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May 10, 2016

41st Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2016-May-10 (PDF)

L171 - Tue 10 May 2016 / Mar 10 mai 2016

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 10 May 2016 Mardi 10 mai 2016

Orders of the Day

Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur l’atténuation du changement climatique et une économie sobre en carbone

Introduction of Visitors

Wearing of ribbons

Battle of the Atlantic

Visitors

Leo Jordan

Oral Questions

Nurses

Autism treatment

Nurses

Hospital funding

Electric vehicle charging stations

Energy policies

Workplace safety

Summer camps

Infrastructure Ontario

Dock and boathouse permits

Children’s mental health services

Hospital funding

Celebrate Ontario

Mining industry

Introduction of Visitors

Members’ Statements

Invictus Games

Myalgic encephalomyelitis

Sadiq Khan

Myalgic encephalomyelitis

Aboriginal children and youth

Myalgic encephalomyelitis

Riding of Oxford

St. Maria Goretti Church

South Asian Heritage Month

Reports by Committees

Standing Committee on Government Agencies

Standing Committee on Social Policy

Introduction of Bills

Boys and Girls Club of Niagara Act (Tax Relief), 2016

Petitions

Environmental protection

Workplace safety

Lung health

Apraxia

Ontario Northland Transportation Commission

Water fluoridation

Health care funding

Ontario Northland Transportation Commission

Lung health

Hospital funding

Employment standards

Caregivers

Health care funding

Correction of record

Opposition Day

Government contracts / Marchés publics

Adjournment Debate

Member’s conduct / Conduite d’un député

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I shall be sharing my time with the member from Beaches–East York.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You have to move it.

Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur l’atténuation du changement climatique et une économie sobre en carbone

Mr. Murray moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 172,

An Act respecting greenhouse gas / Projet de loi 172, Loi concernant les gaz à effet de serre.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Now the minister.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Mr. Speaker, thank you for your indulgence and patience. My apologies, Mr. Speaker. I will be sharing my time with the member from Beaches–East York.

I think that for many of us, when we look back on our time in this House, this debate may be one of the most important in our lives, when the history books are written. We have never in the history of humanity confronted such an overwhelming challenge as climate change.

Here in Ontario, the thermometer of that change is probably going to be felt most immediately in the transformation of an asset that we live very close to and that many people in this House represent: the boreal forest. Sadly, that forest, over the next 30 years, will warm at least four degrees Celsius in the southern part and as much as, or more than, eight degrees Celsius in the northern part, regardless of what we do at this point.

If you look at the work being done by people like Dr. Dennis Murray at Trent University, who is one of the leading scientists in this area, he just finished a study—something that I think most members in this House probably want to look at—on the lodgepole forests in BC, 80% of which have died. What has happened in those regions of British Columbia is that those forests have changed from being a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Here in Ontario, the boreal is one of the most at-risk forests in the world right now. It’s at risk because two species of trees—two of the most common, white spruce and black spruce—are both dying off at a rather extraordinary rate.

People often say, “What keeps you up at night as an environment minister?” What keeps me up most at night is the risk of losing the boreal forest or seeing the boreal forest shift, over the next couple of decades, from being a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Why is that consequential? Because one third of all the GHG emissions in the world are absorbed by our forests. They dwarf the emissions coming from human beings. And while human beings’ emissions have been enough to change the carbon cycle, there is nothing we could do if we ever lost the power of the carbon sinks of our major forests. The boreal is 25 million square kilometres, 12% of the earth’s surface. That and the dense rain forests of the southern hemisphere function in absorbing carbon and keeping a lid on climate change, and they’re all in some state of degradation right now.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t normally ask my colleagues to go and look up science, but I think it would be very helpful for all of us, as Canadians, if we read the work of two people. One I mentioned earlier, Dr. Dennis Murray of Trent University, and his internationally recognized work on the danger to our existence on this planet of the change in the boreal forest; and a rather phenomenal piece of work done by Dr. Peter Griffith. Dr. Griffith is the chief support scientist at NASA in the United States, a very famous space agency.

They’re running a program right now in Canada—actually, it’s sadly not in Ontario, but from the Manitoba border to Alaska—called the ABoVE project, which is the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment. It involves 21 ground stations and a series of satellites. This is the most comprehensive study of the boreal and one of the largest projects, if not the largest project, by NASA’s Earth Observatory.

One might ask why NASA has a long linear study of the boreal forest going on right now in Canada and Alaska.

The reason they are looking at that is that their assessment of risk of climate change is that if the boreal forest, which is now seeing higher levels of fires at an accelerated rate than it has ever seen, causing major carbon emissions and the release of methane, which is 84 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide—the biggest risk of release is not in the High Arctic, which is warming faster; it’s actually in the forests, because the forests are now warm enough that infestations are killing them off. The climate impacts themselves are leading to the loss of white and black spruce.

If those forests continue to die at the rate they are dying off right now, we would not be able to compensate for that.

People often say, “Why do scientists call climate change an existential threat to human beings?” Because those kinds of changes, combined with droughts in California and Syria, and fires on our prairies, are enough to consequently eliminate the ability of the planet to absorb carbon dioxide at a sufficient scale to allow us to maintain the chemistry of our atmosphere that would allow us to grow food and keep this planet habitable.

As I listen to myself—and I was just at the World Bank in Paris hearing those things—it’s kind of depressing. I was out on Mother’s Day, and my mom has gotten into this. My mom is an amazing 88-year-old woman. Talking to older people who lived through wars and depressions and things like that, we talked a lot about how material the Second World War was for her generation. A whole generation of people went off, but the threat was so understandable. People could understand the Nazis and the tanks and the need to act.

She said, “What scares me, Glen, is that your generation and my grandchildren’s generation have to take on a much bigger threat than the Second World War and have to do it without the obvious, tangible, menacing threat.”

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about that. And I always find it hard, and sometimes I don’t choose my words as carefully as I wish to, because I find this a very difficult issue to talk about; I really do. I have a 5-year-old grandson, and I know what this will mean to him when he is 30 or 40 or 50 years old and how much a diminished planet we are leaving him if we don’t change.

There is cause for hope; I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. Just a couple of weeks ago in New York—members here will remember the agreement that was reached in Paris. I was very pleased that the member for Huron–Bruce and the member for Toronto–Danforth were able to attend. We had a good representation with the environment critics from both the opposition parties in Paris. I think we got a sense of how sobering that discussion was. Many members will remember two things that happened in Paris that were quite consequential: one, the agreement was for 3.7 degrees Celsius.

And 3.7 degrees Celsius by mid-century is probably halfway to where we need to be. That is, as you know, over the two degrees Celsius that we need to keep it under. There is a growing consensus among scientists that 1.5 degrees Celsius is what we probably really need to target. The growing body of science, especially the science that has emerged since COP21, is suggesting that two degrees is a guardrail at the edge of the cliff, and that we actually have to pull this back.

This is extraordinarily difficult. There is no other issue, I think, that members of this House have to better understand than the near-term risks over the next 30 years from climate change. Whether it’s Dr. Griffith’s work or Dr. Edwards’s work, we will see this acting out in real time within our communities.

I want to take a little break from that and talk about one other thing, which is this idea of transformational leadership. I apologize: When I speaking at The Economic Club, what I was trying to say and what I didn’t say as articulately as I wish I had said, was that this is an age of transformational leadership. Within 30 years, our automobile fleet has to be net zero.

We’re going to have to secure more of our food as spring is disrupted in the way it has been, where we had four or five metres of snow on the streets of Halifax and St. John’s in late May and June; where strawberries came out in British Columbia in January last year and died because of a false spring, with blossoms being provoked from warmth; and with the loss of apple trees, which right now are anomalous and we have lost as many as 80%.

These things will become more common. Some 80% of our food is imported from California. California is in a 40-year drought. Its rivers no longer empty. The change in the atmosphere off California is causing a prolonged drought. They have to come up with new names for it. They’ve added two categories of drought. I can’t even remember them. I was just there about a week ago. That’s 80% of our tomatoes, 75% of our lettuce, and with the dollar difference, that food also is becoming an expensive scarcity. How do we secure food over the next 20 years in North America?

I think that probably 99% of the things that I say in this House or that most of us say in this House, no one is ever going to read or pay any attention to.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Thank God.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke said, “Thank God.” That’s kind of too bad.

I think the speeches that we give here on this topic today might actually get read, because five, 10 or 15 years from now, as we live with the full impacts, people are going to say, “Well, what did the people we were electing really know about this and what did they actually do about it? Did they understand how serious the consequences were? Were they acting to scale with a solution that was sufficient to address it?”

Mr. John Yakabuski: That was what you said at The Economic Club?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: It’s a very good point. What I was trying to say is that this involves transformational leadership. This involves the leadership of a Roosevelt—

Interjection.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Mr. Speaker? This involves the kind of—

Interjection.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This involves the kind of change, a kind of leadership—

Interjections.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: This is involves the kind of change that we saw under Franklin Roosevelt, under—

Interjection.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: This involves the kind of change, Mr. Speaker, that you had under Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill. That is the level of societal change that we are really looking at and that is the kind of leadership we need. It really wasn’t—

Interjection.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Mr. Speaker, I’m having trouble hearing myself.

It is really, really challenging to try and figure out how we’re going to do this in a short period of time. We have 30 years in which to get to, essentially, a net-zero planet. The Australians just came out with research now that suggests that in the early 2020s we might hit 1.5 degrees. I don’t know whether anyone else deals with the gravity of that.

The parallel for this is that when I turned 20, AIDS was not a word. I remember, as some of my friends started getting sick—by the time I was 30, I had lost 43 friends to an AIDS epidemic from a virus that didn’t have a word 10 years earlier.

I remember, as the science started to grow around this and people became aware that this was a very different kind of virus and was becoming an epidemic, and my first few friends got sick, the kind of anxiety that you started to feel as this started to take not one or two friends but dozens of friends—and the science emerged very clearly that this was a retrovirus and wasn’t easily cured—and the kinds of anxiety and fear that I lived with through my twenties when I saw most of the people I cared about die in an epidemic.

I have to say that the hardest part about this job is that there are some days where I feel what we used to call “anticipatory grief.” You can see the emerging science. You can hear that some members in this House are not taking this issue seriously. You can see that many others are very—

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Order, please.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: The focus should be on how we get results.

My point is really that all of us are going to have to provide a level of leadership that’s transformational that we have never, ever had in our lives to stand up and take on. That is going to be very difficult. These are going to be the most difficult decisions that any generation in human history has had to make. We’re only starting down that road to understand how serious those decisions will be, made in health, in food security, in the wellness of our cities, in keeping people safe.

Everything we do in this House, first and foremost, is to keep people safe. What we really do as legislators, Mr. Speaker, is manage risk. My friend the Minister of Community and Social Services is a public health physician and she knows a lot about epidemiology and the kind of interventions that you have. If we had a terrible outbreak like SARS, the medical officer of health would intervene because there’s a risk standard. You don’t allow communicable diseases.

Beyond the power of politicians, medical officers of health have extraordinary powers to intercede to protect the public health, as we saw with SARS, because we live with an assessed risk. When we design a bridge, engineers have standards that have to be met in our highway and bridge codes to make them safe.

The only risk that we’re managing in the danger zone is climate change. If we held this to the same standard as every other risk that we have, we would be very cautious—dare I say, very conservative—and we would keep our risk profile well within 1.5 degrees, knowing that anything out of 1.5 degrees is dangerous and, at 2 degrees, is extraordinarily dangerous and that we are risking the lives, the health and wellness, the existence of large parts of our population, our food security and our economy at that level.

At Paris, we got halfway there. From my perspective, the glass was half full. We got an agreement internationally to keep it under 3.7 degrees by 2050. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and Ban Ki-moon, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting when I was in Washington, are all urging us to bring that back to less than half of that goal: to try and make sure the next agreement gets us to about 1.5 Celsius. That’s an enormous challenge. It’s important to get outside this place and outside this bubble sometimes and get that information.

I want to talk a little bit about the mechanisms and why we chose a carbon market and why this is important. While cap-and-trade and a carbon market present, I think, the best solution—and I want to talk about why cap-and-trade makes so much sense and why it not only is a good market mechanism but it gives me some hope that we can get there.

I have often said there are three groups of people in climate change these days. There are the deniers, who just don’t believe the science or don’t believe the severity and reality of it. There are the ditherers, who don’t know what to do about it and sit around trying to come up with being all things to all people. Now, sadly, there are the defeatists: There is a large group of scientists who have said that we’ve left this too long. I really don’t have time for any of that. You need effective market mechanisms.

There are also people who are saying, on one hand, that we should deny this and others who say that we have to go to war against capitalism somehow and bring down the capitalist state. There are some popular books out by people who author that view.

My view is that the actual solution to this is our markets and entrepreneurship, that the most effective way to reduce GHG emissions is to do what Japan is doing and has already done, what China is about to do, what Europe has done, what California has done and what South American countries are doing, which is to harness the power of the market. What cap-and-trade trade does is set up an allowance system for trading allowances in a carbon market. That drives out the most efficient reductions and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

We know that in Ontario because we have four other cap-and-trade systems, from carbon monoxide to nitric oxide. As I reported last week in this House on air quality, they are all down well over 40%, some with nearly 50% reductions in just a decade. So we know it works.

We also know it’s working because many of the large resource extraction businesses in Ontario have been covered for a number of years by the cap-and-trade system in Quebec, given how integrated our economies are, and California. We know this is a powerful mechanism. It allows companies to use innovation to drive productivity, to not only reduce GHG emissions in their plants and facilities but to also improve the economic performance to make [inaudible] productive.

As you know, Canada has had, for several decades now, a productivity gap with the United States of about 25%. If we could ever close that gap, it would mean $7,000 or $8,000 more disposable income for every Ontarian. It would mean a greater return on investment and more profitable businesses. This has always been a challenge. Two of the big challenges to that have been low oil prices, which we have right now, and a low dollar. They disincent foreign purchasing of technology and they disincent the kind of investment to improve productivity.

We’re going to have a bit of an uphill battle in the sense that the market conditions out there do not lend themselves easily to enable that. Even with that, we have led North America in foreign direct investment, which is a very good sign, because it means we’ve even beaten California now for the inflow of dollars. Why is that important to climate change or reducing emissions? Because we need to pool capital, which is what a carbon market does. It creates a pool of capital. Over the next five years that will be about $8 billion.

That is one of the points of disagreement we have, respectfully, with the party opposite. The reason is that we believe that money is important, for the same reason the Chinese, the Japanese, the Germans, the British, California—all of our competitors, all of the other large Western free market economies—have chosen not a revenue-neutral carbon tax but a very powerful carbon market. We’re trying to link them globally so that the bigger the market, the more stable the price is; the lower the carbon price has to be to get higher results.

If you look at what does that pool of capital do, and why is that so important: It would be almost impossible, over the next five years, to achieve our economic and environmental objectives without some capital to go and match what Nova Corp. did, which is put a quarter of a billion dollars into their facility here to do cogen and natural gas to help the trucking industry retire carbon-intensive trucks and buy new ones.

You need that money, because most families—and I would dare say even many of us—would find it financially difficult to change out our fossil-fuel-burning home heating and cooling system with ground source heat pumps and batteries and the kinds of new technologies that are being introduced by great developers like Sifton homes, in London; in Barrie, Royalpark Homes; and, here in Toronto, Stanton. These are three companies that are already building net-zero communities.

I was out in the great city of London, home to my friend the President of the Treasury Board. I spent quite a lot of time and I’m going back, because you’ve already got people who are building these sorts of homes. These are fairly conservative—small-c conservative—developers who are out there building net-zero communities, and they’re doing it because they get the science of it. They’re also doing it because they’re essentially selling you a home without much of a heating or cooling bill. That’s the great thing about getting net-zero homes: Net-zero homes use a lot less energy and don’t have to burn fossil fuels to be heated and cooled.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: Why do you need subsidies then?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: You need that kind of transformation. They all said two things to me. They asked for two things. They said, “Can you do with homes the same things that you’re doing with electric vehicles? Because for people who have to retrofit their homes, we can’t build it into the costs. We’ve got to retrofit every single building.”

The member for Huron–Bruce said, “Why do you need subsidies?” Well, because there are several million buildings in Ontario and a lot of middle- and lower-income people. We know from the experience of places like Switzerland and Britain that the only way this actually happens is if there is a grant program that helps working families buy that equipment. We know that. We’ve looked at it. I know my friend was in Paris and I hope she talked to the Conservative members of Parliament who were there.

I met with several of them and asked them, “What’s working in Britain?” They have huge subsidies for net-zero buildings and technologies and batteries, and they’re very successful. Without that, you’re not going to get the switch in homes. Without flipping those homes into net-zero homes, changing out that technology—without a robust program, you’ll end up with people having to absorb the cost of fossil fuel increases as they go up over time.

The whole objective of a cap-and-trade system is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to provide the capital for people to do two important things: one, retrofit their home so that it’s fossil free. Once it’s fossil fuel free, you don’t pay anything. That’s how the system is working so well in places like California. That’s why the entire country of China is taking it from a seven-province program to a national program. The simple truth is, it works. The second thing is, how are you going to switch people? You’ve got some great leadership from Steve Carlisle at GM.

He wrote a really interesting piece and said more elegantly what I was trying to say at the Economic Club, which is that we’re in for an era of disruptive leadership like we’ve never seen. The market conditions, globally, are going to change, but the conditions of the environment, the impacts of the environment are going to disrupt our supply chains and create a greater challenge than we’ve ever faced before. So we really need a quality of leadership to manage change at a pace that we’ve never, ever talked about before.

My friend from Niagara-Glanbrook—I hope I got that right. We talked a lot. We went for dinner the other night and had a very good conversation about the shared economy and the linkages between the low-carbon economy and the shared economy—autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles—

Mr. Arthur Potts: West Glanbrook.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: West Glanbrook, thank you, the member for Niagara–West Glanbrook—I have great, real respect for him. He and I have developed a very good collaborative relationship on these things. He makes a very good point. He has been a leading voice in this House, quite frankly, on understanding why autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles—where a car is used for 20 hours a day and rests for two, rather than only used for two and rests for 20—are part of the low-carbon economy.

There are a number of members on both sides of this House who understand that we’re going through an economic revolution bigger than the information technology revolution—greater change within a decade. When you used to have computers that would fit in the size of this space and you told someone that your computer in 10 years would be the size of a notepad, people probably would have laughed at you. But we went through that kind of change.

I want to suggest for the history books here, and for the level of disruption that Mr. Carlisle and others were talking about, that we are going through 10 years of that kind of change. If we are going to beat climate change, which I am determined to do, and I think many of us in this House are—this government, certainly, is determined to—we are going to have to manage change at a faster pace of technology than we saw in the information technology revolution.

That was a $1-trillion expansion of the western economy. The shift to a low-carbon economy is a $6-trillion expansion of our economy. That is the other reason why we need this pool of capital. We need this pool of capital because industry will need that kind of capital. You may remember that BlackBerry, when it started off, got money from this government—seed capital money, our innovation funds—under just about every party in power.

But this level of transformation—if you think about the heating and cooling systems in 150 heavy, large emitting sites, the amount of money that will have to go back into industry to deal with lime kilns, to deal with fuel switching, to deal with net-zero transformation: All of those industries—I think I’ve met multiple times now with representatives of each of those industries—have been working with us, and you’ll see it in the action plan, to design how the proceeds most efficiently go back into the lumber industry, the cement industry, the trucking industry, the steel industry—all of these industries.

The auto sector: huge reinvestment required. We’re very proud, as a government, that we made unprecedented investments in the automobile sector through the recession, which is one of the reasons we have an automobile sector that today is producing more cars than it ever has in Ontario.

Now the challenge is, how do we start to retool to ensure that the innovation for low-carbon automobiles—hydrogen and electric vehicles—happens here in Ontario? How do we manage all the new infrastructure—electric charging and massive deployment of electric and low-carbon infrastructure, natural gas—across the province? It requires private and public capital. Everyone has been very clear: Without a publicly supported program, you will not see LNG expanding across the province; you will not see electric vehicle charging expanding across the province.

The other issue we have a point of disagreement on with the opposition is the linking of markets. The official opposition argues that we should not link with Quebec and California and eventually, we hope, New England as their cap-and-trade system evolves beyond electricity. If we did not do that, the carbon price would be astronomical; it would be several-fold what it is. If Ontario or Quebec had to do it, it would be a carbon price that would be five, six, seven times higher than it could be.

The thing about a cap-and-trade system is there’s a cap on it, and the big difference between jurisdictions that can reduce their emissions with a carbon price of $15, $20 or $25 very efficiently is because they put a cap on their emissions and they have something called the cap decline rate. Our cap decline rate is just over 4%. That means that we restrict the permits to pollute, that we guarantee we will meet our 2020 targets. And we’re not relying on the size of the price or a huge price on carbon; we’re doing it very efficiently, because it would be very hard to absorb a high carbon price.

What happened with the carbon tax in British Columbia when they introduced it was that they immediately lost a couple of their cement plants and are now importing cement at a very high price. Then, in 2012, the British Columbia Legislature, with its revenue-neutral carbon tax, froze its carbon price at about $30, after Premier Campbell had been raising it by $5 a year, and has been unwilling, in the six or seven years since, to actually raise that price. Today, British Columbia’s emissions are now going up, and they won’t meet their 2020 target significantly.

For them to correct that, because they don’t have the other mechanisms—they’re not a linked market, so they don’t have a large, buoyant market to keep prices down to provide exchanges; they don’t have a legislated cap and they don’t have a cap decline rate. In their system, they have to rely entirely on a bigger carbon price. And what has happened is that year after year there is a discussion, as their emissions go up—the whole reason for having carbon prices is to bring them down—and they fail to pass anything.

I think there is some history now that a cap-and-trade system that allows the market to set the price works well, and the price adjusts upward at a much lower level at lower cost. Without that, a price-only system requires you to rely heavily on price. The other problem that the revenue-neutral jurisdictions—there aren’t very many of them; I think you can count them on one hand. And there’s reason for that: They’ve really been a failed experiment, in some senses—successful in others. In the areas where they’ve been successful, it’s because from an economic purist’s perspective, it makes some sense.

From a practical perspective, they also have no pool of capital. What they had to do with the cement industry in British Columbia is reach into general revenue and provide direct subsidies to cement.

We will not have to do that. That is built into a market mechanism. That’s why there are proceeds; that’s why we’ve had this great relationship with Mike McSweeney and the people at the cement association, who are designing this entire system with us in a way that the ways the price is applied, the allowances are distributed, and the capital proceeds flow provide for the maximum rate of reductions from our cement plants without having to reach into the general revenue of the government to subsidize them, which I think is critically important and worth a healthy debate with the official opposition, who disagree with this.

McKinsey’s reports on cap-and-trade on carbon define the task of improving carbon productivity. What do they mean by that? They mean that for every kilowatt hour of energy, for every kilogram of steel produced, you have to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and carbon used in that process by a factor of 10 over 30 years. Essentially, we have to be down to something less than 10% of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted. I quote these people not because I’m trying to name-drop; I quote these people because I think these are very useful resources.

The work that McKinsey consulting has done on carbon productivity has been very, very instructive and has really helped inform the government’s position with the work that David Sawyer has done. To distill this down to its economic essence, to save ourselves from the disasters of climate change, we really have to improve our carbon productivity by a factor of 10 over the next three decades.

That’s why I believe in the power of markets. How are you going to do that? Government can’t legislate that. Consumers on their own aren’t going to know how to make those choices easily. People don’t relate the industrial process of their home heating or the vehicle they drive relative to a standard of productivity.

This bill enables this Legislature and, more importantly, enables the people of Ontario to have a tool kit to do three things. One is to switch to a lower-carbon vehicle. That’s probably the most important thing. Thirty-five percent of our emissions come from automobiles. We’ve got to tackle that, and that partnership is very important. I think you’re seeing that kind of leadership from GM and from others. We’ve got competition coming from everywhere in the world. China is rapidly building an electric vehicle industry, as is Germany. We can’t have those jurisdictions take away from Ontario by beating us in the innovation game and in the deployment of innovation.

The other one is home heating, about 20% of our emissions. Whether you’re talking about a farm or talking about a condo in downtown Toronto, we have to reduce the emissions there, which is really switching out the fossil fuel heating.

Those are the two areas that have been growing. All of our emissions growth has come from buildings and vehicles. Our emissions reductions have come from industry. Actually, the highest level of productivity has come when industry is doing better. As a matter of fact, we’re seeing higher productivity and lower carbon intensity more recently, as the economy is in a significant recovery, than we saw in the recession, where carbon intensity declined.

I think, in summing up, that it’s a robust market mechanism. It provides a large, stable pool with the carbon market, which will keep prices down and give businesses lots of choices. A carbon market is not a political instrument; it’s a market instrument. Politicians don’t make decisions. The pricing market, innovation and productivity drive what the carbon price is. It creates a vitally critical pool of capital to help Ontarians make that transition and relieve financial stress from families to do that. It incites higher productivity, or it works to help facilitate higher productivity with business, and I think that’s really important. I think this is a very, very good bill.

In closing, I want to thank the member from Toronto–Danforth for his work at the committee, his ideas, his collaboration and the seriousness with which he took this, and I want to thank members of the third party, the New Democratic Party, for their support in this. We’ve had a very good dialogue between our two parties on this, and I think it has led to a better bill.

I will now turn it over and, in doing so, thank my friend Arthur Potts, who provided such extraordinary leadership at the committee and is such an advocate for this. The member for Beaches–East York.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): I recognize the member from Beaches–East York.

Mr. Arthur Potts: It is indeed an honour to be able to speak to the introduction of the third reading on this bill, Bill 172, the climate change mitigation act. I want to start by thanking the minister. The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change has shown such incredible leadership on this file: his breadth of knowledge, his passion for this issue. It strikes him—and I know, because we’ve had these conversations over a glass of wine late at night as we do briefings around this issue—at the heart, in an emotional, profound way, how important this issue is. He brings that passion to the debate.

When he gets heckled from members on the other side in the midst of this, you can see how disruptive that is, because they’re not taking the seriousness of this issue to the extent that is necessary to understand how critically important it is for us to get this piece right, moving forward over the next 20 or 30 years.

I want to thank the minister for his passion and leadership. It’s that leadership I was speaking about yesterday in the House on our energy planning bill that is so critical. We are taking a direction which, 10 years ago, was politically unfeasible—that we could have gone down this route. It was so complicated, so difficult, for people to embrace in the general public because it’s so easy for members of the opposition to characterize this as a simple tax that’s going to hurt people’s lives.

We’ve grown up in the last 20 years in an environment where any kind of raising money through the public purse in order to do good work for the public is perceived as being off-base and political suicide. So being in a position now that we can take on this file with a program that is guaranteed to have end results, that will play its role in reducing carbon and slowing down temperature increases in the world, is absolutely critical.

I know that in the minister’s previous portfolio, transportation, he viewed the opportunities in transportation and the revolution we could be doing in transportation, particularly around public transportation and the expansion of our electric networks, because in that probably rests the largest single climate change initiative we can do as a government: getting our public transit vehicles off diesel and on to electricity. The electrification of our regional express rail will be an incredibly significant part that we would play to reduce our carbon footprint in this world. It’s absolutely critical that we do so.

I know that the minister, when he was Minister of Transportation, embraced that as outside of the confines of a cap-and-trade program. I’m so delighted that our new minister is also participating and moving that file forward in a meaningful way. That’s an important part, through the leadership of Premier Wynne, as we coordinate these opportunities to do the right thing for Ontario now, and not just in this term of office but for the generations following us. That’s how I believe we are doing things differently and why I’m so proud to be a member of this caucus.

I appreciate so very much the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change asking me to assist him in bringing forward this bill, shepherding it through second reading and the committee process and here now to third reading.

The bill was introduced—let me see now—on February 24. Prior to the introduction of this bill, I know that the member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, my seatmate, introduced a motion in this House. You could get a sense of the testing of the waters with that motion by where the members opposite stood and where our government stood through the course of the debate. He introduced a motion which made the point that climate change was one of the most important challenges facing our society. We saw, of course, very wise but unanimous support on this side of the House, and we saw third-party support for this bill.

We were so disappointed to see how few members of the opposition were able to support that motion, which acknowledged that climate change was an issue that needed to be addressed and that we needed to move forward on a program of cap-and-trade to mitigate and reduce the warming up of the earth.

We really would have hoped that, on an issue of this significance, this seriousness, for the future generations of our province—our children and our grandchildren—we could come forward with a concerted unanimous approach to deal with the issue, confront it head on, not unlike the kind of all-party support one would get as the federal government was moving against aggressors and terrorists or into war, where all parties would recognize how serious the issues were and would come together for the public good.

But we haven’t seen that. What we have seen is a direction from the members of the official opposition which completely does not support a cap-and-trade program and we weren’t even sure supported the necessity of any kind of carbon pricing, until the new leader was elected and suddenly there was some sort of revelation on the other side of the House that they would support some level of carbon pricing, albeit of the BC tax-and-dividend type of model. As we went through the committee process—after second debate, we went to the committee and I sat in all those committee hearings and I listened very much to all the people who came through and spoke to us about the bill.

One of the most important messages that came from all the delegates that came before us, all the people who had made submissions on behalf of their organizations, individuals and such, environmental groups, was the unanimity of support for the direction that we were taking. It was somewhat profound in that we could now see it: a very broad general consensus that we were on the right track, that linking what we were doing in carbon trade with the Western Climate Initiative—the WCI—with California and Quebec in order to get the right pricing, so that we could have a predictable level of reductions of CO 2 emissions, was broadly agreed to be the right direction to take.

We saw it. I remember the members of the natural gas association were here—and let’s be very clear: If you can get natural gas and liquid natural gas, especially from renewable resources like methane that’s coming off of the anaerobic digestion of organic waste—getting natural gas as a displacement for coal as an energy source or diesel as an energy source is a big step forward.

But I remember putting the question to the natural gas association: “You still are a carbon source.” As seductive and sexy as it is to want to get people onto gas, it doesn’t really fully go down that route of zero emissions that we need to get to. While it’s an improvement, it’s not a solution in the longer term. But it could be a stopgap measure in getting to the kind of carbon reductions that we need to see.

This point was hit home very clearly to me in meetings with rural mayors in the Bruce Peninsula area, who were speaking to me as a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, in my rural affairs component, about the importance of getting natural gas piped to all of rural Ontario. I remember one of the mayors saying to me, “You have to understand how expensive it is to heat the homes with electricity. I was sitting in a constituent’s kitchen, and the wind was blowing in under the doors and through the window cracks. To keep the heat up in order to warm the place, it was outrageously expensive.”

I looked at him and said, “Why don’t we spend the money on renovating the house instead? Why don’t we spend it on proper weather stripping, insulated doors, insulated windows, taking the old drywall off and putting in foam insulation, which will seal the house?” Because the money you spend at doing that, reducing the energy need and continuing to heat with electricity—especially electricity that’s on a 90% carbon-free basis—is far more cost-effective and far more important for the objectives we’re trying to reach in Ontario in reducing our emissions, than it is to put a pipeline in which will be pumping natural gas to those homes. Right?

So, we have to be thinking in those terms in order to make the reductions. If we were to get more communities off of natural gas and onto electricity that was affordable, we’d be way ahead of the game from a carbon emissions point of view.

My own house that I bought recently—I’ve talked about it in the House before. I took a house that was built in 1870, and when my partner and I bought it, we ripped all the walls, everything out of it, and built it brand new from the inside. We maintained the existing frame and brick exterior. It’s a beautiful, historically designated home, so we weren’t allowed to touch the outside. But we replaced all the windows with beautiful double-paned insulated windows, argon-infused, so it reduces even more the amount of heat that transfers into the home. We insulated it with spray foam, taped up all the holes—everything.

Recently I got a gas bill for my house for the month of February. It shows on your gas bill how much your bill was this February and how much it was last February. Well, I didn’t own the house last February—the previous owners were there—but it showed the difference. My gas bill this time was $85 for the month compared to $268 the previous month, a reduction of a factor of three, 30% of the energy used to heat the same house, because we had done the renovations and done them properly.

That’s an example of how we can use the proceeds from the cap-and-trade program of pricing carbon and put them into dedicated, focused programs that will have a profound impact for the general population and get the kinds of greenhouse gas reductions needed in order to meet our zero-carbon objectives.

In a way, in a tax-and-dividend structure—the notion being that you put a price on fuel, you put a price on gasoline and then you return all that money back to the consumer, which is the preferred method of the members of the official opposition—you actually achieve somewhat the same result without putting as high a price on carbon, as the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change was explaining, and with a much lower amount of increase because you can take that money and dedicate it back to programs where it can be strategically used for the most benefit.

As the minister was explaining why, under a fee-and-dividend program, the cost of fuel would have to be so much higher to get results, it speaks to, for those of us who did introductory economics, the whole supply-and-demand equation: that the elasticity of demand for fuel is very low, which means that a price reduction in fuel doesn’t necessarily lead to much of a reduction in consumption. It’s a fairly flat line. We’ve seen that so significantly already in the last year.

With the collapse of oil pricing from $1.35 or $1.40 a litre in Toronto down to, at times, 92 or 93 cents a litre—even when the price was as high as it was, people were not curtailing their consumption of fuel. You weren’t getting significant greenhouse gas reductions by people not using their cars as often, even when the price of fuel was 40% higher than it currently is.

That speaks to precisely why, as the minister says, in order to receive meaningful reductions in carbon as a result of price impacts only, you have to price it so high as to be prohibitive for people to use, which has an even more devastating effect on the economy and on people’s mobility, etc. If we were able to use a modest increase in the price of gasoline—I think we were estimating, at this stage of the equation, something in the order of 4.3 cents a litre. In the last week, the price of gasoline in my neighbourhood has gone up at least 4.3 cents and probably more like 6 cents from about 98 cents last week.

This morning I bought it at $1.05.

That amount of increase, on the basis of this program, is easily absorbed into the economy in a way that allows us to take those proceeds and do a number of things, one of which is to encourage people to buy zero-emission vehicles, electric vehicles, and, second, to buy into an infrastructure program that will see charging stations all up and down major highways in the province so that people who buy an electric vehicle, a zero-emissions vehicle, will be able to take the vehicle on the road, stop for a cup of coffee for half an hour, get a booster charge and continue on their way, the limitation on many electric vehicles being distance.

For most people who are commuting to work, it’s a prescribed distance and a prescribed amount of time. You can plan, with the right battery sizing and the right vehicle, to make that 20-, 30- or 40-kilometre trip and then charge it at the other end. With the proceeds from cap-and-trade, we know that we’re able to do that.

Sitting through the committee hearings, I was pleased when we heard from people about how we could improve the bill. There were something in the order of 220 or 230 amendments that came on to the floor. Many of them, particularly motions that we received from the members of the third-party, were submitted to us well in advance, in communication with us and in consultation with us as members of the government so that we could work with them to find ways to assist them in the kinds of additional changes that they want to do in a way that wouldn’t change the fundamental principles of the bill.

Counter that, Speaker, with the kinds of response we got from the members of the official opposition. Not only did they not respond to the opportunities we had with our staff to ask them to come forward and speak with us about the amendments they wanted to see put forward, but their amendments tended to delete sections of the bill that would eradicate the central purpose of cap-and-trade, of the linking mechanisms, of the kind of work that we know is critical.

While we accepted something in the order of 60 amendments to the bill, I don’t think any of them came from the members of the official opposition because their approach was hostile to the general principles of the bill. They really didn’t want us to go down the cap-and-trade route. They preferred the fee-and-dividend, the BC model, which, as the minister explained, isn’t working.

Counter that, again, with members of the third party. They did have a number of very significant concerns about oversight, integrity, transparency and support for low-income households, support for First Nations communities as they find a transition. Although we couldn’t, in all cases, go as far as they wanted to, we did make a number of motions that supported the kinds of initiatives that were coming forward and incorporated those in the bill.

From our government’s perspective, we brought forward something in the order of 70 amendments, a goodly portion of which were technical in nature, because of the French language translations, to get some language consistent, which, in the course of the drafting, hadn’t been completely consistent with other acts that it was referring to—quite a responsible opportunity to clarify this, to make the bill more functional.

What we found in committee, again from the members of the official opposition, was a total reluctance to move the bill through committee in an expeditious manner. What we saw was a new level of filibustering, where we’d come to a vote on a very technical amendment—just to change a word in a motion—and the members would call for a 20-minute recess. To do what? To strategize how to vote on a technical change to the amendment, which is what that request is designed for, so you can huddle in your caucus, with your staff, with your expert advisers? No.

It was a deliberate attempt to delay the bill as long as they could, not to get it through the committee so it could come back to the House for third reading with, I believe, a sense that if we can delay this long enough, maybe we can’t meet the deadlines that would be necessary for us to have our first market—

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Auction.

Mr. Arthur Potts: Auction; thank you—market auction for 2017.

It was a disruptive, pre-emptive process, which resulted—in order to recognize that there were timelines, in the normal course of committee hearings and clause-by-clause we would have been able to move through these 200 mostly technical amendments.

We had to then come back to the House and seek timeline closures on the committee process, again tying up this House’s time unnecessarily in order to resist this deliberate time-delaying filibuster. Part of that time delay wasn’t to essentially limit the debate. We still gave tremendous breadth of opportunity and the hours necessary to allow them to do it, but there would come a point in time we’d have to say enough is enough. And that time might have been at 11:30 on a Wednesday night if we hadn’t finally gotten through the bill.

Fortunately, to their credit, members of the official opposition stopped that level of filibustering as they went into hearings. I know that they love to work late, members of the opposition, as I was prepared to do, but we never had to do those evening sittings because we were able to get the bill through the committee process.

The kinds of changes we did bring into place—we were improving the accountability and transparency of the act. We had a submission from the Financial Accountability Officer. There was concern about his capacity to do a full analysis and oversight of the technical data associated with the kinds of plans and programs that the Minister of the Environment would be recommending to cabinet, that we should be investing the proceeds from the cap-and-trade program. There was a concern. He wanted to have all the background data on all the programs that people were reviewing.

We recognize how essentially important it is to have the Financial Accountability Officer have the opportunity to make a full analysis on the decision-making of the government.

So we crafted a motion, with the assistance of the Financial Accountability Officer, that would satisfy his key objective to have all the information he required for decisions that we took—not for all the decisions that we considered taking, because that’s way too wide a breadth, and all the different ideas that come forward get filtered down through our experts, both within the ministry, with the breadth and knowledge that the minister himself brings to the file, and then to his recommendations to the Treasury Board, which becomes in a sense an internal cabinet document.

There is a principle of cabinet confidentiality which we needed to preserve, because it’s important that we’re allowed to have free and open exchange amongst ourselves at the cabinet stage. But when it comes to the decision-making on the things that we’ve agreed that we need to do, that will then be subject to the oversight of the Financial Accountability Officer. We thought that was very important, and we accepted that motion and moved forward with it.

We also accepted a number of motions that would protect the personal information of people in the system. We were very clear in the drafting of some motions that only the information necessary to identify persons—in the bill, they would be protected at a freedom-of-information-and-privacy level of protection. Only the information critical to making assessments would be revealed and nothing more.

The minister talked at length about a number of scientists who have done great work in highlighting the difficulty and the dangers that we face going forward. In my little remaining time, I want to talk a little about Dr. James Lovelock.

Dr. James Lovelock has written some seminal books about how Mother Nature operates—the thesis of Gaia, he calls it—and two critical books, The Vanishing Face of Gaia and The Revenge of Gaia.

Mother Earth doesn’t really care who we are, is not in any way empathetic to the human species, and is quite happy to deal with us in a rough and rude manner to the point of our personal extinction. What he does explain in his book and in his thesis is the capacity of Gaia, of Mother Earth, to cushion the effects of climate change through mechanisms around organisms—the trees, the grass, the waters, ice—and give us fair warning of what will happen if we don’t heed those warnings.

There comes, however, a tipping point from which there is no return, when the collapse of systems becomes so profound that the very existence of this species, our species, is a threat. That’s why getting this bill right is the most important thing we’ll do in this session.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Questions and comments?

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: First things first: I want to encourage this government to stop their spinning. The member from Beaches–East York stood up and said, “Well, the members from the opposition were heckling,” and he was sharing many assertions. Well, Speaker, you sat through this leadoff in third debate, and did you call us to order? No, not at all. The spinning has to stop.

Perhaps the member from Beaches–East York might do the honourable thing and correct his record, because the manner in which this government is misleading Ontarians is staggering. If they go to the extent of spinning over such a trivial aspect, just imagine what this government is doing with regard to cap-and-trade—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Stop the clock. I would ask the member to withdraw.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: Withdraw.

Speaker, I would go back to assert the fact that the manner in which this government is trying to confuse the Ontario public is unacceptable. If they’re going to that extent just over an imaginary aspect of third debate this morning, think about what they’re going to be doing for cap-and-trade.

I’ll quote the Financial Accountability Officer. He’s becoming increasingly alarmed with the manner in which this government is cloaking their cap-and-trade initiative with secrecy. Ontarians should be very alarmed, because this government is choosing to go down a path that has been proven in Europe to be fraught with fraud. The whole cap-and-trade initiative in Europe crashed.

When I was in Paris attending the amazing initiative celebrating how jurisdictions have come together to fight climate change, many jurisdictions, many countries are going, “Why is Ontario going with cap-and-trade? Don’t you know how it crashed and was full of fraud?” I just had to shrug my shoulders and say that we have a government that’s mismanaged for a decade, is short on cash, and they’re using the climate as an excuse to generate a slush fund.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Further questions and comments?

Ms. Jennifer K. French: I’m pleased to make some comments on Bill 172,

An Act respecting greenhouse gas, in response to both the minister and the member opposite.

Interjection.

Ms. Jennifer K. French: I know who you are and where you’re from.

The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change had made some thoughtful comments and sort of categorized people into three groups: the deniers, the ditherers and the defeatists. That’s how we started this morning. I was thinking about, perhaps, the opportunists as an additional column where we should maybe classify people.

I also wanted to talk about sitting here listening to the government talk about just how excited they are about the money coming in. I wish that they were so excited about bettering the environment. I wish that was the piece that I took away. I recognize, to the minister’s point, that environmental initiatives are going to cost money, but I would like to be clear on the assurances. I want more assurances that the money from this plan is actually going to make its way into environmental initiatives—as he said, to distill it down to the economic benefit, if we’re serious about climate change.

I would say that we need to distill it down to the purpose. We’re supposed to be improving our environment and our situation. That should be the goal of this.

I’m sitting here having interesting conversations with myself about switching to a low-emission vehicle and all of that. When we think about our new vehicles that will be on the horizon and plugging them in to that electricity that’s going to cost so much more in the province of Ontario down the road, and watching all of this unfold, I don’t know if I’m hopeful. I am anxious, I think, on behalf of the people of Ontario.

Also, to the member from Beaches–East York, sitting around late at night with a glass of wine making important environmental decisions: I’d like to know, were you at the Premier’s table with a napkin? This is where our decisions are being made? That’s cause for concern.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Further questions and comments?

Mr. Yvan Baker: I just want to take exception to the comment that was just made by the member from the NDP. I’ve sat here for 40 minutes and listened to the Minister of the Environment and the member for Beaches–East York talk about their passion for the environment. To suggest that this is about excitement about money, I think, is misrepresenting what’s happening here.

Speaker, a couple of months ago I held something called a youth advisory group meeting. It was the first event that I plan to hold regularly where youth come together and talk about the issues that are important to them. When I held this first meeting a couple of months ago, I heard about a range of issues. I heard about issues around youth unemployment, education and summer jobs, the kinds of things you would expect young people to raise. There were a number of other issues that were raised as well.

What was interesting was that the issue of climate change came up a lot. I think it came up a lot because the next generation is very concerned about this issue of climate change, this issue that our Minister of the Environment and Climate Change is showing tremendous passion and leadership on. When I think about what this bill is meant to do, this bill really is meant to put into reality the excitement of these two members and our Premier around addressing the issue of climate change. It does it in a very tangible and a responsible way.

There are two elements to the bill that I think the viewers at home should know about. There’s a long-term framework for climate action, so there are targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction over the course of a number of years that are very tangible and measurable. There’s an old expression: You measure what you treasure. I think that excitement around reducing emissions is baked into this bill by the fact that these targets are set.

The other piece is transparency and accountability around how the proceeds will be managed and used. As someone from a business background who sits on the Treasury Board, I’ll be watching that carefully to make sure we do the best we can in how we invest those funds.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Further questions and comments?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s a pleasure, obviously, to be part of the debate on Bill 172. I’d be remiss not to say thank you on behalf of the Progressive Conservative caucus to our critic Lisa Thompson from Huron–Bruce for the great work that she has been doing in the environment portfolio and in particular on this piece of legislation.

I often say, as a Conservative, “Just because you’re blue doesn’t mean you can’t be green.” I think that our party has had an important legacy in Ontario as well as in Canada on fighting a number of different environmental barriers, particularly when I look at Brian Mulroney, who joined our caucus a couple of weeks ago to talk to us about his acid rain treaty. I think that was a historic agreement that he created and one that we’re very proud of as Progressive Conservatives.

I look at, for example, my seatmate—

Interjection.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: The member is hilarious over there, from Beaches–East York, talking about heckling. Of course, he takes the opportunity to heckle me at the same time that I’m trying to talk about the legacies of our party.

When I look, for example, at my own seatmate, Jim Wilson—the opposition House leader, somebody who was among the first to order the closure of coal-fired plants—and my former colleague Elizabeth Witmer, who sat in this House with me for quite some time, who was the health and environment minister at the same time who made that decision to carry that on, those are important things—and the blue box. These are all initiatives that have been important and have been responded to in challenging times by the Progressive Conservative party.

What I find disingenuous from time to time when I listen to the minister and I listen to his government is that they claim to be the only advocates for a safe and clean environment. That is not the truth. As the mother of a daughter in grade 5, she is a steward of the environment, just as I am as a member of provincial Parliament, and my colleague Lisa Thompson has been an effective advocate in that regard.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Back to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change for final comments.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: I want to thank the members for Huron–Bruce, Oshawa, Etobicoke Centre and Nepean–Carleton for their comments. I’m glad the member talked about Brian Mulroney, who established the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, supported the Experimental Lakes and played a pivotal role in establishing the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

On the issue, the member from the New Democrats—I actually think this is an existential crisis of incredible proportions. You’re a teacher and you know. You look at children every day and I’m sure you do what I do, which is: What kind of planet are we leaving our kids? Can we have an Ontario with a 5- or 6- or 7-degree warmer boreal forest? I don’t think we can. I am up in the middle of the night thinking, “How the heck do you manage preventing the boreal forest from becoming a carbon source from being a carbon sink?” It’s very complicated.

Just look at Dr. Murray’s work—no relation—from Peterborough, from Trent University, or Dr. Keith Griffith’s, to understand. If you want to understand climate change in a microcosm, understand it in that. The challenge is that hugging a tree doesn’t help. Changing the way industry and cars and homes emit: That’s why we have to focus on the economy, because it is the changes in the economy that save our environment.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): I’d like to thank all members for listening intently and for active debate this morning.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): It is now 10:15. This House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): As you know, we have a tribute today, so we’ll get through our introductions.

Mr. Michael Harris: I want to welcome Dennis Yanke from Kitchener–Waterloo today, a member of Advocis. Welcome, Dennis, to the Legislature.

Mr. Michael Mantha: I’d like to introduce my friend Eric Barton, from Advocis. Hopefully we can get that golf game in this year.

Hon. Reza Moridi: It’s a great pleasure for me to welcome the parents of the page captain today, Alfred Shi: his mother Jeanne Ye and his father Lionel Shi. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Today, we are honoured to have with us veterans of the Battle of the Atlantic. Canada lost thousands of courageous officers, sailors and personnel of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Merchant Navy. Today, we have with us Battle of the Atlantic veterans Gordon Casey, Fraser McKee and Joe Duffy.

Miss Monique Taylor: I’m pleased to welcome Andrew Johnson and Lorraine Graham, who are here from Advocis today. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Jeff Leal: I’m very pleased to welcome today, in the member’s west gallery, Mr. Hickson and Ms. Gratton—they’re here with Advocis—from the great riding of Peterborough. I will be meeting with them later this afternoon.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: I want to welcome, also from Advocis, Gord Rymal from the city of North Bay.

Ms. Peggy Sattler: I’d like to welcome four financial advisers from London West who are here today with Advocis: Chris James, Sara La Gamba, Jamie Asmussen and Brad Unraw.

Mr. Bill Mauro: Also here today from Advocis, in the member’s east gallery, from my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan, is Mr. Mike Skube. Mike, welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Ted Arnott: I too wish to welcome Andrew Johnson, who is here from Advocis. I look forward to meeting with him later on this afternoon.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Two members of the Financial Advisors Association of Canada are here from Windsor–Tecumseh this morning: Aaron Keogh and Michellyne Mancini. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: I want to welcome all our friends from Advocis here today, particularly the president and CEO, Greg Pollock; chair of the board of directors, Caron Czorny; chair of the government relations committee and a good friend of mine, Kris Birchard; and chair of the provincial advocacy committee, Linda Gratton. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Lorne Coe: Here from Advocis, Durham region: Ron Fennell and Louisa Majoros. Welcome to Queen’s Parl.

M me France Gélinas: I have some visitors from Nickel Belt. They’re here for financial planning. It’s Allain Labelle, as well as Charlene Faiella.

While I’m up, Speaker, there are also representatives from the Alzheimer Society: their executive director, David Harvey; Lauren Rettinger and Gagan Gill. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I’m pleased to introduce a number of Advocis members from Ottawa. I was pleased to meet with them this morning: Jacques Duplain, Kirk Wrinn, John Saikaley, Angela Houle, David McGruer and Rob Stewart.

Mr. Norm Miller: I’d like to welcome, from Advocis, Dan Willett, Gary Laakso and James Maclean from the Simcoe-Muskoka branch of Advocis.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I’d like to welcome all the youth and their chaperones who are in the public gallery today. I believe we’re going to have over 150 of them here to celebrate Youth Civics Day.

I’d also like to welcome Avanthi Goddard, president of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies.

I’ll be meeting them all at a reception in a committee room after question period.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: I’d like to welcome Dawn Kennedy from South Bruce. She’s here with Advocis today.

Hon. Michael Chan: I would like to welcome our two interns, Aamer and Farnaz. I look forward to working with them.

Mr. Randy Hillier: I would like to welcome everyone from Advocis here today, including Sean Lawrence from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington.

Mr. Granville Anderson: I would like to welcome Chris Hudson, Dwight Hickson and Brent Holmes from Advocis who are here today from Durham. Welcome.

I would also like to welcome Marg Cartwright and Jackie Forsey who are here from Clarington with the MEAO. Welcome.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I had the pleasure this morning to meet with David Wilton and David Coad, who are here with Advocis at Queen’s Park today.

Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde: On behalf of my colleague the great member from Kingston, I would like to welcome to the Legislature from the Advocis Kingston chapter, the president, Will Britton; past president Ed Bettencourt; membership chair, Greg Gies; professional development chair, Jim Jodoin; Rita Dillon; and Gordon French. Welcome.

Mr. Jim McDonell: I would like to welcome some members from Advocis who met with me this morning: Kirk Wrinn, Rob Stewart, David McGruer, Ali Pahlavani and Kevin O’Connor. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Liz Sandals: Lauren Tedesco, my director of communications—who I think ended up upstairs somewhere, maybe—has got some family members here today: her mom, Glenda Tedesco; her grandma Audrey Mair; and her aunt Debbie Mair. Welcome.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: It gives me great pleasure to welcome a good friend of mine here today: Michael Camacho from Advocis, who is in the public gallery. Welcome, Michael.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: From my riding of Barrie, I wish to welcome Dan Willett and James Maclean of Advocis to the Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Todd Smith: I would like to welcome all of the financial advisors, especially Philip Wild and Shannon Neely from Quinte Advocis.

Mr. Arthur Potts: I want to introduce my good friend Moyra Haney, who is a member of the Naval Club, which is in my riding of Beaches–East York, and Joe Duffy, who is a constituent. They’re here for the Battle of the Atlantic tribute.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I am happy to welcome MEAO here, and I’m even going to pronounce it: the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Association of Ontario.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I too would like to welcome Mr. Phil Wild, a financial planner from the great riding of Northumberland–Quinte West. Welcome.

Mr. Joe Dickson: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I want to do further introductions. The member from Nepean–Carleton.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s my colleague Michael Harris’s birthday, and I would like to wish him a happy birthday on behalf of all members of this assembly.

Wearing of ribbons

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Ajax–Pickering on a point of order.

Mr. Joe Dickson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that you will find we have unanimous consent that all members be permitted to wear ribbons in recognition of the work done by the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Association of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Ajax–Pickering is seeking unanimous consent to wear the ribbons. Do we agree? Agreed.

Battle of the Atlantic

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

Mr. Patrick Brown: I believe you will find that we have unanimous consent to have a moment of silence in honour of those we lost during the Battle of the Atlantic, Canada’s largest military engagement during the Second World War.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition is seeking a moment’s silence. Do we agree?

I would ask all members of the House to please rise for a moment of silence to pay tribute.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Pray be seated.

Visitors

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Would the members please join me in welcoming the family of the late Leo Jordan, MPP for Lanark–Renfrew during the 35th and 36th Parliaments, who are seated in the Speaker’s gallery: his daughters Valerie Wilson, Anne Marie Simard and her husband, Guy, and Helen McGuire and her husband, Mike; his son, John Jordan, and his wife, Brenda-Leah; and his grandchildren Christopher, Stephen, Shamus, Maryanne, Jordan, David, Justen, Amanda and Emily. We welcome them to the House.

Also in the Speaker’s gallery is Mr. Steve Gilchrist, MPP for Scarborough East during the 36th and 37th Parliaments, and Mr. Norm Sterling, MPP for the Carleton ridings from the 31st to the 39th—there are too many numbers in there for Parliaments. Thank you very much.

Leo Jordan

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Government House leader on a point of order.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: Good morning, Speaker. Thank you. I believe you will find that we have unanimous consent to pay tribute to Leo Jordan, former member for Lanark–Renfrew, with a representative from each caucus speaking for up to five minutes.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The government House leader is seeking consent to pay tribute. Do we agree? Agreed.

The member from Kitchener–Waterloo.

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s an honour to speak about Leo Jordan today.

If you were to sum up the thousands of life lessons that are accumulated over the average lifetime, be they negative or positive, they basically fall into two categories. First, there are the how-tos, the things that we’re encouraged to emulate or adapt to our own journey. These are the ideal takeaways from our interactions with family, friends, colleagues and even, in many cases, complete strangers.

The other category is a bit more complicated. These are the lessons that are borne of our challenges and our hardships, and I’ll call them the “how to do betters.” It is these types of lessons—the often painful kind—that usually have the greatest impact. Arguably, it’s when we have to pick ourselves up that we are most inspired to reach beyond ourselves to ensure that our lives are not defined by our difficulties, but by the ability to overcome them.

In many cases, our lives are enriched by a special set of people, those who take hardship and difficulty and craft them into exemplary lives for all of the right reasons. These are the type of people whose conduct is not only worthy of our admiration, but who provide us with something to aspire to.

I never had the privilege of meeting Leo Jordan, but in our research for today, it’s clear that he was the type of person who did his best to make the best of his hardships and then use them and those lessons to benefit those around him.

In both his political and personal life, Leo understood that it was essential to be someone that people could count on, an experience that was shaped early in childhood by the untimely death of his father. The tragedy pulled his family closer together and had an indelible impact on young Leo. Whether it was his long career at Ontario Hydro, his time in both municipal and provincial office or at home with his family, it was clear that he gave his all to those he was dedicated to.

Leo took great pride in his ability to get things done for the good people of Lanark–Renfrew, regardless of who was in power. Although he was one of the few new PC MPPs elected in the NDP sweep of 1990, his riding received record investment, despite the Tories’ third-party status. In the wake of the 1998 ice storm, he made it his mission to ensure that those affected received the funding they were entitled to in order to help the community and region get back on its feet.

Not surprisingly, Leo’s provincial career was arguably at its best at a time that the PC Party fought to free itself from third-party status. Drawing on the lessons learned during the adversity of his childhood, Leo and his colleagues rallied around one another as they worked to achieve their goal of government.

While Leo wasn’t a household name, his hard work, positive attitude and integrity were the foundational elements of success. After his death, Senator Bob Runciman, one of Leo’s former caucus colleagues and a close friend, spoke fondly of their time together and the bonds formed during these challenging times.

Depending on your perspective, the Harris years were either the best of times or the worst of times, but I’m sure that even Mike Harris himself would agree that things would have been done differently if he knew in advance that the riding redistribution would cost him one of his most effective MPPs. In the wake of boundary changes, Leo lost his seat in a faceoff with Liberal stalwart Sean Conway in the new riding of Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

But Leo’s defeat did not mark the end of a career; it ushered in a new era of a regional elder statesman for the PC Party. Leo transitioned from being an effective MPP to being a mentor and resource for a new generation of PC MPPs from eastern Ontario, giving freely of his time and experience in order to ensure that his community maintained a strong presence at Queen’s Park.

In life, Leo Jordan worked diligently to make a difference in eastern Ontario, and in death, it was no different, as people paid tribute to his contributions by giving to the Tri-County Dental Coalition, an agency dedicated to ensuring access to dental services for the people of Leeds, Grenville and Lanark, regardless of age or income.

When the news of Leo’s passing first emerged, the tributes from his PC colleagues were expected but no less impactful. But praise came from the other side of the aisle as well, with former Premier and MP Bob Rae eulogizing his former political adversary as a “fine man and a great MPP.”

Today, we’re privileged to have Leo’s children and grandchildren here for this special occasion. While your father’s name and grandfather’s name is the one in the history books, it’s an honour you share because you were clearly the inspiration for the work that he did. From what I read, Leo struck me as the type of person who would downplay any accolades. Instead, it’s more likely that the tribute that would bring him the greatest joy is the pride that you take in the contributions he made to his community and his province. Thank you for being here today.

On behalf of Ontario’s NDP, we salute the life and work of Leo Jordan. Thank you for sharing Leo with us.

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

Mr. John Fraser: It’s an honour to say a few words on behalf of the Liberal caucus about Leo Jordan, the former MPP from Lanark–Renfrew.

Born in 1929 in Almonte, he grew up on a farm and had a farm himself. He was educated at local schools and at Carleton. He worked for Ontario Hydro for 39 years. He was involved with the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Smith Falls property standards association, parent-teacher associations—and that was all before he became an elected member here in this Legislature. He was also the reeve of Montague township.

First elected in September 1990, he served as the critic for energy, mines and natural resources and on several standing committees. In 1995 he won the general election, and in 1997 he was appointed as PA to the Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism.

As I said before, prior to that he worked for 39 years at Ontario Hydro. It’s not what we do here as much as what we bring here. What we bring as members is our experience and, most importantly, our community. His experience at Hydro—I dug up a news release from about 12 years ago which says, “Leo Jordan stated that Ontario Hydro’s recently announced profit of $665 million for the first six months of 1994 still fails to address the utility’s massive debt problem.” That was a bit prescient. It took a bit more than a decade to fix that. That’s what he brought there.

What he brought from Hydro, too, was his experience in customer service and serving people and understanding what the needs of people are.

He ran in 1999, with redistribution—and as the member from Kitchener said, I think if Mike Harris had had a second thought he might have changed that redistribution, because he had a great member. He ran against one of our members, Sean Conway, and was not successful.

Here is a real mark to how he was viewed in this Legislature. These are comments from Sean Conway: “I was very saddened to hear of Leo’s passing recently. Leo and I served together in the Legislature for the same area of rural eastern Ontario during the 1990s and I got to know him well. He had a great sense of humour and could always find the fun in just about any situation....

“But most of all, Leo and his wonderful wife Thecla loved being with people. Whether it was a parade, a picnic, or just walking down the Main Street of Smiths Falls, Lanark village or Arnprior, they made themselves at home and were open and friendly with everyone they met. In fact, one of my most vivid memories of Leo will always be of his standing in line at the annual church supper at Mount St. Patrick, the historic capital of the Irish in the Ottawa Valley.

“I can see him clearly in my mind’s eye, standing there with a broad smile on his face and knowing that he was about to get a great meal and take one step closer to heaven! A good man who served his community well in so many different capacities. We thank him and his marvellous family for his and their service.”

As I said, Mr. Speaker, it’s what we bring here. The two things we can do are to bring our community to Queen’s Park and be the representative of the people and speak on things like ensuring that people get the compensation they deserved through the ice storm, or if they have a problem, that that problem gets fixed. It’s also what we do in our communities: be accessible and welcoming to all those people we represent, whether we agree with them or not.

I think that all of us, when we consider tributes—and especially a tribute like today’s to Leo—need to consider and think about what they’re going to say about us. I know for myself, I feel that if people say about me what we’re going to hear today about Leo, I’ll feel that I’ve been a success.

I want to thank his family for being here today. He’s left a legacy here and in his community, and you’re his legacy as well. It’s an honour to say a few words.

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

Mr. Ted Arnott: Leo Jordan left a legacy of faith, family, dignity and servant leadership when he departed this life on February 15 last year. For those of us who were privileged to know him, work with him, call him a friend and, indeed, love him, there are many special memories.

One of his close friends who was also a professional colleague remembered Leo this way: “He had a strong and persistent sense of his responsibility as an elected member, always aware of the fact that his role was to serve his constituents, and he selflessly put their needs first. He acted not just for those who voted for him but for all the people of Lanark–Renfrew.

“He had a rock-solid work ethic, making sure that every effort was made to see projects through for the people of Lanark–Renfrew. He was unrelenting on their behalf. He never gave up.

“He was a true leader, which was reflected in the method and manner of his service as a member of provincial Parliament. At Queen’s Park, he developed a keen ability to navigate the system in order that he could work with people who were willing to make a positive difference. He could humbly win their support for his constituents’ needs, regardless of what party they belonged to or what positions they held.”

I can attest to that, Mr. Speaker. One time when we were in government, Leo was pushing and pushing and pushing for a satellite dialysis service for the Renfrew hospital. He was absolutely relentless. I heard all about it, not only from him, but I also heard the other side of the story from the health minister who was the subject of his incessant lobbying—and remember, we were in government. He’d come up to me and say, “We’ve done all the homework. We’ve made our case. Why won’t she just approve it? Why is she being so stubborn?”

The next day, the Minister of Health would come up to me and say, “Leo won’t listen. We have to make these decisions as part of an overall coordinated provincial plan. We can’t do one-offs for Leo. Why is he being so stubborn?” Eventually, of course, Leo got his way and the dialysis service was approved. And yes, the Minister of Health got her way as well, announcing it was going to be part of a coordinated plan to bring dialysis services closer to home.

Another time, in the early 1990s, when the New Democrats were in office and we were called the third party in this House, we were complaining in question period that government funding for all manner of projects was going disproportionately to NDP-held ridings—imagine that—with the opposition-held ridings, our ridings, getting peanuts.

Premier Bob Rae responded to our questions in the House. “That allegation is poppycock,” he said. “We’re not favouring our ridings ahead of the other ridings. In fact, there is no riding in the province that’s receiving more attention and government funding than the riding of Lanark–Renfrew, which of course is Progressive Conservative.” Leo immediately leapt to his feet and shouted, “Point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Premier has just made a statement and I need to respond. The Premier is absolutely right.” Then he sat down. Confrontation if need be, then compromise and collaboration: That’s how Leo got things done.

In preparation for today, I shared memories of Leo with the member for Leeds–Grenville, who wanted to be here, but was very sorry he couldn’t due to a constituency commitment. Steve Clark told me that Leo had attended his nomination meeting in 2010, unannounced and without fanfare, as was Leo’s way. Steve had just begun his speech, and he made eye contact with the people in the crowded hall that night in Brockville and saw Leo near the front. Leo smiled and nodded, and it gave Steve an overwhelming boost that someone he respected and admired so much was there for him, and the realization that no matter what the outcome, all would turn out well.

I also remembered Leo recently with my good friend Gary Carr, who was the former MPP for Oakville South and, as you know, Mr. Speaker, sat in that chair, and is now the regional chair of Halton. Because the three of us were first elected as part of the class of 1990—Leo, Gary and I—we were seatmates together for years. The three amigos, maybe—three stooges to some, perhaps, on the other side of the House; I don’t know. But Gary remembered Leo as a real gentleman. He said that Leo was one of a kind. “They broke the mould after Leo Jordan,” he added.

I suggested that Leo always seemed to me to be more a parliamentarian than a politician, such was his deep and profound respect for our democratic institutions and the democratic values that give them life. He understood the roles of the sovereign, the Lieutenant Governor, the Premier, the cabinet, the Legislature, the judiciary, the public service, and our agencies, boards and commissions, and how these institutions, taken together, are charged with the responsibility of providing good government for the people.

Prior to his election to the Legislature, Leo had a distinguished 39-year career at Ontario Hydro, as was mentioned already. No MPP in the modern era has had a better or more complete understanding of how our electricity system works and how it should work. He loved to talk about it and to explain how important Sir Adam Beck’s principle of power at cost and of safe, reliable and affordable power had been to the history of Ontario—to our development, our economy and our industry. He was extremely knowledgeable as critic to the Minister of Energy, and he never needed a briefing. He knew more about hydro than the rest of us put together.

In government from 1995 to 1999, he served with the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, with special leadership responsibilities for tourism. There, he led the implementation of tourism-oriented directional signs, or TOD signs, as they were called. We see these signs on our highways today, helping tourists find their destination. He also successfully fought to give tourism operators better access to the credit they need.

But his constituents always came first. Big accomplishments like the dialysis service in Renfrew, which I mentioned earlier; bringing four lanes to Arnprior; Highway 416; Highway 417; and his work to keep the Perth hospital from closing by proposing consolidation of administration: All went alongside the day-to-day advice and assistance that he loved to offer his people.

Thus far in my remarks, I’ve spoken about Leo Jordan’s public life, but as is the case for all of us, there is much more to Leo than his public persona. He wasn’t just a great MPP; he was also a great man—good, decent, caring and honest. I was reminded recently of something I had observed years ago but had forgotten, I have to say. Leo always made an effort to be in the chamber every day when the proceedings started so as to be present for the beautiful opening prayer that we used to recite daily—that we recited today, Mr. Speaker—followed by the Lord’s prayer. He saw it as a time for quiet reflection and a daily ritual of faith that set the tone for the remainder of the day.

While Leo was a modest and self-effacing man, he never sought to draw attention to himself. However, his family—wife Thecla; their daughters Anne Marie, Leona, Helen and Valerie, son John and their spouses; and their grandchildren—were a source of immense pride. We welcome the Jordan family here today. I don’t have to tell you how much he loved you all, but I can tell you that he never stopped talking about your accomplishments, the outstanding people you had grown to become, and how blessed he felt to have such a wonderful family.

Until her untimely passing, Thecla was always at Leo’s side, whether at community events in the riding, making many weekly trips to Toronto by train, or managing the household at their magnificent Kellordan Farms on Kelly-Jordan Road in Montague township near Smiths Falls. There they hosted annual summer barbecues that would attract close to 1,000 people.

Leo and Thecla were as devoted to each other as any married couple you would ever meet, with a relationship built on faith, love, mutual respect, their children’s upbringing and helping with their grandchildren.

Leo was very proud of one other thing that I should mention here today. He was very proud to be a son of rural Ontario and the Ottawa Valley. In our farms and countryside and in our small villages and towns, he saw the values of family and church. He saw the values of hard work and self-reliance, balanced with leisure and community. In short, he saw the values that built Ontario and made us the leader of the country.

We often talked about this and how privileged we both felt to serve and lead in our respective communities. We all know there are good days and bad days in this place. I remember one time, when I was feeling quite discouraged, I confided in Leo and told him I was feeling down and was questioning why I was even here and whether my efforts were making a difference. Leo’s reply was as firm as it was principled and wise. “Never forget this,” he said. “You’re not here because you wanted to be here. You’re here because the people of your riding sent you here.”

The same could be said to all of us. Let us never forget that. And let us always remember Leo Jordan.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I thank all members for their very thoughtful and heartfelt comments. The tribute to Leo Jordan is well received.

I would like to tell the family that you will be receiving a hard copy of Hansard and a DVD as part of your keepsake for our affection for Leo. We thank you for the gift of Leo.

Oral Questions

Nurses

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. But first, I want to thank the over 150,000 nurses in Ontario as they celebrate Nursing Week 2016. I believe that all registered nurses, nurse practitioners, registered practical nurses and nursing students deserve our praise each and every day. I will stand with the nursing profession as they have faced unprecedented cuts by this government.

Everywhere I travel in the province, I hear about nursing cuts: In Timmins, dozens of jobs cut; at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, 15 RNs just cut; at Runnymede health centre in Toronto, half the RNs have been cut. This is just a small fraction of the 1,400 nurses fired in the last year.

I’m not interested in a history lesson of what the government did 15 years ago or 50 years ago. My question is, why have you fired 1,400 nurses in the last year?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. There’s an indication that things are going to ramp up, and I will bring it down.

Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Well, I certainly understand why the Leader of the Opposition wouldn’t want to talk about the past. He wouldn’t want to talk about the record of that party when they were in office, nor would he want to talk about the nine years that he spent in the Stephen Harper government when the health accord was cut. I understand why he doesn’t want to talk about that, so let’s talk about the facts. Let’s talk about the fact that since 2003, more than 26,000 nurses, including 11,000 registered nurses, have begun work in Ontario.

Let’s talk about the fact that, year over year, we have increased health care funding, including $1 billion this year, of which $345 million is for hospitals.

There is a consistent trend line. In 2015, the number of nurses employed in nursing in Ontario increased for the 11th consecutive year. Those are the facts.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: Last week, at a town hall meeting in Sault Ste. Marie, residents and front-line workers shared with the Sault Star the horror stories of the Liberal cuts. Glenda Hubley, president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association Local 46, apologized on behalf of all front-line employees. Despite the fact that they “do their best amid extreme pressures under which they work,” sometimes they can’t do it alone. But this government is forcing them to do it alone. Our front-line workers deserve better. Our patients deserve better.

Again to the Premier: Why did you let go 1,400 nurses last year?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Well, I know that the people of Sault Ste. Marie are very happy with their new hospital and all the services that it’s providing. I know they’re happy with their nurse-practitioner-led clinic and the family health teams as well that are providing excellent care due to the excellent work of those front-line health care workers.

But it is simply not true that we’re cutting the number of nurses in any sector, because when you look at just the hospital sector alone between 2011 and 2015, the net increase—because I know that both opposition parties like to talk about the gross, just the layoffs and not the new hires. But when you look at the net change between 2011 to 2015 just on nurses in our hospital sector, it increased by 7,625 positions, the majority of them RNs.

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary, please.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Again to the Premier: Sometimes I wonder what fantasy world this government lives in. You’ve got the Minister of Finance saying hydro rates are going down and you have the Minister of Health saying he isn’t cutting nurses despite the fact that 1,400 were fired last year, 1,400 that we desperately needed.

Let me point out another example, in Simcoe county. At Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, 16 beds were just cut; 35 people fired. The numbers don’t lie. The hospital cuts we’re seeing in every hospital in Ontario do not lie.

Mr. Speaker, the people of Simcoe county deserve better. The residents of Rama First Nation served by Soldiers’ Memorial deserve better. Will the Liberals reverse the cuts at Soldiers’ Memorial? Will they do the right thing and support our nurses?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: In fact, the changes that have been made at Orillia soldiers’ hospital were the result of a recommendation coming from the LHIN but also from a provincial rehabilitation association that looks at complex continuing care. It looks at how they can actually bring those services and those supports closer to people in their communities. One aspect of the decision at soldiers’ hospital was a result of the provincial Rehabilitative Care Alliance and the LHIN and the hospital itself, realizing that they could shift support closer to the communities where that complex continuing care is made.

That’s what’s happening. It’s actually an improvement in the services that Ontarians can expect.

It’s unfortunate that, unlike almost all of his colleagues in the PC Party—I wish the leader of the official opposition would actually come to me if he has concerns about hospitals across the province.

Autism treatment

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. Since I can’t get an answer on the 1,400 nursing cuts, I’ll try something else. I want to read to you a subheadline from an editorial—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Come to order. Please.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Mr. Speaker, I want to read from an editorial in the Toronto Star this past weekend. It read, “The government wants to reduce wait-list times for intensive treatment for autism. Unfortunately, it is doing so by simply cutting kids on the wait-list who are over five. That’s not fair.”

This government’s idea of helping children with autism is taking them off of one wait-list and putting them on another. It’s not too late for this government to reverse course and do the right thing. Will the Premier listen to the fine folks of the Toronto Star on their recommendation and fund autism for families for families that need it? Fund IBI.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: They are fine folks at the Toronto Star, as are all our media gallery. But I will say that on this, it’s very important that we understand exactly what is happening, and that is that there are children who have been sitting on a waiting list not getting service. The status quo is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to us, on this side of the House, that children who need therapy in a window of time, as they develop, not get that therapy.

So Mr. Speaker, we are investing in the system so that those children will get the service that they need. We are working with the families, the service providers are working with the families, and the education system is working with the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, because we know that helping those children through the transition, making sure they get the intensive service when they need it and that they are then able to be socialized in school—that is what children need, Mr. Speaker. It’s up to us to make sure we get them off a waiting list and into that transition.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: If the Premier is not going to listen to the editorial of the Toronto Star, maybe the Premier will listen to Michael Barrett, president of Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. He said, “It’s never too late to correct a mistake.” Cutting IBI treatment for children over five is a mistake. It is a mistake to take the chance for IBI treatment away from a five-year-old like Keith in Toronto. His mom called these changes “devastating” to her child’s future, and she said these devastating cuts to Keith’s treatments are “heartbreaking.”

Mr. Speaker, why is this Premier, why is this government, taking away IBI from children who desperately need it?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I just said, what we are doing is we are working to ensure that 16,000 more children get service, that the service that the children get is tailored to their needs, that they move off the waiting list, that they have the opportunity to immediately start to buy services and that they make a transition into new service that is tailored to their needs based on a clinical assessment. That is of much more benefit to a child than sitting on a waiting list.

Quite frankly, I don’t understand why either of the opposition parties would want to see children languish on a waiting list, getting no service, when they know perfectly well that kids need service early and they need it continuously.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: You were the minister who was going to put IBI in schools, weren’t you? What happened to that?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Leader of the third party, come to order, please.

Final supplementary.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: I will go back to this Toronto Star editorial that I mentioned earlier. To quote the Toronto Star, “To suddenly strip children and families of the hope to which they have clung, sometimes for years, is too cruel a way to save money or find efficiencies.”

“Too cruel:” Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this move by the government is. The Toronto Star is right when they say it is cruel. Thousands of families waited for years and then, with a stroke of a pen, this government ripped away any ounce of hope that these families had.

Will the Premier put herself in the shoes of these families that you have kicked off the list? Will you give them the hope they need, the hope they deserve? Will the Premier do the right thing? It’s not too late. Will you fund IBI for kids over five? Autism doesn’t end at five.

Interjections.

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

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: One thing we can agree on here, I think, is that we do want to give hope to those children. We want to give hope to families. It’s important to note that we are not taking kids away from service who are on that wait-list. We are putting them into service, Speaker, and our service providers will work very closely with those families.

In terms of education, the Minister of Education and I and our staffs are working together. I read the Michael Barrett article. I know him personally, and I know the Minister of Education does. We’re reaching out to him to make sure he has all the facts and the information about how we’re going to continue to give hope to these kids, how we are not going to accept that there are wait-lists for potentially up to five years by 2018. I think nobody wants to see that.

It’s very important that we work with our education partners, because many of these kids are school-aged or will be becoming school-aged very shortly. We want to support them through that transition.

Nurses

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. When families are at their most vulnerable, they count on a nurse to be there, but for the last 16 months nurses have been fired at a rate of 90 a month. That’s three per day. That is unacceptable.

Will this Premier make a clear commitment that no more registered nurses will get a pink slip, no more registered practical nurses will get a pink slip and no more nurse practitioners in this province will get a pink slip?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I refer to the answer I have already given and will repeat that: We have, year over year, increased the number of nurses—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Prince Edward–Hastings, come to order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —in the system. We have increased the amount of money that goes into health care. The Minister of Health and Long-Term Care has made it clear that between 2011 and 2015, over 7,000 nurses were hired and placed in this province.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that if you look at the changes that are being made in the system, it’s true: There are services that are moving out of hospitals and into the community or in some cases moving closer to communities, and that means changes. That means changes in personnel; it means changes in location. But it doesn’t mean fewer health care providers. In fact, it means more health care providers as we increase service across the province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: On Friday, the Premier was touring an Ottawa hospital, but on the other side of the city, in another Ottawa hospital, nurses were given notice of more layoffs. Queensway Carleton Hospital told staff that five full-time and one part-time nurse from the childbirth program would be laid off, and a full-time team leader in surgery would also be eliminated.

Fewer nurses means less care and longer wait times for the people of Ottawa. Make no mistake: This Premier is directly responsible. Cutting nurses is the wrong thing to do. Patients know it, families know it, New Democrats know it and nurses know it.

On Nursing Week, how can this Premier defend another round of Liberal cuts to front-line nurses in Ottawa?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Mr. Speaker, I wish we could at least agree on one thing: that we choose an independent source for the statistics that we provide in this Legislature, that we don’t talk about gross numbers or layoffs without talking about the new positions added. I would hope that we could agree—and it’s transparent for all Ontarians to see—that the College of Nurses of Ontario publishes on an annual basis the statistics for nurses in this province.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Those nurses don’t have jobs.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Well, if you don’t want to believe the College of Nurses of Ontario, that’s your choice.

But they’ve indicated in the last year alone almost 3,000 new nursing positions in this province—net new. They have published in the last five years almost 8,000 net new positions in our hospitals, the majority of them RNs.

I would choose to believe the college on these. I would implore the opposition parties to do the same.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Since 2012, the Liberals have taken $100 million out of Ottawa Hospital’s budget—that’s a fact—forcing that hospital to cut front-line health care workers year after year. That, too, is a fact. Over at CHEO, another 27 full-time positions had to be cut last year—another fact.

And now, on Friday, the health minister admitted that this year’s funding for Ottawa’s hospitals, like Hôpital Montfort, will not keep up with inflation and population growth—another fact. It will not repair the damage; it will not stop the cuts to nursing. In fact, it means another year of cuts to health care in Ottawa.

Why won’t this Premier do the right thing and put a stop to any more nursing cuts in Ontario’s hospitals?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: It is true that on Friday the Premier and I—I was honoured to be with her at Montfort Hospital—announced new funding, an increase of $19 million for the Ottawa hospitals.

It is also a fact that by any indicator, according to the College of Nurses of Ontario, we have more RNs working in this province than since we came into office, we have more RPNs, and we have more nurse practitioners. Whether it’s per capita or absolute numbers, it has increased.

History is an important lesson and when you have an opposition, a third party—3,000 RNs lost their jobs when they were in power, when they cut funding to hospitals in the last year of their time in government, when they closed 24% of the acute hospital beds in this province. I’m not going to take my lesson from a party with that kind of record.

Interjections.

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

New question.

Hospital funding

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Premier. Last Friday I was in Sarnia. I met an elderly couple who moved to Sarnia because the health care in their hometown of Wallaceburg had faced so many cuts that they wanted to live in a place where they thought they could be sure that they would be able to actually age with dignity. Now that they’re in Sarnia, the hospital is being forced to cut $5 million from its budget, and the total number of hospital workers cut over the past four years will reach 80. The hospital will still face a $1.7-million shortfall. This elderly couple thought that they could find security by moving. People can’t get away from the cuts, though.

Will this Premier do the right thing and ensure that hospitals are not being forced to cut?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Again, Mr. Speaker, we’re increasing our funding to hospitals across this province by $345 million this year. That represents a 2.1% increase in the line in the budget for our hospital funding.

It includes Bluewater Health in Sarnia. In fact, Bluewater is doing better than the provincial average because they’re receiving an additional $3.5 million this year, an increase in their operating budget. That represents a 2.73% increase in their operating budget.

The facts are that we continue to invest in our health care system, an additional $1 billion this year; $345 million of that is going into the operating expenses of hospitals at a 2% increase. That doesn’t even begin to talk about the enormous capital investment that we’re making across the province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Sarnia isn’t just cutting another 11 jobs. They’re not just facing another $5 million in cuts. The complex continuing care unit is being forced to close eight beds.

To the Premier, her minister and the governing Liberals, this may be all about spin but to the people it’s about health. It’s about the health care of their families and the availability of services in their community hospitals. Will this Premier actually face up to the silent crisis that the Liberals are creating in the health care system and put a stop to the hospital cuts right here and right now?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: As I mentioned, we continue to invest. I want to talk about the capital investments that were outlined in our budget recently passed because, over the next decade, we’re investing $12 billion in hospital renovations and expansions and, in many cases, brand new hospitals right across this province. It’s an important investment, but we also recognize that hospitals have ongoing maintenance costs and small redevelopment and renovation costs. So we’ve increased by $50 million in this year’s budget the funds that we put towards those renovations.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, we expect our local hospital administrations and their boards, together with our LHINs and together with the ministry, to make decisions which ensure that the quality of services and care are of the best possible quality. That’s our goal, and we work hard to achieve that across this province.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, those hospitals are going to have a hard time serving patients when there aren’t any nurses at the bedside. For the last three years, per capita health spending on hospitals in Ontario has fallen. The last time that happened was in 1997, and Mike Harris was the Premier.

Today, just like in 1997, hospitals are being forced to close beds, fire nurses, cancel surgeries and treat people in conference rooms and hallways. That’s what’s happening here in the province of Ontario: treatment in conference rooms and in hallways because of Liberal cuts to our hospital system.

When will this Premier stop cutting hospitals, stop firing nurses, and make sure Ontarians can count on our hospitals and our health care system?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Finally, Mr. Speaker, something we can agree on: the fact that the PC Party, when they were in power—there were 6,000 fewer nurses working at the end of their tenure as government. There were 3,000 fewer nurses as well working when the NDP left government compared to the beginning.

Mr. Speaker, what concerns me is that in their last election platform, they committed to finding $600 million in savings. In fact, the member for Kitchener–Waterloo, when pressed on the issue by the CBC, admitted that those savings would be found in health care and in education. She went on to say, in fact, that she would go first to health to find that $600 million in savings. There is no doubt there would have been dramatic, drastic cuts if they would have won that election.

Electric vehicle charging stations

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is for the Minister of the Environment. Last week, the minister was forced to backtrack on his negative comments towards the province’s auto sector. Despite his swings at the auto sector, we know that under the government’s Green Investment Fund, they’re using cap-and-trade money to build charging stations.

Now, we’re glad that he saw the light on the auto sector after being taken to the woodshed, but why is he giving millions of dollars of contracts to Hydro-Québec to install electric vehicle charging stations when there are plenty of Ontario companies that can do the job? Why are you doing that, Minister?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: I’m sure my colleague the Minister of Transportation would also like to make a comment about this, but let’s just get the record straight: I, unlike the member opposite—members over here have voted for the largest investments in our auto sector in the history of Canada. I’m very proud to have worked with the auto sector, and without the support of the party opposite, who doesn’t want to see any revenue come out of cap-and-trade for the auto sector, we’re about to repeat that and make another massive investment in building the Ontario auto sector and the infrastructure to support it.

I need no lessons from the member opposite on being a champion for the auto sector. When he can hold his voting record to be anywhere near members on this side for the auto sector—because you didn’t learn your lesson, and you’re opposing the cap-and-trade system that will deliver unprecedented investments in innovation, in market development, in modernization of plants and in developing new markets for Ontario’s automobile—

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

Mr. John Yakabuski: He refuses to answer the first question. First we give free hydro to Quebec, and now we’re going to have them build our charging stations?

The minister has had to backtrack on comments made about the nuclear industry, agriculture and the auto sector, all in one week. Now the Premier’s office won’t even let him speak to the Toronto board of trade because he’s too much of a liability. It’s one thing to say something ill-informed, but it’s another to act on it.

If the minister thinks it’s best to take money in the Green Investment Fund, money that is raised from the taxpayers of Ontario, and invest it in contracts to other jurisdictions to build charging stations, then answer this: How much money from the Green Investment Fund, money from the people of Ontario, is going to contracts signed with other jurisdictions?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Minister of Transportation, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Steven Del Duca: I thank the member of the opposition for this question, however misguided it might be. A number of weeks ago, I was proud to stand in Mississauga here in Ontario—a wonderful community—to announce how we were proceeding with the $20 million that we announced back in December to build 500 electric vehicle charging stations by 2017 across the province of Ontario.

This will no doubt lead to a reduction in what we call range anxiety for those individuals who want to make that choice, in their efforts collectively to help us fight climate change, to purchase a zero-emissions vehicle. I would have thought that that member and the Conservative caucus would have supported an initiative that would build a network of fast and traditional chargers in every corner of the province.

I was proud to be in Mississauga at a company called KSI. We will see charging stations at Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, Ikeas and so many other places across this province. This member should support it.

Energy policies

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: My question is to the Premier. Today, we learned that during the Premier’s first two years in office, her party held nearly 100 big-ticket fundraisers. They promised face time with cabinet ministers, raising over $12 million.

A fundraiser last year was hosted by the very same Bay Street insiders who will benefit from the sale of Hydro One. Also remarkable was that those donors were promised access to both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, the ministers who made the Hydro One sell-off possible.

Now Ontarians should be able to trust that the government makes decisions with respect to energy based on the best interests of the public, not the best interests of the Liberal Party or its donors.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Deputy House leader, second time.

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: My question is, will the government launch a public inquiry into the energy sector contracts of Ontario?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I have said and as we are acting on, we are committed to changing pol