role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

June 9, 2016

41st Parliament, 1st Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2016-Jun-09 (PDF)

L185 - Thu 9 Jun 2016 / Jeu 9 jun 2016

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 9 June 2016 Jeudi 9 juin 2016

Orders of the Day

Smoke-Free Ontario Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée

Introduction of Visitors

Arthur McDonald

Oral Questions

Energy policies

Health care funding

Mercury poisoning

Hospital funding

Pan Am Games

Pan Am Games

Climate change

Access to justice

Autism treatment

Mining safety

Energy policies

Ontario Energy Board

Research and innovation

Member’s anniversary

Legislative pages

Disclosure of information

Deferred Votes

Smoke-Free Ontario Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée

Members’ Statements

Skills training

Automotive industry

Consumer protection

Human trafficking

New Liskeard Bikers Reunion

Ajax Home Week

Jenna’s Lemonade Stand

Media technologies facility

Beaches International Jazz Festival

Wearing of pins

Introduction of Bills

Delegated Administrative Authorities Accountability and Transparency Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur la responsabilisation et la transparence des organismes d’application délégataires

Petitions

Highway ramps

Hospital funding

Water fluoridation

School closures

Special-needs students

Grade separation

Natural gas

Hospital funding

Blood donation

Health care funding

Post-secondary sector employees

Sexual violence and harassment

Driver licenses

Health care funding

Privatization of public assets

Health care funding

Gasoline prices

Lung health

Private Members’ Public Business

Highway Traffic Amendment Act (Careless Driving), 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant le Code de la route (conduite imprudente)

Door-to-Door Sales Prohibition Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 interdisant la vente de porte-à-porte

Brain Tumour Awareness Month Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la

Loi sur le Mois de la sensibilisation aux tumeurs cérébrales

Highway Traffic Amendment Act (Careless Driving), 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant le Code de la route (conduite imprudente)

Door-to-Door Sales Prohibition Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 interdisant la vente de porte-à-porte

Brain Tumour Awareness Month Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la

Loi sur le Mois de la sensibilisation aux tumeurs cérébrales

Door-to-Door Sales Prohibition Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 interdisant la vente de porte-à-porte

Royal assent / Sanction royale

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Smoke-Free Ontario Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée

Resuming the debate adjourned on June 8, 2016, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 178,

An Act to amend the Smoke-Free Ontario Act / Projet de loi 178, Loi modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): When we last debated this bill, the member for Nickel Belt had the floor.

M me France Gélinas: It will be a pleasure to talk about Bill 178. I had a little bit of time yesterday to basically explain that we are talking about the Smoke-Free Ontario Act at the same time that a mega change is coming in our country. This mega change, we all know what that is. It is that using cannabis will become legal in our country, and that means it will become legal in our province. There is a huge, pent-up demand from people who want this to happen. That’s fine. It will be happening. It’s a promise that was made.

But, Speaker, everybody understands that the Smoke-Free Ontario Act and the Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy are to help people quit smoking. It’s to make sure that new people do not pick up the habit and become the next generation of smokers. We all get this. I dream of the day when we have an end strategy—and believe me, Speaker, this is coming. Soon we will have an end strategy in our province so that nobody picks up smoking anymore and nobody smokes anymore. I think I will see this in my lifetime.

But here we are, expecting a change in law that will legalize cannabis for recreational use, and we are debating this bill called the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. Why are we debating this bill? Because the Liberal government refused to listen. We just debated that bill about a year ago. We debated it at length, but throughout all of this, the Liberal government had already made up their minds as to what they wanted to see in this bill. They did not listen to the thousands of people who sent emails. They did not listen to the hundreds of people who came and made deputations. They did not listen to the members of the opposition. They did not take any of our amendments.

And now, a couple months after we did all this work on the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, they realized, “Look at this. We didn’t get it right. We need to change four words.” But in order to change four words in the bill, you have to go through first reading, second reading, public consultation, third reading—which we’re doing now—and royal assent, which will come as soon as our Lieutenant Governor comes back.

This is all time wasted because we have this huge change coming to our province where a lot of people who are non-smokers right now—they’re not cigarette smokers, but they are marijuana smokers. And now, we will make that legal. That’s good and that’s fine. The people of Ontario have been asking for that change for a very long time. But how about, as government, we take our responsibility seriously and look at this through a public health lens? How about, as the Liberal government, showing they take this responsibility seriously? At least have their eyes open to see the tsunami coming toward us of increasing smoking.

There are lots of drugs where I come from. Lots of people smoke cannabis right now illegally, and they’re all very much looking forward to doing this legally. But what will that mean, Speaker? Most of them, when they roll, roll with tobacco. As you make it legal, as you make it more accessible, as you make it more available, what are you doing? You are not only allowing people to smoke cannabis more freely—all good with that—you’re also putting a lot of people at risk of becoming tobacco smokers once again because it is a whole lot easier to roll a joint when you mix it with tobacco. It holds better. It rolls better. This is what everybody does.

The public health effect of this is well known and well documented. You read the Toronto Public Health report that was just released on May 13, or any other public health report, and you will see it there. The crossover from marijuana to tobacco is there; it’s real. Rather than seeing smoking rates go down, we will see them go up. All of this is preventable if the Liberals will only listen.

We have this bill. It will be voted on at noon today. It will pass. But even after all of this, the regulations are still not ready. So now we will have a bill that says “and other prescribed substances”—four words. Although we’ve known for a long time that those four words needed to be added so that we can deal with cannabis, the regulations are not ready. They’ve had two years to get the regulations ready.

They will blame us for slowing down the bill. To what avail? The bill will pass this afternoon. The Lieutenant Governor is not here to proclaim royal assent. But it makes no difference because the regulations that will describe what those other prescribed substances are—because the bill doesn’t say “marijuana”; it says “and other prescribed substances.” The other prescribed substances—we all know it means marijuana—will be defined in regulations that are not ready.

Meanwhile, you have smoking businesses and marijuana businesses opening everywhere. I think on the last count, we’re at 83 just in downtown Toronto. You can go to any little city, including my own, and the people are way ahead of the government, although the government knows full well that this is a very big threat to public health. Why are they not acting?

Whenever I ask, they say, “We’re waiting for the federal government’s change in legislation.” Really, Speaker? You cannot do an education campaign to show children, youth and their families that marijuana is not without risk? Really? You need to have the federal government pass a law? Do you really think that, no matter what is in that law, the health effects on young, developing minds will change? None of this will change.

Rather than using millions of dollars to tell us that the health care system is fine, our hospitals are doing well, our home care system is perfect and our long-term-care system is no-fail, use that money to educate people. Use that money to educate our youth so they know: Marijuana, absolutely, is way safer than tobacco—we know that—but it is not without risk. It is not without risk for the developing mind, for the developing brain. The body of evidence is pretty good on that. It has an effect. It has an effect on lowering IQ. It lowers the ability of the brain to develop language skills and many others.

It has an effect on mental health for youth. We’ll see more depression, more suicide and more severe mental health illnesses, like bipolar disorder, if youth start to use legalized marijuana.

Don’t go out with the usual, “Drugs are bad,” because we all know that doesn’t work. There are evidence-based ways to make sure that youth understand the risks and youth understand a moderate way to take advantage of this new product. Educate youth and educate their parents. Do a strong and robust health promotion campaign.

I was in Estimates yesterday, so I took the opportunity to ask how much money has been put aside for the campaign. You’ll be happy to know, Speaker, that it is zero. Not one dollar has been put aside to do this education. Why? The answer I got is that they’re waiting for the federal government to change the law.

What do changing a law and educating people about the health effects of recreational cannabis have in common? Apparently, for the Liberals, those two are linked. For the rest of the people in this province, they are not. The health effects of cannabis do not change whether it is legal or illegal. They stay exactly the same, and a good health promotion campaign needs to happen so that people know that, and so that parents know so they can guide their children. To say that we’re going to wait before we do anything—there are responsibilities that fall upon us. We have a bill in front of us. Why aren’t we doing that?

The federal government is not going to say what the age of sale is. For example, there are people who say that it should be 25 because of the health effects on the young mind. Others say, “Other jurisdictions put it at 21. It should be 21.” Others say it should be 19, the same as alcohol. Why aren’t we having those conversations? Why are we allowing this huge vacuum where nobody talks?

When the government doesn’t show leadership and doesn’t show they have a plan for this tsunami coming at us, then other people take the lead, and unfortunately, most of the other people who have taken the lead have taken the lead in a way in which they could cash in on that, that they could get rich, that they could make money, that they could make a living, that they could make a business. There’s nothing wrong with that.

It is okay to make a living, and it’s okay to have a business, but it is not okay for the government to sit back and be silent when there are hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who want their government to speak up, when there are hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who want to know how the system is going to work so they can be part of it, so they can develop an economy, so they can make a living out of it, and so they can be farmers and distributors. But none of this is known, because we’re waiting for the federal government.

I’m sorry, but the federal government is not going to tell us what the age for people to have access is going to be. Because the age for alcohol varies from one province to the next, they’re going to stay out of this. The federal government is not going to tell us what the distribution system is going to look like in our province, because this is our responsibility to take, but the Liberals are quite happy to sit and let this happen.

Then they say, “Oh, but we care about public health, and we care about people stopping smoking, and we’re very proud of our Smoke-Free Ontario Act,” when really, when they have an opportunity to be proactive, to show leadership, it is radio silence on this side. This is not acceptable, Speaker. This is not acceptable at all.

Why is it that when I ask the Ministry of Health, they tell us, “Oh, no, we’re going to take a path of health first. We understand the effect that legalization will have on public health, and we’re taking our responsibility seriously by doing nothing,” by bringing the Smoke-Free Ontario Act back to this Legislature year after year to add four words. I want more than four words when the Smoke-Free Ontario Act comes in front of this House. I want this bill to make sure that we look forward, that we show leadership, that we know that there is a huge potential of increased smokers in Ontario and that we will show that we want to help people quit smoking and we don’t want people to smoke more.

A lot of people are saying that there are other ways right now. Most of the people who use cannabis smoke it. But there are other ways to use those substances. One way is through edibles. Why don’t we have a clear policy that says, “If you’re going to smoke recreational cannabis, it’s going to be more expensive than if you consume it in a way that doesn’t promote smoking,” to make it clear that this substance is going to be legal.

If you want to use it, go right at it, but the edibles, the drinkables, the chewies, the vapour, all of the other forms of consuming cannabis will be cheaper for the same effect than if you smoke it. This is a way to clearly show to people that it is a legal product. You are allowed to use it. You use it within guidelines, which I hope will be coming out soon—but it’s not soon enough. People want to know now. It is not like it’s a brand new substance; it has been there forever, and hundreds of thousands of Ontarians use it. Why is it that it is radio silence on this side?

Why is it that I have a bill in front of me that doesn’t talk about this, as if it does not exist? I can’t stand that, Speaker. I can’t stand that.

I was not always a politician. I worked in health promotion for a long time. We know that changing people’s behaviour requires a tonne of work, and to do that tonne of work, you need time. It’s not after the bill from the federal government is presented and tabled and debated that will be the time to start doing education. Now is the time. But there is no work plan. There is no direction. There is nothing. We have a bill that changes four words. That’s what we have.

Canada is about to become the second country in the world to legalize non-medical cannabis. We are the biggest province in this country, and we are doing nothing: no strong regulatory framework in sight, nothing in this bill we are putting forward.

People will know that whether you talk about marijuana, hashish or hash oil, it all comes from the cannabis plant. The cannabis plant has more than 61 chemicals called cannabinoids, all within the plant. The main psychoactive ingredient is THC. If anybody is interested, THC is short for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol—THC is a lot easier. But it also contains what is called CBD. This is the cannabidiol. This product does not have any psychoactive effect, but it does help with pain management and has been approved in a pill form to help people with MS.

The medical use of marijuana and cannabis will also have to be looked at, because right now, there are a lot of people who seem to qualify for a prescription for medical marijuana. I would tell you by experience that some of those people got prescriptions for medical marijuana in circumstances that are hard to justify from a health point of view. I can tell of an example of somebody who has gingivitis. That qualifies for a medical marijuana prescription. There is no best practice that shows that marijuana is effective, there is no link between this disease and treatment with marijuana, but you can go into this doctor’s office and get a prescription.

I’m telling you that because medical marijuana is there and will continue to be there. As we roll out those new regulations for the legalization of cannabis throughout Ontario, all of those have to be taken into account: the fact that there is a pent-up demand, the fact that it does have an effect on the developing brain, the fact that it is not without harm.

You realize, Speaker, that when people smoke marijuana, although they may not smoke it as often as people smoke cigarettes, they will take a breath and they hold their breath so that they can maximize the effect of the THC. If there is tobacco in that joint—and most of the time there is—what does that mean? That means that the tobacco is also held in your lungs for longer. I hope that I don’t have to explain to anybody that tobacco smoke has a harmful effect on human lungs. Tobacco is the only product that will kill half of its users if it’s used as directed. Tobacco is the only product that kills half of its users.

So here you have a new form of smoking that will become more and more prevalent once recreational marijuana becomes legalized, where the way you smoke changes for the worse, if you look at lung health. I see that one of my colleagues who is very passionate about lung health is here.

What are we doing? Absolutely nothing. We’re changing four words in a bill to say “and other prescribed substances.” Those prescribed substances have to be defined in regulation. We’ve known this for two years, and yet the regulations are not ready. Meanwhile, a lot of good, hard-working people who are starting to open up smoking lounges, dispensaries and all of this are being dragged through the courts and have police coming down on them because we have this vacuum of direction coming from Queen’s Park. This has to change.

The NDP is on record forever on end saying that we should decriminalize recreational marijuana. Nothing good comes from making criminals out of recreational marijuana users. Once a person goes through the courts and, God forbid, ends up in jail, you will bring hardship onto those people for the rest of their lives. The punishment far outweighs what we were ever trying to do. I will make a parenthesis on that. Although the NDP has always been for decriminalizing marijuana forever on end, there will still be a criminal offence if you drive under the influence of cannabis and under the influence of marijuana.

How proactive are we on educating people on that? How ready are we, as a province, to deal with that? Not whatsoever, Speaker, not whatsoever. Yet it is quite clear that people who drive under the influence of marijuana have twice the chance of getting into an accident while driving. We know there will be an increased risk. We know we should be doing something about that, but we are doing nothing.

We have a bill in front of us that could lead the way for leadership, that could send a clear message to the people of Ontario that your government is on it, that we are ready, that we are prepared, that as soon as the federal government passes their law, we will be ready. We will have a health promotion approach to this. Our youth will know about it. We will know how the distribution will be done. We will know how the taxation will be done. We will have a clear plan that everybody understands, that everybody had a chance to participate in, but I’m dealing with a Liberal government who is going to wait until the train leaves the station.

I want to bring you back, Speaker. You remember when cellphones became the norm. Everybody has a cellphone—pretty much everyone. People started texting while they were driving—lots of accidents, lots of hardship, lots of really severe damage done to humans and vehicles. Years down the road, we passed a law that says texting and driving is illegal. It was too late. For human beings, once they get a habit, it is really, really hard to change this habit.

So for all of us who, while they’re driving or sitting at a red light, have a quick peek at their cellphone just to see if the little light went from green to red—once you start doing this, to get a human being to change this behaviour is really hard.

The law that says you can’t text and drive at the same time will be effective for the new generation because, right now, if you’re a kid taking driver’s ed, the first thing they do when you start—the first time at the wheel—is ask for your cellphone. They give you this nifty little pouch. They open up the trunk of the car and they put your cellphone in the trunk of the car. This is the first thing you learn before you go on and learn to drive. And that’s great. The new generation of drivers won’t be texting and driving because you taught them from the beginning. But for the rest of us who started to use their cellphones in the car before the law was there, very few will change.

I’m telling you this story because the link is the same. If you look at the use of recreational cannabis—if we don’t get the regulations right before it becomes legal, it will be too late. You will not be able to go back. If you want to look at things like changing the age rather than having it line up with the age of alcohol, putting it at a different age; if you want to make some of the regulations as to where you can and cannot consume recreational marijuana—all of those have to be done ahead of time, communicated ahead of time and bought in by the people of Ontario ahead of time.

Whenever I ask about what is coming, the only answer I get back is, “We’re waiting for the federal government to act.” In my mind and in the minds of everybody who cares about public health and in the minds of everybody who cares about making sure that people don’t go on to be smokers, we’re hearing that they’re going to miss the boat. It’s going to be too late for those hundreds of thousands of people who presently use recreational marijuana in an illegal way, who are biting at the bit to do this in a legal way. We have to talk to those people. The longer we have radio silence, the less of a chance we will have to put a healthy public policy forward.

Why is it that I have this bill in front of me and there is nothing in this bill that will do that? It disappoints me. I expect more than this. I was really proud when Ontario was the first Legislature to have a Minister of Health Promotion. It looked like we cared about health promotion. It looked like we finally understood that if we invest in health promotion and disease prevention, not only are people healthier and better, but you also have a pretty significant impact on the health care costs down the road because people stay healthier longer and use the health care system less, because we use the health care system when we’re sick.

We don’t have a Ministry of Health Promotion anymore. It has been amalgamated. Frankly, when we had a Ministry of Health Promotion, it was less than stellar. Here again, we have the same opportunity in front of us right now, and we’re about to miss the boat.

There’s a slew of research as to who uses cannabis for recreational purposes. It starts in about grade 7. We have stats for students in grade 7. Those are young people between the ages of 11 and 12. We know most of them smoke because right now, to get your hands on drinkable or edible or chewable or vaporizing is not easy, so most of them only have access to the smoking form. It’s pretty high. Those are young people who, in theory, don’t have access to tobacco, don’t have access to alcohol, but they do have access.

We have this other mega problem of all of the illegal trade coming in. Do you really think that organized crime, which brings a huge part of our drugs into this province right now, is simply going to sit back and say, “Oh, it is legal now. We will go and make money someplace else”? No, absolutely not. This has to be taken into the equation, and it doesn’t seem to be.

I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the proactive work that a legal framework for cannabis could look like. There are benefits to legalization. You can make sure that the product that will be sold is actually what you’re buying. Right now, everybody buys their recreational marijuana on the black market. They don’t really know what they’re buying. I can guarantee you that there are no labels on it and there are no quality controls on it or anything of the sort.

The legalization will allow us to do this. It would be good for the government of Ontario to start to ask people: What kind of labelling would you want? What kind of information would you want to see? Basically, What kind of regulatory models would you like?

The criminalization that we have right now—we can put a big X on that. That did not work. We could have government control or what we call a government monopoly, or we could have commercialization. Of course, we have prescriptions also. Why isn’t the government forthcoming as to what exactly that will look like? You cannot have a public health approach to regulation in silos without talking to anybody. I know that there are really some good people within the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Attorney General. There are some good people who are working on this, but they’re talking to themselves when they should be taking a public health approach and talking to all of us.

The federal government is not going to look at this. This is our responsibility. Put it out there so that people can tell you what they want and so that we strike the right balance that respects our goal to have a public health approach.

What will be the minimum age? Why aren’t we having those conversations, Speaker? There is more and more data and evidence being built all over us that says that people want this. This should be in this bill. This should be part of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act because we know that most people consume marijuana in a smoking form. We know that when we add the four words to the bill “and other prescribed substances,” what we really mean is the regulation of marijuana. But none of that is done.

Density of sales of outlets: How many of those will we have? What will the marketing and promotion of recreational marijuana look like? Why aren’t we talking about this? Why aren’t we, as legislators, setting out the regulations that will tell you what you will and will not be allowed to do?

There are a lot of people who have a lot of ideas about this. You can walk not far from Queen’s Park and see that marijuana is being advertised on the front of many businesses right now. Is this what we want? Is this what we should move forward? Are we going to watch Hockey Night in Canada and see who is having a sale on recreational marijuana? Some people think it’s a good idea; others, not so much.

When you put a public health approach lens to this, you realize that it is the government’s responsibility to say what will and what won’t be, because if you don’t regulate, then people are allowed to expect and to bring forward business ventures where they will be able to take advantage of this new trade, of this new product, of this new commerce opportunity.

But if we do not want, when we watch Hockey Night in Canada, to have the latest flavour of marijuana advertised over and over and over, then the government has to speak up. And how do we speak up? We speak up by making modifications to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which is in front of us right now. And what are we doing? Nothing.

How about pricing and taxation? We all know that, especially for young people, price is a huge decision-maker for them. We all know that taxation allows you to regulate the price. It’s not going to be the federal government who tells us how much the province is going to tax this product, is it, Mr. Speaker? Why is it that we’re waiting till the federal government has finished its work before we start ours?

Nobody is going to tell the provincial government how to tax recreational marijuana. The people in this House, the people in this chamber, are the ones who are going to decide. Hopefully, it will be done through a public health approach. Hopefully, it will be done through the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. Why aren’t we talking about that? Why do I have this bill with only four words? I want more.

We also have to have driving measures. How are we going to do this? Are we going to follow alcohol, where it’s 0.05, and once you pass this, you have a penalty, and the penalty increases exponentially if a whole bunch of other factors come in? Are we going to follow this? Are we going to say zero tolerance right off the bat and not move from there? I can tell you that there are a lot of people who are pushing in that direction. But here again, we have an entire Liberal government that is happy with radio silence.

One of the areas that is near and dear to my heart is health promotion and education. The health promotion and education—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): It’s pretty noisy over there. We’re talking to me now. It’s pretty noisy over there—a little respect for the speaker. Thank you.

M me France Gélinas: Thank you, Speaker.

The last part that is very important to me is health promotion and education. We cannot wait to start educating young people. We cannot wait to start educating their parents. We cannot wait to start educating all Ontarians as to what this will look like, what the health effects are, and do it in a way that is not this patronizing, “Drugs are bad. Don’t do it.” We already know that doesn’t work. There are evidence-based education campaigns and health promotion campaigns that exist that are effective and that make sure people use cannabis in a way that is respectful to their health and the health of everybody around.

There are also additional considerations. We talk an awful lot about climate change and we talk an awful lot about zero carbon, but right now I can tell you that most of the production of cannabis in Ontario is done indoors. The indoor production of cannabis has an incredible carbon footprint. We’re talking through the roof here because they use intensive lighting and climate control. When it’s minus 40 outside, it has to be warm in there. I can give you an example. One joint represents 1.5 kilograms of carbon—for one joint. It’s the equivalent of driving a hybrid car for 35 kilometres.

So how about right off the bat we ask that whoever will cultivate cannabis does it with carbon-free electricity generation, so that you’re bringing in a brand new product and you make it carbon free, or you force them to have 100% offset of their electricity consumption with renewable energy. This would be leadership and this would be getting ready for the tsunami that is coming. But what are we hearing from the other side? I think you’re starting to see, that it’s radio silence.

Am I supposed to sit down now?

Interjection.

M me France Gélinas: I think I have three minutes left, and then that’s it.

Je ne m’étais pas rendu compte que la matinée avait passé si rapidement. Je veux m’assurer que les autres aient l’opportunité de parler un peu de ce projet de loi.

On sait tous qu’il y a des centaines de milliers d’Ontariens et d’Ontariennes qui ont très hâte que la marijuana devienne légale et disponible en Ontario, et ça, c’est bien correct. Le parti néo-démocrate est en faveur de ça depuis longtemps. Cela étant dit, on sait également qu’il y a un risque pour la santé. Comment fait-on pour mitiger le risque sur la santé, pour s’assurer qu’on donne aux Ontariens et Ontariennes ce qu’ils veulent, mais en même temps, qu’on fait ça d’une façon qui s’assure que les risques sur la santé sont compris, surtout les risques sur la santé des jeunes?

L’utilisation du cannabis—oui, c’est absolument vrai que de fumer du cannabis est moins dommageable pour la santé que de fumer du tabac. On le sait tous. Mais ce n’est pas sans dangers, surtout pour les jeunes. On sait maintenant que la consommation du cannabis chez les jeunes qui grandissent a un effet sur le cerveau. Il y a un effet sur le développement du cerveau. Il y a un effet sur la santé mentale des jeunes également. On a besoin d’éduquer les jeunes et leurs parents pour leur laisser savoir ça.

On a également besoin de règlements pour entourer tout ça. Malheureusement, il n’y a rien de ça qui est prêt en ce moment. Le projet de loi qu’on a devant nous change quatre mots, et pour moi, c’est une opportunité perdue.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments?

Seeing none, further debate? Second call for further debate.

Mr. Fraser has moved third reading of Bill 178,

An Act to amend the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour, please say “aye.”

All those against, say “nay.”

I believe the nays have it.

Call in the members. This will be—

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Deferred until after question period. Sorry, you don’t have to call the members in. It will be deferred.

Third reading vote deferred.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Orders of the day? Minister of Transportation.

Hon. Steven Del Duca: No further business, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): No further business. This House stands recessed until 10:30 this morning.

The House recessed from 0947 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mrs. Gila Martow: I want to welcome Heena Kapoor and Caroline Kotler to Queen’s Park for question period. Welcome, girls.

M me France Gélinas: It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Art McDonald to Queen’s Park. It’s nice to see you. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: As most of you will know, I’ve got the best legislative assistant in the world, Brooke Auld. The best father in the world, apparently, is here today, according to Brooke: Bryan Auld is in the members’ gallery.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I have a friend, Julie Dale, in the audience today. She’s the mother of page Emily Dale. She only lives in Toronto but she grew up in Windsor. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Reza Moridi: It is my distinct pleasure to introduce distinguished guests from Queen’s University and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory: Dr. Arthur McDonald, Nobel laureate; Dr. Nigel Smith, director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory; Ms. Anne Martineau, executive assistant to Dr. McDonald; Mr. Michael Fraser, vice-principal, university relations, at Queen’s University; Mrs. Yvonne Cooper, director of communications at Queen’s University; Dr. Jacques Farine; Dr. Rushdy Ahmad; Dr. Hugh Evans; Dr. Christine Kraus; Dr. Henry Lee; Dr. Rizwan Haq; Dr. Robert Heaton; Dr. Pillalamarri Jagam; Dr. Peter Skensved; and Dr. Gordon McGregor.

I invite all of my colleagues in the Parliament to join Dr. McDonald in room 228 for a viewing of his Nobel medal after question period.

Mr. Randy Hillier: It is my pleasure to welcome many medical marijuana patients and their advocates to the House today. They are here, of course, to witness the vote on Bill 178.

Hon. Charles Sousa: I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank my legislative assistant, Liz McLellan, as this will be her last question period at Queen’s Park.

She has served me, this assembly and the people of Ontario with distinction. I know my colleagues and the members on the other side of the House who have had dealings with her will agree.

Liz is leaving this Legislature to study, where, bringing her skills, work ethic and intelligence to bear, she will join another assembly: the bar. We have every expectation she will continue to serve the public good with the charisma and character that we’ve all come to know and admire.

Thank you, Liz, and congratulations.

Mr. Michael Harris: I would like to welcome Metka and Tadej Dubrovnik from Slovenia. Welcome to Queen’s Park and Ontario today.

Ms. Eleanor McMahon: I would like to welcome, on behalf of the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and myself, from the OPP Association, Chris Hoffman, vice-president; Bruce Chapman, president of the Police Association of Ontario; Constable Hugh Smith from the Toronto Police Service; Jamie Stuckless, executive director of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition; and Stephen Reid, executive director, Police Association of Ontario. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Chris Ballard: I’m delighted to introduce a special guest, my daughter Michelle Ballard, who is here from Ottawa together with her friend Emily Compton and friends Kate Newson and Ian Forrest. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I’m delighted to welcome Vince Borg and his son Julian in the west gallery. They should be in the east gallery. This is the president of the Liberal Party of Ontario, Speaker.

Ms. Soo Wong: I would like to welcome Abby Leung, who is a resident of my riding of Scarborough–Agincourt and also a student at U of T Scarborough campus. Welcome, Abby.

Hon. Ted McMeekin: The page captain today is Jacob Rudolph. He has his mother, Jan Whitelaw, and his father, Mark Rudolph, who was a former page in 1968-69. His grandmother, Carole Whitelaw, is here; his aunt, Julie Whitelaw. The host family for young Jacob is Vince and Julian Borg. Isn’t that interesting? I’d like to welcome them to the gallery and make a fearless prediction, Mr. Chairman: One day young Jacob is going to sit in this seat, and I look forward to helping him on his campaign.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I too have a page captain here today, from Pickering–Scarborough East, so congratulations to him. I want to welcome his parents, Cindy and Malcolm Zung, who I’m sure are very, very proud. We’ll see you at lunch.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I’m very pleased to welcome our ministry’s summer intern to the Legislature today, Daniel Scarpitti. Daniel, welcome.

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: I would like to acknowledge today my OLIP intern, Justyna Zegarmistrz. I would also like to say thank you and acknowledge all of the interns who have been assisting us in our work in the Legislature.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: On behalf of my good friend MPP Jeff Leal, I’d like to welcome page Claire Williams’s dad, Tim Williams. Welcome, Tim.

Mr. Michael Harris: I would also like to acknowledge Sydney Oakes, the OLIP intern in my office for the second half. I definitely appreciate all of the work that she has done in our office and on behalf of our caucus.

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s my pleasure to thank Julia Redmond, the best OLIP intern here at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Chris Ballard: On behalf of my seatmate, MPP Yvan Baker from Etobicoke Centre, I welcome the father of page captain Daniel Smart-Reed, James Reed, to the public gallery today.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: I would also like to thank my Ontario legislative intern. Her name is Alison Brown, from Ottawa. John Fraser, the member from Ottawa South, and I had the pleasure of benefiting from her experience and her passion, and I just want to sincerely thank her.

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: I just can’t let this opportunity go by. As the former president of the Ontario Liberal Party, I want to welcome the current president of the Ontario Liberal Party, Vince Borg, to Queen’s Park.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Not to be left out, I would want to thank my legislative intern, Eric Zinn, who served so ably and capably in my office this past legislative term.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): In the Speaker’s gallery today, I would like to introduce a stellar young man who has been my student assistant for the past year. Today is his last day. He is going to law school, and I’ve put him on retainer already: Mr. Stevelle Steer. Thank you, Stevelle, for the work that you’ve done.

We also have with us in the Speaker’s gallery a delegation from the Federal Council of Austria, the upper House of the Austrian Parliament. They’re led here by council president Josef Saller and accompanied by His Excellency Arno Riedel, Austria’s ambassador to Canada. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today.

Arthur McDonald

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

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: Speaker, I believe you will find that we have unanimous consent to recognize Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. Arthur McDonald and his team, with a representative from each caucus speaking for up to five minutes.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The government House leader is seeking unanimous consent to speak for up to five minutes on a tribute. Do we agree? Agreed.

The Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and Minister of Innovation and Research.

Hon. Reza Moridi: Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to rise in this House and speak on behalf of the Liberal caucus as we celebrate the incredible achievements of Dr. Arthur McDonald, professor emeritus at Queen’s University.

As Canadians, our hearts swell with pride and we stand a little taller when one of our own receives well-deserved recognition. “That person is Canadian,” we say to those around us or think to ourselves when we hear the good news.

Dr. McDonald is one such Canadian who has made the entire province and our wonderful country of Canada proud. Dr. McDonald and a team of incredible collaborators conducted their groundbreaking research in 2000 at the world-class Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, 2,000 metres below the surface in the city of Sudbury. I had the privilege of visiting the lab a few years ago, and I can confirm that it is indeed a spectacular research centre.

Through his discovery that the tiny particles known as neutrinos have mass, Dr. McDonald created new knowledge that has challenged what was long thought to be a fundamental truth in quantum physics. In doing so, he has joined the ranks of the titans of physics such as J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, James Chadwick, Enrico Fermi, Abdus Salam, and Wolfgang Pauli, who created the concept of the neutrino.

Dr. McDonald made the discovery that the Nobel committee themselves indicated “has changed the understanding of the innermost workings of matter,” the discovery of which could “prove crucial to our view of the universe.”

Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge since imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Our willingness to imagine, to accept that we don’t know everything, and our tireless pursuit to obtain new knowledge is fundamental to every advancement and every major discovery that modern society has known. It is through groundbreaking work like Dr. McDonald’s that we have the opportunity to so clearly see the limitless possibilities of modern science.

We rightly focus our mind on Dr. McDonald earning the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics, the world’s premier award for major achievement in the field. But I also want to recognize that shortly after that, Dr. McDonald was honoured with his second major international award of the year, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

At that time, his mother told a story about when Dr. McDonald was a very young man growing up in Cape Breton. Even as a two-year-old, Valerie McDonald said, “He would sit and stare at the ticking clock resting on the window ledge of his childhood home.” And even then, Mrs. McDonald said, she knew that his young and inquisitive mind was trying to figure out exactly how that clock worked. And with determination, collaboration and, yes, imagination, that mind has made a major contribution to global knowledge and inspired all of us in the process.

Dr. McDonald, on behalf of the Liberal caucus, I want to not only congratulate you but thank you. Thank you for reaffirming to the world that life-altering discoveries can and do take place in the province of Ontario, a province that prides itself on the talent and the skills of our people and on our strength in research and innovation. And thank you for showing our young people that knowledge can only be created by asking questions, by testing what is assumed to be true and by working closely with others in a truly collaborative way. Your work and the work of others like Dr.

Takaaki Kajita, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for 2015 in physics, has made our understanding of the world richer. As a scientist, I know that you share these awards with the many others you have worked with over the years. To that end, I would like to thank all of you here joining Dr. McDonald in the gallery of this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, my fellow parliamentarians: These faces, led by Dr. McDonald, are what innovation, imagination and knowledge creation are all about. So please join me once more in congratulating Dr. McDonald and his partners for their incredible contribution to physics, to human knowledge, to Ontario and to our wonderful country, Canada.

Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup. Meegwetch.

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

Mr. Michael Harris: Today I am honoured to have the opportunity to recognize the historic legacy of a prominent Canadian academic and visionary, a recipient of both the Order of Canada and the Nobel Prize in physics, Dr. Arthur B. McDonald.

Thank you, Dr. McDonald, for being here today with us. I would also like to welcome some of your guests: Michael Fraser, Dr. Nigel Smith, Yvonne Cooper and Anne Martineau. Welcome also to Queen’s Park.

Dr. McDonald’s accomplishments follow a lifetime of dedicated work in physics, leading to breakthrough discoveries that have helped us and will help future generations better understand our universe.

That dedicated work began in the classrooms and science labs of his native Sydney, Nova Scotia, where Dr. McDonald’s brilliance was evident early on. In fact, in the years after he left his mark at a North Sydney high school, students were wary of even taking a seat at his former desk due to the legacy it already held. If a student brave enough to take that seat answered a teacher’s question incorrectly, the teacher would often shake their head and say, “Do you realize ‘the’ Arthur McDonald used to sit at that desk?”

Dr. McDonald grew that legacy through his post-secondary years in Nova Scotia, obtaining both his bachelor’s and master of science from Dalhousie University in Halifax before attending the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, to obtain a PhD in physics.

If Pasadena seems familiar to those who believe they have a grasp of science because they’ve caught themselves watching a marathon of Big Bang Theory a time or two, you should know that the connection is not that far-fetched. In fact, there’s a very real connection that traces back to roots from Dr. McDonald’s years as a professor at Princeton University.

While he is now positioned as a professor emeritus and former university research chair at Queen’s University in Kingston, it was during his time at Princeton in the 1980s that he taught a young David Saltzberg, who went on to become the Big Bang Theory’s science consultant. Fast forward a couple of decades. When David heard about the Nobel Prize win, he invited Dr. McDonald to a taping of the show. Apparently, David occasionally gets to bring a real scientist, known as “geek of the week,” to the set to meet the producers, writers and actors of the show.

From geek of the week to Nobel Prize winner of the year in physics: both significant accomplishments to be sure, Speaker, but it’s the latter and the breakthrough discovery it speaks to that is really the “big bang” that has literally changed scientific theory forever.

Dr. McDonald’s big bang actually came from ongoing research at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, or SNOLAB, looking at neutrinos that come from the sun. Dr. McDonald, the director of the observatory since 1989, discovered in 2001 that those neutrinos from the sun changed their identities and were not disappearing on their way to earth. Interestingly enough, this discovery led to the far-reaching conclusion that neutrinos must have mass, dispelling the long-held notion that they were massless. I know that’s what I always thought, Speaker.

So it was Dr. McDonald’s work in the underground science laboratory, located two kilometres below the earth’s surface in the Vale Creighton Mine near Sudbury, that forever changed how we think about the solar star some millions of kilometres above the earth. As Dr. McDonald noted himself, “It’s ironic that in order to observe the sun you have to go ... kilometres underground.”

In awarding Dr. McDonald and his co-winner, Dr. Kajita of the University of Tokyo, the Nobel Prize academy indicated, “The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter.”

His discoveries have helped to inform and inspire. As Dr. McDonald’s legacy grows, he speaks about his hope for more young people and women to get into science. The example he has set should help to inspire young and aspiring scientists to know that they can accomplish great things right here in their backyard. His legacy will inspire for generations to come, just as he has inspired this generation: his students, research associates and those who know him personally.

Dr. McDonald, on behalf of Patrick Brown and the PC caucus, we are so proud of your work here in Ontario that has transcended boundaries and shaped the way we understand our universe. We look towards the future with great pride, knowing that amazing things lie ahead for you and your dedicated team at SNOLAB, based on the discoveries you have already made.

I personally, as one dedicated Leafs fan to another, trust your foresight in moving forward. You are clearly a brilliant decision-maker. On behalf of the Ontario Legislature, thank you for the contributions you have made to this province and to the rest of Canada. We of course look forward to seeing what comes next.

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

M me France Gélinas: I rise today on behalf of my leader, Andrea Horwath, and the entire NDP caucus to pay tribute to a great Canadian—a great mind—who has spent many, many years in my riding of Nickel Belt at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, better known as the SNOLAB, located in one of Vale’s deepest mines, which happens to be very close to where I live.

Arthur Bruce McDonald, better known as Art McDonald, was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Since receiving his doctorate degree in physics, he has been using numerous techniques to study the fundamental laws of physics. As we’ve heard this morning, this has led him to study neutrinos.

Neutrinos are elemental particles in physics that have one of the smallest masses of known subatomic particles. They are created either by radioactive decay, by the sun, by nuclear reactors, supernova etc., but they are really hard to detect. In 1989, Dr. McDonald became the overall director of a project trying to detect neutrinos from the sun.

The neutrinos are extremely difficult to observe due in part to background radiation. What he decided to do was to study those tiny particles—and when I say tiny, Speaker, look at the top of my thumb. Right here, right now, there are a million neutrinos going through that little bit of space. They’re tiny.

So Dr. McDonald built a detector. The detector is the size of a 10-storey building. It has detectors within it all over, and it is filled with millions of dollars’ worth of heavy water. But he had to do this two kilometres under the ground in Creighton Mine, in an environment that is about a thousand times cleaner than the cleanest operating room in one of our hospitals—not an easy feat for him, for his team or, I would say, for a few cage operators and hoist men who had to bring all of this equipment down two kilometres to the site.

It took almost a decade to build it—that was in the 1990s—and then in the year 2000, the experiment started.

By the time of its opening, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory was the lowest-radioactivity location that had been created on Earth. The SNOLAB continues to be a world-class facility and continues to focus on subatomic physics, largely neutrino and dark matter physics. It is a source of pride for all of us.

I had the opportunity to visit the SNOLAB and—get this, Speaker—I had my picture taken with a supernova detector and a dark matter camera. Let me tell you, at the time, the theme song for The Big Bang Theory was playing in the back of my mind. I thought I was pretty cool.

While the study was taking place, there were many postgraduate PhD students with Dr. McDonald, as well as his second-in-command, Dr. Doug Hallman, professor emeritus in physics at Laurentian University. All those smart people would gather at Eddie’s. Eddie’s is a sports bar that had this online trivia. So all of those great minds would go online and play this science trivia with the world. You will be happy to know that they were the champions every single time.

We now have a plaque in Eddie’s Sports Bar that shows that they are the winners, and I’m happy to report that scientists from 63 different countries speaking 40 different languages have come to Eddie’s Sports Bar to see the feat that was done by those good people.

Dr. McDonald is also a very humble man. After winning his physics Nobel Prize, he came back to Sudbury and went to Science North, our science centre in Sudbury. At the time, there was a group of high school students visiting. He gave them, I would say, a one-hour lecture as to what neutrinos are, and what changing-flavour neutrinos are all about. All of those kids understood, because he has a way to make things clear and understandable, even for people like me.

He was also wearing his Nobel Prize medal at the time. I’m putting it out there that he agrees to take selfies—just so that people know. This is a pretty incredible medal. If you ever see one of those, it will impress you. I can guarantee it.

Science North has also created an amazing exhibit that focuses on the work he has done and what it’s all about. The exhibit will open at Canada House in London, England, on Canada Day at the end of this month, and then it will come back to Canada and tour all the museums and universities so that, young and old, we can all learn about the incredible accomplishment of this man, his work and the work of the SNOLAB.

I will leave you with an anecdote from Art. After waking up one morning, he asked his wife, “Did I really win the Nobel Prize for physics?” Yes, Dr. McDonald, you did. You are our hero and you will always be welcomed back to Nickel Belt. Thank you.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I want to thank all of the members for their thoughtful and inspiring words on behalf of this Legislature to Dr. McDonald.

My own two cents’ worth: I’d just like to say thank you for being here and thank you for arranging this with the House. I want to say to our children who are in the gallery that you too can be a Nobel winner. There is nothing stopping you from doing what Dr. McDonald did. Thank you all for the inspiration.

I want to thank the doctor for allowing me to understand that I just got a grasp of what H 2 0 means, and now you’ve conflicted me. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

It is now time for question period.

Oral Questions

Energy policies

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. Despite the vague wording in the climate change action plan and despite all the government’s denials, we know the truth. The government has a hidden agenda to ban natural—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. My expectation won’t change. Thank you.

Leader?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Adrian Morrow of the Globe and Mail received leaked cabinet documents that prove the government’s hidden agenda to ban natural gas. The documents say that the government is still pursuing a harder line on natural gas heating behind the scenes. The minutes direct the energy minister to find a way to phase out reliance on natural gas.

The Liberals say one thing and they’re privately doing something very different. The Premier is standing up in this House and saying she’s not phasing out natural gas, and behind closed doors, in cabinet, she’s telling her minister to get it done.

Mr. Speaker, will the Premier come clean on her cabinet documents and their intention to phase out natural gas?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Once again, let me say to the member opposite that our plan is in full public view. We are tackling climate change because we know that it is the greatest threat faced by humanity. If we don’t, as humankind, tackle climate change and find a way across the globe to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then we will not be fulfilling our responsibility to the young people who are sitting in the gallery today and to all of the children and grandchildren who will come after us.

It is incredibly important that we all do our part. That’s what we are doing in Ontario. We’re going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with or without the opposition working with us.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: Yes, the climate change action plan is in plain view. It’s in the Globe and Mail, in the

article exposed by Adrian Morrow highlighting your cabinet documents. But let’s move on from the hidden agenda on natural gas.

We already know about cap-and-trade and what the cost will be for Ontario. We know this reckless plan means that we will see businesses send—hear this—$300 million to California by 2020 and $3 billion to California by 2030. It is taking money out of the pockets of people in Oakville and sending it to Orange county. The hard-earned money of the people of Mississauga will be going to Malibu. Businesses in Scarborough will be subsidizing businesses in San Diego.

Why does the Premier insist on this reckless and ideological plan that benefits the people of Beverly Hills and doesn’t benefit the people of Ontario?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The Leader of the Opposition could not be more wrong. The fact is, we are joining a market. You know, in the old days, the Conservatives actually believed in markets. They actually believed that market philosophy worked, and worked to the benefit of society.

We are joining a market with Quebec and with California. The revenue, the money that comes in from that market through the cap-and-trade system, is going to be reinvested in individuals and families in this province, in businesses to drive innovation, to help people retrofit their homes, to help people buy emissions-free automobiles—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Do you think if you shout louder, people will actually believe you, Premier?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’d like to remind the member from Renfrew that that’s not a bad point. There’s a reason for that, and you’re part of it.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Those dollars are going to be reinvested to reduce pollution, to invest in transit, to do the work that needs to be done to reduce our emissions so that we can join the rest of the world in fighting climate change.

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

Mr. Patrick Brown: Again to the Premier: The Premier may aspire to be the minister of economic development for California, but that’s not in the best interest of Ontario. In BC, in their carbon pricing model, every cent stays in British Columbia.

I’m going to repeat my question: How can the Premier adopt and sign on in a legal manner to a scheme that is going to send $300 million to California by 2020 and $3 billion to California by 2030? In what world do you think it’s appropriate to be taking precious resources from Ontario and subsidizing economic development in California?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: We live in this world, where the science has demonstrated clearly that if we do not tackle climate change right now—in fact, we should have been changing our practices 30 years ago, but we didn’t, as a race, and now we have to do that. We’re actually playing catch-up as the human race.

The member opposite references other jurisdictions—other jurisdictions where greenhouse gas emissions are not going down—and in fact is putting forward a scheme that would not work, that would cost people more in Ontario and would not reduce pollution. That’s not a plan to tackle climate change. Ours is. We are going to reinvest the money from cap-and-trade into the people of this province, into the businesses of this province to help them to join the battle and reduce pollution.

Health care funding

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Premier. Since I can’t get an answer on why the government wants to send $3 billion to California, let’s talk about health care.

I met with some very concerned doctors last week in Simcoe county. We talked about the 800,000 people in Ontario who don’t have a family doctor. I learned that since the Liberals have come to power, non-urgent visits to our local emergency room have increased by 30%. Wait times in the ER have steadily increased because this government is failing to offer real solutions and alternative care options. When doctors try to offer to find a solution, to find an alternative, this government responds by slashing $815 million in physician services for patient care.

Mr. Speaker, it is never too late to do the right thing. Will the Premier commit to stopping these cuts to physician services for patient care?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Let’s just look at the facts: Since 2003, the number of physicians in Ontario has increased by over 5,600; 94% of Ontarians have access to a family doctor, a family health care provider.

The fact is that the investments we have made and the investments that we continue to make are improving service to families, to people across the province. That’s why there’s $1 billion in this year’s budget—a billion new dollars—to invest in the health care system.

We will continue to make those investments, including $345 million to hospitals, because we know that there is an increasing need for health care across the province. That is an investment that is critical to us. It’s critical to society. We will continue to make those investments and increase funding year over year to the health care system.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: One of the doctors that I met and spoke to was Dr. Monica Wolnik. She runs the urgent care clinic in Barrie. They see 150 to 200 patients a day. The clinic saves the health care system $12 million a year by keeping patients out of the emergency room and the hospital. The thank you they get from this government is cut after cut after cut.

Dr. Wolnik estimates that the government’s funding cuts mean $5,000 less a month. That isn’t sustainable for the long-term future of the clinic. She worries that they’re going to have to shut down the clinic, sending all those people, at a more costly rate, to emerg in the hospital.

Mr. Speaker, this wouldn’t be the first clinic to close in Ontario because of the government’s cuts. So my question is, are you prepared to continue with these cuts if it means all these clinics across Ontario are going to close?

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: We value the work that all our front-line health care professionals do, including the 30,000-plus doctors across this province.

I was recently in Barrie with the local member from Barrie—

Interjections: She’s over there.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Yes, over there; thank you.

We were at the Royal Victoria hospital, a new hospital, by the way, greatly and largely expanded. But we were there for one specific reason. We were there with many of those physicians who practise in Barrie at the hospital, as well. We were there to announce the expansion of their cardiac program, a multi-million dollar capital and operating expansion which will deliver a service that, quite frankly, is overdue for that growing part of the province. It will allow people to get that urgent, responsive care when they have a cardiac event, and they’re going to be able to get it close to home.

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

Mr. Patrick Brown: I’m not sure how that related to the question—rehashing and recycling old health care announcements, rather than answering the question about an urgent care clinic that is about to close.

I’ll be more specific. These doctors are operating these clinics solely on physician fees, the same fees the government is slashing. This particular clinic has four doctors working 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. They see 150 to 200 patients a day and nearly 40,000 to 50,000 people a year. Their per-patient cost, before fees, is between $16 and $17. The same base cost to the hospital is $165, and you want to force them to close. You want to send those 40,000 patients back to the hospital at a higher cost. They’re saving the system $12 million and you’re going to ruin that.

As Dr. Wolnik said, “There are similar clinics all over the province” struggling to stay afloat. It’s time the Premier listened. Can I get a commitment, Mr. Speaker, that they’ll keep these clinics afloat and they’ll stop the cuts?

Interjections.

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: If they’re seeing 150 patients plus a day, I think they’re probably managing okay in keeping that clinic afloat. The reality is that we are making sure that Ontarians have continuity of care. They have a comprehensive approach to health care through a primary care provider that’s there, that they can rely on—

Mr. Jim McDonell: They’re in the hallways in the hospitals.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Stormont.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: —that they can get access to, whether that’s same day or next day. Over three million Ontarians have access to our family health teams where they have that holistic wraparound care that’s provided not just by a family doctor, but often by a nurse practitioner or a dietitian or an occupational therapist—a whole suite of providers of care that ensure that they’re able to maintain that highest quality. We’ve done that in the context of increasing the physician services budget every single year, last year by 1.25%, about $150 million. We’re doing that this year. More than a $100 million more—

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

New question.

Mercury poisoning

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. It’s simply unacceptable that in 2016, there are people in Ontario who cannot get access to clean water. For more than 50 years, the people of Grassy Narrows First Nation have been dealing with mercury poisoning—50 years.

Last week, some of the young people suffering from the devastating effects of mercury poisoning came here to Queen’s Park to fight for their community. Yesterday, the government agreed to more meetings. People in Grassy Narrows don’t need another meeting. They need clean water. When will the Premier begin to clean up the mercury from the Wabigoon River in Grassy Narrows?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Well, let me just clarify for the leader of the third party that in all of those years, we have been working as a government with Health Canada. We have been working with the community. There has been ongoing monitoring of the mercury in the water in Grassy Narrows, but also in the fish in the food supply.

We are very aware that this is a challenging problem. We are very aware that this is something that needs to be dealt with, but there has not been science that has indicated how we can clearly deal with the mercury that is in the sediment in the lake and in the river without disturbing it. We didn’t commit to more meetings. We committed to bringing scientists up to Grassy Narrows to act on the recommendations of the report and to see if we can find a way through field studies to take further action, building on the action that has already been taken.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Yesterday, the Minister of the Environment claimed that there is “ongoing monitoring that the scientists in the Ministry of the Environment have been doing both on fish and water.” But the scientist report says, “We have no recent measurements of mercury concentrations or water quality in the water of the Wabigoon River or in any of its lakes.” So either the ministry is keeping its reports under wraps or they’re not actually testing the level of mercury in the water. Is the government monitoring the levels of mercury in the water or not?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: My understanding is that the provincial government and the federal government, over many years, have been working on this and have been monitoring the mercury. I’ll let the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change speak to the specifics of that. When I visited Grassy Narrows, when I was the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and I met with the folks in the community, there was information that was available in terms of the level of mercury in the fish and in the water.

The reality is that even if you look at the report that has recently come out, there is not a specific or easy solution to this. Now, the leader of the third party can do her utmost to oversimplify it, to make it a political issue and to try to use it to wedge between the people of the community and the government. We are going to continue to work with the community to find a solution that won’t make the problem worse, but will actually fix the problem.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, when I visited Grassy Narrows, the chief and leadership there told me that they want their water cleaned up. That’s what they told me. Based on the best information, scientists warn that there could actually be new sources of mercury contamination currently happening in the Wabigoon River.

The Liberals have been in government for over a decade in this province—in fact, for over a dozen years. And for over a dozen years, more people have gotten sick from mercury poisoning, and the situation may actually be getting worse.

Earlier this year, the Premier said that governments should be ashamed—“ashamed” is her word—if people in First Nations can’t get clean drinking water. The Liberals have had more than a dozen years to do something and they haven’t. That is shameful.

When will the people of Grassy Narrows First Nation and First Nation peoples across this province have access to water that is safe to drink and fish that is safe to eat?

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: I think we need to break this down a bit. Mercury is multiply sourced, including atmospherically, widely across Ontario. As many of the members opposite will know, in many parts of Ontario you cannot eat walleye because of the mercury levels. Mercury today comes from methyl hydrate—atmospheric. When you flood a field for a dam, you get methyl hydrate, which is metabolized by fish into mercury.

Those leaks could be from any of those sources, so we have agreed to an advanced field study. It will cost about $600,000 to figure it out. The Leader of the Opposition seems to think you can take a Hoover and just clean this up. It’s a little more complicated than that.

Hospital funding

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier as well, but I have to say that I have never been so disgusted by a response. Why hasn’t that monitoring been happening over the last 13 years? There are industrial sources of mercury as well, and that’s the problem in the Wabigoon River.

All across Ontario, nurses are being fired and people are being treated in hospital hallways. Critical care beds and mental health beds are all overcrowded, and our hospitals need more than $3 billion just in critical maintenance. That’s a health care system in crisis.

My question to the Premier is: When will she stop denying the facts and start making sure that hospitals have the funding that they need to properly care for the patients of this province?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I have said, we are committed to a health care system that puts patients first and that can change in the ways that we know patients need and we know people want. That’s why, in our budget, we have put in an additional $270 million for home and community care.

When I talk about the health care system in transition, that’s the kind of change that needs to happen because people are looking for care not just in hospitals but outside of hospitals, in the community, as well. That’s why there’s $75 million in community-based hospice and palliative care. Those are changes that people are looking for.

We continue to invest in the more traditional services: $345 million more for hospitals because we recognized that that was necessary, and $85 million for community health centres. The money for health care continues to go up because the need continues to increase.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, it’s the government’s own records that show that acute care everywhere, from SickKids Hospital in Toronto to London Health Sciences, from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay, is dangerously overcrowded. While the Premier talks about the importance of mental health, mental health beds across Ontario are consistently overcrowded.

Government records show that our hospitals are falling into disrepair and need more than $3 billion just for urgent repairs. Hospital base funding has been frozen for four straight years and, this year, saw an increase of less than inflation and population growth.

This is a system in crisis. The Premier needs to stop denying the facts and make sure that when people go to hospital, they can get the care that they need. So my question is: Why doesn’t she recognize that?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: As I said, we continue to put money into health care in the areas where we know that there is increased need, including $12 billion over the next 10 years to expand and rebuild hospitals. There are 35 major hospital projects that are under way or being planned right now. We continue to increase the number of nurses and doctors, and we continue to work with the system, with the hospitals and with the community care facilities to go through the transition that is necessary to meet the demands and to meet the needs of people in communities.

That means families who need support for their loved ones at home; that means families who are looking for palliative or hospice care. We’re responding to those needs and, at the same time, increasing funding to hospitals and increasing the number of practitioners because we know that that’s necessary for the system to be sustainable.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Hospitals need an appropriate level of operational funding, and for years they have not been getting that level of funding from this government.

Look, I believe in health care. I believe in universal access to health care. As a New Democrat, that’s part of my DNA. It shouldn’t matter where you live; it shouldn’t matter how much money you make; it shouldn’t matter where you come from. All Ontarians deserve access to the health care that they need.

But that’s not what is happening under this Liberal government. Beds are being closed, nurses and other front-line health care workers are being laid off. Hospitals are overcrowded and they are crumbling. That is a system in crisis. That is the legacy of this Liberal government after so many years in office.

When will this Premier stop ignoring this crisis and start fixing our health care system—the health care system that Ontarians treasure and rely on?

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’m fully prepared to say and to admit that more work needs to be done. This is a process that is never-ending, to make sure that we continue to provide the highest-quality health care.

But if I’m prepared to do that, I wish the leader of the third party would be prepared to admit that she’s incorrect when she states, repeatedly, that 1,400 nurses in hospitals lost their jobs last year, because that’s simply not true. The figure from the College of Nurses of Ontario is 3,000 net new jobs being added last year alone. I said it yesterday—

Interjection.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Yes, I’m going to quote the Fraser Institute—I love quoting them—because, in their 2015 report, Waiting Your Turn, they revealed that Ontario has the second-shortest overall wait times in Canada. They also said we have the second-highest value-for-money ranking. They also say that we provide the quickest access to services in the country.

There are many, many independent examples—the leader of the third party doesn’t need to listen to me. There are so many independent reports that demonstrate unequivocally that we rank at the top or among the best in all of this country and, in many cases—as I said yesterday, from the Conference Board of Canada, last year, we were evaluated as the seventh-best in the entire world, ahead of Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Pan Am Games

Mr. Steve Clark: My question is for the Premier. This government’s shameful history of using the shredder and the delete key to destroy public documents is well known. Two former Liberal staffers face criminal charges related to wiping data connected to the gas plant scandal. Last month, we learned that the OPP are investigating the destruction of key documents related to a cancelled electricity contract. Each time the police come calling, the Premier claims she’s changed her ways. Yet when the Auditor General asked to examine hard drives at TO2015, they had vanished.

Will the Premier finally show us that she believes in open and transparent government by joining me in asking the Information and Privacy Commissioner to investigate what happened at TO2015?

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I want to start by saying thank you to the member opposite for the question. I also want to say that I appreciate the Auditor General’s time and effort that was dedicated to this report.

On the very first page of the report, the Auditor General states, “Ontarians can take pride in the fact that the 2015 games went off without a major hitch, left a legacy of infrastructure for athletes and the general public to use, and led Canada to its biggest-ever haul of medals from a Pan Am/Parapan Am Games.”

In her press statement yesterday, the AG stated that value, as described here in the report, was obtained. The AG continues to say that these games were “praised for their smooth operations by the Pan American Sports Organization and the Americas Paralympic Committee.”

We successfully delivered the largest, most transparent Pan Am/Parapan Am Games ever, and we did it under budget.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Steve Clark: Another weak answer from the minister.

Back to the Premier: Here’s what we know. The Pan Am’s $342-million cost overruns again prove this government is incapable of managing public funds. Paying millions in bonuses despite missing budget targets shows that Liberals will always reward their friends. Destroying hard drives before the Auditor General sees what’s on them is evidence again of their outright contempt for transparency: can’t manage, not in it for you, can’t be trusted.

Saäd Rafi, the man who went $342 million over budget and destroyed evidence, is now in charge of Ontario’s retirement security. I won’t get an answer from this government on Pan Am budget or destruction of public documents, so I ask you, Premier: Will you fire Saäd Rafi before more documents are deleted and the ORPP becomes this province’s next scandal?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Again I want to thank the member opposite for the question. These were the most transparent games ever. We held five technical briefings. TO2015 has assured us that they followed all record retention requirements by Archives Ontario. The Auditor General confirmed that by saying that TO2015 followed the procedures that were provided by the archives. In fact, yesterday the Auditor General reassured us that she doesn’t have any indication that there was anything improper done. The Auditor General was granted full access to the shared computers that were—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville is warned.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I don’t need that either.

You have a sentence wrap-up, please.

Hon. Michael Coteau: The Auditor General was granted full access to the shared computer system where all the information files, including emails, were uploaded and stored.

Pan Am Games

Mr. Paul Miller: To the Premier: If the overspending on the Pan Am Games wasn’t bad enough, the Auditor General requested 12 hard drives from TO2015 but only three were turned over. The rest were wiped and disposed of, including the CEO’s. She could not obtain all the documents she requested, but yesterday the minister said that all the information on these drives had been saved to a server. So why did it remain inaccessible to the auditor and her staff?

The Liberal government does not get the benefit of the doubt on the wiping of hard drives. After the gas plant scandal, after the damning report by the Information and Privacy Commissioner, after an OPP criminal investigation for wiping information, our Premier said that the Liberals had learned their lesson. Apparently, they’re back at their old bad habits.

To the Premier: Which is it? Were these government records destroyed, or did the Pan Am staff save the documents but obstruct the Auditor General’s access to them?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I’d like to thank the member for the question. I’m just going to restate what the Auditor General said yesterday. She doesn’t have any indication that there was anything improperly done in this process. The Auditor General was granted full access to the system. The Auditor General was provided with 300 boxes of hard-copy information. The information that TO2015—it has been uploaded to the cloud, which the Auditor General has full access to.

You know, the funny thing about this is, if we had 1,000 computers sitting in a room today, a year later we’d be criticized for not managing that properly either.

The information the computers released was uploaded to the cloud, and the Auditor General—

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

Mr. John Yakabuski: If, if, if. Just tell us what happened to the hard drives.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew, come to order.

New question. The member from Cambridge—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Whoa, whoa. Supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): My apologies. The member for a supplementary.

Mr. Paul Miller: Thank you, Speaker.

I guess that cloud has got a little grey area in it.

Some of the missing documents concerned executive bonuses—53 Pan Am executives shared several million dollars in special completion bonuses worth up to twice their annual salary. Some 25% of these bonuses were dependent on TO2015 meeting its operating budget, but in September 2014, the province had to bail it out by $74 million because it was unable to stay within its operating budget.

The TO2015 board chairman, former Liberal Premier David Peterson, knew that, and failed to meet his budget restraints. The board then changed the targets and rules around bonuses so that the executives would still receive them in full. The government could have put a clause in the bailout that would have stopped this, but did nothing.

Speaker, this is a scandal—another one. How can the Premier possibly excuse the negligence with this public money?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the auditor referenced additional investments that were made to the games since the budget bid back in 2009. We have always been open and transparent about these additional investments we made, through our technical briefings.

The Auditor General mentioned the security budget went up since 2009. We told you that in the technical briefings; we told both opposition members. The Auditor General mentioned $74 million that was allocated to TO2015, which is a decision I made that was mentioned through the technical briefings. These are not new numbers. We said the games would cost $2.4 billion in 2009 in the bid book, and we came in under that budget of $2.4 billion.

The members opposite know fully that these games were the most transparent games. They went through five technical briefings. Any changes to the budget since 2009 were brought forward to our technical briefings.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Again, I apologize to the member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek for missing him.

New question.

Climate change

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry: My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, whose ministry, along with many others, plays a key role in our fight against climate change.

With the release of the province’s climate change action plan, we have described how Ontario will accelerate the adoption of low-carbon technology over the next five years by providing more choices to families and businesses on ways to become energy efficient and lower energy bills. Through the plan, Ontario will invest in projects that will reduce greenhouse gas pollution, create good jobs in clean tech and construction, generate opportunities and investment in Ontario, and help people and businesses transition to a low-carbon economy.

The building sector represents an opportunity for us to make important changes to the energy efficiency of our homes. Will the minister please tell this House why we must target buildings in our fight against climate change?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: Mr. Speaker, it’s conceivable that this may be the last question I ever get to answer in this place, so before I answer that question, I have something important to say.

Over the years, question period has served, I believe, as an effective camouflage of the native civility and decency of this place. If you want any evidence of civility and decency in this place, you need only to look at my critic from Windsor–Tecumseh and the honourable member from Oxford.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry: Speaker, for one final time, I know that our colleagues thank the minister for his answer and also for the tremendous leadership that he has shown as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. With his work with AMO and all of the other ministries that he has led so capably, thank you once again from all of us, Minister.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: Well, Speaker, it’s been a slice, I’ve got to tell you. It’s been great. I want to thank the Premier for her confidence and all of the members of the House for their caring and their daring and their sharing together. I respect each and every one of you.

Now, on the question: Greenhouse gas for business is about 19% and it’s rising fast. We need to do something about it. We have a wonderful plan and we’re going to equip Ontarians with more of the tools they need to combat it, including some incentives to solve this problem. We all need to do that together.

Access to justice

Mr. Randy Hillier: My question is to the Attorney General. The Ottawa Citizen has reported that Ontario has “freakishly high” rates of stayed and withdrawn criminal cases. In fact, over 90,000 criminal cases last year were thrown out—a whopping 44% of all cases—before trial.

The minister talks about access to justice, but in fact, her actions are hindering and making a mockery of justice. We know it takes an average of 125 days and upwards of 10 court appearances before these charges are finally stayed or withdrawn. Their liberty is denied. Their freedoms are extinguished.

Speaker, can the minister explain why the crown is dropping close to 50% of all criminal cases after Ontario residents have already spent upwards of 125 days behind bars?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: In Ontario, we have and we want a fair, effective and efficient bail and remand system. It’s a key priority for our government. We recognize that there are issues, and that’s why we’re working with the ministry of community safety and corrections; we’re working with the judicial; we’re working with the crown. We have everybody at the table to review the situation and to improve the situation, because the last thing we want is people being in jail who should not be there. We know that we have capacity challenges and we want to resolve that.

That’s why everybody is at the table. We have already provided and started some pilot projects and we will—

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

Supplementary?

Mr. Randy Hillier: Again, to the Attorney General: Let’s just be clear. Nearly half of all criminal cases are stayed or withdrawn before trial—half. It’s a clear sign that things are broken. This overloads our already taxed courtrooms. It leads to and amplifies overcrowding in our detention centres. It adds cost and anguish to those charged, and it is an abuse of process, which erodes the public’s confidence.

There is an appalling lack of coordination between the Attorney General, our courts and this government. They are wasting needed resources and depriving people of their civil liberties. I want to know: Who is at fault? Is it the Attorney General? Is it the ministry of community safety and corrections? Or is it both of them, and who’s going to fix it?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I will say that it’s all of us who are going to work together to fix it, and the work has already begun. Like I said, we have pilot projects.

We also have to work with the judiciary, and on this side of the House, we don’t tell the judiciary what to do. We work together. That’s why at my justice round table, all of these people are at the table and we’re working very hard. We have different groups working together.

We have different pilot projects. For instance, in Ottawa, we have now a crown advising the police and—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): If you speak through the Chair, you’ll know when I’m standing.

I would ask the member from Kitchener–Waterloo to come to order and the member from Lanark to come to order—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): —and the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Wrap up, please.

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: In Ottawa, we have two pilot projects. One of them is that the crown is working with the police to make sure that only cases that should go to jail go to jail, and only cases that go to trial go to trial. It’s been successful, as well—

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

Autism treatment

Miss Monique Taylor: My question is to the Premier. Opposition members have risen day after day, begging the Premier not to leave children with autism behind. Experts didn’t recommend an age cap for therapy. They didn’t say that children on the wait-list should be just kicked off.

Liberal MPPs know they’re wrong. They have been avoiding speaking to parents by calling the police. They have manufactured reasons to avoid them, such as telling parents who have called the Human Rights Tribunal—even though they haven’t opened a case—that they can’t meet them to discuss government policy. It’s disrespectful, Speaker, and they should apologize.

It’s time to do the right thing, Premier. Will the Premier admit that she’s hurting families and children with autism by imposing an age cap on autism therapy?

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

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I want to thank the member for the question. She knows what our plan is, Speaker. Our plan is to invest $333 million new dollars to reduce those wait-lists in half by two years, and adding 16,000 new spaces, and to make sure that children with autism have individually tailored therapy to support the unique needs of every child.

Right now, our commitment—my support—is making sure every family is getting the information they need, that we are looking at every family on a case-by-case basis. I’m very pleased to highlight that for those children who are coming off the IBI wait lists, there have been 545 family meetings and we’ve had 995 families participate in the Autism Ontario website. And we’ve quadrupled the amount of support for summer camps this year for children with autism.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Miss Monique Taylor: I’m going to go back to the Premier, but first I need to let this minister know that these meetings are happening in tears. They’re happening by being forced into signing documents that they don’t want to sign. This is awful—awful, Speaker.

The House is about to rise for the summer. The government keeps saying that something is coming soon, but parents and families are devastated and deeply confused by the mixed signals and the lack of information. Implementation of this rush job PR announcement has gone off the rails and it’s putting children with autism at risk.

Again, autism doesn’t end at five, and neither should IBI. Please, Premier, do the right thing. Do something for these families. Make sure that vulnerable children are a priority. Will the Premier immediately remove the age cap imposed on children needing IBI therapy?

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: This member is just wrong that families are being forced to sign contracts. I know that’s not true because I’ve checked it out—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Hamilton Mountain will come to order.

Minister.

Hon. Tracy MacCharles: I know for a fact that of the 317 families who have signed contracts for direct services of $8,000, many of them have taken that away, are thinking about it, looking at their options, and they can come back. Many of them have had multiple meetings. Of the 545 families who have had meetings, many of them have returned for secondary meetings.

The member knows that we are looking at the new program and potential enhancements to that, but we have to remember that the new program will have one point of entry—

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

New question.

Mining safety

Mr. Glenn Thibeault: My question is for the Minister of Labour. On this day, June 8, in 2011, two miners were tragically killed while on the job in Sudbury. Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram were killed in a horrible incident and were buried in a run of muck. My heart goes out to Jason’s and Jordan’s families and their colleagues.

This tragedy was felt by all of those in my riding, across the province and right across the country. It is essential that we continue to make Ontario’s mines the safest they can be and to prevent incidents like this from ever happening again.

Can the minister please update the House on what our government is doing to protect people who work in mines in places like my riding of Sudbury and across the province from workplace incidents?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you to the member from Sudbury for his question and for all of the excellent work that he’s done in this regard over the years.

It was five years ago, but our hearts still go out to the families of Jason and Jordan and the colleagues who still carry the pain of losing these two young men in the prime of their lives to such a terrible workplace incident. I’m pleased to inform the House that as a result of the investigation that we did and the work that a number of people did, we’re bringing in amendments that are making mines safer. You’re seeing increased water management and ground control—something the families specifically asked for—risk assessments, formal traffic management programs, guarding, emergency stopping devices and pull cords.

It’s in the memory of these two young men and the many other miners who were either killed or injured over the years that we have taken very strong steps to improve mining safety so that no one has to relive this catastrophe again and Ontario has the safest mines in the world.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Glenn Thibeault: I’d like to thank the minister for his answer.

I know that our government continues to work with my community and communities across the north to ensure that our mines are safe and that those who work there return home safe. It is encouraging to hear that we are taking even stronger steps to improve mining safety so that no one is killed on the job. Everyone who leaves their home to go to work deserves to come home at the end of their shift.

I know that the Ontario competition is under way in Sudbury right now, and that we’re also holding the world mining rescue competition in August of this year, something that my community is extremely proud of. I then look to the Minister of Labour: Can he please explain and expand on some of the changes mentioned in his previous answer?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Again, thanks to the member from Sudbury for his continued involvement and his interest in this area.

As he mentioned to the House, the Ontario Mine Rescue Competition is currently under way in the city of Sudbury. Our chief prevention officer is up there as we speak.

For the changes, some of the changes we made are quite simple. For example, one of the top priority recommendations that came from the mining review was simply that we wear high visibility apparel so that people could see you in a mine. Sometimes, it’s things that are that simple that make such a big difference.

We’re taking mining workplace safety very, very seriously at the Ministry of Labour. Working together with the workers, the employers, the unions and the victims’ families, we’re going to continue to raise the bar so that these incidents simply don’t happen again.

If I can close with a quote from Wendy Fram, who is Jordan’s mom: “It does give some comfort, thinking we are fighting for changes that have to be made right.” That speaks volumes.

Energy policies

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is to the Premier. The Premier said yesterday that “we won’t see electricity prices rise” because of her reckless cap-and-trade plan. Yet the Independent Electricity System Operator, the energy experts that the Premier refused to consult, say otherwise. Recent IESO documents reveal that plugging in as few as four electric vehicles in a single neighbourhood could cause an overload. Our electricity system simply cannot handle the extra demand without billions of dollars in new transmission and distribution lines, as well as new power plants. The climate change plan does not include a single dollar for electricity system upgrades—not a single dollar.

How much will hydro rates have to rise to cover the Premier’s irresponsible plan?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know the Minister of Energy is going to want to weigh in on the supplementary. But Mr. Speaker, this is a perfect example of this party once again saying, “Don’t do anything. Don’t tackle climate change. Don’t make any advances. Don’t invest in electric vehicles. Don’t invest in the charging stations” that we’re investing in so that electric vehicles will have a longer range, “Don’t do anything. Put your head in the sand. Pretend that climate change isn’t happening,” and hope—hope—that somehow our children and grandchildren will solve the problem. We’re not going to do that.

We are tackling this. We’re going to work with industry. We’ll work with the electricity system.

Remember, Mr. Speaker, we’ve been getting flak from the other side for the upgrading of the system that we’ve done. The 10,000 kilometres of line that we’ve put in—they’ve been giving us a hassle for the last five years. We’re not taking lessons from them. We’re tackling climate change. That’s what we’re doing.

Interjections.

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

Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: The Premier loves to shout at me, but it’s the IESO that’s saying it, not me.

It’s not just electric vehicles that will cause bills to rise; it’s also the phase-out of natural gas. The Globe and Mail broke the news this morning that despite the Premier’s repeated claims, cabinet approved the policy of phasing out reliance on natural gas. That means $3,000 more every year for three quarters of Ontario businesses and families just to heat their homes and businesses.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, come to order.

Mr. John Yakabuski: But it also means more stress on the electricity grid. Private sector estimates peg the upgrades at $200 billion. Since not one more dollar from the cap-and-trade plan is going to improve the electricity grid, will the Premier tell Ontarians that their hydro bills are going to go up by another $200 billion?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I’m sure the critic for the opposition is disappointed that our 2016 budget announced that cap-and-trade will take $24 a year off residential bills and that commercial rates will, on average, not increase at all.

I’m sure the member understands that we do have a surplus of electricity at the present time—plenty of time to transition. We have a surplus that will take us through into 2022-23. He doesn’t have the word “conservation” in his energy plan.

Mr. John Yakabuski: You’ve got to be able to deliver the electricity.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Renfrew, second time.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: We have been saving dollars in the system from conservation. If you take Campbell’s food, their combined heat and power in Etobicoke, they’re taking 400 megawatts off the grid with that program. That will continue to happen with all of our cap-and-trade programs.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): New question, the member from—

Interjections.

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

Mr. John Yakabuski: Roger Whittaker is going to come down and sing The Last Farewell in a moment.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): He’ll take your place if you keep going.

New question. The member from Toronto–Danforth.

Ontario Energy Board

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is to the Minister of Energy. The city of Toronto is thinking about selling off Toronto Hydro, just like the Premier is selling off Hydro One. The minister defends the Hydro One sale by claiming that the Ontario Energy Board will protect the public from arbitrary rate increases. But the Auditor General found that the OEB had approved rate increases for Hydro One that were supposed to pay for replacing aging transformers that were in fact never replaced—never.

Hydro One made misrepresentations to the OEB, but instead of taking action, the minister named a Hydro One vice-president to the Ontario Energy Board. Why should we trust the OEB to protect the public from high rates when the minister stacks the board with insiders who are hostile to consumers?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: It’s an old question that has been asked by that critic a number of times, Mr. Speaker. He knows that the Ontario Energy Board, first of all, is an independent body. He also knows that in application after application after application the Ontario Energy Board has reduced the amount that has been asked for. They now have new legislation, which we’ve passed in this session, that increases the ability of the Ontario Energy Board to provide daily fines of up to $1 million for those utilities, those people who apply to the board, on an ongoing basis. They are responsible, they have done their job and they will continue to do so.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Before the government stripped the Auditor General of her oversight of Hydro One, she found that Hydro One had failed to make the equipment upgrades that previous rate increases were supposed to pay for. The chair of the OEB says that they’re not auditors and so when a utility asks ratepayers for more money, the OEB will not bother to determine if that money was actually used properly for what it was claimed to be used for. Similarly, when Torontonians called on the OEB to investigate whether Anthony Haines, the CEO of Toronto Hydro, had lied under oath about his credentials, the OEB dismissed them and apparently no investigation took place.

How can we believe that this sleepy watchdog will defend Torontonians from soaring rates based on any misrepresentation from Toronto Hydro?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I respect the commitment that the member has to the environment and to the energy sector, but I think that it is not appropriate that he try to smear the Ontario Energy Board to the extent that he is doing right now. The members are independent. There is a very, very strong diligence that’s done when people come on the board. They have a cross-section of board members who act very, very responsibly. What he’s doing now is doing nothing but smearing the Ontario Energy Board members who are responsible regulators in our system and are known to be so across North America.

Research and innovation

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: My question is for the Minister of Research and Innovation.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member for Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, second time.

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: This morning, Minister Moridi and I were honoured to welcome Professor Arthur McDonald to Queen’s Park. As this chamber heard and rejoiced last year, Dr. McDonald, professor emeritus at Queen’s University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. He and his team discovered that the tiny particles known as neutrinos have mass.

Dr. McDonald’s scientific contributions have advanced our understanding of the universe and set the path for new directions in the study of quantum physics and astronomy. His innovative vision has made Ontario and, indeed, Canada a global leader in the field of particle astrophysics, paving the way for a deeper, richer understanding of the world that we live in.

Can the minister please tell us more about how the government of Ontario continues to support breakthrough research allowing for scientific contributions such as Dr. McDonald’s to become a reality?

Hon. Reza Moridi: I want to thank the member from Kingston and the Islands for that very timely question.

We are truly honoured to host Dr. McDonald and his team here today. The government of Ontario has committed and delivered $627 million towards 164 research projects through the Ontario Research Fund. Projects funded by the Ontario Research Fund have delivered $3.3 billion in funding and have helped create more than 100,000 highly paid jobs and training opportunities in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, our government’s continued commitment to funding research and innovation in the province of Ontario allows researchers such as Nobel laureate Dr. McDonald to reach unprecedented breakthroughs and achievements.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: It is wonderful to hear that the government has committed to supporting scientific research in this province. As we heard last year, Dr. McDonald’s research was conducted at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, or SNOLAB, in partnership with Queen’s University. And, as we’ve heard, the SNOLAB is a cutting-edge research facility located two kilometres underground, specializing in neutrino and dark matter physics. The ultra-clean environment of the observatory allows for measurements that cannot be made anywhere else in the world as well as observation of rare scientific phenomena which occur only a few times a year.

The existence of the SNOLAB allowed for Dr. McDonald and his team to conduct his experiment, which resulted in a discovery that changed our very understanding of the innermost workings of matter and our view of the universe. Could the minister please tell me how the government continues to support laboratories such as Dr. McDonald’s?

Hon. Reza Moridi: I want to thank the member again for that very timely question. The SNO laboratory, in partnership with Queen’s University, allows all universities across the province of Ontario to collaborate on significant scientific breakthroughs.

The historical contribution of SNOLAB to the Ontario economy is estimated to be as much as $227 million. Since its inception, SNOLAB has received approximately $38 million in provincial funding.

SNOLAB enhances the province’s profile in the global scientific community as it is a global leader in fundamental physics. Additionally, the lab trains and develops highly qualified personnel in Ontario and inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers in our wonderful country, Canada.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): A point of order, the member from Leeds–Grenville.

Mr. Steve Clark: Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent for this House to direct the Standing Committee on Justice Policy to investigate the alleged deletion of documents at TO2015 in relation to the Pan/Parapan American Games; that the committee be—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville is seeking unanimous consent. Do we agree? I heard a no.

Member’s anniversary

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Point of order, the Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Speaker, I’d ask that we all take a moment to recognize that today is the 39th anniversary of the member for St. Catharines being elected to this House and congratulate him on his many years of dedicated service to the people of Ontario.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs on a point of order.

Hon. David Zimmer: I seek unanimous consent that the member can speak for up to two minutes only.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I have to hear a no. He’s seeking unanimous consent to speak for up to two minutes.

Hon. James J. Bradley: No.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Oh, I heard a no.

For the record, he’s got socks older than I am. That’s an inside joke. It won’t play well in Hansard, but it’s an inside joke.

Legislative pages

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We have two pieces of serious information.

The first one is to announce to you that this is the last day for our pages. I want to take a moment to say to these pages, thank you very much for your service to Ontario.

Applause.

Disclosure of information

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Now, on a serious note, I do have a response.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the member from Simcoe–Grey, Mr. Wilson, raised a question of privilege with respect to the government’s proposed climate change action plan. According to the member, the release of this plan to the media before its announcement or tabling in the House amounted to contempt of the House. The member from Timmins–James Bay, Monsieur Bisson, and the government House leader, Mr. Naqvi, also spoke to this matter. Having reviewed the relevant media references, the precedents, the authorities, the Hansard for June 7 and the written submissions of the member from Simcoe–Grey and the government House leader, I am now prepared to rule on the matter.

The member from Simcoe–Grey referenced

section 7(6) of the Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act, 2016, which provides as follows: “The minister shall, before January 1, 2017, lay the action plan before the assembly and make it available to the public on a website of the government or in such other manner as may be prescribed by the regulations.” According to the member, this provision required the plan to be tabled in the House before the media received it. The government House leader had a different

interpretation of that provision. In response, I have to say that I cannot rule on the

interpretation of that provision because, as members well know, Speakers traditionally avoid interpreting laws.

The member from Simcoe–Grey also cited rulings by Speakers of the Canadian House of Commons. The rulings relate to the premature disclosure of the contents of bills prior to their introduction in the House. In the rulings, the Speaker ruled that the premature disclosure of the contents of “bills on notice” amounted to a prima facie case. The reference to the words “on notice” is important because the standing orders of the House of Commons require 48 hours’ notice before bills can be introduced in the House. Such bills are House business.

Under our standing orders, however, neither bills nor policy announcements are placed on notice. Therefore, the cited rules are not applicable to the case at hand and as a result I am unable to find that a prima facie case of contempt has been established.

In so ruling, however, I want to remind members that from time to time previous Speakers have expressed misgivings about new government initiatives being announced outside the House before being announced inside the House. As I indicated in this House on April 14, 2014:

“Whether it be the government’s financial plan, or any other measure or announcement, Speakers have repeatedly looked unfavourably upon it when the House has not been the first to receive such information. There are rulings almost too numerous to compile in which Speakers have admonished governments for doing this, and defending the Legislature’s claim to be the first recipient of major announcements.”

And in a November 2, 2009 ruling, the Speaker ruled as follows:

“I and my predecessors have repeatedly conveyed our deep concern about how these types of extra-parliamentary announcements erode the stature of Parliament. Speakers have repeatedly implored governments to consider the impact of this erosion and how it damages the reputation of the foundation institution of this province.... In an ideal world where the legitimate and historic role of the Legislative Assembly, and specifically of the loyal opposition, were given first consideration, I expect that what a previous Speaker referred to as these types of ‘administrative discourtesies’ would not arise.”

The incident raised by the member from Simcoe–Grey is different in that it deals with the media—not the government—announcing a government initiative, but the reality is that the media somehow acquired the information. In the case at hand, I have no personal knowledge that the government released details of the initiative to the media, but I would have more than misgivings if such releases were motivated by a patently obvious desire to undermine parliamentary processes.

In closing, I thank the member from Simcoe–Grey, the member from Timmins–James Bay and the government House leader for their submissions.

Deferred Votes

Smoke-Free Ontario Amendment Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée

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

Bill 178,

An Act to amend the Smoke-Free Ontario Act / Projet de loi 178, Loi modifiant la Loi favorisant un Ontario sans fumée.

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

The division bells rang from 1209 to 1214.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): On Wednesday, June 8, 2016, Mr. Fraser moved third reading of Bill 178,

An Act to amend the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.

All those in favour, please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Albanese, Laura

Arnott, Ted

Bailey, Robert

Baker, Yvan

Ballard, Chris

Berardinetti, Lorenzo

Bisson, Gilles

Bradley, James J.

Brown, Patrick

Chan, Michael

Chiarelli, Bob

Clark, Steve

Coe, Lorne

Colle, Mike

Coteau, Michael

Crack, Grant

Damerla, Dipika

Del Duca, Steven

Delaney, Bob

Dhillon, Vic

Dickson, Joe

Dong, Han

Duguid, Brad

Fife, Catherine

Flynn, Kevin Daniel

Fraser, John

French, Jennifer K.

Gates, Wayne

Gélinas, France

Gravelle, Michael

Gretzky, Lisa

Hardeman, Ernie

Harris, Michael

Hatfield, Percy

Hoggarth, Ann

Horwath, Andrea

Hoskins, Eric

Hudak, Tim

Hunter, Mitzie

Jaczek, Helena

Jones, Sylvia

Kiwala, Sophie

Kwinter, Monte

Lalonde, Marie-France

Leal, Jeff

MacCharles, Tracy

Malhi, Harinder

Mangat, Amrit

Martins, Cristina

Martow, Gila

Matthews, Deborah

McDonell, Jim

McGarry, Kathryn

McMahon, Eleanor

McMeekin, Ted

Meilleur, Madeleine

Milczyn, Peter Z.

Miller, Paul

Moridi, Reza

Munro, Julia

Murray, Glen R.

Naidoo-Harris, Indira

Naqvi, Yasir

Orazietti, David

Pettapiece, Randy

Potts, Arthur

Qaadri, Shafiq

Rinaldi, Lou

Sandals, Liz

Scott, Laurie

Sergio, Mario

Singh, Jagmeet

Smith, Todd

Sousa, Charles

Tabuns, Peter

Takhar, Harinder S.

Taylor, Monique

Thibeault, Glenn

Thompson, Lisa M.

Vanthof, John

Vernile, Daiene

Walker, Bill

Wong, Soo

Wynne, Kathleen O.

Yakabuski, John

Yurek, Jeff

Zimmer, David

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

Nays

Hillier, Randy

The Clerk of the Assembly (Ms. Deborah Deller): The ayes are 87; the nays are 1.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Before we recess, I just wanted to offer the House my wishes for you to have a safe, healthy break from this House, but knowing that you work tirelessly year-round. I wish you all the best for the summer break.

There are no deferred votes. This House stands recessed until 1 p.m.

The House recessed from 1217 to 1300.

Members’ Statements

Skills training

Mr. Lorne Coe: I’d like to take this opportunity as the official opposition critic for training, colleges and universities to speak about the skills mismatch and its effects in my riding of Whitby–Oshawa.

A great young man from my riding graduated from teachers’ college last year. He’s always wanted to teach, but for the past year he has not been able to find employment. After an interview with the Durham District School Board, he did not get the position and was told that he could not reapply for a full year. Thousands from teachers’ college will be graduating this year and diluting this young man’s opportunities.

The skills mismatch continues to grow and all the government can say is that they’re conducting another review. This government has had 13 years to conduct their reviews. Parents in my riding to want know that their sons and daughters can leave university, college or an apprenticeship with a real opportunity to start a career. It’s time for the government to take real action and stop graduating people for yesterday’s jobs.

Automotive industry

Ms. Jennifer K. French: The manufacturing industry isn’t what it used to be, nor should it be. As a province, we should be moving forward. We should be an example for the world to follow, but what we shouldn’t be doing is leaving people behind. Tomorrow, General Motors will announce its plan to hire 1,000 new engineers to boost its