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September 15, 2016

41st Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2016-Sep-15 (PDF)

L004 - Thu 15 Sep 2016 / Jeu 15 sep 2016

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 15 September 2016 Jeudi 15 septembre 2016

Orders of the Day

Throne speech debate / Débat sur le discours du trône

Estimates

Throne speech debate (continued) / Débat sur le discours du trône (suite)

Private members’ public business

Introduction of Visitors

Member for Niagara West–Glanbrook

Oral Questions

Hydro rates

Autism treatment

Government policies

Government policies

Cancer treatment

Automotive industry

Affordable housing

Assistance to farmers

Mercury poisoning

International trade

Hydro rates

Government policies / Politiques du gouvernement

Consumer protection

Members’ Statements

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Bankruptcy and insolvency law

Terry Fox Day

Henry and Barb Lansink

Charles Henry Byce

Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Hospital services

Riding of Etobicoke North

Thornhill Village Festival

Introduction of Bills

Ontario Rebate for Electricity Consumers Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur la remise de l’Ontario pour les consommateurs d’électricité

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

Helping Volunteers Give Back Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 visant à aider les bénévoles à contribuer

Hazel McCallion Day Act, 2016 / Loi de 2016 sur le Jour de Hazel McCallion

Statements by the Ministry and Responses

Hydro rates

Petitions

Hydro rates

Energy policies

Hydro rates

Regenerative agriculture

Privatization of public assets

Hydro rates

Privatization of public assets

GO Transit

Highway ramps

Hydro rates

Highway ramps

Estimates

Orders of the Day

Throne speech debate

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Throne speech debate / Débat sur le discours du trône

Resuming the debate adjourned on September 14, 2016, on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate. Member from Prince Edward–Hastings.

Mr. Todd Smith: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and good morning. I was just getting warmed up yesterday afternoon when, unfortunately, the clock struck 6 and it was time to go down and check out some of the receptions here at Queen’s Park and find out who was joining us in the Legislature.

We were talking about the throne speech and the fact that the price of electricity has gone through the roof, to a point where it’s completely unaffordable for many people, particularly in rural Ontario. For the five years that I’ve been here, Madam Speaker—good morning to you; I hope your drive in from Scarborough was excellent this morning—we’ve been telling this government that the power generation contracts that they’ve signed, 20-year contracts—they started signing these back in 2009, under the Green Energy Act—were too rich for the consumer.

We were told, though, by the government that that wasn’t the case, that that wasn’t the cost. We were told that the rates weren’t going up because of generation costs; we were told it was because of improvements to the grid. But we now know that’s not the case, either.

A couple of days ago the C.D. Howe Institute wrote the minister to explain to him that the increase in Ontario’s electricity prices is almost entirely due to generation costs, as we’ve been saying all along. Yesterday, Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro wrote the Premier an open letter demonstrating that on the average bill, with an 800-kilowatt hour-monthly usage, there’s been an 8% increase in distribution costs since 2006 but there’s been a 113% increase in generation costs since 2006. In fact, the generation costs in 2016 are now slightly more than the entire bill was in 2006.

So now that the guys who actually send the bills have told us that it’s not the grid that’s costing us, it’s the generation that’s sending bills through the roof, I’d like to use the 168th time now that I’ve stood in this Legislature to talk about energy rates since being elected in 2011, that the government stop peddling that line. It’s a line that is built in fantasy. It should have a Tin Man and a Scarecrow attached to it; it’s that much of a fantasy.

Forgetting for a second that every single party in the Legislature—there are three of us—voted to end the use of coal; a long time ago we voted to end the use of coal. As a matter of fact, it was 13 years ago; it was back in 2003. Forgetting that this government pushed back the scrap-out of coal in the last 13 years a couple of different times, and forgetting about the fact that the first coal plant was actually closed by a member of the PC government, Elizabeth Witmer—this is another line that bears no relation to reality.

The government keeps perpetrating or insinuating or telling the people of Ontario that they’re the only ones that wanted to phase out coal, and that’s simply another fantasy.

Madam Speaker, we hit the power peak back in 2007, and we haven’t come close to hitting that peak since that year. At any time on a given day, we’re capable of generating between 8,000 and 10,000 more megawatts than we’re going to use. We consistently use about 3,000 to 4,000 fewer megawatts of power than we have ever used, and that’s largely due to the fact that a lot of the manufacturers have left Ontario and gone to other low-cost-power jurisdictions. And it’s also because of the recession.

It’s the Premier’s predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, who always bragged that this government was also putting 16 natural gas stations on line. It’s those natural gas stations that have really replaced coal as the main supplier of electricity. The natural gas lines have replaced coal. It’s certainly not the wind and solar installations that are out there, which energy experts are telling us are causing chaos on the grid. The C.D. Howe Institute just told us, a couple of days ago, that it’s these types of generators that are putting the cost of electricity through the roof in Ontario, and this government doesn’t seem to want to realize that fact.

All of these expensive contracts that we’re paying out to Samsung and NextEra and all of these other wind and solar companies aren’t replacing coal. They just simply cannot do that. They don’t have the capacity to do that. It’s the natural gas; it’s the increase in our nuclear power.

They are, however—these NextEra and Samsung and other renewable projects we’ve locked in for 20 years at exorbitant subsidies—providing low-cost power to New York and Pennsylvania on a regular basis, because after we pay the premium for those types of electricity that we can’t use, we then sell them for pennies on the dollar to these neighbouring jurisdictions, something that the Premier earlier this week referred to as a profit. I think we’ve had a pretty good debate on what actually is profit and what’s not profit. Clearly that’s not.

The former minister told us electricity prices were competitive as long as we didn’t include the global adjustment. Well, the global adjustment is the biggest part of the bill for many, many residents, manufacturers and small business people in Ontario right now. It’s not the actual kilowatt hour usage. It’s the global adjustment that’s attached to that, and if you sat down at any meeting with those in the manufacturing sector, where they actually have the line item “global adjustment” on their bill, it’s evident that it’s killing business in Ontario. It simply is.

It’s not just me that says this. I have a story that was in, I believe, the Belleville Intelligencer from the AMO conference, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, earlier this summer, down in Windsor. The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus was talking about the global adjustment and what it means for businesses in eastern Ontario—and it’s not just eastern Ontario but all regions of the province. It’s the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus chair, Peter Emon, who is the warden of Renfrew county, who said:

“In the case of energy costs they are increasing at an unprecedented pace with no end in sight and the reality is that rural customers are shouldering a disproportionate burden compared to their urban counterparts. High energy costs force families to choose between electricity bills and other basic necessities and services, posing a growing threat of ‘energy poverty’ across our region and the province....

“Large businesses, particularly in the industrial manufacturing sector of eastern Ontario, are feeling the impact of GA charges....

“This is because GA fees must make up the difference between energy consumption and conservation. In short, when Ontario consumers use less electricity, GA costs increase to cover the minimum revenues that energy producers are guaranteed.”

So it’s these long-term contracts that the government has failed to realize are driving up the cost of electricity for our manufacturers, for our small business people and regular people at home in Ontario.

What did they do in the throne speech Monday afternoon? They announced that they were putting a Band-Aid on this situation, to try and get them through to the next election, by taking the 8% portion of the HST off bills. But clearly they haven’t dealt with the root problem, and that is these contracts. What’s worse is that they made no mention in the throne speech, Madam Speaker, of stopping that practice. They’re continuing to put these types of projects on the grid. They don’t realize that by what they’re doing they are responsible for the exorbitant cost of electricity in Ontario.

The current minister, after almost a decade in Ottawa trying to raise the issue of rural and specifically northern energy costs, came to Queen’s Park, became a cabinet minister and suddenly rural energy prices weren’t a crisis for him. He is the member for Sudbury and our new Minister of Energy. At least, that’s what he said about a month ago. He said that it wasn’t a crisis in rural Ontario. Apparently, becoming a minister for this Premier alters your reality pretty quickly.

So we had events in this order: We had a Liberal by-election loss in a part of the province that they hadn’t lost in 30 years—and good morning to Mr. Raymond Cho, who is here this morning. Good to see you, sir, and congratulations on your victory. We had, right after that—a week after that—a Thursday prorogation that, according to the Canadian press, even surprised some members of the Liberal cabinet. We had a Premier’s office trying all weekend to convince us that they had heard the message and they knew hydro rates were a real problem.

It was fun to spend last weekend trying to figure out what they would do, and at the end of the day they really didn’t do much. They took the 8% off of electricity bills. It was 8% that this Premier and 20 of her cabinet ministers voted against removing from hydro bills when they had the opportunity five years ago, in November 2011. We were here and we had a bill that was presented by a member of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Mantha.

The NDP supported that bill to remove the HST from hydro bills and the PCs supported that bill to remove the HST from hydro bills, but what did Premier Wynne—well, she wasn’t Premier at the time, but what did Kathleen Wynne and 20 of her current cabinet ministers do at that time? They voted against that proposition. Five years ago they had the opportunity to provide some relief and they chose not to do that.

You know, it was an 8% that the Minister of Economic Development at the time and the Attorney General denigrated as bad policy when the opposition attempted to bring it in five years ago. Now we have members of the government standing and taking pride in the fact that they’ve listened to the people of Ontario and that they’ve heard their concerns? I have been up 168 times, myself, talking about the rising cost of electricity in this Legislature, and I know that all of the others around me have been up a lot more than that.

Madam Speaker, 60,000 thousand families—60,000 families—have had their service cut off; hundreds in my region. A 74-year-old woman in McArthur’s Mills that I was talking about yesterday had her power cut off. She has to drive into Bancroft to get her water. She has to bathe at her neighbour’s house. This is Ontario. This is Ontario, Madam Speaker, and this government has made a mess of it.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I recognize the President of the Treasury Board.

Estimates

Hon. Liz Sandals: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I have a message from the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the Lieutenant Governor, signed by her own hand.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): The Lieutenant Governor transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending 31 March 2017 and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly.

Throne speech debate (continued) / Débat sur le discours du trône (suite)

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I recognize the member from London West.

Ms. Peggy Sattler: It is a privilege for me to rise today, on behalf of the people I represent in London West, to offer some thoughts on the remarks from the member for Prince Edward–Hastings.

As I listened to the last part of his speech, I heard him talk about the AMO—the Association of Municipalities of Ontario—conference, which many MPPs attended over the summer. I have to say, in my conversation with some of the councillors from the city of London who attended AMO, one of them in particular remarked on the fact that this AMO conference was unique in terms of the number of times that rising electricity costs were identified as a concern for municipalities across the province. She commented that everybody that she spoke to at AMO was unanimous in the fact that if we don’t get our energy costs under control, this province and municipalities are in big trouble.

So I find it somewhat astonishing that with this throne speech it was like September 1 was the first time that the Liberals ever recognized rising electricity rates as a problem. It is a problem across this province. It has been a problem, not just in the last year, but certainly in the three years since I was elected. Pretty much on a daily basis, from the moment I first assumed office, September 1, 2013, I have received emails from constituent after constituent who is suffering under the burden of these high electricity costs.

This throne speech offers an 8% rebate, about 36 cents a day of relief. That will do nothing to address the real issues in the Liberal government’s mismanagement of the energy system in this province. The throne speech was too little, too late.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: I’m pleased to rise today to discuss this subject. I’m finding it really interesting right now that the opposition is insinuating that proroguing was a shock or a surprise. I think that we all know that it’s a fairly standard procedure in the middle of a majority mandate. In fact, it was a member from the opposition that suggested to me very early in the spring that this was a possibility. So I’m not really thinking that there’s any big surprise here. We have had a very ambitious mandate, and I think that it really doesn’t come as a large shock to anybody here.

I would like to focus on some of the great and positive initiatives within the throne speech; for example, 100,000 licensed child care spaces. This is something that I know is going to be very important for me. As a matter of fact, it’s going to directly benefit my family. I have a grandchild: King George, we call him. He was born just before Prince-George-to-be. I’m very pleased that there are many items within the throne speech that are going to be of significant assistance to many, many families. The licensed child care spaces are really one of them that we should be celebrating together, in fact.

The rural and remote energy customers are also going to receive significant savings. That’s something that the opposition was interested in seeing. We’re pleased to see that it’s there. They’ll have a monthly savings of about 20%, or $45 a month, $540 a year.

I think there’s lots to celebrate here, and I look forward to hearing the discussion to come.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments.

M me Gila Martow: Je vais parler un petit peu du discours du trône de cette semaine. Vraiment, on a une chose que je n’ai jamais entendue discutée ici cette semaine à la législature : c’est la discussion d’une université seulement francophone. Je pense que—

Applause.

M me Gila Martow: Merci, madame. Je pense que c’est difficile pour toutes les assemblées francophones dans la province de l’Ontario, les Ontariens et les Ontariennes qui attendent cette annonce bientôt. Ils ont pensé que peut-être leur rêve serait mentionné un peu dans le discours du trône de cette semaine, mais tant pis. On n’a rien entendu cette semaine de cette discussion.

On a parlé au sujet des garderies d’enfants la discussion, c’est d’avoir des places pour des Ontariens et Ontariennes, mais seulement en 2017. On a besoin de places, peut-être, plus tôt que ça. Pourquoi après la prochaine élection? Ce n’est pas juste.

Maintenant on a une crise d’électricité, mais on a entendu du gouvernement que c’est une crise seulement après la « by-election » que M. Raymond Cho a remportée la semaine passée à Scarborough–Rouge River. On l’appelle maintenant « Scarborough–Bleue Rivière ». Maintenant c’est une crise parce qu’ils ont perdu une circonscription qui était très libérale avant ce mois. Alors, on a une crise d’électricité. C’est une vraie crise pour beaucoup de familles en Ontario. J’aimerais entendre ce qu’on peut faire pour toutes ces familles.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments? I recognize the member from Niagara Falls.

Mr. Wayne Gates: Good morning, Mr. Speaker, or Mrs. Speaker, Madam Speaker—somebody speaking.

I want to talk about, again—this is my fourth time on a two-minute hit—the crisis in hydro and how disappointing it is to the residents of Ontario that the minister last week said he didn’t realize it was a crisis. It’s absolutely astonishing to me.

When you take a look at what it’s doing to seniors, families, single moms, single dads—they are coming into my office. I put a post up last week, and you’ll be interested in this, because it was very interesting; I was surprised at it. I put a post up about hydro and hydro rates. Within 24 hours 100,000 people had viewed the post; 2,000 people had signed a petition. We’re talking 24 hours. We had over 1,300 shares. It is the number one issue in the province of Ontario: affordability.

I said yesterday—

Interjections.

Mr. Wayne Gates: —and it’s unfortunate that all the Liberals are talking right now. It’s unfortunate that families couldn’t buy their kids school supplies when they went back. They came into my office, and these are people who pay their bills on time and they’re saying they can’t do it any longer. They break down and cry. I don’t know about other MPPs in this office; it’s got to be happening in your office too, whether you’re a Liberal or a Conservative, and it’s got to get you right in the middle of your stomach when people are coming into your office and breaking down right in front of you.

We have to fix the crisis in hydro, and I don’t believe that happened the other day.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I return back to the member from Prince Edward–Hastings.

Mr. Todd Smith: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thanks to the members from London West, Kingston and the Islands, Thornhill and Niagara Falls.

I certainly agree with the member from Niagara Falls, because for the five years that I’ve been here—and I know he’s been in this Legislature for a couple of years now himself—that’s the number one issue at my office. People are coming in; they’re breaking down in tears because they’re losing their homes. They can’t afford to put their kids in after-school programs because they can’t pay their hydro bill. They cannot pay their electricity bill. It’s by far the number one issue that I’ve spoken on in this Legislature, and it’s the number one issue that many members of the opposition parties have spoken on over the last number of years.

We’ve seen this storm coming. I think it’s just starting to really hit the urban areas now. When you see a riding like Scarborough go down for the Liberals in part because of electricity, I think it should send a message.

This is a province, Madam Speaker, that used to be the industrial heartland. It used to be the place where we made tractors at Caterpillar. We used to make ketchup at Heinz. We used to make sausages and hot dogs at Schneiders. But for the first time in 100 years, this might be the province where Oshawa doesn’t make cars any longer, and it all has to do with the energy policies of this Liberal government.

Talk to any manufacturer, and the biggest problem that they’re having isn’t the red tape. That’s a big problem. Red tape is a big problem; there’s no question. It’s not hiring skilled workers. That is a problem, but it’s not the biggest problem. The overwhelming problem is the soaring cost of electricity.

But that’s Liberal Ontario, Madam Speaker. It’s a province you can’t afford because the job is no longer available because of a policy that this government brought in that made it cheaper for them to have the jobs elsewhere. But hey, they’re willing to take 8% off your hydro bill because they’ve been listening. Madam Speaker, we know they haven’t been listening for a long, long time.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Further debate.

M me France Gélinas: It is a pleasure for me to add a few words to this debate.

Like everybody else, I was quite surprised, actually, when I heard they were proroguing. It did come as a surprise to me. I’m not in the inner workings of the Liberal Party, I realize, but it came as a surprise. I expected to listen attentively to the throne speech, which I did, and it started out rather positively. It says, “Your government remains committed to building Ontario up in a way that helps you in your everyday lives.” I thought, “Wow, this is going to be pretty good,” and then it was not.

I will focus on some of the comments in the throne speech that they made about health care. They go on to say that the vast majority of Ontarians have a family doctor or a nurse practitioner. This statement is true—the vast majority—but we are there not for the vast majority; our health care system is there for every single Ontarian who needs it. That means that hundreds of thousands of people still don’t have a primary care provider. That includes 170,000 of them in the city of Toronto. In the area where I live, 20,000 people still don’t have a primary care provider.

They can call Health Care Connect all they want. The only thing we get out of Health Care Connect is a monthly letter letting you know to continue searching on your own. Really, Speaker?

When a throne speech is delivered, it should be delivered so that it includes everyone. It includes those people who want to have a primary care provider: 20,000 of them in and around Sudbury, in my riding, who still don’t; 14,000 in Thunder Bay; and 12,000 in Windsor. Those people are part of Ontario. They should have been included.

Then they talk about the fact that only 44% of Ontarians—that’s according to Health Quality Ontario—are able to access same-day or next-day appointments with their primary care providers. What happened to the rest of us? What happened to the 66% who don’t? Under this government, Ontario’s performance is trailing behind the rest of the developed world that has put in place mechanisms so that people have access when they need it. The problem is worse where I come from, in the north.

I would say it’s even worse in the northwest, where three out of four people cannot see their primary care providers within a 24-hour period, and same-day or next-day appointments remain out of reach for so many people.

We know that this is an issue because if you have a sick child or if you’re not feeling good, you phone your primary care provider—your physician or your nurse practitioner—and they tell you that the next appointment is in three weeks. You’re not going to wait three weeks with a baby that has a fever. You’re not going to wait three weeks with a headache and vomiting and diarrhea and all the rest of it. You need to be seen pretty soon, or drastic things—so they end up in emerg.

The Liberals rarely talk about hospitals. In the throne speech, they talked about the projects they will be building, and I’m all for it. Building new hospitals, I think we can all agree, is a good thing. But there’s the announcement and then there’s the actual action. This government has a record of cancelling hospital projects, like the five projects they cancelled in 2012. Communities have planned for them, they have fundraised for their new hospitals, and now, with a stroke of a pen, the projects are gone.

At the same time, we all know that hospital maintenance is not keeping up. My party, the New Democrats, filed a freedom of access to information last spring. The freedom of access to information showed us that there’s a $3.2-billion repair backlog in Ontario hospitals. The annual infrastructure renewal fund for our hospitals is $175 million a year. So $175 million a year looks pretty good, but once you start to do the math—a $3.2-billion backlog—a $175-million investment is not going to work. It is actually half of what the Auditor General says is needed each and every year just to keep up, just so that we don’t add to that $3.2-billion backlog that we have.

What does that mean? That means that hospitals cannot do the repairs that they need because the Liberals won’t fund them. In fact, we have asked the government to come clean and tell us about the backlog in each and every hospital. What we got is: Is it urgent or not, the description, the total amount. But the names of the hospitals in our freedom of access to information were all blocked out. When we asked to see which hospitals had—some of them have multi-million-dollar backlogs of repairs to be done.

The minister says that information cannot be made available because it would jeopardize the contractors’ bidding process, which is rather odd because a similar request for information was made to the Ministry of Education, and through the Ministry of Education we got the same type of chart as to how much repairs need to be done to our schools, and we got it school by school, so that we have transparency, we have accountability, and we see which of our schools need upgrades.

Do you really think that different contractors will bid on hospitals than on a school that needs a new boiler or a new roof or a parking lot repaving? Those are the same people who do that work. The argument that if we know which hospital has those repair backlogs it will change the bidding process doesn’t hold water, because there has been transparency at the municipal level forever, there has been transparency through the Ministry of Education in the same government, and things have worked just fine.

Why is it that when it comes to our hospitals, they say transparency always leads to better care—they say this over and over, and we agree—but when it’s time to give transparency and accountability, then there are all sorts of reasons why this should not happen? We want a Ministry of Health that is transparent and open because we know that transparency and accountability always lead to better care.

Then, there was this entire part about adding more nurses. Well, if you talk to nurses on the front line—I’m sure many of you have had the opportunity to have nurses come to you or talk to you—they will talk about the number of positions within our hospitals that are being eliminated. There is a big cohort of nurses who are ready to retire and who are not being replaced. Many of the new ones coming in end up working two or three part-time jobs.

They’ll talk about nurses who still have full-time work but who are worried for their licence because their caseload is just so heavy that they know that they are not able to provide good-quality care. Yet, if they don’t do it, there are no other nurses around them to pick up the slack; they’re gone. This is what happens when a government decides to freeze hospital budgets for four years in a row.

This year, the ministry decided to fund our hospitals, but it failed to make hospital funding keep up with inflation, population growth, and the special needs of hospitals in the north. Hospitals did get a little bit of money, but not enough to keep up with inflation, not enough to keep up with population growth and not enough to keep up with the special challenges of our northern hospitals.

In the throne speech, they also talk about more seniors having access to prescription drugs. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit when they read that one because the facts are that, just months ago, this government wanted to nearly double the cost of prescription drugs for most seniors. The 2016 budget, you will remember, was going to increase the deductible by 70% and increase the copay for every time a prescription is filled. There was a revolt by seniors when they became aware of this, and the Liberal government had to take a step back.

I am happy that they listened to what seniors had to say, but I wish they didn’t have to put seniors through that turmoil and that stressful period and had taken the time to talk to seniors before they rolled out policies like this.

We all know that a lot of Ontarians cannot afford their medications and we all know that our health care system pays a heavy price because, when people can’t afford their medication, they don’t take it on a regular basis. They don’t take it as it should be taken. They end up in trouble. They end up with health challenges. They end up right back in our health care system. Action is needed, and this action is called pharmacare, just in case you didn’t know.

First Nations health care continues to suffer. Investments are being made, but we are starting from so far back. We need a lot of real action, real steps, in partnership with First Nations, to make sure that every First Nation has the same opportunity that every other Ontarian has, no matter where you live. If they choose to live in beautiful northern Ontario, where I’m from, they should have the same opportunities as everybody else.

There should not be states of emergency in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and across the First Nations community before we realize that things need to change, that action needs to be taken. It should never have gotten to that point. It speaks to the failures of both the provincial and the federal governments to make sure that every person in Ontario has the health care that they need.

I see that my time is running away faster than I wanted. I’ll make two more points on health and then change topics.

The first one is that in the throne speech it says that PSWs are getting the wage enhancement that they were promised. In response to that claim by the government in the throne speech, the Ontario Personal Support Worker Association said that the government was “incorrect and misleading.” As reported in the Toronto Star this summer, the dream of PSWs that all of them would see a wage enhancement has “turned into a nightmare as government health care agencies force PSWs, who are paid by the hour and are not on a fixed salary, to spend less time with clients and have also reduced the number of clients they see.”

This means that at the end of the day, their take-home pay is even lower than before. How could that be? To have an idea is one thing, but to mess up in the implementation the way that they have done is just unbelievable.

The last

part I wanted to talk about was on page 8. We all understand that a throne speech gives out broad policy. We’re not going to see the details in a throne speech—I fully get this—but listen to this, and I’m quoting from the throne speech on page 8 for everybody to see: “It believes that additional resources for health care should be directed where they will help patients most: at the front line—not only to the highest-billing physicians....” Really, Speaker? We have a Ministry of Health that is at war with our physicians, and they take the throne speech as an opportunity to poke them in the eye?

This did not add anything to the throne speech. It did not set out broad policy. It poked physicians in the eye at a time when negotiations are as bad as they can get. Nothing good comes of that—nothing. A good, functioning health care system has a good relationship with its physicians. When you talk about medicare, physician services are accessible to us and hospital services are accessible to us, and once you start a war with your physicians, nothing good comes of this.

And then you take the throne speech, which sets broad policies and broad goals, and you say, “But I will also take this opportunity to poke you in the eye.” What do you figure will come of this, Madam Speaker?

Every time we paint our physicians the way that this ministry has been painting them, we hurt the relationship that is at the core of good-quality care. In order to have good-quality care, people have to trust their physicians because physicians ask you to do things that are often very difficult, that often go against everything you want to do, and they have to be able to convince you that this is good for your health. But when you have a Minister of Health and a Ministry of Health that paint them all like a bunch of money-hungry good-for-nothings, you do a lot of damage.

This was not necessary. It was put in there for—I don’t know why. To make things worse? I want our health care system to be there for every one of us. I want our physicians to be happy to be working in Ontario. I don’t want this kind of thing. This adds nothing. It just makes things worse.

Je vois qu’il ne me reste pas beaucoup de temps. Je voudrais utiliser le temps qui me reste pour un autre gros oubli dans le discours du trône. Ça, c’est les francophones. La minute que l’on a su qu’il y avait une prorogation de l’Assemblée législative, tous les médias sociaux se sont allumés en même temps pour dire, « Qu’est-ce qui va arriver à l’université franco? » Peu importe si tu regardais Instagram, Twitter, Facebook—n’importe quoi—ou les nouvelles francophones et les médias francophones, qu’on parle de Radio-Canada ou de TFO, tout le monde du côté francophone ne parlait que d’une chose : « Qu’est-ce qui va arriver à l’université franco? »

Là, je vais vous lire ça dans le discours du trône, parce que ça vaut la peine d’être lu. On arrive à la page 5. Le discours du trône ne faisait que commencer, et on dit : “Every person in Ontario deserves an excellent education, from kindergarten through to post-secondary,” and then the entire francophone community holds their breath because we expected “including the francophone population,” but we’re not there. We are not in the throne speech anywhere. Francophones are not mentioned, and the Franco-Ontarian university is not mentioned either.

On peut parler d’opportunités manquées tant qu’on veut, mais quand on regarde le restant du discours du trône, c’est évident que ce n’est pas une opportunité manquée. Ça a été fait de façon volontaire. On nous a omis du discours du trône parce qu’on nous envoie un message clair que ça ne dérange pas que pour tous les Franco-Ontariens et Franco-Ontariennes, la priorité numéro un c’est d’avoir notre université franco; pour les libéraux, ce n’est pas une priorité.

Au mois de juin, on a reçu une lettre du ministre responsable qui nous disait qu’il était pour mettre en place un comité de travail pour l’université franco—bon, il y avait un petit peu d’espoir; on va regarder à ça—et qu’il devait rapporter les résultats cet automne. Mais on est rendu à la mi-septembre. Le comité n’a aucune personne qui siège, n’a pas de mandat, n’a pas de président et ne s’est pas réuni une seule fois. Mais ils sont supposés de rapporter dans quelque temps. On rit de nous autres, madame la Présidente; on fait rire de nous autres.

Je manque de temps. Merci, madame la Présidente.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Merci. Questions and comments?

L’hon. Eleanor McMahon: Il me fait un grand plaisir ce matin de répondre aux commentaires du membre de Nickel Belt au sujet du discours du trône. Sûrement, c’est une avocate très émouvante pour la communauté francophone, et je partage son espoir et ses sentiments là-dessus.

The member opposite is a fierce advocate for her community, and I thank you for her comments about the francophone community in Ontario, which is a preoccupation that we share on this side of the House, Madam Speaker.

I just wanted, by way of response to some of her comments, to contextualize a little bit. Of course, this place is sometimes what we hold in common, but in these moments it’s sometimes how we approach things differently.

So, just by way of contextualizing, the member opposite talks about health care and what was in the speech from the throne, but I think it’s important to remind those watching and members of the House that our government has invested a billion dollars—that’s a B, Madam Speaker—in health care in this province. Our Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, himself a physician and an incredibly caring practitioner, has led that conversation and those investments, and it’s an honour to serve with him.

Three hundred and forty-five million dollars is another important figure. Why, Speaker? Because it talks about our investment in hospitals. As the member for Burlington, I can speak eloquently to that because we’re getting a brand new hospital in our community as a consequence of investments by this government. I can tell you, when it comes to attracting jobs and investment to Burlington, I can say, with great authority, that that’s helped us enormously.

While the member opposite talks about that, a final comment, Speaker: I think it’s important to remember, then, when it comes to this side of the House and this Liberal government, the NDP needs to think back to a period in the 1990s when their government made substantial health care cuts. In that context, it’s important to remember that you can talk about it, but we’re doing things that are important—

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Thank you. Questions and comments. I recognize the member from—Oshawa? No.

Mr. Lorne Coe: Whitby–Oshawa.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Whitby–Oshawa, thank you.

Mr. Lorne Coe: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and good morning. It’s my pleasure to rise and enter the debate today.

What’s clear out of this debate is that Ontarians have had enough. They’ve made that clear in Scarborough–Rouge River recently, they’ve made that clear in Whitby–Oshawa and they’ve made that clear in Simcoe North. It’s about high electricity rates. It’s about health care cuts. It’s about job losses, about the lack of a plan to stimulate the economy.

What we saw earlier this week in the throne speech is too little, too late, simply a Band-Aid solution for Liberal mistakes, and at the end of the day, Ontarians’ hydro bills are going to continue to get more expensive—very expensive.

What it took was yet another by-election loss to stimulate and bring forward these suggestions. What we need is a concrete plan to put Ontario back on track again.

Interjections.

Mr. Lorne Coe: The members opposite can heckle if they wish, but they know that the single issue that they’re hearing most in their constituency offices is the same as mine: high electricity rates, health care cutbacks, and job losses. What we got earlier this week was another Band-Aid solution, without any directions at all.

Going forward, we look forward, as a party, to bringing forward some concrete solutions to address some of these issues.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Ms. Jennifer K. French: I’m glad to be able to add my two cents today on the speech from the throne, which, as my colleague from Nickel Belt put it, was a disappointment.

We heard that there was going to be a reset. I think there was maybe even a little bit of hope, perhaps a bit of optimism, but not much love, though, on this side anymore for what we hear from the Liberal government.

But it turns out it wasn’t a reset. It was a disconnect, and that was very clear throughout the throne speech, as my colleague talked about health care and the disappointing approach by this government and its not addressing the crisis across our communities. That’s immensely disappointing.

I do want to get on the record some of what my constituents said over the summer. I’m sure that the Liberals would have heard it if they were listening. My constituents came in droves to talk about their struggle, how they’re going to make ends meet, and it always came back to hydro bills. The lack of appreciation from this government for what’s actually happening out there is shocking. Individuals are coming through the door with hydro bills that have more than doubled from this time last year to this summer, where they’ve got to reduce their fan usage.

I had a gentleman come in and he said, “Well, I’ve already reduced my fan usage down from two fans to one fan. I only keep the fan on where I’m sitting, if it’s in front of the TV or in front of the computer.” He doesn’t have air conditioning. His bill has gone from $42 last summer, same month, to over $100, and he’s terrified about the winter. But he has a plan, Madam Speaker. He always keeps his heat at 62, because he has a very heavy housecoat and good slippers.

That’s what it has come to? That’s what it has come to in Ontario, that people are afraid of winter? This is Canada. We’re not afraid of winter, okay? But we are afraid of winter hydro bills, and shame on this government.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Mr. Bob Delaney: A speech from the throne is an opportunity to reflect back on the things that have happened in your community, and I do want to talk a little bit about what has happened in Lisgar, Meadowvale and Streetsville over the last two years.

We have had, in each of the last two years, one new GO train added to our schedule. This means that for our people, an extra 1,500 people per GO train can now leave their cars at home, or leave them in the parking lot, and ride the train downtown. That has been a major factor in helping to ease the burden on some of our overcrowded roads, because if you’re going to try and get into Toronto, it’s not that easy to get in, coming from the west.

You’ve got two lanes of traffic on Lakeshore; you’ve got four lanes of traffic on the QEW; you’ve got two lanes of traffic on the Queensway; and then you’ve got High Park in the way, and then you’ve got four lanes during the morning, down to two, on Bloor Street, and that’s it. That’s how you get in from Mississauga, unless you go over the top and sit in the parking lot that we call the 401. So that has been a major contributor, along with enhanced bus service in northwest Mississauga.

As well, our major capital project is the redevelopment of Credit Valley Hospital’s emergency room, which continues on budget and on schedule. It will be a complete remake of Credit Valley, which is going to greatly enhance the ability of the hospital to provide treatment in a revamped emergency suite, to add additional beds, and to update a hospital whose size of area served grows by about 20,000 people each year.

Speaker, one of the things that this speech from the throne and the government’s actions in the past two years have done is to recognize the need to keep pace with the growth that is driving Ontario today.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I return to the member from Nickel Belt to wrap up.

M me France Gélinas: I have gone through some of the pieces that were lacking, so let me tell you how it could have been. It could have been that the speech from the throne would have told us how the 800,000 Ontarians that don’t have access to primary care would gain access. It would tell us that same-day and next-day appointments would be available for all. It would tell us that we will commit to fixing our broken home care system that fails more people than it helps. It would address the long wait-lists, whether that is for surgery or for getting into a long-term-care home.

It would talk to us about where the repairs are needed in our hospitals, so that we can bring a common focus to getting our hospitals up to snuff. We would also talk about how important it is for people to gain access to the medications they need, so we would talk about pharmacare and how we make that happen.

It would have talked about the need to do better for our First Nations—a clear commitment that we should never have another state-of-health emergency in any of our First Nations communities.

It should have recognized that they would change the rolling-out of their policy so that PSWs really benefit from the salary increases—not the way it has gone—and it wouldn’t have poked the physicians in the eye in doing so.

But above all, it would have told us how it would protect our public health care system so it would be there for generations to come.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Further debate? I recognize the Minister of Natural Resources—

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: And Forestry.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): —and Forestry. Thank you.

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of my constituents in Cambridge to add a few comments in today’s debate. I just want to note that I’ll be sharing my time with the MPP for Davenport, the MPP for Barrie, and the President of the Treasury Board.

I’m very proud to be part of a government that is choosing to build Ontario up and help people in their everyday lives. I think that, as Ontarians, one of the things that people think about is their health care system. I’m very proud of the fact that we are building a health care system that everyone can rely on.

Being a nurse for many, many years before I was elected, I understood what happens when you don’t invest fully in not only the people but the buildings in health care. I’m very proud of the record that we have in this province in the last few years, and very delighted to see that we have more provisions outlined in the throne speech on ensuring that our health care system does address community needs.

Every person in our province deserves high-quality health care. Now, 94% of Ontarians have a primary health care provider, such as a family doctor or a nurse practitioner. That wasn’t the case in the 1990s, when the previous government chose to reduce medical school places, and doctors were not as available. We helped to resolve that in 2003, when we came into office, because our government made it a priority to ensure that investing in health care was going to help for all.

I’m very proud of the fact that 94% of Ontarians have a primary health care provider, and I know that our government has a commitment to ensure that we will be helping any individual, any Ontarian, who wants a health care provider to actually get one.

We’ve also been investing in nursing. We have had over 26,000 nurses added to the province of Ontario since 2003. I remember the days when I used to nurse, and we were shorthanded—again, due to cuts in nursing school places by the previous government. I ended up in a situation with my colleagues where we didn’t have enough nurses to even call on if somebody was sick or unable to manage that way. I know that our government’s focus on ensuring that we have added nursing school places, that we’ve been supporting that field, has really helped.

I’m very proud of the fact, as a former care coordinator for a CCAC, that we’re choosing to increase our investment in home and community care. We’re helping families by adding an estimated 350,000 more nursing care hours and 1.3 million hours of personal support, enhancing home and community care.

Just to give you a visual, Madam Speaker, those who are at home and reliant on this kind of care look forward to ensuring that their nurse, their personal support worker or other services that we have in the home allow the patient to stay at home, receive good care and stay longer in their home with the care that they really need. That’s very important to the everyday Ontarian. It matters in their everyday life that they have the care possible to be able to get through their day very well.

The last thing I wanted to mention, while I had a few moments, was our capital campaign. In my riding of Cambridge, for many, many years we were really hoping for a new hospital expansion. Due, in part, to a previous government’s decisions and some difficulties that the hospital had with supervision at a time when the plans had to be relaunched—I know that our government supported the expansion for Cambridge Memorial Hospital.

In 2011, we got the word that we were going to be able to plan for a new hospital. I was one of the most delighted people on the front lawn, along with our Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, to put the shovel—it was actually a bulldozer—in the ground in September 2014. It makes me and my constituents very happy to see the cranes up on that project and to ensure that we are building the hospital for the future, adding more beds and adding more services. It will be a completely different-looking hospital when it’s done. That has been a major community project that’s been supported by many, not only in Cambridge but in my entire region.

Those are a few of the things I just wanted to mention today, Madam Speaker. I’m just very, very happy that we’re choosing to help people in their everyday lives through investing in health care.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I recognize the member from Davenport.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to weigh in on the throne speech and how it will have a positive impact on the lives of Davenport residents and, really, all residents across Ontario.

I’m pleased that our government remains committed to creating jobs, growing the economy and helping people in their everyday lives. The programs outlined in the throne speech are important to our province and are crucial to those who may not benefit from stable jobs or good pensions and find it difficult to deal with the cost of electricity.

Over the last few months I met with a number of constituents who are concerned about the price of electricity, and I’ve received a number of emails from constituents expressing the same concern. It is a concern that I have raised on this side of the House time and time again. The throne speech demonstrates that our government has listened and has taken this seriously.

Our government has announced an intention to introduce legislation that will provide relief on electricity bills to Ontario consumers. This legislation would provide a rebate equivalent to the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax. This 8% savings would go into effect on January 1, 2017, and would result in savings of about $130 a year for a typical Ontario residential consumer. This is great news for all of us, and I’m sure my constituents in Davenport also agree.

Our government will also remove the debt retirement charge from residential electricity bills, making electricity more affordable for low-income families through the Ontario Electricity Support Program, and invest more than $2.6 billion to help homeowners and businesses reduce energy use to save money. These measures demonstrate that our government understands the concerns of Ontarians and the pressures facing families in Ontario and the families in my riding of Davenport.

Mr. Speaker—Madam Speaker; pardon me—I was also pleased to hear about a commitment to continue building a better transit system in Ontario. In fact, announced earlier this past June, a new GO station will open up in my riding of Davenport, right at the corner of Bloor and Lansdowne. Residents asked, and our government listened and responded.

Some 50 kilometres of new and dedicated rapid transit corridors are being built, including the new Eglinton Crosstown LRT, with two new stations in the riding of Davenport, one at Eglinton and Caledonia and the other at Eglinton and Dufferin. We all know how hard it is and how difficult it is to get across this city and across this province. So over the next 10 years, as new stations are built and tracks are electrified to deliver GO regional express rail, weekly trips across the entire GO rail network will grow to nearly 6,000.

This represents more than a doubling of peak service and a quadrupling of off-peak service compared to today, and will reduce those long journey times that we are experiencing today, in some cases by as much as 50%.

Madam Speaker, we have every reason to be very proud of what we have accomplished, yet there is a lot of room for rolling up our sleeves, looking forward, and working harder together.

It’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that families have the right supports so children can grow and learn in a healthy environment. As the mother of two young boys, André and David, I know how important it is to have the right supports in place when it comes to our children. In fact, one of the reasons, if not the main reason, I ran for office was to ensure that our children have a bright future.

There are many young families in Davenport who want access to high-quality licensed child care spaces. To meet the demands of a growing and changing province, within the next five years, starting in 2017, our government will help to create another 100,000 licensed spaces for infants, toddlers and preschoolers so that more working families can find quality, affordable care, and above all, safe care for their children.

Madam Speaker, I’m very proud of what this government has already achieved, and I’m very excited about what we will achieve. Our goal is for Ontario to be known around the world as the place to be. I believe—actually, I know—that Ontario is the place to be: the best place to live, work and raise a family, the place of exciting opportunities. I know that this is what Davenport residents want. If we’re setting the right objectives, if we’re making the right investments, creating the right partnerships, I am sure that we will continue to be the province that we are.

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Questions and comments?

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: It’s my pleasure to stand and support Ontario’s 2016 speech from the throne, A Balanced Plan to Build Ontario Up for Everyone. It outlines our plan to continue creating jobs and growth and to help people in their everyday lives. This plan is working for my constituents in Barrie and across Ontario.

We have responded in this speech to people’s concerns. We have reduced electricity costs where possible, while maintaining system reliability by rebuilding and repairing our system that was left rotting by the Harris government.

We have also extended programs for rebates for electricity that were in place before. Besides these programs already in place, it’s important that eligible rural and remote customers will receive additional savings, which would result in an on-bill monthly saving of about 20%—about $45 a month or $540 a year. This is important to everyone. We heard all around that it is very important for remote and rural customers, that they need this rebate.

Eligible larger businesses would benefit through the expansion of the industrial conservation initiative. Participating industrial customers will be able to find cost savings of up to 34%, depending on their ability to reduce peak electricity consumption. I know that in my riding it has been great.

Some of the programs we have in place: retrofitting and adding solar energy, for instance. The National Training Rink saves approximately $17,000 a year now because they installed solar panels on the top of their building. Also, Donaleigh’s pub has done retrofits to their walk-in freezers and their energy systems, and they are saving energy and reducing costs for them, making their business able to hire more people and expand.

We are helping families find the affordable child care they need by creating an additional 100,000 licensed spaces over the next five years, starting in 2017. We will double the current capacity for the zero to four age group, creating spaces for about 40% of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. This is very important. In my job as a teacher, I see that when the young families come to school now there are going to be a lot more parents that are going to be able to go out and enter the workforce. This will help working families and give more children the quality care that they need to have the best start in life.

As a teacher, I know how important this will be to young families and to their children. I’m constantly thanked for our government’s all-day junior and senior kindergarten program. That has saved young families as much as $13,000 over two years. That’s a great amount of money, and the families are very thankful for it.

We are reintroducing the election finance reform legislation; I was a member of the standing committee. I look forward to further debate about that in this House.

We are continuing to make sure that our young people have the right tools for a changing workforce. We are putting new emphasis on math skills, expanding experiential learning and encouraging more young people to turn their good ideas into start-ups. The new Ontario Student Grant will help tens of thousands of low- and middle- income students by making average college and university tuition free.

We’re building a health care system that everyone can rely on. My seatmate here has a constituent from the riding of Kingston and the Islands, Dan Couture, who is listening today. Hello, Dan. He just texted my colleague to say, “On the health care file I am very happy with the treatments that I’m getting in Kingston at Kingston General Hospital. I couldn’t hope for better. Thank you.” And thank you, Dan.

I constantly have “thank yous” in Barrie for how things are going around Barrie in the health care system. We, of course, have just added acute cardiac care to the Barrie hospital, which will mean a lot, particularly for the people who live north of Barrie. They will have a chance to get to care before it’s too late. That means a lot to the people of Barrie and north of Barrie.

We are investing in front-line workers, helping seniors with the cost of prescription drugs and reducing wait times for specialists.

We are helping families by adding an estimated 350,000 hours of nursing care and 1.3 million hours of personal support, enhancing home and community care. The people in my constituency are asking for that. The older people want to stay in their homes, and with us investing in support workers, they are going to be able to do this.

We are delivering on our primary care guarantee, connecting a doctor or a nurse practitioner to everyone who wants one.

We are investing at record levels to build new hospitals, schools, roads, bridges and transit in communities across Ontario. The minister was in Barrie last week, looking at the progress of an addition to North Collegiate. It’s absolutely wonderful. There already is a new ASD classroom there for special-needs students. They are loving it; it’s a great space to learn. Children need good spaces to learn. We know that that’s important, so we have put a lot of money into improving situations in schools.

Through the largest infrastructure investment in Ontario’s history—about $160 billion over 12 years—we are helping people in their everyday lives by reducing road congestion and the time spent in traffic and transit. This is very important to my constituents, many of whom go up and down the 400 every day. Some of them have to have their cars with them as they move around in the city during their workday. Also the GO train: We are very excited that we are having our lines electrified and that in a couple of years we will have all-day, every day service to Barrie.

That will make life much easier for the people in my constituency. As the prices on homes unfortunately rise here in Toronto, more and more people are coming to Barrie to live and to purchase a home, and we welcome them with open arms. But this government knows that we need to provide them with ways of getting to their jobs in the city.

Also, we’re building a competitive business environment driven by innovative low-carbon industries that are attracting investment from around the world. The Business Growth Initiative is helping our highly skilled workforce compete through innovation. That is the way to go in regard to business: innovation. I know that Minister Moridi is working very hard on that file.

Hon. Reza Moridi: I do.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: Yes.

Ontario will continue to lead in the fight against climate change. As a teacher, that is very important to me. The littlest children in our schools know the importance of us fixing this, and we have to be a leader, not only in North America but all around the world. Proceeds from our cap-and-trade program will be transparently invested in green projects that will help households become more efficient and help businesses be more innovative.

Debate deemed adjourned.

Private members’ public business

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 98(c), a change has been made to the order of precedence on the ballot list for private members’ public business such that Mr. Rinaldi assumes ballot item number 41 and Mrs. Mangat assumes ballot item number 1.

Seeing that it is now 10:15, we’ll recess the House until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1016 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce a constituent of mine who’s here with us in the gallery today. I’d like to introduce Ben Hendry, who is the director of Professional Engineers Government of Ontario, and two of his colleagues, George Collins and Martin Haalstra. Welcome.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I’d like to welcome to the House today my good friend, Mayor Hector Macmillan from the municipality of Trent Hills. Welcome.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: Good morning, Speaker. The Casa das Beiras community centre in my riding of Davenport is starting their cultural week celebrations this weekend, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce in the House today the mayor of Lamego, Francisco Manuel Lopes; his wife, Mrs. Lopes; the president of Casa das Beiras, Bernardino Nascimento; Chef Antonio Santos, who came straight from Portugal and will be cooking up a storm at Casa das Beiras; and his wife, Mrs. Santos. Bem-vindo ao Queen’s Park.

Mr. Ted Arnott: On behalf of the member for Carleton–Mississippi Mills, I would like to acknowledge the presence of Erin Bailey in the gallery this morning. She is the mother of page captain Victoria Bailey.

Mr. James J. Bradley: I’d like to introduce Katherine Roposa and Louie Roposa, who are the parents of the page captain for today, Sarah Roposa. They’ll be in the public gallery this morning.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): With us in the members’ gallery is a former member from the riding of Brantford, from the 32nd and 33rd Parliaments, Mr. Phil Gillies. Welcome, Phil. Represent.

There being no further introductions, I see a member standing—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): An introduction? Hamilton Mountain.

Miss Monique Taylor: I apologize, Speaker. I just realized that I see Bruce McIntosh in the gallery. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: A good friend of mine, a strong New Democrat: Howard Brown is over here on the other side. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): That one might cost you.

Seeing no further introductions—the member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek on a point of order.

Mr. Paul Miller: Thank you, Speaker. I believe that—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): One moment, please. Did you have an introduction, member from Simcoe–Grey? Okay. The member from Hamilton.

Mr. Paul Miller: Yes, a point of order, Speaker: I believe that we have a departing member who a few of the members would like to say a few words about, so with your indulgence—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Carry on.

Interjections: Unanimous consent.

Mr. Paul Miller: Well, no, he said I didn’t have to do that, but okay. Unanimous consent—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m now supposed to recognize the other point of order, before we do that.

Mr. Paul Miller: Okay.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. The member from Simcoe–Grey on a point of order.

Mr. Jim Wilson: It’s really the same point, Mr. Speaker, but in a more formal way: I seek unanimous consent that up to five minutes be allotted to a representative of each of the recognized parties to speak in honour of the parliamentary career of the member for Niagara West–Glanbrook, and that the member be allotted up to five minutes for his reply.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Simcoe–Grey is seeking unanimous consent that up to five minutes be allotted to a representative of each recognized party to speak in honour of the parliamentary career of the member from Niagara West–Glanbrook, and that the member be allotted five minutes to reply. Do we agree? Agreed.

Member for Niagara West–Glanbrook

Mr. Paul Miller: Speaker, normally we stand in tribute because a member of the Legislature has passed. Today we’re making a special exception, for the subject of our conversation is still with us. I bet Mr. Stephen Harper is a little jealous today; I don’t believe he got a send-off or tribute like this.

As you know, Tim Hudak and I have adjoining ridings. We represent different parts of my hometown of Stoney Creek. Tim was born and raised in the same area he lives in today. He started out in Fort Erie and now lives just half an hour away in Wellandport. Tim actually worked a couple of summers on the border at Fort Erie. Despite his experience on the immigration front line, not once have I heard him talk about building a wall and getting the Americans to pay for it.

Tim has been here so long that his riding has had three name changes and been shaped differently twice, but his constituents over the years obviously have a lot of respect for him, because they’ve sent him here six times.

What I like about Tim is that he’s very approachable, and he tries very hard to avoid personal attacks in debates. He’s respectful, courteous and sticks to the issues, which is an admirable quality in this place. Any time I’ve attended a cross-party event with Tim, he mentioned my attendance there, which is a courtesy I’ve always appreciated. He’s very sociable, and we saw sides of Tim’s humour come out in a very funny way each year at the annual spring fling. I’ve had a real soft spot for Tim because he named one of his daughters Miller. How can you argue with a guy like that?

Tim and I have been political opponents many times, but we have also been good neighbours. From time to time, he asked my advice about dealing with unions. He’d take it, and then he’d do the exact opposite, every time.

Tim was actually one of the first members of this Legislature to congratulate me after my election in 2007. He sent a poinsettia to my new office after it opened the month after my election. Steelworkers aren’t used to getting poinsettias, but I really appreciated it. It was a thoughtful gesture, the sort of thing you remember in your political career.

Some of you might be surprised to hear this, but Tim is both a conservative and a conservationist. We worked together as neighbours very successfully a few years ago to protect a natural treasure in the Stoney Creek area called the Eramosa karst. Tim and I introduced a bill to prevent the feeder lands from development and to direct that they be used as a conservation area. The government members were rather alarmed to see a steelworker and a PC leader teaming up.

They didn’t know quite how what to make of it or how to handle it, but eventually—possibly in fear—the government heeded our call and leased the lands to the Hamilton Conservation Authority for a nominal fee. Thanks in part to Tim’s advocacy, the Eramosa karst is now protected so that future generations can enjoy it.

Again, speaking of Tim as a neighbour, one of the last things he did as an MPP was a small non-partisan action to help the people of Niagara and Hamilton regions. He signed his name on a letter that I sent to the federal government last month in support of Hamilton and Haldimand steelworkers and pensioners, asking for a public inquiry into the shenanigans at US Steel Canada and calling for a comprehensive reform of Canada’s bankruptcy and insolvency processes, including the CCAA. Thank you, Tim. That meant a lot to the thousands of people who I represent and who Tim represents.

At a provincial level, Mike Harris made Tim a member of cabinet at the tender age of 31. He was younger than half the staffers here. Mr. Harris must have been looking at that map upside down, because he made this young man from one of the southernmost ridings in the province of Ontario minister of the north. Go figure. Despite his geographic disadvantage, Tim was a respected cabinet minister, and he quickly earned a promotion to Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, which makes more sense to me, since he’s from near Niagara Falls.

During Tim’s years as PC leader, I’ve always questioned the advice he got just before elections. If he ever gets back into politics, I’d be happy to go over his menu there as a neighbour and give him proposals to look at. I’ll probably lead you in the—no, maybe not the right way.

But now, after a long career in this building, Tim is entering the working world. He may find out some day what it’s like to have a bad boss. But he doesn’t have to worry just yet because he’s still the boss.

Tim, you haven’t had a real job in 21 years, since your days at Walmart—another good union company. The world’s going to be tough out there, buddy, but I’m confident you’re up for the task. By the way, Tim told me that one of the first things he’s going to do in his new position is to create 100,000 jobs in the real estate business. I’m sure that was part of your interview pitch.

Thanks, Tim. On behalf of the Ontario New Democratic caucus, I want to thank Tim Hudak for his many years of public service as a member of provincial Parliament. I wish Tim, his wife Deb and their two young daughters, Maitland and Miller, a bright future and a happy and successful journey together as Tim embarks on this new

chapter of his life.

As you’ve heard me say in this House many times: Tim Hudak—wow.

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

Mr. James J. Bradley: I’m delighted to have the privilege of paying tribute to Tim Hudak—because we’re allowed to call him that today, not necessarily the member for Niagara West–Glanbrook—as he departs from the Ontario Legislature after a distinguished career of some two decades of service, not only to the people of Niagara West–Glanbrook and its previous names but also to the people of Ontario as a whole.

I do so not simply as one member to another, but as a personal friend as well. I’ve had the opportunity to work with him as one of the members from the Niagara region. I think you’ll find out that, certainly in recent years and perhaps previous to that, the Niagara region members, no matter what political party they happen to be a member of, tend to work together for things which are good for the Niagara region. Certainly, I always had the co-operation and involvement of Tim Hudak in those issues in which I was interested, and I attempted to be helpful to him whenever I could be as well. Our staffs have worked well together as well, and that’s something that perhaps the public doesn’t know.

There’s a feeling probably out there, when they watch question period and at other times, that those of us in the opposition and government hate one another. That is simply not the case. We have different points of view, but there’s often a great affection for one another.

A thought about the member and the family: I know that Tim’s mother and father, Anne Marie and Pat, were involved in public service, and Tim has followed in their footsteps to a very great extent and that’s where he got his grounding. He’s made reference to that on many occasions, the fact that his parents instilled in him the virtues which have served him well in public service, and they certainly were that. Both, by the way, were involved in education and in the political scene and were very supportive of Tim over the years in all of his endeavours. Even when they might have disagreed with him from time to time, they were certainly there backing him.

He was elected, as has been mentioned, at the age of 27, which is far too young to be elected. And remember, he was elected in a riding that had been Liberal almost forever. Ray Haggerty had been there for years and years and years as the Liberal member for Niagara South and different names. Tim got elected in 1995 in the sweep that came in. He was a true disciple of the Common Sense Revolution, something I didn’t agree with but certainly was quite effective and caught the fancy of the people of Ontario, as the government was elected not once but twice on that platform.

Obviously, Premier Harris saw in him his youthful enthusiasm, his interest and his educational background, in particular in the field of economics, and decided to appoint him as a parliamentary assistant first and then, of course, to various cabinet positions, where he served the government exceedingly well—despite what Bill Murdoch said one day in the House about him. But Bill said that about many people over the years, so don’t worry about that.

Tim could have chosen another career path but he chose public service. Public service doesn’t pay the most money and it can be very onerous. You’re subject to scrutiny at all times. He could have chosen another path but he chose public service, and I think the people of his riding were pleased that he did so.

He took on one of the most onerous positions there is, one of the toughest positions, as leader of the official opposition in the Ontario Legislature or anywhere else. You have to travel the province. He was on a Winnebago at one time, by the way, travelling the province back and forth, going to bun feeds here or there, speaking to 15 people at a time. But eventually, you hope that you have the opportunity to change sides, and Tim strove for that very much, did not achieve that in his lifetime but put forward an alternative for the people of Ontario that I think they appreciated very much.

He made a lot of sacrifices. His wife, Deb Hutton, would tell you that, and the girls, Miller and Maitland, would tell you that they would liked to have seen dad at home or husband at home more often, but he did the best he could to maintain that connection with family, at the same time serving the public.

One thing you knew about Tim was—and he’s not dead. When you say that, it sounds as though the person is dead. One thing you knew about Tim: You always knew where he stood. He didn’t pander to the issue of the day. He didn’t pander to individual interest groups and so on. He had a position he set out. I disagreed with the position but I admired the fact that he enunciated it, that he provided it to the people of Ontario and then he stuck by that particular position. That’s hard to do in politics, and Tim did that.

I’m going to mention quickly three local instances where he took a stand which was very brave to take. In the last provincial election campaign, one of the issues was GO Transit to Niagara. Two of the parties, the NDP and the Liberals, said, “Yeah, we’re for GO Transit in Niagara. We’ll bring it there.” They asked Tim, and he said—and he’s from Niagara and he knows it’s a popular position—“I wouldn’t contemplate this until the budget is balanced.” That’s a principled position he took, which, with some people, was not a popular position, but he took that position.

He’s a very strong advocate for West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. One of the budgets—they asked him in the budget lock-up, “Tim, you’re calling for restraint and so on, so how can you possibly ever be critical of the fact that there wouldn’t be funding for West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby?” He said, “No, this is my position. Even though I know and the people know”—and subsequent to that, he was a strong advocate and started petitions for the hospital. In that particular instance, when asked by the press, he was very honest and up front with it.

Another instance I saw: We met with a local organization, a public service organization. The easy thing to do when you’re sitting there is to take the side of the organization against the government, which is obviously not providing enough money. Tim may be thinking in his mind where this was. I remember him sitting there. They asked questions about it and he asked questions of them: “How can you perhaps run your organization better so you don’t need more money?”—words to that effect. I admired that, because that’s very difficult to do. You always want to take up the criticism they might have of government.

You knew where he stood. He may have played left wing and centre in hockey, but by God he was a right-winger when it came to politics—all the way.

I was scrawling these notes down because you always try to do these notes at the appropriate time and you want to get into many different things, but I don’t think that I should get into too many things other than the fact that, being from Niagara, he likes chicken wings. Everybody has to know that. Tim likes chicken wings. He likes and goes to the games of the Buffalo Bills. By the way, he’s also a Boston Bruins fan despite the fact that—it’s easy to say that you’re a Leafs fan because politically that’s good. But he’s a Boston Bruins fan. He certainly could have done a lot of things differently in that regard, but he didn’t.

Tim is a well-rounded person. We always see him as a political guy, but Tim has other interests out there as well, and he’s a very likable individual. He always had a smile on his face when he was in politics, which we liked very much. You watched as he was able to walk around the House and interact with many people.

Tim took controversial stands. He didn’t flip-flop on things. Even though some days I would have liked him to have flip-flopped on things, he didn’t do that. What you saw is what you got when you saw Tim Hudak on the platform or in this House.

When a government is defeated, it’s hard to survive. In 2003, when the government was defeated, Tim held on to his seat. Yes, people can say it’s a safe Tory seat, for instance, but when a government is being defeated and you hang on, that speaks well of the member’s attachment to his constituency, and Tim was able to do that exceedingly well.

Tim, we will miss you in this House. I will miss you in this House. I’ll miss you as a colleague in an adjacent riding.

We know that now you can—well, I guess you’re past that stage. He was once a WWF fan: Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, “Leaping” Lanny Poffo, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and the gang. He used to have the posters in his room for all of them. I won’t reveal that, to some people, perhaps it’s not really real. It’s like talking about Santa Claus to a kid. Here I’m telling Tim it’s not real, and I think he certainly knew that.

Tim was a friend. We got along well. He will be missed, but he’ll still be around. He won’t be a person who’s going to disappear into the background. I know, again, that Deb will not miss him being in this House, for a lot of reasons, particularly because of being closer to home and to Miller and Maitland. He’s very, very dedicated to his family, so I know he will appreciate that opportunity.

Tim, all of us in this House, regardless of our political affiliation and background, wish you well. You have been a friend in the past. You’ll be a friend for a lifetime. Thank you very much.

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

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s my pleasure to rise on behalf of Patrick Brown, the Progressive Conservative caucus and the entire Progressive Conservative Party in tribute to Tim Hudak.

Yesterday was his anniversary of becoming the Progressive Conservative leader in the House, and today he’ll give his final speech as the member of provincial Parliament for Niagara West–Glanbrook, a riding which he has held for 21 years—a colleague, a confidant, at times a co-conspirator, and even, one time, a co-defendant.

Interjections.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s a good thing Kathy’s not here today.

But we were instant friends. I first met Tim at the Ottawa Convention Centre when he was a cabinet minister under Ernie Eves, and he was about to approve funding for a new state-of-the-art building. Bob Chiarelli was mayor then. Norm Sterling was the regional minister. Our dear friend, now departed, Mauril Bélanger, was the federal minister.

I remember because Tim came up to me—my husband was the Progressive Conservative candidate in Ottawa Centre—and Tim actually said to me, “You should be the candidate instead.” Anyway, I get the next laugh because I get elected and my husband doesn’t, but then my husband gets the final laugh because he has actually been on Tim Hudak’s talk show. Just a reminder: I’m waiting for the invitation.

Many years later, it was profound for me as a local member of provincial Parliament, because we held our first convention at the Ottawa Convention Centre under Tim Hudak’s leadership. Years later, I would get elected, from that time we spoke.

I remember the day so vividly when I first entered the Progressive Conservative caucus. John Tory, in my mind, was a legend. Elizabeth Witmer, Jim Wilson, Bob Runciman, Norm Sterling, and Frank Klees all had played prominent roles in Progressive Conservative governments—including Tim Hudak. But he was the first to rise and greet myself and Christine Elliott as we walked in the room. We became friends from that day forward.

In fact, my office used to be beside the old whip’s office, and because of that, there was a nice staffer there, Julie Kwiecinski. She came over to me and she said, “You’ll get to know Tim Hudak. He was well brought up.” After knowing him for a decade and having built a relationship with himself and his family, I can tell you, honestly, that his mother, Anne Marie, and his father, Pat, did a stand-up job.

I want to talk for a few minutes about his accomplishments because, as a cabinet minister, you do make achievements that you’re very proud of. In the time he spent in three different economic portfolios, he did a lot to make sure that mining in Ontario was number one in Canada.

He did a lot after the terrorist attacks on September 11 to encourage the tourism community here in the province to be resolute and to ensure that we were open for business.

And I think we can all credit him single-handedly for the VQA and his instrumental lead in ensuring that we have more wine available from wineries in Niagara.

Tim and I don’t often agree on wine. As many of you know, I replaced a very shy and retiring young man named John Baird when he became a federal minister. One of the first times I invited Tim Hudak to my riding we went to Cedarhill Golf and Country Club—which used to be owned by Bob Chiarelli’s family, FYI. We sat down and Tim said, “Let’s have a glass of wine with dinner.” Totally tone-deaf to the fact that he loves VQA wine, I ordered a Wolf Blass. He looked at me and he said, “Did Baird put you up to that?” Apparently Baird would do this all the time.

So, not to be outdone by me and my husband—we were in a by-election in Ottawa West–Nepean, and my husband goes out to the LCBO in Nepean. As many people know, Ottawa West–Nepean and Nepean–Carleton are very close. My husband’s in there and he’s buying red wine for after the by-election. He’s got this basket, and Tim Hudak looks down at it and he said, “Australian plonk?” Very, very upset.

I wanted to point out a few things about Tim’s character that I don’t think the broader public actually knows about. As Progressive Conservative leader, he called us each and every Christmas. We appreciated that, but not as much as how much we appreciated when our staff would receive personal notes from him after they helped him, either at Queen’s Park or, more likely, at our constituency offices.

The other thing that’s very special to me is that he knows all of our spouses’ and our children’s names.

As leader, Tim Hudak made the Progressive Conservative Party family-friendly. Miller’s Kids Conventions became the highlight of the year for Tories, but more importantly it became the focus for our children, young Progressive Conservatives in training. It was actually a very favourite thing for my daughter, who is growing up in her mother’s footsteps, I can assure you.

Some members of this House remember that in 2009 we staged a sit-in in opposition to the harmonized sales tax, with Randy Hillier and Bill Murdoch displaying grave disorder, much to the chagrin of the previous Speaker, Speaker. But what most people don’t know is that while we staged those sit-ins—we actually were in the west lobby, and—I don’t know if I’m betraying any caucus confidences here—Tim Hudak sat there and, with John Yakabuski, sang Johnny Cash songs. That’s something you try to forget but you just can’t.

As leader, he ran on a clear and unabashed conservative message. It was bold and it was risky, but it was conservative. Since he’s left as leader I often hear from people—and some of you may hear it too—“I like this new Tim Hudak,” or “Why wasn’t that Tim Hudak on the campaign trail?” Well, he is that Tim Hudak and he’s always been that Tim Hudak, and it’s the Tim Hudak that I like. And it’s the Tim Hudak who would show up here all the time before he was leader— even when he was leader—and talk about what happens in Niagara West–Glanbrook. We all knew it so well.

Some of the issues that he raised daily in the House with dogged determination were always tourism. He talked a lot about the Niagara Escarpment. He talked about gypsy moths—which, for the record, he doesn’t like—and he talked about fruit growers, VQA wine, the Fort Erie hospital and many other things.

He was such an expert at so many of these topics that after I listened to him and watched him, I had—I don’t know if it was the fortune or misfortune in 2011 to be sent down as the surrogate while he was touring the province, to do debates for him. I was scheduled to do a few, but I think once they realized that I knew the issues just as well as Hudak they were all cancelled. So I’m kind of grateful that I sat in on all those speeches.

The 2011 election was also a very tough one for him. He spent many weeks with his wife, Deb, at SickKids hospital with his daughter Miller. We would text each other. I remember July 1—because it’s a very busy day in Ottawa, as you can probably imagine—texting with him at the hospital.

We’ve shared many good, bad, happy and sad times. Most of you probably haven’t realized this, but in one month in 2014, as he led our party, his daughter Maitland was born; he lost his close friend Jim Flaherty, who was the husband of his seatmate, deputy leader, colleague and our friend; and he and I were served notice of a lawsuit. We went into the 2014 election one month later, but this is typical of the type of load that Tim can carry, while doing it with a smile and greeting you with warmth. He’s a thoughtful, considerate colleague and a friend, and I do have a few stories.

This was actually a lovely one. I had tweeted out that I was in Niagara with my mother, who’s from Nova Scotia, and that we were staying at a hotel. Tim’s staff found out from my staff where we were staying, and when we checked in, there was some Niagara wine and some peaches. I just thought, “Well brought up.”

You could go to his home anytime. Debbie’s a wonderful cook, and she would often cook and bake for the press gallery each year. But getting invited to one of their Super Bowl parties was actually quite super—many, many good times.

I couldn’t go visit my family in Nova Scotia—I did this summer, without him demanding me either to bring back lobster or beer. I brought him some Nova Scotia wine. We’ll see how that ticks. I don’t think it will be that good, but we’ll see.

This year, he spoke at my 10-year anniversary party, which was quite difficult for me. We talked about our friendship. We talked about our children, who are quite good friends, and we talked about our politics. He talked about my loyalty. We were both quite emotional, and I’m going to tell you why.

After 2014, the election defeat was hardest on him, but I was struggling with depression. He would sit with me, either here at Queen’s Park or on the phone when I was at home, and he would try to boost me up. Sometimes that was daily. That’s the Tim Hudak I know: well brought up, always deserving of my loyalty, always a friend.

Later this past summer, his riding association in Niagara West–Glanbrook hosted a tribute for Tim’s 21 years in politics. They asked me to appear by video. I happily agreed, and I shared much of what I’ve shared with you today. But I was asked for five words to describe him. I’m going to be honest: I was tempted to go with “one hundred thousand job cuts,” but I opted instead to go with “best Premier Ontario never had.”

It should come as no surprise that when he told me he was leaving politics this summer, I cried for two hours in my constituency. He and his former staff had to call me to calm me down. So did my husband; so did my staff. I know this isn’t the pit bull in lipstick that you guys are used to, but he’s a pretty special friend to me.

Tim Hudak has—I’m going to have to wipe my eyes; I can’t see. Tim Hudak has been, and always will be, more than an MPP to many in this room. He’ll be more than a party leader and he’s more than a Conservative, and I know history is going to reflect that. In the end, this might be the end of an era, but for all of us here, this is not the end of the friendship. It’s not the end of Tim Hudak. I want to wish him, Maitland, Miller and his beautiful wife, Deb, fun in retirement as they move on to the next chapter. Thank you.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Niagara West–Glanbrook.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Yes, five minutes for rebuttal, Mr. Speaker. It’s truly a special honour to speak at this time and moment. Traditionally, it’s for dead people. It’s like being able to rebut at your own funeral. To quote one of my favourite group of philosophers, as Monte Python once said, “I’m not quite dead yet.” So let me have a few last words, Speaker and colleagues, before I walk out the doors one last time.

First, thanks so much, my esteemed colleagues, for the very kind and generous words. It’s fair to say that at this level politicians are skilled in the art of plausible exaggeration, so I thank them for their generosity and those memories. Lisa, you touched my heart.

I try to say to myself that I won’t get emotional. I have worked hard to cultivate that hardass image over 21 years in this business. It’s just bad, bad for the brand.

I’ll say to Lisa that she has some very wonderful stories. We all have highs and lows in our work and in our lives, and you know who your true friends are when they’re not just there for the good times but for the tough times. Thank you, Lisa.

Jim, as a veteran and a friend, and always a dear friend of my wife, Debbie, as well, as a dean of the Legislature, your veteran comments and perspective and the way you looked at my career meant a lot to me personally, so thank you.

Paul, for your irascible sense of humour—that’s why you’re one of my favourite New Democrats. I won’t name the other one. I’ll just focus on you today.

I’m sorry to say this, Norm, but now he’s passed you as my second-favourite Miller on the planet. Thank you.

Joking aside, I’m going to miss this place and the people an awful lot. It has been 21 years. I’ve served my sentence. Hopefully, I’m getting sprung for good behaviour. But honest to God, I wouldn’t change a minute of it for anything in the world. It has been incredible.

I met Debbie here, through this business. That’s the best part. When we first started, actually—my desk isn’t even there anymore, it’s so far back in that corner. I don’t think she knew me. She figured I was Tim, Tom or Bart, for those of us who were around back in 1995, one of those new Niagara guys. But I had her in my targets, and I won that day and that’s the best thing about this business. She’s with Miller today and couldn’t be here. Then Miller and Maitland came about as part of that love. That’s awesome.

This is the toughest part, Speaker—deep breath.

Nothing would make this dad more proud than to see one of them standing in this place someday as an MPP and giving back to public service. But you know kids. With Debbie and I both being somewhat on the right, I’ve got no doubt that they’ll both be plaid-wearing, Chuck Taylor-sporting New Democrats someday, if they join this place, so it will be worth the trade-off.

I say to you, Speaker, and to the Clerk and the staff here at the Legislative Assembly, that I want to thank you. I can’t imagine working with so many politicians, 107 of us characters, at a time. That ain’t easy. All of the staff here, Speaker—their professionalism, their kindness, their love for this great institution is incredible, always so kind to my girls as they scampered out in the hallways and made a little mischief. They do an incredible job, and I want to thank them for everything they’ve done to make my experience so enjoyable.

I’m proud to see so many of my team here too, the stalwart true believers—incredible dedication and talent—who have all gone and done really well in the private sector. Congratulations. It’s great seeing you guys back here in the Legislative Assembly.

Let me use these last few moments I have to give these last words of advice that you’ll remember me by: If you want to sell your home, particularly in the GTA, I can now set you up for that.

We are a privileged 107. There is nobody else on this entire planet and in this province who can actually walk into this chamber. We are given a microphone and a desk by voters, and that is such a unique experience. It gives us a great power, an awesome responsibility, to come in and talk about whatever you want to talk about, to champion whatever cause. So my advice is, use it. You never know when your time is going to be up.

To paraphrase one of my favourite presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, this fortunate 107, you’ll use that mike to know great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spend yourself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Give people clear choices. Don’t be tepid. Don’t be middling. Don’t bite your tongue. You don’t know when the buzzer goes off. Play hard and play fair.

Over the past few decades in Ontario politics, over what I’ve said and how I’ve conducted myself, I’ve been a lot of different things to a lot of different people: an MPP—I was the kid; now I’m the veteran—a minister, leader, robot, frat boy, Bay Street stooge.

I’ll tell you a quick story, Speaker. Remember the Working Families ads, where I went in front of a group of old-school Bay Street guys in the oak-panelled chamber? They were effective ads. The guy actually looked like me a lot, except he was younger and had broader shoulders and in better shape, so it was kind of flattering. But during candidate training, we had one of our PC candidates who said, “Yes, I know those ads aren’t true, but Tim never should have gone into that meeting in the first place.”

The radio guys have been fun, too. Some of my friends here in the media were kind enough to come here today for my last words. It is so much fun to be in the media because you can speak with full authority on topics you know nothing about, and there’s no consequences whatsoever.

So just for the fun of it, because of my sense of humour: I’ve been a lot of things, but the last one I would ever want to be, and I don’t think I’ve ever been, is Abe Simpson. What do I mean by that? The hell-in-a-handbasket guy. I’ve been here a while and what I want to say, as I conclude, Speaker, is that there’s always this pining nostalgia for the old days. We’ll complain that things get more cynical or more polarized, the adversarial dialogue. But when you take 21 years and you take a step back, everything gets better. It really does. We can debate what’s in front of our noses, the ebbs and flows.

I’ve never seen more people involved, more people who have access to information that relates to what we do here, more people active. It’s true that we’ll have conflict, and when debate gets tough and clear, it’s a good thing. But there’s often this false nostalgia for the days when we all got along, and I suspect that if you believe that it’s true—well, it may have been true if you were part of the club. But we forget that there was a time when folks drank a lot more. This place was more white and more male. The spouse at home raised the family, absent the folks who were always here.

So I leave here a less cynical person than when I arrived, and I arrived pretty bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, wide-eyed and in awe. At the end of the day, I remain an optimist. I’m less cynical, because I believe that the ultimate disinfectant is sunshine. It reaches nooks and crannies that it didn’t reach the day that I arrived. It could be the sunshine itself; it could be the access to information; it could be the changing and evolving debate around ethics, around fundraising, around lobbying—the point being that people have a lot more information, a lot more right to know about what they pay their bills for, and that has been a good thing.

More importantly, there are so many more people involved in the conversation on a daily basis. It’s truly incredible, when you take a step back and look at that. When I was first elected in 1995, I think I was one of the first members to have a website. I remember my chief of staff at the time, somewhat jokingly, said that the Internet was going to be a passing phase. Those of us who were there, from time to time, would get a typewritten letter in something called an envelope with a stamp on it. Today, we are deluged by suggestions from voters and from people, in all kinds of streams, and that’s a good thing.

It’s direct interaction. There’s volume, there’s quality to it. Everyone’s in on the conversation. It is two-way, timely, efficient and passionate. It’s very egalitarian.

I’ve been unafraid to propose some controversial things from time to time. I have dared greatly and I have been kicked around as much as anyone in this chamber, especially by my own PC caucus. But in the end, I don’t regret a minute of it. To have the honour of sitting on these benches and being a voice for the things people want and believe in—it’s never a lost cause for any of us. It is worth the to-and-fro. You’ve got a microphone, so use it. Twenty-one years ago, I got this microphone. I’ve used it well. It’s a bit beaten up, it’s a bit worn, but it still works. And now, Speaker, I hand it back to the people who put their faith in me these 21 years.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): As this wraps up, I want to thank all the members who gave tribute for their wonderful and heartfelt feelings, and I want to thank the member from Niagara West–Glanbrook for his response.

I will give you a quick story. There was a little get-together yesterday to provide a farewell for staff and members. We were in the middle of a Board of Internal Economy meeting that I chaired, and we took a short break to pay respects. The member from Dufferin–Caledon and I had a quick word, and I basically said, “We need to take a break because we’ve got to do a visitation.” I was quickly corrected. I said that I will make sure he understands that that was not the case of a visitation; it was my respect for the member.

Thank you very much for all that you’ve done for us. God bless.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Can’t we all just get along?

It is now time for question period.

Oral Questions

Hydro rates

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Acting Premier. For the last two days, I have said that if the Liberals actually wanted to get hydro rates under control, they should stop signing ludicrous contracts. Ontario has a surplus of energy. Stop signing contracts for more. This government can’t continue to sell it at a loss.

Why won’t the Liberals stop signing these contracts? Oh, right: It’s because the wind and solar companies donated $1.3 million to the Liberal Party. So the Liberals keep on filling their coffers and then, in return, offer the people of Ontario Band-Aid solutions for this hydro crisis. Mr. Speaker, for once, will the government of Ontario think about the people of Ontario, not the Liberal Party?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Well, Speaker, that’s an abrupt change of tone, isn’t it?

Speaker, I can tell you that, on this side, we have made choices that reflect the wishes of the public of Ontario. We have made choices, when it comes to energy, to shut down the coal-fired plants that were damaging the health of Ontarians every single day. It was a deliberate choice to reduce our GHG emissions and to clean the air that Ontarians breathe. Is there a cost to that? Yes, there is.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville, please come to order.

Finish, please.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Let’s think back to the electricity system that existed in Ontario when we were elected. It had been badly neglected; important maintenance had been deferred. We were subject to brownouts and blackouts.

Interjections.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We now have a clean, reliable source of electricity, and we are taking steps—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. I may find myself in yesterday’s circumstance, where I move to warnings. I’m just putting that on the table now. If it continues, I will.

Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Mr. Speaker, back to the Acting Premier: Liberal math struck again yesterday. So let’s see how the Acting Premier would do on this math test. If the Minister of Energy is correct in his claim that exporting power reduced the cost by $230 million, as he said in the Legislature yesterday, how do they justify the fact that this government has given away $3 billion in power in the last three years? What I want to know from the Acting Premier is, how much have the people of Ontario lost? How much more are they paying because of your exports of energy to Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I would refer the Leader of the Opposition to a website called gridwatch.ca. Some of you will know this website. I refer to it regularly. It uses IESO data to, on an hour-by-hour basis, talk about where we’re generating electricity, where we’re exporting it and where we are importing it. It’s a really interesting look into our electricity system.

The bottom line is that we are part of a larger system. We import electricity when we need to. We export electricity when we have excess. Different parts of the province need to export and import at different times. It is part of a larger system.

We have a clean, reliable source of electricity in this province. We’ve eliminated coal, which saves us $4 billion in health care costs.

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

Mr. Patrick Brown: Mr. Speaker, back to the Acting Premier: It’s almost amusing to hear the government trying to reconcile $230 million in, $3 billion out, and trying to spin that it’s a profit.

Let’s talk about some more fuzzy Liberal math: cancelling a 10% discount and bringing in an 8% Band-Aid solution.

The government is still oblivious to how they’re hurting Ontario families. The Premier said we don’t have a plan. Well, I have been very clear: Step one, stop signing these contracts for energy we don’t need; and step two, stop this reckless fire sale of Hydro One.

My question to the Acting Premier is, will you actually act on energy? Will you stop signing these contracts and will you stop the fire sale? Yes or no?

Interjections.

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

Deputy Premier.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, let’s take a look back to 2002. Ontario paid $500 million to—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Leeds–Grenville, second time. And I’m inches away from warnings.

Carry on.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: In 2002, when the Conservatives were in office, Ontario paid $500 million to import electricity because we were not producing enough.

In 2003, Ontario paid $400 million to import electricity because we did not have the capacity to generate that electricity.

Speaker, we have made—

Interjection.

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

Wrap up, please.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Reliability was a real concern, as was the environment. A 127% increase in the use of coal; we have now eliminated—

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

Interjections.

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

New question?

Autism treatment

Mr. Patrick Brown: My question is for the Acting Premier. On April 19, the former Minister of Children and Youth Services said that she had “read the clinical expert committee” report on autism services.

On May 16, the former minister said that they were “continuing to listen to experts” and that her plan was “based in large part on ... the clinical expert committee.”

But we just learned in the Toronto Star that on April 18, before the minister made those comments, the expert committee wrote to the minister. They tried to caution the minister that her plan was “detrimental to vulnerable kids” and that there was “no evidence to support” kicking kids off the wait-list. So clearly she had not read the report or listened to the experts.

If the minister had read the report, was she intentionally misleading the House?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member will withdraw.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Withdraw.

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: The Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I want to thank the leader opposite for the question. I know he publicly recognized the work of this ministry for accommodating the children who were on the wait-list for IBI services, as we transition into a new program.

What we’re trying to do as a government is to establish a new program here in Ontario that will open up 16,000 new spots. We had a challenge here in Ontario with a long wait-list. What we’re planning to do is, by June of next year, build a new system that will allow for children to be diagnosed earlier. We will open up new spots here in the province of Ontario and we’ll put in a system that allows young people to reach their full potential. That’s what this government and I think all members of this House want to achieve: give young people the ability to find success here in the province of Ontario, regardless of their ability.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Acting Premier: Let’s look at what the experts actually told the Liberals. They clarified: “The committee’s report cited by the ministry did not propose imposing an age cut-off.”

The letter went on to say the government “initiated” action “prematurely, without sufficient consultation” and that the “services outlined in the new autism program last spring ‘will fall short of meeting the needs of these children.’”

This government has put families of children with autism through unimaginable pain and stress. This government looked those parents in the eyes and told them that they were following expert advice. This, simply, was categorically false.

How could this government turn their backs on these vulnerable children and their families? How could they do that? How could they look them in the face and blatantly lie to them?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member will withdraw. If it happens again, the member will be passed on his question. Withdraw.

Mr. Patrick Brown: Withdraw.

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

Hon. Michael Coteau: I think the member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, has to recognize that this dedicated half-a-billion-dollar investment into our children is probably the most significant investment into any autism program here in this country. In addition to this, we are setting up a new autism program here in the province of Ontario that will allow young people to get the skills they need and the ability to access the programs and services they need so they can actually get out there and reach their potential.

I think the member opposite should be standing and actually saying back to this government that we made the right decision. We’re heading in the right direction and that the member will—

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

Mr. Patrick Brown: Back to the Acting Premier: I appreciate that the government has finally realized that autism doesn’t end at five. I realize I’ve been warned, but, Mr. Speaker, I’ve been so frustrated with how these families have been treated.

I know the government is touting their new plan. They claim there’s funding for children kicked off this wait-list, but I have parents tweeting, emailing and calling almost every day. They told me they have not received a single cent to help cover the costs of IBI treatment, despite this announcement happening—not a single cent.

So I have a very specific question for the government and I would like a specific answer. Mr. Speaker, how many families that were kicked off the wait-list have received the promised funding? Has there been any funding delivered to the families kicked off the wait-list as of now?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Mr. Speaker, when I became the minister for this file, the first thing we did was that we sent out a letter to 24,000 families here in the province of Ontario, a letter from the ministry and from me as the minister, explaining the transition that was about to take place.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we set up a 1-800 number where parents across the province and families could call in and get real-time information about the transition that’s taking place.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve dedicated half a billion dollars over the five years to transition into a new program. And yes, Mr. Speaker—

Interjections.

Hon. Michael Coteau: What I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to do is, rather than standing there and constantly complaining about this program, to get behind parents. Show them the direction in which they can access programs. Each and every one of their offices—

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

Government policies

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, my question is for the Acting Premier. The government promised that their throne speech would be a reset. People were counting on the government to make life a little bit easier, to make sure that they could get a good paycheque and fair benefits, to fix our hospitals and schools, but instead the people of this province got a great big letdown on Monday.

It wasn’t a reset; it was a disappointment. People know it’s time for action in this province. Why doesn’t the government?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, perhaps we could review some of the highlights of the throne speech that demonstrate we are committed to making life better for Ontarians. I think 100,000 new child care spaces is something we can all applaud—100,000 new child care spaces.

A significant reduction in electricity bills is something we can all support. The third party hass been calling for this action. We’re now in a position to take that action. We are reducing the electricity bills by 8%, and a further reduction for those who live in the most rural part of our province. We’re also investing more to help companies reduce their consumption of electricity and they will save money as a result of that.

Speaker, we have responded and will continue to respond to the wishes of the people of this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I’m sure New Democrats were not the only MPPs this past summer who were out talking to people, and more importantly, listening to people. Every backbencher on that side of the House and every minister must have felt the disappointment from the people of Ontario as we did. Whether it was the decision to privatize Hydro One or the choice to ignore crumbling hospitals and schools, this is not what people hoped for. I’m sure that every Liberal minister and every Liberal member must have heard that.

Does this government understand that? Do they understand where the people of this province are? Do they understand how disappointed—and in many parts of this province, upset—people are about the functioning or mis-functioning of this government?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I almost think that the leader of the third party hasn’t been listening to one of the things that we are doing on this side of the House, including 100,000 new child care spaces, including reducing the costs of electricity in this province.

Speaker, what I’ve heard a lot about is the impact of free tuition for Ontarians with family incomes of $50,000 or less. I can tell you that just yesterday I met with a mom who told me that, because of this, her children will now be able to go on to college or to university. I’ve met with young people in grade 11 and grade 12 who looked at me and said, “Really?” when I said tuition would be free for those with incomes of $50,000 or less. In fact, the middle class, up to a $160,000 income, will benefit from the changes we’re making on tuition.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: We’re listening to the people of Ontario, and what they’re telling us is that they want something better. They deserve something better, Speaker. They are worried about their future, but more than that, they’re worried about whether there will be a future for the next generation in this province. Instead of hope, the people of this province are feeling extremely let down.

Privatization, flat wages, robbing schools and hospitals of the resources they need—that’s not what people voted for, Speaker. Is this government ready to acknowledge that they have gone off course and to commit to making big changes in direction today?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: There are many items I’d like to highlight—steps we are taking to make life easier for people—but let me focus on investments we’re making in our youth: an extra $250 million over two years to help 150,000 young Ontarians focus on skills development, on labour market connections, on entrepreneurship and on innovation. We’re investing in these young people because we know that if we make the investments, that will be repaid many, many times over as they enter the workforce and make a real contribution to this province.

When it comes to child care: as I said, 100,000 new spaces, which means that more people will be able to get that solid foundation so that when they go into full-day kindergarten—which is another initiative that we’re very proud of on this side—when those young people go to school, they’re going to be able to learn to their absolute maximum, and we will allow those parents of those children to participate as well.

Government policies

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is also for the Acting Premier. I was hopeful that Monday’s throne speech would have been one that was indicating a session of action that we were going to have here in Ontario, but instead what we have is a Premier who remains dead-set on privatizing Hydro One. The government is defending an $11 minimum wage instead of taking action on a $15 minimum wage. There is no plan whatsoever to improve the quality of jobs in Ontario or to fix the schools and hospitals in this province. Child care, which this Deputy Premier seems to want to talk about a lot, remains far too expensive for far too many families, and that’s not changing.

It is not a reset; it is yet another disappointment. Why is this government letting people down yet again?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We on this side acknowledge that there is always more to do, and we always work hard to make things better. But I tell you, I think the leader of the third party has a kind of—I don’t know what the opposite of rose-coloured glasses is, but they’re dark glasses that she’s looking at this great province through.

What we see is an economy which is growing: 6.1% growth over the past two years—leading the country. When it comes to unemployment, our unemployment rate has dropped to 6.7%. That has been lower than the national average for 16 straight months.

Our kids are graduating. There was a graduation rate of 68% when we were elected in 2003; it’s now an 85.5% graduation rate—huge new opportunities for all of those young people who are graduating from high school, who are moving on to post-secondary education and—

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, people in this province need hope, not another letdown by their government. This province is at a key moment in time. Without big changes, things are going to get a heck of a lot worse for the people of this province. Instead of getting to work, the government is making things harder, making life harder for folks.

Will this Wynne government finally change course and start taking real steps that make a real difference in people’s lives?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I’ve been informed by my caucus mates that maybe it’s orange-coloured glasses that they’re wearing; they make everything look dark and gloomy. I can tell you, any objective observer would say that things are better in Ontario now than they’ve been in some time, and it’s because on this side, we made hard choices. We made choices to invest in infrastructure, to invest in our young people through education, to invest in our health care system.

Our economy is continuing to grow and expand. We are attracting immigrants from all over the world who are choosing to make Ontario their home. We’re number one in foreign direct investment.

Yes, there’s always more work to do and our focus is always on making things better for those who are facing tough times, but to make the suggestion that all is doom and gloom in Ontario is just not a reflection of reality.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Lev