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March 23, 2010

39th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2010-Mar-23 (PDF)

L006 - Tue 23 Mar 2010 / Mar 23 mar 2010

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 23 March 2010 Mardi 23 mars 2010

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE /

DÉBAT SUR LE DISCOURS DU TRÔNE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

ONTARIO ECONOMY

JOB CREATION

MANUFACTURING JOBS

ENERGY RATES

CHILD CARE

MINING INDUSTRY

JOB CREATION

MANUFACTURING JOBS

INTERNET SECURITY

USE OF TASERS

LABOUR DISPUTE

TOURISM

MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

PRESENTATION OF THRONE SPEECH

DECORUM IN CHAMBER

VISITOR

DEFERRED VOTES

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

HOSPITAL AUXILIARIES

ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO

CHILD CARE

PHOTO COMPETITION

EARTH HOUR

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS,

COUNCIL 1447

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

VOLUNTEER SERVICE AWARDS /

DISTINCTIONS POUR SERVICES BÉNÉVOLES

ELMIRA MAPLE SYRUP FESTIVAL

TAXATION

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

NOTICES OF DISSATISFACTION

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

DURHAM REGION CLASSIC

MUSTANG CLUB ACT, 2010

DEEPA GAS LIMITED ACT, 2010

WASTE DISPOSAL SITE 41

IN THE TOWNSHIP OF TINY ACT, 2010 /

LOI DE 2010 SUR LE LIEU 41

D’ÉLIMINATION DE DÉCHETS

DANS LE CANTON DE TINY

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

AND HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT

AMENDMENT ACT (NOISE

REMEDIATION), 2010 /

LOI DE 2010 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR L’AMÉNAGEMENT

DES VOIES PUBLIQUES

ET DES TRANSPORTS EN COMMUN

(RÉDUCTION DU BRUIT)

WORKPLACE SAFETY

AND INSURANCE

AMENDMENT ACT (POST TRAUMATIC

STRESS DISORDER), 2010 /

LOI DE 2010 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR

LA SÉCURITÉ PROFESSIONNELLE

ET L’ASSURANCE CONTRE

LES ACCIDENTS DU TRAVAIL

(TROUBLE DE STRESS

POST-TRAUMATIQUE)

BRITISH HOME CHILD

DAY ACT, 2010 /

LOI DE 2010 SUR LE JOUR

DES PETITS IMMIGRÉS BRITANNIQUES

SUSTAINABLE WATER

AND WASTE WATER

SYSTEMS IMPROVEMENT

AND MAINTENANCE ACT, 2010 /

LOI DE 2010 SUR LA VIABILITÉ

ET L’AMÉLIORATION DES RÉSEAUX

D’APPROVISIONNEMENT EN EAU

ET D’EAUX USÉES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT /

RENDEMENT SCOLAIRE

MINING INDUSTRY

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

MINING INDUSTRY

MINING INDUSTRY

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

PETITIONS

PUBLIC TRANSIT

ABORIGINAL PROGRAMS

AND SERVICES

ELMVALE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL

FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN

TAXATION

FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN

POWER PLANT

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

TAXATION

MINING INDUSTRY

TAXATION

PENSION PLANS

MINING INDUSTRY

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONS ACT, 2010 /

LOI DE 2010

SUR LES PROFESSIONS COMPTABLES

ADJOURNMENT DEBATE

SEVERANCE PAYMENTS

MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning. Please remain standing for the Lord’s Prayer, followed by the Baha’i prayer.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE /

DÉBAT SUR LE DISCOURS DU TRÔNE

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 22, 2010, on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of His Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Further debate?

M me France Gélinas: I didn’t have time to order water. Can I wave one down? I have a bit of a cold, and we had a big rally in Sudbury yesterday. That didn’t help my voice at all.

It is my pleasure to share a few comments on the speech from the throne, the Open Ontario plan. The speech from the throne, within a few minutes of starting, said:

“We carved our province out of a harsh northern land.

“Our people endured, and they thrived.

“They began to mine the land, and harvest the forests.”

This is the only reference to forestry. It is written and has been read in a way that puts it squarely in the past tense, as in forestry being a thing of the past. For the people that I represent, the people of Nickel Belt, forestry is pretty much part of the present, and we all hope that it’s going to be part of the future. But the throne speech does not reflect that at all.

If you go to communities throughout Nickel Belt, whether you talk about Foleyet, Mattagami, Gogama, Westree, Shining Tree and, if you go further down toward Alban and Bigwood, those people rely very much on forestry for most of their employment. If you walked through those communities right now, you would see that many of them have big rigs in their backyards. They have all sorts of forestry equipment, whether we talk about trailers or trucks, big limbers, chainsaws etc. All of the big equipment is in the back of their yards. It is collecting dust and collecting rust.

It is covered with big tarps because the forestry industry has collapsed in my riding and in most of the northeast. We would have liked to have seen using forestry in a more accurate state; that is, showing it as an industry that is part of our present and showing it as an industry that has a future in Ontario. For people of northeastern Ontario, forestry does have a future, and those people hoped that with a little help from their government, they could move forward.

An example is Fryer Forest Products, which is a company that borders David Ramsay’s and my riding. Fryer has not been able to get a licence to harvest for multiple reasons. They look at the investment that the government has made in the south in the auto industry and manufacturing to keep jobs down there.

There’s nothing wrong with helping people down south get jobs, but the people of the north would like to get their fair share. Getting their fair share means that there is also government help when it comes to rebuilding the forestry industry, not only the harvesting of the trees but also all of the other jobs that could be created with a secondary industry related to wood and related to wood fibres. There is a number of projects in northeastern Ontario.

Particularly in my riding, I can think of one that is to use some of the wood fibre residue at a sawmill to produce electricity. Here again, people of the north have a hard time accessing the grid. They thought they had a viable project. They thought that forestry was going to prosper, but when it came time to review their project, their project was good, but they could not access the grid.

The people of northeastern Ontario want their fair share from their government. Certainly, the opening statement of the throne speech did not bring them much hope in that direction.

Quand notre lieutenant-gouverneur a commencé le discours du trône, il a parlé de la foresterie comme une industrie du passé, une industrie qui a servi à développer notre province, mais pas une industrie qui a un présent, et encore moins un futur, dans notre province. Pour les gens que je représente dans Nickel Belt, c’était une grosse déception. Plusieurs de mes constituantes et constituants dépendent de l’industrie de la foresterie pour leur gagne-pain. Qu’on parle de places comme Foleyet, Metagama, Gogama, ou même dans le sud de mon comté, si on regarde à Bigwood ou à Alban, beaucoup de ces gens-là travaillent dans la foresterie—ou, je devrais dire, travaillaient dans la foresterie.

Quand on se promène dans les cantons, comme je fais, on se rend compte qu’il y a beaucoup d’équipements qui sont dans la cour en arrière de ces gens-là. Ils sont couverts par de gros “tarpaulins” en plastique, et tout ce qu’ils peuvent faire est de faire des paiements sur un équipement dispendieux qu’ils ne sont pas capables d’utiliser parce que l’industrie de la foresterie vit des moments difficiles.

Ces gens-là regardent aux investissements qui ont été faits par leur gouvernement dans le sud de l’Ontario. Qu’on regarde à tout le secteur de l’automobile ou le secteur manufacturier, ils ont certainement eu de l’aide de leur gouvernement. Les gens du Nord auraient voulu voir dans le discours du trône un peu l’équivalent de ça pour les industries du Nord. Que l’on parle de la foresterie dans un contexte du passé, c’est un peu décourageant pour nous parce que dans le Nord-Est, on voit la foresterie comme une industrie présente et une industrie du futur.

La deuxième chose dont je voulais parler est encore là dans le discours du trône—the Open Ontario plan. We talk about exporting water technology. This is really, really hard to listen to.

I had just come back from a multi-First Nations visit in the north of our province. The first community I went to was Summer Beaver. I met with the staff at the nursing station and saw some of the clients. I saw two very cute little girls; I will call them Missy and her sister. Missy is about six years old, and she and her sister were both covered in a rash like I had never seen before. The nurse had tried Telemedicine, but they couldn’t help them.

That morning, when I got there, they were being airlifted out of their community to go to a hospital. They all knew that it had to do with the water, but nobody knew how to treat those two little girls. They were joyful and helpful, but very scared; they didn’t want to leave their community. They’re young; they were born there; this is where they belong. Going away was very scary for them, for something as basic as having clean drinking water.

When you go to those communities, lots of them get dental visits only once a year. When there is no drinking water in their community, they don’t drink water, and milk is too expensive, but for some reason unknown to me, you can buy two litres of pop for the same price in Beaver and Webequie, or any of the communities, as in Nickel Belt. That means that little kids end up with dental decay. So you see a whole bunch of very cute little kids—all of their front teeth have been pulled out and their back teeth are capped because they don’t have proper access to dentists.

When the dentists come, they are proactive to make sure the kids don’t run into problems with tooth decay, so they pull all of their front teeth out and they cap the rest of them.

This is because those communities, those kids, don’t have access to drinking water. They have to buy bottled water, and when you have to buy bottled water, you don’t drink much of it. You end up drinking other stuff, most of the other stuff being full of sugar.

So here you grow up with no front teeth—they still have back teeth because they’ve been capped, so that they can chew, but they can’t bite. That means that before their adult teeth grow in, those kids will never bite into an apple, pear or peach. They cannot bite. They will never bite into a carrot. They have no front teeth, which means that the opportunity to develop good eating habits that include fresh fruits and vegetables is very hard. In fly-in communities, produce is very expensive. Not only are they expensive, those kids—because they don’t have access to fresh drinking water—also have teeth problems.

Here it is just multiplying itself into making it hard for First Nations people, especially those in fly-in communities, to develop good eating habits, to stay healthy and to have healthy teeth—all this because they don’t have access to fresh drinking water, yet we see a throne speech in which—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Excuse me. I’d just ask that the conversations that are being held around the room respect the fact that we have a speaker. Please continue.

M me France Gélinas: Merci, madame—a speaker who has a very hoarse voice. Let me have a little drink of water; it could help.

Here we have a throne speech that talks about all of the technologies that Ontario wants to export to the world about clean drinking water, yet last time I checked, there are 78 communities in northern Ontario that are under boil-water advisories. That was last week—78 communities. A lot of them have been under boil-water advisories for years. We’re talking a decade—10 years—six, seven, five years.

That means there are entire generations of kids who have never had clean drinking water, and I’m thinking: How can we export this technology that we are so good at to the world when kids in my own riding, in my own province, have never had drinking water out of the tap? They end up with all of those health problems and issues, whether it’s a skin rash, lots of dental problems or poor eating habits, because they don’t have drinking water, yet we’re going to export this to the world? How about we look after our own first? How about we look after those kids and use that technology to give them good drinking water?

I would have liked the throne speech to have talked about that, but it is not there.

One thing that the throne speech did talk about was that we are going to review the Public Hospitals Act. This is something that we have been wanting to do for a long time. I’m not sure if the part of the Public Hospitals Act that will be under review will include all of the changes we would like to see.

We just went through Bill 179, the bill that expands the scope of practice of a number—I think there were 12 altogether—of health professions. Many of them came forward and wanted change to the Public Hospitals Act. One of those particular changes they want to see is the medical advisory committee of hospitals broadened to include not only physicians but the full complement of people who provide care within the hospital setting. So far, it doesn’t look like that part of the bill will be up for review, but it should be.

What they are talking about, though, is a new payment formula for hospitals. This new payment formula has been tried in other jurisdictions, especially in England, where they realized that it did not work. We can call HBAM whichever way we want to slice it, but at the end of the day, you look at gender and age and a little bit of geographical distribution, and it never works. You either have a formula that is so complicated to apply that you waste tons of resources trying to apply this fairly, or you just look at the basics that are easy to collect, which are gender, age and a little bit of geography.

Then you always end up with the same bias; I call it the urban bias. That is, you always end up with rural and northern hospitals being at a disadvantage compared to the ones located in bigger urban areas. This fixed amount of money for procedures works for some, but it doesn’t work for all. I agree that if a centre does a thousand whatever, hip replacements—that’s a little much; we’ll say cataract surgeries. If you do a thousand cataract surgeries every week, you will get very good at it. You will develop good practice and you will have good outcomes. But it also means that you are geographically located in one area.

Unless those centres of excellence have an incentive to travel to make sure that they are available and that we provide equity of access to all of our residents, then it won’t happen. It will always be the same: The big urban centres will get to compete for a number of procedures. They will be able to do them at a cheaper price than you can do them in northern or rural Ontario. Then all of the services will be centralized there, making access an issue.

It has already started. If you look at total knee and total hip replacements, Sudbury Regional Hospital does those surgeries, but there is a long waiting list. So what happens? People from northeastern Ontario decide to go down to Toronto. But who can go down? People who are fit, people who are healthy and people who have the money to undertake the travel, which means that the people who have the highest needs end up waiting their turn in Sudbury while the people with the lower needs get to go to Toronto.

This just creates a snowball effect where, if you have patients with higher needs, sure, it will be more expensive to look after them. They will need more follow-up, they will need longer hospital stays and they will need more rehab, which means that when Sudbury Regional Hospital is made to compete for a volume of total knee or total hip replacements, they will lose out.

They will lose out because a healthy segment of their population is already migrating to Toronto, where they can do that surgery cheaper and faster with good outcomes partly because, out of the rural and northern area, they get all of the healthier patients. They get the patients who are able to go. They get the people who are still active, as opposed to northern and rural hospitals that don’t. This new funding model will just make all of this worse.

It is important upfront, and I would have liked to have seen this in the throne speech, to have a commitment from our government for equitable access. We realize that we’re not going to have equal access; that is, if you choose to live in northern or rural Ontario, you may not have the same. Nobody wants a tertiary care centre in Naughton; we realize that. But we want equitable access. Let’s make equity part of the throne speech so that before we make any changes that will further put this urban bias onto our health care system, we commit ourselves to equity. But this is not there.

What we are looking at is a system of competitions between hospitals, which will not serve the people of rural and northern Ontario well.

We’ve already experimented with competitive bidding in home care with disastrous results. I would have loved so much to have seen in the throne speech a real commitment to reviewing our home care system with a view to getting rid of this competitive bidding for home care, which has not served us well.

The government, to their credit, invested $1.8 billion more in home care. What did we get out of this? Worse care, worse outcomes and less people served. This is a lose-lose for us, but we have a few American-based home care companies that made a pile of cash. I don’t want our home health care resources to be going to fund for-profit American-based care. I want the money that will be invested in our health care system to go to front-line services. I didn’t see any of this in the throne speech. I sure hope that the budget brings better news.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: I have no doubt, since I listened very carefully to my colleague from Nickel Belt, that she tries to improve the conditions of the people in northern Ontario. I’ve been to Nickel Belt a number of times. In fact, I have my undergraduate degree from Laurentian University, so I have some idea. While I was there, I grew very fond of the people of Nickel Belt and Sudbury. I have no doubt we admire all of them for their hard work.

But I was expecting that you would indicate a bit more of the positive nature and the positive issues that are found in this throne speech. It can’t just be all negative.

If we start from a negative perspective, oh, by golly, you don’t remember anymore what happened to the NDP when they were in power? Fourteen mills shut down, the highest unemployment rate ever in the province of Ontario in northern Ontario, and $60 million taken out of the northern Ontario heritage fund.

Whereas, what did the Liberals do? What do you find in the throne speech? What’s our record? To some degree you were beginning, you were just starting to say, “to the credit of the government.” But then you stopped right there, and you began to be critical, and you began to protest again, which is, of course, a natural part of the NDP, to protest,

whereas the Liberal Party is the party of progress.

I just want to remind you of what is also in the throne speech that is very important, and that is the Premier has recognized that we have to compete. We have to compete internationally. How best to do that? How best do we prepare our students to compete internationally with all those countries that are called the tigers of the East? The best way to do it is through education. The Liberals have recognized that, and I congratulate them because it’s part of the throne speech.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Mr. Peter Shurman: The first thing I want to do is compliment my friend from Nickel Belt on, I think, a very thoughtful and interesting discourse on the throne speech, with specific references to the issues that she has to face every day in her riding, and that’s what this debate is about. It’s not about looking for positives in the throne speech, as my friend opposite has to say. We, on this side of the House, are opposition. Our job is to oppose. So while the government sets out its vision, our job is to say, “Your vision is lacking somewhat in certain areas.”

The first thing that struck me was the focus that my friend from Nickel Belt put on the forestry industry and the fact that so much machinery is mothballed and so many jobs lie unfulfilled because they don’t exist anymore. The government has not even made passing reference to the forestry industry in the throne speech at all.

I am not a northerner. I’m a southerner, and I’m very conscious of the fact that there is a divide between north and south and that northerners feel that they get—and I think rightfully so, by the way—short shrift from the south. I have had a lot of interaction with the north lately, and very particularly with the forestry industry, in talking to the folks at Grant Forest Products. That has been the subject of a number of questions that I’ve raised with the government in this House.

One of the things that has come to light is that there are hundreds of millions of dollars in funds that relate to the forestry industry that are not being used, that could be used, not even in terms of real money but just loan guarantees to make progress in the forestry industry, to revitalize the north, to give some people back their jobs who need jobs. It’s just lying fallow on the part of the government, with not so much as a reasonable response from the Minister of Northern Affairs. That’s the thing that has to be underlined. That’s what my friend is trying to underline, and I congratulate her for it.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments and questions?

Mr. Jim Brownell: I too want to congratulate and thank the member from Nickel Belt for her comments and certainly her passion for the north and for her riding. She gave us a good

summary of the problems that relate to the lack of clean water and whatnot.

I would like to talk about that just for a moment. I had a chance yesterday to make a few comments about the opportunities that we will have in exporting our expertise and technology. That’s what it’s really all about: that we get here in Ontario that opportunity to showcase to the world and give that opportunity to the world what we do best, and that is to plan for and to have the expertise in purifying and cleaning water and whatnot. That is what’s going to be given to those countries that want it, and we know that there are many that have already indicated their interest in getting some of that expertise.

I know that because we have a company in my own riding of Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry that is very interested, not only in Ontario but throughout the world, in helping to bring clean water to those who want it.

Just yesterday I had the director of the Upper Canada District School Board in my office. He was talking about those opportunities in China for educating. In our throne speech we’re looking to give opportunities to 20,000 more students in our colleges and universities and to give opportunities for foreign students to come here. Certainly they want that. I know that the director of the Upper Canada board would like to see more pre-college and -university students coming to our province to receive education. Those are all the opportunities that are going to be given here in this Open Ontario plan that we had in the throne speech.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments and questions?

Mr. John O’Toole: I want to also compliment the member from Nickel Belt. I have the greatest respect for the work that she does, both in the Legislature here as well as in the community as well as in committees. In fact, I think she, with the health coalition, has been travelling the province, working very hard to raise awareness and education of the lack of adequate funding in long-term care, as well as hospital-based services and community-based services.

In her response, she was saying that the lack of attention to the north is extremely important as well. She’s a very strong, very effective voice for not only Nickel Belt, the region where she is the member, but also for the issue of health care broadly and, more specifically, issues facing the north.

I think that if one looks at this throne speech and the debate on it—I’m disappointed. It’s the lack of having a vision for the province, a lack of courtesy to the different sectors within the province, and it’s as if there is a Dalton McGuinty plan that Father Knows Best. That’s ultimately what I see in it, and I will have the privilege this morning, I hope, to speak on this throne speech. I might possibly be the last speaker on it—it’s not the last word.

Again, I want to pay tribute to the member from Nickel Belt and her strong voice for the north. As my good friend from Thornhill has said in his questions—relentless questions, I might add—on the forest industry. There’s a lack of a significant plan or the flexibility of the government to work to find solutions for specific sectors, whether it’s on the waste-to-energy issue within the north that was brought up in her remarks, or to find a resolution to the financial stress for one of the companies that Mr. Shurman has spoken about.

Again, she’s a strong, effective voice and I think her remarks are a tribute to her, but also a condemnation of the government’s lack of a plan and vision for the north and for many—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. The member for Nickel Belt has time to respond.

M me France Gélinas: I’d like to thank the members from Davenport, Thornhill, Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry, and Durham for their comments. Yes, I’m in opposition, so as for the comments for the member from Davenport, I listened to the throne speech with a view of my constituents. When I listen for my constituents, I have to think forestry, I have to think clear water because it doesn’t seem to mean the same thing to the people of Nickel Belt and of northern Ontario as to the people who wrote the throne speech. It is not negative. I also brought forward solutions that could be included, hopefully, in the budget when it comes on Thursday.

Sure, I listened with an ear that represents the people that I’m here to represent, but I also bring forward some suggestions that I hope they will listen to and act upon.

Certainly I agree with the member from Thornhill. I’m here to represent the people of Nickel Belt, so when I look at the throne speech, like when I look at everything else, I look through the eyes of my constituents to make sure that they are well represented. He is right that I hear it quite a bit: We don’t mind the government helping the people of the south get through this recession and get jobs in the auto and manufacturing industries; we just don’t want to be left behind. We don’t want to be forgotten. We want our fair share. I hear this all the time.

People come in to my office after having lost their jobs in forestry or other industries in the north, and all they want is a fair share from the Ontario government. Right now, they don’t feel like they are getting this.

The exporting of our expertise in clean water technology: Start exporting it to the people of northern Ontario first, please.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further debate?

Mr. Bob Delaney: I’d like to indicate at the outset that I’ll be sharing my time with the very distinguished member from Essex.

I’d like to talk about the throne speech to show a contrast between looking forward to a future, as our Ontario government does, that’s bright and prosperous, and compare that with a vision of sticking your head into the sand and hoping that when you pull it out the 1950s will have returned, such as the Conservatives have.

Let’s start by looking at the global recession. Again, as a contrast, the PCs spent a whole year pretending that the recession wasn’t happening, and then they proposed out-and-out panic as a response when it did begin, suggesting that in response to the recession, the only thing that the government of Ontario really ought to do would be to completely dismantle education, health care and our social programs as perhaps the only solution. Our government never agreed with that; Ontarians never agreed with that approach.

What Ontarians wanted was to have their government prepare this province to compete in the aftermath of the global recession. The Conservatives said that Ontario was toast until and unless the United States recovered, and if we couldn’t sell to America, then we probably shouldn’t be doing business anywhere else. Our government didn’t agree with that approach. Our government has patiently, persistently and successfully opened new markets for what Ontario does and for the services that Ontarians can perform in markets like India, China and Europe.

While the American market was flat, and the Conservatives said that we ought to hunker down and basically do nothing unless and until America dug itself out, this year, China is projecting 10% growth and India is projecting about 7.6% growth.

How important are those markets? Comparing China with Ontario, China outnumbers Ontario 100 to 1. That’s an immense market. India outnumbers Ontario 85 to 1. A market like Brazil, which I’m sure the members opposite look upon as a Third World market—we don’t. We know it’s an emerging market, and we know that Brazil outnumbers us here in Ontario 15 to 1. We also know that Europe is a market that’s larger than the United States of America. Europe is a First World market. As Ontarians, we are not in Europe to the degree that we should be.

As a measure of how much potential there is in that European market, consider that just one US company alone, the Home Depot, sells more to and from Canada than the country of France. That gives us an idea of how much untapped potential there is for Ontario in Europe, in India, in Brazil and in China. Our government is there, and that party says we shouldn’t be.

To again compare and contrast, when this global recession hit Ontario, this government responded with an aggressive stimulus plan; those parties on the other side said we shouldn’t do it. Our government invested in infrastructure to create jobs; they opposed it. Our government introduced new training programs for laid-off workers; they opposed them and criticized them. We believed in Ontarians; they didn’t. In the next five years, we’re going to have a decisive period for our province. That’s why we have a new five-year plan to open up Ontario to new growth and to new jobs. They don’t believe in Ontarians.

Our plan is going to prepare Ontario to compete in the global economy that those parties opposite pretend doesn’t exist. We’re going to emerge from this recession much, much stronger than we were when we went in.

Our party, our government and Ontarians believe that tax acts are just pieces of law that need to stay in touch with their times. We believe that tax acts exist to serve Ontarians. Contrast that with the attitude opposite. The Progressive Conservatives believe Ontarians are here to serve the tax act, and that a Cold War relic such as the expensive, out-of-date, cumbersome and inefficient provincial sales tax is in fact a monument to a distant past Conservative government and must therefore never, ever be changed at all for any reason whatsoever.

To that Ontarians say, “Rubbish. We can do better. We will do better.” Ontarians don’t believe that we should never be able to compete in China, in India, in South America and in Europe. We believe that those are our markets, just as they are anybody else’s markets. Ontarians don’t believe that if the USA has a dumb and inefficient sales tax system, then ours ought to be at least as stupid and as expensive. We reject that approach.

Our government does not believe that Ontarians should never be able to compete in this world, and that’s why Ontario is adopting a lean, efficient and money-saving means of assessing a sales tax. That’s why, on our government’s watch, Ontario has now gained a sustainable competitive advantage over our US competitors. We intend to keep that advantage. We intend to keep that advantage, because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the smart thing to do for Ontarians.

This throne speech is just a piece in the mosaic that spells out a five-year plan to ensure that Ontario is the best place on the North American continent to start a business, to grow a business and, very importantly, to relocate a business. We’re there.

We believe in health care. We contrast that with the party opposite that seems to take its lead from—and in the spirit of the times—the United States’ Republican Party, which absolutely is adamantly opposed to public health care. We believe in that. It gives us a sustainable competitive advantage right here in Canada. Ontario businesses know full well that Ontario-style one-payer health care allows them a competitive advantage that they cannot get in a plant south of the border.

Since we formed government, we’ve worked with health professionals to lower wait times—wait times that continue to go lower. Contrast that with the party opposite that, on their watch in government, never even measured wait times. But if you measure it, you can manage it. And if you can manage it, you can lower it, you can optimize it and you can control your costs, and that’s exactly what Ontario has seen in the last seven years.

Look at some results: 900,000 more Ontarians have access to a family doctor. Where do you find the lowest wait times in the entire country? Ontario—shorter wait times for cancer surgeries; shorter wait times for MRIs.

When we were elected in 2003, my hospital, Credit Valley Hospital, had a new cancer centre that had just opened, and it had bays for six linear accelerators. We had two. On our watch, we now have all six. Not coincidentally, we’ve now seen our wait times in western Mississauga, where we have a strong, growing population, go down even as our population grows. We need to do more, because health care is a journey, not a destination.

Health care is also expensive. Just 20 years ago, 32 cents of every dollar spent on government programs was spent on health care. Today it’s 46 cents.

Beginning next year, in 2011, the first of the baby boom generation, the largest demographic bubble that Canada has ever seen and, indeed, North America has ever seen—those first baby boomers turn 65. For every senior alive today, when we baby boomers are ourselves in the peak of our senior years, there will be two seniors. For every person aged 80 or above alive today, when we baby boomers ourselves become octogenarians, there will be three. Those are immense challenges for us. They mean that we have to manage our health care programs properly.

The thinking and planning that we do now is going to mean the difference, if you’re a baby boomer, between whether the health care that you’ve grown up around is going to be there when you need it most or whether it won’t be.

On our watch, our thinking has been directed to ensure that an entire baby boom generation that has built this country over the last 20 years can look forward to reliable, cost-effective and available health care when and where they need it as they age.

Of course, the members opposite have voted against that at every single turn. I know they don’t believe in health care for the baby boom generation. I know their plan is to neglect them and to simply say, “Sorry, we can’t afford it. You’re out of the boat. Go buy it yourself.” But that’s not the way that we’ve run our government, and that’s not the way we will run our government. That’s part of the reason that this throne speech has focused as heavily as it has on health care.

We need to hold our health care providers accountable for the money they get, and we need to ensure that those programs provide improved services for patients. That’s part of the vision of where this throne speech is taking Ontario.

This throne speech says that Ontario is going to introduce new legislation to improve care in our hospitals and ask that our hospitals tap into the expertise of all health care professionals. This throne speech says that our government is going to improve services for patients by encouraging health care professionals to work together. That’s exactly what health care professionals want to do, and that’s what patients expect them to do.

We intend to create an independent expert body to provide recommendations on some of the best clinical practice guidelines. It ensures that future investments actually get the results that they set out to get and that they improve patient health.

In the last year and a half, our government has borrowed a lot of money, which really says something from a bunch of fiscally prudent managers who love balanced budgets. We borrowed a ton of money, and unlike the government from which we took power, we’re not concealing a deficit. We’re going to be upfront about this, and if we borrowed it, we’ll lay out a plan to pay it back. That means opening Ontario to new jobs and growth, and that means our government has to manage and focus on those things, some of which I’ve outlined, that truly make us stronger.

As a government, we eliminated the deficit that we inherited from the former Conservative government, and before the recession hit, our government delivered three balanced budgets, three surpluses in a row. That’s a record that we’re going back to.

I’d like to conclude on that and let the member from Essex take the rest of the time.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member from Essex.

Mr. Bruce Crozier: I’m delighted today to stand in support of the throne speech given by the Lieutenant Governor, which gives the sense of the direction that your government wants to go in the next five years, and to comment on a couple of areas of our Open Ontario plan.

My friend from Mississauga–Streetsville has made a very poignant discussion on some of the issues that have touched a sore point with the opposition. Now that you’re riled up, it’s my job to settle you back down. So I’ll try not to get you too excited, although I do want to point out two areas in the throne speech that, from my point of view, need particular attention.

I’ll quote from one of them: “Your government will also support growth and expansion in our agri-food sector by working through Ontario’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to create new opportunities to buy local food, and open up new markets outside the province—because the world needs the good things that grow in Ontario.”

I wholeheartedly agree with that, and I would encourage all members of the Legislature to support that kind of thrust in our throne speech. There is no area, I think, more diversified in agriculture in the province than in southwestern Ontario and, if I might boast just a little, in particular, in Essex county. My friend from Chatham–Kent–Essex shares that.

Mr. Kim Craitor: And around the lake.

Mr. Bruce Crozier: My friend from Niagara Falls says that Niagara Falls is included in it. So there’s my point: Southwestern Ontario is the most diversified agricultural area in the whole of Canada, and I would suggest that it would compare to many other parts of the world. There are two opportunities we have that we can encourage and have been working on, and that is to buy local.

If you think about buying local, it goes far beyond just supporting your own industry in your own area. It affects the environment when food doesn’t have to be transported long distances. The quality of the food when you buy it at your local market hasn’t travelled long distances. Can you imagine what it makes on our carbon imprint to bring a truckload of tomatoes from Mexico? Can you imagine, when those tomatoes were picked, what point in their growth they had to be in so they would be at least edible when they reach Canada?

I go to my local grocery store and I see tomatoes there that were grown in Mexico. The first thing I do is go to the manager and say, “I’m not going to buy any of your tomatoes because they’re imported from Mexico and we grow them literally down the street.” The manager will give me the excuse that there’s nothing he can do about it because it’s head office down in Toronto that decides where they’re going to buy their produce from and at what price.

But I think if enough of us go to the managers of these grocery stores and say, “We’re not going to buy your produce,” it wouldn’t take very long, I suspect, before somebody down here in Toronto at the head office of that grocery store would hear what we have to say, and it’s going to affect the jingle in their pockets. When you can do something that affects the jingle in their pockets, they’ll start to listen to you. So I encourage everyone, whenever they buy, wherever they buy their produce, that they insist on locally grown produce.

If we don’t grow it, well, I suspect not too many people eat it, but sure, if there are specialty products that you can’t get grown here in southwestern Ontario, go ahead and buy those.

We encourage our folks to do that because it helps the local economy, number one, but I think just as importantly, it helps our environment and the quality of the food exceeds the quality of food that’s grown anywhere else in the world.

The second point of the throne speech that I’d like to emphasize and point out to you is the Water Opportunities Act that will be introduced in the Legislature. In Essex county, where I live, of course, on three sides of my riding is water. On the north is Lake St. Clair, on the west is the Detroit River and on the south is one of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie. I’m virtually surrounded by water, so clean water is something that we are very understanding of in my part of the province. You know, folks, there is little in this world that is more important than water.

We can go for a number of days—particularly some of us could go for a number of days—without eating very much, but we can’t go very long without fresh water.

There are many parts of this world where fresh water is becoming a very valuable and depleting resource. We’re told it’s a $400-billion-a-year industry of creating clean water and ways that we technically can take bad water—salty water, contaminated water—and turn it into clean water. I can tell you, that’s an opportunity for the manufacturing businesses in my area, in the Essex-Windsor area, which have been hit so hard by the manufacturing losses we have suffered in this last worldwide recession.

So we can take that expertise in creating good, clean, potable water and combine that with our expertise in manufacturing—those tool and die industries down our way that can produce the equipment that will take the technology that we have to create clean, potable water. We can export that technology and those manufactured items to the rest of the world.

Those are only two areas of this throne speech, this Open Ontario plan, and we have to look ahead. We can’t look back. I’m a private pilot and I always say the runway behind you is absolutely worthless. It’s the runway ahead that’s really valuable to you. So I say to us, take this vision, turn it into something that’s good for Ontario, and I know that our future not only will be as good as the past, it will be better than the past, and I want us all to enjoy that better future.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Questions and comments?

Mr. Randy Hillier: I couldn’t help but think when I was listening to the member from Mississauga–Streetsville that he must have been auditioning for a role in 1984. The double-think that went into his speech was just incredible. Here he is talking about and conveying Conservative views in such a totally false fashion—just absolutely amazing.

I also have to talk about the member from Essex. Ontario has faced significant hardships. The loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the closure of 62 forestry mills, the loss of 45,000 forestry jobs, and what do we hear from this government? Instead of talking about those important things, the member from Essex would rather talk about the carbon footprint of a Mexican tomato. It’s really atrocious and astounding that this Liberal government can have its head in the sand and talk about platitudes with rhetoric and have no substance in the throne speech whatsoever—no substance.

I’ll just go on to further say that last time we were in the House, I mentioned—there is a word called “daltonism.” It’s a legitimate, real word: daltonism. It’s the inability to distinguish between red and green, and that’s what this Liberal government is suffering from. Whenever they see something green, we know it’s going to put us in the red. This Liberal government and the comments on it, I just find totally unresponsive and—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further comments and questions? The member—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Order. The member from Nickel Belt.

M me France Gélinas: It was rather interesting to hear the member from Mississauga–Streetsville’s little jab toward Sudbury and our relationship with the people of Brazil.

I had the pleasure to attend a rally yesterday where there were many representatives from Brazil, and I can assure you that the people of Sudbury welcome the Brazilian people and certainly have no grudge with the people of Brazil. They do not care too much, though, about one particular Brazilian company: Vale do Rio Doce, better known in Sudbury as Vale Inco. To confuse the two is to show really very little respect for the people of Sudbury.

There were people from Australia, from Germany, from Indonesia and many people from Brazil who came yesterday to support the over 3,000 Vale Inco workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 6500 at their rally—to show their support, but they also know that they do this in co-operation and with the full support of the people of Brazil.

I had the opportunity to travel to Brazil and meet with representatives from the Brazilian government, and I can tell you that they aspired to come to the standards that we have for our workers. It is the Workers’ Party that is in power in Brazil right now, led by President Lula, and they certainly look at what the people in Ontario have been able to achieve. Whether we look at the wages that allow us to have a healthy middle class, whether you look at the benefits, things as simple as being paid for a day off when you’re sick—those are all things that we share with Brazil.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further debate?

Mr. Bill Mauro: I want to thank the members from Essex and Mississauga–Streetsville for their comments this morning. I have had an opportunity to hear some of the comments that have been made on a regular basis in the Legislature in response to our throne speech. I want to thank all members for their contributions.

One of the themes that has been coming forward in response to the throne speech from some of the opposition members continues to deal with forestry and the challenges related to forestry in Ontario, primarily northern Ontario and more specifically northwestern Ontario. I think it’s a bit unfortunate to hear the simplistic arguments that continue to be put on the record by members of the opposition. For whatever reason—I guess it’s one of those advertising things: You figure that if you keep repeating the same message over and over again, after a while, enough people are going to start to believe you.

Just to take one point on the forestry industry in northwestern Ontario—northern Ontario generally—in 2003 when we were elected, the Canadian dollar stood at 73 cents. One or two years ago, maybe three years ago, it topped out at $1.10. Today, it’s around $1 or 98 cents—I’m not sure what it’s at today. That’s an incredible appreciation in the value of the Canadian currency relative to the American currency.

One penny of appreciation in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the American dollar adds a $3-million to $4-million expense to one AbitibiBowater mill, the one in my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan in the province of Ontario. Some $3 million to $4 million on one cent of appreciation in the Canadian currency times 35 or 45 cents; that’s over $100 million to their bottom line. That’s one AbitibiBowater mill in Ontario. In my riding, it’s like a $100-million expense on their bottom line.

Corporately in the province, times the number of mills that they have, it’s much more significant than that, and yet the members of the opposition want to stand up there day after day, year after year, continuing to convey this ridiculously simplistic message when it comes to forestry in this province—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you.

Mr. Bill Mauro: —just the truth once in a while.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Order. I’d ask you to withdraw that.

Mr. Bill Mauro: I’ll withdraw, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further comments and questions?

Mr. John O’Toole: Respectfully, I thought the member from Mississauga–Streetsville read the notes that were prepared for him by the minister quite nicely. I think he’s an effective reader.

The member from Essex: I thought his comments were quite genuine and thoughtful. He didn’t stray too much from the message track of the government; I understand that.

Mr. Mauro, the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan: When he was standing up for the forest industry, he took some credit for the increase in the dollar. I would say that the issue there, Bill—you actually have it wrong. When the currency—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Excuse me. Your comments to the—

Mr. John O’Toole: When the currency increases in Canada, it disfavours your company. I want you to go back to Economics 101—and I’m not being critical. I’m trying to help you. It disadvantages Canadian industry when the dollar goes up. I’m telling you; look it up. I have the greatest respect for the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Direct your comments—

Mr. John O’Toole: —to the Speaker. She likes to have her time as well. I’m actually having an opportunity to—

Interjection.

Mr. John O’Toole: My hands are up.

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: He’s using sign language.

Mr. John O’Toole: It’s all sign language.

My point is, all of their comments aren’t addressing the fundamental issues of the decline in the Ontario economy. That’s the real truth here in the observations on the economy: They promise one thing and do another thing. They promised a million jobs, but they’ve actually lost 150,000 jobs.

I’ll have more to say on this in the next few minutes.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member for Mississauga–Streetsville.

Mr. Bob Delaney: I’d like to acknowledge the comments by the members for Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington and Durham. I guess the truth still does hurt Conservatives.

Our government does not believe that some animals or some tomatoes are created more equal than others.

I wish the member from Durham would stop reading those talking points from the kids who work out of the corner office on the third floor and just tell us what he thinks, because I think he actually does support us.

To the member for Nickel Belt: Our government definitely believes that Ontarians and Brazilians ought to get to know one another better and do a great deal more business together. We speak almost every language in the world right here in Ontario, and that’s a big competitive advantage. The whole world has people who now call themselves Ontarians. That’s part of the reason why this speech from the throne lays out a very clear blueprint for reaching beyond where we are now and ensuring that as Ontarians, we’re best positioned to do business everywhere in the world, with every culture and every people in every language—a strength that we uniquely possess here.

To the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan: He gets it. He knows that if Ontario is going to find a sustainable market for what the north does and what the north has, then we need to reach out to those parts of the world that need what we have, that need to use what we have in abundance so they can continue to progress. This is a symbiotic world. What you do in one part of the world has an implication and impact in every other.

This throne speech is part of a series of documents and policies. It will be continued, I’m sure, in the budget this week, which lays out a progressive, successful, sustainable future for the province of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further debate?

Mr. John O’Toole: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. Hopefully I’ll be the last speaker for the 12 hours that have been debated on the throne speech.

I have a copy here for those viewing today. This throne speech was delivered on March 8, and here we are on March 23, we’re still talking about it, but really, actually, nothing has been done.

I want to start by thanking the Honourable David Onley for reading the speech prepared by Premier McGuinty so eloquently. There’s no question it was very eloquently delivered in the Legislature. I also want to say that the media overview was rather a neutral

interpretation of Premier McGuinty’s speech. I’m going to take a small survey of the media here. Now, I’m not making this up. I’m actually trying to bring some third party commentary to the debate.

Here’s one here from the Toronto Sun. It says: “Bankrupt of Fresh Ideas.” That’s what the paper said. This is on March 9, the day after: “Bankrupt of Fresh Ideas.” We like to think of it as they’re out of gas; they’re sputtering. The economy’s going this way and the spending is going this way. They’re in chaos, collapse, much like—Madam Speaker, through you—the time when I was the chair of the budget in Durham, in Clarington, in my riding. I met with Ed Philip and Floyd Laughren. Their economy was going into the tank, the NDP, and the expenditures for social programs and needed programs were going this way. They were out of control and they finally evoked the social contract. I think this

article is quite accurate. I’d encourage people to read it.

On the other side of it, the same clipping, it’s here—this is the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star is the Liberal-friendly media rag. We call it the Liberal briefing notes. It says, “No Big Cuts, Despite Deficit.” They have no plan to deal with it.

Now, what is the deficit? Let’s put things in perspective. The budget is approximately $106 billion and the deficit is $25 billion. So, in other words, they’re borrowing about 25 cents on every dollar they’re spending. That’s like a household buying a new car just after one of the parents lost their job. That’s the equivalent.

This really comes down to jobs and the economy. There is no plan in this, not just for my riding of Durham but for Ontario. It’s a dismal—I’m just repeating what the media says here: “Bankrupt of Fresh Ideas.” And they have a list here. It says, “$400-billion-a-year demand for clean-water technology.” Sounds good; where’s the money? You’re going to pay it when you turn on the tap, just like you’re going to pay when you turn on the switch for electricity.

Green energy, very nice idea—excellent idea, in fact, implemented with the right kind of tools, technology and partnerships with the universities? No, they went to Korea, to get the jobs and the technology from Korea. What an insult to our universities of Toronto, Western, Waterloo to have to go to—I just can’t believe the lack of confidence in our own institutions. When you think about it, what signal is that to our innovation economy? The work done by Richard Florida and Roger Martin on innovation and creativity: There isn’t a word in here about that except to go to Ms.

Pupatello, the minister, going over to China and India and all over the world. It should be here. It’s not buy Korea, it’s buy Ontario, buy Canada. There’s nothing in here on this and I’m so gravely disappointed.

Here’s another very excellent

article I recommend to the viewers and those listening or reading Hansard at some future date. This one is from the Globe and Mail, a reasonable, balanced paper, often pro-government, which is fine. But here’s what it says: “Canada’s Greece?” We’re all following Greece and the European Common Market and their problems. They’re in the tank; they’re falling off the cliff. That’s what they said. This is done by a renowned expert, Boyd Erman. “Canada’s Greece? Ontario Better Get Its Act Together” is what it says.

But not only that—the legitimacy for these comments isn’t mine. I’m going to read these. What it says here is “former central bank Governor David Dodge”—this guy is brilliant. He exceeds anything I or anyone else here, including the Premier, could ever say on the economy. This says that David Dodge suggests it is “a significant ‘structural’ deficit that will persist and grow even worse when the economy fully rebounds.” We have a structural deficit just like Greece. He goes on: “Mr. Dodge told a business audience in Toronto last week that Ontario’s spending is outpacing revenue growth so quickly that the result will be a structural deficit” of 3.5% of the province’s economy by 2020.

Each point in the economy represents about a billion and a half dollars of revenue when it goes up. When it goes down, you lose the revenue of $1.5 billion and your expenditures go up. What do I see now? The perfect storm, because that’s exactly what’s happening. I say it with some anguish, and I see nothing from the Premier or his finance minister—absolutely no plan. They avoided the questions that were asked by our leader, Tim Hudak, yesterday on the rising price of energy. This is a non-discretionary product. People—seniors in their homes; students; elderly, frail people that have oxygen in their homes—energy prices are going to double.

Why do I say that? There’s quite an interesting part. The new tax, the $56-billion tax, has been added to the electricity bill, and it’s only about four cents—right now they’re selling wind power. They’re getting companies in my riding, wind power and solar power—solar power: 80 cents a kilowatt hour, but they’re selling it for four and a half to five cents, so they’re subsidizing it by 70-some cents a kilowatt hour.

We all say, “I would like to be like Denmark as well.” What’s the price of energy in Denmark? It’s 34 cents. What is our energy? It’s about five or six cents. That means your electricity bill of $200 a month—I’m talking directly to the seniors of Ontario—is going to be $600. Write a letter to Dalton McGuinty or, better still, in October 2011, mark the ballot for someone that stands up for you, as opposed to one solution fits all, the big solution—our guys.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Pursuant to standing order 42(a), there have been 12 hours of debate on the motion for an address in reply to the speech from the throne. I am now required to put the question.

On March 9, 2010, Mr. Johnson moved, seconded by Mrs. Van Bommel, that an humble address be presented to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor as follows:

“To the Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

“We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech Your Honour has addressed to us.”

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of Mr. Johnson’s motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

This vote is deferred until deferred votes following question period.

Vote deferred.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): It being close to 10:15, this House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1013 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I’d like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the member from York West, to welcome students from Cardinal McGuigan high school and their teacher, Mr. Joseph Pulcini, who will be joining us today in the east gallery.

On behalf of the member from Vaughan and page Catia Marceau, we’d like to welcome her mother, Giulia Marceau, to the east members’ gallery.

On behalf of the member from Brampton West and page Colin Boyle, I’d like to welcome his father, Bill Boyle, to the Legislature today.

On behalf of the member from Ottawa–Orléans and page Anne-Marie Chamberland, we’d like to welcome her father, Denys Chamberland, here today.

Hon. Monique M. Smith: I don’t know if I missed it, but Mary Beth Caliciuri is here. She is Anthony Caliciuri’s mom, and he’s one of our pages from North Bay. Welcome to her.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I’d like to welcome Connie Neilipovitz, who is visiting with her son Ben, who is a page here in the Legislature. Welcome again, Connie.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question to the Acting Premier: As the Acting Premier knows, due to uncontrolled spending in recent years, the global crisis and a record budget deficit, Greece finds itself teetering on the brink of economic devastation. So it has come as a shock to Ontario families to hear experts like David Rosenberg of investment firm Gluskin Sheff say that Dalton McGuinty’s own record deficits and debt mean that Ontario “risks becoming the Greece of Canada within a decade or two.” Similar comments have been made by Moody’s and David Dodge, the former Bank of Canada governor.

Acting Premier, can you imagine how much greater the shock of Ontario families when they find out that unemployment in Ontario is actually higher than unemployment in Greece?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: I was pleased when the bond rating agencies maintained Ontario’s credit rating last year after the budget. I’m also pleased that in fact this government, unlike previous governments, actually paid down debt for its first six years.

There is no doubt that countries like Greece and others, who have a much worse record in terms of deficit and debt, have much higher deficit-to-GDP ratios, much higher deficit-to-revenue ratios than Ontario—not even in the same category—are confronting challenges.

But the plan this government has laid out is the right plan. It will get us back to balance. It will build on the great strengths of this province. It’s a plan, unlike a plan that they have yet to present.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Sadly, Ontario under Dalton McGuinty is on track to actually doubling its debt. We find out the minister has no plan to get the books back in order. Not only is unemployment in Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario higher than in Greece; Ontario has fallen behind 100 countries, including Bulgaria, the Central African Republic and South Korea.

In fact, we don’t even have to look outside North America to see a frightening comparison. California’s economy is in such bad shape, it has many wondering whether the state will collapse under its own debt and be bailed out by the national government in the States. California’s population is three times larger than Ontario’s. Acting Premier, why is Ontario’s deficit just as big and bad as California’s?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Actually, California can’t run deficits, and that’s why they’re laying off teachers and firefighters, closing schools and closing hospitals. That is what that leader and his party will do. They will close schools. They will close hospitals. They will lay off teachers. They will lay off nurses. They will cut the very services that are extremely—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The members will come to order, please.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The members will please come to order.

Minister.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: —closing hospitals, closing schools, laying off teachers, laying off nurses. We saw that—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The members will please come to order. I’m finding it extremely difficult to hear both the questions and the answers.

Minister.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: That’s their plan. Premier McGuinty and this government have a plan to build on our public services while restoring a balanced budget over a period of time. There’s no doubt that jurisdictions around the world are coping with these problems. Ontario is no different. Unlike that member, this government has a plan that will work for a better future—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Final supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: We don’t need any lectures from this finance minister who’s running the biggest deficit in the history of the province while laying off nurses, while closing down ERs and handing out sweetheart deals to his Liberal friends.

I ask you to look across the border in your hometown to Michigan. Michigan, as we all know, is having very difficult times. It’s a state much like Ontario, but unemployment in Ontario is actually higher than in Ann Arbor, Lansing or Kalamazoo. Michigan has a higher standard of living and a lower population.

But the Ontario PC caucus believes that Ontario’s best days are still ahead of us. We believe Ontario can lead again. I’ll ask the minister to stop following the example of Greece, stop following the example of California, and bring forward a budget that will actually lower taxes and create jobs in the province of Ontario—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Minister?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Unlike California, unlike Michigan, unlike Ohio, unlike West Virginia, employment has gone up 95,000 in Ontario since last May. We still have more to do.

Unfortunately, there are far too many people out of work in this province, but that leader and his party want to put more people out of work. They want to put nurses out of work. They want to put teachers out of work. They want to close more hospitals than the 39 they closed the last time they were in office. The people of Ontario rejected that once; they’ll reject it again. They will embrace a plan that builds on the great strengths of this province and will restore prosperity to this great province in a meaningful and balanced way over the course of the next few years.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Acting Premier: No doubt the desperate cry of the finance minister drowning in debt and job losses that have taken Ontario from being an engine in Canada to a have-not province—six years of Liberal failure that cost us 200,000 jobs in 2009 alone.

Today, through Facebook, I’m launching 10for2010.ca, our Ontario PC caucus website with 10 good ideas that, if implemented immediately, will get Ontario’s economy back on course and help create well-paying jobs again.

One of the ideas is to suspend payroll taxes. Why you’d want to tax businesses finally hiring today is beyond me. Minister, will you adopt the PC plan to suspend payroll taxes and help create jobs in our province?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: No. He might want to talk to his federal colleagues who are raising employment insurance premiums—almost $12 billion over the next two years to help pay down their deficit.

I hope his 10 plans don’t include closing 39 more hospitals like they did before. I hope his 10 points do not involve calling nurses hula hoops—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Simcoe North will please come to order.

Minister.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: I hope his 10 points don’t include shutting down child care in this province the way his federal brethren want to do. I hope his 10 points don’t involve laying off more water inspectors or laying off environmental inspectors. I hope your plan doesn’t include saying one thing and doing another, like you did on the HST.

There’s no doubt Ontario faces challenges. Premier McGuinty has got—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Well, I guess the finance minister hasn’t seen the Facebook video that launches 10for2010.ca, because the nanny Premier banned access to Facebook among government computers in our province. When you go home and visit my Facebook page, you’ll see another plan to help small businesses coping with the growing creep of red tape that has come across the Dalton McGuinty government. In our 10for2010.ca plan, we’re calling for a reinstatement of the Red Tape Commission and a freeze on your job-killing regulations until that commission is in place. We believe that small businesses need to be freed up for what they do best: creating jobs and investing in our province.

Minister, will you follow our advice and help cut red tape in the province and create jobs again?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Well, I hope on his Facebook page he’ll tell small business why he voted against the 20% tax cut we gave them in our last budget. I hope he’ll tell small businesses why he voted against removing all of those other tax impediments to small business growing in this province. I hope he’ll tell them on Facebook that his own expert witness says that this government has a plan to create 600,000 jobs over the next 10 years. That’s not our witness. That’s their witness.

That member and his people can put as many plans on Facebook as they want. I suppose it will be the Facebook Common Sense Revolution. Ontario rejected that once, and they’ll reject it again. This government has a plan. That party has no plan. Ontario’s—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Final supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: Here we go again. Part of their promise is somehow to create a million new jobs in Ontario when we lost 200,000 last year alone—they say that by slapping 8% down on gas for your car, heat for your home and all kinds of new services, that’s somehow going to create jobs in our province. This is definitely a finance minister who’s lost in Wonderland.

Also on our 10for2010.ca website, the minister will see a good plan to review runaway spending, following other North American jurisdictions, to bring in a sunset review for every agency, board and commission to justify it’s existence and find better ways to improve quality of services, starting with your local health integration networks, which have diverted $200 million out of health care into bureaucracy.

Minister, will you at least implement a sunset—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Minister?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: We constantly review all programs and services. Indeed, the rate of growth in expenditures in this government under the last few years is far below the rate of growth in expenditures of that government. The member and his Facebook friends like Mike Harris and others—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Minister?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: That plan was rejected seven years ago, and it will be rejected by the people of Ontario again. They want their governments to balance budgets, and we will. But we will do so as we make crucial investments to preserve the important gains we’ve made in health care, in education, in child care and in child services. There’s no doubt that there are difficult decisions. This government takes them and takes them in the best interests of the people of Ontario, unlike what that member and his party did when they were—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question?

JOB CREATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Acting Premier. The McGuinty government’s throne speech claimed clean water technology would bring thousands of jobs to Ontario, but just two days after the throne speech was delivered, General Electric announced that they would be closing a clean water technology plant in Burlington and moving operations to Hungary. Was this part of the McGuinty government’s plan?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: The undertakings the government has made in the area of clean water are very important, and there is no doubt that as we move forward and try to build that better future for this province there will be setbacks. There will also be gains associated with embracing new technologies and new industries in a way that that member and her party don’t want to do.

We want to build a better future for Ontario, and the throne speech is the first part of that. We’ll have more to say about it in the upcoming budget.

I reject the premise of her question. We believe Ontario will seize and will build this great new industry in Ontario—22,000 jobs already. We’re going to move forward, while she and her party want to move backward.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The technology used in that plant was designed right here in Ontario. Zenon was a world leader in water filtration with roots here in Ontario. Now the company is owned by GE, which is planning to build a centre of excellence for clean water technology in Hungary and taking good jobs out of Ontario. When this government waxed on about opening Ontario to the world, is that what it meant?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: That is precisely why we need a Water Opportunities Act to ensure that we do everything we can to prevent that sort of thing from happening. I hope the member and her party will embrace this legislative opportunity, which will help us work in this growing industry.

She’s right: It’s a competitive world out there. When she proposes to raise corporate taxes, she proposes to chase those companies out of Ontario. When she talks about issues like this, that just builds our resolve to bring in the act. My hope is that she and her party will support the act to ensure that situations like that don’t happen again. That is precisely why we’re bringing in this kind of legislation.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The Premier and his ministers talk about Open Ontario, but all I see are plants closing and more jobs disappearing day after day after day.

Yesterday, the Minister of Trade claimed that she had a secret plan to save 550 jobs at Siemens. Those jobs have gone to North Carolina. Now the McGuinty government tells us they have a plan to create clean water jobs, but those jobs are already gone too, to Hungary. When it comes to jobs, why should we believe anything—anything at all—that this government has to say?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: In spite of the downturn in the world economy since last May, Ontario has seen more than 90,000 net new jobs. We have made investments to support and work with industries across the spectrum. When we came to the assistance of General Motors and Chrysler, that member and her party were against doing that. When we made investments in a range of other industries, including the forestry and mining sectors, that member and her party were against it.

There is no doubt that there is more to do. There is no doubt that as Ontario emerges from this downturn—and we are emerging from the downturn—we will build a better and stronger economy, including clean water technologies. She has made the case why we need the act. I only hope that she’ll do what she says as opposed to saying one thing and doing another, which is her history and the history of her party.

MANUFACTURING JOBS

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also to the Acting Premier. Some 350,000 women and men have lost good manufacturing or resource jobs since this government was elected a couple of years ago. Many more are worried about the future and their precious jobs. They see access to Ontario’s natural resources and public money doled out to companies, but they don’t see good jobs being created right here. When will the McGuinty government finally address this jobs crisis?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: We began that two years ago. We began that when we invested in a range of industries, including the auto sector—400,000 jobs—which that member and her party voted against. We did that when we cut personal taxes and corporate taxes for businesses, which experts say will create 600,000 jobs and help the poorest in this province; that member and her party voted against it. We did that when we created the Green Energy Act, which will create 50,000 jobs in Ontario; that member and her party voted against it.

There’s no doubt that there’s more to do as Ontario comes out of this recession, but there’s one thing we do know: The people of Ontario are the best, most skilled workforce around. We’re going to continue to make those investments because Ontario is going to be bigger and better and stronger—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Well, I would agree with the finance minister that we have the best skilled workers in all of the world. It’s too bad they’re all out of work.

Ontario’s natural resources, our public assets, our tax dollars can actually be invested wisely to build our province and create good jobs here. But under this government, that is simply not happening. Whether it’s Xstrata shipping resources across the border to Quebec for the manufacturing to happen there, whether it’s General Electric shipping technology developed in Ontario to create jobs in Hungary or whether it’s Vale Inco simply shutting Sudbury down, this government is not—is not—looking out for Ontarians who need good jobs.

When will we finally see a real strategy to create and protect good jobs here in Ontario?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: You know, there are 91,000 more jobs in Ontario than there were last May. We still have a ways to go to make up from the downturn of the US and world economies. There’s more to do, and we’ll continue to do that.

I’d remind her that, in fact, some 93% of Ontarians are working. Not everybody is unemployed. That being said, for those who are, we are going to continue to make the investments that we’re making. We will continue through Employment Ontario, through Second Career and through our investments in a variety of industries to do the sorts of things that will help people get back to work as this economy grows and recovers.

The economy is growing again; it is going to recover. We’ll continue to make the kinds of investments that governments ought to make in order to help sustain that new growth.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Yesterday in Sudbury, I joined 5,000 striking Vale Inco workers and their families. Like too many companies operating in Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario, Vale has no ties to our province and no concern for the hard-working people who call Ontario home. The McGuinty government’s no-strings-attached corporate tax giveaways are not a strategy and won’t help people who need jobs to pay their bills.

When will this government finally clue in and deliver a real plan to get Ontarians back to work?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: You know, I think the people of Ontario see through her rhetoric. They recognize that we are in an extremely difficult and competitive world economy and that there are enormous challenges on all fronts.

All of us will continue to make the investments to build a better future for Ontario and build more jobs across a range of sectors, including the mining sector. We’ll have more to say about that on Thursday. We have a great belief in the future of this province’s economy, and we have the right policies to build employment, to build jobs and to grow this economy back to where it was before the world recession hit.

ENERGY RATES

Mr. John Yakabuski: My question is for the Acting Premier. Yesterday, you said that the budget won’t have new taxes, but on the same day, Enbridge and Union Gas representatives told the general government committee that the McGuinty Liberals want to slap the new energy tax on home heating bills.

You’ve been found out about your secret back-door tax on hydro. Are the McGuinty Liberals going to tax home heating fuel, too?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: To the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Hon. Brad Duguid: The member again comes to this House, just like yesterday when he came to the Legislature and said that a regulation wasn’t on the registry. Obviously, he could not find it himself through his own computer. Now that his leader has a new website, I’m going to suggest that his leader perhaps give him directions as to how to get onto that website, because he may need them.

Getting back to the member’s question: No, we have not made any decisions to move forward with any allocations with regard to the gas industries. We’re always looking for ways to conserve. It’s the best possible way for us to get the best value for consumers. We’ll continue to work with all partners in the energy sector on ways to provide better conservation initiatives. But the answer is no.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. John Yakabuski: Well, well, well. This wasn’t the first time that Dalton McGuinty said something different than one of his ministers. It wasn’t even the first time yesterday.

Minister Duguid twisted himself in knots, saying the back-door energy tax wasn’t a tax before the Premier said in fact it is a tax. The energy minister said it was a one-year deal, but later the Premier said he’s looking for ways to keep gouging Ontario seniors and families on their energy bills.

Enbridge and Union Gas said you’re eyeing them next, that “there have been a number of meetings” and “in terms of actual costs, that hasn’t been determined at this time.”

How much more will Ontario seniors and families pay because of the Liberals’ tax on home heating fuel?

Hon. Brad Duguid: The fact of the matter is—and if this member understood what conservation does—these initiatives will save consumers money. They will help us avoid having to make much—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I remind the member from Renfrew that he just asked a question. I can’t hear the answer. Obviously, you can’t either.

Hon. Brad Duguid: These initiatives will save consumers money. They help us avoid much more costly further investments in energy infrastructure and maintenance. They help us avoid having to make even more expansion of our green energy initiatives.

This is the most cost-effective way to handle our energy supply challenges. The member doesn’t understand that. It doesn’t come out of the blue. It was very much part of the Green Energy Act. If the member had read the act, he would have looked at

section 26.1 and known that this was an initiative that this Legislature passed some time—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

CHILD CARE

Mr. Rosario Marchese: My question is to the Minister of Education. Minister, yesterday we heard from 24 deputants in committee hearings on Bill 242. Almost all of them said the same thing: They were happy with Charles Pascal’s report and they were hoping they were going to get all of Pascal’s recommendations implemented. They never dreamed they’d get something different, and now they’re worried. Their worry is that when you pull out the four- and five-year-olds from child care providers, you remove an important source of revenue. It’s the revenue that subsidizes care for infants and younger children.

Without it, they will be crippled and many will not survive, and those that do will have to increase fees. What are you going to do to ensure that daycare providers remain viable?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I think that everyone in the House recognizes the importance of the legislative process. We are a government that, when we introduce legislation, it then goes to committee. We very much value the input that we receive at the committee level. I think that our record demonstrates very clearly we listen to what is presented and there is an impact, and we have considered amendments.

The member has identified points that have been raised at committee; they have been raised with my office; they’ve been raised with my colleague, the minister responsible for children and youth. What I can say to this assembly this morning is that we are paying very close attention. We are absolutely committed to investing in our earliest learners. That is without question. We are taking a staged approach in terms of how this is going to—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Minister, I’m glad you’re listening—I really am—because this problem is not going away. There are going to be hearings today, and they’re going to say the same thing. There will be hearings on Monday, and they will be saying the same thing. It’s important that you are listening, because when you take the four- and five-year-olds out of those child care providers, it’s going to hurt. When you take the preschool and after-school programs away from those child care providers, it’s going to make it worse.

Are you, and when are you, going to provide stabilization funding that will allow schools to hold on to these providers as partners?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: What I would say is that when you have four- and five-year-olds in a full-day learning program in our school communities, that’s good for students and that’s good for their parents. That’s what we’ve been hearing across Ontario—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Nepean—and the comments from the member from Peterborough are not helpful.

Minister?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: We know the member from Nepean is not supportive of full-day learning.

I do want to note that I have a quote that says, “It’s a good initiative and we support the initiative.... It is a public good, it’s good for kids, it’s good for mothers and fathers....” That came from Rosario Marchese, the member from Trinity–Spadina.

So I can say to the honourable member, who thinks this is a very good initiative, that we are listening very carefully to those who are—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Bill Mauro: This question is for the Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry. Today is Meet the Miners Day at Queen’s Park, and I’d like to take this opportunity to ask about our province’s latest mineral development opportunity. In our government’s throne speech earlier this month, we heard that the Ring of Fire is part of the Open Ontario plan. There’s a lot of excitement about the Ring of Fire in the north. It is being hailed as one of the most promising mineral developments in northern Ontario in perhaps a century.

While there’s a lot of excitement around this opportunity, people are wondering how communities surrounding the Ring of Fire feel about it. I understand that last week, the minister visited four communities that surround the Ring of Fire. Would he please tell the House about that visit?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Thank you very much for the question; I appreciate it. Indeed, last week I did have the opportunity to visit four First Nations communities in the Ring of Fire: Neskantaga, Eabametoong, Marten Falls and Webequie. While I was there, I met with chiefs, councillors, elders and members of the community, stressing our government’s commitment to working with them as the Ring of Fire project moves forward. Certainly the visit was a very valuable experience. It gave me and my staff an opportunity to continue to strengthen our relationship with the chiefs and the councils in those communities.

One very important thing that came out of our visit was the removal of a blockade on two frozen airstrips, a blockade that Marten Falls and Webequie had put up in the last two months. The removal of the blockade was a very positive step forward.

My ministry will continue to work closely with the First Nations and the companies with interests in the area to strengthen our relationships and see the Ring of Fire become a success and a benefit for—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Bill Mauro: Minister, after your visit I read in several news articles that Marten Falls Chief Elijah Moonias said that a big reason for the blockade coming down was due to the visit that you and your officials made last week. This is very positive news and is proof of the government’s ongoing commitment to work with First Nations communities surrounding the Ring of Fire.

However, I also read that the removal of the blockade could be temporary if First Nations communities do not see progress in their talks with government and industry over the course of the next six months.

Would the minister please tell the House how you and your ministry plan on working with these First Nations communities in the near future?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: I thank the member for the question. Certainly, when we see developments such as the Ring of Fire in the Far North, I believe it translates into hope and opportunity for those communities. Thus, it is incredibly important that we get it right and that it is managed correctly: done in a way that does address communities’ environmental concerns and their need to be consulted, obviously, and provide good economic development opportunities. We now have a real opportunity to move forward.

Again, I want to assure you and the communities involved that my ministry will continue to work very, very closely with all of the communities affected as well as with industry. There are some tremendous partnerships being formed and we’re seeing benefits arising already. At the prospectors and developers’ convention, there was a signing between four First Nations, which again showed that that kind of co-operation and work can be done together. We’re going to work very closely to see this happen.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Peter Shurman: My question is also to the Acting Premier. A pattern has developed where the Premier and his cabinet ministers cannot seem to keep their stories straight. Premier McGuinty couldn’t even get through announcing the Samsung deal before admitting that there won’t be 16,000 jobs and that he gave away the store to get 1,400 full-time jobs. Later, Minister Duguid said that there might be as many as 4,400 full-time jobs. Did the energy minister make a rookie mistake, or was he just making things up, or was he admitting that the McGuinty Liberal sweetheart Samsung deal subsidized 3,000 jobs in Korea?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: To the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Hon. Brad Duguid: There is so much misinformation in that question I’m not sure where to start. The fact is, and the Premier said this time and time again, the Samsung initiative will bring 16,000 jobs to this province—16,000 jobs that you don’t support; 16,000 workers that would not otherwise be working; 16,000 families that are going to benefit from our green energy initiatives. That is just the start, because the Green Energy Act overall will bring 50,000 jobs to this province over the next three years.

We’re very proud of the initiative. It really does provide a real boost of creating a hub here in Ontario. This initiative puts Ontario on the map internationally. Ontario is now the place, the destination when it comes to green energy development in the world—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Shurman: The minister is right. I can’t keep track of his numbers because they change every day and job numbers never come true.

Even though unemployment is lower in South Korea than Ontario, Dalton McGuinty is sending jobs to a country that the OECD ranks as one of the world’s most industrious and he’s making Ontario families and businesses pay for the honour of growing Korea’s economy. Each time McGuinty slaps a new tax on energy bills, he raises business costs and drives jobs out of Ontario—200,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs.

Because he only has aspirational plans, Dalton McGuinty ended up subsidizing foreign companies like Samsung and Ubisoft to bring jobs to Ontario. When will the McGuinty Liberals stop treating energy as a social policy and start making energy an economic policy so they can create jobs instead of buying them?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I’ve just been informed that that famous website of the Leader of the Opposition says that you would cancel that Samsung initiative; you would give away those 16,000 jobs. You talk about being committed to jobs and yet when you see jobs being created here you want to distinguish whether they’re construction jobs or not—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Members will please come to order. They were doing well for a while.

Minister?

Hon. Brad Duguid: We’re building the economy of the future. We’re building the next generation of jobs in this province. We’re not going back to the energy policies that they want us to go back to, and those are the energy policies that involve reliance on coal. We’re well past there. We’re building this new economy on the next generation of jobs, on the green economy. We’re leading the world. There is interest from all over the world in the work that we’re doing here in this province—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

MANUFACTURING JOBS

Mr. Paul Miller: My question is to the Minister of Consumer Services. Last week, our community of Hamilton suffered another economic blow. Siemens announced they would be cutting 550 good jobs, jobs that put food on the table and pay the bills every month for those families. Based on what we know, the McGuinty government’s negotiations with the company failed miserably. As Hamilton’s only voice at the cabinet table, what did the minister know about these negotiations and when did she know?

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I just remind that you need to refer that to the appropriate minister.

Hon. Sophia Aggelonitis: Can I answer the first part?

I want to thank the member for my first question in the House coming from a Hamiltonian. It’s not a question for the Ministry of Consumer Services, so in my supplementary I will send it to the Acting Premier, but let me just say that, as a Hamiltonian, I was disappointed in Siemens going to North Carolina. Absolutely, I was disappointed. But you know what? I’m very optimistic. Hamilton is a great city with the best skilled workforce and we will definitely get more jobs to Hamilton.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order. Supplementary?

Mr. Paul Miller: There must be an election coming.

Either the Minister of Consumer Affairs is representing Hamilton or she’s not. It’s important that she’s on top of what her government is doing to protect jobs in our community. But it seems that the McGuinty government went into negotiations with Siemens without much of a plan, and now 550 families are paying the price as $26-an-hour jobs head to North Carolina. This is a serious Hamilton economic issue and the minister of Hamilton needs to account for her and her government’s failure.

How did the McGuinty government so badly bungle the Siemens negotiations?

Hon. Sophia Aggelonitis: To the Acting Premier.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Hamilton is lucky to have that member standing up for their interests. What a contrast. You have a member who speaks to a brighter future and progress for Hamilton versus a voice of the old ways, the old days and no jobs.

We were extremely disappointed that we lost the competition on that particular project. But I’d remind that member that he voted against putting the money in the budget to be there in the negotiation in the first place. He has done nothing—nothing—to help his community through these difficult times. He has done nothing to help this province. That member and our members from Hamilton have stood up—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

INTERNET SECURITY

Mrs. Laura Albanese: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Hamilton East will please come—

Interjections.

Mr. Paul Miller: What a knight you are; a white knight.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Hamilton East.

Please continue.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: My question is to the Minister of Education. Children today spend a lot of time on the Internet. It is incredibly important—

Interjections.

Mr. Paul Miller: You’re sickening.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Hamilton East will please watch the language that he uses within this chamber.

Please continue.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: As I was saying, my question is directed to the Minister of Education. Our children today spend a lot of time on the Internet, and it is incredibly important that they are protected from possible predators. While parents are the best people to teach and guide their children’s online habits, teachers also play a vital role. Parents and teachers in my riding of York South–Weston and across the province understand the importance of working together to ensure that all our children are protected.

In the past, our government has dedicated resources to boards to educate our students about Internet safety, as well as for non-profit groups such as the Kids Internet Safety Alliance.

Minister, what is our government, and your ministry in particular, doing to protect children during their online activities?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: A very important question, because I think that the people of Ontario do want to understand how we are working in government to protect our young people. My ministry has been working very closely with the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. We have committed to a number of initiatives. We have the CyberCops initiative. It is particular software for grade 7 and 8 students and it deals with the issues of cybertheft, extortion and Internet luring. We also have the KINSA initiative, which is the Kids Internet Safety Alliance.

They have received $500,000 to provide a DVD to parents for students to talk to them and educate them about Internet safety issues. Just in the past fall, we committed $750,000 to the Ontario physical education association as they have put resources together—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: Minister, there are many concerns with our children surfing online in ensuring that they are aware of the dangers posed by the Internet. The increasing importance of Internet safety resurfaced a couple of weeks ago after a province-wide OPP raid brought to light a child pornography ring. Shortly after this event, many media articles noted that Ontario’s updated education curriculum would include an increased focus on Internet safety. This is great news for parents, as it will supplement the education that they provide to their children in their homes.

Minister, could you provide further information about the Internet safety updates to the curriculum?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: We have heard from parents—who are very concerned about ensuring that we protect their children—about these very serious matters. Because we have just recently reviewed the Ontario curriculum in our schools, we have addressed Internet safety in that we have revised all curriculum documents in all subjects, in all grades, from grades 1 to 12. A review of our physical and health education curriculum in grades 1 to 8 has recently been completed, and as a result of that, we have put Internet safety in that curriculum. We’ve also revised the grades 9 to 12 curriculum. In September 2010, this curriculum will be implemented—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

USE OF TASERS

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: My question today is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Two weeks ago, in your throne speech, policing stakeholders were very disappointed to learn that there was no mention of policing or community safety in the throne speech. Minister, do you agree that front-line police officers in Ontario should be trained and equipped with conductive energy weapons?

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: Let me say that I am very proud of our government’s investments in policing across Ontario. I will compare our investments against the former government’s investments at any time. I will compare our record of support for policing in the province of Ontario against their record any time. I will compare our record of investment with regard to police officers on the street against their record and their federal brothers’ record at any time.

What I would ask of them is that they help us in convincing the federal government to make their police officer program a permanent one.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: I guess you don’t support it then. You didn’t answer the question, so you obviously don’t support it.

Our leader, Tim Hudak, and the PC caucus believe that front-line officers should be trained and equipped with conductive energy weapons.

In the budget this week, your government will include $25 million in severance packages for tax collectors who will have higher-paying jobs the very next day as HST tax collectors—certainly a very, very bad deal for Ontario taxpayers.

I don’t have to remind you, Minister, that police officers are men and women who put their lives on the line each and every day of the week. Are you preparing to set aside funding in the budget to train and equip our front-line police officers with taser technology? A simple yes or no would do—a simple yes or no.

Hon. Rick Bartolucci: Just to clarify, the Tories put that clause in the agreement, just so that we all understand. All right. The Tories put it in. Let’s make no mistake about that.

Listen, our government will continue to take a measured approach with regard to tasers. We brought our policing partners together. Very shortly, we’ll be issuing those guidelines. It is a co-operative effort and a collaborative effort. We believe in partners in policing, not dictating to policing. That’s what that government used to do. That’s what that party still condones. We believe that it is very important to bring the partners to the table to make joint, shared decisions.

LABOUR DISPUTE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Acting Premier. Yesterday, I joined 5,000 women, men and children to support a fair deal for Vale Inco workers who have been on strike now for eight months. Vale Inco is making billions of dollars off of our natural resources and trying to squeeze more profits at the expense of Sudbury families. When will the McGuinty government get off the fence and stand in solidarity with Vale Inco workers and their families?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: To the Minister of Labour.

Hon. Peter Fonseca: I want to thank the member for the question. All of us here in this chamber and across Ontario, but especially in the community of Sudbury, understand that this is a difficult and frustrating time.

We were pleased that, a few weeks ago, the parties did get together and have some talks. Now, those talks have been suspended. What I say to the parties is that they must roll up their sleeves and double their efforts. They need to put their differences aside. They have to come back to the table to resolve those differences. That is the only way we are going to get a stable, productive agreement to allow the community to move forward. This is where my efforts are; this is where the efforts of this government are. We are there to assist the parties, to help them come together—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I have to say that I didn’t see a single frustrated person; I saw a hell of a lot of devastated people in Sudbury the other day.

The Premier and his cabinet, including the minister from Sudbury, have been silent as thousands of workers have been languishing on the picket line. They’ve also refused to support the NDP’s proposal, which would ban replacement workers in this province, and that would force Vale Inco into ending this strike. How much longer are the workers and their families going to have to wait before this government does the right thing and supports a ban on scabs in Ontario?

Hon. Peter Fonseca: The member’s rhetoric is what stops parties from coming together. It is Minister Bartolucci and the way that he acts in the community that brings the parties together, by working with them and understanding that the only way for us to move forward, for that community to move forward, is for all of them to put those differences aside, to get back to the table and to find where they have common ground. That’s what we are doing at the Ministry of Labour by assisting with our mediation services.

I do know they have a senior mediator who is working closely with the parties, but agreements reached at the bargaining table will be the ones that are stable, productive and the type of agreement that they need—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

TOURISM

Mr. Rick Johnson: My question is for the Minister of Tourism and Culture. In the minister’s response to a previous question I raised in the House, he stated that increased visitors are a must for Ontario and for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock. I agree. There is a clear need for increased visitors to Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock. In achieving this goal, we can stimulate our local economy and support Ontario’s overall economy.

Efficiency, marketing and coordination are vital to bringing more visitors, but so are direct investments into the community.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Tourism and Culture, what steps will the minister take to support increased investments to Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock so that we can attract more visitors year in and year out?

Hon. Michael Chan: I want to thank the honourable member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock for the question. Without a doubt, tourism is an economic driver of Ontario. Celebrate Ontario is a program that touches local communities across the province. Festivals and events in Ontario play an important role in generating $23 billion for our economy. In Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock alone, through Celebrate Ontario, we are investing close to $140,000 in eight festivals this year. Since 2007, we have invested close to over $400,000.

I know that the honourable member is a strong advocate for local tourism. We remain committed to supporting communities like his area. They are at the heart of Ontario—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Rick Johnson: Such investments will make a significant difference. Festivals and events such as the Globus Theatre’s summer season, Fiesta Buckhorn, 4th Line Theatre summer season in Millbrook, the CBCA national sheepdog championships and Wilberforce Agricultural Fair all play a vital role.

Providing such support will stimulate our local economy and help promote our communities. When we support these festivals and events, we strengthen their programs. It supports the community and the local organizers, and will increase visitors. Strengthening these festivals and events also provides more opportunities for growth and long-term sustainability with regard to funding.

To the minister: What are you doing to support these festivals and events so that they remain viable and attract more visitors to Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock now and well into the future?

Hon. Michael Chan: When we strengthen these festivals and events, they are certainly opportunities for growth. Our support does just that: It provides opportunities, and that’s why we remain committed to supporting festivals and events.

Our commitment is clear: Since 2003, our government has invested more than $140 million through more than 2,800 grants. This year’s investment of almost $12 million in Celebrate Ontario will support hundreds of festivals and events across the province.

Whether it’s through Celebrate Ontario or the tourism event marketing partnership program, our support will continue. We know that supporting our festivals and events will help our communities and our economy moving forward.

MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. John O’Toole: My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Minister, recently you received and rejected a growth plan from the region of Durham. This plan was prepared after more than two years of consultation with citizens, experts and stakeholders within Durham. This plan has been endorsed by Durham region’s council.

Minister, why do you think that politicians and bureaucrats at Queen’s Park are better qualified to plan for Durham than their duly elected representatives locally?

Hon. James J. Bradley: You always have to start by saying, I want—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order.

Hon. James J. Bradley: I can’t hear from the noise coming from the member from—where?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: Lanark.

Hon. James J. Bradley: The member for Lanark is interjecting because what he may be concerned about, the member for Lanark, is that when the gentleman behind him, my good friend Bill Murdoch, suggested the boundaries be changed—in other words, a separate Toronto and a separate rest of the province—he forgot to say that the government that did the most to hurt rural Ontario was the government that took away 27 seats from this Legislature. The impact of that on rural Ontario was so bad that the people of rural Ontario should not forget which government took away all of their power.

I was going to answer the question—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary.

Mr. John O’Toole: That answer is simply shameful.

Mr. Robert Bailey: Unacceptable.

Mr. John O’Toole: It’s unacceptable when you’re so evasive on such an important issue to Durham.

Minister, it’s hard to believe that a government facing a $25-billion deficit and a $3-billion tax increase is in any position to give advice to elected representatives in Durham. But let’s set aside your government’s Big Brother tactics for a moment.

It’s my understanding that Durham region’s growth plan is projected to increase by 25,000 more jobs in Durham. Now, the issue is, Minister, that your government is rejecting Durham’s growth plan because the McGuinty government wants to put those jobs somewhere else.

Minister, is it fair that your government picks winners and losers? Or do you think it’s fair of the government to stifle Durham region’s job plan and investment in Durham?

Hon. James J. Bradley: The member should know that all of the consultation took place, first of all, when there was the development of the Places to Grow Act in the province of Ontario. That was to affect the greater Golden Horseshoe. All the plans that we look at across the province of Ontario, as they are submitted for consideration, take into account the Places to Grow document.

Instead of having the kind of urban sprawl that your government permitted, where you paved over all kinds of farmland and paved over all kinds of environmentally sensitive areas, our government looked at all aspects of it and tried to ensure that—you were transportation critic, so you know how important it is to concentrate population instead of allowing that sprawl. Our government is ending that urban sprawl—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

Mr. Howard Hampton: My question is for the Minister of Health. Christopher Pelletier must travel 350 kilometres to see medical specialists in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. Each trip to see a medical specialist is very expensive to him. He applies for and receives northern health travel grant assistance, but it takes more than 10 weeks for the northern health travel grant system to respond. In fact, it takes so long that, in the last six months, he has had to cancel four medical specialist appointments because the northern health travel grant system doesn’t keep up with the cost of these trips.

My question is this: Does the minister think it is appropriate that residents of northern Ontario are forced to cancel medical specialist appointments because the northern health travel grant office doesn’t keep up with the—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Minister?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I would like to thank the member opposite for the question. This is an issue that has not been brought to my attention before, and it is one that I will most definitely look into. If the member opposite would share the details with me, I would be more than happy to do it.

I think access to care for people who live across this province, in different parts of this magnificent province, is an issue that we really are starting to focus some attention on. We’ve got the northern and rural health panel that is very close to releasing its draft report that will then trigger broader consultations. We really do need to get this right. We have made tremendous advancements in health care, and we need to make sure that excellent health care is available to people across Ontario, regardless of where they live in this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Howard Hampton: Minister, you should have Mr. Pelletier’s letter in your office. He sent it to your office on March 13. But he’s not alone. There are literally dozens and dozens of families who are being forced to cancel medical specialist appointments in places like Thunder Bay or Winnipeg because when they call the northern health travel grant office, the office says, “No, we’re not even going to deal with your application until after 10 weeks.” This puts people in a very difficult position. In Mr.

Pelletier’s case, his physician has said, “You need to have surgery.” But he can’t afford to go to Winnipeg to have surgery because he has three travel grants that haven’t been paid, and he doesn’t have the money.

I ask the question again: Do you think people in northern Ontario should have to sacrifice their health because the northern health travel grant office is so slow to respond?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Again, I do thank the member for bringing this to my attention. It is something that I suspect people in my office are already looking into. I will do my best to address the issue that he has raised with this particular constituent.

I think the member opposite does bring to light an issue that is one we do need to do some work on. In fact, we are focusing attention on that very issue. The northern health travel grant enhancements project is on track. Their goal is to reduce application processing times and further reduce the claims processing time. It is a challenge for us. We’re working on it, and I will report back to the member as we make progress on this.

RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Mr. Jim Brownell: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Minister, broadband Internet access is viewed today as essential infrastructure for both our social and economic well-being. While urban residents have had access to powerful broadband connections for years, many residents in our remote and rural areas have not realized the same benefit. Given the importance of being connected in this day and age, access to broadband infrastructure should be available to as many Ontarians as possible, including our rural businesses and residents.

In my riding of Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry, local municipalities are looking to attract new businesses. Services such as access to fast Internet connections are integral to companies deciding to locate in the area.

Could the minister inform this House about the steps our government has taken to ensure rural access to broadband infrastructure?

Hon. Carol Mitchell: I do want to thank the member for the question. I want to be very succinct in my answer. There have been significant investments made by the McGuinty government in the information highway. Not only have we made significant investments in remote and rural communities on our actual highways, but we recognize that the information highway brings more industry and creates jobs.

The investments have been significant: $27 million for 47 broadband projects, including $520,000 to the county of Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry; $849,000 to South Glengarry township; $55 million to fund a regional broadband proposal from the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus; and $32.75 million under the Broadband Canada: Connecting Rural Canadians program to support projects across rural and northern Ontario.

The McGuinty government gets it. We recognize that these investments in rural Ontario will remain—that Ontario rural communities are strong. We will—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. The time for question period has ended.

PRESENTATION OF THRONE SPEECH

Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Our fundamental abilities as elected members of this Legislature and opposition are guided by the very rules of this Legislature. Each and every member here is elected to represent the constituency that has given us the privilege and honour to best represent it. This representation is founded through our ability to stand in our place and vote on behalf of our constituents.

On December 16, 2004, the member from Oak Ridges stood on a point of order, and, as it relates to that point, I quote Speaker Curling’s ruling where he specifically states, “whether the announcement goes further and reflects adversely on the parliamentary process,” as stated on February 22, 2005.

A tradition was upheld during a previous throne speech when the then-minister from Leeds–Grenville stepped aside during a review of what I see as a similar statement.

To add to that, my point of order reflects on page 12 of the throne speech, where it specifically states, “It will introduce legislation to make health care providers and executives accountable for improving patient care.”

Mr. Speaker, I ask you to rule if the parliamentary process has been circumvented as a result of the statement found on page 9 of the throne speech, where it specifically states, “That’s why, starting this fall, full-day learning for four- and five-year-olds will begin at schools across our province.” Bill 242, dealing with all-day kindergarten, is still before the Legislature.

The difficulty that we find here is that it appears to be a fait accompli—that the decision has been made for each and every one of us elected to vote on behalf of our constituents. Speaker, I would ask for your review.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I thank the honourable member for his point of order. Bearing in mind that he has made references to previous rulings, and I do not have the luxury of having the throne speech and those specific pages that he made reference to, I will reserve judgment on that ruling.

Mr. John Yakabuski: On another point of order, Speaker: I rise on a point of order under standing order 23, specifically subsections (

h) and (i). Today, during question period, the Acting Premier’s replies to questions from the Leader of the Opposition alleged as to what the leader and the Ontario PC caucus would do if we formed the next government. It is somewhat ironic—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order.

Mr. John Yakabuski: It is somewhat ironic, given the Acting Premier said with one breath that we have no plan, but impugned in another our plans if we are elected. With all his sucking and blowing, he stepped outside the decorum of the House, alleging that we will cut health care and close hospitals. In point of fact, Tim Hudak, our leader, is on record as saying that a PC government will mak