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July 17, 2014

41st Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2014-Jul-17 (PDF)

L010 - Thu 17 Jul 2014 / Jeu 17 jui 2014

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 17 July 2014 Jeudi 17 juillet 2014

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Building Opportunity and Securing Our Future Act (Budget Measures), 2014 / Loi de 2014 ouvrant des perspectives et assurant notre avenir (mesures budgétaires)

Introduction of Visitors

Oral Questions

Pan Am Games

Special-needs students

Privatization of public services

Ontario budget

Tendering process

Health care

Mining industry

Pan Am Games

Municipalities

Healthy living

Hospice care

Mining industry

Senior citizens

Pension plans

School closures

Deferred Votes

Building Opportunity and Securing Our Future Act (Budget Measures), 2014 / Loi de 2014 ouvrant des perspectives et assurant notre avenir (mesures budgétaires)

Members’ Statements

Events in Chatham–Kent–Essex

Museums

Urban Hero Awards

Canadian Plowing Championships

Events in Oshawa

Cambridge Highland Games

Electoral reform

Carolyn Khan

Rally for the People of Israel

Legislative pages

Introduction of Bills

Ryan’s Law (Ensuring Asthma Friendly Schools), 2014 / Loi Ryan de 2014 pour assurer la création d’écoles attentives à l’asthme

Motions

Private members’ public business

Petitions

Post-secondary education

Hydro rates

Alzheimer’s disease

Ontario Retirement Pension Plan

Hydro rates

Childhood apraxia of speech

Alzheimer’s disease

Ontario Retirement Pension Plan

Off-road vehicles

Private Members’ Public Business

Radon Awareness and Prevention Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur la sensibilisation au radon et la protection contre l’infiltration de ce gaz

Protecting Employees’ Tips Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur la protection du pourboire des employés

Ontario Bike Month Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur le Mois de la bicyclette en Ontario

Radon Awareness and Prevention Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur la sensibilisation au radon et la protection contre l’infiltration de ce gaz

Protecting Employees’ Tips Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur la protection du pourboire des employés

Ontario Bike Month Act, 2014 / Loi de 2014 sur le Mois de la bicyclette en Ontario

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Building Opportunity and Securing Our Future Act (Budget Measures), 2014 / Loi de 2014 ouvrant des perspectives et assurant notre avenir (mesures budgétaires)

Resuming the debate adjourned on July 16, 2014, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 14,

An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various Acts / Projet de loi 14, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

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

Mr. Arthur Potts: It gives me great honour to continue my remarks on the budget bill, and I look forward now to—I had an opportunity to speak yesterday, when we talked at length about what a progressive budget this was. As I went door to door in my community, I heard repeatedly how much people wanted us to enact this budget. This was the platform we ran on.

What I have a sense of is that the budget debate—we’ve already had it. We had it during the course of an entire campaign, where I think the party’s direction, the plan, which was contained in the budget, was one that was overwhelmingly supported across the province, resulting in the results of the election that we have. What I, of course, like most about this budget is how progressive it is.

If you’ll permit, my father taught me to be a Liberal. My father was a great inspiration to me—my father, Justice Joseph Potts. He was born in Saskatchewan, and he came to Toronto as a lawyer, developed a career practice where he was very active in the Canadian Bar Association, was the president of the Ontario Bar Association. He taught me about being a Liberal.

What is so important in this budget is how progressive it is. He once showed me a speech that was given by a French philosopher named Étienne Gilson. Étienne Gilson spoke to a Liberal gathering in 1958 in which he defined what it meant to be a Liberal. I think that his definition of “Liberal” is contained in this budget because of the support it gives in social justice, the recommendations it has from the Lankin-Sheikh report, and that we were going to implement it. We’ve gone a long way to bringing child poverty more money for children in low-income situations. But Mr.

Gilson defined being a Liberal as one who seeks direction from the majority but with due regard for the rights of minorities. I think that’s such an important concept, which is contained in my fundamental belief for liberalism, and I think you’ll see that those kinds of measures are contained in this budget bill.

I heard, in some of the other members’ comments about the bill, concern about energy rates, particularly in low-income housing. As you know, in this budget bill we have a plan to remove the debt retirement charge off energy bills which will relieve homeowners of about, I think it’s 7% or 8% of the costs of those energy bills—by taking the debt retirement charge off their energy bills. That’s a very, very important initiative that will help lower electrical charges for everyone across the province.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, you probably would be aware that there is a provision for a 10% reduction for energy bills for low-income families. This is another example of how we are trying to make and going to make energy rates more affordable for families in Ontario.

Now, part of the concern with high energy rates is that people want to blame our green energy policies for having jacked up the price of energy. Let’s be very clear. We’ve seen the report from the Environmental Commissioner which said that the cost impact of the green energy proposals is a minimal part of the increase that people have experienced. Most of the increase that people are experiencing in their bills has to do with having to rebuild the energy infrastructure of this province, particularly for peak-demand energy needs.

It was a commitment of our government to phase out coal-powered generation plants. That was an absolutely critical thing that had to be done. There are thousands of people every year whose lives are made better because they’re not breathing the smog and particulates associated with those plants. It has reduced the number of premature deaths as a result of asthma and other breathing complications, by removing those gas plants. But having removed those gas plants, you have to replace them.

We have done a good job of replacing those gas plants in communities that needed it, such as the Portlands Energy Centre which is an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure for downtown Toronto. I would tell the constituents, as I was at the door in Beaches–East York, that if we did not have the Portlands Energy Centre, we would be suffering from blackouts and brownouts far more regularly, as other people in this province have experienced.

We have a much better energy system in downtown Toronto because this government insisted on putting in a plant in the face of tremendous opposition from the local community. But that plant is there, and I tell you that the people of Beaches–East York and Toronto–Danforth, which I have the pleasure of it being my home riding, absolutely were delighted that those plants were there.

This infrastructure money that we have in this bill, $130 billion, will also help us to create more distributed energy plants and gas-fired plants to deal with peak-demand periods. Every environmentalist will tell you that the most important way of developing an infrastructure system in electricity is to have generation close to consumption. You don’t want the spillage associated with long transmission.

So in the infrastructure commitments that this government has, you will see an opportunity to relocate some of the other gas plants that did not get built as they should have been built. We’ll relocate, use some of the assets that are stranded in those contracts and build gas plants in communities that will need it. That’s an important point moving forward in energy.

I want to speak a little bit now on government assets. During the course of the election, we heard repeatedly in my riding that the number one reason that the third party did not support the budget that was brought in on May 1 had to do with the sale of assets. The NDP candidate in my riding repeatedly referred to, what I think is meant by the Trojan Horse budget comments of the leader of the third party, that this was all buried deep down in the appendix of the budget documents. Particularly, he was referring to the sale of the LCBO.

Now, let’s be very clear: There is absolutely no plan in place right now to sell the LCBO. That’s just fear-mongering on the part of others. We are going to review all government assets, including the LCBO, with a view to making sure that we are maximizing the value of those assets. The LCBO holds dozens and dozens of properties that may not be getting the best value. It may be, as part of that review, that we look at the real estate assets of the LCBO and we sell them off, because there’s no point in us holding land that’s not being used effectively.

If we can take the sales associated with that and put it into the Trillium fund and use the Trillium fund to build up productive assets elsewhere in the province, I think that would be a fantastic step forward. That is part of the review that is being done with Mr. Clark. We look forward to his report and ensuring that we’re maximizing the value of government assets.

Another government asset we hold, that I just for the life of me can’t understand why members on both sides of the House aren’t unanimously in agreement that we should be selling off, are the shares that we hold in General Motors. This government, as part of its investment strategy and its strategy to retain jobs in Ontario during the auto industry crisis, went out of its way to work with the major manufacturers of automobiles in Ontario to ensure that we continue to keep these good jobs in Canada, in Ontario, to keep Ontarians at work. As part of that deal we acquired a lot of shares in General Motors.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: A billion dollars’ worth.

Mr. Arthur Potts: Is it a billion dollars? Thank you, Mr. Rinaldi. Lou tells me it was $1 billion.

Why we wouldn’t want to sell off a government asset of shares that we hold in General Motors is beyond me. This is the right thing to do. Their share values are up. We want to capitalize on the investment we made in creating those jobs and keeping that manufacturing in Ontario, and we should sell off those shares. That’s just one example of how we do hold assets that are being unproductive, and we can take those dollars and put them in the Trillium fund and use them as part of our plan to build Ontario up.

These are the kinds of measures that we see in this extremely, extremely progressive budget bill. I urge all members of the House, during committees this week, to reflect on those conversations you had at the door with people who recognize that we need to do more in transportation, we need to do more in transit, particularly in the GTHA, so that we can move people faster, so we can electrify the GO rail system. These are the important things that I want you to remember as we go to hearings, and I appreciate very much, Mr. Speaker, this opportunity to speak to the budget bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments?

Mr. Michael Harris: I’d like to first off welcome the member for Beaches–East York and congratulate him on his election campaign, of course. Welcome to a fine building. I’m amazed and impressed each and every day that I walk into this building. I’m so thankful that I have the opportunity to stand up and speak on behalf of my constituents, and I know he’ll feel the same.

I think it’s important, given the opportunity—I’m speaking after the member for Beaches–East York. I want to thank the former member for Beaches–East York, Michael Prue, who I had an opportunity to serve with over the last two and a half years. I was a rookie member on an estimates committee that he chaired, and we went into some lengthy committee meetings on gas plants. You know what? It was difficult at times, but I was always impressed with Michael—his work ethic, his commitment, and his thankfulness for getting up early and making us a nice dessert that we could enjoy during committee.

I want to thank him not only for that but for his service as an MPP for his riding and his community for the number of years that he did. I did have a chance to chat with Michael after the election. I wished him well in everything that he will now do forthcoming. I know he still has a lot to offer to his community. I know he is an avid traveller, touring all over the world, and I know he’ll probably get some time in with his loved ones and see some new things.

I’ll leave it at that, Speaker. Again, I welcome the member for Beaches–East York and I hope I have a further opportunity to speak again to the fiscal reality that our province has faced, that I know he heard at the doorsteps as well.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments?

Mr. Michael Mantha: I’m just happy and delighted to have been here yesterday for the comments from the member from Beaches–East York, where he talked about the budget in regard to building Ontario up and also this budget being a progressive budget.

I just wanted to remind him of the difficulties that certain communities are actually really facing, and trying to explain to them how progressive this budget is. Let me just share some numbers with you, as I did with you yesterday, in regard to one community particularly, the community of Wawa, but there are 110 other communities that are going to be affected by this so-called progressive budget of yours.

The community of Wawa, in 2015, are going to be subject to a cut in their municipal budget of $74,000. In 2016, they’re going to be cut by $248,923. In 2017, they’re going to lose another $558,415. That is due to the cut that this government is doing to the Power Dam Special Payment Program.

Now, what I would like you to do is, if this was the case and you were knocking on your doors in Beaches–East York, here’s the per capita; here’s the reality. This is what you would have been knocking on the doors with in your area. If you do the multiple factor, the population of Wawa is 2,975, and here in Toronto it is 2,600,000. The loss to Wawa is $882,000. Would you have gone knocking on any doors in your area to tell them that your Liberal government is going to be taking $770 million out of their budget? I don’t think so. That’s the reality of your progressive budget.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Scarborough–Agincourt.

Ms. Soo Wong: I’m pleased to rise today to join in the debate on the 2014 budget, building opportunity and securing Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, let me also begin my remarks this morning to congratulate my new colleague from Beaches–East York and also to acknowledge the former member for Beaches–East York, because I knew Michael Prue for a number of years as a former mayor of East York. I also worked with him on the former Metro Toronto District Health Council. I know Michael has served his province and the city very well.

As the member from Beaches–East York clearly stated earlier, our government is making an investment in transportation and infrastructure as one of the priorities. It is of great interest in my riding of Scarborough–Agincourt. In my very short time this morning, I’d like to re-emphasize our government’s commitment of $29 billion over the next 10 years to address public transit, transportation, infrastructure and other priority infrastructure projects across Ontario.

It says very clearly in the budget book on page 44, “Two new dedicated funds would be created to support infrastructure projects that are essential to Ontario’s immediate and long-term economic growth and job creation.” I’m very pleased, Mr. Speaker, that one of these funds would target specifically the greater Toronto and Hamilton area. These particular allocations for these two funds were based on census data from Statistics Canada. So based on data, based on facts, allocation of the proceeds of these funds will be allocated based on fairness, accountability and transparency.

We all know congestion is not good for your health, and I know my colleague from Beaches–East York talked about that earlier. We also know we want to spend more time with people we love than being stuck in traffic.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Leeds–Grenville.

Mr. Steve Clark: Thank you very much, Speaker. Good morning.

Through you to the member for Beaches–East York: I want to congratulate you on your election. I also want to congratulate you on your appointment as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

I want to tell you—through you, Speaker, to the member—we had a great meeting last night in my riding. I was in my riding last night in Kemptville at an event for Kemptville College. It was the Kemptville College Renewal Task Force. Your provincial facilitator, the Honourable Lyle Vanclief, was there. He wasn’t there to speak to the media necessarily, but there to listen to the agricultural community.

So, through you, Speaker, to the member: I just want to take this opportunity to invite you, as I did to the minister, and also to Minister Moridi, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and Innovation and all those other things that he is—I also want to invite you to tour Kemptville College. I would be more than happy to introduce you to the Kemptville College Renewal Task Force and have you tour that fine campus that’s got a 97-year tradition. I know I speak on behalf of the people of Leeds–Grenville, if I might, directly to the member, that this is a wonderful institution.

I hope that you, in your capacity as parliamentary assistant, will take the opportunity to see what potential we have at that campus to ensure that it’s around for its centennial in 2017. Congratulations, and welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Beaches–East York, you have two minutes for a reply.

Mr. Arthur Potts: I certainly want to thank the member from Kitchener–Conestoga. We met and had a chat last night. I’m not a great baker. I don’t see myself bringing cookies in here on a regular basis. I apologize for that. I’ll do my best to be as good a representative here as Mr. Prue was, but it may not include cookies.

And my apologies to the pages: Mr. Prue, I’ve come to understand, used to keep sweets in his desk, and the pages would come up and get chocolate quite often. I’m thinking, in my interest in preserving the health of our youth, that I might have carrot sticks and broccoli, and maybe I’ll try a new tradition which is a healthier choice.

I’d also like to respond to the member from Algoma–Manitoulin. I appreciate your comments very much. Of course, the concerns of the citizens of Wawa are very important to this government, and we’re listening very carefully. If these downloads and reductions are hurting, they need to be looked at very carefully. But I also remind you that you must look at this in terms of a net financing position. The town of Wawa, in your riding, has been benefiting from the uploading we’ve done, taking on the costs that were downloaded to under the previous Harris government. I think you need to look at the net benefit of whether, in fact, your bottom line is lower.

I’d also like to thank the member from Leeds–Grenville. I know that the Kemptville College is under some duress and pressures right now. The minister and I have talked about it, that we are going to seek some kind of solution. That may not involve the ministry directly, but it needs to be maintained. It seems like a great institution. As I mentioned in my remarks, my grandfather had a doctorate in animal husbandry, and so the education of agricultural students is very, very important. We know the great tradition that Kemptville College has had.

My friend from Scarborough–Agincourt: Thank you so much for your kind remarks. I’m looking forward to working with you as we go forward and bringing this budget to fruition.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: I look forward to having the opportunity to speak to this budget for the next—are you sitting down?—45 minutes. I promise it will be scintillating for you. I’ll do everything I can.

Good morning, everybody. I wanted to have a chance to chat about the budget. I’m going to start off rather critical, as you can imagine, because the budget is the same one that the Liberal government introduced on May 1. We’ve carefully looked at it. There’s not a comma changed. It is the exact same budget that Maclean’s magazine called, “A unicorn budget built on delusion....” That’s what our leading national magazine called it. Of course, it immediately sparked a credit watch from Moody’s rating services, who also recently downgraded their credit outlook from stable to negative.

That’s not a very proud thing for what was once the engine of Confederation, this province of Ontario, now reduced to a have-not province after 11 years of Liberal reign.

This budget recklessly puts Ontario’s finances in a very precarious and teetering position. We see a deteriorating fiscal balance sheet, and that’s what BlackRock, when they came out with their credit notice as well on the 13th of June, had said, “…a deteriorating financial balance sheet.” That’s how Ontario is characterized in the marketplace.

What does that mean to the people at home today? Let me tell you exactly why a $12.5-billion deficit is hurting you at home. We started many years ago with deficits, and we saw the $139-billion debt of Ontario double under the last 11 years of Liberal reign to over $290 billion. That debt has doubled. Two years ago, our deficit was $9.2 billion. Last year it grew to $11.3 billion, and this year it is forecast to be $12.5 billion. Because we have such a huge deficit, this government has immediately made very serious cuts to front-line services.

I can tell you specifically that they have cut physiotherapy for seniors; they have cut cataract surgeries for seniors, again; they’ve cut diabetes testing strips—this is a very, very concerning issue, when people who can’t afford these testing strips are now not testing. We know that’s only going to increase our health costs in the end. To use the expression, they’ve cut off their nose to spite their face. Or the other expression: They can’t see the forest for the trees—that’s a more northern expression.

They’re looking for nickels and dimes in the couch, and this is what they’ve done: They’ve cut off diabetes testing strips.

Of course, we’ve already seen them fire nurses, over 300 throughout Ontario. In my hometown of North Bay last year we lost 40 front-line health care workers; this year so far, an additional 34 front-line health care workers. We lost eight teachers two weeks ago. We lost 67 telecom workers at Ontera. This is exactly what happens when you can’t balance the budget.

We have deficits here in Ontario. We have deficits forecast next year, the year after, and of course all of the rating agencies presume that this government has no path to balance the budget in 2017-18, as they continue to say. In fact, their own Ministry of Finance documents—when Premier Wynne was appointed as Premier back in 2013, she received a briefing from the Ministry of Finance which we were able to receive a copy of through our estimates committee—after about a half a year of prodding for it, I might add. In that it very, very clearly stated that there is no plan to balance the budget by 2017-18, period. It was very succinct.

This means that there will be continued cuts to front-line services. So let me tell you—if you look at, I think it was page 244 of the budget, it talks about the budget going forward with health at a 2.2% increase, education at 2.3%, training at 1%, social services at 3.5%, justice at 0.8%. Those are the increases. The rest of the ministries all have a 6% decrease—a 6% decrease, when more than 50% of each and every ministry’s expenses are comprised of people—human capital.

When you look at the health budget, increasing it by 2.2% is actually a massive, multi-billion dollar reduction, and here’s why: Each year, health is increased 6%. To only increase 2.2% is an almost 4% reduction in the budget that was originally planned. Every 1% of health budget is about $500 million. So they’re cutting more than $1.5 billion out of health care this very year alone. Now in health care, 80% of their budget is people. So when you start cutting $1.5 billion out of health care, you’re starting to talk about a serious number of front-line people, like the 300 nurses they’ve already fired and, as I said, the ones in North Bay: 40 last year, 34 so far this year.

When you can’t afford the bare necessities, you start looking for the nickels and dimes, the change in the couch. They announced they’re closing 60 beds in our hospital. Our hospital is a $1-billion hospital. It was only opened a few years ago. It was opened while I was the mayor of the city of North Bay, and I left in 2010. So the hospital is about five years old, a brand spanking new hospital. And we’re cutting 60 beds because they have no money, because we have a $12.5-billion deficit. That’s why we talk about deficits so much. This is money; a deficit is money that you spend that you don’t have coming in. We’re spending more than we take in.

So did this budget do anything to address the deficit, to protect the very front-line services that we have come to require in Ontario? No, it did not. It did not do anything to protect front-line services. It did nothing to address the teetering financial situation that this government has got us into.

In fact, what it did was go the opposite way. It said they are going to tax and then spend. They’re going to tax you more and spend your money. They’re going to spend $5.7 billion more than last year. That’s not the prudent way. If you were in your household and you or your spouse, one of you, lost a job, you would not go on a spending spree; you would start to tighten your budget until more money was coming in.

The Bank of Canada has told us last year, this year, last month, and this morning on the front page of the National Post that the problem is we’re not going to make our revenue targets this year. Our growth is not happening. This is a government that had planned on “growing their way out of the problem”—except for the fact that growth is not going to happen. It’s very clear—very, very clear. The Bank of Canada and every other institution is telling us we are not going to hit our revenue targets for this year. Yet we’re talking about how we’re going to grow our way out of the problem and spend our way.

Well, if the growth doesn’t happen, we’re still spending. So deficits are going to continue under this particular government.

In fact, what actually happened—if you could imagine the awkwardness of this, they’re actually going to increase taxes and yet increase the deficit at the same time. How bizarre a scenario is that? How could that even possibly happen, that you’re going to raise taxes from people and still have a higher deficit, over $1 billion higher than last year?

So let’s talk about some of these taxes that they’re going to raise. One is the aviation fuel tax. I must say I’m quite surprised at this aviation fuel tax, because what this does is take somewhere between $40 million and $65 million away from the airlines by increasing the fuel tax from 2.7 cents a litre to 6.7 cents a litre. This is adding 4 cents a litre. This is outrageous not just for passenger service—we’re not talking about how this is going to hurt families flying to Hawaii for the year; this is about families that are on a medical emergency, where they need to take a flight.

These flights are now going to cost more. Cargo, aircraft that bring in clothing, shoes, products that we trade worldwide, products we ship in exports, our sales—all of these products are going to cost more money. They’re going to cost more money to sell and they’re going to cost more money to buy because we’ve more than doubled the aviation fuel tax.

If you look at other areas of the country—look at Vancouver, for instance. They just got 22 new international flights in and out of Vancouver International Airport because they have removed the aviation fuel tax for those international flights. So British Columbia got it right. They’re taking the tax and wiping it off. There is no aviation tax for those international flights and now they’ve got 22 new flights. All the business, the landing fees, the repair and overhaul and maintenance, the fuel that they sell—all of this is business. That’s how you do business.

I have never seen how increased taxes increase business. I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, I’ve been in business and owned my own company for many years, and I’ve never seen how new taxes increase business. It is the other way, period.

So British Columbia got it right. They cut the aviation tax right down to zero for those international flights; they got more business. Here in Ontario we do the opposite. We’re looking for these nickel and dimes in the couch: “So let’s go after these guys next. We haven’t picked their pockets lately. Boom. Let’s go after the airlines,” which means their customers, their cargo, medical flights—all of these things. That’s what they’re going to do. That’s exactly the kind of taxes that this government is adding.

They talked, interestingly enough, about the Trillium Trust. This is an interesting thought, not unlike the thought we had, as well, in part of our plan: an infrastructure trust. But I’ve read the bill carefully, I’ve been briefed carefully, and we have found what I term a very massive loophole in this Trillium Trust.

Let me tell you, basically, the way it’s supposed to work. They’re supposed to look at the assets that they own throughout Ontario—admirable. They’re supposed to look at selling these non-productive assets, taking that money, putting it in the Trillium Trust and using that for infrastructure. That’s the plan, except if you look very, very carefully at the Trillium Trust Act—now, here’s the rub, Speaker; here’s where it starts to go off the rails for me. They’re supposed to take the money, put it in the Trillium Trust and spend it on infrastructure.

The act states that “When a qualifying asset”—the one magic word is “qualifying”—“is disposed of, the regulations may”—that’s the second funny word: “may”—“require that a portion”—that’s the third funny word—“of the net proceeds … be credited to the Trillium Trust.” Basically what they’re saying is, “We’re going to sell an asset. We’re going to take that money, put it in the Trillium Trust and build infrastructure.” But let’s look at those wiggle words again.

“Qualifying assets”: When they sell an asset, the bill says that they then get the opportunity to decide what is a qualifying asset. In their own guidelines that they make up themselves, if it doesn’t qualify, then they get to use that money for anything. They’ll put it in general revenue and help pay down their deficit. That’s what it’s really all about. It’s not about investing in infrastructure. They get to choose the guidelines to say, “Yes, that’s a qualifying asset,” or “No.” If it’s “Yes,” then it goes into the Trillium Trust; if they say, “No, that doesn’t qualify,” then they can use that money for anything. That’s number 1.

Number 2: “The regulations may”—it doesn’t say the regulations must put that money; they may put the money in the trust. Well, what’s to stop these guys from raiding the piggy bank, like they did with other piggy banks they raided, and using that money—right into general revenue—to bring their deficit down? That word “may” is the other wiggle word.

The third one: a “portion” of the proceeds. So they don’t have to put it all in. Once they have a qualifying one, they may decide, and if they do decide, now we’re into the third wiggle word: “portion.” They don’t have to put all the money into the Trillium Trust. They can put a portion of it—a fraction of it, for all we know; we’re never going to know—and that money then, again, goes into general operating revenue and helps bring their deficit down.

Basically, what they’re doing is selling the furniture to pay the bills. That’s what they’re doing here, and hoping, with a Hail Mary pass, that, about three years from now, the economy will somehow magically turn around—although the Bank of Canada says no, the bond rating firms say no, and all of the financial people who know say no. It’s not going to happen. You can’t just wish that your economy is going to turn around. You actually have to do things to make your economy turn around. I’ll talk about that in a moment. But the thing is, they’re selling the furniture off to pay the bills.

Yes, I’m quite certain they’ll put some of that money in the Trillium Trust. We’ll hear about that. Things like the GM shares—I have no doubt that that will entirely end up in the Trillium Trust. It would just be too hard to fudge that one. That’s too much under the microscope. But all the other asset sales—that’s the money that they can “not have to qualify”, and then only “may”, and then put a “portion”. That’s what’s so darned scary about doing that. We’re talking billions of dollars here, people. We’re not talking about pennies; we’re talking about billions.

Instead of getting into the fundamental core of what’s wrong in Ontario, this budget does nothing to address those very issues.

One of those issues was skyrocketing electricity rates. Speaker, this entire budget does absolutely nothing to address skyrocketing electricity rates. We just came off a lengthy campaign, since the 2nd of May. We all knocked on doors. You can’t tell me that you did not hear people talking about their hydro bills at the door—people, seniors, families, businesses; businesses that have left Ontario, businesses that are planning to leave Ontario because they can’t afford the hydro bill. I’ve stood in this Legislature and used the example of Xstrata Copper in Timmins at least 25 times.

We’re talking about 672 people in a town of 45,000—Timmins, Ontario—who lost their jobs because the company moved across the border into Quebec for cheaper hydro.

This bill does absolutely nothing for hydro. It doesn’t address it whatsoever. It does mention where they’re going to merge the IESO and the Ontario Power Authority, the OPA, into one, for a savings of a few million dollars. This is nothing that we’re talking about, Speaker. We’re talking about a core problem in Ontario. Until we fix this problem, until we make hydro affordable in Ontario like it was before this government took over and began tinkering with it—before that happens, we will not see the turnaround that we need in Ontario.

You can’t just wish that it’s going to happen. You can’t just spend your way out of the problem when your income is coming down. Revenue is going down. We will not hit our revenue targets. We’ve been told that over and over, but you’re going to spend as if we are. That is why we have a $12.5-billion deficit.

Speaker, I wanted to talk about not only the electricity rates as one of the solutions, but our mutual friend Don Drummond had some very interesting things to say. I’m going to speak from my book, Fedeli Focus on Finance—a shameless plug. I am going to read a couple of paragraphs because I’m quoting Don Drummond.

Page 36: First of all, he outlines some big-ticket reforms that he said would be “an important turning point in the province’s history.” He called for a “sharp degree of fiscal restraint.” Stop me if you’ve heard this before, or if any of this sounds like anything you’re actually doing. “Sharp degree of fiscal restraint”: I don’t think a $5.7-billion spending spree is that fiscal restraint that your own Don Drummond talked about.

He said, “The government must take daring fiscal action early.” Well, I don’t see anything daring in this budget. You’re taxing and you’re spending. There’s nothing daring, and this is two years old. There’s nothing early that you’ve done.

He also said we must act “swiftly and boldly.” Well, not too swift, because that’s two years old now, and “boldly” raising the aviation fuel tax, causing businesses and families to suffer? I’m not sure that that’s bold. I think that’s just the easy way out.

To balance the budget will require “tough decisions.” Treatment will be “difficult,” and “most of the burden ... must fall on spending.” Well, no burden fell here, Speaker. Spending is up—$5.7 billion in new spending, a $12.5-billion deficit. That spending isn’t one-time spending; that’s now baked into the budget. That is why we have a structural deficit in the budget, and that means it takes something a lot more to fix it. These aren’t just one-time gifts that are thrown out; this is built into the budget now so that next year, the budget starts at an already higher number. They’re baked in.

Don Drummond called for—and this is the last one I’ll read—“a wrenching reduction from the path that spending is now on.” He’s calling for this wrenching reduction, and what did they do? A spending spree, exactly and entirely the complete opposite of what is called for.

So here we are, more than two years later, and the Liberals are planning an expenditure review. That’s what they’re going to do. They’re going to do another study to take care of these urgent, two-years-ago recommendations by their own Don Drummond.

Another item in this budget is the Ring of Fire. Look, these guys have blown it so far. We can’t afford another four or five years of having you blow it again. We really need you to step up to the plate on the Ring of Fire. We absolutely need this to happen.

First of all, let me tell you a little bit about the Ring of Fire. This is a mining find in the Far North, in northern Ontario. It is, according to both sides’ experts, about a $60-billion mining find. It’s very complicated to get there. I have been there four times now, in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The first time I was there, let me tell you, it was so exciting. It must have been like a mining camp would have been 100 years ago, when they discovered nickel in Sudbury or silver in Cobalt.

You’re in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing there, you have tents set up—as I was flying on the last flight of many to get there in a helicopter, I saw these blue-and-white tents. A big smile came across my face, because I recognized those tents. When I was in my marketing business in the 1970s, Canadian Can-Tex was one of my clients. They’re in Rutherglen, Ontario, which is in my riding. That trademark blue-and-white tent was made in my riding. As I’m flying in the helicopter and I see those tents, a big smile because they’re made in my riding.

As we got a little closer to landing, these massive, massive mounds of drill rods—again, a bigger smile, because North Bay and Powassan, also in my riding, have 12 manufacturers of drill rods and drill bits. North Bay-Nipissing is one of the world’s pre-eminent exploration centres. We’re one of the largest centres in the world for exploration products. We make them in North Bay. They use them all over the world. They use them in Sudbury; they use them in Timmins; they use them in the Far North; they use them in all countries, on all continents. It’s amazing, the shipping that comes out of North Bay.

So I’m looking at these mounds of drill rods and the city built of tents. There are 250 men and women working at Noront and Cliffs resources, about 125 on each side of the fence, and it was so exciting, because they were drilling. They’ve got drill rigs which are also made in North Bay. They’ve got drill rigs drilling for chromite, the exciting mineral—the first find in North America, other than South Africa, Kazakhstan, Finland; there are a few places in the world. Chromite is used to make stainless steel. Now we have a chromite find, $60 billion worth of chromite. These people are working. It was so exciting.

You could just feel the energy.

I wasn’t yet an MPP. I was thinking about running at that time. It’s one of those things that inspired me. It was so exciting, it was just so thrilling to see this happening. But sadly, virtually nothing has happened in all of these subsequent years—very, very tragic. The government here has dithered on this and let opportunity slide right through their fingers. The last time I was up was before this election, and there weren’t 250 men and women any more; there were fewer than a dozen.

I said to one of the companies, “What on earth is going on?” One company, only two summers ago, spent $200 million exploring—drill rods, drill bits, mostly from my hometown. Some $200 million was spent by just one company; there are 33 companies drilling. One company alone spent $200 million. Now they have four people there. They’re spending zero. I said to them, “How can you go from $200 million to zero?” They said, “Our shareholders are who we are answering to.

Why would I continue to spend my shareholders’ money drilling to delineate the ore body”—to define it so they know how to mine it after—“when there’s no way to get the ore out of the ground into the marketplace?” There’s no highway, there’s no road, there’s no rail, and there’s no plan. If there was even hope for them, they would be continuing there.

So now Cliffs is gone. They’ve sold their camp. Noront has four, five, six people, perhaps, at the most, just taking care of the infrastructure and their investment there—babysitting it, if you will, waiting for this government.

So we did see a glimmer of hope in the budget, but then that glimmer was certainly changed very quickly. Back in May, during the campaign, our Premier, Kathleen Wynne, was in Thunder Bay saying, “We will commit a billion dollars, with or without the federal government involvement, towards the transportation infrastructure that will help make the Ring of Fire a reality.” I applaud that. I do. I applaud that: “We will commit a billion dollars.” Sadly, this is about the fifth time I’ve heard that. Five years have gone by. So this time we’re going to take her at her word.

Now, that was May. Here’s the July 14 budget document, page 89: We will commit $1 billion towards infrastructure development in the Ring of Fire, “contingent on matching investment by the federal government.” So they’ve already waffled.

I have spoken with the minister involved, and he continues to tell me that they’ve never made an application for infrastructure money. They have never done that for the Ring of Fire, period. They’ve never made an application. All of the other applications that they partner with, they have made and received that money. They have not even made an application. But here we are, one day during the campaign, when we’re promising, “We will do it with or without the federal government involvement.” We cheered that, and now it’s “contingent on matching investment from the federal government,” which I know will come, but now they’ve waffled already. This just deflates—

Mr. Bob Delaney: When? Tell us when.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Well, on the 14th of July, when you changed your mind from the 25th of May; that’s a pretty big waffle. I’ll tell you, it’s the marketplace that answers that when you’ve got everybody just yawning again: “Oh, here they go again.”

Now they’re going to form a development corporation within 60 days, and now the minister is waffling, “Well, is it 60 days from this day? Is it 60 days from that day?” Come on. For heaven’s sake. Again, that’s the fifth time they’ve announced the development corporation. Sadly, the companies aren’t being fooled. We want the Ring of Fire to be developed.

By outlining the shortcomings of this government, I’m hoping you’ll acknowledge you haven’t done it right. There’s still no ore coming out of the ground. You can’t fool us for much longer. Come on. There’s $60 billion at stake here. This isn’t just about the Far North. It’s not just about northern Ontario. It’s about all of Ontario. This is the economic engine to get Ontario going again. You’ve got to stop the dithering and the waffling on this, the blame game and the finger pointing. We did that when we were in kindergarten; not today, guys. Not today.

Speaker, I’m going to close in a couple of moments, but I just want to say that I think the most disappointing aspect of this budget was the 34,000 men and women in Ontario who lost their jobs in the month of June alone—that this budget does absolutely nothing for those men and women. It doesn’t provide them any hope. It doesn’t lower their energy bills. It raises the cost of goods they’re going to buy through your aviation fuel tax.

It is the 90th consecutive month that Ontario has had higher than the national average unemployment. Our unemployment is 7.5%, up from 7.3% in May, while the national unemployment is 7.1%. We’re not doing it right, yet you are doing the same thing over and over and over. You’re not addressing the unemployment. It’s rising. You can’t tell us how good it is when we’re the worst for 90 consecutive months. That’s not a made-up number; that’s just a fact. It’s seven and a half years of having unemployment higher than the national average. Come on, people, let’s do something to address this.

Electricity rates: the highest in North America. You know, when you guys took office, they were 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour. Before May, they were 12.9 cents a kilowatt hour. Now they’re over 13 cents. You’ve tripled hydro rates, and you’ve caused companies to leave—leave, leave and leave. We lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs under your watch.

People, we can’t just keep doing the same thing and thinking that’s going to help us get out of this. We cannot think that we’re going to continue to raise taxes and somehow high taxes are going to bring business—it’s not going to happen—and somehow this spending spree that you’re going to go on is just going to work itself out.

I know I heard Justin Trudeau say the budget will work itself out, that these things just work themselves out. This is what I’m seeing from this side, as well. I’m looking at you, and you’re thinking, “Well, you know what? Don’t worry. We’re going to spend our way out of this problem, but don’t worry. It’ll work itself out.”

The Hail Mary pass is not coming, folks, not when you didn’t address core problems like high electricity, not when you don’t address the core problems like 34,000 jobs lost last month and not when your solution is just to raise taxes.

Speaker, I see the time is coming close to an end. I’m getting the high sign from our House leaders here.

Interjection.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: I was on a roll. I was having fun.

Speaker, I encourage this government to listen to the people, and to take some of the thoughts of the opposition parties, who have throughout the last two and a half years presented some thoughtful solutions.

Look, I know I love to rail on the Ring of Fire, only because of the passion that I have for it and the potential for Ontario that I know it has. We do want to work together with you on the Ring of Fire, but you’ve got to stop the blame game. You’ve got to just start looking at what we can truly be doing.

Are we going to be investing in roads? Are we going to be investing in rail? You’ve got to bring Ontario Northland and my hometown of North Bay to the table. These are your transportation experts. They’ve been hauling ore for over 100 years in Ontario, from the north to the south. They’ve been doing that, and you haven’t asked them to the table yet.

You’re selling off Ontera. Again, you’re looking for nickels and dimes in the couch to pay your bills. The Auditor General told us that you’re not going to save any money selling Ontera; it’s going to cost you between $50 million and $70 million, so why would you do it? If the whole reason was to save money, and you’ve been told by the auditor that you’re not, why are you going through with this fire sale, and why aren’t you bringing Ontario Northland—the experts—to the table, so that they can talk to you about really positive solutions on the Ring of Fire?

Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in this Legislature again today.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments. The member for Sudbury.

Mr. Joe Cimino: Thank you, Speaker. Through you to the member from Nipissing: It’s hard to follow such a passionate 45 minutes or so of commentary on the budget.

I must say that the Ring of Fire is extremely important. I also went through some ups and downs as a city councillor, attending functions with the management of Cliffs—ribbon cuttings and huge announcements. It was almost like it was going to happen—obviously not overnight, but in the near future.

That was several years ago. The potential for all of northern Ontario—remembering that any revenues that come out of natural resources, which is northern Ontario, for the most part, for over 100 years, have provided funds for the coffers of the province, which benefits all of the province and all the citizens across this province. We do need to move on.

We need to forget the fact that there have been failings, that plans weren’t done. We’re talking about thousands of construction jobs in Greater Sudbury. We’re talking about smelting north of Capreol in the riding of Nickel Belt, which benefits all of Sudbury, but also benefits all the supply and service companies which go beyond the border of Sudbury. Cliffs is important; it must be our priority.

We talk about hydro rates, as well. It’s affecting seniors at home. It’s affecting curling clubs. It’s affecting businesses. The 300% hydro rate increase since this government took power is too high, and 42% more in the next five years is unimaginable. People cannot pay these rates.

In northern Ontario, a lot of homes and a lot of apartments are still heated by hydro. At the door, you’re hearing that sometimes the hydro rates are hundreds of dollars a month—$700 or $800 over two months. That is outrageous, so I am urging the government to include in their discussions of the budget more commitment to the Ring of Fire, getting her done, and more commitment to getting hydro rates down, and other expenses that people can’t afford—auto insurance, gas for their cars, home heating. There has to be more concern for those who have to pay the bills.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The Minister without Portfolio.

Hon. James J. Bradley: It was a very interesting speech, but it was riddled with inaccuracies, where we would dispute the facts that members put forward, honestly dispute those facts. The one thing I keep hearing from members of the Conservative Party is an apology for the federal Harper government. What we’re looking for, I think unanimously in this House, is for people to stand up for Ontario and to defend Ontario’s position within Confederation, particularly when we’re being treated unfairly by the federal government.

I look forward in future speeches from the member, and from other members of the Conservative caucus, to hearing that defence of Ontario instead of the apologies for the Harper government.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments.

Mr. Ted Arnott: I want to compliment the member for Nipissing. That was a good speech. Thank you very much.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments.

Ms. Peggy Sattler: It’s a real honour for me to stand today in this place on behalf of the people I represent in London West. I want to thank the member for Nipissing for his comments. Sometimes it’s interesting, when you think about the different perspectives that each of us brings to the information that we have before us.

The member for Nipissing described this budget as a spending spree and talked about all of the buckets of money that the Liberals were planning to spend. Our concern, on this side of the House, is not about the spending that’s included in the budget, but in terms of what that is actually going to mean for people in this province. The Liberals have committed to a 2.5% increase in spending, but when you look at inflation running at about 1.5%, and population growth expected to be about 1%, what we’re actually seeing is a flatlining of spending.

Yesterday, we heard my colleague the member for Kitchener–Waterloo, our party’s budget critic, talk about page 244 of the budget. It actually confirms a 6% cut to program spending. We know that that’s really going to hurt the people we represent. In the election that we all just went through, I heard about electricity rates, absolutely, but I also heard about health care; I heard about people not being able to get the health care services that they relied on; I heard about wait-lists in emergency rooms; I heard about a lack of access to home care. What this budget includes is years of zero for hospital spending.

That’s going to hurt people in this province. This is an austerity budget, and New Democrats can’t support it.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member from Nipissing, you have two minutes to reply.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Thank you, Speaker. I do want to thank the members from Sudbury and London West, the Minister without Portfolio and the member from Wellington–Halton Hills for their words as well.

I know that it’s tough to hear the facts. I know that it’s tough to listen to the reports from Moody’s and others. I know that it’s awkward when the Auditor General comes out with a finding that is drastically different from what the government promised. I understand how hard it is to listen to the facts when they’re presented. It’s an opportunity for us to be able to speak about the Ontario that we want as well.

I do want to finish up by talking yet again about the Ring of Fire. It is just so very important to all of us. The member from Sudbury I know has been to the site. I too was at the site in Capreol, where Cliffs at one time was going to put the smelting facility. This is a wonderful opportunity not only for Sudbury but for all of the north and for all of Ontario. The amount of business, the employment, the rail that would be built there—I’ve seen the site, where it’s flat, where about nine tracks wide can be built to shuttle in and to shunt the chromite. I’ve seen the 4,000-acre parcel that they were looking at. It’s perfect. It’s a perfect opportunity to get this ore processed.

The bigger dream, Speaker, is that we don’t just extract the ore, smelt it and ship it away, that we maybe dream a little bit bigger and talk about the possibility of making stainless steel here in Ontario. It needs three things: It needs ore, it needs nickel and it needs chromite. We mine all three in Ontario now, Speaker. So that’s the bigger debate that I hope we have one day.

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to speak in this Legislature.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate? Further debate? Further debate?

There being none, Mr. Naqvi has moved second reading of Bill 14,

An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various Acts. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until after question period today.

Second reading vote deferred.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Orders of the day?

Hon. James J. Bradley: No further business, Mr. Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Seeing that there is no further business, this House stands recessed until 10:30 a.m.

The House recessed from 1006 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mr. Todd Smith: I’d like to welcome some friends of mine from Belleville, who are visiting today: 11-year-old Logan James is in the members’ gallery along with his mother, Danielle Barsotti, and his father, an old radio colleague of mine, Tommy James. And no, the Shondells are not visiting today.

Hon. Michael Coteau: Joining us today in the members’ gallery are page captain Ayesha Mir’s parents: Ms. Ajmal and Mr. Mir. Please stand up. There you are; nice to see you. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: It’s my pleasure to welcome Matthew Boulden here to the Legislature. Matthew is an amazing campaign worker, and I thank him for all he has done.

Hon. Steven Del Duca: It’s my pleasure to recognize my good friend Elliott Silverstein from CAA South Central Ontario, here with us in the members’ gallery.

Mr. Rick Nicholls: Today I’d like to introduce to the Legislature, in the members’ gallery, Craig Stevens. Craig hails from Chatham. He’s a passionate community activist, and he helped knock on a lot of doors during the last election. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Lorenzo Berardinetti: It’s my pleasure to introduce in the gallery today the Abraham family: Bibu Abraham, Mini Abraham and Athira Abraham. They are the father, mother and sister of Tania Abraham, who is serving as page captain today.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I’m pleased to introduce two people from Children’s Mental Health Ontario: Kim Moran and Gordon Dunning. Kim is the CEO and Gordon is the board chair of Children’s Mental Health Ontario. Welcome to the Ontario Legislature.

Mr. Bob Delaney: I’d like to introduce Victoria and Christopher Ng, who are visiting us from Hong Kong today. They are seated in the east members’ gallery. Welcome.

Hon. Reza Moridi: It’s my pleasure and honour to introduce my friends and also my constituents: Karin Lynett and Carole Lundy, sitting in the members’ gallery.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: It’s my pleasure to introduce my friends from the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, CJPAC. We have Rachel Chertkoff, the director of operations, here today; Laura Sohinki, director of outreach and programming; and interns Jordan Devon, Zane Colt and Greta Hoaken. Welcome.

Mr. Joe Cimino: I’d like to welcome, from Oshawa, Katherine Bowes, in the public gallery. She is the mother of page Ashley. Welcome.

Mr. Peter Z. Milczyn: It’s my pleasure to welcome Linda Sadvari, in the gallery, who is a family friend of our page from Etobicoke–Lakeshore, Gabriel Chemla. Welcome to the gallery. Gabriel is my neighbour from the Sunnylea neighbourhood.

Mr. Yvan Baker: I’d like to welcome, in the gallery today, a couple of great friends and great Liberals: Mary Ng and Gabriela Gonzalez. Please welcome them both.

M. Shafiq Qaadri: J’ai le plaisir de vous présenter quelques-uns de nos invités : Bob Wood and Connie Choy, who are interested in our radon bill today.

Hon. Charles Sousa: Please welcome to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Ms. Barbara Heath, the mother of an outstanding press secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Susie Heath, joined together with Dr. Bill Tucker, a famed surgeon here in Ontario. Thank you both for attending.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: It’s my pleasure to welcome to the House Julie Cayley, from Ducks Unlimited.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: I’d like to welcome Andrew Sheppard, father of page Brendan Sheppard from Barrie.

Oral Questions

Pan Am Games

Mr. Todd Smith: Good morning, Mr. Speaker. My question this morning is for the minister responsible for the Pan Am Games. Minister, in my hand I have the financial

section of the TO2015 bid book. Nowhere in this is there an actual line-by-line cost of the projects associated with the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.

Your ministry and TO2015 officials keep promising that the projects are on budget and that they’re on time, which is pretty easy to say when you don’t provide a budget outlining the line by line for these costs. Your government really has no intention of being transparent.

Minister, where is the publicly available TO2015 budget so that taxpayers can actually see how much these games are going to cost them?

Hon. Michael Coteau: I want to thank the member opposite for this opportunity to really talk about the great things that are happening in Ontario, and especially the Pan Am Games that are taking place next year—

Interjections.

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

Finish, please.

Hon. Michael Coteau: As the member knows, these games are the most transparent games in the history of any sporting event in this country. In fact, these games are put under the freedom of information act. You can access that information through an FOI. We’ve had two technical briefings. In fact, both critics in the past have attended, I think, one of them. But we have had two technical briefings. We will go forward with another technical briefing very soon, before the fall hits. We’re very proud of these games and—

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

Mr. Todd Smith: It’s quite a statement. I’m sure the media would love to see the budget. I know taxpayers would love to see the line-by-line budget.

Minister, quite honestly, your excuses for the venues so far—we’re talking about the Tim Hortons stadium, which is the new home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, eventually. It was late. It’s not on time. It’s not on budget. Your excuse for why it was late was because of winter. Here’s a newsflash for you: We’re building projects in Canada and winter does happen here.

Minister, in order to host these games you had to sign over 25 different memorandums of understanding with new or retrofitted venues. In this bid book it says that the venues are going to cost $75 million. We know that the Hamilton stadium has cost over $100 million. That’s just one, by the way.

Will you commit to tabling all of the signed MOUs in the Legislature so that taxpayers—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. I stand; you sit.

Minister?

Hon. Michael Coteau: What the member opposite won’t tell you is that we are $50 million under budget when it comes to our venues here in the province of Ontario. Thank you to Infrastructure Ontario for bringing us under budget. It’s 10% under budget than what we originally—and, you know what? If you want to get into details about venues, let me go through a few of these venues.

Today, I’m so proud to announce that the aquatics centre at the Scarborough University of Toronto campus is complete. It has officially been handed over and it is complete. In fact, that was slated for $248.9 million. You know what the cost is? It’s $205 million.

I want you to stand up and join the rest of us on this side of the House, and Ontarians, and celebrate what we’re doing when it comes to the Pan Am Games, because it is the largest multi-sport games in the history of not only this city or this province but this entire country and you should be proud.

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Todd Smith: Mr. Speaker, the tryouts for the Toronto cheerleading teams were last week—last week. There’s no reason to cheer about these games and everybody out there knows it.

Minister, let me remind you your government lowballed the Ornge cost—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Finish, please.

Mr. Todd Smith: Minister, your government lowballed the cost of Ornge. It took the Auditor General to get to the truth. You originally said the cost of the gas plant scandal was 5% of what the Auditor General showed the final cost as being.

Is it going to take calling in the Auditor General to find out how much these games are actually going to cost? You’re not being open and you’re not being transparent in sharing the actual cost of the games. Are you going to stall? Are you going to slap a final price tag on the games and then tell the people of Ontario that these games were on budget after it’s too late to do anything about it?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Again, I have to say, we’ve had the most transparent games in the history of any sporting event in this entire country. We have had technical briefings on two occasions, and I think the opposition member who was responsible for the file before only attended one of the two. We will have another one, and I invite you to join me.

But let’s go through this list of other events and see where they are. We have the athletic stadium at York University. It was originally budgeted for $52.9 million. I can report that the cost is $45.9 million. That’s under budget.

Mr. Speaker, the opposition members will tell you when things are going bad, but they won’t say when things are going good. These games are going well. We’re under budget when it comes to our infrastructure. I think you should stand up and compliment this government for it.

Special-needs students

Ms. Sylvia Jones: My question is for the Minister of Education. Minister, a chart prepared by your own ministry shows huge discrepancies between the funds given to the 72 school boards across Ontario to assist students with special needs. In my own riding, the Upper Grand District School Board and the Peel board of ed both receive some of the lowest funding per student at $365 and $339, compared to some boards receiving well over $1,000.

Minister, we all understand that a student with a learning disability will need similar resources to succeed, regardless of where they live in Ontario. Can you please explain why there is such a massive variance in the resources allocated to students with special needs in different parts of the province?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek and the member from Eglinton–Lawrence will take their conversation somewhere other than this House.

Minister.

Hon. Liz Sandals: I’m very pleased to respond to the question. We are now spending $2.5 billion on special education in this province. Special education is relatively unique in our funding model in that boards must spend all the money allocated for special-needs students on special education.

In fact, the vast majority of that money, the biggest chunk of that money, is allocated on a per pupil basis. You count the number of pupils in Upper Grand and allocate a per pupil amount. It’s known as SEPPA, the special ed per pupil amount. The bulk of that $2.5 billion is on a per pupil basis.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: Minister, arguments like that don’t hold water because Peel is getting $300 and, there are boards that are getting $1,600. It’s not fair; it’s not equitable. Regardless of where you live in Ontario, you should expect that your government will assist your child with a special need.

The Libs have been in power for more than a decade, and it’s time that you take responsibility for the students languishing on these wait-lists. No amount of justification or talking or explanation can justify the current funding model, where a school board is given $1,600 per student, while others, like students in the Dufferin and Peel region, receive less than 20% of that amount. Your budget doesn’t address this inequity, and families are tired of being told that there are no resources to help their son or daughter with a special need.

When is this government going to admit there is a problem, and what steps are you taking to address the funding inequity?

Hon. Liz Sandals: Actually, the member has it wrong. The budget and the Grants for Student Needs do address this problem, which is that the high-needs amount has, in fact, been a subject of concern. We struck a working group.

The working group, composed of special-needs and school administrator folks from all over the province, suggested a new funding model for the high-needs amount, and the budget this year—the Grants for Student Needs, in fact, are implementing a gradual transition to a high-needs funding amount, which, I would point out, the chair of the Peel District School Board said is a great improvement, and thanked us for implementing a new funding model for a high-needs amount for special education.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: I don’t think parents and children with special needs are interested in a lecture; I think they’re interested in some action. It’s not in the budget. I’ve looked at it. You’ve talked about full-day learning. You have not talked about actually solving that inequity, where certain boards get over five times what other boards get.

Another waiting list that’s plaguing children with special needs is access to assessment. As you know, a formal assessment is the key to receiving services that students need to thrive. It gives them a legal right to services, or a right to wait on another waiting list.

People for Education’s 2014 report on special education includes quotes from principals who mention a three-year wait for an assessment. I have parents calling my office. They have to make a choice between waiting three years for board assessments or paying for private assessments at a cost of $3,000. It’s simply out of reach for most Ontario families.

Will you address the wait time for assessments, the wait time for services and funding inequities between boards?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Liz Sandals: I find it very surprising that the member opposite, having identified an issue, which was a difficult allocation of the high-needs amount, is saying, “Why don’t you fix it?” when we point out that we are in the process of fixing it and, in fact, are in the process of implementing a new model for high needs; then turns around and says, “Well, that doesn’t matter. I don’t care.” We’re doing exactly what the member asked us to do, and the Peel District School Board has, in fact, said that we are addressing the problem that we identified. I don’t know how on earth we make the member opposite happy when she identifies a problem and we’re, in fact, fixing it.

Privatization of public services

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier: Does the Premier think the LCBO headquarters and GM shares combined are worth $3.15 billion?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: No, Mr. Speaker, it’s not.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, the Premier’s plan counts on at least $3.15 billion from assets. The LCBO headquarters and the GM shares are worth significant sums, but certainly not $3.15 billion, as the finance minister has just acknowledged.

The question is an obvious one: Where is the money coming from?

Hon. Charles Sousa: That’s why we have Mr. Clark and the council doing their work, reviewing effectively and appropriately the values of our crown corporations, our assets and how we can—basically, we’re talking about looking at those products that the member just spoke about, real estate and shares in companies where we’re not getting the most productivity and the best value for our taxpayer, to do an asset swap, to find better ways to invest.

Would you rather have shares of GM that are there as a passive investor or would you rather we build a subway? Do you want us to have real estate holdings in downtown Toronto, or do you want us to build an LRT? Do you want us to have roads and bridges up in the north or do you want us to hold on to real estate in Hamilton, in your own riding? We are trying to make it more productive and more effective for the people of this province for the long term and for our prosperity.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The Liberals are holding a blind auction where the public are the only ones who are being left in the dark. On the one hand, they already have an asking price of $3.15 billion, and on the other hand, they won’t tell the public what’s for sale. Is it the LCBO? Is it Hydro One? Apparently, no one will say, but someone has clearly done the math. Why are the Premier and her finance minister refusing to tell Ontarians the whole story about their fire sale of public assets?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Mr. Speaker, we’re not refusing to tell anything. We put it in the budget. We’re making it clear that we’re going to be reviewing assets. We’re going to be reviewing the operations of our crown corporations. We’re going to ensure that we maximize their value and provide greater dividends for the province of Ontario and for the taxpayer.

The council’s principles are as follows: The public interest must remain paramount and protected; decisions must be aligned to maximize value for Ontarians; and the decision process will remain transparent, professional and independently validated.

What we want is to ensure that we’re maximizing the value of the operations of our assets and ensure that we do better than we’ve been. You can put your head in the sand and pretend that there’s no need, but there is. There’s always a requirement for us to do more—

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

New question?

Ontario budget

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next questions are to the Premier about Liberal promises, frankly. The Liberal plan is good news for auto insurance companies, but let’s talk about what that means for families.

Yesterday, the Minister of Finance refused to commit to this year’s target for getting auto insurance rates under control. If the Liberals can’t keep their target this year, the question is: Can the Premier tell drivers whether they’ll ever see the 15% savings in auto insurance rates?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The fact is that auto insurance rates, on average, are down more than 5%, and the leader of the third party’s own candidates made comments during the election that they were getting better auto rates. The fact is we are on track. We have committed to a 15% reduction and had we been able to pass the legislation that would have taken further costs out of the system, we would be farther along. But we will reintroduce that legislation.

In terms of the impact of our budget on families, I think that the leader of the third party knows perfectly well that personal support workers will receive more money in wages as a result of our budget. The families of personal support workers will be supported. Child care modernization and investments in early learning will make an impact on people’s lives.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Families are, in fact, wondering exactly what the Liberal plan does mean for them. There is a growing chorus of economists, editorialists and bond rating agencies who are raising red flags about the Liberals’ ability to keep their promises and pay the bills. That puts important services in this province, like health care and education, at risk.

With this in mind, why does the Premier think now is the right time to open up new loopholes for CEOs to write off their luxury expenses in this province?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Here’s what I think it’s time for: It’s time for us to get our budget passed so that we can move on implementing $2.5 billion in the Jobs and Prosperity Fund over the next 10 years to help businesses like Ubisoft, where I was this morning with the Minister of Economic Development and Employment and with the member for Davenport, which has created 330 jobs since 2010 by partnering with government.

I think it’s time to invest $130 billion in public infrastructure. I think it’s time to invest $11.4 billion in hospital expansions and redevelopments. I think it’s time to start developing a made-in-Ontario retirement pension plan. It’s time to increase the Ontario Child Benefit. It’s time to invest $810 million in developmental services, and it’s time to expand low-income health benefits. All of that is in our budget, Mr. Speaker. It’s time to implement those things.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the Liberals promised to make the tough choices, but the bottom line is that this budget opens up new loopholes for CEOs, while people who work hard every day and play by the rules are finding that life is getting harder and harder, instead of easier.

Is that what the Premier had in mind when she said “difficult choices” have to be made? How exactly difficult was it for this Premier to choose CEOs over everyday families?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, we clearly have not done that and the leader of the third party knows that. What we have done is we have brought back a budget to this Legislature that would put $50 million in place for a new Local Poverty Reduction Fund. We’ve brought back a budget that, as I have said, would increase wages for personal support workers, would put new funding in place for long-term-care homes, would support in vitro fertilization funding, would expand mental health and addictions, would put in place a comprehensive aboriginal action plan and would invest billions in retrofits in our schools.

That’s what our budget has put forward. Those are the things that we will implement.

I know that the leader of the third party understands that and is looking for every reason not to support our budget, but there is a long, long list of reasons why she should be supporting it.

Tendering process

Mr. Michael Harris: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Minister, the labour board recently dismissed the region of Waterloo’s appeal against the carpenters’ union certification bid. Do you know what the defining evidence was in that case? The region fixed a toilet handle at an addiction centre and installed a sign at a bus station. Now the region is subject to the same labour rules as a private sector construction company and, as a result, the region is now locked into a labour monopoly.

Minister, nobody agrees that the system is fair; they know it’s broken. That’s why they now want the government to live up to its word and seriously consider fixing the labour act.

Minister, will you agree to work with me today to restore open tendering in the region of Waterloo?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I do thank the honourable member for the question. The OLRB has released its final decision in regard to the matter that they were dealing with, with the carpenters’ union and Waterloo.

Mr. Speaker, as you know the OLRB is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal that we use from time to time in this House. As such, it would be inappropriate for me to comment or to pass judgment on the decisions of the board. However, it’s important to note that if the municipality is unsatisfied with the board’s decision, they’re able to reapply for classification as a non-construction employer. It’s that simple. The municipality has rights to move ahead in the process, and I would expect that they would ascertain as to whether they will use those rights.

We know, for example, that non-construction employer classification was granted to the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board and the Independent Electricity System Operator as examples of where organizations have used the rights that they have to get the decision they would like to see.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Michael Harris: Minister, that’s a horrible answer to a question, especially when you come into the region of Waterloo. They’ve already gone through the process, Minister. They’ve already gone through the process, and they lost.

This isn’t a political issue, because I can tell you that it isn’t for the thousands of qualified tradespeople who have now been prevented from working on publicly funded infrastructure in the community where they live, work and pay taxes. This is an issue of fairness that hard-working men and women in my region want to see the government fix. They don’t want to see their elected representatives stand by and allow a loophole in the Labour Relations Act to bar them from working on the very infrastructure that their taxes pay for.

Minister, wouldn’t you agree that it’s only fair to give all qualified tradespeople an equal opportunity to bid on public infrastructure?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: On this side of the House, we’re very, very proud of our track record. We enjoy labour peace in the province of Ontario: About 97% of collective agreements are solved without any resort to strike or to job action at all.

But I’m not surprised that the member for Kitchener–Conestoga is unhappy with the OLRB’s decision, because, in fact, what the parties did was they used the rules that were put in place by his party to reach this decision. This isn’t something that was brought in by this government; this is something that was brought in by your government.

Certainly, if you made a mistake along the way, I’m open to suggestions as to how that might be fixed. But you’ve got to remember that these are rules that you brought in. You asked the parties to apply those rules. This is the ruling that has been handed down. If you have suggestions as to how we might correct what you obviously think is a mistake of yours, we’d be very, very happy to look at it.

Health care

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

I think the minister will agree that patients need to be able to trust our health care system and providers. When things go wrong, they want the help of an independent third party that they can trust. But this government refuses to listen to patients, to their families and to health care workers. The Liberals’ new patient ombudsman very clearly works for the health care system and reports to the minister. It will be perceived as bias by people who have lost faith in our health care system’s ability to help them.

Speaker, will the minister explain why truly independent oversight of our hospitals and long-term-care homes is so unacceptable to this government?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’m glad to have another opportunity to say how excited I am about the proposed legislation that contains within it the creation of the position of the patient ombudsman. It’s not a position that looks across government and all sectors of society that are important to Ontarians. It’s an individual, he or she, who will be solely responsible for looking at the health care sector, the needs of the patients, the clients, to make sure that individuals and their families are getting the best possible care we can provide.

This is an individual who won’t be housed within government—it would be in an agency of government, the most appropriate one, I believe, Health Quality Ontario—at arm’s length to the government, producing an annual report which will be made public, and who will have, quite frankly, the powers that the Ombudsman has as well. The Ombudsman, I should add, has oversight of Health Quality Ontario, where this person resides.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: The minister says that the patient ombudsman will have the powers of the Ombudsman, but that’s just not the case. The patient ombudsman, for example, does not accept complaints from family members or from MPPs, does not accept complaints from ambulance services, health units or homes for special care. It does not investigate decisions or recommendations. It needs a warrant or consent to enter a facility. And it is not an independent officer of this assembly.

Your decision is not based on evidence. It is not based on best practice. Why does the minister insist on saying the patient ombudsman is good enough for Ontarians when every other province and territory has Ombudsman oversight of their health care system?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’m confident that we’re actually doing something which is better than those other provinces and territories. It’s an individual who is wholly focused on our health care system.

We actually based the legislation on the Ombudsman Act. We consulted with the Ombudsman on the creation of this position. Here’s what the patient ombudsman will be able to do: will be able both to investigate in response to a complaint or initiate his or her own investigation. Like the Ombudsman, the patient ombudsman would have the ability to enter premises for the purpose of an investigation, and the ability to require the production of information and documents in connection with an investigation without entering a premise.

Following an investigation, the patient ombudsman would be able to not only make recommendations to the CCAC, the LHIN and the hospital at issue, but also produce a report which is publicly available. As I mentioned, the Ombudsman, whom we consulted with for this position, will have oversight of Health Quality Ontario, which is where this individual will reside.

Mining industry

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Ma question est pour le ministre du Développement du Nord et des Mines, l’honorable Michael Gravelle.

I think this is an important question for the minister which has deep implications for Ontario’s economic future, so I hope, Minister, that you will not give us a Trojan Horse response.

Our government has committed $1 billion for the development of the Ring of Fire. Realizing this project’s full potential will not only bring thousands of jobs to the north, even Etobicoke North, but will also have a real positive impact across Ontario. That’s why getting this project right is essential. Bringing together different proposals from First Nations communities, key mining companies and different levels of government is needed to ensure this project’s success.

My question is this: Can the minister please inform this House about the 60-day commitment to establish the Ring of Fire development corporation?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: A good question from the member for Etobicoke North. Thank you very much. Congratulations on your victory as well.

Our government is setting very tangible benchmarks so that we can drive smart, sustainable development forward in the Ring of Fire. That is why, as of July 3, when our government laid out our vision during the throne speech, we also marked the beginning of our 60-day commitment to establish a development corporation.

We recognize the need to facilitate the creation of a business structure that can align interests and advance strategic infrastructure development in the Ring of Fire in a way that benefits all Ontarians. All of our partners will make crucial infrastructure decisions for the Ring of Fire and utilize the $1 billion we have committed.

Our government is going to continue to work with all of our partners to ensure that we meet that 60-day deadline, our next benchmark in this great project’s development.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Thank you, Minister, for the update on the strategy and the initiatives. I think Ontarians appreciate and deserve a clear, sound strategic plan that will help realize this tremendous opportunity.

It was with some degree of astonishment, however, that I realized the approach that the third party was taking regarding the Ring of Fire. The NDP seemed to demonstrate their inability, perhaps even their incapacity, to provide sound economic policy. Speaker, their recent platform allocated zero dollars—nada, nothing, goose egg, bubkes—to the Ring of Fire. To be clear, it wasn’t omitted from their platform. The NDP had one line item for the Ring of Fire, and it said “zero.”

I’m encouraged that our financial commitment of $1 billion will help build the much-needed transportation infrastructure for this project.

The minister speaks about how benchmarking is important. Would he please inform this House about how some of our government’s milestones in this essential area of economic development are proceeding?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: It is a great question and a very clear point about the very muddled platform commitment by the NDP, which wasn’t really there.

Speaker, this is a complex project, but with the right mechanisms and the right benchmarks, we have and we will keep this project moving forward. Certainly, signing the historic landmark framework agreement with all nine Matawa First Nations, and Premier Wynne was part of that, was a very significant achievement. Committing $1 billion to the Ring of Fire infrastructure is another example of how we are driving this great project forward. May I say, Mr. Speaker, our 60-day commitment is but another example of our government’s strategic approach to realizing this multi-generational economic project.

Pan Am Games

Mrs. Gila Martow: Mr. Speaker, I have another question to the minister responsible for the Pan Am Games. On CFRB this past week, I heard the minister say that he expects GTHA municipalities to reduce traffic congestion by 20% in anticipation of the Pan Am Games next summer.

Minister, you are punting responsibility to municipalities you’ve saddled with these games. By spending money on things like VIP lanes, you have lost an opportunity to invest in measures like synchronized traffic lights that would make a real impact on gridlock.

Will the minister tell this House why he has chosen a band-aid solution over a plan to improve the lives of millions of Ontarians?

Hon. Michael Coteau: I appreciate that—

Interjection.

Hon. Michael Coteau: Well, it is Pachi’s birthday today. So happy birthday, Pachi. It’s his first birthday. Congratulations, Pachi.

The Pan Am Games are going to be an incredible event. They’re going to be broadcast to over 300 million people. We will have over 300,000 people come into the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe to celebrate our athletes, not only from Ontario but from right across Canada and from many countries in the Americas.

Obviously, we’re going to have to invest a lot of time and energy into making sure we get our transit right, and I know the minister responsible for transportation would like to weigh in on this question. But we are going to bring a lot of excitement here to the province of Ontario, and we’re going to do everything that we can to support them.

Mr. Speaker, we’re going to have a lot of people from all around the world supporting us. In fact, the last time we had dignitaries come down, I remember the party opposite turned their back on those countries.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Gila Martow: Minister, it’s hard to get excited about going to see a game when you know you’re not going to make it to the game because you’re sitting in gridlock. I can’t imagine how the athletes and officials are going feel.

Your government decided to host these games with no regard for the impact on families and commuters. Now you’re telling the GTHA municipalities that they are on their own when it comes to gridlock for games you have said will be bigger than the Vancouver Olympics. You’ve chosen sky-high executive salaries over gridlock improvement measures.

Minister, will you apologize to the GTHA taxpayers for the transportation nightmare that is yet to come?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Minister of Transportation.

Hon. Steven Del Duca: I thank my colleague the minister responsible for the Pan Am Games for his opening response and also for his outstanding work on this file.

I have the pleasure of being the neighbouring MPP to the member who is asking this question, as someone who is proud to represent a York region riding.

I think it’s important to remember that the Ministry of Transportation, working in conjunction with the other ministries that are affected, has a very strong and robust plan to make sure that we are able to move not only our regular commuters around the GTHA, but also the athletes, all of the volunteers and everyone else who is associated with the Pan Am Games, around the entire games area in the most effective and efficient way possible.

I think, with about a year left until the games are actually taking place, it would make the most sense for members on all sides of this House to work with us, to work with stakeholders and to work with municipalities and partners to make sure that these games are as successful as they will be. I call on the member opposite to work with us on this.

Municipalities

Ms. Cindy Forster: My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Like many others, our province’s mayors, regional chairs and councillors are struggling to understand a fundamental contradiction in this budget. On one hand, they’re told that the funding to municipalities is going up, and yet, when you look at the actual budget, you find that it includes annual cuts of 6% per year to most ministries, in a group that includes Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The government cannot giveth and taketh away at the same time. Will the minister come clean and tell municipalities how much their programs will be cut?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: Well, that’s a great question. We on this side of the House pride ourselves on the relationship we’ve been able to develop with the 444 municipalities across Ontario. We continue to meet our uploading schedule, which neither of the other parties would commit to in the last election, and which is important to our municipal leaders.

But most important of all, we continue to dialogue with our partners at every opportunity. By the way, I’m pleased to stand in this House and say that the first thing that I’m going to do as the new minister is a tour I’m calling the “building bridges tour.” We’re going across Ontario to consult, over and above the AMO consultations, on issues of importance to our municipal partners in an effort to find out how we can work even more effectively together.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Cindy Forster: Table 2.19 on page 244 of the budget says something different. As the government decides how to cut 6% each year for three years, slashing budgets by a total of $3 billion per year, history shows that municipalities are often an easy target.

As Brock University’s Professor David Siegel pointed out yesterday, municipalities should be very worried with this budget. Almost 20 years ago, Mike Harris figured out that if he cut transfers to municipalities, forcing deep cuts to municipal programs, municipalities took the blame, not the province. Municipalities are still suffering those consequences.

Mr. Speaker, will the minister please tell us how much of the $3 billion in cuts will be going to municipalities?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: We’re continuing with the uploading, as all members of this House should know, and as our municipal partners expect and appreciate. We have a memorandum of understanding with the 444 municipalities, which they signed on to, and which defines the timing of the upload and how that’s handled. They’re happy with that.

We have since 2014, in fact, provided a combined benefit of over $2 billion to municipalities. That’s over three times the level that was in place in 2003. I think we’ve got a really good record and a good relationship with the municipalities, and I can pledge to the members of this House that that relationship will continue to improve under this government.

Healthy living

Mr. Grant Crack: Thank you very much, Speaker; it’s great to be back. My question is for the Associate Minister of Health with responsibility for long-term care and wellness. I’d like to congratulate you on your appointment to cabinet.

It’s finally summer here in Ontario and we’re spending a lot more time outdoors, especially after that long, harsh winter that we just experienced. Now, many families in my riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell are spending their weekends at the cottage. They’re hiking or biking across our beautiful countryside, or they’re finding a beach to play on or just relax on, or maybe they’re just relaxing at home.

Being outdoors can and should be fun, but it also carries some risk. Families in GPR and across this province are wondering what they can do to protect their kids. Through you, Speaker, could the minister tell this House how families can enjoy the sun while staying safe?

Hon. Dipika Damerla: Thanks to the very hard-working member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell. I want to start by saying how pleased I am that his constituents are out there enjoying the summer and being active, and I hope he will be able to join them soon.

Our government is committed to keeping Ontarians healthy, and there is no better way to stay healthy than to be active and fit. And there’s no better time in a cold country like ours to stay active and fit than in the summer. I urge all Ontarians to get out there and enjoy the great outdoors: Canoe; go hiking; go swimming. This is especially important for our kids because we know intuitively, as parents and grandparents, that our kids are not as active as they should be. In fact, studies show that our kids are spending 62% of their time inactive, and we must do everything we can to get them active. But it’s really important that they stay safe, and that’s why we urge them to use helmets—

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

Mr. Grant Crack: Thank you, Minister, for that comprehensive and thoughtful answer.

With the growing problem of childhood obesity, I know how important it is for our kids to get out and play and exercise. Whether it’s exploring a park, participating in sports or swimming in a pond or a pool or a lake, we should all be encouraging our children to be exploring Ontario’s great outdoors.

I know some people love the rain, and so do I, but the minister spoke about protecting our kids from skin cancer. I know that’s something that parents actually worry about. They make sure their children are using sunscreen and wearing light clothing to protect their skin from the sun and its harmful ultraviolet rays. But the sun isn’t the only source of danger, Speaker. Through you, could the minister inform the House what else the government is doing to protect our children from skin cancer?

Hon. Dipika Damerla: The member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell is absolutely right. There’s more than one way to increase one’s chances of getting skin cancer. Tanning bed usage in particular presents a risk, especially for our young. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has shown the risk of developing skin cancer increases by 75% when tanning beds are used before the age of 35. That is why our government took action, passing legislation in October 2013 that will prevent young people from using tanning beds in Ontario. This came into effect, I’m happy to say, on May 1 of this year.

This was very timely because previously, tanning bed use had been increasing, more than doubling between 2006 and 2012 for grade 11 and grade 12 students.

Now that we have this legislation, it’s going to protect our kids from exposure to artificial ultraviolet radiation in tanning beds.

I’m just going to ask all of us to have a safe summer.

Hospice care

Mr. Jim Wilson: My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, over three years ago I first stood in this House to raise an important issue about the discrepancy between how hospices are funded in Ontario. I have since raised this issue with your government several times and yet nothing seems to be happening. If you look at my riding, the north end hospice receives funding from their LHIN, while the south end hospice has been told that the LHINs don’t fund residential hospices at all.

Minister, hospices are there for those who require treatment at the end stages of life. The alternative for many people is to stay in the hospital at a much higher cost. In fact, the cost can be upwards of 10 times more expensive. An intensive care bed, as you know, averages close to $3,000 per day in a hospital, while a hospice bed averages between $300 to $500.

Minister, you have a clear opportunity to save taxpayers some money by supporting hospices across the province. Will you do that?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: We do support hospices across this province. In fact, we were the first government to invest in hospices. We want to be sure that, at this important moment in an individual’s and their families’ and friends’ life, Ontarians have dignity through their final days.

We have now committed to a palliative and end-of-life strategy, and myself along with the associate minister will be working on that as we go forward. It was referenced in our platform as part of this plan. In fact, we’re committing to funding 20 more hospices across the province, almost doubling the number of people in Ontario who will have access to this high-quality end-of-life care. It’s important. It builds on an earlier end-of-life strategy from 2005, which at that time was a $115-million program to provide that dignity and that important support, that quality health care, to those individuals who so badly and so importantly deserve it.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jim Wilson: Thank you for that answer, Minister. You might want to adjust your number; I think it’s 22 of the 35 hospices that actually receive nothing from government. The 13 that do receive limited funding just for the nursing and personal support costs. So all of the capital, as you know, is fundraised by the local community.

In fact, I wish you’d talk to the Central LHIN, because Matthews House Hospice in Alliston runs four beds. They run them completely without funding at all from the government, one of the 22. The attitude that the LHIN has taken there is, “How dare you go ahead and build a hospice and not have government approval ahead of time or government funding in place?” What a horrible attitude the ministry has. They should be thanking the people for raising millions of dollars, for putting the four beds in place and for covering the up to $650,000-a-year operating cost. Eighty people have gone through there.

The average length of stay is 10 days. According to the formula, that’s $2 million you save in health care dollars by supporting the hospice. So will you support Matthews House?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I thank the member opposite. In fact, he’s making a good argument for supporting what we’ve proposed in the budget and our platform, which is developing a specific palliative and end-of-life strategy across the province. It’s important not only that the system works better, but we want an overarching provincial policy framework when it comes to this end-of-life care. It’s so important that we not do it—I’m not suggesting that in this instance this is the case, but it can’t be on an ad hoc basis. It needs to be very proactive. It needs to engage members of the community.

It needs to have a provincial policy, which is the foundation of how we engage individuals in support. But the reality is that we’re investing significantly more money. It’s in our platform. We will be finding ways to implement that going ahead.

We’re going to be basing it in part on a very important working group that was set up just last December, the residential hospice working group, which is consulting widely and is going to be providing us with the recommendations that we need to develop that important strategy for residential hospices as well as the other palliative care.

Mining industry

Mr. Michael Mantha: Mr. Speaker, good morning to you. You should try to smile a little bit more. It’s not becoming of you, having that long pout on you.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Only the members can make me smile.

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question is directed to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. Minister, your government promised during the election to establish a Ring of Fire development corporation within 60 days of assuming government, just like you promised during the election that you would go ahead and invest a billion dollars into the Ring of Fire, with or without a commitment from the federal government to match the funds, even though your budget said that the billion dollars was contingent on the feds buying in.

Well, Minister, which is it? Will you go ahead and invest a billion dollars into the Ring of Fire regardless of whether the feds sign on or not? The people of northern Ontario deserve to know.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I appreciate the question. Indeed, we have been very clear. The Premier was very clear during the campaign and we are very clear now that the $1-billion commitment is indeed locked in place. We are going to move forward with this project. We’ve made a number of significant amendments, including moving forward with our 60-day commitment in terms of forming a development corporation.

But that is not to say that we should not be putting pressure on and expecting the federal government to match our billion-dollar commitment. The fact is that we want to realize the full potential of this extraordinary project, which includes community access, and indeed I would call on all members of the opposition, but certainly those on the official opposition side, to support our call on the federal government to match our dollars.

Our commitment is in place, as is our commitment to move forward on the development corporation and the great work that we’re doing with First Nations, particularly the Matawa First Nations.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Mantha: Once again to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines: I’m glad to hear that the minister now knows when his government’s 60-day commitment to creating the Ring of Fire development corporation begins. Yesterday, the minister confessed he wasn’t sure when the 60-day guarantee actually begins. He admitted he wasn’t clear whether it was 60 days from being sworn in as minister or 60 days from the throne speech.

The minister then went on to say that the development corporation would be set up by the end of the summer. I have been asking for a briefing on this plan but have been told it was premature. Will you commit to a date to when the people of the north will see a development corporation up and running? Minister, it’s day 14: tick, tick, tick.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Again, I appreciate the question, although it is coming a little bit late in question period. We confirmed earlier in question period that indeed July 3 was when the clock started ticking, so to speak, towards the 60-day deadline. We are going to meet that commitment and work with our partners to meet that commitment.

But it’s a little ironic coming from a party that, during the campaign, put support for the Ring of Fire in their platform, and with that platform commitment was zero dollars. For you to be speaking about us not being sure about deadlines or timelines—we’re committed to the $1 billion. We call on the federal government to match those dollars. We’re committed to our 60-day establishment of the Ring of Fire development corporation as of July 3. It started that date—that timing.

Indeed, we’re committed to continue to work extremely closely with the Matawa First Nations through the negotiations on a regional process with the Ring of Fire. This is a great, exciting project. We need the support of everyone in the Legislature to make this project happen.

Senior citizens

Mr. Yvan Baker: My question today is for the minister responsible for seniors. Mr. Speaker, as many of us in this Legislature know, the number of seniors in Ontario is growing at a significant rate. In fact, the number of seniors over 65 is projected to double by the year 2036. This shift in demographics offers opportunities but it also offers challenges. In my riding of Etobicoke Centre we have one of the largest proportions of seniors of any riding in Ontario, so the services that our government provides are critically important not only to seniors but to their families in the community.

Many of the seniors I have spoken to in Etobicoke Centre have asked where they can find more information about the services available to them, whether they be for recreational activities, life-long learning possibilities or health care options, to help improve their daily quality of life.

Would the minister explain how this government is helping seniors to access the information they need to continue to be active members of their communities?

Hon. Mario Sergio: Mr. Speaker, this is the first chance I have to congratulate you on your reappointment. I also wish you a very healthy and long life. I know you want to smile, but it is because, at the end of your term, Speaker, you will be the longest-serving Speaker of the House. I have to say congratulations on that, too.

As well, I want to congratulate the wonderful people of Etobicoke Centre for electing such an energetic representative. I know that he will serve the people of Etobicoke very, very well.

Speaker, we know that we have a lot of seniors today and we’re going to have a lot of seniors tomorrow. We don’t have to go as far as 2036. We need to look at 2016-17 to know that we will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 14. We have the guide to programs for seniors, which is a wonderful document, and I will add to it in my supplementary

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Yvan Baker: Thank you to the minister for that response. I know that the guide that the minister refers to covers a range of topics. I also know that it’s written in a variety of languages to make it as accessible as possible. I think it’s important that it gets into the hands of people in our community in Etobicoke Centre and across Ontario. Can the minister please take his time in the supplementary to expand on what’s in that guide? I think this would be to the benefit of my constituents in Etobicoke Centre that they understand what’s contained in it—and to communities across Ontario.

Hon. Mario Sergio: Again, I have to say thank you to the member because he’s on top of a very important issue that is also an issue important to the people of Etobicoke Centre.

Speaker, the guide is extremely well received. It contains a lot of information about active living, caregiving, transportation, housing and a lot more. It also includes a key contact

section with phone numbers of which seniors can avail themselves.

This is one of the plans that will continue to make Ontario the best place where seniors can age in.

Pension plans

Mrs. Julia Munro: My question is to the Premier. Premier, why is Ontario the only province to believe that the creation of a provincial pension plan is the best way for people to save for retirement? No other province or government thinks this is a good idea. Prince Edward Island is the latest province to back out of supporting your proposed Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.

Premier, at a time when businesses and families are struggling to stay afloat, why are you increasing payroll taxes and decreasing take-home pay?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know that the associate minister responsible for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan will want to speak to the supplementary, but I really need to say that it is very important that the member opposite understand—and I think she does—that our first choice all along would have been to have had the Canada Pension Plan enhanced. We agree with provinces across the country that that is what should have happened. But the federal government—Stephen Harper would not engage in that conversation. He said that he wasn’t interested. He did not want to do what every province across the country wants, which is to negotiate a new and enhanced Canada Pension Plan.

If the member opposite has a way into the hearts of the federal government, her federal cousins, we would be more than happy to work with the federal government. But in the absence of that leadership, we’re going to stand up for the retirement security of the people of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Julia Munro: I would just say that the federal government understands how to answer the question about increasing payroll taxes and decreasing take-home pay.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says the new pension will hurt small and medium-sized businesses that simply cannot afford to make the employer contributions, and says that this plan will kill, not create, jobs.

Ontario is the only province moving forward with this job-killing plan. Why are you making it harder for Ontario businesses and families to survive?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Associate Minister of Finance, with responsibility for the pension plan.

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: I would like to thank the member opposite for the question and congratulate her on her critic role for pensions.

You’ve asked a very important question of why: Why do we need to create a made-in-Ontario retirement pension plan? The simple fact of the matter is that people are not saving enough for retirement. We cannot put our population at risk by not taking action now.

The fact of the matter is CPP is inadequate to meet the needs of retirees, capping out at $12,500. In fact, the average in Ontario is $6,800, and that is not enough income to sustain people. The fact of the matter is two thirds of people are without a workplace-based pension plan, so those means are not enough as well.

We are moving forward in Ontario and providing an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan so people can retire with adequate income security.

School closures

Mr. Wayne Gates: My question is to the Minister of Education. On Tuesday, the minister said she was “delighted” that they started to talk to boards about how they can make use of school space. The members of the local community group CARE have a plan to work with the not-for-profits, groups like the Boys and Girls Club and the United Way, to create a new community hub and to keep their school open.

Will the minister be delighted to listen to the community of Niagara-on-the-Lake and ensure that this government invest in keeping Parliament Oak school open?

Hon. Liz Sandals: I think we need to back up a little bit, because what I think the member is obliquely asking me is, will I overturn a decision by the board to close the school? In fact, I have no legal authority to overturn a decision by a board to close a school. It is the fact that during NDP government, during PC government, during Liberal government, the Education Act has always given the local school board the exclusive authority over the ability to close a school. So if what he’s asking me is if I have the authority to overturn a decision that has already been made, the answer is actually no.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Wayne Gates: Minister, in your own budget it says that the government will recognize the importance of schools in small communities. But at the same time, your budget seems to focus on a plan to close schools more than anything else. This budget lays out a specific plan to use $750 million to close schools but doesn’t have a program to keep them open.

Will the minister promise to take action on the importance of small community schools and set aside a committed fund to keep schools open, like Parliament Oak?

Hon. Liz Sandals: That’s a different question because in fact our budget does have in it a dedicated fund for the community use of schools. But that is a fund that would be based on application only. The school board would have to apply to the government for that community use as part of a business plan. It is not intended to suddenly give me the authority to overturn. But certainly, if a board comes forward and says, “We have a plan here that is a plan to transition us to community use of a particular building,” then absolutely, there is funding in the budget to engage in that conversation. But the board needs to approach the ministry with that as part of their plan.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Premier, on a point of order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, it came to my attention earlier this week that one of the respected members of the press gallery, Richard Brennan, celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary—he and Vickie celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

We want to collectively congratulate Richard and Vickie Brennan, who were married on July 13, 1974, in Ingersoll, Ontario. They have two children, Andrew and Kelly. Kelly was married just a couple of days after the election. Congratulations to her. They have two grandkids, Mason and Audrey.

They met in Ingersoll. They had their first date at a Christmas party in 1972. He worked at the paper and she worked at the bank. I just want to say that all of us want to especially congratulate Vickie.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Algoma–Manitoulin asked me if there was a reason for me to smile. This is it, and it’s for Vickie.

I have to say, that’s not a point of order but I’m sure that all of us share the joy of Richard and Vickie.

Deferred Votes

Building Opportunity and Securing Our Future Act (Budget Measures), 2014 / Loi de 2014 ouvrant des perspectives et assurant notre avenir (mesures budgétaires)

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 14,

An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various Acts / Projet de loi 14, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Call in the members. This will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1138 to 1143.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Would all members take their seats, please.

On July 16, Mr. Naqvi moved second reading of Bill 14. All those in favour, please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Albanese, Laura

Anderson, Granville

Baker, Yvan

Balkissoon, Bas

Ballard, Chris

Berardinetti, Lorenzo

Bradley, James J.

Chan, Michael

Chiarelli, Bob

Colle, Mike

Coteau, Michael

Crack, Grant

Damerla, Dipika

Del Duca, Steven

Delaney, Bob

Dhillon, Vic

Dickson, Joe

Dong, Han

Duguid, Brad

Flynn, Kevin Daniel

Fraser, John

Gravelle, Michael

Hoggarth, Ann

Hoskins, Eric

Hunter, Mitzie

Jaczek, Helena

Kiwala, Sophie

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Marie-France

Leal, Jeff

MacCharles, Tracy

Malhi, Harinder

Mangat, Amrit

Martins, Cristina

Matthews, Deborah

Mauro, Bill

McGarry, Kathryn

McMahon, Eleanor

McMeekin, Ted

Meilleur, Madeleine

Milczyn, Peter Z.

Moridi, Reza

Murray, Glen R.

Naidoo-Harris, Indira

Naqvi, Yasir

Orazietti, David

Potts, Arthur

Qaadri, Shafiq

Rinaldi, Lou

Sandals, Liz

Sergio, Mario

Sousa, Charles

Vernile, Daiene

Wong, Soo

Wynne, Kathleen O.

Zimmer, David

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): All those opposed, please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

Armstrong, Teresa J.

Arnott, Ted

Bisson, Gilles

Campbell, Sarah

Cimino, Joe

Clark, Steve

Elliott, Christine

Fedeli, Victor

Fife, Catherine

Forster, Cindy

French, Jennifer K.

Gates, Wayne

Gélinas, France

Gretzky, Lisa

Hardeman, Ernie

Harris, Michael

Hatfield, Percy

Horwath, Andrea

Hudak, Tim

Jones, Sylvia

MacLeod, Lisa

Mantha, Michael

Martow, Gila

Miller, Paul

Munro, Julia

Nicholls, Rick

Pettapiece, Randy

Sattler, Peggy

Singh, Jagmeet

Smith, Todd

Tabuns, Peter

Taylor, Monique

Thompson, Lisa M.

Walker, Bill

Wilson, Jim

Yurek, Jeff

The Clerk of the Assembly (Ms. Deborah Deller): The ayes are 56; the nays are 36.

The Speaker (H