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May 29, 2013

40th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2013-May-29 (PDF)

L046 - Wed 29 May 2013 / Mer 29 mai 2013

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Wednesday 29 May 2013 Mercredi 29 mai 2013

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ORDER OF BUSINESS

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

CHILDREN’S HEALTH SERVICES

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES /

ÉTABLISSEMENTS CORRECTIONNELS

ONTARIO’S CREDIT RATING

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TAXATION

SPORTS AND RECREATION FUNDING

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

HOSPITAL FUNDING

PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

SENATE OF CANADA

DEFERRED VOTES

2013 ONTARIO BUDGET

ESTIMATES

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ARBITRATION

INVESTING IN OUR DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH

HALTON FOOD FOR THOUGHT

IRENE ATKINSON

LISGAR RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

SPECIAL OLYMPICS

BICYCLE SAFETY

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

HAWKINS GIGNAC ACT

(CARBON MONOXIDE SAFETY), 2013 /

LOI HAWKINS GIGNAC DE 2013 (PROTECTION CONTRE LE MONOXYDE DE CARBONE)

KINGSGATE II LIMITED ACT, 2013

KINGSGATE III LIMITED ACT, 2013

KINGSGATE IV LIMITED ACT, 2013

WESTMOUNT RIDGE ASSOCIATES LIMITED ACT, 2013

ELECTRONIC PERSONAL HEALTH INFORMATION PROTECTION ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LA PROTECTION

DES RENSEIGNEMENTS PERSONNELS

SUR LA SANTÉ FIGURANT DANS

UN DOSSIER DE SANTÉ ÉLECTRONIQUE

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

AND HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT AMENDMENT ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR L’AMÉNAGEMENT DES VOIES PUBLIQUES ET DES TRANSPORTS

EN COMMUN

FAIRNESS IS A TWO-WAY STREET ACT (CONSTRUCTION LABOUR MOBILITY), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 PORTANT QUE LA JUSTICE N’EST PAS À SENS UNIQUE (MOBILITÉ DE LA MAIN-D’OEUVRE DANS L’INDUSTRIE DE LA CONSTRUCTION)

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

SAFE KIDS WEEK

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

SAFE KIDS WEEK

SAFE KIDS WEEK

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

VISITORS

PETITIONS

DRIVE CLEAN

DENTAL CARE

SERVICES FOR THE

DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT

FAMILY SAFETY

PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES

PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES

ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TRADES

TIRE DISPOSAL

ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TRADES

WIND TURBINES

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ORDER OF BUSINESS

ADJOURNMENT DEBATE

WIND TURBINES

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ORDER OF BUSINESS

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 28, 2013, on the amendment to the motion to apply a timetable to certain business of the House.

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

Mr. Gilles Bisson: First of all, I’m going to be taking most of my time on this debate this morning in order to raise a number of issues and to go through a couple of things that I think need to be talked about in regard to where we’re at.

What’s clear is that about a year and a half ago—back in October 2011, I believe the date was—we had an election. The people, during that election said, listen, they didn’t want to return a majority government back to this Legislature; in fact they had decided that it was time to have a minority government because they weren’t prepared to give (1) a re-election victory to the McGuinty government at the time and (2) they certainly weren’t prepared to give a majority government to the Conservatives and were not about to do the same to us.

So they decided, in their wisdom—because the public is always infinitely more wise than we give them credit for—that it was going to be a minority Parliament that was going to return to the Legislature for the next little while. They asked—by way of their franchise, by way of the vote—that what we should be doing is trying to figure out how we get together and figure out how we do the work of the people, so that we do what’s right for them, not necessarily what’s right for the political parties.

We’ve been here now for about a year and a half, a little bit more than that, and it’s been quite an interesting time. You had, first of all, a McGuinty government that came back and said they were into a “major minority.” They decided that they were going to strictly try to rule as if they were in a majority and forget what the people had told them. At the time, I remember hearing those comments from the Premier, actually being at some of those scrums.

And my comment—as it was with Andrea Horwath and others—was that was wrong, that in the end we should always respect what the people of Ontario have to say, and that the voters are the people who decide what’s to happen here for the next four years or whatever amount of time it is, if it’s a minority government. For Mr. McGuinty on the day to say that he was going to act as if there was a majority flew in the face, quite frankly, of what the people of Ontario had asked for in that election.

We spent the better part of a year—a little bit more than a year, maybe a couple of months—working under that scenario, where the government was trying to act as if it was a majority. Andrea Horwath and New Democrats said, “Whoa. Just wait a second here.” The people of Ontario didn’t give the government a majority. They didn’t give any party a majority. They sent us here, and they said, “Be humbled, for a change, and go and do what needs to be done for the people of Ontario.”

So we went into the budget cycle last year with that in mind, and Andrea Horwath said, “No, Mr. McGuinty and the Liberals, you’re not just going to get what you normally want to get as a majority. You’re going to have to take into account what the people of Ontario have to say.”

So we went into a budget cycle, and everybody knows what happened through that particular cycle. We amended essentially what was an austerity budget on the part of the McGuinty government and put in place the measures that made the budget more acceptable to the people of Ontario.

Was it a great budget? Absolutely not. There were many components in that budget that we still take offence at: what the government tried to do with the horse racing industry and what the government is trying, or tried, to do with the ONTC, just to name a few. But we managed to put some fairness into that budget.

I think one of the key ones was making sure that it’s not always the working class and the working poor who pay all the taxes in this province. That’s what we’ve been seeing over the years. We’ve been seeing that the top 10% earners in the province of Ontario, as across most of Canada, have been doing better over the last number of years, while the rest, the 90%, are doing worse, when it comes to real income brought home and when it comes to the amount of taxes they have to pay. Those at the top 10% are paying less taxes than they used to 10 years before, and those below—the 90%, the rest of us—are paying more. We said that’s patently unfair.

So we put in place what we call the millionaire’s tax, which essentially says that anybody over $500,000 in income would have to pay an extra 2% in income tax. That raised some $600 million to $700 million for the province of Ontario that we were then able to put into home care, that we were then able to put into making sure we had a better health care system, making sure that our kids can go to school and, more importantly, making sure that we don’t raise the deficit needlessly in order to make sure we’re on track to be able to balance the budget by 2017.

If it hadn’t been for New Democrats in the last budget, the fiscal picture today, as far as the Ontario budget, would be that much worse. It was New Democrats who actually tempered the government in what they were doing and, in fact, got some revenue that was very much needed in order to be able to offset the cost of doing business here in Ontario, as far as the services we deliver as an Ontario government and, at the same time, making sure that everybody paid a fairer share of the cost of the services that people get.

I remember, at the time, the Conservative Party said, “Oh my God, the only way you can deal with this is to vote down the government and call an election.” That was their mantra back then, as it is now. And the thing that always struck me was that Tim Hudak and the Conservative Party never heard what Ontarians said to them back in October the year before. The people had said, “No, Tim Hudak, you’re not going to be our Premier.”

Tim Hudak had gone into that election—supposedly was going to become a majority government. What was clear, by the end of the election, after they looked at Tim Hudak a little bit closer, they said, “No, we don’t want him as our Premier. What we want, at this point, is a pause so that we can figure out what’s going on in Ontario politics,” and they returned a minority government to this Legislature.

So I always thought it was rather rich that the Conservatives said last year, “Our only response to absolutely everything is two things: ‘No’ and ‘I want an election.’” Well, what kind of constructive ideas are those? What kind of constructive solutions do they bring to the problems that face Ontarians?

There are some really serious problems that we have to deal with. There was a deficit, at that time, of almost $17 billion that faced the province of Ontario. We still arguably have a deficit of around $13 billion today. I think that when we start looking at really how much money the government saved last year with some of this privatization stuff around OLG and others—they’ve put those into their fiscal forecast—they’re going to be quite surprised when they find out how much money they didn’t get.

But the point is that the only solution the Tories brought to this was to say, “No, I don’t want to play with you. No, I want to do my own thing. No, I believe in the fortunes of the Conservative Party, and all I want to do is get to government.” Well, we’ve seen what a Mike Harris government is all about. We certainly are seeing what a Stephen Harper government is all about. We certainly don’t need to learn positive experience from either of those elections. We see Stephen Harper, who campaigned on trust, campaigned on making things more accountable, and we then see people like Mike Duffy, and the Prime Minister of Canada saying, “Oh, well, I think we’ve done as much as we can on this.”

You know, Tim Hudak’s solution to say no to absolutely everything and to say the only thing that Ontarians need is an election is, I would argue, a pretty self-serving ask on the part of the Conservatives. They are clearly demonstrating that all that they want is to be able to do what’s right for them and the Conservative Party. I don’t believe for a second—I don’t care what the polls say; those guys aren’t getting elected in a majority government. It ain’t happening.

I think when the people look at these guys closely as we go into an election, whenever that might be, they are going to find out that the Tim Hudak of the election of 2011 has just gotten meaner and nastier, and quite frankly they are not going to return those guys in any form of a majority government.

We made a decision last year, as New Democrats. We said that we would in fact allow the budget to pass because of those concessions that we got from the Liberal government. We allowed that to pass by essentially abstaining on the vote, because we still believed there were parts of that budget that were problematic—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Gutless.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: —but we had a responsibility to do what’s right for the people of Ontario. As I listen to the whip of the Conservative Party call the New Democratic Party gutless, I just say that when people start resorting to those kinds of words and those kinds of allegations, it tells you that they have nothing to defend themselves and quite frankly are being pretty childish and irresponsible about the trust that the people have given them when they come into the Legislature. So I will take no lesson from the whip of the Conservative Party; that is for sure.

We then went through the budget process, and what was interesting in that budget process last year—and I remember well, because I was one of the ones who negotiated this, along with our chief of staff, along with the Liberal House leader and the Liberal chief of staff at the time, Mr. Morley—is that we had said to them, “Be clear; we are still going to amend your budget. And I’ll tell you where we’re going to amend it.

We’re going to amend it on the sections that deal with getting rid of wage-based arbitration for workers who don’t have the right to strike because they’re declared essential workers, such as police officers, such as firefighters and others.” We said to the government in those meetings, and my leader Andrea Horwath said to the Premier before we finalized the deal, “You need to be clear. We are supporting your budget motion, but we will still amend your budget and those sections such as I mentioned.” And the government said, “That’s fine.”

We ended up going into the budget process where we were into clause-by-clause for amendments and, lo and behold, the Conservatives became New Democrats in about two seconds. They decided that it was a bad idea to get rid of wage-based arbitration, and I was heartened, because I thought finally the Conservatives were starting to recognize that in a society you need to have rules that are fair. If you’re going to tell police officers and you’re going to tell firefighters that they can’t go on strike, you just can’t take away the right to bargain, and the only right they have in bargaining is wage-based arbitration.

I was heartened and I was glad and I couldn’t believe it when the Conservatives said to us, “You know what? We’re going to support your amendments, because we’re going to make sure that the government doesn’t pass those particular sections that got rid of wage-based arbitration.”

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: We’ll get back to this in a second, in regard to the motivation of the Tories. But what was interesting was the response by then-finance minister Dwight Duncan. He professed how surprised he was: “Oh, my God. They’ve gone back on their word.”

Mr. John Yakabuski: Point of order.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Point of order, the member for Renfrew.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Standing order 23, Speaker: In his own words, he’s assigning motive to another party and members of that party in this chamber. In his own words, he is assigning motive. He should speak to the motive of his own party and himself as a member, but it is out of order to speak to the motive or impute the motive of another party under standing order 23.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Thank you for your input. I believe it’s his dime and he’s allowed to talk the way he wants for 60 minutes, as long as I feel it’s within the guidelines of what he should be talking about. As far as saying what your motive is, that’s not really an attack on you; it’s simply his

interpretation of what he thinks you’re thinking and doing. So I don’t find that a point of order.

Continue.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I just have to say, Mr. Speaker, I’ve learned those motives of the Conservative Party over the last year attacking us and attacking others. Anyway, I’ll just leave that at that.

My point was that then-Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan said, “Oh, my God, I’m so surprised. Oh, Andrea Horwath and the New Democrats are going back on their word.” They played this silly little charade out, and eventually the public understood, I think, because if you looked at what happened afterwards—that we actually went up in the polls at the end of that budget cycle—that in a sense the government was trying to profess that we had broken a deal when we had done no such thing.

What had happened was the Conservatives had decided to play silly bugger in the budget process.

Their argument—and I accept this, this was fair—was that gutting of the wage-based arbitration doesn’t go far enough. “So because it doesn’t go far enough, we’re going to support yours to maintain what’s in there now.” I guess their thinking was that they would then be able to make an argument with AMO and other municipalities that the government would come back with some sort of other deal in the fall to really gut even more seriously the wage-based arbitration for police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers.

The fact that the Tories voted with the New Democrats I thought at first was because finally they were really starting to become the “progressive” part of the Conservatives. I later found out, and I was very disappointed, that in fact they were not being progressive; they just wanted to go further, deeper and harder. I just think that that is the wrong way to go.

And so we ended up passing the budget with those schedules taken out of the act, and then the finance minister, Mr. Duncan at the time, came back and said, “Well, we’re just going to come back with legislation. We’re going to fix this in the fall. What we’ve got to do is bring more legislation.” At that time we—along with police officers, firefighters, ambulance workers and others who were essential workers—thought, “Whoa, hang on till this fall. It looks like the Tories have got a deal cooked up with the Liberals in order to gut the wage-based arbitration system.” So we were waiting for that to happen.

But lo and behold, something happened in between the budget being passed in the spring of last year and what we found as far as the return of the House: There was a by-election. I thought this was rather interesting. The government, who had spent about eight years reaching out to people in the educational sector—teachers and others—decided that it would be to their political advantage in order to attack teachers in the by-election and to essentially say what they did. I thought that, boy, that was really, really bad, in my view, as far as a strategy, because number one, I thought most people would see it for what it was.

This was a case of the Liberals essentially trying to pick on teachers because they were in a by-election for a riding that had been held by Elizabeth Witmer, a member of the Conservative Party. They thought that, “If we go into a Conservative riding and we can show we’re better Tories than the Tories who are there now, and we can be more regressive when it comes to teacher bargaining and show that we’re tough against workers and teachers and educational workers,” somehow or other that would be a good thing, because they would then be able to pick up the right-wing vote in that particular by-election.

They would be able to bring back a Liberal, create a majority, and then go on their merry way and finish off with a majority government until whenever that ended. Well, that didn’t quite work out the way they planned.

New Democrats found a great candidate in Catherine Fife. We ran an excellent campaign. We pointed out to the voters of Kitchener–Waterloo that in fact what the government was up to was that they were trying to play a Tory game in order to gain for themselves in the election their opportunity to be able to win that seat to win a majority. It was all about the Liberals doing what was right for them and what was politically expedient, not necessarily what the public wanted. Again, I go back to the point of this minority government: The people sent us back as a minority. Why?

Because they expect us to work together and to try to find some commonality, understanding that at times we will disagree, which is fair enough. There are times that the Liberals, New Democrats and Tories will disagree in some combination, and that’s just fair. That’s what happens here, but where we have commonality we should try to find a solution.

So we elected Catherine Fife. She came to this House. She has been a very effective representative for that Kitchener–Waterloo riding. She has been, by leaps and bounds, a real wonderful addition to our caucus with her intellect, her honesty and her approach, being a straight shooter when it comes to dealing with representing the people of that area.

That was also a wake-up call for the government. They recognized that they had a problem. They tried to play the right-wing card in the election game and it had backfired on them. In fact, the people of Kitchener–Waterloo said, “I like Andrea Horwath, I like the NDP and I really like Catherine Fife. I will bring them back to this Legislature in order to hold this government’s feet to the fire.”

Well, the response by the government was rather interesting. They came back. They found themselves embroiled in the scandal around the gas plants. It was clear that what the government was telling the people was not lockstep with what actually had happened. I guess that’s parliamentary, Speaker. And what—

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: What?

Miss Monique Taylor: Bill 115.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Oh, yes, I forgot about that. That’s right; I should talk about that before I get to the other one. Thanks for that. That was really helpful.

Miss Monique Taylor: No problem, Brother.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Thank you, Sister.

I’m going to digress for a second because we forget one very important thing: That was Bill 115. The government came back after the by-election and did a time allocation motion with the Tories in order to pass Bill 115, which was the legislation that essentially ripped up the bargaining process for teachers and imposed collective agreements on the teachers, rather than allowing them to negotiate their settlements, as that would be the case later. But what they did at the time is, they imposed those contracts by way of a piece of legislation called Bill 115 that came to this House.

They were supported by the Conservatives not only in the bill, but they were also supported in time allocation. We New Democrats were alone to oppose that bill and voted against it.

But then the other part happened, which was the gas plants scandal. The government’s only response when they found out the jig was up and that, in fact, they would be in a situation of having to deal with a contempt motion that was in the House was to prorogue. I think that was ill-advised.

I think the fact that the Premier resigned and that they were going to have a leadership race was one thing. That was his call; that was his choice. I respect him for it one way or another. Everybody should be able to make that decision on their own at one point. But they prorogued the House. I argued, at the time, as Andrea Horwath did, that it didn’t make any sense to prorogue the House to allow the Liberals to have a leadership race, because all that was doing was gaming the system for the Liberals.

While the Liberals were having a leadership race, they didn’t have to be in the House answering questions at question period and dealing with the issue of contempt that was going through the House at the time. It was an attempt on the part of the Liberals to game the process so that, in fact, they would be in the situation of being able to keep all that pretty well subdued and out of the papers while they went through the leadership process.

I just think that the government and their acting and how they dealt with this minority Parliament in the first year left a lot to be desired, and I will argue it probably still does to an extent. But it was clear that the government was trying to game it for their own interests politically. I think that was wrong.

So here we are. We come back after the leadership race. A new leader of the Liberal Party is elected. She takes her office, and we’re into another budget process. We get into this budget process, and Andrea Horwath was quite clear. She said, “Listen, I’m not going to have any negotiations or backroom deals made. I’m going to do this process very transparently. I’m going to do it openly so that the media and the public, through the media, are able to understand what it is that we as New Democrats want and what it is that the Liberals are prepared to do. And I will report at every step what it is that’s going on and what it is that we’re asking for.”

We put in place six asks. We said we want to have, first of all, a reduction in auto insurance. It is clear that people are being whacked when it comes to the price of auto insurance in this province. If we look at the examples that have been raised in the House yesterday in regard to people getting 15% and 20% increases on the part of their insurance companies—

Miss Monique Taylor: Thirty.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: —and 30%, as I’m told, in another example, that is clearly unacceptable.

The public has come to a point where they can’t afford to pay any more. Their wages are not keeping up with inflation, and what they’re doing is, they’re getting HST added onto them by the Liberal government. The insurance companies are increasing their rates on auto insurance. Cost is going up. The public has had it.

So we have said it’s important that we have FSCO change the rules so that, in fact, there is a 15% reduction in auto insurance within a year. We thought that was a fair thing to do, considering that insurance companies had made $2 billion in profit the previous year because the government had changed the rules to lessen the benefits that the insurance companies have to pay to accident victims, and rather than having that $2 billion in profit, the government had said they were going to pass those savings on to the public and never did so.

We were keeping the government to account to what it is they promised they would do two and three years before. So we asked for a 15% reduction in auto insurance.

We then said, “It’s important that we have a youth jobs initiative,” so we asked for the First Start program. The idea behind that is very simple: There’s a lot of youth in all of our communities—it could be Cornwall, Timmins, Thunder Bay, Windsor or Toronto—where people have gone to school, they’ve gotten their training, but they don’t have that first job that is related to what they studied. They can get a job in the service industry, but they can’t necessarily easily get the job that they’ve trained for.

We’ve said we need a First Start program that allows youth to be able to get into an employ where they’re actually using the skills they were trained for, and that the employer gets some sort of help in order to make that happen. We put that on the table because we thought it’s far better having our youth who have spent time in our post-secondary institutions to be working in the field that they chose than to be working in the service industry or in a job that they quite frankly didn’t even go to school for. People should at least be able to get work in what they trained for.

We then said, “We have a problem in long-term care.” There is an issue across this province where people are having to wait, to get long-term-care services, for the better part of 200-plus days to get an assessment, to have somebody dispatched to their home to get a bath, to have somebody come in and help them prepare their meals or do nursing services, or whatever it might be.

Clearly, when you have that going on, it’s a problem that the person who needs to be at home loses their independence, and it’s a question that they want to stay at home but are then forced back into an institution at a much higher cost, and it’s somewhere that they don’t want to be. So we’ve asked for a five-day guarantee on an assessment, and we’ve said that would be a fair thing to do. The cost of that was about $30 million or $35 million.

We then said, “Listen, it’s patently unfair that you’ve put the HST and charged it to workers and families out there, and at the same time you’re going to be giving the richest companies in our province the ability to write off all their HST inputs, starting sometime next year.” The cost of that is $1.3 billion—and again, it goes back to the point that the top 10% of our population are making more money and paying less taxes while the rest of the 90% are making less money and paying more taxes. It’s patently unfair. We have said we need to put an end to this. Everybody has to pay their fair share.

I go back to the debate in regard to transit. I listened to the government say, “Oh, the New Democrats, they don’t want transit.” Horse feathers. Our party has always been a party that supported the issue of proper transit within a city, and intercity transportation between cities like Hamilton and Toronto and others. But it’s a question of how to pay for it.

It seems to us there’s a pretty evident thing here that the government says, “Go and do tolls or increase the HST or increase the price of gas,” which is a hit on hard-working people and our economy, or we can say, “Let’s just not give the $1.3-billion tax loophole to these companies that are going to get it in a year’s time.” There’s $1.3 billion—not too hard to figure out—and then we can make the investment that needs to be made when it comes to transit in cities like Toronto and the corridors between our cities coming into Toronto.

More importantly, there’s the ability to provide services such as snowplowing in northern Ontario, making sure that roads are not washed out like we saw last weekend in the Wawa area, making sure that we put in passing lanes where they’re necessary, and supporting public infrastructure like the ONTC, the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, that runs the train in northern Ontario.

We have said those are some of the things that we want in the budget. The government responded over time and gave us pretty well everything we asked for. I was a bit surprised. You know, I’ve been around for a while, knowing you put forward your ideas, the government responds, you normally get some of them, and then you have a decision: Is it enough?

Well, I give the government some credit: They gave us everything we asked for. Andrea Horwath led; Kathleen Wynne followed. I think that was a very, very good thing for Ontario, and it’s not about—

Mr. John Yakabuski: She wrote the budget.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, we didn’t write the budget, but we certainly inserted the major parts of the budget. The budget was written by the current Minister of Finance and his people, but we inserted—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Andrea was looking over his shoulder.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I love my friend from the Conservative Party, the whip, because—oh, I won’t even bother.

Anyway, my point is that we essentially asked for six things, and the government gave them to us. Then we had a decision to make, and that decision was, do we trust that the government will actually deliver? Because I think one place we can agree, my friend from Renfrew-Nipissing-wherever, is that the Liberals have been very good at making announcements. They’ve been very bad at delivering on those announcements.

I think back to what happened at AMO about a year ago, where they went to AMO and said there was a $35- or $40-million capital fund that was being established to assist municipalities to pay for some much-needed infrastructure investments. The criteria to apply were so strict and so difficult, hardly a municipality got any of the money. So it was a great announcement when the Premier, or whoever it was, walked into AMO that year and said, “I’ve got $40 million for municipalities.” Everybody applauded. God, I had applauded, because we have much-needed infrastructure in our communities that we can use that money for. But the money never got out.

So we said to ourselves, “We need to have, first of all, some transparency on what this government is doing,” because we certainly don’t want more eHealths. We certainly don’t want any more gas plants or chemotherapy or eHealth scandals. We need to have some form of transparency, and I’ll come to that in a minute. We need to also make sure there’s accountability, so that this government is actually held to account for those things that they say they’re going to do.

We asked for three things. We said we want a financial accountability officer, like Kevin Page and the financial accountability office that is in Ottawa. The problem we have in Ontario is that we have a very good audit process, as far as the auditor, who is able to look at expenditures once they’ve been done. That auditor and his office, along with our public accounts committee, have done really good work at looking at expenditures once they’ve happened, and we’ve learned from some of that and we’ve learned how to do better. We only hope they would have learned a little bit better when it comes to the gas plants, but I’ll get to that later.

The problem we have is that when the government makes an announcement, there’s no mechanism in order to say, “Does that make sense? The numbers that the government is using: Is that right?”—in order to be able to make sure that the government and this Legislature are clearer on what the ramification of the decision is and what the costs are, so that we can in fact do it right, if we’re going to do it at all.

We decided to do what they had done federally, when Stephen Harper had decided to hold the Liberals accountable because of the Gomery scandal. We all remember the Gomery scandal, where essentially the federal government gave money to their high-priced consultant friends, who then gave money back to the Liberal Party. They decided to put in place what we call the financial accountability officer here, their Parliamentary Budget Officer.

I just would say this as a note: It’s a good thing that Kevin Page was there, because if you look at the F-35 scandal, that was going to cost us how much? Some $35 billion, I think the numbers were. I may be wrong on the numbers.

Hon. Jeff Leal: Just to start—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Just for starters. The government was claiming it was far less, and Kevin Page came in and said, “Hold it a second. Whoa. This thing has got far more legs on it than you think.” In fact, it turned out that the cost was far in excess of what the government was claiming. Essentially, he shone the light on the Harper government, and the Harper government had to back down. That parliamentary officer paid his wages and the wages of every Parliamentary Budget Officer to come for the next 100 years, just with that particular expenditure.

We thought that would make sense in Ontario, because, for example, when the government started this whole thing about cancelling the gas plants, the parliamentary budget officer could have said, “Hang on a second,” as Andrea Horwath said in the last election. “There’s going to be a mighty big price to pay if you start scrapping contracts in the middle of them, because you’re going to have to pay penalties to get out.”

The government argued shortly after the election that it was only $40 million, where in fact it’s closer to $500 million to $900 million, not only according to what we claim but what the auditor has said and what the government’s own documents at cabinet had said. The government said $40 billion when they knew full well it was between $500 million and $900 million.

Well, imagine if we would have had a Kevin Page here in Ontario at the time. That parliamentary budget officer, in our case—

Miss Monique Taylor: We would have had money to pay for transit.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, exactly; there’s a good point.

We would have been in a situation where they would have been able to shine the light on that, and the government would have known that, when making the decision, and would have said, “Whoa, we can’t do this.

This is $500 million to $900 million.” But if they would have made the decision, it would have been in the full light of the numbers, and the public would have known what the costs were, and then the public would have been able to make a better-informed decision in the election about “Do we want a government re-elected that’s going to spend $500 million to $900 million to save, essentially, a couple of Liberal seats in the Mississaugas?” I would think that maybe the public wouldn’t view that as a good idea, which brings me to my first point: Maybe the government wouldn’t have done it and would’ve tried to find some other way to do this to mitigate their losses.

We agree, as New Democrats, that those plants should have never been built in the first place. They certainly shouldn’t have been done through the private sector; they should have been built as some sort of public entity. If we would have had a really good process at the beginning that deals with how you deliver public power at cost and so that you’re able to site things in a way that makes sense, we would have never had to build it there in the first place. We asked for the financial accountability officer for that very reason.

We also asked for an Ombudsman within the health care sector, something that the government has steadfastly refused to do for the past number of years. We all know the stories. We saw the story in Peterborough where the senior had the camera in the institution, and we saw the bad treatment that that senior got and the pilfering that was going on in his room. That is only one story.

We heard the story of the gentleman from London that was raised here in the House by Andrea Horwath a couple of days ago, where he was essentially asked, after he had come in for pneumonia and was very weak and sick and infected, to clean his own toilet at the hospital. He has now gone to the media, I was reading this morning, because the hospital said that wasn’t true. He says, “I beg to differ. Darn right it was true.” Imagine if the Ombudsman had the ability to take these complaints and to do the investigation.

You know what stops people from doing things that they shouldn’t be doing? It’s the fear of being caught. That’s what the Ombudsman could do in a case like that: ensure that the hospitals and other institutions know that the Ombudsman can investigate. If he can investigate—or she, if it was a woman—as the Ombudsman, then in fact, maybe they wouldn’t do those things in the first place.

Then we asked for what is probably something that’s going to be one of the better things that we’ve been able to do in this budget: that the government can’t do tolls and can’t do any kind of revenue tools on the big build for transit for the city of Toronto and the GTHA without having a vote in the House. We’re saying, as New Democrats, that we believe transit expansion should happen. We believe that Transit City, which the Liberals essentially gutted about four or five years ago—that was the wrong thing to do.

Imagine if we had continued with that way back when, we would be further ahead when it comes to transit in this city. But it’s a question of how to pay for it. The point New Democrats are making is, you just can’t go to the public and say, “It’s always you who’s going to pay.” You need to go to others in our tax system who are making far more money and have them pay their fair share.

You’ve got the Metrolinx report that came out the other day, and you’ve got the board of trade of Toronto who say, “Listen, if we don’t do this, it’s $6 billion to $9 billion a year that it’s going to cost your economy as a result of gridlock in this city.” I agree: That’s a bad thing. I agree that we can’t have those kind of losses. What I really find appalling is these are the people who represent the top 10%, and they’re saying, “We don’t want to lose our $9 billion, but we want you people—the plebes—to pay for it.” I just say that’s wrong. There’s got to be a fairer way of coming at how we’re going to pay for this.

Is it really $2 billion? Because some of this money has already been expended and it’s already accounted for for the next number of years. Whatever the final price tag is on an annual basis, how are we going to pay for it? How much of it can come from within? How much of it can come from that top 10% who are making most of the money in this province and paying less back? We need to answer those questions and not just say it’s a question of toll lanes on HOVs or taxes that we ask the hard-pressed citizens of this province to pay.

So we asked for those three measures when it comes to accountability. The government gave us, essentially, two and a half of the three. Again, I give them credit; they’ve given us what we’ve asked for. I think it shows again that Andrea Horwath knows how to lead, and certainly Madam Wynne knows how to follow. I think that’s a really good thing.

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, Tim Hudak—I was going to come to the point. Mr. Hudak, he’s just left behind.

Anyway, I would just say that we got two and a half, which is pretty darn good because the government has agreed—and that’s why we’re having this debate today—to the financial accountability officer being established in the province of Ontario. I’ll come back to this point in a minute.

The government has agreed that there will be a vote in the House on whatever financial tools we use to pay for the big build and the expansion of transit in this city, something that New Democrats believe has to happen. We firmly believe you need to make these investments. It’s a question of how we pay for it.

On the Ombudsman, they’ve said no, but two things I would say. The government has said, “We will put in place other mechanisms that allow an easier way to make a complaint at a hospital and knowing that the complaint is followed up on.” It’s not as much as we asked for. And the other day I heard the Minister of Health say, “You know what? Maybe the idea of giving the Ombudsman the right to do this is not a bad idea, in light of what was exposed in Peterborough the other day.”

Again, Andrea Horwath led, and it would appear that Madam Wynne and Madam Matthews are starting to follow, and I think that’s a good thing. As usual, Tim Hudak—well, he’s just left behind. We’ll just leave him over there.

What we’ve now got is, essentially, a package that has been put forward by New Democrats, which I’m very proud of. I think that Andrea Horwath and New Democrats said, “Listen. We are in a minority Parliament. We need to be constructive in our approach to this minority Parliament. We’re not going to get everything that we want, but our job is to be able to do the best that we can, given where we’re at and that we have put together what are reasonable asks that don’t cost anywhere near the $1 billion that the Tories are trying to say.”

They’re trying to argue that these asks are $1 billion. I would argue that the financial accountability office will pay dividends way in excess of what this budget is, and when it comes to the costs of the six asks that we have, they’re nowhere near a billion dollars. I think it’s somewhere—the long-term-care ask is $35 million. The home care is how much again? The home care is nowhere near—the home care is $35 million. The job creation program is—I forget.

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: No, it’s not that much. No, that’s what the Liberals have done. We’ll come back to that.

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: It’s all costed. It was about $100 million in total, but the financial accountability office will offset that. Plus, we have said, “Don’t give the HST inputs back to the private sector.” There you’ll save $1.3 billion if you didn’t—

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: We didn’t leave it out. It was actually one of our asks.

So the point is we have been pretty frugal in our asks. We have looked at the budget. We have said, “What is it that we can do without burdening the taxpayer and making sure that we don’t tap out the money that we have?” We’ve been pretty reasonable and, I think, pretty frugal in our approach to all of this. So I think that was the responsible thing to do, and that’s what we’ve been asked to do by the people of Ontario, which brings me to the programming motion. Now this is all coming together, Speaker.

Mr. Steve Clark: There we go. Icing on the cake.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Icing on the cake it is.

Now we’re into the programming motion. The issue that we have, as I said earlier, is that we have these asks that the government has said they would give, and we need to have a mechanism to make sure that they happen. So we went to the Conservative Party—I know because I’m the House leader for the New Democrats—and I met with my colleague the House leader for the Conservatives, Mr. Wilson, as well as the House leader for the Liberals, Mr. Milloy, and said, “How can we work on this together?”

The Conservatives told us right up front. I said to them, “Listen, I need to pass this budget because we have mechanisms and things in there that are important to the people of Ontario and important to my party, and we need to get the financial accountability office set up. Those are the two things that I want. What do you need included in a programming motion that would make that happen that gives your Conservative caucus and your Conservative base whatever it is that they want?” The response was, “We want an election. That’s all we want.” I said, “Well, you know, we’re not about to vote for that at this point.

We’re going to be supporting the budget. So again, what is it that you want in order to come to the table and work something out, as we did last year on a programming motion?” And the Conservatives said, “Listen, we are so mad at the Liberals. We think they’re corrupt and terrible and awful,” and I will agree with you partly. What they did with the gas plants was awful. We’ll deal with that later in this debate. But the Tories said, “The only constructive solution that we have is to have an election, and we are not going to participate in the programming motion.”

Applause.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I hear the applause in the Conservative caucus, and I would ask you to applaud even louder, please. I won’t comment at this point. No, you should do a big applause at this point for yourselves.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): The member from Timmins–James Bay is having a lot of conversations with other members. He knows he’s supposed to go through me. No more sidebars. Thank you.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Thank you, Speaker. But it was a great way to get a glass of water.

I say that the Conservatives made a decision, and the decision was to serve the interests of the Conservative Party and to ask for an election, not because they believe one way or another that their solution—you know, essentially what they’re doing is they’re saying, “We’re not interested in making this minority Parliament work; we’re only interested in winning an election so we can be the government.” That’s essentially what they’re saying. So I thought it passing strange yesterday that the Conservative House leader was saying, “Oh, nobody is talking to me. The New Democrats and the Liberals aren’t talking to me.” The first person I went to talk to was Jim Wilson, because I’m in opposition—

Interjections.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Yes. That’s no surprise.

Hon. Jeff Leal: The story is becoming interesting.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, it’s no surprise. Everybody knows it. Listen, I’m going to put it on the public record.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): You seem to be at it again. And the Minister for Rural Affairs, don’t tease him, okay? Don’t bait him.

Continue.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: We asked the Conservative House leader what he wanted to add to a programming motion that would be important to the Conservative base or his members, and he said in response that the only thing that they wanted was to bring this government down, so I said, “Listen, I’m at this point going to talk to the Liberal House leader, because I want to make sure that those things that we want and secured in this budget are actually done. I want to have the financial accountability office and those other measures such as the vote on the transit initiatives and everything done as part of the agreement that we have with the Liberals.”

So I went and sat down with Mr. Milloy, along with my staff and his staff, and we worked out essentially what’s in this programming motion. What’s important is that there is a fair process by which to debate and to deal with Bill 65, which is the budget bill, going into committee.

And we have very strongly worded language within this motion that sets out the terms of reference for what the financial accountability office is going to be, how that’s going to be staffed up, how we’re going to choose the FAO and what the powers of the FAO are when it comes to investigation; and equally as important, a mechanism that ensures that when this House returns this fall, or should it return earlier or should it return later, this is going to be done as one of the first orders of business in this House.

And we can take great pride as New Democrats for having done that, because it is historic that we create a financial accountability office in this province.

We can take great pride as New Democrats in having made that happen because we decided, unlike the Conservatives, that we’re not just going to go in here and yell and scream at the Liberals and say, “No, no, no,” and stick our fingers in our ears and stomp our feet and say, “We want an election.” We’re actually going to roll up our sleeves and try to get something done, because in the end, that’s what the people sent us here to do. People said, “We expect you to go there to work together, to at times disagree, but don’t forget that we, the public, want you to do some of our work,” and that’s what we have done.

Yes, we will be voting for this particular motion, and we will be doing so proudly because it implements those things that we negotiated.

Now to the amendment that is also before us in regard to this particular motion. The Conservatives yesterday got up and introduced an amendment that essentially repeats what they did in the opposition day motion. I just think, again, it’s telling of where the Tories are at and what their motivation is. They’re saying that they want to be able to have a debate and a vote on a non-confidence motion on the gas plants, and I’m saying, as I said in the last debate, that there is going to be due time for that to happen.

We currently have a standing committee of this Legislature that has a very good mandate because we, the opposition—Mr. Wilson and myself—and then Mr. Milloy, as the government House leader, created the terms of reference for the committee on justice to be able to look into this matter. We meet at the call of the Chair. We call the witnesses of our choosing. We decide what it is that we want to look at, either the cost issue or the contempt issue. And that committee is doing its work.

In fact, yesterday they had the Minister of Energy at that committee answering questions, because there is a determination that has to be made about a couple of things on this issue.

There’s a very serious issue in the first place: that the government decided not to release documents to the committee once it was asked to. You cannot refuse to give the committee documents. So, and rightfully so, Mr. Leone came to the House last year and introduced a contempt motion that said that was a point of privilege, that the rights of the members as a whole were being trampled on by the government. And we supported that motion because we agree with Mr. Leone that in fact what the government did was wrong.

But we’re still in the process of finding out exactly who made those decisions and how far that web goes. We know that, in the end, it was the Premier who made the decision, but there was a whole bunch of other people involved, and we need to find out who they are, because this House still has to deal with the very serious issue of contempt.

For example, if there was a vote on a motion of non-confidence and that was to pass, this whole thing would be swept under an election, and I don’t think it would serve the purpose of the people of Ontario, because we would never have dealt with who said no to releasing the documents and who obstructed the right of the committee. Those things would die on the order paper as a result of a writ being issued.

As New Democrats, we think there is a committee that is in place to look at these issues and we should allow the process to evolve so that we can get the answers to those questions.

Like Mr. Leone and the Conservative caucus, New Democrats think what the government has done on the gas plants is awful. They spent almost a billion dollars, money that we can ill afford to spend, on saving a couple of seats in the Mississaugas, and I think that is wrong. That never should have happened.

I look at my friends in the city of Toronto who are looking for an investment for public transit. Imagine what we could have done with a billion dollars for transit in the cities of Mississauga, Toronto and Hamilton if we had not spent the billion dollars on the cancellations of those gas plants.

I think it’s responsible for us, as New Democrats, to say no to this amendment that the opposition is bringing forward, because the effect of that would be to kill this investigation and we would never find out who said no to that committee.

I can’t predict what the result of the next election is going to be. One of these three parties is going to form the next government. I’m not prepared to accept that a promise now to revive that investigation will actually happen, should there be a new government formed.

We currently have a Parliament that is seized with a committee to deal with this issue, and it’s only responsible on our part, in fact, to allow that committee to do its work so that we can find out who said, “Don’t release those documents,” who was involved in that decision and, more importantly, so that we can deal with that issue of contempt by way of this House once the committee reports back.

There’s also the second issue, and that is how much this cost and who made those decisions. What we’ve managed to negotiate with the government House leader, both the Conservative House leader and myself, is a mechanism that allows us to get at the numbers of how much this cost and who made those decisions. Those may not be issues of contempt, but they’re certainly contemptuous to the public. I think the public has the right to know who made those decisions—because I have to believe that it wasn’t just the Premier.

I’ll tell you a little secret, Speaker. You probably know already. I have served in the last and I’m serving on this election as co-chair of an election for the New Democrats. These kinds of decisions are not just made by the leader. These kinds of decisions, quite frankly, are made by people within the leader’s office. In this case, it was the government, the Premier’s office. It’s made by those people who were on the committee for the re-election of the Liberal Party, and by the co-chairs, which happens to be the current Premier. I do not believe for one second that Kathleen Wynne did not know the cost of the cancellation and was not part of the decision-making around the cancellation.

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Well, that’s my argument. I agree with Mr. Leone that they absolutely did know. What this committee has to do is determine to what point they knew, so that when we draft our motion of contempt, we’re able to effectively deal with that.

As New Democrats, unlike what Mr. Wilson said yesterday, we don’t want to send anybody to jail. That’s not what this is about. Yesterday I heard Mr. Wilson say, “I don’t necessarily want to send Mr. Bentley to jail, but somebody else has to go to jail.” Listen, I don’t want to send a political staffer to jail for doing what their overseers told them to do. I think what we want to do in this case is to come back to the House, once we find out what the facts are, and based on the facts we then find some kind of reprimand that goes to the issue so that governments in the future don’t do this kind of thing.

So yes, we will be voting against your amendment that essentially calls for a vote of non-confidence based on the gas plants because we have yet to determine the answers to the questions we have put at that committee. I say again—and I say this in all sincerity: If there was an election now, that would die, and we would never get to the bottom of who did what and who made those decisions. So I say to my friends in the Conservative Party that it is a stunt. I understand.

I understand that the Conservatives have nothing to bring to the budget process, and you need to find something to do so that you are seen as doing something here and able to report that you are up to something in the Legislature.

Well, I would argue that it’s probably not very useful, but at least you are getting into the media and you are being reported on as being alive with a pulse here in the Legislature. But I’ll say again what I said earlier: In this case—what we’ve seen over the last two budgets—it’s been a case of Andrea Horwath leading, the Liberals following and you guys just essentially on the sidelines. And so, I’d just say to my Conservative friends that I look forward to a time when, in fact, you have something constructive to say about how we deal with all of these things.

With that, I’ll conclude my comments to say that I’d ask members of the House to vote no to the motion that was put forward by Mr. Wilson—that, in fact, we do support this particular motion, because it will ensure, importantly, that the financial accountability office of Ontario is made and passed into law early this fall, so that the financial accountability officer can in fact do the work that needs to be done, in order to shine a light on this government so that we have more transparency.

I’m sure that at one point there will be an election in this province. If it’s not this fall, it will be next spring, and if it’s not next spring, it will be some time after that. The people, at that point, will have the chance to make a decision, and I would argue that when people look at the record of New Democrats in this Parliament, they will say, “Who has been the most responsible? Who has been the most pragmatic?

And who has remembered what it is that they’re here to do?” That was Andrea Horwath and the New Democrats, and I stand proud as a New Democrat behind my leader, Andrea Horwath, for having had the guts, the wisdom and the practicality to roll up her sleeves and to do what needs to be done in this minority Parliament, always remembering that it’s not just about us, the politicians; it’s about the people who elected us to come here and do the work of the people.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Questions and comments? Okay; further debate?

Hon. Jeff Leal: It’s a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to get a few remarks on the record this morning with regard to the programming motion. I did listen carefully to the very interesting speech, I think, from the House leader from the third party. The member from Timmins–James Bay added an interesting commentary this morning to the programming motion. Of course, we will not be supporting the amendment that was put forward by the House leader of the official opposition yesterday, and that should not surprise anyone.

You know, Mr. Speaker, you get the opportunity to view some of the newspapers from across the province. Just this morning, I had the opportunity to review an

article in the Owen Sound Sun Times, a wonderful little newspaper covering things in southwestern Ontario, particularly in the Owen Sound area. The headline today in the Owen Sound Sun Times, by the writer Jim Algie, is “Wynne’s Rural Approach Promising.” I just want to quote from the opening of this particular newspaper column. It has a pertinence, I think, to the overall budget and, indeed, the programming motion, because we’re talking about moving the budget forward, so I know you’ll give me a little bit of latitude just to quote this morning from the Owen Sound Sun Times.

“Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is gradually wearing away my initial skepticism about whether she can run the province at the same time as” running the ministry of agriculture and food industry.

“A lifelong urbanite, Wynne has not done a bad job in” agriculture “and food and she seems ... to have survived her first big test running the province. Wynne’s strategic instincts and negotiating skills seem to have guided her through the initial hurdles of a crucial budget by wooing third-party support for her Liberal minority government from” the leader of the third party, Ms. Horwath.

I think that’s an interesting commentary. The author of this

article talks about the $100 million that we’re putting into rural infrastructure and also talks about the $30 million that we have proposed in the Local Food Act. This writer, Mr. Algie, is so supportive of what the Premier and Minister of Agriculture and Food is doing, and I recommend all sides pick up today’s copy—Wednesday, May 29, 2013, of the Owen Sound Sun Times.

The author of this

article is certainly lauding the Premier for great leadership in terms of reviving the horse racing industry in the province of Ontario, and talks about the great Horse Racing Industry Transition Panel, led by former Ontario Progressive Conservative education minister John Snobelen—Mr. Snobelen of course is well recognized in the horse racing industry across Ontario—and my friend from Peterborough riding, the former Minister of Agriculture from 1990 to 1995, Elmer Buchanan. Mr. Buchanan lives just north of Havelock, Ontario. I get a chance to see Elmer fairly frequently. He and his partner, Lee, raise alpacas.

They take the wool from alpacas and use it for a variety of sources. I know the member from Timmins–James Bay was a former very close friend of Elmer Buchanan. The third member of that very distinguished trinity is John Wilkinson, a former Minister of the Environment in the province of Ontario, a former member from Perth–Wellington and a guy we know always had a very keen interest in horse racing. That new trinity, that amazing trinity of Snobelen, Buchanan and Wilkinson, is doing an outstanding job to revive the horse racing industry in the province of Ontario.

I know my friend from Oxford was a very close friend of Minister Snobelen. They were close colleagues when they served together in cabinet. I know how supportive the member from Oxford is of his former cabinet colleague Minister Snobelen in his—well, he’s shaking his head here. I’m going to give John a call later this morning. I always thought the member from Oxford and Minister Snobelen were very close friends, that they would see eye to eye on a lot of issues. But, gosh, I’ll get John’s phone number.

We would like to express our deepest condolences to Mr. Snobelen. His mother just recently passed away, and I know all of us offer our deepest condolences and sympathy to the Snobelen family. I understand she was quite a lady and really a fine person. We wanted to get that on the record.

I have a few other interesting points I want to make today. When we look at what’s been debated in this House, we have Bill 11, the air ambulance act, which was debated for 19 hours and 14 minutes before it was referred to committee. Our good friend Harvey Cooper—you know, Harvey has kind of aged right in front of our eyes, he’s been waiting so long for Bill 14, the co-op housing act. We admire his perseverance. We debated that one 15 hours and 50 minutes. And Bill 36, the Local Food Act: 20 hours and 35 minutes.

Just this last Saturday I took my son Braden—Braden is 15, in grade 9 at Holy Cross high school in Peterborough, a great kid, a former page here. He and I went to the Ontario Food Terminal—the first time that Braden had been there—and it was a great Saturday morning to see what goes on at the Ontario Food Terminal, all the activity there. Their message to me was, “Why can’t we get this Local Food Act passed?” I said to the folks there, “Well, we have to have some patience, but I know we’re going to get this bill through.

I know the official opposition has some good ideas for amendments; the third party has some good ideas for amendments.” Let’s get this bill moving forward, because the folks at the Ontario Food Terminal want to get this passed. I think that’s very important.

It’s good to see my friend the member from Durham is going back to his seat. Let me say, this past weekend in Peterborough was the 74th edition of the Catholic parents’ conference, held in Peterborough. Karan and I had a delightful experience on Saturday night to be sitting with the spouse of the member from Durham, Peggy O’Toole. She’s a trustee with the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, and of course the question that we all asked—we were there with Mayor Bennett and his wife—was, where was John?

We do know that if the member from Durham had been there for Durham, he would have added an interesting commentary at our dinner discussion on education. We really missed John last Saturday night, but Peg did a great job. It was a delightful dinner. In fact, one of the things that we discussed was—the member from Durham’s son Erin is now an MP in Ottawa, so we talked about the family transition that goes on, particularly when you have a young family and you go to Ottawa, and what that means for a family and how they can adjust.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to digress on that for a moment. I will get back to the programming motion here.

We look forward to a vote later this morning. We certainly look forward to getting some things through on this. There are some time-sensitive areas.

I know that the Peterborough poverty reduction committee is particularly interested that we’re going to increase the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,210 on July 1, 2013. That’s an interesting program. The late June Callwood, when she provided some commentary on the Ontario Child Benefit, said it was the most progressive initiative in Ontario in the last four decades. I think that says it all, because we do know the late June Callwood and her reputation in bringing about fairness for people who have challenges in the province of Ontario.

Also, the member from Beaches–East York has been a real leader in this area of providing choice of payment—monthly or annual—for the Ontario Trillium Benefit program. That’s something I know seniors in Peterborough are very concerned about, so I’d like to give some credit to the member from Beaches–East York.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, we can all take that 15% reduction in auto insurance. I know everybody will welcome that: a few more dollars in the pockets of the hard-working men and women across the province of Ontario.

I know what is particularly important to AMO and the municipalities is the dedicated two cents of gas tax each year for public transportation.

The other thing that I’m so supportive of: I do like the financial accountability officer. I just want to follow up on what the member from Timmins–James Bay said during his remarks.

We have a very strong system in Ontario. We have the public accounts committee, and we do have the Auditor General, but that’s always at the tail end of government programs. The financial accountability officer, of course, will be at the front end, and we welcome the legislation that will be introduced this fall. I think it will provide, overall, an increased amount of accountability for taxpayers’ dollars in the province of Ontario. We certainly welcome that. I think it’s a good initiative. On this side, we’ll certainly be supporting that particular initiative.

Mr. Speaker, we look forward to all these amazing initiatives that we have in the budget. Look, this is a budget for all Ontarians. It’s not a budget from the official opposition. It’s not a budget from the third party. It’s not a budget from the government. This budget has been the collective consensus of all Ontarians. You’ve been reaching out, Mr. Speaker, we’ve been reaching out, and the third party has been reaching out. We’ve all been reaching out to come out with good ideas.

One of the good ideas I really like in the budget, and we got it from the federal finance minister, the very Honourable Jim Flaherty, is that capital acceleration allowance. When I talk to GE in Peterborough, when I talk to Siemens, and when I talk to Quaker Oats, they see this as a very important aspect for reinvestment into their capital and their machinery. We want to make sure that we get that in place. It will go to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs—an opportunity to look further into the budget component parts.

We welcome in Peterborough the investment in youth employment. We do know, when we look at the statistics of youth employment, that we certainly need some investment in that area, and we’re prepared to do that. We want to make sure that the next generation can get access to those jobs and make a contribution to the overall being in the province of Ontario.

The other thing that is very important is our investment in home care. I know, Mr. Speaker, you’re getting calls in your constituency in Hamilton. I know how Ontarians, particularly our seniors, will like the investment into home care. I know the minister for seniors—he’s not with us this morning—has been a very strong advocate of that particular initiative.

We’re all concerned about deficit reduction to $9.8 billion, the fourth year in a row that—I think we’re the only government in Canada that consistently hits our fiscal targets. I believe we’re on track to certainly meeting our target for the next fiscal year, and we look forward to that.

We’re controlling our spending while not raising revenues, we’ve brought in tax reforms that work, and of course we’re looking at ways to keep the economy going forward, particularly in a great riding like Chatham–Kent–Essex.

I think the member there should get that changed to Chatham-Kent-Leamington to actually reflect that area. I’ve spent some time in Leamington, a wonderful community. H.J. Heinz, of course, is a major player in that community in the food processing industry. Food processing: $34 billion across Ontario.

I learned something interesting when I visited the Food Terminal last Saturday: The ketchup that they make in Leamington is unique for the Canadian market because Canadian consumers like ketchup that’s sweeter, and it’s only produced in Leamington, Ontario. If you get the chance to go to the Ontario Food Terminal you’ll learn something new each and every day.

We look forward to getting the budget motion passed. There will be a vote a little later this morning—

Mr. John Yakabuski: You need a sweet ketchup to be able to swallow what you guys are peddling.

Hon. Jeff Leal: I hear from my good friend from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, a great guy—I know that even in Barry’s Bay they like Heinz ketchup that’s sweeter than the American variety, and I think that’s a good thing.

So we will continue. The budget bill has already had 11 hours of debate, and the programming motion is going to provide a very responsible framework over the next number of days to get this through, and then the budget bill will be passed. We look forward to continuing to consult with ordinary Ontarians, those hard-working men and women who do such a great job every day.

I know the good folks in Alexandria are happy about this budget and the investment in home care and youth unemployment—but particularly when you remember that through the downloading exercise of 1998-99, 43% of all the roads and bridges were downloaded in eastern Ontario. I know my friend, the member there who came from municipal politics—every day they’re trying to look at that inventory. They look at that big albatross that was put around their neck in eastern Ontario, and they’re looking for ways to get rid of that inventory.

So part of our investment, that $100 million for roads and bridges—I know the folks in Alexandria are excited. I’m sorry, Speaker, I get a little excited—

Mr. Grant Crack: Glengarry–Prescott–Russell.

Hon. Jeff Leal: —when it comes to Glengarry Prescott; there we go.

I know I get a little excited when I talk about roads and bridges, which are the backbone of many rural communities, particularly in eastern Ontario where they had to bear that burden of 43% of all those roads and bridges that were downloaded in eastern Ontario. Under the leadership of my friend from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, we’re making progress to get rid of that inventory.

Also a good thing in eastern Ontario is the broadband connection, which is the highway of the 21st century. We look forward, like communities like Barry’s Bay and those kinds of communities, to taking advantage of that highway of the 21st century that will allow for business development and allow for e-education to take place, which I think is extremely important in eastern Ontario.

I know my friend from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke is very excited about that broadband connectivity, that highway for the 21st century, because I know he would like to be seen, like Sir John A. Macdonald who is the father of the transcontinental railroad, and to be part of that railroad of the 21st century. I know he’s extremely excited about that, and we look forward to getting out and about in Barry’s Bay to celebrate these kinds of great initiatives.

I’m also looking to get back to Athens one of these days. I particularly like Athens in the great riding of Leeds–Grenville. I had the opportunity to be there on a couple of occasions and I know the hospitality of the former member of Leeds–Grenville, now a senator. In fact, Senator Runciman paid me a phone call last week, and I was really excited about that. My staff phoned and said someone was holding from the Senate of Canada. I said, “Who would be calling me from the Senate of Canada? I hope it’s not Mike Duffy.” It wasn’t Mike Duffy. I picked up the phone and it was Bob Runciman.

Let me say it’s always a delight to speak to Mr. Runciman, one of the most distinguished members ever to serve in this body. Senator Runciman and I had a great conversation about horse racing; he, of course, is very interested in horse racing and he certainly—well, I won’t get into all the details of the conversation—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): I thank the member from Peterborough.

Debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Since it is now 10:15, this House stands recessed until 10:30 this morning.

The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: I’d ask all members to join me in welcoming the deputy mayor from the city of Oshawa, Mr. Roger Bouma.

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Today’s page captain is Jack Mogus, and sitting in the members’ gallery today are Jack’s mother, Janet, his sisters Julia and Emma, and his grandmother Maria Matias. Please welcome them to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Michael Harris: I would like to welcome Tim Patriquin and Jason Donville to question period today. We hope you enjoy your visit as guests of John O’Toole and myself. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. John Gerretsen: Speaker, I wonder if you could help me welcome three interns who are working in our office at the Ministry of the Attorney General this summer. They’re all budding law students: Brooke Auld, Colin Campbell and Kevin Leung, who are here in the members’ gallery. Yes, we have three of them—great people.

Mr. Bill Walker: It’s my pleasure to introduce Matthew Lawford. He’s from Toronto, the grandson of Gillian Lawford, who’s a great resident from Markdale in the great riding of Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Michael Chan: I want to welcome Amy Padro, manager of government relations, from Parachute Canada. She and her organization are here today to celebrate Safe Kids Week.

Mr. Jack MacLaren: I’d like to introduce a good friend of mine, Graham Clow, an old Queen’s University friend of mine. Stand up, Graham. Graham is a special person because his son Brian works for the Liberal Party back here and steers the Liberal ship.

Hon. Ted McMeekin: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Laura Lee Walter, the mother of Jakob Walter, who’s a page for that great riding of Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough–Westdale. Welcome.

Mr. Rob E. Milligan: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce my cousin Steve Donaldson, his lovely wife, Rhonda, their daughter Lara and their son Adam to Queen’s Park.

As well, I have two constituents from the riding of Northumberland–Quinte West: Lori Caughey and Cara Owens. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mrs. Laura Albanese: I would like to welcome to Queen’s Park Mr. Marek Goldyn, CEO of the European Club of Toronto, and Mr. Bob Ristić from the Serbian Television Toronto. They’re here for the European flag-raising, which will take place on the front lawn of Queen’s Park right after question period. Welcome.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: It’s my pleasure to introduce my guests today: Richard Foreman, Lorraine Wilson-Munro, Kenneth Foreman and Pat Foreman, who are here to observe question period and to have a tour of Queen’s Park. Welcome.

Mr. Taras Natyshak: I’m pleased to introduce and welcome some friends in the members’ west gallery, from CUPE Local 82 in Windsor: President Jim Wood, Vice-President Chad Goebel, Treasurer John Grima, Secretary Mike Preston and Membership Officer Jeff St. Pierre, who are here with CUPE Ontario celebrating 50 years of representation for public employees in Ontario.

Hon. Charles Sousa: It gives me great pleasure to introduce some very outstanding young individuals who are interns in the Ministry of Finance. In the members’ gallery: Neville Britto, Sahar Ziaey, Erich Schmidt and Blair Ostrom. Welcome.

Mr. Rick Nicholls: It gives me great pleasure to introduce a friend of my wife and I as well as the soulmate of my colleague Mr. MacLaren: his precious wife, Janet, is here with us today.

Miss Monique Taylor: It gives me great pride and honour to introduce my father and his wife, Mike Taylor and Pauline Taylor.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I could give you a cheap shot, but I’m not going to.

Hon. John Milloy: It gives me pleasure to introduce Graham Clow from Toronto, who is with us this morning. His son Brian works here at Queen’s Park. We’re very pleased to welcome him.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I have a number of guests here from the city of Ottawa today. They are not yet in the members’ gallery, but they will be arriving: Guy Boone, Hubert Mamba, Dr. Ray Barton and Jeannette Chau. They’re all from the city of Ottawa, and they’re all professional engineers.

Hon. Glen R. Murray: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce, in the visitors’ gallery, Dr. Azhar Masood. Dr. Masood’s daughter, Hooriya Masood, is our page, and they just live a few blocks away.

Quite extraordinarily, Dr. Masood is a research fellow, a PhD, in lung biology and works at SickKids Hospital. We’re having a little battle. I’m hoping his daughter is a future MPP for Toronto Centre, and he’s determined, I think, to convince her to become a physician. Welcome.

Mr. Jim McDonell: I’d like to introduce Gillian Lawford, who I understand is a keen hockey fan and will be picking for the Detroit Red Wings tonight in a key game.

M me France Gélinas: We have a large delegation of people coming from Kingston that are just going through security right now. This is Dan Anderson, Angie Bacon, Imaan Bayoumi, Marilynn Birmingham, Barb Deroche, Bonnie Ferguson, Mary Forbes, Mathew Gventer, Jean Gower, Janet Heyman, Dianna Inkster, Kyle Jones, Pauline Kulhman, Graham Lodge, Richard McNeil, Norah Parish, Tom Pinero, John Platt, Harold Pickering, Aimee Van Vlack, Ross Sutherland; Natalie Mehra, from the Ontario Health Coalition; Monica Lonergan, Elanor Beach, Donna Ferguson, Amina Buchanan, Linda Forster, Chris Kingston, Sheri Robinson, Robert Kylie, Phil Trottier and Sandra Willard. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We have with us today in the Speaker’s gallery a delegation led by the Speaker of the Parliament of the Hellenic Republic, His Excellency Evangelios Meimarakis. He is accompanied today by the ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to Canada, His Excellency Eleftherios Anghelopoulos. Welcome to our assembly House here today.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Yes, we will be having question period. It is now time for question period.

ORAL QUESTIONS

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

Mr. Jim Wilson: Mr. Speaker, we would like to stand down our lead questions at this time.

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

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Just on a point of order: We will be doing the same until the Premier arrives.

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): It’s not that confusing.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr. Frank Klees: My question is to the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, we offered to participate in an all-party select committee to assist the government in finding $2 billion of savings across all ministries. We did that because we outright reject the concept that there should be $2 billion of additional taxation on families and businesses in this province. The New Democrats reject that as well, and we know today that the vast majority of Ontarians reject that.

I’d like to know from the Minister of Finance: Will he agree to accept our offer to form an all-party select committee to assist him in finding the savings and efficiencies of $2 billion across the ministries?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of Finance?

Ms. Sylvia Jones: We want to start a conversation.

Hon. Charles Sousa: You know what? Let us start a conversation. Let us agree—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m going to start a conversation. The interjections will stop.

Minister.

Hon. Charles Sousa: Let us agree to do this: Let us agree to pass the budget that talks about a very disciplined and determined measure to curb our spending. We’re taking the steps necessary to ensure that spending remains below 1% year over year. As a result of those initiatives, we’ve been able to achieve over $5 billion in cuts over the last year to reduce our deficit projections. Next year’s projection is going down by another $1 billion again because of those measures that we’ve taken. That is what is important.

We need to ensure that, going forward, we work collaboratively by passing this budget, ensuring that these proper steps are taken so that we tackle and eliminate the deficit by 2017-18.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: The New Democrats have already confirmed that they’ll pass the budget. We’re going to vote against it because we do not believe that to increase spending by $2 billion is a good start towards reducing spending and waste.

Here’s what I’m asking the Minister of Finance: Apart from the budget, which is a separate issue, we all know that there are at least billions of dollars of waste in this government every year. We, as the official opposition, want to extend our offer of support to form an all-party select committee to help find that waste so that we don’t have to put $2 billion of additional taxes onto the backs of families and businesses across this province. Will he accept that?

Interjections.

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

Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: We have taken extraordinary steps to transform the way government works, to find those savings to ensure that we’re delivering services in health care and education and all the other ministries that have taken extraordinary steps to reduce their spending. But we know that in health care and education there are still pressures that are necessary because of the increasing demands.

What is necessary as well is to be balanced in our approach. What is necessary is to stimulate economic growth and economic renewal by stimulating jobs and investments in our capital infrastructures. What is not necessary and what is harmful for economic renewal is a slash-and-burn policy, across-the-board cuts, attacks on our nurses on our front lines. This is what they’re offering. We’re not going to stand for that.

We’re going to invest in our future; we’re going to invest in our young people. We’re going to create jobs and stimulate growth. That’s what this budget is about.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is to the Minister of Energy. New Democrats FOIed everything from the Premier’s office which included the words “Project Vapour.” We were told nothing existed. In the process, we received a sworn affidavit. It said that the Premier’s chief of staff, Chris Morley, had his email account deleted on June 21, 2012; Jamison Steeve, the principal secretary, had his email account deleted on August 17, 2012; and Sean Mullin, the Premier’s energy adviser, had his email account deleted on August 17, 2012. Then we learned in committee that the energy minister’s chief of staff was deleting all his emails.

Yesterday, Ontario’s information commissioner said, “It strained credulity that no one thought maybe they should retain some of the emails....”

Can the minister explain why senior Liberal political staff involved in the gas plants were deleting all their emails?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Government House leader.

Hon. John Milloy: I’d like to point out to the House that the honourable member, in his question, forgot to point out that there were around 30,000 documents—many of them from the Premier’s office—that were recently delivered to the committee.

In terms of the specific issues he raises, he is correct. My understanding is that the Information and Privacy Commissioner is looking into the matter, and we await her report.

At the same time, I can say, as the Minister of Government Services, that we take our obligation to retain relevant records very seriously. Training opportunities have been available for political staff as we enter into this new government phase, and we’re certainly making efforts to make sure that the rules and regulations are being followed.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Minister, New Democrats have asked the information commissioner to investigate. Your comment there is correct.

In documents filed with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the government tried to stop the commissioner from looking at this. The government wrote, “the ... allegations about the destruction of records ... are not matters that may be appealed to the commissioner.” That response came March 5, 2013, long after this current Premier was sworn in.

Why did the government, under this current Premier—not the previous one—continue to try and hide the destruction of documents and stop the information commissioner from getting information?

Hon. John Milloy: Mr. Speaker, we have turned over 130,000 documents to the justice committee, including, as I just referenced, 30,000 from the Premier’s office.

In terms of the specific cases that the member raises, the committee itself has a mandate to look at the issue of documents and can pursue this matter. The Information and Privacy Commissioner is looking into it, and we await her report.

As I said, we take this matter very, very seriously, the retention of documents at the political staff level. Training courses are under way, and I know ministers’ offices have regimes in place to make sure that the rules are followed.

CHILDREN’S HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. Phil McNeely: My question is for the Minister of Children and Youth Services. Minister, in my riding of Ottawa–Orléans, I often meet with families and listen to their concerns, like all members here.

One concern that I frequently hear from parents is that they want to know that the right services and supports are in place for their child’s development. This is a universal concern, and as a grandparent myself, I know that these types of services make positive impacts on the lives of our children. I know that in Ontario we are providing some of the best supports available anywhere in the world.

My question: Can the minister please tell me what we are doing as a government to help children grow up to be healthy teenagers and then healthy adults?

Hon. Teresa Piruzza: I’d like to thank the member from Ottawa–Orléans for his question. As he indicated, as a parent myself, nothing is more important to me than making sure all children are well prepared for life.

Our ministry is investing $261 million annually in a myriad of programs for healthy child development. These supports include our early years centres, preschool speech and language programs and Healthy Babies, Healthy Children. Healthy Babies, Healthy Children supports vulnerable mothers from the prenatal period through their child’s transition to school.

Through programs like this, we’re able to directly assist in the healthy development of all young people. We remain committed to providing children with the best possible start in life.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Phil McNeely: I would like to thank the minister for her answer. It is very clear to me that this government takes the responsibility of healthy childhood development seriously and is making a significant investment.

However, this is an area where there is always an opportunity to make improvements. As a government, we need to be constantly looking to improve the services we provide while also seeking out new and improved methods. I understand that in March of this year, a Healthy Kids Panel released a report with recommendations to improve healthy childhood development, specifically with the goal of reducing childhood obesity. I’m pleased our government established this panel to help combat such an important issue.

Can the minister please tell the House more about the report and how our government is responding?

Hon. Teresa Piruzza: I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Healthy Kids Panel for their report, which aims to improve the health and well-being of children in our province. The report made recommendations on a number of vital Ministry of Children and Youth Services programs. These include the Poverty Reduction Strategy, student nutrition, and mental health and addictions.

We are committed to reviewing the recommendations in order to inform our future direction. Minister Matthews and I will be co-chairing a working group on the Healthy Kids Panel report. This working group will be essential in the effort to move towards this government’s goal to improve early childhood development services. We will continue to work with our partners and stakeholders in our commitment to improve the health and well-being of every child in Ontario.

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

Mr. Jeff Yurek: My question is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Minister, you have grossly mismanaged our jail systems in Ontario. You’ve closed jails in Walkerton, Owen Sound and Bluewater without enough capacity to safely absorb the inmates. Rather than fixing problem jails, you close them.

Given your track record, people in my area think you have no interest in actually fixing the problems at EMDC. Many think you’ll ignore the problems until you can officially close the jail. Minister, when do you intend to close the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me thank all the correctional officers and the staff at the EMDC. They are doing an extremely good job. It’s not an easy job to do, and I wanted to thank them for all the good work that they’re doing.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, and as I said yesterday, the Elgin—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: —our staff in our correctional facilities, in EMDC, is my utmost priority. I know that they are always working in a very challenging environment.

Actually, one of my first visits when I was appointed Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services was at EMDC. I met the leadership there, I met representatives from the correctional officers and I saw first-hand the good work they are doing over there.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jeff Yurek: Back to the minister: Minister, as you know, the situation in the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre came to a head last night. Correctional officers, insulted by your comments, locked down the jail. Two fires broke out; a green alert occurred, of which there have only been two in the past 22 years, and it was issued; and a number of inmates were reportedly sent to the hospital.

The correctional officers at EMDC work day in and day out in dangerous conditions—conditions made worse by your mismanagement. Yet yesterday you refused to take responsibility and instead threw our front-line corrections officers under the bus and insulted all the managers around the province.

There’s absolutely no excuse for your failure on this file. Minister, will you admit you have no credibility on this file, publicly apologize and resign?

Interjections.

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): This is not the moment to add your interjections.

Minister?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, the health and safety of the correctional officers and the staff at EMDC is my utmost priority. And if I offended someone yesterday, I deeply apologize, because that was not my intent.

Since I was appointed with the responsibility of correctional services, I’ve worked very closely with my ministry, with our partners out there, with the union. Actually, I’m meeting the union this afternoon and the executive of EMDC, because I want to hear first-hand what their concern is and I want us to work together to improve the situation at EMDC. I want to see a real difference in EMDC.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. To put us back on rotation what I’ll do is, I’ll go to the NDP for the two-question part and then come back to the leader for the primary questions, and then I’ll come back to the leader of the third party for the primary questions.

The member from London–Fanshawe.

CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES /

ÉTABLISSEMENTS CORRECTIONNELS

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: My question is to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Yesterday there was yet another emergency at EMDC: A second fire in less than a month broke out and three inmates have been injured. Instead of working to address the persistent problems at this jail, the minister chose to blame the workers.

For years, workers have brought up time and time again the problems at this facility. My leader, myself and other members in this House have brought this to her attention. Minister, you have chosen to blame the workers who have done everything in their power to keep the jail functioning. Will the minister apologize to the workers for her thoughtless comments?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member from London–Fanshawe. I know she has a keen interest in improving the situation there, and I have asked her to give me some names of people who will be good candidates to sit on the new board that I want to appoint to improve the situation there.

As I said, I’m meeting with the executive of the jail this afternoon, and I want to continue this relationship to improve the situation out there.

Again, if I have upset, if I have insulted, it was not my intent, and I deeply apologize.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Mr. Speaker, workers at EMDC have been raising issues about the safety of this jail for years. But little has changed, and the jail continues to be severely overcrowded and is a highly dangerous environment for workers and inmates alike. The minister’s lack of action places the staff and inmates of EMDC in conditions she herself would not want to work in.

I ask again, Mr. Speaker, will the minister apologize to the workers of EMDC and finally take action today to improve the conditions? I’m not asking for an apology; I’m asking for the words “I am sorry.”

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I’m going to say it in French, too, because I’ve said it twice before. Alors, si j’ai offensé quelqu’un, je m’en excuse. Ce n’était pas mon intention parce que je sais combien difficile est leur travail, et ils travaillent très, très fort.

But I wanted to say that we are working on advancing our plan, so we are hiring 11 new full-time correctional officers. We implemented 24-hour nursing in March, and we added, in January, a mental health nurse. We’ve hired three more operational managers, and we’re building new control models. Also, the correctional officers now can wear safety vests; they have this opportunity now. Their safety is my utmost priority.

ONTARIO’S CREDIT RATING

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Premier. Later this morning, the Legislature will be voting on a budget motion asking us to endorse the direction of your government on fiscal issues which includes $20 billion more in debt. The deficit goes up, not down, and it includes $1 billion to buy the support of the NDP.

Premier, before the Legislature votes, I think it’s important to ask you directly if you are confident that the credit rating agencies will not downgrade Ontario’s credit rating as a result. Can you say with full confidence, Premier, we will not suffer yet another Liberal credit downgrade?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I apologize for being late; I had a modest proposal for building transit in the GTHA today, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I really believe that the budget that we have put forward is one that will spur the kind of job creation that we need in the province. It focuses on creating the conditions for job creation, and it also deals with the issues, addresses some of the issues, that affect people’s day-to-day lives. I think that the Leader of the Opposition would be interested in that.

In terms of the bond rating agency, DBRS has confirmed the rating. They acknowledged a solid budgetary performance achieved for the year ended March 31, 2013. “Ontario handily exceeded expectations in 2012-13,” and all trends remain stable. That is the news that we got yesterday, Mr. Speaker. I’m very confident that the budget that we’ve put forward is fiscally responsible.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: The Premier did not express confidence that there won’t be a further credit downgrade, which I think is of great concern. The credit rating is a measure, Premier, of the province’s trustworthiness that we’ll meet our obligations. Once the province loses that trust—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of the Environment, come to order.

Mr. Tim Hudak: —spiral that we saw in Europe, where their debt obligations grew. They had less money to put into essential services like hospitals, highways and classrooms.

Yesterday, the former Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan expressed concern of a further credit downgrade. He said the credit rating agencies will have “stern words” for you. I’ll set aside the irony for a moment of Dwight Duncan talking about fiscal responsibility.

But I’ll ask you, Premier—You’ve already had three credit downgrades under the previous finance minister—can you assure the House 100% that we won’t have a fourth as a result of this big budget—

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Let’s just say that under the current finance minister, here’s what DBRS is saying: “While several provinces have delayed their fiscal recovery plans in response to weaker growth, Ontario continues to target a return to balance (on its basis) by 2017-18.”

They go on to say, “Given the recent trend of outperforming budget targets and reduced borrowing needs, the debt trajectory is encouraging....”

We know we have challenges ahead of us. We know that there are hills yet to climb, but we are on a responsible path. We’ve had one confirmation of that. I am confident that we are going to be able to return to fiscal balance. We’re going to be able to eliminate the deficit by 2017-18. That is what the markets are looking—

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: I say back to the Premier, when Dwight Duncan is lecturing you on fiscal responsibility, you know you’ve got a big problem. We’ve already seen you reference DBRS. As you know, Premier, DBRS did downgrade the province’s credit rating, similarly to Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s.

Ontario families will have to actually pay the higher taxes the Premier has proposed recently—increasing the HST and increasing the gas tax. Average Ontarians need to look out for their own credit ratings. They make extraordinary efforts to protect that because it helps them to get a mortgage, to pay for a car, to make sure they can finance their kids’ education. So too should the province of Ontario treat that credit rating as sacrosanct, to make sure you do everything to make sure we spend within our means, because we owe that obligation to hard-working Ontarians who are seeing more money wasted under this government.

I’ll ask the Premier one last time, can she assure the Legislature that her budget that’s going to drive up the debt, not down, drive up the deficit, not down—can you assure us we won’t be hit with a fourth consecutive credit downgrade?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Thank you very much—

Interjections.

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

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know that there will be other news today from another agency, but there was no downgrade yesterday. We are on stable ground, according to DBRS yesterday, so that is good news for Ontario. I would expect that the Leader of the Opposition of this great province would be celebrating that, would be saying that is a very good thing, that Ontario is on a solid track.

I will remind the Leader of the Opposition that we are on track to balance by 2017-18, that we are the government that has put in place a long-term plan to reduce the debt-to-GDP and that Ontario is recognized as a safe and secure place to invest. That is why we are attracting investment to the province.

I have confidence in Ontario. I really wish that the Leader of the Opposition had that same confidence.

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

Mrs. Christine Elliott: My question is to the Premier. You have indicated that increasing home care services and achieving better value for health care dollars spent are top priorities. Community care access centres were established to award contracts to community nursing organizations and to assure value for money. However, recent actions taken by CCACs, with your government’s approval, have actually moved Ontario in the opposite direction: higher costs for less service.

CEO salaries have been allowed to skyrocket and the conflict of interest set up by the direct provision of home care services by CCACs has increased costs to the point that only 60% of health care dollars are actually spent on front-line services. CCAC staff have increased by 10%, but the provision of services to individuals has only increased by 5%. Premier, how can you possibly claim that you’ve increased home care services and value for money when the evidence clearly shows the opposite?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know the Minister of Health will want to speak to some of the specifics.

I was in London last week, and Minister Matthews and I had the opportunity to visit a family who are at home, getting the care that they need, because the CCAC has been able to coordinate that care. One of the things that is happening is that coordination of all of the partners who deliver service on the front lines and the CCAC providing that kind of coordination. I honestly don’t know exactly the specifics that the member opposite is speaking to, but what I do know is that there are more people getting more care in the province than there has been over the past decade.

What I do know is that we have committed $185 million more to provide for more home care and, in addition to that, more community care, which is exactly what families need.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Christine Elliott: You know what’s really sad about this? There’s been an increase in funding, but there isn’t an increase in service. I’m sure that we all hear from people in our constituencies about thousands of people still on home care wait-lists.

But let’s talk about where the money’s actually going. The salary for the Central CCAC CEO went from $180,000 in 2009 to $272,000 in 2012. The salary for the Erie St. Clair CEO went from $169,000 to $221,000, and the Hamilton Niagara CEO’s salary increased from $213,000 to $266,000. Mr. Speaker, the list goes on and on and on.

Premier, again, how can you possibly claim that you’re increasing home care services when we have this kind of scandalous spending going on?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Well, the reality is that the kind of care that people are getting—and you know, we were in the Pattersons’ home last week. It’s about the care that people are getting actually in their home, but it’s also about the community care—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: For example, the day programs that allow people who need that kind of support at home to go during the day to a program that is supported by the—

Interjection.

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

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —and allows the caregiver at home to have that respite. There’s a complex web of supports that need to be in place, Mr. Speaker. What we know is that the CCAC provides the coordination of that kind of care, and they provide it from the time a person is in hospital until they get that support and they start to heal at home.

I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that the health care system is undergoing a transformation that is providing more care for people in their communities.

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

Mrs. Christine Elliott: What it should be about is getting more money to front-line service, and that’s not what we’re seeing happening. Certainly another complicating factor is the direct provision of home care services by the CCACs. It’s a clear conflict of interest because the CCAC is the oversight body that awards the contracts to nursing providers, but now it’s competing with the very organizations it’s supposed to fund.

The RNAO, Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, pointed this out in their recent report. They stated, “Programs suggest that the CCACs are taking on a more direct care role, which was not their intended purpose. The CCAC system does not possess the structure, mandate or capacity to deliver direct care to Ontarians. Moreover, this inappropriate function of the CCAC is destabilizing the community care workforce.”

Instead of delivering more front-line services, evidence clearly shows they’re simply building a larger bureaucracy. Community care organizations dare not speak up against this because CCACs are the ones that award this work—

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

Mrs. Christine Elliott: Premier, what will you do to end this—

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

Premier?

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I can tell you one thing: I will not be taking lessons on how to deliver high-quality health care from the party opposite. Their record speaks for itself. When they were in charge, Speaker, we—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): That’ll do. Thank you.

Minister.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, when they were in power, they cut home care services to seniors, a 22% cut in nursing and 30% in homemaking services between 2001 and 2003, and their current white paper calls for the firing of 10,000 nurses. These people don’t know what they’re talking about.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Coming from both sides, it’s very difficult to try to get that individual, but I have them in my head, and if I hear it again, I’ll go right at them.

Finish, please.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, if the Conservatives genuinely cared about improving home care in this province, they would be supporting the budget that significantly expands home care services to the people who need it the most in this province.

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

To bring clarity, I will go to the leader of the third party for the primary questions. After that, the rest of the rotation comes back to the government side.

The leader of the third party.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question’s for the Premier. Ontarians have told us that they need some relief. Their bills are going up but their paycheques aren’t keeping up. That’s why we called for a 15% reduction in auto insurance premiums. But people are worried that insurance companies are raising rates before any reductions. What does the Premier have to say to drivers who are concerned that they won’t get the relief that they need and deserve?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: What I would say to drivers is that we agree with the leader of the third party that we need to do something about auto insurance premiums, which is why we were interested in acting on that. The NDP had a specific suggestion. We have committed to doing that and it is part of our budget proposal. So we want to get the budget passed. We want to work on getting the fraud out of the system, finding those savings and those savings being passed on to premium holders. We’ve made a commitment to do that in the budget. We look forward to getting the budget through the legislative process so that we can begin to implement it.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The Premier did listen to New Democrats and she promised Ontarians that she’ll drop auto insurance premiums by 15%. But we’ve been hearing from drivers who have received notices recently of double-digit increases in their premiums. Ontarians want to know that the government will square that circle. What concrete steps will the Premier take to ensure that premiums go down like she promised?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: That plan is laid out in the budget. We have committed to an average reduction of 15% across the province. You know, it is an average and we have to be clear that that doesn’t mean that everyone will get an absolute 15% reduction. That was never the commitment by either party. It’s in our budget. We want to get the budget passed. This one situation that the leader of the third party has raised I cannot comment on, but I know that the Minister of Finance has spoken with the industry. It is not our intention that there would be undue increases as we work up to the passage of the budget, but we do need to get the budget passed in order to be able to implement it.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Yesterday the finance minister said, “We’ve been very direct in telling” the insurance companies “to maintain the rates at what they are.” But New Democrats are hearing from drivers—not just the woman that was here yesterday, but dozens of drivers—who are getting big increases—big increases—in their premiums. Will the Premier take action today to ensure that rates are maintained as they are while we put the tools in place to start bringing them down?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: The way averages work is that some go up and some go down and some stay the same. The reality is that we could come up with lists of people who have had reductions in auto insurance, we could come up with lists of people who have had some increases in auto insurance and some for whom their premiums have stayed the same. What we have said is that overall we believe there should be a reduction of premiums. We have said we have committed to a 15% average reduction across the board. In order to be able to begin to implement our plan, we need to get the budget passed.

I look forward to the support of the third party so we can do that and we can begin to implement those changes.

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is for the Premier as well. Real investment in transit and transportation infrastructure is going to take long-term planning. In fact, Metrolinx estimates it will take 25 years of investment. The government has done its own long-term planning and has made it clear that they plan to cancel the fairness tax on high-income earners as soon as Ontario’s books are balanced. If the government’s worried about funding, can the Premier explain why she’s planning a tax cut for people making over $500,000 a year?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Again, at the root of this question is an intention to undermine the notion that we have to build transit in the greater Toronto-Hamilton area. There should be no debate about that. It should be very clear to anyone who is in touch with constituents who live in the greater Toronto-Hamilton area that we must do something about investment in transit for the next generation.

It would be irresponsible of us as a collective to ignore this issue, because if we believe that the economy of the province is driven to some extent by this region, then we know that moving goods and people around this region has to improve. So I reject the notion that we not move ahead on building transit. In terms of the tax regime, I will speak to that in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: What the Premier wants to do is undermine families who are having a hard time making ends meet these days in Ontario, while they give huge breaks to the people at the very top of the income scale in Ontario. New Democrats don’t think that that’s fair.

In addition to opening new tax loopholes that are going to allow corporations to get the HST off of their expenses like gasoline, the government said their first priority, as soon as the books are balanced, is more corporate tax giveaways.

If the Premier believes that Ontario needs long-term investment for infrastructure, could she explain why she has made corporate tax giveaways worth billions of dollars a priority?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: What I believe and what my team believes is that we must have a thriving economy. What that means is businesses must be competitive with our neighbouring jurisdictions. We must be able to attract investment to Ontario. This has to be a place where investment wants to come so that businesses can grow, and what businesses need, in addition to that kind of competitive tax regime, is the infrastructure in place so that they can move their goods across the GTHA, so that they can bring people to this region to live and work in those industries because people want to be here.

They want to raise their families here because it doesn’t take them two hours to get their kids to school or to daycare or to get themselves to work.

We’re going to work on both fronts because it’s a complex issue. We’re going to work to make sure that the conditions are in place for business to come here and we’re going to invest in transit so that we can grow the economy.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: What I believe and what New Democrats believe is that we need a fair economy in the province of Ontario.

Just a few short months ago, one transit expert said this: “We need to ask less of those who can afford less, and more from those who are getting the greatest benefit from transportation investment—the private sector.”

Quoting again: “Lots of people are calling for an ‘adult conversation’ about road pricing … and even regional sales taxes....

“[I do] not think Ontario families should pay more right now in the GTHA.”

That expert, the Premier should know, is sitting kind of right behind her as the cabinet minister now for the Ministry of Transportation.

Can the Premier please explain to him, then, and to all of us why the government is open to new taxes for Ontario families at the same time they’re planning to cut taxes for Ontario’s wealthiest individuals and largest corporations?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: If the leader of the third party thinks it is fair for a single parent to have to get their kids up at 5:30 in the morning in order to get them to daycare so that they can get to their job, because they live in the 905 and they’re coming into the 416 to work, I disagree. I disagree categorically that it is fair for us as a government to neglect our responsibility that has been neglected for at least a generation. We started building transit when we came into office in 2003, but before that there had been at least a decade of neglect on this file.

So if the leader of the third party thinks that that neglect should continue, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, because I think those investments are necessary for the families of this constituency.

Interjections.

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

SPORTS AND RECREATION FUNDING

Ms. Dipika Damerla: My question is to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. With the warm weather finally—very slowly—coming, it’s really nice to see baseball diamonds and soccer fields in my riding brimming with children. In fact, it’s really nice to just see children outside playing, whether they’re just playing tag or they’re on their bicycles, and that’s because parents realize today that it’s important that our children lead an active life.

One thing that parents are concerned about is injury while our children are playing, especially serious injuries like concussions. Can the minister tell my constituents in the riding of Mississauga East–Cooksville what this government’s plan is for injury prevention?

Hon. Michael Chan: I’m happy to answer the question from the honourable member from Mississauga East–Cooksville.

This week marks Safe Kids Week. As I mentioned earlier today, we’re welcoming Parachute Canada to Queen’s Park, and this year they are recognizing the importance of sport safety and concussion prevention.

Our government recognizes the importance of Ontarians being active in sport and recreation. Since 2003, we have invested over $750 billion to support sport and recreation programs and we are eagerly committed to injury prevention. This is why we are working with the Coaches Association of Ontario to develop and expand concussion management education opportunities for Ontario coaches.

Speaker, we are also working with provincial and multi-sport organizations to ensure concussion protocols are developed for young athletes.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Dipika Damerla: Thank you, Minister, for that great answer. It’s really good to see that the safety of our children continues to be a priority for this government.

Sometimes it can be a little bit challenging for families to make sure they’re physically active. It costs money and you need places to be able to be active. I’d like to know what this government is doing to help ensure that Ontarians have access to extracurricular and sports activities.

Hon. Michael Chan: Thank you for the question, again. I’m pleased to say that the successful expansion of after-school programs has enabled children to not only participat