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October 26, 2021

42nd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2021-Oct-26 vol. A (PDF)

L010A - Tue 26 Oct 2021 / Mar 26 oct 2021

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 26 October 2021 Mardi 26 octobre 2021

Private members’ public business

Orders of the Day

Supporting People and Businesses Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 visant à soutenir la population et les entreprises

Members’ Statements

Driver examination centres / Centres d’examen de conduite

Post-secondary education

Optometry services

Marland E. Maloney

Gun violence

Government’s record

Bill Adsett

Child care

Barry Turner

Visitors

Workplace fatality

Question Period

Long-term care

COVID-19 immunization

COVID-19 immunization

Long-term care

Grape and wine industry

Hospital funding

Protection for workers

Driver examination centres

COVID-19 immunization

Education funding

Health care funding

COVID-19 immunization

Affordable housing

Immigrants’ skills

Introduction of Bills

Adventure Learning Experiences Inc. Act, 2021

Preventing Worker Misclassification Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 visant à empêcher la classification erronée des travailleurs

Cannabis Licence Amendment Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 modifiant la

Loi sur les licences liées au cannabis

Foreign Credentials Advisory Committee Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 sur le Comité consultatif des titres de compétence acquis à l’étranger

1921628 Ontario Inc. Act, 2021

Nancy Rose Act (Paediatric Hospice Palliative Care Strategy), 2021 / Loi Nancy Rose de 2021 (stratégie des soins palliatifs pédiatriques)

Carbon Budget Accountability Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 sur la responsabilité en matière de budget carbone

Sikh Genocide Awareness Week Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 sur la Semaine de la sensibilisation au génocide des sikhs

Petitions

Palliative care

School facilities

Optometry services

Optometry services

Optometry services

Abuse awareness and prevention

Optometry services

Affordable housing

Orders of the Day

Supporting People and Businesses Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 visant à soutenir la population et les entreprises

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Private members’ public business

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 101(c), changes have been made to the order of precedence on the ballot list for private members’ public business such that Ms. Sattler assumes ballot number 11, Ms. Andrew assumes ballot item number 12, Ms. Armstrong assumes ballot item number 13 and Mr. Tabuns assumes ballot item number 33.

Orders of the Day

Supporting People and Businesses Act, 2021 / Loi de 2021 visant à soutenir la population et les entreprises

Mrs. Tangri moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 13,

An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 13, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Would the minister care to lead off the debate? I recognize the Associate Minister of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction.

Hon. Nina Tangri: I’m honoured to rise today to speak to second reading of the proposed Supporting People and Businesses Act. This is exciting for me, putting forward my first piece of legislation in this House both as a minister and as a member of provincial Parliament. I also want to say that I’m looking forward to debating the merits of this important legislation as we find new ways to make life easier for the people of Ontario and businesses right across Ontario.

First, I’d like to place this proposed legislation in context: As we confront COVID-19 for the second year in a row, people and businesses continue to contend with untold challenges. That’s why, as we move forward, our government is committed to doing whatever is takes to protect the health and safety of Ontarians while supporting the economy on which they depend.

The bill we’re discussing today is designed to reduce burden for people and businesses in forward-thinking and responsible ways, ones that would maintain or enhance health, safety and environmental protections. We know that you can’t have a strong economy without strong people. Through sensible red tape reduction, this bill would lighten the load for people and businesses weighed down by the pandemic’s demands.

The fact is, Speaker, that the prolonged and unpredictable nature of this pandemic has resulted in a loss of business and consumer confidence right around the world and across our province. Outdated regulations and duplicative requirements are additional burdens no business or individual needs, especially during this ongoing period of uncertainty. They don’t reflect our current reality, and they waste time and money that could be better spent on rebuilding our communities and our economy.

Despite the demands of this global pandemic, we continue to work diligently to help small businesses succeed by taking strategic action and making smart investments that are helping people and the economy. Our historic Ontario Small Business Support Grant delivered payments of $20,000 to $40,000 to cover 110,000 eligible businesses right across our province, totalling nearly $3 billion in funding. That money went straight to small businesses, to be used in whatever way made most sense for them. I’ve spoken to many recipients of these grants from right across the province, and they’ve told me how crucial these funds were in helping them cope with a loss of revenue.

Business owners used this money to pay their employee wages, others used it to pay rent and many of the costs associated with keeping their businesses afloat during an extremely difficult time. We paired this funding with additional supports to help employers manage the demands of the pandemic by developing a web page with information on free financial planning resources, mental health supports, where to find PPE supplies and how to obtain local advice through Ontario’s Small Business COVID-19 Recovery Network.

While the past 19 months have been very challenging, the pandemic has presented some new ways for businesses to serve their customers, like the rapid rise in online sales, which has given hope to many main street businesses. That’s why we’ve invested an additional $10 million in the Digital Main Street program for 2021-22. This game-changing program provides: digital transformation grants of $2,500; a learning platform; support to create or enhance e-commerce stores through ShopHERE; and digital service squads offering one-on-one support.

To date, the program has provided over 21,000 businesses with support for their digital expansions while generating jobs for more than 1,600 students and recent graduates. The additional support will help more than 13,000 businesses take advantage of valuable e-commerce opportunities to effectively expand their reach to new customers in and beyond Ontario.

The program is working, Speaker, and is supporting main street communities right across our province. As minister, I’ve had the opportunity to see first-hand how businesses and business owners—people—are really benefiting from this program. People like Richard, who owns a men’s clothing store in London: As with most businesses, Richard’s sales declined dramatically at the beginning of the pandemic. People were no longer going into the office or attending social events and buying new clothes. But, as restrictions eased, Richard reopened his store and benefited from the Digital Main Street program.

With the help of a digital service squad, he received a free website to showcase the brands of men’s fashions available at his store. Soon after, customers started calling in, placing orders and having custom suits made once again. It doesn’t end there. With the increase in demand for his suits, Richard needed to find a bigger space and bought out the retail space next door. He plans to expand his business and hire a lot more staff.

It’s stories like this that demonstrate how the people of Ontario are benefiting from the work our government is committed to doing. We continue to take steps forward on the path to recovery by providing support to small businesses that are the backbone of Ontario’s economy and, of course, our communities.

Speaker, the pandemic has in many ways shone a spotlight on the needless regulatory requirements impeding our social and economic progress. It’s hard to make changes, start a business or simply get through the day when you must first complete outdated paper forms or prove that the same requirements have been fulfilled multiple times. That’s how red tape ties up our time and money in the present, while making it less attractive to invest here in the long term.

Currently, far too many regulatory requirements in Ontario are inefficient, inflexible, out of date or duplicated at the federal or municipal levels. Those are precisely the ones this bill is seeking to eliminate, while protecting health, safety and, of course, our environment. These are the costly and burdensome regulations that are squeezing people and businesses throughout the province and across sectors. Cutting red tape, however, frees people and businesses from wasting time and resources filling out forms and going beyond what’s necessary to achieve regulatory goals. It minimizes frustration, saves money and gives us more time—things we could all use a lot more of right now.

Cutting red tape and modernizing regulations is also an important piece to bring government into the 21st century. The more government can step aside and allow technological improvements—whether it’s life-saving technology in the health sector, building infrastructure in a more efficient manner or making people’s interaction with government, such as ServiceOntario, easier—the more Ontarians can focus on what matters to them most.

Of course, this bill does more than eliminate needless regulatory compliance requirements. It also goes a long way to modernizing Ontario’s regulatory system. Through this bill, we would introduce changes that digitize, streamline and expedite how people and businesses interact with government. Smarter, modern regulations that use digital pathways where possible are easier and faster to comply with so that people and businesses can focus on what matters during this pandemic: our health, safety and economic well-being.

Modernizing Ontario’s regulatory system to keep pace with current challenges is, in fact, a strategic way we can help more people and businesses get back on track, and the proof is in what we’ve already achieved. Since 2020, we have passed four high-impact regulatory modernization bills and their corresponding packages.

While our government has been working to reduce red tape since 2018, the pandemic has made this work even more essential. Through the following acts, we have intensified our work to modernize regulations in response to current demands. They include: the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act; the Main Street Recovery Act; the Better for People, Smarter for Business Act; and the Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act.

I want to commend and thank the member from Brampton South, the President of the Treasury Board and former Minister of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction for bringing these bills forward. Minister Sarkaria did an incredible job in this role, supporting small business and cutting red tape in our province. The bill we’re discussing today, as well as the entire fall red tape reduction and regulatory modernization package, stands on the shoulders of those achievements.

I’d now like to review some of the tangible changes introduced by those acts, ones that have made it easy for people and businesses to adapt to the challenges of today while preparing them for the opportunities that await tomorrow.

Speaker, as you may recall, the Legislature passed the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act in July 2020. This was to get infrastructure projects built faster while positioning Ontario as a modern regulator in response to an evolving pandemic. To help address infrastructure backlogs for businesses and communities, the act has modernized and streamlined environmental assessments. It has accomplished this by updating the almost 50-year-old environmental assessment program to focus resources on projects with the highest impact on the environment. Through this change, timelines for the largest projects have been reduced from six years to just three.

By matching the level of assessment requirements with the environmental impact of a proposed project, more important infrastructure projects can move forward without undue delay. Our government is ready to build.

To reduce delays for sewage and stormwater projects, the act provided a single consolidated environmental compliance approval process for low-impact municipal sewage collection and stormwater management projects. This is allowing simple, routine changes by municipalities—including alterations, extensions, enlargements or replacement projects—to be pre-authorized so construction can start without needing separate approvals for each project. It’s a way we’re making things simpler while maintaining the strong standards that currently exist to protect our environment.

Finally, to help people and businesses in the construction sector, this act makes it easier and faster to update the building code. Streamlining the building code development process, supporting harmonization with national construction codes and allowing Ontario to respond faster to the needs of the construction sector is helping keep more people working and communities running across our province. I think one thing that we can all agree on in this House is the need to speed up construction safely in the province. We have an infrastructure deficit and need to use the tools available to us to build as quickly as we can.

We followed up this bill with the Main Street Recovery Act in November 2020. The purpose of this bill was to support the small and main street businesses that fuel our economy and bring life to our communities. Small and main street businesses all over Ontario have dealt with urgent and unexpected closures, cash flow problems, safety and physical distancing pressures since the onset of the pandemic. The last thing that they needed as they navigated a profoundly disruptive period were outdated, overly obstructive and duplicative rules that slow them down and cost them money.

This legislation, together with its comprehensive package of financial and wraparound supports, contained amendments from three ministries that are modernizing regulations and making smart changes that will help us continue to enjoy thriving main streets.

Consider, Speaker, the impact of flexible delivery options on stressed retailers, suppliers and consumers. The act made 24/7 truck deliveries to retailers, restaurants and distribution centres permanent, building on temporary changes made to keep shelves stocked through the first wave of the pandemic when empty shelves in supermarkets and other retailers were a common sight province-wide—actually, globally.

Making this change permanent supports main street rebuilding efforts by helping much-needed goods reach businesses as efficiently as possible. It helps address small business concerns over low consumer confidence and new safety measures. It helps keep supply chains moving, boosting businesses across sectors and it assures consumers that their local retailer or restaurant will have what they need when they need it. Essential retailers—like mother and daughter Sandeep and Karen, who operate a store in my riding—never stopped serving the people of Ontario, and these changes helped to ensure the steady supply of goods for them to continue doing so.

Two pilot projects have shown that this change could also reduce rush-hour traffic, lower fuel costs for businesses and reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions. This means it could also improve our environment and increase safety for people as they go about their daily lives. It’s a good-news, simple solution that could boost productivity, cut costs and give businesses the flexibility they need to grow. It does this with the high potential upside for Ontarians frequenting main streets right across our province.

Another way the Main Street Recovery Act continues to support main streets in communities across the province, such as retailers, restaurants and shoppers, is by increasing the diversity of products that are now sold at the Ontario Food Terminal. Thousands of small businesses, including independent shops and restaurants, rely on the Ontario Food Terminal for their success. That’s why the Main Street Recovery Act introduced important amendments affecting it.

First, it expanded the Ontario Food Terminal’s mandate to allow it to promote local food. This helps support the growth of Ontario’s crucial agri-food economy, enabling more businesses to compete and succeed in a crowded marketplace. A second change is increasing the range of products sold at the terminal to support the distribution of Ontario food products. This would help enable sellers to offer more products for sale to increase their revenues and it would provide a wider range of products for buyers which they could use in their own small businesses to keep existing customers coming back while attracting new ones.

The centerpiece of our fifth red tape reduction package since 2018—the Better for People, Smarter for Business Act, 2020—passed in December 2020. This package comprised over 80 actions in total that helped reduce burden and expand opportunities for people and businesses of all sizes across Ontario.

Consider, Speaker, how deregulating intercommunity bus service is helping people in rural and northern Ontario right now. Intercommunity bus carriers play an important role in connecting people across these communities. This act makes it easier for intercommunity buses to participate in the transportation market and find innovative solutions to fill service gaps, providing people with more efficient transportation options. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was up in Collingwood and Blue Mountain.

The housing is so expensive there, but some of the areas further out have more affordable housing, so the intercommunity buses actually really help those communities bring in the staff they desperately need.

For businesses, the act is digitizing outdated paper processes to make it easier and faster for them to fulfill important regulatory requirements. For example, a new digital reporting service for ensuring hazardous waste is properly stored, transported, processed and managed means businesses will no longer submit over 450,000 manifests on paper per year. Let me repeat that number: 450,000 manifests will no longer need to be submitted on paper. This means reports will be quicker and less burdensome for businesses while protecting the environment and improving public services.

Our sixth red tape reduction package, the Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act, passed in June of this year. This comprehensive package of 90 legislative, regulatory and future actions helps to position businesses for new opportunities as vaccinations rise and the competition ramps up.

As the manufacturing engine of Canada, Ontario supplies an incredible number of components to businesses across the country and throughout North America, but we’re up against stiff competition from other suppliers. That means we need to continue doing what we can to keep operating costs low, people healthy and our environment safe. The Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act helps do just that, solidifying our status as a key link in the North American supply chain and a top-tier destination for people and workers all around the world.

Speaker, consider how this act is helping to strengthen Ontario’s mining industry while supporting electric vehicle and battery manufacturing to promote sustainable growth. Northern Ontario’s rich mineral resources position our province to become an international supplier, producer and manufacturer of critical minerals that facilitate electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. That’s why our Critical Minerals Strategy lays out a bold vision—one where we can generate increased investment while supporting the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

By amending the Mining Act, we are supporting Ontario’s growing critical minerals sector. The amendment also allows claim holders to sell the end product of a bulk sample and keep the proceeds without the province’s permission. This helps create business certainty and improves timelines for mining projects, making Ontario’s companies more competitive on the world stage.

We’re very proud to support these Ontario job creators and their work to strengthen our next-generation industries, and we want to assure the House that through all proposals, the government is committed to balancing a competitive mining sector with environmental protection and sustainability.

This previous legislation also improves the regulatory framework for auto tech pilot project programs. By consulting about potential changes to the Automated Vehicle Pilot Program, we’re helping ensure Ontario remains a leader in developing connected and automated vehicles. Consideration will be given to changes to rules about testing micro-utility vehicles like personal delivery vehicles, adding new vehicle types like automated farm vehicles and removing certain restrictions around modified automated vehicles.

In addition to the red tape reduction packages introduced throughout the pandemic, we also introduced the Supporting Local Restaurants Act. This act, passed last December, supported small and independent restaurants in areas where indoor dining was prohibited during the second wave of the pandemic by capping the fees placed on restaurants by third-party companies and apps. The act also ensured that delivery drivers’ pay would be protected and that services would not reduce their service areas or restaurant selection. It’s just one more way we supported people and businesses during this pandemic.

Speaker, we’re very proud to report that, thanks to the work done over the past three years through legislation on our red tape packages, Ontario has reduced needless regulatory compliance requirements by 6.5% since June 2018. This rate of burden reduction is a significant achievement, and it’s getting quantifiable results.

Since June 2018, businesses, not-for-profits, municipalities, universities and colleges, school boards and hospitals have benefited from $373 million in net annual compliance cost savings. This is money that Ontario businesses and public serving organizations can put to better use, year after year.

Doing this amid a pandemic was no easy feat. We proceeded diligently and carefully, prioritizing health and safety at every turn. It demonstrates our resolve to minimize burdens and our health commitment to doing what it takes to protect people’s health and safety during a once-in-a-century global pandemic.

Although the 2021 burden reduction report quantified compliance cost savings for businesses and organizations, it’s important to note that these changes have also had an impact on our number one priority: our people. Smart, modern regulations can improve how people go about their lives, making it easier for them to interact with important public services. That’s why we continue to update regulations and reduce burdens in ways that save people time, money and very much frustration.

A great example is the Green Button initiative. It will require electricity and national gas utilities to provide residential and business consumers with their energy consumption data in a standard digital format. This will provide opportunities for software and app developers to create user-friendly tools for consumers to discover ways they can use less energy. That will help them find sustainable ways to save money on their energy bills.

We’re also removing the requirement for high school students to submit paper-based forms on community involvement activities. By allowing students to submit this important diploma requirement online, we’re saving time and frustration for students and, more so, for administrators alike. It’s a simple fix that reflects today’s world, and it shows how regulatory modernization and burden reduction can benefit Ontarians from all walks of life.

Speaker, we’ve taken a team Ontario approach to these larger pieces of legislation, working right across all ministries to identify opportunities to ease burdens while prioritizing fundamental protections. Part of that team approach, as reflected in the legislation being debated today, involves protecting what Ontarians collectively value. It involves making sure we protect our public health, our safety and, of course, our environment.

The proposed regulatory upgrades contained within the Supporting People and Businesses Act have been designed to uphold these protections and, in many cases, actually improve them. In fact, five guiding principles consistently direct our efforts to reduce red tape.

The first principle is to protect public health, safety and the environment. We’ve worked to ease regulatory burdens in a smart and careful way to ensure that our health, safety and environmental protections are maintained or enhanced. This means doing the appropriate studies and assessments on the impacts our changes may have. It also includes putting regulatory changes on the Environmental Registry of Ontario to allow for public engagement and consultation. This keeps us accountable in our work and ensures that we are meeting or exceeding those protections.

The second principle is to prioritize the important issues. Here, we have assessed which regulations cost people and businesses the most time and money, while looking for innovative ways to ensure rules stay effective and efficient. The digitization of government is a great example of saving time and money in government but also for the people and businesses across Ontario. Some of the proposals I mentioned earlier fit into this principle and make life simpler for Ontarians right across our province.

The third principle is to harmonize rules with the federal government and other jurisdictions where we can. We’re targeting duplicative red tape and aligning, where possible, with other jurisdictions to eliminate steps that cost job creators time and money. This is particularly important for our businesses that work in different provinces and jurisdictions across Canada. It saves them both time and money if they do not have to follow different rules for the same action. It’s levelling the playing field and encouraging more businesses to come to our province while maintaining protections for people’s health, safety and the environment.

The fourth principle is to listen to the people and businesses of Ontario. We’ve committed to hearing from people and businesses throughout this pandemic, to learn directly from them what we can do to remove obstacles standing in their way. Government doesn’t always have the answers, Speaker. We need to hear from those on the ground to make the right changes at the right time. It shapes the temporary changes we made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and it has informed the new ones we would make permanent through our proposed legislation. It also ensures the changes we propose are effective and keeps us accountable to the people of the province.

Our fifth principle is to take a whole-of-government approach. We’ve taken a coordinated approach to make sure everyone is on the same red tape reduction page: a broad, informed perspective that would deliver smarter government for people and higher economic growth to match. It also helps us coordinate changes that impact multiple ministries and sectors, harmonizing legislation and regulation when necessary.

One of the most common frustrations I hear from business owners and residents in my community and across the province is that government operates in silos. We’ve made significant progress in breaking these silos down, Speaker, and I’d like to thank partner ministries for their ongoing collaboration and work so far. The 21st century world does not live in silos and government shouldn’t either.

As you can see, it’s our position that regulations and rules are not negative in and of themselves. It’s the unnecessary, the duplicative and the outdated regulations that are the problem. And it’s these we would update through the Supporting People and Businesses Act.

Speaker, now that we have appropriately contextualized the bill, I’d like to outline some of its key proposals for the House. The first item we’re highlighting today would provide regulatory authority for the government to permanently allow licensed restaurants, bars and other hospitality businesses to create or extend licensed outdoor patio spaces, subject to municipal approval. These businesses, which brighten our main streets and bring people together, have suffered immensely throughout this pandemic.

So, to help them to sustain their operations, keep people employed and continue to give back to their communities, our government introduced temporary regulatory updates to extend their patio spaces. As a result of this modernization initiative, many hospitality businesses have successfully adapted their operations in response to COVID-19.

There are examples of how well this is working across Ontario, but I do want to share an example from my riding of Mississauga–Streetsville. Butter Chicken Roti is in the heart of Streetsville and fronts onto the Village Square, just down the street from my constituency office. Because of the changes we made previously, they were able to open a patio for outdoor dining and serve beer and alcohol. The owner, Maryam, said that being able to have a licensed patio, especially when indoor dining was restricted, brought back customers and was a significant help to her business.

We want businesses just like Maryam’s to continue benefiting from patio extensions, which is why we want to make these temporary changes permanent.

Speaker, our second proposal would modernize the reference to engineers under the Ontario health and safety act. This proposal will give a broader group of qualified engineers the ability to provide advice and certification as required under the act and its regulations, making it easier for businesses to comply. With the war on talent heating up right around the world, broadening the pool of qualified candidates necessary to keep more of our businesses operating would help strengthen our economic recovery.

Our next proposal would help streamline the planning system, in some cases shortening approval timelines. It would do this by allowing municipal councils greater authority to determine which decisions could be made by committees or council staff. Beyond the potential to reduce approval timelines and streamline the planning system, this change will provide municipal councils with additional flexibility to focus their time on strategic items for the benefit of their communities. This is critical, especially given the incredible housing shortage we are experiencing right across our province.

By allowing council to give decision-making authority to staff on minor planning changes, affordable housing could be built that much quicker instead of getting caught up in time-consuming approvals, and, for businesses, the benefits could include lower costs and incentives to move forward with innovative plans and reduced frustration.

Our red tape reduction work goes beyond eliminating the obsolete and the outdated. It also reinforces regulatory powers, increasing accountability and effectiveness. With this next proposal, we would deliver on our government’s commitment to modernize the Ontario Energy Board, or the OEB, and strengthen public trust in its oversight of the natural gas and electricity sectors. Through operational reforms, the OEB would better serve Ontarians, operate more effectively to protect the interests of consumers and help ensure that Ontario’s energy system remains sustainable and reliable.

Refinements to the OEB’s governance structure would enhance the independence and efficiency of the adjudication function performed by commissioners. Attracting highly trained professionals with specialized skills would help the OEB continue to protect consumer interests, including reasonable and affordable rates.

Our next item would further reinforce the electricity sector, one essential to our lives and, of course, our businesses. We’re proposing a two-year limit on the Independent Electricity System Operator’s, or IESO’s, settlement processes for certain electricity-related settlements based on entitlements derived from legislation or regulations. This would help provide greater financial certainty, improve customer experiences and reduce the administrative burden on market participants, larger consumers and the IESO. It’s one more step our government is taking to ensure that electricity rates in this province remain stable and affordable for the people of Ontario.

The following proposal puts the emphasis on consumer protections for electrical safety. It would introduce legislative amendments to broadly enable the Electrical Safety Authority to issue administrative monetary penalties, or AMPs. These changes would equip the Electrical Safety Authority with a more efficient and effective compliance framework, allowing the organization to redirect resources to public safety and educational efforts.

It would also allow the ESA the opportunity to fill gaps where existing compliance tools do not provide an effective, efficient or proportional mechanism to change behaviours as well as address and deter non-compliance. AMPs are also less costly and more efficient for the ESA and stakeholders than pursuing other compliance measures such as prosecution. In addition, it would help address the underground economy of unlicensed contractors and boost the competitiveness of licensed contractors who are compliant with the regulations.

Minimizing the prevalence of illegal electrical installations is a strategic step we can take to improve public safety all over Ontario.

Our next item is intended to modernize courtroom proceedings. The Attorney General, Doug Downey, has been working very hard to update Ontario’s justice system, bringing it into the 21st century. This includes modernizing laws that don’t match the realities of today. We are proposing to remove an outdated courtroom procedure within the Barristers Act that prioritizes the cases of senior lawyers and does not even recognize licensed paralegals. By doing so, we would eliminate a provision that is inconsistently applied and may help improve efficiency in our courtrooms.

Speaker, as part of Ontario’s ongoing work to modernize the environmental assessment program, or EAs, our government is proposing a minor amendment to the Environmental Assessment Act. The idea is to clarify the minister’s authority to make changes to the types of projects that can follow a class EA, helping increase transparency. In fact, to protect the environment, projects that follow the class EA process would still require consultation with the public, stakeholders and Indigenous communities to develop mitigation measures and document findings in a report.

We remain committed to seeking input before allowing other project types to begin following the class EA process. Any proposal to move a project type from an individual/comprehensive EA to a class EA would require additional public consultation.

Our next proposal would amend the Provincial Parks and Conversation Reserves Act to eliminate the adverse possession of land in provincial parks and conservation reserves. Changes would prevent people from claiming ownership of public lands by unlawfully occupying a public space in provincial parks and conservation reserves, helping to ensure that this land remains available for public use and outdoor recreation.

To be clear, adverse possession does not apply to authorized tenancy of land, such as through a lease, licence of occupation, land use permit or easement; it applies only to unauthorized, continuous use of land for many decades at a time. This would support our ongoing work to safeguard the environment and provide Ontarians with more opportunities to enjoy our provincial parks, to get outside and boost their health and wellness.

Consistent with the prior proposal, this next item would further help prevent people from unlawfully claiming ownership of public lands for the benefit of Ontarians. It would also improve customer service and public lands administration. Through changes to the Public Lands Act, we would remove barriers to transferring land to First Nations and other levels of government. The goal is to help ensure public lands can be used for future resource-based economic development opportunities, especially in northern Ontario.

To continue boosting northern Ontario’s community and economy, our next item would amend the Northern Services Board Act to keep pace with the times. The amendment would allow local services boards to post public notices of meetings and minutes online, allowing them more flexibility and autonomy to communicate with their residents the best way that they see fit.

The physical distancing requirements brought on by the pandemic have reinforced the urgency with which Ontario is digitizing public services. Accordingly, this proposal is aligned with Ontario’s Digital First strategy, making it easier for people and companies to do business in these communities and meet the demands of the future.

Speaker, the following proposal I’d like to discuss would further Ontario’s Critical Minerals Strategy and, at the same time, minimize its environmental impact. It’s a great example of how regulatory modernization and red tape reduction can create sustainable economic growth that serves—or, in this case, enhances—the public interest.

Through proposed changes to the Mining Act, we would make it easier for mining companies to recover minerals at mine sites, while creating economic opportunities through the extraction of critical minerals. Reprocessing mine waste and tailings to extract minerals will help strengthen the mining industry and our environment by providing companies with an economic alternative to opening a new mine.

Rest assured, we continue to be committed to the rehabilitation of closed and abandoned mine sites to protect public health, safety and the environment. We see this proposed amendment as an innovative way we could increase Ontario’s competitiveness in the global market. We can attract investment, create jobs and build stronger communities, especially up north.

Speaker, this bill would help rebuild our economy by better supporting the workers behind it. With the following proposal, we would make changes to the Professional Foresters Act to improve the delivery of professional forestry right here in Ontario. Amendments would modify its scope of practice to more clearly define professional forestry and reduce the overlap with other natural resource professionals like arborists.

The goal is to support professional foresters in the province with improved oversight by the Ontario Professional Foresters Association and strengthen public confidence when seeking professional forestry services. These changes will not have an impact on the environment or the protection of our forests.

To help keep more workers safe and more employers aware of their responsibilities, our next item would amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Changes would clarify and streamline what obligations employers have, as well as the processes that happen when a serious injury occurs in the workplace.

Our government is also proposing changes to the act to provide future opportunities to tailor elements of workplace programs, such as in response to serious injuries in the workplace. This proposal would help support businesses and enhance the role of workplace parties following injuries at work by modernizing workplace roles, obligations and processes.

Speaker, our next item would help keep a major Ontario economic hub running and a vibrant community moving. We know that investing in better, faster transit can unlock sustainable growth, so we’re working in partnership with York region to expand the subway network, in keeping with our commitment to build the Yonge North subway extension.

Through this bill, we’re proposing changes to the Development Charges Act to help York region fund its portion of the subway. These changes would enable York to recover more of the eligible growth-related costs of the extension through development charges while also protecting taxpayers’ best interests. This will also ensure we can remain on

schedule to build this necessary infrastructure connecting residents of York region to reliable transit into and out of Toronto and get people moving.

The Yonge North subway extension will strengthen connectivity across the region, reduce travel times and greenhouse gas emissions and provide more people with access to rapid transit. This transformative project will create thousands of jobs per construction year and drive regional investment for decades.

Along with improved rapid transit to the people of York region, the proposed transit-oriented communities along the line will bolster much-needed housing supply, including affordable housing, and support economic development by creating thousands of jobs and new employment spaces.

The next item would save people time while improving government services. Currently, people who wish to harvest trees on crown land for personal use, like firewood, undergo the same process as businesses applying for industrial or commercial use, like a logging operation. Our government is proposing changes to the Crown Forest Sustainability Act to distinguish authorization requirements for wood harvested from crown lands for personal use from those harvested for industrial or commercial use. This proposal would scale the approval process to fit the request, saving time and effort for people and government. It’s another way that we’re cutting red tape in line with appropriate requirements.

We’re also modernizing regulations under the Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act, also known as HARPA, to allow for new, emerging medical technologies to be used in Ontario. Proposed changes will also align the province with the current Health Canada safety codes and help with the backlog of appointments for X-rays and other diagnostics that has occurred due to COVID-19.

These changes would also improve the review and approval timelines for the designation of new CT machines and streamline burdensome approval requirements to replace these devices in hospitals. We will also revise forms and guidance documents to clarify policies and help the industry and our health care partners better understand legislative requirements, clarifying roles and responsibilities.

Speaker, our final item would save people money, reduce administrative burden and promote richer, stronger communities across Ontario. We’re proposing changes to the Police Record Checks Reform Act to eliminate processing fees related to criminal record checks and criminal record and judicial matters checks for people applying for volunteer positions. Through these changes, up to five copies of these results would be available upon request at no charge.

By reducing costs for people looking to volunteer, this proposal would boost a valuable source of talent for our communities. It would also reduce administrative burden for busy police services across our province.

Volunteers have been instrumental to our health, our well-being and safety throughout the pandemic. They enrich our communities, and our government is so proud to support their selfless contributions. Ontarians volunteer over 600 million hours each and every year. This is a true example of the Ontario spirit that we have seen throughout the pandemic, and we want to ensure it continues as we look towards the future.

Though COVID-19 still remains a part of our daily lives, Ontario really is making steady progress. Vaccinations are going up. Cases are coming down. Employment in the province has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Thanks to their collective commitment to the public good, Ontarians are helping to turn the tide on this latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, our government announced our plan to safely reopen Ontario and manage COVID-19 for the longer term, outlining a gradual approach to the lifting of remaining public health and safety measures over the next six months, in line with key public health indicators.

Yesterday, capacity limits were lifted in the vast majority of settings where proof of vaccination is required, such as restaurants, bars and other food and drink establishments; indoor areas of sports and recreational facilities, such as gyms and where personal fitness trainers provide instruction; casinos, bingo halls and other gaming establishments; and indoor meeting and events spaces.

We’ve implemented measures to keep people safe, such as temporary proof of vaccination in higher-risk indoor settings, and we’ve partnered with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to distribute rapid antigen testing to any business with 150 employees or less to minimize the chance of transmission. To date, with the help of 128 participating chambers, this program has distributed more than 2.63 million tests to over 21,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the province.

Just last week, together with some of my colleagues in Mississauga, we visited the Mississauga chamber of commerce distribution centre, and we saw and learned how rapid antigen tests were used and about the employees and employers that they were going out to serve, and they have been such a huge success. Speaker, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s never been brighter.

Bills of this size and with so many ministries involved are no easy feat. It’s because of our entire government’s approach and collaboration, our ongoing partnerships across ministries, that such a bill is even possible. I do want to thank all of our partner ministries with items in the bill and the overall package for your ongoing work to reduce red tape, support businesses and improve the lives of people across the province. I’d also like to thank my staff for their really hard work in getting this bill together, getting it announced and introduced.

This bill, our seventh proposed piece of red tape legislation to date, addresses the demands of the pandemic, and it opens the opportunities for a brighter future well beyond it. We look forward to working together with members on all sides of the House to make life easier for people and businesses while upholding what we all value. I think it’s very critical, as we sit here today and look at the work that we’re doing in government with input from people from all sides of the House. I think we can all agree that we want to make life easier for all Ontarians.

We want to make sure that all of our businesses can succeed. We all want to support our local shops. We all want to help them get that great online presence that helps them succeed and, for many of them, really just stay afloat throughout this pandemic.

With that, Speaker, I’d like to thank you and all members of this House for the time today.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): We have time for questions.

Mr. Jeff Burch: I thank the associate minister for her presentation. I’d like to ask her a question about not-for-profits.

Last week, I was in one of the Legions in my riding, the Welland Legion. They’ve had a really difficult time, as Legions all across Ontario have had. They can’t raise money. It’s very difficult. They can’t run their dart league, their pool league. They can’t even run their cribbage league, because they have to move from table to table. They’re really struggling.

I think that the government has really passed up an opportunity in this pandemic to support not-for-profits. They’re a huge sector. I talked about a women’s shelter in my riding a couple of weeks ago that’s struggling. Why has the government not stepped forward and given more support to the not-for-profit sector through this pandemic?

Hon. Nina Tangri: I do want to thank the member for his question. I’m a very proud member of the Legion in my riding. We’ve done magnificent work throughout the pandemic. It has been very, very difficult. There were streams of funding that were available to our Legions, some of which my Legion did apply for, some of which they were eligible for and some of which they were not. But they have been able to stay afloat.

Having said that, we have really wanted to make it so much easier for our Legions and other not-for-profits to be able to go online to register that not-for-profit, to be able to file online, to be able to do more of the work online that they were not able to do in the past.

Another area is with the volunteer approach that we’re proposing: to have police record checks done for free. So many of us want to volunteer, and we do volunteer in our Legions and many organizations. This is one way that we are supporting them right across our province.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Next question?

Mr. Sheref Sabawy: When we talk about regulations, people get concerned. They don’t know what would be the impact on them or on their day-to-day life or business.

Even hard, tough regulations were created for a reason. Many were created for safety and had a purpose when they were created. When we say “red tape reduction,” people worry that cutting regulation can harm them instead of move them forward.

My question is: Are there guidelines or a framework that is used for when the government looks to cut red tape?

Hon. Nina Tangri: I want to thank the member from Mississauga–Erin Mills, my neighbouring riding, for his question.

Speaker, as you heard many, many times throughout my presentation this morning, environmental areas will be protected significantly. Any time we look at reducing red tape or regulation or any burdens on our community, we have to go through what we call a regulatory impact analysis, or a RIA. For any legislation that’s being produced, we take that and we look at what those impacts are on our communities, on our health, on our safety and on our environment. Only if we are satisfied with what’s coming through will we present that forward, for any legislation that’s coming through from any ministry.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Questions?

Ms. Sandy Shaw: The member talked this morning about context being important, and I couldn’t agree more. We’re still reeling from COVID-19 and the impacts of COVID-19, especially when it comes to our seniors living in long-term care. We all remember the Premier famously saying that there was going to be an iron ring around our residents of long-term care; unfortunately, 4,000 people died. That’s an important context. And here is more shocking context, Speaker: We’re learning now that this government is giving millions and millions to for-profit long-term-care corporations, like Orchard Villa, where 70 people died. So there is some shocking context.

My question this morning is: Why is there nothing in this bill that will protect our long-term-care residents, our vulnerable seniors, when we have experienced such tragedy?

Hon. Nina Tangri: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, it has been so critical—it’s been devastating. What we have seen through many of our long-term-care residents’ passing—not just those, but everyone across the province, and our heart goes out to them, their families, for the tragedies that have happened.

It’s been so important when we’ve looked at the way that our long-term care has been at full capacity, with not enough beds. For decades, this sector has been unbelievably neglected by previous governments, supported by the NDP. What we’re doing: Our proposal is to make sure that we get 30,000 new beds up and running. The work that we’re doing with our PSWs is to make sure that they have at least four hours of care given to each and every resident. That is so important, that they’re not just looking in and seeing them. They’re making sure that they are clean, they’re making sure that they are fed. It’s so important that we protect our seniors in long-term care and making sure that—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Thank you.

The next question.

Mr. Jim McDonell: COVID-19 has been an absolute tragedy, creating a lot of stress in the lives of Ontarians and individuals across the globe, but it has also caused governments to modernize their services at record speed. In Ontario, there have been temporary regulatory changes to address unique and long-term issues during this extraordinary time. Some of those temporary regulations made so much sense that we’ve decided to make them permanent. Can the member talk about some of the changes our government has made permanent, including extending patios?

Hon. Nina Tangri: Thank you to the member for the question. I’ve visited many, many areas across this province and many different sectors of business. Where we’ve been going to visit our local restaurants—sometimes they’re independent, sometimes they are larger. But for our small, local restaurants that we need to support so much, the ability to allow them to have the licensed patios, to create them or extend them, was so important. Yes, we do have to have the buy-in of the municipalities, but we’re now allowing them to do that, something that they couldn’t do in the past.

It’s been not just something where they can make money, it’s something that kept them afloat throughout the pandemic, and it’s something they’ve asked us to keep permanent. We believe, and I think all members in this House can agree, that that’s something that, if this bill passes, we are going to make permanent.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): The member for Oshawa has a question.

Ms. Jennifer K. French: Yes, I do, Speaker, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to pose a question to the associate minister of red tape and small business reduction—no, small business and red tape reduction. Well, I guess it depends on the perspective.

Speaker, to the minister: We still have people writing to our office, across the province, who are still waiting for their Ontario Small Business Support Grant. They applied in April and are still waiting. We’ve had businesses who were approved, to find out months later that they’re no longer eligible. Some got the money, some didn’t. Sole proprietors that, because they didn’t have a business account, were not eligible.

There’s no appeals process. Many small businesses who believe they were wrongfully denied have no way to prove their eligibility. Small businesses call the support line—no answer. Some get a real person, but couldn’t even pull up their file to verify—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): Pose your question, please.

Ms. Jennifer K. French: My question is: Small businesses are still in flux. There’s no third round of this. It’s been a mess. What would you have me say to those businesses in my community?

Hon. Nina Tangri: Thank you to the member for the question. Our government recognized right away that small businesses impacted by public health measures required immediate support so they could continue serving their communities and employing, of course, all the people across Ontario.

Our goal was to get the money to businesses quickly, because we recognize that enormous economic shock, that employers were affected. Businesses—those who were eligible—received between $20,000 and $40,000. Our government was very disappointed to see that the member opposite chose to vote against providing an additional $1.4 billion in support in this program for the second round of payments. The opposition, instead of working with our government, chose to play political games during the worst of the pandemic. But the people of Ontario know that our government stepped up to support businesses and families when they needed us most, and we allowed businesses to use that money as they saw fit.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): We only have time for a very quick question and a very quick response.

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: Why is it so important to make more government digital, and is the digitization of government only internal, or will businesses and people benefit from this digitization as well?

Hon. Nina Tangri: It’s absolutely critical that we work together within government, that we can work together to make things more collaborative and to work more smoothly. When that happens, when people are working with government and they’re able to access more things online and have a one-stop shop, it really does support our businesses and our communities and the people of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 101(c), changes have been made to the order of precedence on the ballot list for private members’ public business, such that Mr. Tabuns assumes ballot item number 19 and Mr. Bisson assumes ballot item number 33.

Further debate?

Ms. Peggy Sattler: I am pleased to rise today to join the debate on Bill 13, the Supporting People and Businesses Act, on behalf of the official opposition and our leader, Andrea Horwath.

The first thing I want to say is I suggest the government might want to look at a new title writer for their bills, because pretty much every bill that we have seen come through that deals with red tape has very similar language about supporting people and businesses—better for people, smarter for businesses—and it’s getting very repetitive. The problem is that when you actually look into the content of these bills, you often find that there is nothing in the bill that actually meaningfully provides the support that people need and the help that businesses have been asking for.

I do credit the government: This time, at least they didn’t pretend that this is a COVID recovery bill, which is what we had seen in previous red tape reduction omnibus packages of legislation that the government claimed were going to help Ontarians get through the pandemic and recover from COVID-19 and actually did not speak to COVID recovery. This bill doesn’t make those claims. It actually doesn’t speak at all to the ongoing pandemic and to the needs of this province to move through the last stages of the pandemic and into a full recovery for our province.

I have to say, Speaker, as we often say when we are looking at government legislation, it really does represent a missed opportunity and, more importantly, it represents a fundamental misreading of what the people of this province have been asking for, what the small businesses of this province have been asking for. There have been ongoing calls to support small businesses more effectively by fixing the problems with the small business grant program and also to move forward with a third round of small business funding.

Now, we know, even as we look forward to moving through this pandemic and small businesses, restaurants are able to increase their capacity and are looking forward to trying to get their revenues up to where they were pre-pandemic, but at the same time, they have identified some of the supports that will be necessary for many, many months ahead. To really enable that robust recovery that hospitality and other small businesses need, the government should really be looking at another round of small business grants. But, unfortunately, we don’t see that reflected today in this bill.

What we do see are some largely technical amendments—technical changes to 25 different statutes—and there are an additional 30 regulatory changes proposed. So this bill is an omnibus bill. We’ve seen a lot of omnibus bills coming through this Legislature and, as I have pointed out before, one of the challenges with omnibus bills is they are so packed with legislative amendments that it is often difficult to do the due diligence that’s required to really understand the impact of each of those amendments.

We certainly see that before us today, looking at the number of changes that are proposed to legislation, that cross many, many different ministries. It is challenging to do the necessary analysis to understand the impact of all of those amendments.

I want to begin my remarks—which I will be concluding this afternoon, but I did want to acknowledge the work of the critics in our caucus, who have tried to do the analysis and the review that is necessary to really understand this bill and the implications moving forward. I want to acknowledge our finance critic, the member for Waterloo, who is assigned the principal role of critic on this bill, but I also want to acknowledge the role of our small business critic, the member for Kingston and the Islands, and also our critic for economic development, the member for Essex.

These are very strong members of our NDP caucus, but all of the members of our NDP caucus are really champions for small business, champions for economic development in our regions and in our local communities and champions for making the most effective use of public dollars—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Percy Hatfield): I apologize to the member for London West for interrupting, but the clock is at 10:15, which moves us along to members’ statements.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

Members’ Statements

Driver examination centres / Centres d’examen de conduite

Mr. Guy Bourgouin: I rise in the House today to speak on behalf of my constituents in my riding of Mushkegowuk–James Bay who are frustrated and tired of waiting for their in-person drive test. I’ve written to the Minister of Transportation numerous times about drive test examination issues. Oddly, the issue is unresolved. My letters remain unanswered and northerners still have to wait several months, close to over a year, to book their in-person drive test.

Northerners are calling our office frustrated because they can’t book their appointments online—nothing is available—and can’t book because the system is down. They are tired of being told they have to wait. Although many additional temporary road test centres have been opened, none are in the north.

Speaker, explain to me how someone who lives in London is using the online booking system to book their in-person drive test in Kapuskasing. It doesn’t make sense, right?

Parlons d’une jeune demoiselle de mon comté. La jeune fille essaye d’avoir un rendez-vous chez « DriveTest », ça fait un an et demi, et rien n’est disponible en ligne jusqu’en 2024. Elle déménage pour l’école. Elle doit laisser son auto en arrière et elle paye des assurances dessus en espoir d’avoir sa licence.

Je demande à la ministre des Transports—I demand of the Minister of Transportation once again, once and for all: Answer to northerners, set proper geographical restrictions for online booking and open more temporary DriveTest centres in my riding.

Post-secondary education

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: Last week on October 13 and 14, I had the pleasure of joining the Honourable Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities, as her parliamentary assistant to tour Ottawa’s colleges and universities: Algonquin College, Carleton University, Collège La Cité and the University of Ottawa. We were joined by our Ottawa caucus colleagues Minister Fullerton and MPP Roberts.

The tour began at Algonquin College led by President Claude Brulé to see the Allied Health labs for nursing and PSW and the Algonquin College Centre for Construction Excellence, where we got to speak with a few students about their career aspirations.

Next was a tour of Carleton University with President Benoit-Antoine Bacon where we had the chance to meet several staff, faculty and students at the Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research and postdoctoral fellowship, who showed us some of their amazing innovation and research in engineering and design.

At Collège La Cité, the minister announced that the Ontario government is investing more than $400,000 towards innovative training and hands-on learning opportunities for French-language nursing students in Ottawa so that they can continue to receive world-class education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, to end the tour, we were at Ottawa university, which is my alma mater, where we announced that we’re supporting an accelerated, flexible French-language teacher education program through a partnership with the University of Ottawa that will address the critical shortage of French-language technological education teachers.

Our government looks forward to continuing to collaborate with and support important initiatives at Ontario’s colleges and universities to ensure that we can continue to provide the best post-secondary education in Canada and internationally.

Optometry services

Ms. Jennifer K. French: People care about their health, and they clearly understand the importance of optometric eye care and are not willing to allow this government to play games with people’s sight and eye health.

My office is hearing from folks on ODSP like Arnaldo, who says, “I’m diabetic. I need my eyes checked every year. I gotta get it every year, I am due for my glasses. I missed a year because of the pandemic. So, what are we going to do about that? Seniors and diabetics and young people need glasses. The $39,000,000 is a slap in the face. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

We’re hearing from parents like Lee-Anna, who wrote, “I am writing to you today as a parent of two daughters in Oshawa. One who currently wears glasses and contact lenses ... and one who this week has mentioned to me that she is having a difficult time reading the whiteboard at school. I have done what any parent would do in this case, I phoned my optometrist to make an appointment. My eldest needs new contact lenses and my youngest likely now needs corrective lenses. To my horror I learned that not only is OHIP not covering our exams, but I can’t even choose to pay to have my daughters’ vision checked.

I am left with one daughter who now cannot get contact lenses because her prescription is more than a year old and another who can’t effectively learn because she is unable to see properly, and no options to resolve this for my kids.”

Speaker, I’ve written to this Minister of Health about the many calls and letters from Oshawa seniors, folks and families who cannot access the eye care they deserve. I will continue to present petitions and advocate for this government to return to the negotiating table and restore OHIP-insured eye care services to all youth and seniors.

Despite the challenges for many to accessing eye care in Ontario, everyone can see plainly that the government is unwilling to fairly fund optometric eye care. Do the right thing, Premier, and save eye care in Ontario.

Marland E. Maloney

Mr. Jim McDonell: I rise today to bring attention to another example of the spirit of volunteerism that helps us to make Ontario and my riding of Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry the caring and best place to call home.

The township of South Stormont annually selects an individual to receive the volunteer of the year award named after Fran Laflamme, a long-time volunteer. For the year 2020, the recipient is Marland E. Maloney, who began his journey of community service at the age of 13.

Marland personally felt the community’s generosity when a logging accident left him injured at the age of 16. The community rallied around him, raising needed funds with a community benefit dance. He has never stopped paying forward their kindness. His beneficiaries include snowmobile clubs, Easter Seals, the old car club and, most notably, Cornwall Township Lions Club. Through the Lions he’s undertaken nearly every task and held all positions within the club, helping them organize and raise money for many causes over 57 years—still going strong at the young age of 73. If there is an event, Marland is there, in the hall named after him.

Thank you, Marland, and congratulations on this much-deserved honour.

Gun violence

Mr. Chris Glover: This past weekend, we had 10 shootings and four deaths in the city of Toronto. That makes 343 shootings, 38 deaths and 140 injuries in the city so far, but my riding of Spadina–Fort York has been the site of too many of these shootings on our streets and in Airbnb rentals. Across this city and across this province, people are suffering from the scourge of gun violence.

In 2018, I brought a motion to the Toronto Board of Health, asking it to recognize gun violence—exposure to gun violence—as a social determinant of health. My thinking has changed since then. I now realize that these are political determinants of health. Louis March of the Zero Gun Violence Movement says that if we don’t deal with the roots of gun violence, they get deeper.

This government has been deepening the roots of gun violence in this province with all of its actions: freezing of the minimum wage, everything that leads to the growing gap between rich and poor, an Ontario Works rate of $733 a month, ODSP at $1,069 a month. We have low-income, segregated, largely racialized communities where people are desperate and where it’s easier for a young person to get a gun than it is to get a job.

We can stop gun violence. It is in our hands to do it. But it needs to stop. The police alone cannot do it. The Toronto police have even said we cannot arrest our way out of this problem.

We need political action to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor and to raise the level of jobs and opportunities for low-income communities in this province, and then we can solve gun violence once and for all.

Government’s record

Mr. Jim Wilson: I rise this morning to thank the Minister of Health for keeping her promises. Last session, Minister Elliott promised cystic fibrosis patients that the life-extending medication Trikafta would be approved for funding at the earliest opportunity after the drug cleared regulatory requirements. In September, we learned that the minister’s hard work on this file paid off. Ontario became the first Canadian jurisdiction to list the treatment on its drug benefit program. After years of fighting, people living with cystic fibrosis in our province now have timely access to the effective treatment options they need to plan for a future that many feared they may not live to see.

This past summer, the Minister of Health also kept her promise to visit Collingwood to learn first-hand about the need to replace the aging General and Marine Hospital. The facility has been serving the fast-growing southern Georgian Bay community, with an increasing senior population, for more than 60 years with limited upgrades. Minister Elliott announced a $15-million investment to allow the General and Marine to move to the next stage of planning to ensure the constituents in the north end of my riding have access to the kind of high-quality care that will be required to meet their future needs.

On behalf of the hospital and the communities it has served so well, I want to thank the minister and the government for its commitment to putting an end to hallway health care in our region and across the province.

Bill Adsett

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: Today I want to recognize former Eramosa councillor, Wellington county warden and publisher Bill Adsett, who passed away on October 5.

Bill was a public servant in the best way possible. But he was also a volunteer, historian, farmer, husband and loving father.

Bill accomplished many things. To his constituents, he brought water and sewer services, improvements to Wellington Place, a new Wellington Road 7 bridge over the Elora Gorge and renewal of the Wellington county administration centre in Guelph—a project he championed from concept to completion.

Bill was also a businessman. He founded a successful newspaper, the Wellington Advertiser. His vision: a free newspaper for everyone in Wellington county. He brought it to fruition. The Advertiser continues to serve every community in the county, proudly and independently. It goes to over 40,000 homes and businesses each week.

Bill was an active member of the Drayton Legion, Fergus-Elora Rotary Club, Guelph’s men club and Trinity United Church in Guelph.

His accomplishments are impressive; his dedication and decency are even more so.

I know I speak for all of us, and certainly you, Mr. Speaker, when I say that Wellington county and indeed all of Ontario is better off because of Bill.

Child care

Mr. Peter Tabuns: For years, parents have struggled to afford Ontario’s astronomical child care costs, the highest in Canada. Now more than ever, parents need child care that’s affordable and safe so they can return to work or make their household budgets work.

I’m talking to parents in my riding who tell me child care costs are almost as much as their mortgages and certainly, in many cases, more than they pay in rent.

Premier Ford needs to get moving and get Ontarians a deal now, rather than leaving federal money on the table.

The Ontario NDP is committed to working with the federal government to bring in a universal system of high-quality, public and not-for-profit child care that costs families only $10 per day.

While Premier Ford’s Conservatives argue with the federal Liberals over signing a $10-a-day child care deal, Ontario families are paying the price. So far, seven provinces and one territory have inked a deal with Ottawa to provide $10-per-day child care. We know it can be done.

So I repeat: The Ontario NDP is committed to making child care affordable by working with the federal government to bring in universal, high-quality, public and not-for-profit $10-a-day child care. We think governments can and should get that done, and get it done right now.

Barry Turner

Mr. Jeremy Roberts: I rise today to pay tribute to a great Canadian. Barry Turner passed away last Wednesday after a courageous battle with cancer.

Barry’s career in service to his community was extensive. He served as the member of Parliament for Ottawa–Carleton. A devoted conservationist, he served as a director with Ducks Unlimited. He was chair of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, as well as chair of the board at CHEO in Ottawa.

His experience was diverse. Prior to elected office, he worked as a game warden in Tanzania and wrote a wonderful book titled, From the Plains of Africa to the Jungles of Parliament.

Personally, Speaker, Barry was somebody who helped mentor me as I started my political journey. He came out and helped door-knock with me throughout both my nomination and election. It was a great boost for a young man like myself, just getting his start in politics.

On behalf of everyone here in this Legislature, I would like to pass along my sincerest condolences to his partner, Susan, and his entire family and thank Barry for his years of service to the Ottawa community and to Canada. Thank you, Barry.

Visitors

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I’m very pleased to inform the House that page Graden Lynch from the riding of Markham–Stouffville is today’s page captain. We have with us today at Queen’s Park his brother, Jack Lynch, and his sister, Claire Lynch.

Also, we’re joined today at Queen’s Park by the mother of page Fraser Litchfield, from the riding of Guelph: Shona Litchfield. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. We’re delighted to have you here as well.

Workplace fatality

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member for Niagara Centre has a point of order.

Mr. Jeff Burch: Speaker, I seek unanimous consent of the House to observe a moment of silence for the St. Catharines General Motors worker who tragically passed after a workplace incident on Friday.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Agreed? Agreed.

Members will please rise.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you very much. Members may take their seats.

Question Period

Long-term care

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My first question this morning is to the Premier. The Premier is rewarding the worst people that provided service in long-term care over these last number of years, the worst players in the long-term-care system.

These companies make profits off of the suffering of our seniors. They’re being handed 30-year contracts and literally billions in public dollars that line the pockets of for-profit corporations.

New contracts are an egregious situation. These companies failed to provide the basics that our seniors deserved in long-term care. They’re being rewarded for that bad behaviour, which is not only extremely problematic, but it’s a knife in the heart to all of those family members who lost a loved one to COVID-19 in long-term care.

My question is, why does this Premier think it’s okay to reward the very companies that neglected Ontario’s senior citizens in for-profit, private long-term-care homes?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): To reply on behalf of the government, the government House leader.

Hon. Paul Calandra: Obviously, what we are doing is continuing the build out of more long-term-care beds across the province. We knew when we came to office that this would be a priority for the people of the province of Ontario. I’ve said it on a number of occasions, as has the Premier. The inability of the previous Liberal government to invest in this sector is certainly what caused some of the problems that we saw at the beginning of the pandemic.

We brought in a number of different initiatives. It’s not only about building new long-term care in the province of Ontario, it’s about adding care. We are going to a North-American-leading four hours of care daily. We are hiring 27,000 additional PSWs. We’re paying for the education of a number of PSWs.

We know that there is a lot of work that needs to be done, Mr. Speaker. We’re increasing inspections across the sector. Nothing changes from the fact that we need to get new beds in the system, and we are doing that over the next number of years.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: We saw this government’s priorities. The first thing they did when they came into office was cut the inspections and reduce funding to long-term care. That was their priority, and as a result, we saw what happened: A broken system under the Liberals was made much worse by this government, and literally, people suffered unspeakable situations. People lost their lives because of this government’s lack of the right priorities.

The Premier is literally handing over to Orchard Villa—one of the very worst actors in this whole nightmare—733 new beds and over 1,000 redeveloped beds. That’s the reward that Orchard Villa is getting from this government after the armed forces went in there and unveiled the nightmare that was happening, where 70 people lost their lives. That home did not face one single penalty. They were one of the worst.

The government’s own inspectors said this: “Basic care including bathing/showering, oral hygiene, nail care, assistance with eating and drinking and fall prevention monitoring was not” being done.

Why is this Premier rewarding his buddies and for-profit long-term care instead of protecting our seniors?

Hon. Paul Calandra: Again, Mr. Speaker, it’s just the opposite. What we’re doing, as the member highlights in her question, is building out thousands of new spaces across the province of Ontario. We had a problem even before this government was elected, but we decided prior to the election that we were going to focus on long-term care in the province of Ontario. That is why we initiated the rebuild and the construction of 30,000 new beds.

There is still more work to be done. That’s why we’re hiring 27,000 new PSWs. I know, earlier today, the minister announced the hiring of hundreds of new inspectors to ensure that these new beds we are bringing online, with the new inspections that are happening, with the 30,000 new placements, the 27,000 new PSWs, the over 3,000 new nurses who are being brought into the system—that we have one of the most robust systems in long-term care. Four hours of care—these are massive investments that are being made.

It should have been done decades ago; I acknowledge that, Mr. Speaker. But this government is getting it done.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): And the final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Oh, they’re getting it done, all right, Speaker. They’re literally pumping billions of dollars into a broken long-term-care system that is giving the worst-performing providers of long-term care, these for-profit corporations, even more public money.

In this province, 57% of our long-term-care beds are operated by private sector players, the highest in Canada. This government’s decision, after the debacle, after the horrors that happened through COVID-19, is going to bump that up then to 60% with these announced investments.

Speaker, CTV reported this just yesterday, at Orchard Villa: “An inspection report from July”—July 2021, just a couple of months ago—“notes the licensee failed to ensure that the staff followed the home’s infection prevention and control practices”—just a couple of months ago.

The FAO said that in 2021 the government is spending more than $6 billion of our public health care money to line the pockets of their for-profit buddies in for-profit private long-term-care homes. Why would the government pour billions of dollars into the same people that caused such tragedy throughout our province during COVID-19?

Hon. Paul Calandra: Again, what we’re doing is pouring billions of dollars into the long-term-care system, investments that should have been made by the previous Liberal government, Mr. Speaker. They weren’t. They should have been forced upon them by the previous NDP, who, as opposed, waited for stretch goals in insurance.

What we’re doing—again, I’ll be very clear, Mr. Speaker—is we are investing to bring on 30,000 new spaces. We are investing to ensure that there’s four hours of care. That is the North-American-leading level of care. We are bringing on hundreds of new inspectors into the system. The Minister of Health has been transitioning to Ontario health teams so that we can have better infection prevention and control measures.

But the member is correct: For far too long, the investments weren’t made in long-term care, which led to homes that were not up to the standards we expect—standards that we are putting in place, standards that we moved on very quickly after being elected in 2018. And we are going to rebuild homes. We’re going to invest in new homes. We’re going to invest in care. We’re going to invest in the PSWs to manage that care and have the most robust system of inspections in Canada.

COVID-19 immunization

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Premier. But we know exactly—everybody knows—what they’re doing. They’re handing more money over to their friends in private, for-profit long-term care, into a broken system. They’re expanding basically a broken system.

But my next question is about the advice that the Premier has been getting from the science table, which is very, very clear. They say mandatory vaccines for health care workers just make sense, that it makes sense to have a mandate for vaccines for health care workers in our province. Let me remind the Premier that this is exactly what the science table said: “Requiring that health care workers be vaccinated against certain communicable diseases is evidence-based and protects the public.”

My question to the Premier is: When will he say yes? When will he say yes and bring in mandatory vaccines for front-line health care and education workers in our province?

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

Hon. Christine Elliott: I think it’s really important to note that this is not a simple issue. There are a variety of views being expressed by the science advisory table and also by the many groups that the Premier wrote to, to receive their information—CEOs of hospitals, other health groups—to understand what the results would be if a mandatory vaccination policy were to be brought in. There is a concern that health human resources, which are already strained—our front-line health care workers are doing an amazing job and have for the last 20 months, but they are exhausted. Some of them are leaving for other reasons. Some of them may leave because they don’t want to be vaccinated.

We need to have that information. We are receiving the responses from all of those various groups, and we will put that all together, analyze it and then make a determination on what needs to be done.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): And the supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: It’s really hard to understand why this Premier never just says yes to science. The hospital association also weighed in about a week ago, and they said exactly the same thing, Speaker. I don’t know why the Premier hasn’t seen their letter. Maybe it’s still on his desk.

Julia Hanigsberg, the president of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, says, “A universal vaccination policy across the health care sector is the safest approach for our patients and our teams.” And contrary to what the Minister of Health just said, the science table said, “A requirement ... can enhance safety and reduce the risk of staffing disruptions due to COVID-19.” So now I guess the health minister is not listening to science either.

The health care experts the Premier asked for feedback have given their feedback, Speaker. When will he listen and bring mandatory vaccines to all of our health care settings?

Hon. Christine Elliott: Our government has been listening to science and clinical evidence since the beginning of this pandemic, and we will continue to do so. We listen to what the science advisory table has to say. We listen to our Chief Medical Officer of Health and all of the people who are advising him. We’re listening to the CEOs of hospitals. We’re listening to everyone. We want to understand what the ramifications of a mandatory vaccination policy would be.

We know that if there’s someone unvaccinated can infect other workers or other people in hospitals, but we also know that if there is a requirement for vaccinations, some people will leave. We need to know how many will leave, because we need to make sure that all Ontarians who are in hospital will receive the care that they require.

This isn’t just a simple “yes, no, do it.” We need to understand what the ramifications will be, and we’re analyzing that now.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: This is not the first time this Premier and this government have decided to ignore science or to pay lip service to science while they’re trying to appease their anti-vaxxer base. At the end of the day, Speaker, the evidence is in. The experts have spoken. In fact, the worry is that if people take COVID-19 as unvaccinated folks into hospitals as workers, they could spread it to their co-workers. There’s hesitancy because people don’t want to go to work if they think that their co-workers might be unvaccinated. There’s risk that patients will become infected with COVID-19 and that outbreaks can occur with our most vulnerable.

Everybody is saying the same thing except this government. When will they finally listen to science, finally do the right thing and make sure we have a vaccine mandate to protect our workers, to protect our patients, to protect our families throughout our health care system?

Hon. Christine Elliott: It’s very clear that our government has taken every step possible to encourage everyone who is able to receive the vaccine to do so. We’ve asked that. We’ve made it easy for people to go and receive the vaccine. It’s available in many locations. We now have GO-VAXX buses going to where people are and not expecting them necessarily to come to where the centres are. We want people to be vaccinated, and the vast majority of health care workers have already done that.

But there are still some, for a variety of reasons, who are not choosing to be vaccinated. We need to understand how many there are because we need to make sure that our hospitals will be able to operate, not only for all of our patients; we now have received nine patients from Saskatchewan as well who are in very difficult circumstances. We need to make sure that we have the health human resources that we need in place to be able to care for people.

It’s also important to know that people who are not vaccinated are still tested very regularly to make sure that they do not have COVID. So we are protecting the health and well-being of all Ontarians.

COVID-19 immunization

Ms. Marit Stiles: This question is for the Premier. Last week the Northwest Catholic District School Board voted unanimously to call on the province to mandate vaccination for all education workers. They followed boards like the Toronto District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton and Superior North Catholic, who have all taken matters into their own hands in the absence of leadership from this government.

It has meant that families are left with a patchwork of vaccine policies in our schools, one that is leaving students with more or less protection just depending on where they live in this province.

Speaker, does the Premier think it’s acceptable for unvaccinated school staff to work with our children who can’t yet benefit from the protection of vaccines?

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

Hon. Stephen Lecce: I thank the member opposite for the question. We’re proud in this province to have literally one of the highest rates of immunization for youth in the country. We’re also proud to have one of the lowest case rates for young people in Canada. That’s because we follow the best medical expertise of the Chief Medical Officer of Health. That is not a coincidence; it is because we put in a layered approach coupled with high immunization rates.

With respect to our schools, we’re very proud to have invested in air ventilation, a leading request and recommendation of the Ontario science table. Every school has improved air ventilation, from mechanically ventilated as well as the deployment of 70,000 HEPA units.

Speaker, the logic of the member opposite, to require that mandate, would mean that we would potentially be terminating 50,000 workers in the education space. That’s the position of the New Democrats: to fire pink slips to tens of thousands of hard-working educators at a time when we are already challenged by staffing in the province of Ontario. I think we have to be coupled by realism and ensure that any staff member who enters our school has a double test, a negative antigen test, to ensure they are safe, to ensure our schools could be staffed, and these kids can continue to go to school everyday—

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

Supplementary question?

Ms. Marit Stiles: It boggles the mind, Speaker, why this government will not take this action that parents and boards across this province are demanding.

The news that Health Canada is finally reviewing vaccine applications for the five-to-11-year-old age group is a huge relief to parents, especially considering that we surpassed 4,000 cumulative school cases last week. But given the province-wide scavenger hunt that we saw with earlier phases, Ontarians are rightly worried about how they’re going to get their kids vaccinated.

This government has ruled out a pre-registration system like the one that BC created, and public health units again are being left to pick up the slack or we’re going to be left with this disjointed patchwork of plans.

Speaker, why can’t this government be proactive for once—for once—and deliver a plan that will ensure a smooth rollout of vaccines for five-to-11-year-olds?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): To reply, the Minister of Health.

Hon. Christine Elliott: Thank you for the question. We have been very successful in our vaccine rollout for adults. We have one of the highest levels of vaccination in the world right now. We are over 87.9% of first doses and 83.9% of second doses. This has been successful.

It has been successful in reducing hospitalizations. We currently today have 269 cases of COVID in Ontario and 138 in intensive care. That includes the nine from Saskatchewan.

We are working on vaccinating children ages five to 11. We are in regular contact with the federal government as to when they expect that Health Canada will be able to complete the review and allow for it to proceed. I will have more to say in my supplemental about exactly what we’re doing with respect to that age group.

Long-term care

Mr. Lorne Coe: My question is to the Minister of Long-Term Care. After years of neglect where the previous government only built 611 net new beds from 2011 to 2018, the wait-list for long-term care grew to over 40,000 people. Now, while I’ve heard the minister talk about our government’s progress in building 30,000 new long-term-care beds in Ontario, we know that we need innovative solutions to dealing with the wait-list.

Last Friday, I joined the minister in my riding of Whitby to announce an investment of $82.5 million to expand the Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care program to an additional 22 communities. Can the Minister of Long-Term Care please explain what this investment means for seniors on the long-term-care wait-list?

Hon. Rod Phillips: I thank the member for Whitby for his question and the great work he does representing his constituents. The Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care program leverages the skills of our paramedics who do such great work in our communities, focusing on supporting those who are waiting for a place in long-term-care homes.

Mr. Speaker, over the two years leading up to our government coming into power, the wait-list increased by 11,000 people. As the member noted, we have a plan to build 30,000 long-term-care beds; 220 projects under way. But the additional $82.5 million that we announced last week now expands the community paramedicine program to cover all of Ontario so that all Ontario seniors who are waiting for a long-term-care bed can now get the support of community paramedicine. That brings our total investment to $250 million, serving all communities across Ontario with this vital support.

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

Mr. Lorne Coe: Thank you to the Minister of Long-Term Care for that response. I’m glad to hear of the proactive steps that are being taken to provide quality care to seniors in my riding and across Ontario.

Speaker, seniors in my community want the peace of mind to know that they have a safe option to receive quality health care without having to go to the hospital while they wait for a long-term-care bed. After seeing the stagnancy and neglect of previous governments, how can residents be sure our government will improve the health care outcomes for seniors here in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Rod Phillips: In the region of Durham, that $250 million province-wide amounts to $7.5 million to support our seniors through the community paramedicine program. What that means is access to 24/7 support for our seniors, and I should say that that is in coordination with our vital home care services, bridging this situation for seniors who don’t have access right now to a bed as we build them. It means home visits. It means in-home testing, ongoing monitoring. As the paramedics pointed out to me, it means a reduction in 911 calls because of the support that’s being provided very directly to these seniors.

It helps support our seniors. It also helps support our hospital system, and in doing that supports our communities.

Grape and wine industry

Mr. Jeff Burch: My question is to the Premier. Ontario’s domestic grape industry has a legacy we should all be proud of. Niagara’s wine tourism industry attracts 2.4 million tourists and generates a tourism-related impact of $847 million annually.

Growers have invested in research and technology to mitigate the risks of climate change. However, this year our Niagara and Ontario grape growers are facing a harvest that is challenging at best, and devastating to some. The weather conditions this fall are making it difficult to harvest the crop. Grapes are perishable, and picked at maturity they cannot be stored. Coupled with the difficult weather conditions, our Ontario-grown grapes are rotting in the field because they are competing with imports. This is a time when world supply chain issues and shortages are making headlines, but local grapes don’t get stuck on cargo ships.

Will this government stand up today and ensure that local growers aren’t left behind while importers get a place on the shelf?

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

Hon. Paul Calandra: Mr. Speaker, it probably wouldn’t surprise the honourable gentleman that I too want to make sure that there is always a good grape harvest in the province of Ontario. This is maybe an opportune time to give a shout-out to my relatives who are actually in the process of making their own wine this year, but that’s not to diminish the importance of this sector to the province of Ontario, especially in the honourable gentleman’s region. Of course, the tourism sector has been very, very hard-hit and we have put in a number of significant investments into the sector to make sure that they can come out of this more robust than they went into it before.

I will take the honourable member’s comments, and I will be able to advise him a little bit later on. I apologize that I can’t give him the appropriate answer that he’s looking for specifically to that industry, but I recognize how important it is and I will make sure that I endeavour to get back to the honourable gentleman at the conclusion of question period.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mr. Jeff Burch: Speaker, we need the government of Ontario to stand up for locally grown grapes and wine that is made from 100% Ontario-grown grapes. We need “Ontario grown” to be first on the label and in the bottle, and no grape should be left on the ground.

Growers have a collective legacy of investment of an estimated $647 million in 18,000 acres of land and vineyards. It costs about $40,000 an acre to establish a vineyard and takes four years from planting to mature production. It is a long-term investment in our land base, with most of the vineyards located in Ontario’s specialty crop areas of the protected greenbelt.

This government has said that “made in Ontario” is one of the pillars of the COVID-19 recovery strategy, but what will it do to make sure Ontario grapes get into a bottle of wine that is grown in Ontario and on the shelf of the provincially run liquor control board today and into the future? How long do growers and wineries have to wait to see action?

Hon. Paul Calandra: Look, I will agree with the honourable gentleman that this is an incredibly important industry to the province of Ontario and incredibly important to his region. I would agree that our grape growers are some of the finest in North America and that our wines, as a result, are also the finest.

We have made a lot of progress with respect to opening up our markets here locally to expand the availability of beer, wine and spirits across the province of Ontario—something that the members opposite, of course, have voted against every single time. So it is surprising, but I guess I’m somewhat grateful, that the honourable member is now shifting the NDP. Earlier, we had them shifting towards support for the oil and gas sector, thanks to the great work from the member for Sarnia–Lambton. Now, we’re hearing, finally, support for local industries such as our grape growers. So I thank the honourable gentleman.

More has to be done, and we’ll make sure that it gets done so that it remains a vibrant—

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

The next question.

Hospital funding

Mr. Jim Wilson: My question is for the Minister of Health. Speaker, last week, the CEO of Royal Victoria hospital in Barrie announced a new south campus to be built on a greenfield site in Innisfil township. The planned facility is to first serve as a health hub, focusing on outpatient care, and then eventually expand to become a full-service hospital.

While this is exciting news for south Simcoe, it has many of my constituents asking how it will impact the timing of the redevelopment of Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston. Stevenson received stage 2 planning money 16 months ago, but has heard nothing since.

Speaker, can the minister tell my constituents when Stevenson Memorial can expect to move forward with the next stage of its much-anticipated and desperately needed redevelopment?

Hon. Christine Elliott: Thank you to the member opposite for the question as well as for your tremendous advocacy on behalf of the cystic fibrosis community. You played a major

part in the approval of Trikafta, so thank you for that.

It is true we have received a submission from the Royal Victoria hospital for a new south campus, but nothing has been decided yet. We’re just in the preliminary review of their application. As you know, having been in this position before, we receive numerous capital requests for hospital projects, and we are working through a number of them now, including the one from Stevenson Memorial, which was announced in our 2019-20 budget. We are continuing to engage with the hospital to advance planning for the first phase of the hospital’s redevelopment project, which is major.

This is an important project, and we are taking the time, working with the hospital, to make sure that it serves the purposes that the community needs.

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

Mr. Jim Wilson: Back to the minister: As I was pleased to inform the House earlier this morning, the Minister of Health visited the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital in August. While there, she announced a $15-million investment to fund the next stage of planning for the hospital’s future. I sincerely thank the minister and the government for fulfilling that promise to come to Collingwood.

But the second part of the minister’s promise over the years has been that she will also tour Stevenson Memorial Hospital in the south end of my riding. This commitment is just as important to my constituents and would allow the government to see first-hand the desperate—and I mean desperate—need for Stevenson’s redevelopment. Speaker, can the minister tell my constituents when she plans to come to Alliston and tour Stevenson Memorial Hospital—and I hope she will—and will she be bearing good news when she comes?

Hon. Christine Elliott: Well, I can’t commit to the latter part of your question; however, I know that the Stevenson Memorial redevelopment project is major, leading to 89,000 square feet and new bed capacity. So it is significant, I know, for the constituents in your riding. We want to make sure, as I said before, that we take the necessary steps to get it in the right space and the right place for all of the residents.

While I can’t commit to a specific time for a visit, I would certainly be happy to come and tour the hospital when time permits. Unfortunately, I can’t advise with respect to any announcements at this point, but I certainly will attend if I’m able to, and thank you for the invitation.

Protection for workers

Ms. Donna Skelly: My question is for Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a great shift in how we work: Today in Ontario, almost 30% of people aged 15 to 69 currently work from home. While some constituents in my riding of Flamborough–Glanbrook have enjoyed the flexibility that this offers, they also worry about their days getting longer and longer while time with their family is getting shorter and shorter.

Mr. Speaker, will the minister please share with the members of this House how the Working for Workers Act will help hard-working parents who feel burnt out?

Hon. Monte McNaughton: I want to thank the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook for that very important question. The future of work is here and our jobs have all changed dramatically. This is why our government is taking action to ensure these changes are working for workers. Yesterday, I was proud to rise in this Legislature and introduce the Working for Workers Act.

People are more than their jobs: They are moms and dads, community volunteers, members of faith communities and so much more. Our legislation makes it crystal clear: When you’re off the clock, you’re off the clock. We’re standing up for workers, and especially after the last 19 months our workers need a break.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): And the supplementary.

Ms. Donna Skelly: Thank you, Minister, for that response. We have seen a disturbing trend on the rise with more big corporations using non-compete agreements to hold workers back and stifle our homegrown talent. Recently, I read that tech salaries in Toronto are only about 65% of the average US tech salary. I believe there is absolutely no reason for workers here in Ontario to be vastly underpaid compared to their American counterparts.

Can the minister share how our government is tackling this trend and freeing workers to advance their careers?

Hon. Monte McNaughton: Thank you again to the member for that. Speaker, our Working for Workers Act will ban non-compete agreements. They are an injustice, and they have no place in Ontario. Banning these agreements will also help us attract top talent to strengthen our economy. I’m pleased to say that we received the support this morning of 1,600 tech companies, mostly small and medium-sized, supporting this initiative.

Mr. Speaker, we’re also levelling the playing field to help grow the innovative ideas that are being developed here in Ontario’s backyard. Ontario is a province of opportunity, where hard work pays off and big dreams come to life. Our government has a plan to build the future of our great province, and we’re taking the side of workers.

Driver examination centres

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question is to the Premier. DriveTest is currently facing a backlog of 700,000 tests. This is forcing people to wait months on end to book an appointment. With the provincial order extending G1 and G2 licences set to expire in a few months, Ontarians are scrambling to book an appointment, only to find that there are none available. For many, driving is how we get to things like groceries, school, work, doctor appointments. This is especially true for those living in rural and northern Ontario. This backlog is clearly not sustainable. It will further hinder Ontario’s economic recovery, and it increasingly adds stress on hard-working Ontario families.

Will the Premier tell the people of Ontario what the government is doing to address the growing backlog in drive tests across Ontario?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Associate Minister of Transportation.

Hon. Stan Cho: I appreciate the question from the member opposite. This is an important issue, and DriveTest backlogs are something people are suffering from. I can relate to their frustration throughout this pandemic, a very difficult time. That’s why we’re attacking the problem at its source, from the beginning. In June, of course, we did announce a $16-million plan, with 251 additional drivers.

But the member asked specifically about the north, and I’m happy to say that there are programs tailored towards the unique needs of the north. There are 27 Travel Point locations providing services on a part-time basis in northern communities, that make up 43% of the DriveTest network, and under this new plan to help address the backlog in the north, every DriveTest location in northern Ontario will receive at least one additional drive examiner. This is expected to increase testing capacity in the region by approximately 150%.

I appreciate the member’s concern. We have to address this backlog. We’re going to make sure we get that done and get back to prosperity here in Ontario.

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

Mr. Michael Mantha: Again to the Premier: Backlog for drivers’ tests were an issue in the north before COVID-19. Now, the number of people waiting to get tests has reached a crisis level in the north. Despite this, the government has not opened a single new testing location in northern Ontario.

This is affecting residents in my riding like Charlie Wardell from Thessalon, who is struggling to book a G test before his licence expires and he is forced to start the process over again; or Norm Lacroix, a bus dealership owner, who needs new bus drivers in Chapleau. Tests are backed up to the point where they cannot book an appointment to December 2022—others, 2024.

As the member from Sudbury said recently, “The north is where we use highways to get to work, not subways.” This backlog is causing major disruptions to everyday life in the north. Will the Premier commit to opening more DriveTest locations in northern Ontario to ensure no one loses their licence because they cannot book a test?

Hon. Stan Cho: I’m glad the member referenced the question from the member for Sudbury last week, because he’s right: The north has unique challenges. To Charlie and Norm, coming out of these very difficult 19 months, we understand the frustration of trying to get through these backlogs because the northerners rely on these types of programs to be able to live their daily lives out there.

And that’s why, specifically to the north, we have allocated additional resources to make sure every DriveTest location in the north will receive one additional drive tester. This is also part of a bigger plan to go after the highest-volume areas where these backlogs are being created. We are going to address this problem.

I appreciate Charlie and Norm are going through a difficult time, so I will say directly to them: Once we’re through this backlog, you will find that we will return to the normal status of life and keep the northern locations in Dryden, Espanola, Fort Frances, Kapuskasing, Kenora, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timmins, making sure we have year-round access to get those drivers’ tests done and get back onto the road.

COVID-19 immunization

Ms. Mitzie Hunter: My question is to the Premier. When you sent thousands of students back to packed classrooms this fall, you claimed that schools had what they needed to keep our children safe. We were led to believe that the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic would not be the same as the waves that came before, that the government had learned from its mistakes and that parents could expect learning gaps in their children’s education to shrink, not expand.

The reality, however, is alarming. In my riding of Scarborough–Guildwood, parents and teachers are telling me that conditions have not improved. Schools do have portable air filters, but the other COVID measures that we know work to limit the spread of COVID-19 are absent. The latest school in my riding to face a COVID outbreak is Cedarbrae Collegiate. That’s five schools now in my riding that have had to deal with an outbreak, and many people fear that there will be more, as infection rates in schools are nearly one in four of COVID cases.

Last wave, the Minister of Health prioritized vaccine hot spots during the early stages of our vaccination program. Will the minister do the same for vaccinations for our children, so that they can get the vaccine as soon as it is approved?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): To reply, the Minister of Health.

Hon. Christine Elliott: Thank you to the member for the question. We are working to protect all children in school. We already have the vaccinations for students aged 12 to 17; for those in elementary school, we’re waiting for the results from Health Canada for approval of the use of the vaccine for children ages five to 11.

We are already putting a plan in place. We are not waiting. We will be ready to go as soon as this has been approved by Health Canada. We’ve already been in touch with the chief medical officers of health in the 34 Ontario regions. We have their plans. The plans differ according to the various units, depending on what’s available, but we are reviewing their plans right now and making sure that in all 34 of those regions, they will be ready to go as soon as the vaccine is approved.

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

Ms. Mitzie Hunter: Ontarians have sacrificed a lot in this pandemic, especially in hot-spot communities in my riding of Scarborough–Guildwood. We’ve done our part to get people vaccinated and to follow recommendations and guidelines, in hopes that 2022 will look more like 2019 than like 2020. The sacrifices will not end until the remaining percentage of the unvaccinated gets even smaller.

A significant portion of this unvaccinated group, as you know, are those who are not eligible presently: our children under age 12. This group will soon be eligible based on the fact that Health Canada is now reviewing the one approved vaccine for that age group. The federal government has pre-ordered 2.9 million doses, Minister.

You say you have a plan, and I’m wondering if you will share that plan today with this Legislature, on what you will be doing to make sure that the unvaccinated under 12 are done as quickly as possible; and that there is equity built into that, so that hot-spot communities where the virus continues to spread receive prioritization; and that you coordinate with school boards so that clinics are—

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

Minister of Health.

Hon. Christine Elliott: In fact, there are 34 different plans, because there are 34 public health unit regions within Ontario. They vary depending on what resources are available within their units, but we are working with them directly right now. Schools, as you indicated, are likely to be a major place where the vaccinations will occur—not necessarily within school hours, because most parents of children of that age would like to be with their child when they receive the vaccine. But in evenings and weekends, that’s likely to be a major location. Some will be done in primary care as well.

But there is a plan. It is being finalized right now, so that as soon as Health Canada advises that it’s all right to move forward, we will be getting those vaccines out to the local public health units and start that right away. Based on the success of our adult vaccination program, people can rest assured that we will bring the same rigour to the vaccination of children as well.

Education funding

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: My question is for the Minister of Education. When our government came to power in 2018, we immediately began cleaning up the mess left by the previous government. Over 15 years, we saw education neglected as schools closed all over our province, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, the delivery of education in Ontario and across the globe has been severely impacted. School boards, educators, and students and their families in my riding of Carleton have demonstrated resiliency and flexibility in responding to changes in their learning environments, and have come a long way in embracing new ways of teaching, learning and connecting.

Through you, Mr. Speaker: Can the Minister of Education tell us how our government plans to right the wrongs of the previous government and ensure that there are enough schools to meet the needs of Ontarians?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: I want to thank the member for Carleton for being a strong advocate for her families, for delivering new schools for the next generation of residents in the Ottawa region.

Our government, under the Premier’s leadership, is absolutely committed to rebuilding schools after a decade of darkness under the former Liberal government where 600 schools closed and where the repair backlog increased by over $15 billion. That is unacceptable. We know we can do better. Our kids deserve better, which is why our government has allocated over half a billion dollars each and every year to rebuild schools and to build new schools—modern, accessible and technologically connected—for all children in the province.

In fact, there are over 150 projects that have been approved by this Progressive Conservative government and there are over 300 schools and child care projects that are currently under way, under construction. I’m proud to highlight two: The first is in Etobicoke, Bishop Allen Academy. Two members from Etobicoke have helped to deliver a brand new Catholic high school for families in that community. Likewise, in Halton, the new North Oakville Catholic elementary school will help support children in growing communities right across this province.

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

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: Mr. Speaker, through you, this is excellent news. I’m really glad to learn that new schools are coming for these communities, especially after the previous government failed to support students across the province.

Thousands of families outside of the GTHA depend on us. They are counting on our government to deliver high-quality, world-class education to their children for decades to come. Can the Minister of Education tell us how our government plans to invest in the next generation of Ontarians beyond the GTA?

Hon. Stephen Lecce: I think it’s fair to say that families in rural and remote parts of Ontario, and families that live outside the GTHA also, deserve these modern schools, accessible schools. We absolutely would agree, especially noting the equity disparity that took place under the former government where many of our rural schools in communities outside of Toronto just didn’t get the investment they deserved.

That’s why I’m proud that the member from Carleton has delivered the new Riverside South public secondary school in Carleton, delivering parents and young children in those communities a state-of-the-art school. Likewise, in Brantford, our hard-working member has delivered the new St. Charles Catholic elementary school that will support families in that community. And the Premier’s commitment to the people of Essex is to build a new Kingsville public elementary and secondary school that’s going to make a big difference for families in Windsor.

Speaker, we are investing in all regions of Ontario with one commitment: to ensure schools are modern, kids are safe and they continue to learn each and every day.

Health care funding

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: My question is for the Premier. Premier, a 77-year-old senior in my community desperately needs your help. Since June, four months ago, Joyce has been unable to eat solids and is vomiting constantly, becoming more and more frail a