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October 25, 2018

42nd Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2018-Oct-25 (PDF)

L041 - Thu 25 Oct 2018 / Jeu 25 oct 2018

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 25 October 2018 Jeudi 25 octobre 2018

Notice of reasoned amendment

Orders of the Day

Green Energy Repeal Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 abrogeant la

Loi sur l’énergie verte

Time allocation

Introduction of Visitors

Wearing of pins

Visitor

Oral Questions

University and college funding

University and college funding

Employment standards

Child abuse

Employment standards

Vandalism of constituency office

Opioid abuse

Student assistance

Employment standards

Mercury poisoning

Skills training

Police services

Horse racing industry

Police services

Tourism

Automobile insurance

Visitors

Correction of record

Visitors

Deferred Votes

Green Energy Repeal Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 abrogeant la

Loi sur l’énergie verte

Time allocation

Members’ Statements

Hospital funding

Together We Stand Foundation

Opening of mine

Cancer treatment

TEC Hub

Events in Simcoe North

Climate change

Tysen Lefebvre

Multiple myeloma

Introduction of Bills

Safe and Supportive Classrooms Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 pour des écoles sûres et axées sur le soutien

Petitions

Employment standards

Public safety

Climate change

Animal protection

Employment standards

Public safety

Climate change

Social assistance

Employment standards

Public safety

Private Members’ Public Business

Liability for Climate-Related Harms Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 sur la responsabilité à l’égard des dommages liés au climat

Accessible Parking and Towing Industry Review Committee Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 sur le Comité d’examen du stationnement accessible et du secteur de remorquage

“Notwithstanding” clause Clause « nonobstant »

Liability for Climate-Related Harms Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 sur la responsabilité à l’égard des dommages liés au climat

Accessible Parking and Towing Industry Review Committee Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 sur le Comité d’examen du stationnement accessible et du secteur de remorquage

“Notwithstanding” clause

Liability for Climate-Related Harms Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 sur la responsabilité à l’égard des dommages liés au climat

“Notwithstanding” clause

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Notice of reasoned amendment

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Before I ask for orders of the day, I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 71(c), the member for Waterloo has filed with the Clerk a reasoned amendment to the motion for second reading of Bill 47,

An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000, the Labour Relations Act, 1995 and the Ontario College of Trades and Apprenticeship Act, 2009 and make complementary amendments to other Acts.

The order for second reading of Bill 47 may therefore not be called today.

Orders of the Day

Green Energy Repeal Act, 2018 Loi de 2018 abrogeant la

Loi sur l’énergie verte

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 22, 2018, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 34,

An Act to repeal the Green Energy Act, 2009 and to amend the Electricity Act, 1998, the Environmental Protection Act, the Planning Act and various other statutes / Projet de loi 34, Loi abrogeant la Loi de 2009 sur l’énergie verte et modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur l’électricité, la

Loi sur la protection de l’environnement, la

Loi sur l’aménagement du territoire et diverses autres lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Pursuant to the order of House dated October 24, 2018, I am now required to put the question.

Mr. Rickford has moved second reading of Bill 34,

An Act to repeal the Green Energy Act, 2009 and to amend the Electricity Act, 1998, the Environmental Protection Act, the Planning Act and various other statutes.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard some noes.

All those in favour will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

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

Second reading vote deferred.

Time allocation

Hon. Todd Smith: I move that, pursuant to standing order 47 and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to Bill 32,

An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, when the bill is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill without further debate or amendment; and

That the vote on second reading may not be deferred pursuant to standing order 28(h); and

That at such time the bill shall be ordered referred to the Standing Committee on General Government; and

That the Standing Committee on General Government be authorized to meet on Wednesday, October 31, 2018, and Monday, November 12, 2018, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. for public hearings on the bill; and

That the Clerk of the Committee, in consultation with the committee Chair, be authorized to arrange the following with regard to Bill 32:

—That the deadline for requests to appear be 4 p.m. on Monday, October 29, 2018; and

—That the Clerk of the Committee provide a list of all interested presenters to each member of the subcommittee and their designate following the deadline for requests to appear by 6 p.m. on Monday, October 29, 2018; and

—That each member of the subcommittee or their designate provide the Clerk of the Committee with a prioritized list of presenters to be scheduled, chosen from the list of all interested presenters received by the Clerk by 10 a.m. on Tuesday, October 30, 2018; and

—That each witness will receive up to 10 minutes for their presentation followed by 10 minutes divided equally amongst the recognized parties for questioning; and

That the deadline for filing written submissions be 6 p.m. on Monday, November 12, 2018; and

That the deadline for filing amendments to the bill with the Clerk of the Committee shall be 12 p.m. on Thursday, November 15, 2018; and

That the Standing Committee on General Government shall be authorized to meet on Monday, November 19, 2018, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill; and

That on Monday, November 19, 2018, at 5:30 p.m., those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved, and the Chair of the committee shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto. At this time, the Chair shall allow one 20-minute waiting period pursuant to standing order 129(a); and

That the committee shall report the bill to the House no later than Tuesday, November 20, 2018. In the event that the committee fails to report the bill on that day, the bill shall be deemed to be passed by the committee and shall be deemed to be reported to and received by the House; and

That, upon receiving the report of the Standing Committee on General Government, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith, and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading, which order may be called that same day; and

That, notwithstanding standing order 81(c), the bill may be called for third reading more than once in the same sessional day; and

That, in the case of any division relating to any proceedings on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to 10 minutes.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Mr. Smith, Bay of Quinte, has moved government notice of motion number 14—

Interjection: Dispense.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Dispense.

Further debate?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Speaker, this is becoming a habit. The government, yet again, is using time allocation, which I am opposed to, New Democrats are opposed to.

I understand from time to time there may be an opportunity where a government has a bill that’s controversial that they may want to move, but this particular bill, the one that we’re time-allocating now, the natural gas bill, is hardly a bill that is so terribly contentious that you should be time-allocating it in the first place.

Let me get to the point of what I think is the real problem when we use time allocation. Here, the government has put forward a bill. The bill is a bill that the government, I would assume, is proud of and is happy to introduce and do, which will allow natural gas development in small urban areas of northern and rural Ontario. If the gas company decides to install natural gas infrastructure, they’ll be able to pass on the cost to an entire class of customers, in that case, residential.

It’s something that’s moving in the right direction. I don’t have a problem with what the government is doing there. I spoke yesterday about what I think the weaknesses in the bill are. But here’s my point on the time allocation: By not engaging the public adequately when it comes to public hearings, we diminish this House and I think we diminish a connection to the democracy when it comes to individuals living across Ontario.

It was in this House for years that when a government introduced a bill, it very seldom passed first, second and third reading in committee in one fall or one spring session. Normally, what would happen is the bill would be introduced in the House, let’s say in the fall. In the winter intersession, the committee would be on the road. It would travel for two, three weeks to different parts of Ontario—not just Toronto, but places like London, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout and other places. The people who were affected by the bill got a chance to come in and to give their thoughts about what the bill was.

Was it good? Was it bad? Does it need amending? But also, they got to connect with the members of the committee who are there in their community visiting.

A lot of people would come to these committee hearings only because it was the first time they’ve ever seen a body of politicians show up in their community. It allowed them to sort of look and observe and talk to the local member and talk to the members who were there on committee and to connect to the Legislature. I think that served us well for a couple of reasons. First of all, from the democracy side of things, it allowed us to connect with citizens in a way that they say, “Ah, that’s my Legislature. They’re coming to talk to me.

They want to know what I think about this particular bill that I like or dislike.” I think it gave the public at least a sense that somebody was trying to listen to them.

But when a government uses time allocation and the government says, “No, no, no, no we’re not going to have any public hearings”—we’ve had all kinds of bills where the government hasn’t even sent it into committee; they’ve gone from second reading to third.

But where they have sent it into committee, they’ve said, “Let’s have the committee hearings in Toronto for two days.” Well, that’s okay for people living in downtown Toronto and maybe Brampton and a few other places, but if you’re in Kitchener-Waterloo, if you’re in Timmins or Sudbury, if you’re in London, if you’re in Ottawa, if you’re in Kiiwetinoong or Sioux Lookout, well, it’s a little bit harder to be able to get down here for a 10-minute presentation on a bill in the city of Toronto.

In the case of my good friend the member from Kiiwetinoong, if you live, let’s say, in Kingfisher Lake, it would cost you probably about $2,000, 2,500 bucks, to get down here in order to be able to connect with the committee. Is that fair? That’s making democracy inaccessible to certain people, based on the geography of where they live. If we’re a Legislature that supposedly is democratic and we’re saying, “We need to be able to connect with people so that people have confidence in what we’re doing,” well, we’re certainly not helping that along by not allowing committees to travel.

What has now happened, because of time allocation and this government and previous governments that have more and more used time allocation as the norm—not as in Normand, but the norm—most members don’t even know how committees operate, and the public is completely disconnected now. You have a whole generation of people, both in this House and also out in Ontario, who haven’t been connected to the political process of Queen’s Park for years. It has probably been about 20 years since committees travelled in any real kind of way.

It was always, when bills such as this came to the House, that you may have a short debate at second reading or a long debate at second reading, depending on how contentious it was, but there would be an agreement, because you didn’t have time allocation, for it to go into committee and to travel. The political parties would get together and say, “We’ve got to go to Kingston; we’ve got to go to Waterloo; we’ve got to go up to Sioux Lookout,” and a

schedule would be made out and people would know well in advance that we were coming. It wasn’t one of these things where a bill like this one gets referred into committee and people have a week to get ready in order to come and present at committee the next week. People actually had time to get prepared. And people would show up at committee. I was in committee hearings in places like Fort Frances, Sioux Lookout, Attawapiskat, Moosonee, Kingston, all over this province. You always had a pretty good turnout of the local public who showed up at these committee hearings because people are interested in what we’re doing, especially if it’s a bill that’s going to affect them.

So in this case, the government is trying to do something about expanding natural gas services into areas where there’s a lack of infrastructure. Good for them. Does this bill do that entirely? No, but at least it goes in the right direction. But I can guarantee you that if you took this bill on the road and you went to places in rural southwest Ontario, southeast, central and northern Ontario, there would be people showing up, because it is a real issue for many.

For individual homeowners who live at the end of government road 1 or rural road 3 or wherever it is on the outskirts of the community, not having natural gas means heating your home is anywhere from $500 to $1,000 more per month, depending on the size of your home and how well you’re insulated and what you’re using to heat it with. So a lot of people want natural gas in their community, and they want natural gas brought to their door, but it’s not happening because the natural gas company doesn’t have the customer base to bring natural gas to their particular area.

So I can guarantee you that there would be a whole bunch of people who would be interested in coming, and it would be a great opportunity for the government. How does a government that is purporting to move the yardsticks forward on an issue that’s important to people get hurt sending a bill into a committee to travel? There are some people in northern Ontario, as there are some people in rural Ontario, who are going to end up getting natural gas as a result of this bill. That’s just a fact.

The government would be well-served, if they’re proud of that—and they should be—to go out and engage with the public and say, “Here’s what we’re looking at doing for you. This is what your government and the Legislature is trying to do to make your life easier.” But instead, the government has decided that the way it operates is, it does everything here à la time allocation. They rely on the Toronto media to explain to people out in southwestern, southeastern, central and northern Ontario what’s going on in this place.

I can tell you, it’s broken telephone tag, because most people don’t read the Toronto Star where I come from. They don’t read the Toronto Sun. They read the Timmins Daily Press. They read Timmins Today. They listen to MCTV. MCTV has more of a northern Ontario flavour. They will talk about this place somewhat, but they don’t cover it in any kind of detail.

But I’ll tell you, when the committee goes to Sudbury, or the committee goes to Timmins, or the committee goes to Kapuskasing, MCTV and the Daily Press and all the local papers show up and they write about what the committee did. They talk to the committee members. They talk to the public. And then there’s a discussion within our community about, “Hey, did you hear natural gas may be coming to our neighbourhood?” How does the government and how does the Legislature lose when you do that?

Instead, this place has gotten into a really bad situation where everything that happens in this Legislature is run by the person who occupies the corner office—being the Premier. This Legislature is about members; it shouldn’t be about the Premier. When I first came to this place, that’s not the way the place worked. The Premier had lots of authority because he is the one who appoints who is going to be in cabinet and who is going to be on committee and who is going to be a parliamentary assistant and, certainly, that has influence—to line members up. There’s no question about that. I’ve experienced that in the same way that this government is experiencing that.

But the difficulty is, members now are almost at the end of a remote control switch when it comes to how this place operates, because the Premier says, “Oh, we know how to get that done within two weeks. Todd, go make it happen.” And the government House leader comes in and does time allocation and moves it through, and everybody, because you’ve never seen this place operate outside of time allocation—Madam Speaker, there are only three members of this whose who ever sat in Committee of the Whole. Do you know what Committee of the Whole is? I bet you that most people don’t.

There are only three members in the current assembly who ever did it. There are only three members of the current assembly who ever travelled in a real way when it came to committees. Do you know what would happen? When we used to go out travel in the real way, like when we used to travel bills for two and three weeks—there are maybe three of us who were there when that was the normal practice. Am I saying the government in the past never travelled a bill? Of course they would travel the odd bill, but we didn’t do it the way we do business in this House because of time allocation.

My point is, what has now happened is it’s become the new norm around this place. The new norm is that we time-allocate everything. Bills go to Toronto committee at Queen’s Park for two weeks. Maybe it doesn’t; maybe it goes right to third reading. The public is not connected anymore. People living in rural and central and northern Ontario are out of the loop. Unless the government goes to them or the local member goes to them, they don’t really know what’s going on. And we wonder why people don’t have confidence in politics, why they don’t have confidence in politicians and political parties?

It’s because of these kinds of things. I’m not saying it’s only this; there are other things as well—time for another debate. But what it does is, it disconnects the public from this institution.

What I really, really find sad is that this assembly is supposedly about individual members, because every member of this House—I don’t care where you sit—you are sent here to represent your constituents. I don’t believe for two seconds that there’s a member in this House who doesn’t want to do the best thing for their constituents. We all come here for the same reason. How you would do it and I would do it is different. You look at it in a particular way because of your ideology, as I have an ideology and I look at it my way. That’s fair. That’s what debate is all about.

But my point is that individual members should have the ability to exercise some power in being able to control what happens in this House, because it’s our House. It doesn’t belong to the Premier. The Premier is one of the members of the assembly. The rest of us make up this assembly. It is, I think, a failure of our system, by introducing the types of rules that we have in this House that allow time allocation and other things to happen, that has taken the power away from members and put it in the Office of the Premier.

Your political fortunes are tied to how good or how bad the Premier does, not how good or how bad you do as individual members.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s say I am a rural member from the Conservative caucus somewhere in southwestern Ontario and my community might benefit from this particular bill. As a member, I would want people in my constituency to know about it, if I was one of you. I would exercise my power that I had in order to get the government to agree to send the bill to committee and send it to my community. You have tools to be able to do that. I’ve done it myself when I was in government. I would say, “All right, you know what?

I think I’m going to talk for longer at second reading than you want me to,” because we used to be able to take the floor and speak until we were done. There wasn’t a 30-minute or a 20-minute or a one-hour time for debates; it was for as long as you wanted the floor.

I remember I did it on a particular bill having to do with sustainable forestry development. I wanted the bill, along with my colleague Len Wood, to go to Kapuskasing. The government was saying, “No, no, we’ll go to Timmins,” because Timmins is like—everybody goes there. We said no, that’s the problem. Kapuskasing feels that they need a little bit of attention, too, and there’s a lot more forestry activity going on in that area, between Hearst to Smooth Rock Falls, than there is in Timmins. Timmins is sawmills and waferboard, and there they’re pulp, paper and sawmills. There’s a whole different synergy about how that industry works.

So Len and I told the government, “That’s all right, we’ll just speak for longer at second reading.” And that’s what Mr. Wood and I did, the member for Cochrane North and myself, the member for Cochrane South at the time. We threatened our government, we threatened the minister at the time—which was interesting, because Len was the parliamentary assistant—and said, “Well, we’re just going to speak longer. If you don’t let us go to our community”—and I was backing my friend Mr. Wood—“we’re just going to take up more time in the House.”

Guess what the government did? The government said, “Okay, we’re going to Kapuskasing.” And that was a really good thing, because then the foresters, the people who work in the forestry industry, the First Nations communities, the cottagers, everybody who was affected by forestry showed up at the—was it at Centre de Loisirs or was that the municipal complex? But it was full in there. There must have been 100 people who showed up at that committee hearing on that particular bill, because there were people who were concerned about what the government was doing.

That was part of the reason that Len and I wanted the bill to go there, because there were some people in industry who were saying, “Oh, if you put sustainable forestry development in place, we’re going to have to shut down the mill.”

We wanted people to come to committee, to ask those questions and get answers in order to be able to see that, in fact, the bill was about preserving the industry, growing it and allowing it to survive in the new market that we have today. No company in the world—I shouldn’t say in the world. No company in Ontario wants to try to sell in a market where they’re not taking the environment seriously. Mining and forestry, if they don’t do a good job of those things, their products may not be purchased. It’s as simple as that.

So my point is, time allocation is a disservice not only to MPPs, it’s a disservice to the public and the people who we represent. Time allocation—essentially what it’s done is it’s taken the power that we had as individual members away and put it in the hands of the Premier. I don’t care if it’s your Premier, my Premier or the Liberal Premier; it’s the same thing.

I would hope that at one point, members maybe talk to the Clerks or others who have been around here and try to give some pushback to your government. Say, “Listen, what would have been wrong with travelling this bill?” You wouldn’t have got beaten up on this bill, I can guarantee you. You may not want to travel your scrapping of Bill 148, because I think you will get beat up on that one. There’s a lot of people who are upset.

I want to say to the minister across the way that what happened to you was totally unacceptable. That is not the way that democracy works, I can tell you, because when I was in government, we had somebody bomb one of our offices. I don’t know personally, but I can understand, for your staff and your constituents who go into your office and yourself, how traumatic that can be. I wouldn’t argue for two seconds that something like that should be condoned. I hope they find whoever did this and do what the law requires when it comes to that.

But my point is, I can understand why sometimes governments don’t want certain bills to travel. I’ll give you a little story. When we were here elected in 1990 and formed government, our first budget—the story was, we opened the books, when we got elected in September, and we had about a $9-billion deficit. The Liberals had run on a surplus. Now, we had Bob Rae at that time. He used to be a New Democrat. You might not know that, but I thought I’d let you know. But anyways, we were at caucus—

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I’m about to take an extra couple of minutes here, my dear whip.

We go into caucus and they unveiled the books being about $9 billion in deficit at the end of September. A number of us in the caucus said let’s do exactly what the Conservatives are doing now. Let’s have the auditors come in and look at the books and really make it public that the deficit isn’t ours; the deficit was that of the Liberals.

Bob said, “Oh no, we’re not going to have any of that.” Maybe that should have been the first sign that he wasn’t a New Democrat. But, like you guys, I was a brand new member. I went, “Oh, he’s been around here for a while and he’s the boss. I guess he knows what he’s doing.” So you fall in line, right?

From then up to the budget, we got hammered pillar to post by the business community and by the Conservatives of the day, under Mike Harris, for having spent our way out of the recession. Well, God, we inherited a $9-billion deficit, right? And we ended up getting pinned with the whole thing.

I’m going somewhere with this. So then we get to the budget. The budget is tabled and the budget ends up being $10.5 billion. Why? Because we spent an extra billion dollars on anti-recession initiatives. One was a wage protection plan. If you were an employee and you lost your job and the employer didn’t pay severance and you didn’t get your holidays, we paid you and we went after the employer. The other was infrastructure. Surprise: We were spending on infrastructure at a time of a recession, and a lot of infrastructure was built as a result. We went from a $9-billion deficit to a $10.5-billion deficit.

So the budget gets tabled. We end up in the House. We end up in debate. We didn’t have time allocation, so the Conservatives used the rules to their example—they were the third party—and they held the bill in the House by doing all kinds of things. By the way, the idea of reading zebra mussels? That was Mike Harris’s bill. That’s him. I think he did it on that particular issue.

But my point is, it forced the government to travel the bill. We took the budget, which was never done normally because it was always that budget bills are not travelled. We travelled the pre-budget consultation, and then we did the bill here in Toronto. So we had to give in. As a result, we travelled across Ontario, I think it was for three weeks, in order to give people a chance to speak to the budget. It served the interests of the public because the public got to have their say, but it also helped the government and also helped the opposition to advance their message with those people they were trying to communicate to.

My point is time allocation, aside from it being the guillotine, as my friend the member from—the Minister of Transportation; I can never remember the riding. He used to give very colourful speeches in this House. He used to always end time allocation and say, “Mr. Speaker, the guillotine.” Bang, he used to slap his desk. I don’t know what happened. He’s not concerned about time allocation anymore. Neither are any of the members who sat in this House before.

I would only say, if we really believe that the public should be centre to what we do, we should not use time allocation. We should use committees to be able to travel bills so that the public has their say and they can see themselves within that legislation.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): Further debate?

M me France Gélinas: I will put on the record a few thoughts, along the line that my colleague just did.

I see that the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport and I, as well as many other MPPs, had the opportunity to travel when we were on the Select Committee for Mental Health and Addictions. Why I’m bringing this forward is to support what the member from Timmins just said, that there is value in going out and hearing what people have to say.

You’ve put forward this bill to expand natural gas. You know full well that the expansion of natural gas was also in our platform. Our platform is still online; you can go see. You will see that the NDP supports the expansion of natural gas. We dedicated $100 million to that end. So this is not something that we’re going to push against you on. This is something that we could, frankly, work together on. If you come and travel rural and northern Ontario, you will hear about projects that the people have been working on. You will become, I would say, very interested in the possibilities that exist.

If certain parts of rural and northern Ontario had access to natural gas—I can tell you that in my riding it would allow a whole bunch of agricultural projects to go forward. I cannot see the PCs or the NDP saying, “No, we don’t need more agriculture in Ontario.” It’s partly linked to climate change, which is not too good, but we are now able to grow things in my riding, in Nickel Belt, that we were never able to grow before. Because of climate change, because the summers are longer and warmer, we’re now able to do this.

If we were to have access to natural gas, you would see a whole bunch of possibilities. But you can only get to learn about those things if you go out of this chamber, if you go out of this bubble. But you have gone in the exact opposite way. You have gone and put a time allocation. A time allocation means, “I don’t want to hear from you.”

There are many of my colleagues who live in northern and rural: the member from Algoma, the member for—

Mr. Sol Mamakwa: Kiiwetinoong.

M me France Gélinas: —Kiiwetinoong—sorry about that; I forgot for a minute. The member for—I have them by name, and I’m not allowed to name them, so I’m going to stop this.

There are many members in my caucus who represent northern and rural areas who have not had a chance to be heard, who did not have a chance to put forward the great opportunities that this bill brings forward.

This is good news. This is not partisan. This is something that we have in common. We both want this. So why did you feel the need to put in a time allocation and say, “No, we don’t want to hear from you”? Nothing bad will come from people who stand up. Even better things would come if you would take the time to travel the bill.

Coming back to my opening statement with the Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions: I’m going by memory, but I’m pretty sure we visited over 25 different communities.

Hon. Sylvia Jones: Exactly.

M me France Gélinas: Yes. The minister agrees.

We went to a number of fly-in-only First Nations communities. We went from eastern Ontario to Windsor to southern Ontario to many communities in the northwest and the northeast. It brought a change in attitude toward the people living with mental illness. It gave a lot of families, finally, an opportunity to be heard. I would say that some of the stories that we heard were gut-wrenching and really difficult to listen to, but it gave us this deep appreciation as to the need for change and the need to do better, by listening to families who came forward.

For many families who came and talked to us on this particular topic, it gave them the opportunity to turn the page and to be somewhat at ease that MPPs had taken the time to come to their community and had given them an opportunity to be heard, to share their story. Some of their stories were actually shared within the report. The report was very well received. It was published. We had the first publishing, and then we had to print some more and send some more because the people of Ontario were interested, no matter what riding they came from.

If you take away the people’s opportunity to connect to us—for a lot of people, we—the 124 of us—represent every corner of this province. But some of those corners are pretty far away from Toronto. For those people, sure, they see us on TV. Unfortunately, what gets shown in my neck of the woods is the bad behaviour that happens during question period. So they get this very biased view as to what the work of an MPP is, what the work of this Legislative Assembly is. If the work of this Legislative Assembly is to scream insults at one another, that gets covered on TV.

But the hard work that we do to make this province better—the media have very little interest in that. The people who live further away from Toronto, and most people do, don’t ever get to see that until you travel. It is too late for this bill. I would tell you that it is an opportunity lost unless you decide to travel the bill for third reading. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done, but I wouldn’t be opposed to that if it ever came to that.

This is something that people in rural and northern Ontario have been waiting for for a long time. There are many communities that are ready with good projects that would change the communities for the better. It would improve the health of the businesses, of the people, of the community as a whole, if they could be connected to natural gas. They have looked at ways of getting that done. Often, they even have a price tag attached to it, where different stakeholders are willing to share to make it happen. But none of those stories will come here.

And what happens when people are not heard? What happens when people don’t really know? Well, human nature—we always assume the worst. It’s not because we are bad people; it’s simply because we are human beings and this is how human beings behave. If we don’t know about something, we will assume the worst.

It is not hard for somebody who is interested in bringing natural gas to their community—and I could name you very many just in my riding, from Ivanhoe Lake to Foleyet to Mattagami, Gogama, Westree, Shining Tree, Biscotasing, Ramsey, Cartier and many other communities. They’re all interested in being connected to natural gas for the simple reason that heating with electricity is unaffordable. They would be interested in any form of energy that allows them to heat their homes at a price they can afford. Right now, the hope is that you get connected to natural gas.

So when the media report that there is a new bill called the Access to Natural Gas Act, you pique their interest. They are interested in this. They are hopeful. But then it’s radio silence. Once you go to radio silence because you never got to travel the bill and you show no interest in hearing their stories, in hearing their solutions, then they revert back to being human beings, and human beings will assume the worst.

They will assume, having been at the press conference that announced this bill—it was supported by the home builders’ association. It means something that it was the home builders’ association and not the farmers that were around the Premier when he made this announcement. For the people in rural and northern Ontario I represent, the home builders’ association—this is not for us. When we see this, we really look at, “Okay, the home builders’ association supports this.

This is not for us.” This is for urban areas that want to grow bigger, where the home builders’ association wants to build new developments around existing big centres. They want to give the natural gas company—we have a monopoly in Ontario—the right to add $1 or whatever a month more on everybody’s gas bill.

It doesn’t take much of a suspicious person to say, “Well, look at this. The government is giving the gas company the right to come and get a dollar out of my pocket every month so that the home builders’ associations don’t have to pay to bring gas to the new sub-developments that they’re building in and around big centres.” And then people become very cynical. They look at the access to natural gas, they look at where they live in northern and rural Ontario that I represent, and they say, “This is not for me. This is not for me.”

Had you taken the time to come anywhere in northeastern Ontario, you would have been welcomed with open arms. You would have heard of good ideas, good projects to make access to natural gas available to rural and northern Ontario. But no; you went the other way. You decided you would bring time allocation, and time allocation is a fancy word that says, “We don’t want to hear from you anymore. You’ve spoken enough. Sit down and be quiet.” Nobody likes to be told to sit down and be quiet. Nobody likes that.

I know that we are early into the mandate of this government, but please look into this the next time your Premier and House leader talk about time allocation. Look to the people that you represent: Are they interested in the bill? Would they have been interested? Because lots of you represent rural Ontario also. I represent northeastern rural Ontario, but a lot of you represent rural areas. Why didn’t you give the people that you represent an opportunity to be heard? I’m sure there are good projects in the ridings of all of the MPPs that represent rural Ontario. Nickel Belt is not the only one in that situation.

Why didn’t we hear from your constituents? Once you start to hear those ideas, it builds something positive. It builds hope. You hear from one rural area that had an idea, and you say, “Oh, well, maybe that would work in our area also.” All of a sudden, you make something positive for the entire province and you bring positive energy throughout. None of that will happen with that bill.

People often look at politics as people shouting insults to one another across the aisle, because this is often what happens during question period, but you had an opportunity with that bill to show that, no, the work of an MPP is to bring changes for the better for our province. When we work together, we are able to achieve that. I can tell you that when we have travelled together, you get to know one another better. You get to see where there are opportunities to work together. We move Ontario forward together better. There are way more good ideas in 124 people’s heads than there are in 63 people’s heads.

If you take the time to listen and see what links us together, we will do something better.

But none of that will happen. We will end the discussion on this bill today. By the time the news gets out to northeastern Ontario and the communities that I represent, the only thing that will be reported will be negative. The only thing that people will talk about will be that they never had a chance to be heard, that this looks very much like the government will give the big gas company the opportunity to come into my pocket, come into my wallet, and take more money out of it every month so that the big home builders don’t have to pay to install gas in their new suburban development.

What good comes of that? What good comes of that when for a minute we could have done so much better? You could have given the different MPPs that come from rural areas a chance to be heard. You could have given my colleagues that come from northern and rural areas a chance to be heard. But all of this will never happen.

I hope that we take this as a learning moment and that the next time you bring a bill forward where you know that we are in favour—it was in our platform—and you know that there are opportunities to work together, let’s take those opportunities. Don’t just say that you want to work with us; act upon it. That’s an opportunity missed. This is something that was in our platform. This is something that we have spoken positively about. This is something that you also wanted to do. Why didn’t we show Ontarians that, yes, the Legislative Assembly can work together to move things forward for the betterment of our province, and that there are opportunities to work together in a positive way?

There is a buildup effect that people see. People don’t like to see conflict. A lot of people don’t like the 30 seconds on the news where people scream at one another. It turns them off of politics completely. Myself, I don’t like it, and I’m not alone. There are a lot of people who turn off politics completely because they don’t like to see this.

We had an opportunity to show a new face to politics. We had an opportunity to listen. We had an opportunity to show that, yes, there are areas where we can work together for the good of the people.

This is a huge opportunity lost. The people have seen a lot of conflict coming out of Queen’s Park since the last election. We had an opportunity to change the channel. We had an opportunity to show a different face of Queen’s Park to the people of Ontario, and we missed it. That’s because your Premier and your House leader decided to put on a time allocation motion.

Next time, think of our responsibility, each and every one of us, to the people of Ontario and, when we have the opportunity, to show the people of Ontario that there is a positive side to politics, that the money that is spent for Queen’s Park to work is for the betterment of all of us. Then maybe they would look upon politics in a better way. Maybe rather than getting 50%, 52%, 53%, 57% of voters to the polls, maybe we could be at 80%, like other jurisdictions manage to do. Then, when people are part of the democracy, when people feel that they are heard and that we have their good at heart, good things will come of that.

I’m conscious of the time and I’m supposed to share my time, so I will sit down and stop speaking, as they wanted me to do.

I hope that we don’t see time allocation on every single bill. Look at the opportunity to do something positive every now and again. Don’t let those opportunities go by. There are many opportunities to be in conflicts here; they come by the thousands. The opportunity to work together, to be positive, to give a different face, a different voice of politics to our constituents and to Ontarians is something that you should not let go by. I hope all of us learn from that.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): Further debate?

Ms. Laura Mae Lindo: I also wanted to add a few thoughts to this particular debate, first by thanking the members from Timmins and from Nickel Belt. I’m going to draw on a couple of the threads that they’ve put forward.

I think it has been really clear throughout the debate that when it comes to access to natural gas, we agree that the vision is good; the goal is good. I think where the concern comes in right now, as I stand to discuss the impact of time allocation, is that we’ve now moved yet another bill into a space where we’re talking about access to democracy, and that’s the piece, I think, that is so worrisome.

When we allow a bill or an idea that we have to be discussed by the public, we have an opportunity to make it better. We have an opportunity to have people explain why a particular idea that we have, while on the surface it looks fantastic, may not actually work for them because of experiences that we’ve never had. Historically, that has been the way that we’ve increased democracy and access to democracy for populations that before weren’t even allowed to provide an idea, to put their idea on the table.

This morning I was thinking about this and I realized we’ve spent a lot of time for a variety of bills that have not gone for public consultation talking about the negative side of that. I want to try to flip it and use the time that’s allotted today to talk about the benefit—what the positive changes have been—when we have actually gone out and spoken to the public.

There’s a quote from Ally Freedman of Equal Voice’s Daughters of the Vote. She says, “For far too long women, especially Indigenous women, have not been at the decision-making table. I cannot sit back anymore and wait for someone to come along. The future is female and the future is Indigenous. Now is my time to make a difference.”

I was thinking about that. If we take a bill like the Access to Natural Gas Act out into the world, to communities that are outside of Toronto—it’s even difficult for people who are in my riding of Kitchener Centre to get to Toronto because there’s no viable transit to get us here in short periods of time, and you have to be able to get back. Sometimes you can only make it one way, which is why we are fighting so hard for transportation in Kitchener. If you have an opportunity to travel the bill to where the people are, they can actually follow through. They can decide that it’s their turn to stand up and to make a difference.

I also think that they would be extremely excited to think that the people who are living in what some think is a bubble here at Queen’s Park are coming outside of the bubble to engage with them. That indicates that they take their experiences seriously.

But it’s not just generalities. There have been real changes for the positive, for the good, that have happened when we’ve gone outside and listened to people whose experiences are different.

When I think about women having an opportunity to vote—we’ve often stood up and everybody has given a standing ovation to say we’re going to commemorate this day in history when women were finally considered people, when women were allowed to actually be in spaces and elect somebody who could speak for them—people didn’t realize at the time that if you were a different kind of woman, those rights were no longer yours. It wasn’t until we went out and listened to those experiences that we were able to make some of those changes right here.

There was a time when, if you were a queer woman, you didn’t have access to the same rights as a straight woman. There’s no way that any of that would have changed in law unless we gave an opportunity to the public who had experiences as a queer person trying to, for instance, have the rights to family, to be married, to have children, to have those children actually be considered in law their children—their charge—even though they were doing absolutely everything that would be like a straight parent.

In my opinion, we wouldn’t be able to move our system forward unless we went out and spoke to the people.

In fact, there’s a huge history of this right here. I know that in 1851, women were officially excluded from voting in all Canadian legislative elections in British North America—in 1851. If the men—at that time, white men, who were elected officials—hadn’t had an opportunity to engage and actually intervene, then women wouldn’t have been able to vote.

I was thinking a lot as well, as both my colleagues were speaking, that the balance of power both within this House and outside are now in question. With a bill like the natural gas bill, if all of the decisions are being made in a small little office, how are the other officials that are on any side of this House able to speak to the individual and specific concerns, the nuanced concerns, in their own ridings when they go home after our day at Queen’s Park is done?

When they go home and they have to go to northern or rural Ontario, they have to speak to communities that—as my colleague from Nickel Belt was saying, “I can see the natural gas pipeline, but I can’t access it.” How do you go home in good conscience and argue that this bill is good?

But if we as elected officials went there and were able to hear those experiences and actually see what we’re talking about, then we could make a change. We could adjust the bill in a way that would ensure that real access is there. But time allocation doesn’t allow for that. As my colleague from Timmins had stated before, you can put the days that I’m allowed to come in and speak into the record, but if it’s going to take me two days to get here and over $2,000 to organize my travel, I can’t engage. And if I can’t engage, I disengage completely from the process. That piece, that attack on democracy, is part of what is now happening.

It always appears like it’s a gentle change or a gentle challenge to my everyday experience. Access to natural gas seems like a wonderful thing. The name of the bill—fantastic. You don’t realize the nuances until somebody is in front of you and they can say to you, “Here. Here’s the bill. Take a look.” Then I don’t realize what needs to be changed, as the person who has the power to do so, until I have somebody in front of me who’s saying, “This is what the impact is. The impact is that I can’t actually get access to this because it’s too expensive for the company.” There is a multitude of reasons why. But we’re never going to get there unless we actually talk to people.

There was a time when being allowed to vote as a woman on the surface appeared like we had solved the problem, because we gave the vote to women. However, when we gave the vote to women, there were requirements. You weren’t allowed to actually vote as a woman unless you owned property. Well, what if you had just been enslaved the day before and now slavery was abolished? How quickly are you going to be able to access property to be able to then access your vote? Unless we actually listened to those experiences, nobody would have known.

I bet you there were a number of very well-meaning people who thought that they had already solved the problem when they put into law that women were people and that they could vote. But it was not, until we sat down and thought about all of the other little pieces of what was required and what that actually meant for real people.

The sad thing for me, as I was looking though this, is that it’s taking us so long as a collective to learn this lesson. I was looking through—this is a very cool magazine, Heritage Matters. I did not realize that in 1960, all Indigenous women could vote federally, but were still excluded from voting in some provinces—1960. This isn’t a historical kind of, “It’s so far gone”; 1960 is not that long ago.

So if I’m standing in this House in 2018, trying to argue that it’s a good idea to put a bill into the world so that people with real experiences can speak back to the bill, speak back to the vision, provide some kinds of language that would allow them to ensure that their experiences are captured in our bills, how many more of these timelines are we going to have that explain who’s not having access? How many more of these timelines are we going to have to look at that will explain that a bill that on the surface looked fantastic is not actually working for the people?

I think that that becomes the ongoing refrain on our side of the House, that many of the ideas in generalities make sense, but when it comes to our individual ridings—which is the reason why we’re here, to provide that experience—some of them don’t work.

That leads me to one other idea, Madam Speaker. The issue is that I am just one person from Kitchener Centre and my experience is also one of privilege. It’s a privilege to be standing in this House. It’s a privilege to know that I will be able to spend time at Queen’s Park, hopefully influencing legislation and the sort of day-to-day realities of the people from Kitchener Centre. But there are loads of people that live in Kitchener Centre whose experiences are so different from mine that I’m still learning about what it is to live in Kitchener Centre.

So with a bill like this, I can’t even imagine how my colleagues from Timmins, from Nickel Belt feel when they are one person from there sitting in this House. The reason that they’re asking for bills to travel into their ridings is so that we can get the multitude of experiences incorporated into these bills, so that the ideas that we have, the vision that we have can become a reality for the people.

I think that that piece is missing when you stop the amount of time, when you allocate a deadline on the amount of time that we’re going to engage with people whose experiences are different from the experiences of the people that are sitting in this House. That is troubling on a number of levels, because our experiences are not being put into any of the bills that are here.

I think of the amount of the benefit—in fact, every single person in the House has explained that it’s really beneficial that we have such a diverse government, that we have such a diverse caucus etc., and that’s fantastic. But we should listen to the experiences of people that are different and incorporate those experiences, those realities and what they actually need into our bills. We can’t do that if we’re going to ask people, at such short notice, to try and get here.

Given the fact that we’ve also all agreed that there’s a crisis in affordable housing, there’s a crisis in poverty across this province and that that’s part of what our job is to address, it actually is a false option to think that by allocating a few hours of time at Queen’s Park in Toronto to discuss this bill, we’re doing anything that would allow people to engage. How are they going to get here? How can they afford to be here? Ontario is quite a large place. Who’s going to foot the bill to have them come here? If we are working for them, then why are we not providing them with access in the way that they need it so that they can speak to what they need to have in this bill?

I was trying really hard to stay positive, but it gets really sad when I think about the fact that individuals are not able to engage in this democratic process. It’s an upsetting reality that every week that goes on that we stand in Queen’s Park and have the same kind of argument, I go back to my riding—and I’m going to make an assumption that other people go back to theirs as well—and have to have this same argument with constituents, constituents who are unhappy that they don’t have an opportunity to engage.

They have no opportunity to explain why it’s important to put an actual requirement for natural gas to be accessible in Indigenous communities, in rural Ontario, in northern Ontario, why that language not being in the bill is troubling.

Since we all agree that what we’re trying to do is to work for the people, to give access to the people, it’s mind-boggling to have to go back and look at the people and explain to them that there are a select few in this House that don’t seem to want to talk to them. I don’t know how else to explain this to them.

At some point, I’m hoping that in future bills, very soon, we’ll change that, because I also want to believe that, on all sides of the House, people want good for this province, that they were elected because what they want is to see their constituents thrive, that they want to see their constituents have all of the things that everybody else has. But we can’t do that if every time there’s a bill proposed or a vision put on the table, we don’t allow difference of opinion to impact the bill. It’s not saying that we aren’t going to give access to natural gas to people. We’re saying if we want them to have access, let’s ensure that they have access. In my world, that seems pretty simple.

Then it goes back to this place of, why would the government not want to share this bill with the people? That’s the piece that’s troubling. That’s the piece that leaves a lot of people outside of this House wondering, “Why do they not want to speak to us? Are they really working for the people if they don’t want to work for me?” That, to me, is something that, unfortunately—as much as I can try to stay positive and optimistic—as individuals in government, they have to actually make a choice. It’s political will again. They have to make a choice to change that perception. Time-allocating every bill and not allowing the public to engage is not going to help.

In this particular setting, while we sit at our seats, we can’t actually have this discussion in a way that would be a little bit more meaningful. But when people are in their caucuses, when there is another discussion about, “Okay, we’re going to time-allocate this one,” I’m hopeful that maybe people, as individuals, will think about their constituents, whom they have to face when they go back into their ridings.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): Further debate?

Mr. Stephen Lecce: Good morning. I want to thank the members opposite for sharing their perspective on the bill.

Obviously, we believe, in this party, the Progressive Conservative Party, that accessing natural gas is an important step in a prosperity agenda of the province. We do believe, in our estimation, that giving up to 30,000 more individuals access to affordable, cheaper sources of energy is good for the economy and will help us create jobs, particularly in rural and remote parts of this province that have faced difficulty largely because of the incompetence of the former government.

But we realize that there’s more to do to make energy affordable not just for industry but also for the consumer, for families, for moms and dads, for small businesses, for seniors, for all of us who aspire to have access to natural gas.

When we look at the average savings to the consumer—because this goes back to a principle that our party has really made the centre of why we’re here to serve. We’re here to make life affordable for the workers and for the people of this province. We are here to unleash the economic potential of this province. We are going to do that incrementally, step by step, by moving forth with initiatives, common-sense plans, that ultimately will return money back to the people and make it more affordable for consumers to live in this province.

Just as a compelling proof point of how we’re going to achieve that objective, how we’re going to realize that objective here in the province of Ontario: An average consumer making the switch from electrical heat or propane or oil to natural gas will result in a saving of anywhere between $800 and $2,500 per year. That is a good thing for the people of this province.

When you add that to so many benefits to the consumer of this province—when you look at our elimination of the cap-and-trade carbon tax which, as you will know, Madam Speaker, and as all members of this House will know, that alone is saving over $250 per family per year, back into the pockets of workers and families in this province. That is precisely where that money belongs.

We philosophically disagree with—with great respect to the members opposite, my colleagues the New Democrats, the Liberal Party, the Green Party—people who believe that we ought to see government as a tool to expand revenue. This province is not ailed with a revenue problem; we’re ailed with a spending problem. We have now the largest subnational debt in the world. This is not a talking point. This is a very sobering point for anyone who has a child, for anyone who has a niece. I have two beautiful nieces.

We all know that there’s more to do. So, Madam Speaker, I would submit to you that this bill will help make life more affordable and make a difference for our economy. It will create better jobs in Ontario, and I call on all members to support it.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): Further debate?

Mr. Smith, Bay of Quinte, has moved government notice of motion number 14 relating to allocation of time on Bill 32,

An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

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

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

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

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

Vote deferred.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): Orders of the day. Deputy House leader.

Mr. Stephen Lecce: No further business, Madam Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Lisa Gretzky): There being no further business, this House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1011 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mr. Rick Nicholls: It’s my pleasure to introduce to the Legislature this morning two people I had a wonderful meeting with: Michael Diamond, as well as Janet Daglish. Janet is the national director for Bayshore HealthCare. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Bill Walker: It’s my pleasure to introduce Allan Madden, executive director of South East Grey Community Health Centre in Markdale. I have to say, he’s one of the most innovative guys I’ve ever worked with. Allan, welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Michael Coteau: It is always a pleasure to welcome students from Don Valley East. I would like to welcome Caroline Wang and Douglas Koehler. Welcome to the Legislature.

Hon. Lisa M. Thompson: I’d like to remind everybody that this is School Bus Safety Week. In that light, I’d like to welcome two representatives from the Ontario School Bus Association, Pat Sanvido and Chris Harwood.

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: I would like to welcome the wonderful kids of St. Simon Catholic School and their teacher, from Humber River–Black Creek. They’ll be arriving at 11:30.

Mr. Amarjot Sandhu: I would like to invite all members of the House to join me in congratulating Richa Pandya from Brampton West, who is the page captain today. I would also like to welcome her parents, Jatin and Sejal Pandya. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mrs. Gila Martow: I want to welcome two wonderful young men from Thornhill.

Alex Sakhnovich is a grade 11 co-op student helping in our constituency office. He goes to Stephen Lewis Secondary School, which is also located in my riding. He is going to be working directly with Rebecca Engelberg from my constituency office, who is here, and Nathan McMillan.

We also have Ben Gelman. He was a really dedicated volunteer on this last campaign, and I want to thank him for all of his hard work.

Thanks, boys.

Mr. Rudy Cuzzetto: I’d like to welcome the grade 10 students from Clarkson Secondary School. They’re on their way in right now.

Mr. Jim McDonell: Today I’d like to welcome Debbie de Wit from the Seaway Valley Community Health Centre. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Mike Schreiner: Mr. Speaker, our Sergeant-at-Arms’s daughter Holly Gordon is here in the east public gallery.

Mr. Aris Babikian: I would like to introduce Aneki Nissan, the founder of the Centre for Canadian-Assyrian Relations. He’s also the past president of the organization.

Mr. Sol Mamakwa: Good morning. Remarks in Oji-Cree.

It is my honour to introduce family and friends of the late Steven Fobister, Sr., who are here with us at Queen’s Park today. They are in Toronto for a vigil honouring Chief Fobister’s life and fight for justice. His family: Sylvia Wapioke, Robert Williamson, Alana Pahpasay, Annette Pahpasay, Diane Fobister. And the council: Chief Rudy Turtle, Councillor Jason Kejick, Councillor J.C. Kokopenace. Please join me in welcoming them to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Monte McNaughton: I know they haven’t joined us in the chamber yet, but I’d like to welcome the governor of Ondo State from Nigeria and his delegation who were here today to meet with myself and other members of the Legislature. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Wearing of pins

Mr. Bill Walker: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Point of order, the member for Bruce–Grey–Owen sound.

Mr. Bill Walker: I’d like to seek unanimous consent to have everyone in the Legislature be able to wear Rethink Breast Cancer pins here in the House. We will also have a photo on the staircase for all the members immediately following question period.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound is seeking the unanimous consent of the House to allow the House to wear Rethink Breast Cancer pins. Agreed? Agreed.

Visitor

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Are there any more introductions of visitors? The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Hon. Steve Clark: Thanks, Speaker. I want to introduce to you, and through you to members of the assembly, a friend of mine, Peter McKenna. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): It is now time for oral questions.

Oral Questions

University and college funding

Mr. Gurratan Singh: My question is to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. My community of Brampton is one of the fastest-growing communities in Canada. It’s also one of the youngest cities in Canada, filled with families building a better life for their kids. That’s why we were excited at the prospect of a university campus in our community. It was a chance to create jobs and bring educational opportunity to Brampton. I know that the people of Milton and Markham felt the same way about their plans for campuses.

Why did the government break their promise to these communities?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. We promised the people of Ontario to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s finances. Part of that process means making tough decisions about projects across Ontario. Our government is being forced to clean up the irresponsible and reckless financial decisions of the previous Liberal government. We now know, thanks to the independent commission of inquiry, the depths of the waste and mismanagement of the previous Liberal government. To describe the previous government’s actions, the Auditor General used words like “conceal,” “bogus,” “deceptive” and “unreliable.”

In an election year, they made empty promises to Ontarians for programs and projects they knew they could not afford, leading to a $15-billion deficit while hiding the cost from the public. The Liberals have shattered the trust of Ontarians, and our focus is on restoring trust and accountability—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock. Order.

Start the clock. Supplementary.

Mr. Gurratan Singh: Back to the minister: We know that hundreds of people invested significant time and effort moving these projects forward over many years. We also know that significant investment has already been made. The town of Milton estimates they spent over a million on consulting costs alone. York University noted that donors and the York region had already committed over $42 million. And the province has already flowed $11 million.

Yesterday, the minister could not, or would not, say how much this cancellation was costing. Can the minister tell us today how much the government has already spent on campuses they’re now trying to kill off?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Our government was elected to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s finances, and that’s exactly what we are doing. Due to the independent commission of inquiry, the depths of the waste and mismanagement of the previous Liberal government are now clear. In an election year, the Liberals made empty political promises to Ontarians for programs and projects they knew the province could not afford, hiding the costs from the public and creating a $15-billion deficit that Ontario has today. The Liberals shattered the trust of Ontarians.

Our focus is on cleaning up the irresponsible and reckless financial decisions of the previous government and restoring trust and accountability in Ontario’s finances.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock. Order.

Start the clock. Final supplementary.

Mr. Gurratan Singh: Back to the minister: We’ve already seen this government is not very good at planning things. They spent $3 billion to not have a climate plan, and now it looks like they will spend millions to ensure that Brampton, Milton and Markham don’t have university campuses. They’re not just wasting provincial dollars; they’re taking money from universities, from communities and from donors.

When will the minister tell us how much this government is spending to kill university campuses in Brampton, Milton and Markham?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question, but frankly, I reject the premise of that question. We have been clear that only this government is committed to enhancing financial accountability and transparency.

The previous Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, who supported them on 97% of their votes, made empty promises in an election year for programs and projects they knew they could not afford, leading to a $15-billion deficit, while hiding that cost from the public. The Liberals shattered the trust of Ontarians. Our focus is on restoring trust and accountability in Ontario’s finances.

University and college funding

Mr. Kevin Yarde: This question is also for the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. The new campuses weren’t just going to provide educational opportunity; they were also going to create economic opportunity with jobs. Brampton estimated construction would add more than 1,800 jobs, and ongoing operations would add more than 1,500 jobs, according to the city. The PC member for Markham said, in this very room, that Markham’s new campus would bring 400 jobs and half a billion dollars in economic activity.

To the minister—keep in mind that there are students in the gallery here behind you: Why is this government opposed to creating jobs in Milton, Brampton and Markham?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. We promised the people of Ontario to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s finances. Part of that process means making tough decisions about projects across Ontario. Our government is being forced to clean up the irresponsible and reckless financial decisions of the previous Liberal government.

We now know, thanks to the independent commission of inquiry, the depths of the waste and mismanagement of the previous—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I would ask the member to take her seat.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): But you might get another chance. Start the clock. Supplementary.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: To the minister again: Conservative members sitting in this House told their communities that these projects would proceed. Yesterday, the new mayor of Brampton, a former MPP that most Conservatives on that side of the House happily followed for many years, said that he had counted on the support of the Conservative member for Brampton South.

During the campaign, they were clear: New campuses would create jobs and opportunities in three 905 communities that get taken for granted way too often. So the question to the minister: Why did you break your promise?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Frankly, I reject that premise. Our government was elected to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s finances, and that is exactly what we are doing. Due to the independent commission of inquiry, the depths of the waste and mismanagement of the previous Liberal government are now clear.

In an election year, the Liberals made empty political promises to Ontarians for programs and projects they knew the province could not afford, hiding the costs from the public and creating the $15-billion deficit Ontario has today. The Liberals shattered the trust of Ontarians.

Our focus is on cleaning up the irresponsible and reckless financial decisions of the previous government, and restoring trust and accountability in Ontario’s—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you. Final supplementary?

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Thank you to the minister for that recording—I mean, for that “answer.”

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I—

Mr. Kevin Yarde: The government—

Interjections: Sit down. Sit down.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): That’s not helpful.

I would ask the member to rephrase that question.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll rephrase it.

The government has been smearing the plans of these communities as a “Liberal scheme,” but these weren’t Liberal plans. They were community plans that have been worked on for years and years. Not only that, they were plans the Conservative candidates also promised to back.

I’ll quote the MPP from Milton: “We will do everything we can to make this project a reality ... whether it takes $90 million or there’s more we need to do.” Promise made—

Interjections: Promise broken.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Why did the government lie to the people of my community?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member knows the rules. The member will withdraw.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Response?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Frankly, Speaker, I reject the premise of that question.

We have been clear that only this government is committed to enhancing financial accountability and transparency. The previous Liberal government—propped up by the NDP, who supported them on 97% of their votes—made empty promises in an election year for programs and projects they knew they could not afford, leading to a $15-billion deficit while hiding the costs from the public. The Liberals shattered the trust of Ontarians, and our focus is on restoring trust and accountability in Ontario’s finances.

Employment standards

Mr. Jamie West: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Workers in Ontario are struggling to make ends meet, as we all know, and paid leave could make a huge difference in the lives of workers who are working on or just above minimum wage. The right to a day off work because they are ill or caring for a loved one isn’t a luxury; it’s basic decency. It’s part of being human. It’s concerning that the government is taking these rights away.

We’ve just learned that they’ve also quietly released a memo that says the Ministry of Labour is going to significantly curtail proactive inspections that catch bad bosses when they break the law. Can the minister confirm that the government is not only taking away basic protections on the job, but is also planning not to enforce the few protections that remain?

Hon. Laurie Scott: Mr. Speaker, we are replacing the previous disastrous personal emergency leave reforms and replacing them with a straightforward package of eight job-protected days for every worker in the province of Ontario every year. You continue to demonize businesses. Businesses want good employees. They want to work with their employees.

There are job-protected days for employees. The member is talking about a memo from the Ministry of Labour. Mr. Speaker, the backlog that occurred in the Ministry of Labour—I think he should be asking the previous members of the Liberal government where that backlog came from, because it wasn’t from us.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I’m just going to take this opportunity to remind all members to make their comments through the Chair.

Supplementary?

Mr. Jamie West: Back to the minister: The memo didn’t come from the previous government. It came from your government.

Most employers in this province play by the rules and have good relations with their staff. We believe in good bosses. The Employment Standards Act is designed to catch the ones who don’t, the bad bosses, the ones that none of us should support, the bad bosses who try to pay people less than minimum wage or sometimes don’t pay them at all.

According to the leaked memo, staff at the ministry say there is a huge backlog of complaints. Strangely, the government response is to cut down on enforcement. Minister, what is the point of having laws to protect working people on the job if the government has no intention of enforcing them?

Hon. Laurie Scott: This was a low-level internal memo from August. There is a backlog. We should be looking to the members of the previous government to explain the backlog.

We’ve been engaged in 100 days of action to turn this province around. This is the latest example of fixing the problems left by the previous government at the Ministry of Labour. It’s introducing Bill 47, because fixing the job-killing aspects of the previous government’s Bill 148—let’s end the backlog into Ontario’s job creation. I encourage all members of the Legislature to support Bill 47 because that’s what the real impact to workers who really want work in the province—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock. Order. Start the clock.

Next question?

Child abuse

Mrs. Robin Martin: My question is to the Honourable Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. Last year, Ontario’s 49 children’s aid societies served more than 100,000 families across the province. Their work is vital to providing a safe and nurturing environment for children and youth to thrive. More importantly, they help bring awareness to child abuse and neglect by advocating for strong familial ties and connecting with one’s community.

October is Child Abuse Prevention Month in Ontario. Would the minister please tell us what we can do to help keep Ontario’s children safe?

Hon. Lisa MacLeod: I appreciate the member from Eglinton–Lawrence bringing this up in question period. It’s an extremely important issue, and it’s one that may be uncomfortable but we should all talk about. I think that’s the first step: communicating that it’s wrong to hit, sexually abuse or manipulate a child, whether it’s emotionally or otherwise.

I’ve had the opportunity to tour the province with my colleague the government House leader, and to visit shelters where children were staying who were also abused, as were their mothers. I’ve also had the opportunity to go to Cornwall with my colleague the honourable member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry, and stand with 600 people who condemned violence against children and child abuse at the Children’s Treatment Centre there.

We all have a duty to report. It is the law. Children’s aid societies are available to take your call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Speaker, let me be perfectly clear: As responsible adults, it’s up to all of us to be the eyes and ears of vulnerable children.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mrs. Robin Martin: Minister, thank you for that answer. We have accomplished so much in 100 days in this government for the people. A lot of our work has come from making government more efficient. In fact, bringing the ministries that you oversee together as one was done to better serve children.

Keeping children safe is everyone’s responsibility, as you said. I was pleased to hear that concerns can be reported 24 hours a days, 365 days a year.

You spoke yesterday about sex trafficking and its role in manipulating, coercing and abusing young girls. Can the minister tell us how pooling resources between ministries, as this government has done, has helped us to keep a watchful eye over the most vulnerable in our province?

Hon. Lisa MacLeod: Thank you very much, again, for the supplementary. I appreciate her bringing up sex trafficking as an issue that we should all be vigilant about. It’s a growing problem in the province of Ontario, and later today I’ll address the Canadian Club in Toronto about Ontario’s dirty little secret, where girls as young as 11 years old are sold into the sex trade.

That’s unacceptable, and that’s why my ministry is working with the Attorney General, the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Education so that we can direct more of our resources in this province to combatting the sex trade of young girls in this province.

My ministry funds programs and services focused on improving outcomes for children and youth, including initiatives to find stable homes, prevention services and supports for our youths as they transition into adults. But let me be perfectly clear: The sex trafficking that is happening across Ontario is a scourge on our community. It funds the guns and gangs issues that we have in this province, and we are going to make sure as a government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, that we stop it.

Employment standards

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Mary Beth is a prominent autism advocate for my community. She is a single mother raising a son, Gregory, with a developmental disability. She is incredibly frustrated by this Conservative government’s decision to scrap vital labour reforms, particularly the cut to emergency leave days. In her own words, Mary Beth writes, “Every day I see parents try to hold down jobs and take care of their loved ones with disabilities. Every day I see elderly parents suffer, working themselves into early graves. Two sick days wasn’t much but it was better than nothing.”

What does the minister have to say to Mary Beth and thousands of parents like her?

Hon. Laurie Scott: I acknowledge parents and the struggles that they have with child care, especially with autism, but that’s why we are making changes, which is Bill 47, to try and get better-paying jobs in the province of Ontario. The best thing we can do for people in the province of Ontario is create an economy where good jobs are produced, businesses want to advance and produce good-paying jobs, and that will help—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: You know, serfdom was a really good idea.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Member for Timmins, come to order.

Hon. Laurie Scott: —parents like you just mentioned, so that they can find better-paying jobs in the province of Ontario and they have the flexibility to be with their children when they are needed to be.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: To the Minister of Labour: I actually have several parents in my riding who had to quit good-paying jobs, $25- or $30-an-hour jobs, because they don’t have protected sick days. Parents of children with developmental disabilities face unbelievable hardships every day. They wait years for their children to get Passport funding once they turn 18. They face decades-long wait-lists for supportive housing. Their planned increase to Ontario Disability Support Program benefits was recently cut in half by this Conservative government, and now parents like Mary Beth will have to forfeit their income if they have to take an emergency day off work to care for their child.

How does the minister justify this outrageous disregard for working parents and caregivers?

Hon. Laurie Scott: Minister of children’s services.

Hon. Lisa MacLeod: Thank you very much for the question. I appreciate the member opposite talking about that.

Look, the Ford government completely supports people with disabilities and their families. The member opposite is aware that this government is not only putting forward legislation that is open for business, but we will follow up next month, on November 8, as the member opposite knows, in reforming our social assistance and making sure that we lift more people out of poverty and back onto the workforce. Those policies and those programs are being developed right now.

I can tell the member opposite that a year from today, we’re going to see more people working. Those with children that are disabled are going to have greater supports than they’ve ever had, and that’s because, unlike the past 15 years where they had a disjointed patchwork of programs, this government is working together for the people.

Vandalism of constituency office

Mrs. Nina Tangri: My question is for the government House leader. Yesterday, we saw a reprehensible act of political violence committed against our Minister of Labour. The constituency office of the honourable member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock was broken into. Windows were smashed, furniture was destroyed and the walls were spray-painted. Yesterday this chamber was united in condemning these vile acts.

Mr. Speaker, could the government House leader explain to the Legislature the position of the government, and how vital civil debate is to our democracy, and tell us why these acts of political violence are unacceptable?

Hon. Todd Smith: Thanks to the member from Mississauga–Streetsville for the question. Let’s be honest about what’s happening here this week. On Tuesday, the Minister of Labour announced the Making Ontario Open for Business Act, a great act that our government has been campaigning on for a long, long time. Since then, the members of the government have received threatening phone calls and messages and even death threats.

One union leader, when asked what kind of action he was organizing against our government, said, “Stay tuned.” Then a leader from 15 and Fairness refused to condemn this act on the minister’s constituency office, during a CTV interview yesterday.

Ontario is a democracy. We should have a passionate debate on the big issues, and we respect the rights of peaceful protesters. But what happened to the Minister of Labour’s constituency office is a criminal break-in, and it should not be condoned by anyone. It crosses the line, Speaker.

These groups want our government to back down. They want the government for the people to back down. I’m here to tell you we will not back down and we will—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock.

Start the clock. Supplementary?

Mrs. Nina Tangri: Thank you to the government House leader for his response. Civil discourse, which includes the right to peacefully protest, is a cornerstone of our democracy. However, members of this chamber continue to receive threats online, and rhetoric continues to be ratcheted up.

As the minister mentioned, yesterday during a CTV interview, a leader of the group 15 and Fairness was asked to condemn the attacks and vandalism of the constituency office of the honourable member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock. They refused to do so. Instead, they said they could explain it.

Mr. Speaker, could the government House leader tell this chamber why this type of inflamed rhetoric is dangerous not only to the members of this House, but is an affront to our democracy?

Hon. Todd Smith: Thanks again to the honourable member for the question. We all agree that we can and should have passionate debates on big issues, and that we should respect the rights of peaceful protesters.

However, the criminal activity that we’re witnessing not only harms the members in the Legislature, but it harms the people of Ontario and harms our democracy.

That’s why we are demanding that 15 and Fairness immediately and unequivocally condemn vandalism, violence and intimidation tactics in all of their forms. The people deserve a clear answer from 15 and Fairness. Either this group supports the use of violence and intimidation, or they oppose it.

Speaker, we will not back down. We’re going to proceed with debating and doing everything we can to pass the Making Ontario Open for Business Act. We will not be deterred by this type of criminal activity, Mr. Speaker. We will—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock.

Start the clock. Next question.

Opioid abuse

Ms. Bhutila Karpoche: My question is to the Minister of Health. The opioid task force that advised the Ontario government on the growing overdose crisis has been left in limbo for the last four months. Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams, said that the task force was an important part of the province’s effort to turn the tide on the opioid crisis.

Can the minister confirm today if she has secretly decided to pull the plug on this expert panel?

Hon. Christine Elliott: I want to thank the member very much for the question. The opioid issue is one that we take very seriously. That’s why we announced the consumption and treatment services sites that are going to be applied for by a number of groups across the province of Ontario.

The task force was one of the groups that made recommendations to our group in reaching an evidence-based decision. They provided very valuable information. There are no plans whatsoever to disband them.

What we are planning to do is to continue to speak to them about what’s going on, what they’re hearing and what other services we need to bring forward. They’re performing a very valuable service.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Ms. Bhutila Karpoche: Back to the minister: The opioid task force has not heard from the minister’s office for the last four months. So far, the Ford government has refused to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency, paused the opening of the overdose prevention sites, wasted four months on an unnecessary review when the evidence was clear, and pitted communities against each other by placing a hard cap of 21 sites. Now the minister has also prevented the opioid task force from doing their work.

Does the minister want the opioid crisis to escalate, with more people dying every day?

Hon. Christine Elliott: With the greatest respect, I would indicate to the member, through you, Speaker, that the information that she has is not correct. In fact, we have been in touch with the opioid task force. We consulted with them through our office with respect to the whole issue of the evidence-based decision-making we were doing. They were actively involved in a telephone conversation with us. They actively gave us information. They gave us their conclusions, and we took them into consideration as we were coming to our final recommendation. So the task force has been consulted with. We have listened to what they’ve said and we have moved forward with it.

With respect to what we’re doing going forward with the 21 sites that groups can apply for, we are confident that that is going to provide the assistance that we need to get people into treatment and rehabilitation when they indicate that they are ready to do that.

There is more work to be done. We need more detoxification beds; we need more mental health and addictions services. That is something we are concentrating on as we are building—

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

Student assistance

Mr. Michael Coteau: My question is to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. On Tuesday, the minister announced that she will be cutting $300 million from post-secondary education. Yesterday, she made it clear that OSAP would be the next item on the chopping block.

History has a strange way of repeating itself here in this Legislature. The previous Conservative government cut billions from education, resulting in low high school graduation rates and post-secondary enrolment.

Minister, can you please explain how your cuts will produce positive educational outcomes in the province of Ontario and how you will avoid the mistakes of the previous Conservative government?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for that question. Quite frankly, I reject the premise of that question.

We promised the people of Ontario to restore accountability and trust in Ontario’s finances. Part of that process means making tough decisions about projects across Ontario. Our government is being forced to clean up the irresponsible and reckless financial decisions of the previous Liberal government.

We now know, thanks to the independent commission of inquiry, the depth and waste of mismanagement of the previous Liberal government. To describe the previous government’s actions, the Auditor General used words such as “conceal,” “bogus,” “deceptive” and “unreliable.” In an election year, they made empty promises to Ontarians for programs and projects they knew they could not afford.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Coteau: Again, back to the minister: When you ask Ontarians what they value most with regard to government services, they’ll usually answer health care and education. OSAP provides dreams to young people who will take on the challenges that globalization will bring forward.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that in the minister’s previous work, she advocated for a two-tier health care system. My question back to her is, are these cuts leading to a two-tier education system here in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. But frankly, Speaker, I am shocked that that member has the audacity to ask that question. They were part of the previous Liberal government that created the $15-billion deficit that Ontario has today. They fully embraced political financial decisions that the Auditor General described as “bogus,” “deceptive” and “unreliable.” I will not take lessons from members on that side of the chamber.

Employment standards

Mr. Mike Harris: My question is for the Minister of Labour. Earlier this week you announced that our government for the people would be introducing the Making Ontario Open for Business Act. During our campaign and since the June election, we’ve heard from job creators in our communities about the detrimental impacts of Bill 148. We heard that Bill 148 was a vote-buying attempt by the Liberals right before an election.

I understand that the minister has spent the last four months reviewing the job-killing Bill 148. Our bill, if passed, will remove the worst burdens on Ontario businesses while protecting the province’s most vulnerable workers.

Despite the NDP’s fear-mongering tactics—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I’m going to ask the member to withdraw his unparliamentary comment.

Mr. Mike Harris: Withdrawn, sir.

We heard from many independent job-creating entrepreneurs who applaud the work our government is doing to provide real benefits for Ontarians with this new bill.

Can the minister please elaborate on the in-depth review of and consultations on Bill 148?

Hon. Laurie Scott: I thank the member from Kitchener–Conestoga for the question. I’m proud to rise in the House today to speak about the great work our government is undertaking.

Our government is committed to serving the people of this province. Unlike the previous government and unlike the opposition, our Progressive Conservative government listens to the people. It’s true. Despite the official opposition’s anti-business rhetoric and fear-mongering tactics, our Making Ontario Open for Business Act will indeed remove the worst burdens on Ontario businesses while protecting the province’s most vulnerable workers.

I took the last four months to examine every part of the job-killing aspects of Bill 148. With every provision I asked myself, “What was the impact on Ontario’s economy? Does this provide a real benefit for the people? How do we ensure that Ontario is open for business?”

The reforms we are introducing are deliberate and thoughtful, unlike the—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock.

Start the clock. Supplementary.

Mr. Mike Harris: Thank you, Minister, for your answer. I know that our job creators and workers are glad to hear that you had these priorities in mind when you reviewed and consulted on this job-killing bill.

I understand that the Making Ontario Open for Business Act, if passed, will implement a package of reforms that will help unlock the job-creating potential of Ontario’s economy. I am also encouraged that this legislation, if passed, will continue to protect and preserve important provisions for current workers in our great province.

The minister’s practical approach to this legislation is clear. Our government is ensuring that our workers in Ontario have categorized personal leave days. Our government is ensuring that minimum wage workers will receive a $14 wage in addition to continued increases, starting in 2020, tied to inflation.

Can the minister tell this House what other benefits this bill will deliver to the people of Ontario?

Hon. Laurie Scott: Thank you again to the member for the supplementary question. As mentioned, the Making Ontario Open for Business Act will guarantee that Ontario workers will have a $14 minimum wage, which is one of the highest minimum wages in Canada.

We will introduce a consistent, simple system where Ontario workers will now have a straightforward package of annual leave days: three sick days, three family responsibility days and two bereavement days every year for every worker.

As a former nurse, I understand the importance of supporting the domestic or sexual violence provisions. Our government is committed to job protection of the domestic or sexual violence leave for all Ontario workers.

Businesses should have the confidence of reasonable and predictable regulations, and everyone who works should have the confidence of a good job and a safe workplace. That’s what the people wanted on June 7, and that’s what we will continue to do.

Mercury poisoning

Mr. Sol Mamakwa: Meegwetch.

Remarks in Oji-Cree.

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Acting Premier. Two weeks ago, I rose in this House to ask a question on behalf of the family of Steven Fobister Sr. and the people of Grassy Narrows, as did the Leader of the Opposition.

At that time, there were fitting tributes to the former Grand Chief from both sides of this place. But what I asked went unanswered.

Will the Acting Premier rise now and acknowledge that Steven Fobister Sr. lived with and died from the effects of Minamata disease?

Hon. Christine Elliott: To the government House leader.

Hon. Todd Smith: I acknowledge the question from the member opposite, and the members who are here from Grassy Narrows in question period this morning.

I would also acknowledge that our government is taking the situation in Grassy Narrows very seriously. Already, our minister for northern affairs, Greg Rickford, and our Minister of the Environment, Rod Phillips, sitting directly behind me, have been to Grassy Narrows to meet with the chief and the elders. I know that they are going to be continuing that type of dialogue in the days and months and years to come.

Unfortunately, what happened in Grassy Narrows is an historic tragedy, to be quite honest, in that region. I know that our government is committed to working extremely closely with the members of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong to come to a proper conclusion in this case.

Just to continue our commitment to northern Ontario, our Premier and our Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry are in northern Ontario, making more positive announcements.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mr. Sol Mamakwa: My question is to the Acting Premier again: Since, as the Minister of Indigenous Affairs was very quick to mention, he had direct experience with former Chief Fobister in Grassy Narrows, this government should have no problem acknowledging that Chief Fobister was sick from mercury poisoning.

Will the Acting Premier and the Minister of Health, on behalf of this government, commit today to compensate everyone in the community of Grassy Narrows, and the others who are affected by it, for the ongoing impacts on their health and livelihoods due to mercury poisoning?

Hon. Todd Smith: Again, thanks to the member opposite for the question, and welcome to the members from Grassy Narrows.

I can tell you, in direct response to that question, it’s shameful that it took the previous Liberal government as long as it did without doing anything for that community.

Our government has already taken immediate action to ensure that people who receive mercury disability payments are properly compensated, by retroactively indexing payments to the rate of inflation. That includes the folks in Grassy Narrows. These payments have been frozen for over 30 years, and that’s unacceptable.

On behalf of the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, this is one small part of the work that we’re doing to address the long-standing challenges faced by the people in Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong.

Our government continues to work with the First Nations community there and the federal government to clean up that river system, which has caused so much heartache for the people in that community, and to take care of the people who are sick in that community, and help put the communities on a path towards a better future.

Skills training

Ms. Jill Dunlop: My question is again to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Speaker, I am proud to be part of a government which is committed to making Ontario open for business and creating good-paying jobs for the people of Ontario. I have heard from employers in my riding that we have a skills gap that was ignored for 15 years by the previous Liberal government, dragging down Ontario’s economy.

According to the Conference Board of Canada, the skills gap costs Ontario’s economy up to $24.3 billion in lost GDP. That lost GDP means that the skills gap costs government $3.7 billion in lost revenue.

Can the minister tell us how the government’s Making Ontario Open for Business Act will, if passed, reduce red tape and create better jobs for the people of Ontario?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: Thank you to the member for the question and her strong advocacy for the people of Simcoe North.

Our government for the people is delivering on our promise to cut red tape and make Ontario open for business. We are committed to creating more better-paying jobs and making it easier for apprentices to join the workforce. That is why our legislation, if passed, will reduce red tape for workers and employers in the skilled trades sector. Our commitment is clear: If you are prepared to do the work, then you deserve a shot at the job.

We are hearing positive feedback across the skilled trades sector. President and CEO of Colleges Ontario Linda Franklin said, “Apprenticeship training in this province is awash in red tape. We’re pleased the government is taking serious action to streamline and improve skills training.”

We want all Ontarians to reach their full potential by reducing red tape in the skilled trades and creating good jobs for the people of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Ms. Jill Dunlop: Thank you to the minister for her hard work to make Ontario the engine of Canada’s economy once again. I am proud that our government has listened to businesses that face constant roadblocks to hiring the next generation of willing workers in Ontario.

Speaker, because of aging demographics, we need to do more to get young people into the trades so that there will be skilled individuals to fill the jobs of tomorrow. Skills Ontario estimates that 40% of all jobs created in Canada over the next decade will be in the skilled trades, and 21% of Ontario’s skilled trades workforce is expected to retire this decade, emphasizing the need for immediate action.

Can the minister tell us more about how the government’s plan will make Ontario open for business, reduce red tape and create better jobs for the people of Ontario?

Hon. Merrilee Fullerton: We are a government for the people and a government for workers in the skilled trades. We listened to employers about what steps government could take to create good-paying jobs in the skilled trades. Our plan will create good jobs across Ontario.

To quote Wayne Arthur, owner of Arthur Electric in Milton, “We’re delighted the Ontario government is making it possible for us to open our doors to more apprentices. We’ll be hiring anywhere from four to six apprentices.” Gerald McCann of Cynergy Mechanical Ltd. in Etobicoke said, “We’ll be hiring a minimum of five new employees.” Dennis Endrizzi of Beckett Electrical said, “This announcement allows us to hire anywhere from five to eight apprentices.” Jim Moyer of Waltec Electrical Services in Bolton said, “We will be hiring an additional four apprentices ASAP.”

We promised the people of Ontario to create—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock. Order. Member for Timmins, come to order. Start the clock.

Next question?

Police services

Mr. Ian Arthur: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and through you, my question is to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Kingston’s violent crime severity index rose 53% in 2017 over 2016. That is the highest spike in Canada. Despite this, the Conservative government is withholding a much-needed Policing Effectiveness and Modernization Grant. The grant was approved and was paying for front-line law enforcement teams.

Why is this government cutting police officers’ salaries right now in Kingston?

Hon. Michael A. Tibollo: Thank you for that question. First of all, I want to make it perfectly clear that the government continues to review its expenditures and it’s looking to determine how best to allocate funds that are needed for policing. As you can appreciate—we look in the galleries and we see all these kids who are inside the House today—our primary concern is to ensure public safety.

We made an initial investment of $25 million in guns and gangs. There’s a second phase that we will be working through, and we are concerned with respect to issues with respect to policing. We will look at the issue in Kingston as we’re reviewing the other parts around the province.

We do support the police and we are providing them with the tools they need to be able to perform their—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The House will come to order.

Supplementary?

Mr. Ian Arthur: My question was about front-line officers in Kingston.

Like many police forces around the province, Kingston was using the money to fund a COAST program and give officers the resources and expertise they need to respond to emergencies where mental health is a factor.

The Ford government cut $330 million in annual mental health funding already. Now they are withholding money—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Government benches, come to order.

Mr. Ian Arthur: Now they are withholding money that was designated for front-line mental health workers, for interactions where the safety and security of people and officers was at stake. How can the government justify cutting the spending?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Members take their seats.

Minister.

Hon. Michael A. Tibollo: At this time, the ministry has provided approximately $750,000 in funding to the city of Kingston and/or the Kingston Police Services Board. As our government continues to review expenditures in light of the government’s fiscal state, it would be inappropriate to speculate what the final amount might be.

But let’s be clear about this: We have a $358-billion debt. We have a deficit of $15 billion. Our government is responsible. It will provide police services the tools and the funding they need to do their jobs. We are going to do it in a responsible way and ensure the safety of the public. That is what our mandate is, and that’s what we will do.

Horse racing industry

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: My question is for the Minister of Finance. I understand there was an exciting announcement made this morning in Sarnia by the member for Sarnia–Lambton. Over the past few weeks, we have heard about the fantastic work that’s being done to support the horse racing industry after it was decimated by the Liberals and, sadly, with the support of the NDP. We were all excited to learn that Kawartha Downs and Ajax Downs will be keeping their slots. We are also happy to hear that continued support has been accepted by racetracks in Fort Erie and Dresden.

It’s clear that our government is making good on our commitment to support the horse racing industry. Could the minister please inform the House about this exciting announcement that was made in Sarnia this morning?

Hon. Victor Fedeli: Thank you to the member for Perth–Wellington. I am thrilled to share the exciting news that the member for Sarnia–Lambton made this morning. Slots will be returning to Hiawatha racetrack. This agreement in principle helps repair the damage done by the previous Liberal government after it decimated the horse racing industry. Hiawatha had their slots taken away in 2012, and now our government is bringing them back. This agreement completes our program to provide support to the horse racing industry. The previous Liberal government laid waste to this important industry.

The Premier promised that we would put an end to the Liberals’ destruction and provide the industry the support it needs to grow and prosper. This is yet another promise made, promise kept.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Stop the clock. Order.

Start the clock. Supplementary.

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: Thank you to the minister for that response. I’m so happy to hear that our government is making good on another campaign commitment. The horse racing industry is important right across Ontario, but particularly in rural Ontario. I’m proud of the action our government has taken to support the industry and support rural Ontario. After 15 years of Liberal devastation to this province, horse racing can once again grow and prosper in Ontario.

Hiawatha is just the latest in a series of accomplishments for this industry. Could the minister please explain how our government has kept our promise and supported the horse racing industry throughout rural Ontario?

Hon. Victor Fedeli: Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Bob Bailey, the member from Sarnia–Lambton, for his leadership on this file. He was instrumental in the return of slots to the Hiawatha racetrack. After the Liberals decimated the horse racing industry, rural Ontario will now benefit from that member’s hard work. With the return of slots to Hiawatha, our program to support the horse racing industry is now complete.

In all communities where slots were removed or to be removed, they have either been restored or returned to the racetracks wanting them or the tracks made a business decision to accept enhanced support for their racing operations. Either way, Speaker, Premier Ford made a promise, and that promise has now been kept.

Mr. Jeff Burch: Except Fort Erie. Not Fort Erie.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member for Niagara Centre, come to order.

Next question.

Police services

Ms. Judith Monteith-Farrell: My question is to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

Criminal activity in northern Ontario is increasing, yet the Conservative government does not seem to care. The Thunder Bay Police Service has been very proactive in reaching out to the member from Vaughan–Woodbridge for support and has received silence in return. In fact, the acting Thunder Bay Police Service chief made a desperate plea to the member as Thunder Bay is feeling the effects of drugs, gangs and firearms coming into our community, but the plea fell on deaf ears.

Speaker, Thunder Bay desperately needs a provincial grant to assist the police in tackling guns and gangs. Will this government finally respond to Thunder Bay’s request?

Hon. Michael A. Tibollo: As we’ve stated, public safety is our primary concern. We’re committed to examining current community funding programs and their effectiveness in reducing gun violence and gang-related activity in Ontario.

What we did was, we started with where the problems were greatest, which was in Toronto, with the guns and gangs grants that were provided of $25 million. Our intention was, is and continues to be to talk to the stakeholders, to talk to the various police services, and to determine, as a second phase, what needs to be done. We are conducting those investigations and round tables at the present time with the hope and the anticipation of being able to deploy funding to assist all the police services where issues are prominent.

We know that the issues are prominent in Thunder Bay. I’m very well aware of Thunder Bay, Ottawa and the other jurisdictions that are feeling—

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

Ms. Judith Monteith-Farrell: The police are facing serious challenges in Thunder Bay and all across this province. Thanks to the government’s mental health funding cuts, police are even more than ever dealing with individuals in mental health crisis. Yet the minister is refusing to fund the grants that support that important work.

Why is the government refusing to support police in their efforts to handle the growing mental health challenges in Thunder Bay?

Hon. Michael A. Tibollo: I thank the member for the question, but I do not agree with the premise of it. We have a very good speaking relationship with all of the police services in the province. One of the things that we will continue to do is to deal with the various stakeholders to determine what the needs are in the various police services around the province.

Part of the work that has been done to date is to visit various police services. As we continue, we’re determining what the needs are, because the policing needs in different parts of the province are not the same, necessarily, as the needs in Toronto or in other places, so we continue to do the work.

Our primary concern is to ensure public safety, and we’re dealing with that. We’re dealing with that in the places where it’s most prominent, and we’ll continue to do that to ensure that police services have the tools and can deliver the services necessary throughout the province to keep it safe.

Tourism

Mr. Lorne Coe: My question is for the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Tourism accounts for over 4% of the province’s gross domestic product. It’s an industry that supports over 390,000 jobs and generates over $34 billion in economic activity.

The tourism sector has seen some incredible growth in the past two years, with year-over-year increases in visitor spending of nearly 6%. Can the minister explain our government’s plan to maximize the economic impact of the tourism industry and how it will ensure the industry continues to further grow and thrive?

Hon. Sylvia Jones: I’m happy to, and thank you to my friend and colleague the MPP from Whitby for this important question. I think he underlines what we sometimes forget when we talk about our tourism questions and our tourism operators, that in fact they are an economic driver in the province of Ontario.

I was very pleased to attend the annual tourism summit in Windsor earlier this week. We talked about the importance of what an economic driver does. Those tourist operators really are looking for certainty from the province of Ontario. That’s why I was so proud to announce how Bill 47 is actually going to assist and make sure the tourist operators can continue to build their business and can continue to provide and offer a premium tourist destination when people choose Ontario as their site of choice when they spend their tourism dollars.

I’d be pleased to talk more about what we discussed in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary?

Mr. Lorne Coe: Back to the minister, and thank you for that response: I’m very pleased to hear that we’re moving quickly to get Ontario back on track, Speaker.

The previous provincial framework surrounding the tourism industry fell short of transforming words into action. It also was unsuccessful in clearly setting out the roles and responsibilities of both the government and the industry. And it did not define the role of our regional tourism organizations.

In the end, our tourism industry still lacks the tools, resources and clear vision required to achieve its full potential. They know, Speaker, that there is so much potential for businesses and Ontario communities like my riding of Whitby.

Can the minister elaborate on our government’s clear vision to create jobs and growth in our new tourism strategy?

Hon. Sylvia Jones: During the tourism summit—and I must say, the theme of this year’s summit was “Tourism Matters.” It really drove home the importance and the value that we have in an economic sector that, frankly, goes north, south, east and west in the province of Ontario. No matter where we live in Ontario, we are impacted and we have the ability to benefit from tourists visiting our province and spending money in our communities, and building those businesses.

Part of what we did at the economic summit earlier this week was announce a consultation. We want to make sure we get this right. Right from the beginning, when I was meeting with the tourism stakeholders at AMO in the summer, they talked about how we needed to change the direction in the province of Ontario, to make “open for business” mean something, to actually ensure, through the changes that we are implementing with Bill 47, people will have the certainty they need to invest in the province of Ontario and make sure tourism—

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

Automobile insurance

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: My question is to the Minister of Finance. This government recently approved auto insurance rate increases as high as 11.6%. This is the fourth consecutive quarter the government has allowed auto insurance rates to increase.

Why is the minister allowing insurance companies to jack up their rates when Ontarians already pay the highest auto insurance rates in the country?

Hon. Victor Fedeli: Please tell me you’re ready, Parm.

Let me remind the newer member of the deal that the NDP struck with the Liberal Party. This is exactly the disaster that became the insurance industry prices of today. A deal was cut by the Liberals to have the NDP support their budget if they made a stretch-goal promise that nobody on either of these sides ever intended on reaching fruition.

We hear you loud and clear, but you really should be talking to your leadership in the party to understand that you are part of the problem here and certainly have never been part of the solution.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Members, take your seats. Once again, I’ll remind all members, please make your comments through the Chair.

Supplementary.

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: Thanks to the minister of condescension and obvious arrogance. People in my—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I’m going to ask the member to withdraw.

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: I withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Place your question.

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: People in my community of Humber River–Black Creek are paying more for their auto insurance than other Ontarians just because of where they live. This is just unfair.

There is no good reason good drivers in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood should pay double what other drivers in the GT