anymore. Is that the Ontario we want? I hope not. I really hope not.

It’s interesting, I remember a Peter Ustinov quote about the city of Toronto that is sad now to repeat. I think he uttered it in the 1970s, when he was still alive, of course. He said that Toronto is New York designed by the Swiss. Boy, oh, boy. Look at our GTA and look at our province now. Is that what you’d say about where we live now? I don’t think so, certainly not in my neighbourhood.

When I grew up in Toronto and my father spoke about food banks and the use of food banks and spoke about people riding the rails in the Depression, I thought, “Never again. How could that ever happen?” And now we see, and have seen under this current administration here, food banks proliferate. There are more food banks in the city of Toronto, than McDonald’s now—more food banks than McDonald’s That’s the reality of life in this province now. That’s in one lifetime. And it’s getting worse; it’s not getting better.

My friends from across the way like to, of course, take partisan shots at other parties—

Interjection.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Truly, but this happened under the seven years of Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal watch. This happened under the Liberal watch in the last seven years. That’s the reality. It’s become worse: less housing, more families on the waiting lists, longer waiting times, more precarious housing, more renters who can’t afford the basic necessities of life. That’s happened here. At some point, when you have a majority government, you have to take ownership of what your jurisdiction looks like. This is what Ontario looks like, and this is a jurisdiction that gave us this Ontario—seven years.

I’m not going to let the federal government off the hook, either. We have long called for a national housing strategy. The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee has long asked for the 1% solution—1% of the budget to go to housing. We’re still asking for that federally. We still need that federally to get out of the bind we’re in. But there’s so much more that could happen here and doesn’t because of the short-sighted thinking. It’s a kind of thinking that says, “It costs money, it doesn’t make money, to invest in affordable housing. It costs money, it doesn’t make money, to help people rise above the poverty line.

It costs money, it doesn’t make money, to put infrastructure front and centre and new-build affordable housing front and centre.” That’s the kind of short-sighted, conservative vision, quite frankly, that has caused this problem in the first place. “Let’s leave housing up to the private sector.” That has given us the Ontario that we live in right now. “Let’s get governments out of the business of housing”—I mean, good grief, that’s a libertarian notion, and that’s essentially the philosophy of the McGuinty government. A Liberal Party with a libertarian notion: Get government out of the housing business.

That’s what we’ve got in Ontario.

It couldn’t get more conservative. In fact, as I’ve shown, Conservatives did it better at times. They were less conservative and less libertarian than our current Liberal administration. It’s sad but true from the New Democratic point of view, and sad but true from the point of view of those who live on those waiting lists. It’s true for them as well.

I grew up in a Toronto that didn’t have shelters. It also didn’t have the corporate tax breaks that are now in place in Ontario. Is there a corollary here? I say that there are many corollaries between the rich getting richer and the lack of affordable housing on the other end of the income spectrum. There’s a reason why Hulchanski’s Toronto looks the way it does, and the reason always falls at the feet of government. That’s what’s happened. It’s very sad.

So what we’re talking about here, for those who’ve just tuned in, in the very first session back, just to set the tone for the new session, I’ve suggested to everyone here that we work together to change Ontario. People are tired of the bickering that goes back and forth. I’m suggesting that here we have a scaffolding in Bill 140; that this bill, hopefully, will go to committee; that this bill will hopefully be dealt with by a succession of housing activists, who will say pretty much what I’ve said here today—in fact, I’ve quoted from them and their statistics and their five-point plan to provide housing to Ontarians; and that we’ll make significant amendments.

Significant amendments to this bill will include dollars, will include new bills, will include inclusionary zoning, will include more rent supplements, and will include, in fact, money in for more money out at the other end of the spectrum, because we know now—we can’t pretend we don’t know what we know studies have shown—that it costs more money to keep people under-housed and homeless than it does to house them; that, simply in dollars and cents, it costs more; and that, long term, it costs even more to keep the poor impoverished—we know that.

There’s no excuse not to prime the pump with funding now, so that the economy can improve later. This is a far better use of our tax dollars, scarce as they are, than putting money in at the top by giving some of the wealthiest corporations in Ontario huge tax breaks, making us the cheapest place to do business in North America for them and hoping that some of that money somehow trickles down so that somebody, one of the 142,000 on the housing waiting list, might actually someday find a place to live.

I started off also in talking about that little girl who lived in our church parking lot in a trailer with her father. It’s been many years since that moment in our church history and our community’s history. She was simply one of the ones we discovered. We knew her name; we knew what she looked like. We saw her father. We knew that if they walked along any street in any city in Ontario, they would pass as just your middle-class folk. We knew that the reality was anything but.

We know now that those who are lining up to use food banks are also the same as those who are lining up for affordable housing, and we know that those lining up for affordable housing and those lining up for food banks are, by and large, now working people. This is a significant shift as well, which points to other measures that need to be implemented. But here’s the problem: After months of consultations, thousands of pages of written submissions, a uniform cry from housing activists and housing organizations across Ontario for five basic steps, this government has delivered none of the above.

Not one new dollar, not one new unit, not one new rent-geared-to-income supplement and not any, of course, inclusionary zoning. No requests there whatsoever.

So I suspect that that little girl, if the trajectory holds—and we know this from studies, again, that have been done by experts across North America; that if you start out homeless, it’s very difficult to pull yourself up by the bootstraps from that existence.

That in fact, contrary to Horatio Alger myths, the reality is that she’ll probably go on to be poorer than her father, who’s already poor indeed; that she’ll probably have more health concerns than other little girls her age; that she probably won’t get as much schooling as other children her age; that she’ll probably be nutritionally deficient, unlike other children her age; that her father, trying to get a job without a home, will probably remain jobless; that their income will go down, not up, over time. That’s their trajectory.

Ultimately, all of public policy comes down to a personal story. All public policy, all images of public policy come down to one picture. I want that those who are watching—and I hope my friends from across the aisle and around this place—will see the face of that little girl and that family, and her children and their children, who will be significantly worse off. I hope they see a direction we do not want to go. I hope they also understand that they have the power to change that direction.

I appeal that although this is the scaffolding, we need the building in this bill. Because it’s not a bad thing—we’ll probably vote for it—it’s not a good thing either, because there’s not one dollar, not one new unit, no new rent supplements and no inclusionary zoning, and those are four of the five requests from all of the housing activists. In fact, if you read it differently they’re five of the five requests from all the housing providers and activists across Ontario.

There’s still time to add that to this bill. There’s still time to significantly amend this bill and put significant money behind new builds, infrastructure development and getting people off the streets in Ontario. There’s still time. We’ve got, what, 12 weeks? You can do it. We can do it. We can do it together. We can provide those 2,000 new units of supportive housing a year. We can provide those 12,000 new units, inclusionary zoning units, a year without spending a tax dollar. We can build the 20,000 units every four years that this government initially promised; we can do that. We can provide rent geared to income; we can do that, too.

We, finally, can actually begin to truly build the kind of Ontario that we would want our children and grandchildren to grow up in, the kind of Ontario that would never ever abandon that little girl and her father who had to sleep in an RV in our parking lot; that would never abandon an Edmund Yu, shot to death on a streetcar; that would never abandon the sole-income, single-parent families waiting for 12 years on affordable housing lists; that, finally, would never abandon our very own children and grandchildren, who will never be able to afford the middle-class dream of owning their own home.

This government has it within its power to do all of that. We all do. We all do if we work together. We all do if we significantly amend, if we put on the scaffolding of Bill 140 a structure that would actually provide—yes, new units; yes, new dollars; yes, new rent-geared-to-income supplements; and yes, inclusionary zoning.

I thank you very much. It was a pleasure and a privilege to start off the session. I hope it’s one of co-operation, and I hope it’s one of progress.

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

Mr. Peter Fonseca: Having listened to the member for Parkdale–High Park, with many of her comments I couldn’t agree more. The McGuinty government understands just how important an address is, a home is, to the lives of hard-working Ontarians.

I have seen with my own eyes, having visited some of the affordable housing units in my riding of Mississauga East–Cooksville and those families, how it has transformed their lives. It has given them a sense of pride, a sense of hope and opportunity. It’s that firm footing for that little girl or boy or husband or wife to know that they have an address, a home, that they open up at the end of a hard day when they come home. It gives them that grounding, that firm footing that all of us need.

The investments that the McGuinty government has made over the last seven and a half years—$2.5 billion—with our partners, with the municipalities, with many not-for-profit agencies and organizations in our communities, have been remarkable.

I want to commend Minister Bartolucci and his predecessors for working together with the municipalities, with NGOs, so that we have a common vision—and we do have a common vision—for long-term affordable housing. This strategy speaks to what we heard from stakeholders: that we have to work together, that we have to make further progress.

It’s unfortunate that the missing partner at the table is the federal government, which wishes not to participate when it comes to affordable housing. We have to speak all together with a strong voice and deliver the message that this is about Ontario’s families, Canadian families, that need help, and in a time of need, we should all come together.

We are a compassionate government. The McGuinty government has a strong strategy that is delivering results for these families, and we are seeing that it improves the quality of life for all Ontarians in all our communities.

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

Mr. Steve Clark: I’m pleased to provide a couple of minutes of comments to the very eloquent speech from the member from Parkdale–High Park. She speaks with a lot of passion and conviction, and I admire her for her hour leadoff as we kick off this session of the Legislative Assembly.

I have to admit that I am a bit skeptical of this government’s commitment. I had a couple of housing issues in my riding of Leeds–Grenville, which is predominantly a rural riding. We applied for some housing funds. There were two projects. One was in north Grenville, which is an extremely fast-growing part of my riding. It was a project that the local hospital, the Kemptville District Hospital, was promoting. And there was a project in Brockville that the folks from Wall Street Village had tried to put forward that would provide some much-needed seniors’ housing in Brockville.

Obviously, I couldn’t ask a very technical question during question period to the minister, so I decided to put it in the form of an order paper question. I put five order paper questions, because we were trying to establish our strategy for approaching the government for some money. They were very specific questions, asking about the round 1 funding through the Canada-Ontario affordable housing agreement: “What’s the initial allocation? Who got funding? Were any units turned back?” They were all very technical questions.

To my surprise, I got back two paragraphs which basically said that the province and the federal government, since June 2009, were in agreement; they both contributed $622 million—blah, blah, blah. I was really disheartened that that’s how the Ministry of Housing—the minister—chose to answer the question. If we’re going to take 12 weeks and if we’re going to co-operate on housing, we need a little bit of a better answer than what I got to my local questions over the last session.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member for Beaches–East York.

Mr. Michael Prue: I sat and listened intently because I’m seatmates with the member from Parkdale–High Park. I listened intently to every word she had to say.

What this is, and what she had to say for the hour, is a call. It is a call for all of us to do the right thing. It is a call for us to go beyond a technical bill, which this one is. It is a call for us to make those decisions which will help people in this province.

She talked about the wait-lists. Go to almost any place in your own community and look at the wait-lists and how long it takes for a family to get decent affordable housing. In some cases, the wait-lists are more than 20 years. Certainly, if you have a large family and you want to get into decent public housing and you put your name on the list, there is virtually no chance you will ever get that housing until your children have all grown up and moved away, and then you’re not eligible for it anymore.

She talked about inclusionary zoning. This is an idea whose time has come. This is an idea that this government should embrace. This is an idea that municipality after municipality in Ontario is saying we need to do: “We want to do it. Give us the authority.” They’re not even asking for money. And as the member from Parkdale–High Park so eloquently put it, this can be done without costing one single dollar of provincial money.

She talked again about the lack of housing being a key component of poverty. We know that people in this province are starting to get poorer, and there’s starting to be some backlash. We know the human costs that are involved.

I thank the member from Parkdale–High Park for putting her words so eloquently before this House.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member from Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough–Westdale.

Mr. Ted McMeekin: I think it’s always good when we struggle in this place to put a human face on issues that confront us, and I want to compliment all those members who tried to do that quite eloquently this morning.

The issue of housing, and social housing in particular, is not one that is new to us. I wrote my master’s thesis many, many years ago on the issue of community participation in determining the kinds of social housing that might be built. That was at a time and a day and a place where the federal government, to their everlasting credit, through the Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. loan program, was providing low-interest and no-interest loans, in partnership with provincial governments and municipalities, to entice builders to come and build the kind of housing that would be made available to those on the margins, and it worked very, very well.

There were some significant changes that downloaded that—downloading seems to be a favourite exercise of governments, the senior one often inflicting on the next level of government obligations that they don’t want to take onto themselves.

I was with Minister Bartolucci in Hamilton when this program was rolled out, and I just want to say for the record that I’ve never seen in my social service career the kind of enthusiasm amongst housing advocates for moving forward in hand-in-hand partnership to solve a problem which we all agree needs to be addressed than I did that day. Do you remember that, Minister? It was very—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further comments? The member from Parkdale has two minutes to respond.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Thanks to all the members for their comments.

A couple of items: I just want to set the record straight in response to the member from Mississauga East–Cooksville about the McGuinty government record. Let’s put it this way: Ontario has the worst record among all the provinces in affordable housing investments—the worst. This is based on Statistics Canada data. Ontario spends $64 per capita on affordable housing—half the provincial average of $115 per person. So Conservative, Liberal, NDP alike: We’re the worst for investment in affordable housing. That’s the simple and unadulterated truth.

That’s what this government has to own up to, and this technical bill does nothing to save that or change that in any way. So that’s what we are asking for.

One of the members mentioned the delight with which this bill was received. I’m sure that among Liberal Party members it was received with delight, but certainly every single housing activist group we’ve spoken to, which is all of them, has said, “This is far from what we asked for.” Why? Because there’s not one new dollar, not one new unit, not one new rent-geared-to-income supplement and no inclusionary zoning. Those were the core of all of their asks; all of them ignored.

When you’re dependent on government money, you might be nice at meetings, but the reality is, this is what they’re saying in print in the media; this is their real reaction and with our—sorry—the worst provincial record for investing in social housing, I don’t think there’s anything to be proud about. What I’m suggesting is, since we’ve got the scaffolding of the bill, since it’s going to committee, let’s build on it. Let’s add in the dollars, add in the units, add in the—

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

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The House recessed from 1013 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: I’m very excited that Nicolas Meilleur, a student at École Macdonald-Cartier, is going to be a legislative page. I know his parents are in the gallery, and they’re very excited. So I would like to introduce Natalie and Jean-Roger and have them stand up. Welcome.

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: I want to take this opportunity to introduce two of the great employees of the MGS. I have the deputy minister and CEO of ServiceOntario, Bob Stark, and his new ADM of customer care, Helga Iliadis, who joined the Ontario public service on February 14, 2011. Welcome, and enjoy.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: I’d like to introduce a young constituent from York South–Weston, Asquith Allen, who is here in the House today in the gallery to watch the proceedings.

Mr. Randy Hillier: I’d like to introduce my brother-in-law Peter Weltman, in the members’ gallery today. He’s the father of a great young page starting today, Benjamin Hillier-Weltman. Welcome.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I am delighted to introduce a special constituent of mine. Richard Nancarrow is here with us today in the government gallery.

Mr. Jeff Leal: It truly is a proud occasion for me today to introduce my son Braden, who is a page for this term. He’s not here yet, but he’ll be coming back in.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Premier. Premier, you have made an expensive mess out of Ontario’s hydro system, and you don’t respect the fact that Ontario families are being stuck with your bills.

Since our last question period some 75 days ago, we have seen up to a billion dollars in subsidies to Quebec and New York to take our hydro while Ontario families are paying more, we saw an extraordinary Liberal backtrack on offshore wind and microFIT, and we’re seeing massive cost overruns at your Big Becky tunnel project in Niagara.

Ontario families are looking for relief, but they’re not getting it from the McGuinty government. Premier, how much more will hydro bills go up as a result of your expensive experiments?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, it’s good to be back. I’m not sure the break has improved my honourable colleague’s disposition, but I’m always pleased to take his questions.

The question obviously is about energy, and I can tell you that families are concerned about, I think, three things in particular when it comes to our energy plan. They want to make sure that they have a reliable supply of electricity, and we are on track to do that. They want to make sure that, while we ensure that we have a reliable supply of electricity, we are also creating more jobs, capitalizing on a new opportunity in the global economy—and we’re creating thousands of those. At the same time, they’re also very pleased with the fact that we are cleaning up our air, that we’re shutting down our coal-fired generation. Those are all initiatives opposed by the party opposite.

They want clean electricity, they want clean energy jobs and they want reliable electricity. That’s exactly what we’re delivering.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, you used to claim that your expensive green energy experiments would only drive up bills by a meagre 1%, before you had to climb down and admit it was going to be 46%. We all know, Premier, that you’re going to be lowballing that figure.

After seven years, Premier, you’ve become so out of touch that even when you retreat from your expensive energy experiments, Ontario families end up paying more. Take your recent backtracking on 1,000 microFIT projects that would pay 80 cents for five-cent power. Your ham-fisted bungling of this issue has now exposed Ontario families to expensive lawsuits.

Premier, why do you treat Ontario families like they’re bottomless ATM machines? Why do they keep paying more and more for your bungling on the hydro file?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I know that Ontarians are becoming more and more interested in what it is that the party opposite has by way of specific proposals and plans, so I intend to take advantage during the coming session to help reveal some of those plans to assist Ontarians in their understanding of where it is that the party opposite, the official opposition, particularly plans to go.

To make it very clear, abundantly clear, we’re against coal; they’re for coal. We’re for investing in solar, wind and water power; they’re against clean energy. We’re for thousands of new clean energy jobs; they’re against those new jobs. We’re for attracting, so far, $18 billion of new investment; they’re against that new investment. So that sets up a pretty stark contrast of where they plan to go and where we plan to go. We’re with families, clean energy, clean jobs, clean air.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: The problem is, you just do not respect the fact that Ontario families get stuck with the bills for the expensive mess you’ve created in our hydro policy.

Let me give you one more example. The Big Becky tunnel project in Niagara is now five years late and $600 million more expensive, and all the Premier has said about this latest Big Becky boondoggle is, “Well, these things happen.” I guess that’s no surprise from a Premier who gave us the billion-dollar eHealth boondoggle; no surprise from a Premier who is subsidizing exports of power to Quebec and New York to the tune of a billion dollars as well.

Premier, don’t you respect the fact that Ontario families get stuck paying the bills? How out of touch are you to say that another boondoggle just happens?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: We’re very proud of the work that is taking place as part of the Niagara tunnel project. It is a 10.2-kilometre tunnel that goes under the city of Niagara Falls. Working there is the biggest tunnel-boring machine in the world. It’s going to supply clean power for the next 100 years. We’re talking about a government with a bit of foresight, a bit of vision and a bit of courage to get that hard work done right now.

My honourable friends opposite think they can get all this work done and it won’t add a single extra penny to our electricity bills. Ontarians don’t believe that. That’s magic. We have reality. We’ve got a sense of responsibility. We’ll do the necessary to make sure we can turn the lights on, that the power’s there, that it’s clean power with clean jobs and that it delivers clean air to our families.

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Premier: What we expect is for projects to be on time and on budget, and if they’re not, for you to actually care about it. For you to dismiss a project that is now five years behind

schedule and $600 million over budget shows how dramatically out of touch you’ve become with the reality faced by Ontario families struggling with higher and higher hydro bills.

Each and every day, the Ontario PC caucus is actually talking to ordinary families, small business leaders, students and seniors concerned about your expensive experiments. We brought forward a moratorium on your expensive energy projects that would say: Let’s hear from people about the health and environmental impacts, and let’s make sure that when it comes to industrial wind farms, they’re in communities where they’re welcomed and at prices that Ontario families can actually afford. You voted against it. Now you’ve flip-flopped. Were you playing politics then, or are you playing politics now?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I think both my honourable colleague and myself have had the opportunity during the break to meet with a number of Ontarians to hear about their concerns, their aspirations and their issues, and a very important concern that remains very prominent in the minds of many Ontario families is jobs.

Our electricity plan is about jobs: 225 jobs in Fort Erie at DMI Industries; 158 jobs in Burlington at Satcon producing solar modules; 150 jobs in Cambridge at ATS to produce solar modules; 100 jobs in Newmarket with SunEdison and Flextronics manufacturing solar modules; 300 jobs in Don Mills at Celestica manufacturing solar components. I can go on and on. But a very important benefit of our clean electricity plan is thousands of new jobs, which is exactly what Ontario families are demanding.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Some 300,000 lost manufacturing jobs, Premier, because of your high taxes, runaway spending and skyrocketing energy bills. You are so out of touch after seven years in office.

Premier, you just show no respect for the Ontario families that are getting stuck with your higher and higher bills. At one point, you were so determined to force your expensive industrial wind farm projects on communities that if an Ontario family objected in any way, you insulted them by saying they were NIMBYs.

You voted against the PC moratorium until we could assure that projects were affordable and in communities where they’re welcome, based on good science, until you said, “The energy minister’s seat is at risk”—until Liberal seats were at risk—and then you did a spectacular flip-flop on your hydro policy.

Premier, when your position keeps changing like this on hydro, how can anybody believe you, and why are they getting stuck with the bills for the expensive mess you’ve created?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: It’s interesting to hear this. I think I’m detecting some kind of a covert flirtation with clean energy on the part of the Leader of the Opposition.

But I want to tell you a bit more about the specifics of their plan. They are in favour of burning coal in Ontario; we’re against that. We’re in favour of investing in clean energy; that’s solar, wind and water power. They’re against that. We’re in favour of thousands of new clean energy jobs; they’re against that. We’re in favour of attracting up to $18 billion in new investment; they’re against that. It’s important to understand the difference. We, in fact, represent the future. We understand an opportunity for a brand new industry. The centrepiece in North America will be located here in Ontario.

They’re for coal. They’re for dirty air. They’re for the past. We’re for going forward: clean air, clean energy, thousands of new jobs.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Premier, the reality is that you’ve changed and twisted your energy policies so much that delegates at a yoga convention would be envious. You’ve flip-flopped on your green projects and on the Oakville energy plant, and your ideological approach means that you’re buying expensive power at 80 cents for power that should be five cents in the marketplace. Now you’re ready to toss out the main pillars in your so-called green energy plan that you put in the window only because seats, like your energy minister’s, are at risk.

Premier, you know the idea to jam the power plant to an unwilling host in Oakville is wrong, and now you’re going to do the same thing in Cambridge with another secret sweetheart deal.

How much are Ontario families going to pay for your bungling? How much are Ontario families going to pay for your expensive mistakes? Premier, when will you get a clue and understand that it’s families that are paying the bill for the disaster you’ve created on the energy file?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, just to be—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, just so it’s perfectly clear, they’re in favour of coal; we’re against that. We believe in clean air for our families. They’re against clean energy; we’re in favour of harnessing the power of the sun and the wind. They’re against the thousands of new jobs that we’re creating; obviously, we are for those. They’re against the new investments that we’re attracting.

Here’s an interesting quote from a recent Reuters publication from February 14 of this year. It says: “The outcome of an election this autumn in Ontario could stunt a budding renewable energy industry in the Canadian province just as it is becoming one of the world’s hot investment destinations.”

I would ask my friend, who maintains he’s in favour of a strong economy, why is he standing up against an initiative that has been recognized globally as being at the forefront in terms of landing new investment, new jobs and cleaning up our air?

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Premier. For the past two months, the Premier’s been travelling around the province with his PowerPoint slides, explaining to families why they have to pay more and expect less. The Premier says that he just can’t afford to make life more affordable for folks. If that’s so, how can he afford $2 billion in corporate tax giveaways every year?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I also say welcome back to my honourable colleague the leader of the NDP, and I welcome her questions.

What I would say to my honourable colleague is to understand that what, in fact, we’ve put in place is a comprehensive package of tax reforms. It results in tax cuts for families of about $12 billion over three years and of about $4 billion or $5 billion for businesses over the next three years. So I’d ask my honourable colleague to acknowledge what we are doing for families.

For example, the average Ontario family is receiving a $355 income tax cut this year and every year going forward. There’s also a new children’s activity tax credit of $50 per child, available this year and every year going forward. There also have been a number of transition benefits put in place, to assist with our transition as we adopt a modern taxation system that necessarily includes the HST. So I would ask my honourable colleague to acknowledge all those positive initiatives we’ve put in place to help our families.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The people I’ve been meeting with this winter might not be the same crowd that turns up for the Premier’s PowerPoint presentation, but they do their jobs, they pay their taxes and they actually make our province work. They’re telling me that they feel ignored. They’re being told to pay more and more while their health care slips into crisis and their wages fall further and further behind.

Can the Premier explain how he’s found the money for everything from CEO pay hikes to multi-billion dollar corporate tax giveaways while ignoring everyday people who are looking for a little bit of relief?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Obviously I take issue with my honourable colleague with respect to who it is that we are helping. I know my friend likes to describe Ontario as being divided up into different sections of people. We don’t see Ontario that way. We see it as being in this together, and we’ve got a shared responsibility to move forward together.

Let me tell you about some of the things we’ve been doing. Full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds: That’s a $1.5-billion initiative. It’s benefiting 35,000 kids this year. It’ll be 50,000 as of this September. It’s going to grow to 247,000 in all 4,000 Ontario elementary schools. That is a very expensive initiative, but we’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do. That’s not to any particular—four- and five-year-old kids don’t vote, but we’re benefiting them nonetheless because it’s an important initiative. It speaks to their future, and that in turn speaks to our future.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, while the Premier keeps talking at people, we have been listening, and here’s what we’re hearing: People’s paycheques aren’t stretching as far as they used to. They’re being told they have to pay more for electricity—in fact, there was another announcement today about a rate hike by OPG—and more for home heating. The government’s slapped them with a new unfair tax, but their health care is falling behind. In places like Windsor, it has actually become an official crisis.

The Premier has found billions and billions of dollars for corporate tax giveaways and CEO salary hikes, but families want to know: When will they finally become the priority?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I say to my honourable colleague that we bring a balanced approach. We’re taking a look at what we need to do to ensure that we grow this economy. That does call for, from time to time, providing additional supports to the business community; we understand that. But at the same time, we’ve not lost sight of the needs of our families.

I spoke a moment ago about full-day kindergarten and how that’s saving the average family thousands of dollars in daycare costs every single year. We’ve also increased the minimum wage every year for six years. We’ve increased social assistance for our most vulnerable by 11% so far, raising the rates again last year. We have doubled student assistance. We’ve capped OSAP repayments at $7,300. Our Second Career strategy, a very important investment, has helped 40,000 people so far. There’s a new textbook and technology grant for our students of $150 per student; I think it has helped some 220,000 students so far. Those are all initiatives to help our families.

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Premier. Tomorrow, the Premier is going to be presenting his PowerPoint presentation to a very friendly audience that loves his corporate tax giveaways and secret private power deals, but if he actually left the conference hall to talk to the people in these communities, he’d hear stories like John’s: “The HST is killing Ontario. I am laid off and find it almost impossible for me to drive to Windsor with the price of gas, just to hand out a few resumés. Maybe Mr. McGuinty would like to trade places.”

Can the Premier explain to people like John why profitable corporations need a tax break, but they need to pay more?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Let me give you examples of some of the things we are doing. I know my honourable friend believes that we should never sit down and talk to the business community and, of course, I don’t think that would be responsible. We worked with Dofasco; they’re based in Hamilton. We announced a $5.2-million loan to upgrade their steel production process and ensure the security of those jobs. We worked with AGS Automotive, and Tiercon, based in Stoney Creek; we provided them with $6 million for the development of advanced bumper systems—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Hamilton East will please come to order, and Minister of Consumer Services. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: We also have been working with Max Aicher North America; they’re based in Hamilton. We provided a $9-million loan to help reopen a former steel mill. That’s about new jobs.

What my friends have got to understand at some point—hopefully sooner, rather than later—is that when we work with the business sector we can actually ensure that there are more jobs, which is exactly what our families are looking for. We believe in that kind of a partnership and we’ll keep strengthening it.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: If the Premier visited people as well as business groups, he would have heard stories like Laura’s, a senior in London. She’s been having a hard time paying her utility bills and writes this: “I have been living with Christmas lights instead of regular lights … I wear heavy sweaters to keep warm.”

Can the Premier explain to Laura how corporate tax cuts and CEO pay hikes will make her life better?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, my honourable colleague is trapped in this old construct, sadly, which speaks to where the NDP is today in Ontario. They believe you’ve got to be anti-business, without understanding that when they’re anti-business, when they’re anti-economic growth, they’re anti-jobs. All the people that my honourable colleague speaks on behalf of—I can assure you, if we were to bring them together and ask them if jobs were important to them and their families, they would say, “Of course jobs are important to us.” That’s why we’re going to continue to find ways to bring a balanced approach to governing.

We’ll find a way to work with the business sector. We’ll find a way to work with the social sector. We’re continuing to invest in health care; we’ve got the shortest wait times now in Canada. We’re going to continue to find ways to invest in our schools. Now our kids are in the top 10 globally when it comes to our standardized tests. The fact of the matter is that we’re bringing a balanced approach and we’ll continue to do that.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: After eight long years, it’s clear that the Premier has lost touch with the people who elected him. Instead of putting them first and making life easier and more affordable, he slaps an unfair tax on their household budget while pumping billions of dollars into corporate tax giveaways. Instead of ensuring quality health care is there for them when they need it, seniors are being ordered to pay hundreds of dollars a day just to stay in the hospital and get care.

Instead of doing his job in this Legislature, this Premier plans to spend the rest of the week hiding behind his PowerPoint presentation and hoping families forget his record of neglect. They won’t. Why will families believe anything at all in the Premier’s PowerPoint presentation when he has proven time and time again that he’s just not on their side?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, I don’t share my honourable colleague’s perspective, but I can say that I think we both equally prize health care for families in Ontario. We’re both staunch believers in a public system. I’m proud of the progress that we have made. There’s always more to be done.

When it comes to home care, for example, we’ve increased funding by 50%. There are now 182,000 more Ontarians who are being served. I think we all know that when our mum or dad can no longer make it on their own and need a bit of extra support so they can stay in their homes, we’ve got to be there as a society with those additional supports through home care services. We’ve got some in place—as I say, 182,000 more Ontarians are now accessing those additional services—but still there’s more work to be done and we look forward to doing that.

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is to the Premier. Ontario families are paying the price for a Premier who has grown out of touch after seven years in office. In your PowerPoint road show, you have been going around testing the patience of business audiences with an hour-long lecture. But what is worse is, when you get to the

section of your lecture that deals with your microFIT scheme, you’ve been making the disrespectful statement that you are “rendering farmers’ existence as farmers more viable.”

Do you think Ontario farmers owe you their existence now that 1,000 of them have lost their life savings investing in your microFIT Ponzi scheme?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Members will please come to order. Minister of Municipal Affairs.

The honourable member will withdraw the comment he just made, please.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Withdraw. I’m not sure what it was.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Just an unequivocal withdrawal, please.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Brad Duguid: It is a fine piece of irony that the PC Party would ask a question about efforts we’re making to strengthen a clean energy program that’s benefiting farmers, but it’s a program that they want to kill. They don’t support this program one bit. They want to do away with it. Their leader has said this much. Other members in their party have said this much.

We’re standing up for Ontario farmers. We’re making this program work. We’re working with Hydro One. We’re working with the OPA to ensure that farmers across this province can connect. The biggest threat to those farmers is those guys over there who want to kill their opportunity, who want to kill this microFIT program, who want to kill the thousands of clean energy jobs that were created. They should be standing up for Ontario farmers rather—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Members will please come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order. Start the clock.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Minister of Agriculture. The member from Oxford. The Minister of Economic Development.

Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: It’s bad enough Premier McGuinty thinks Ontario farmers owe him their existence. It is outright disrespectful that you’re going around saying this in a lecture to CivicAction Toronto at the exact same time that you sent out a thousand Dear John letters to Ontario—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Stop the clock. The Minister of Research and Innovation will withdraw the comment that he just made.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Continue.

Mr. John Yakabuski: —letters to Ontario farmers who were lured into your get-rich pyramid scheme. Some of these farmers cashed in their RRSPs, others mortgaged their homes, and now they stand to lose it all.

You’ve taken away their livelihood, so why do you think they can afford to give you any more?

Hon. Brad Duguid: These challenges are the result of the need to rebuild our transmission system. It is one of the challenges that we face to this day, and it’s because of the ugly legacy that they left behind when it comes to our energy system. We’ve made some exceptional progress. We’ve upgraded over 5,000 kilometres of transmission.

Here is the irony of the PCs asking this question: As we’ve made these investments, they’ve opposed these investments every step of the way. Here’s the irony of this: As we’re working with Ontario farmers to give them a chance to participate in our clean energy economy, they’ve opposed the microFIT program every step of the way. You can’t have it both ways.

We’re looking forward to seeing your energy plan. But the fact is their energy plan would kill the microFIT program. No wonder the Leader of the Opposition wants to hide his energy plan from rural Ontario—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

HEALTH CARE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The question is for the Premier. The McGuinty government’s broken promise to redevelop Windsor’s Grace Hospital site into a long-term-care home has forced the LHIN to declare a hospital bed shortage crisis in that community. Now seniors are threatened with $600-a-day hospital bills if they refuse the first open bed in any nursing home. Why are seniors being punished for this government’s health care failures?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you for the question. I want to start by saying that it is completely unacceptable that anyone be charged more than the copay rate—that’s $53.23—if they are in a hospital waiting for long-term care. I want you to know that my ministry and my officials are working with the LHIN, with the hospitals, to ensure that they understand the proper application of this policy and that other hospitals, in fact, across the province do understand that it is completely unacceptable to charge anything more than $53.23 per day.

I do want to talk about long-term care in the Windsor area. We know that long-term care is very important. We are making investments. There is a new long-term care that is opening as we speak. There are now over 100 residents and more coming every day. There is another long-term—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Families want to be sure that their loved ones have the best possible care in the province. But not only are the services lacking; these families are being punished. In Windsor it’s officially a crisis, but the story is playing out across the province of Ontario. An elderly patient in Toronto is being threatened with daily fees of $1,800 to get out of the hospital.

Families are desperately trying to access the care they need, but they’re finding a system in complete shambles. Instead of helping families, the government slaps them with exorbitant fees. Why are families being punished for this government’s failures?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Let me repeat that it is completely inappropriate and unacceptable for any individual in this province in a hospital waiting for long-term care to be charged more than $53.23 per day. I think the member opposite owes it to the people of this province to actually speak the facts in this House.

Having said that, we do acknowledge that there are challenges in our health sector. But we are making tremendous progress. We are committed to reducing our ALC rates in our hospitals by building stronger, better community supports. We now have almost 200,000 more people receiving home care supports than when we took office. We are moving forward. We are making progress. Is it perfect? No. But, boy, is it a whole lot better? Absolutely, yes.

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: My question is to the Minister of Energy. Over the past week, my office has received a number of calls from farmers and individuals who have applied to the government’s microFIT program, and many of them have received conditional offers of a contract from the Ontario Power Authority. Recently, some of these applicants received a letter informing them that their project is in a transmission- or distribution-constrained area and is currently unable to connect to the electricity grid. I am concerned for those applicants who may have invested in equipment and are now receiving notice that their equipment cannot be connected.

Minister, what are you doing to ensure that the microFIT program remains viable and these applicants are able to integrate their projects into the grid?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I want to thank the member for the question.

Hydro One has undertaken the appropriate work to upgrade our transmission and distribution infrastructure to connect these microFIT projects as soon as possible.

The microFIT program has been a tremendous success. But one of the main challenges is that in 2003 we inherited a 1960s-era electricity grid, a grid that by all accounts was outdated, weak and unreliable. Continuing down the path of decay was simply unacceptable. Since then, we’ve invested over $7 billion, strengthening our transmission system, and we’ve made significant progress. But there’s still more work to do.

Getting these important projects online as soon as possible is a top priority for me and our government, and I’ve likewise made it a top priority for Hydro One. We’re fully committed to supporting this program and growing our clean energy economy, creating thousands of jobs for Ontario families—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Thank you, Minister. Obviously, the future of the microFIT program is vital to Ontario’s clean economy, and I know that interest in participating in clean energy generation continues to grow. It was reassuring to know that the full resources of Hydro One and your ministry are being brought to bear on strengthening the electricity grid so that renewable energy can be integrated in a safe and reliable way.

There has been some talk in the media about the future of this program given some of the challenges that have arisen. Can the minister commit that the microFIT program will continue to provide farmers with the opportunity to generate clean electricity and support Ontario’s clean energy economy for years to come?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Absolutely. Yes, I can tell the member that we will continue to support this important program that allows farmers to actively participate in our clean energy economy.

But I think it’s important for the member and his constituents to know that the single biggest threat to the thousands of Ontario farmers participating in microFIT is without a doubt the Leader of the Opposition and the PC Party, who have indicated their intention to kill this program altogether. I expect this is one of the reasons the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t want to talk about his energy plan in rural Ontario. But the fact is, the PCs have indicated they want to kill this program, hanging thousands of farmers out to dry and killing thousands of clean energy jobs across Ontario.

It’s no wonder he is afraid to talk about his energy plan in rural Ontario. So we’re committed to strengthening the microFIT program and making it work for Ontario farmers. The PC Party is committed to killing it—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

ENERGY POLICIES

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is to the Premier. The way that Premier McGuinty is running his government does not show respect for Ontario families. Take the day you pulled the plug out from under 1,000 farmers who invested in your microFIT scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. It was a massive backtrack on your flagship policy. You were giving your hour-long lecture to CivicAction Toronto and you spoke to media afterwards. Why didn’t you mention during that scrum a single word about the Dear John letters you had sent out to 1,000 Ontario farmers? Not a word, Premier. Why didn’t you mention it?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, to the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Brad Duguid: I think what the member should be doing is looking to his leader to say, “Why can’t our party stand up for Ontario farmers like the government has been doing?”

We’re very proud of this microFIT program and how thousands of farmers across this province are benefiting from it. What the member is not telling Ontario farmers is that he and his party don’t support this program at all. His leader just last week said he would pull these advantages, these benefits from Ontario farmers.

It’s very obvious why that party doesn’t want to talk about their energy plan in rural Ontario. The reason they don’t want to talk to farmers about their energy plan is that they’re going to hang farmers out to dry when it comes to the microFIT program.

We’re going to work with Hydro One. We’re going to work with the OPA. We’ll certainly deal with this transmission issue, and we’re going to work with Ontario farmers to ensure they can be part of—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: You were no better the next morning, Premier, when you had a chance to say something to the media about your massive backtrack on Ontario farmers at your lecture road show in Oakville. Your team thought it was more important for the Minister of Finance to be out on a media conference taking a silly partisan shot at Ontario PCs than to say anything about your microFIT backtrack or, Premier, your massive backtrack on offshore wind. You waited until an international crisis in Egypt to issue an end-of-day press release on your offshore wind backtrack. How could you be so disrespectful as to use the crisis in Egypt to cover up your own backtracks?

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I’d just ask the honourable member to withdraw the comment he just made.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Minister?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Once again, it’s totally ironic that the opposition who have opposed our efforts to get out of coal and build a cleaner, healthier future for Ontario are now the champion of offshore wind in the province of Ontario. He opposes solar, he opposes bioenergy, he opposes onshore wind, and now he thinks we should be moving faster on offshore wind. Maybe he can explain to Ontario families why he would want to destroy our onshore wind projects, impacting farmers, killing jobs across this province, only to replace them with more costly offshore wind. This is yet another reason why the Leader of the Opposition is afraid to share his energy plan with Ontario families.

Our clean energy economy is booming: 13,000 jobs created by the end of last year. We’re on target to meet our 50,000-job target. We’re moving full speed ahead and making Ontario a global clean-energy powerhouse. They have opposed—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

New question.

NUCLEAR WASTE

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is to the Premier. Why is the government of Ontario allowing Bruce Power to transport used nuclear steam generators which are former Ontario property, which are 50 to 60 times more radioactive than international standards, across the Great Lakes without any kind of environmental assessment?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Brad Duguid: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has indeed granted permission for Bruce to ship 16 decommissioned steam generators to Sweden for recycling. The member will know that this is a federal agency, and this is the responsibility that they’ve been charged with.

But I guess what I want to ask the member—I wrote to that commission to ensure that they’re taking the needs of Ontario into full consideration. Did he write to them? He may have, but I’ll ask him if he wrote to them to make sure the voice of Ontarians was heard. Or did his leader stand up and write to them? She may have. I don’t know. She may well have, and if she did, that’s good.

But we wanted to ensure that all safety and environmental concerns were being taken into consideration. I’ve been assured that they have. They’ve made their decision. They took deputations. They’re the experts on these matters, and I would suggest that the member might want to respect that a little bit.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: This is this an astounding dereliction of duty. This is a minister who had the power to keep those radioactive steam generators in the hands of OPG. He didn’t do that. In the end, it’s on his hands, on his shoulders, on his head that this was allowed to go forward, and even now, not using the power of the Minister of Transportation to refuse transportation permits. The Minister of the Environment could demand an environmental assessment, not just the CNSC doing their little side show for this province.

The Quebec Minister of the Environment has publicly opposed the shipment. When will this government take on its responsibility, stop passing the buck to the feds and act?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Unlike those guys, we’re not all talk. I did write to the federal minister, and I did write to the CNSC to ensure that they’re taking all the needs of Ontario into consideration.

But, again, this is another anti-nuclear rant from the NDP. That party opposes nuclear, they oppose natural gas, they oppose renewables now, they oppose hydro, and they oppose our efforts in investing in conservation.

If they ever come out with an energy plan, I can tell you it’s going to have something very important that’s going to be lacking in it, and that will be power. In fact, I would suggest that the slogan for the NDP energy plan should be “NDP: no darn power.”

AIR-RAIL LINK

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. Madam Minister, as you know, I’ve been speaking many times about the diesel trains that are cutting straight through my riding and especially the proposed shuttle trains that will now go to the airport.

GO Transit is presently working on the largest infrastructure expansion project in this corridor, and you can imagine the complaints I’ve received from constituents who are living near the tracks about the dust and noise, and now they’re concerned about the increased number of trains that will be running on the corridor.

For the past year, constituents have been waiting for the results of the Metrolinx electrification study, and I’m excited and delighted with their findings. Metrolinx now recommends that we move forward with electrifying both the Georgetown and the Lakeshore corridors.

Minister, since Metrolinx recommends electrification of both the Lakeshore and the Georgetown GO Transit rail corridors, why is the province—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Minister?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I want to thank the member for Davenport and the member for York South–Weston for their advocacy on this issue from the beginning.

Electrification is a very important issue, and it’s a multi-billion-dollar decision. We needed to make sure that we had all the information necessary to get it right, and that’s why Metrolinx commissioned a study to look at the possibility of electrifying our entire GO network. The main findings of the study did, in fact, indicate that the highest transportation solution would be realized by electrifying the Lakeshore and the Georgetown South corridors, where the ridership is the highest.

Beginning the process with the air-rail link is the best first step, and we’ve given Metrolinx the go-ahead to begin the environmental assessment for the air-rail link. This is the first step towards that electrification of the entire system.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary. The member for York South–Weston.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: Constituents in Davenport and my own constituents in York South–Weston are glad to know that the EA is moving forward.

I understand, however, that Metrolinx had a board meeting this past Friday where they approved the purchase of the vehicles for the air-rail link. Constituents in my riding of York South–Weston are very concerned that we are moving forward with the purchase of these vehicles when perhaps we don’t really need to. They view that as a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, especially considering that the province is funding the environmental assessment for the electrification of the air-rail link.

Can the minister explain why the government is moving forward with the purchase of these vehicles?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: We are committed to having the air-rail link in place in time for the Pan Am Games in 2015. It’s a very important part of our commitment on the Pan Am Games. And EAs take time; they’re not something that we can rush. You have to go through the process.

As I’ve said many times in this House, the vehicles that are being purchased are convertible. They will use the highest and cleanest level of diesel, tier 4 diesel, and they will be able to be converted to electric trains when that corridor is completed.

The air-rail link will connect Pearson airport to Union Station. There’s a need for this rail link if we’re going to be an international city. We need to have this air-rail link in place. The cars are convertible, and I’m very happy to say that we’re going to begin the EA on the air-rail link.

CRIME PREVENTION

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: My question is for the Premier. Premier, you showed just how out of touch you have become when you said that crime is not a priority for Ontario families. You said, “When I talk to Ontarians, their first concern is not keeping people in jail longer....” Tell that to Gravenhurst families who spent the weekend terrified about the escape of Ashley Crawford from Beaver Creek prison. Crawford murdered a woman by setting fire to her. Ontario families are breathing a sigh of relief that he was caught in Toronto today and will be back behind bars. Premier, why are you so disrespectful of Ontario families whose priority is to get tough on crime?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

Hon. James J. Bradley: It’s exactly the opposite, of course, because if you look at the record of this government in terms of its investments to combat crime in the province of Ontario, you will find those investments are very extensive.

The member would know, for instance, that this government has put more than 2,000 additional police officers on Ontario streets; it has established—the first of its kind—a $51-million guns and gangs strategy and it has invested over $10 million annually in the highly successful Toronto anti-violence intervention strategy and provincial anti-violence intervention.

Since 2003, we’ve been consistent. We have seen some declines as a result of the combination of working together. We’re committed to getting tough on crime and have proven it with pieces of legislation that have come into this House and by the resources that we have provided to the policing community out there and the—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: The Premier says, “Crime is actually going down,” but tell that to the Scarborough families who saw one of their neighbours die in a home invasion where police later said the criminals had the wrong home. In Ontario, robberies and home invasions have gone up since Premier McGuinty took office. Cocaine production, trafficking and distribution are up. Trafficking in narcotics like crystal meth is up.

It used to be that Ontario families locked their doors when they left the house; now they lock the doors when they’re inside the house. Is the only way Ontario families will see a change in their government’s priorities to see a change in government in this province?

Hon. James J. Bradley: Were that to happen, I think the concern of the people of this province would be with the cut, cut, cut, slash-and-burn policies that are being advocated by the party opposite. Those who are concerned about crime in this province would be very apprehensive to have a party assume office that wants to reduce substantially the investments that are being made in the province of Ontario.

We have national forums, for instance, where we get together with other ministers. We have rallied those ministers to urge the federal government to live up to its commitment—and I know that my friend will want to join in this—on additional police to be provided for this province and others.

We have done a lot of things in this province to enhance the opportunity for people to fight crime—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

STEEL INDUSTRY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. For more than three months, over 900 workers have been locked out at their jobs at US Steel in Hamilton. Ontario workers are tired of seeing their livelihoods threatened by multinational companies that simply don’t care. When will this government finally show a little bit of backbone and stand up for Ontario’s workers?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Labour.

Applause.

Hon. Charles Sousa: Mr. Speaker, if you will allow me, I would like to take the opportunity to extend my gratitude to the Premier for allowing me, with this opportunity, to represent the province, and all my colleagues on both sides of the House for their good wishes.

In regard to the member’s question, it’s incredibly difficult for the workers and their families during this time of extended lockout. I appreciate the concerns that are brought forward. It’s never easy.

Our province has been proud of the fact that, over the last seven years, we have been able to enable—over 97% of the time, collective agreements have come to fruition and have settled. I do encourage both sides of the House to participate in the collective agreement. We will have mediators available from the ministry to facilitate, as we always have, and it’s—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The lockout at US Steel in Hamilton and the attack on workers’ pensions by US Steel is just the latest in a series of strong-arm tactics being used by US Steel to intimidate its workforce. And all of this from a company that accepted $150 million from the Ontario government in 2006 and made employment commitments, in fact, to the federal government as well, that it admits it hasn’t honoured.

Why won’t this government say no to the bullying tactics of arrogant multinationals like US Steel and finally stand up for Ontario’s workers?

Hon. Charles Sousa: We respect the collective bargaining process. We recognize the difficulties that have been undergone. We reject the approach of labour unrest, and we do our best to try to facilitate workers’ rights, as well as that for collective agreements. It’s with that in mind that we will continue to make our mediators available.

We recognize that in the years prior, there was tremendous unrest, and that has not been the case here; 97% to almost 99% of the time now, settlements have been resolved, and we will continue to try to facilitate that whenever possible.

RETIREMENT HOMES

Mr. David Zimmer: My question is for the minister responsible for seniors. Minister, Bill 21, the Retirement Homes Act, passed in June. The government says this is an important piece of legislation that, for the first time in Ontario, provides strong protections for seniors. But, Minister, it’s February and the province is still not regulating retirement homes in the province. In Willowdale, my constituents tell me they’ve heard that retirement homes will be regulated at some point, but they don’t know when.

Minister, when will the act come into force? When are we getting on with it? Seniors and their families in Willowdale and in Ontario want to know.

Hon. Sophia Aggelonitis: Thank you to the member from Willowdale for this very important question. It gives me an opportunity to share with the House where we are in the process. For the first time in the province of Ontario, we will be providing strong protections for our seniors who live in retirement homes. In fact, we have about 700 retirement homes in the province of Ontario, and there are about 40,000 seniors who live in these retirement homes.

Today is an important day in the process. Today the first set of proposed regulations for the Retirement Homes Act will be posted on our website for public comment, and that means for the next 45 days the public is asked to go on our website and comment on the proposed regulations. These proposed regulations were developed with extensive consultation with seniors’ groups, the experts and industry partners.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. David Zimmer: We all know that regulations are a key part of this act. People are going to carefully review them to make sure that they provide strong protections for retirement home seniors. The fundamental principle of the act goes to the heart of values that we in this Legislature all share. Seniors have a right to live in safety, security and autonomy. They have a right to make informed decisions about their own care.

Minister, can you give my constituents in Willowdale and the people of Ontario some details about how the regulations are going to work? How are they going to protect seniors in retirement homes? How will they implement the core principles of this act?

Hon. Sophia Aggelonitis: Again, I would like to reiterate that these regulations are a key milestone to the Retirement Homes Act. They are an important part of our plan to provide strong protections for seniors who are living in retirement homes. The proposed regulations cover a range of very important areas, including care and safety standards, licensing and inspections, as well as enforcement, of retirement homes. There are also requirements for every regulated care service—that means from assistance with bathing to feeding to food preparation and storage of medication.

There are also regulations that support the safety of residents, which include written policies promoting zero tolerance of abuse and neglect and requirements around trust accounts based on behalf of the residents.

Regulating retirement homes in the province of Ontario is the right thing to do, and we are on track.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Norm Miller: My question is for the Attorney General. Minister, industry reports show that auto insurance fraud in Ontario costs $1.3 billion a year. Media reports expose a growing problem with “target and bullet” schemes, where innocent drivers are targeted by insurance fraudsters. But the province has a catch-and-release policy when it comes to prosecutions of insurance fraud. In many cases, despite charges being laid, the fraudsters don’t get to trial because of unreasonable delays. Minister, why is crime not a priority with your government?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: Nothing could be further from the facts, as the comments and as the programs that my colleague the Minister of Community Safety outlined earlier clearly illustrate.

Fraud is a very big challenge, particularly in the auto industry—and I’m not sure why the party opposite didn’t do anything about it while they were there for eight years.

We’ve taken a number of additional steps. We’re working with the insurance agencies, working with crown prosecutors and the police to see what additional steps we can take to go after fraud within the industry. We have programs in place to make sure our prosecutions proceed as quickly as possible, unlike the party opposite. We are putting additional resources available to prosecute these and other crimes, unlike the—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Norm Miller: Premier McGuinty has admitted that crime is not a priority for him or your government. Last week in Brampton, he said that being tough on crime was no longer a priority for Ontario families.

Documented cases from the industry’s own investigative branch show that charges are being laid. But that’s only half of the equation. When these matters get to trial, they are not treated seriously. Cases are withdrawn, trials are stayed, and when a sentence is handed down, quite frankly, sentencing is a bit of a joke.

Minister, why is your government’s incompetence forcing Ontario families to pay more for auto insurance premiums?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: Let’s look at a few of the facts. The party opposite talks about crime and does nothing about it. They launch a program to invest in police officers that’s time-limited; we have to pick it up, make it permanent and add 1,000 to it. They’re all talk, no action.

They talk about delays in the courts. For every single year they were in power, the time it takes the average case went up. It’s now going down. They had no plan, no say, no nothing.

They talk about being tough on crime. This Premier, this government, asked the federal government to end the two-for-one, three-for-one credit. They didn’t do it. We asked the federal government; we got those changes. We asked for more mandatory minimums; we got those changes.

They’re all talk, no action. If they’ve got a plan, let’s see it, because we’re still waiting.

DISCLOSURE OF TOXINS

Mr. Gilles Bisson: My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. Minister, we learned last week through the Toronto Star that a number of people, and I would say in the thousands of people, were affected by Agent Orange that was dispersed by companies under direction from the Ministry of Natural Resources. How could it be in a modern democracy like ours that the public was not informed when it was found out that this Agent Orange led to cancer?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: I’m very glad to have the opportunity to address this issue, and I’m pleased that the member from Timmins–James Bay has asked the question.

I’m very concerned about this issue, and I can assure members that I’m committed to obtaining all the facts and sharing the information in an open and transparent fashion, and protecting public health.

Our government is taking steps to address the situation, and my office has taken a number of actions already. I brought the issue to the attention of the chief medical officer of health last week, who informed my office that there is no immediate public health risk.

I’ve asked the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to establish a dedicated phone line for anyone who may have questions. This line was operational as of last Friday. I’ve also instructed staff from all ministry districts to post information on MNR’s website regarding herbicide use during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as well as steps for former employees or employees of private forestry companies should they have any concerns and where they can take them.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: