I’m going to be speaking about the Queen’s Park Restoration Act, but before I begin, I hope that my colleagues will allow me to diverge a bit just to share a message that was shared with me last night that I think will resonate. It’s non-partisan, but I think it will resonate with all of us. It says:

“Big day tomorrow across the province. It’s the district Mine Rescue Competition ...

“And this year, Goderich is hosting ...

“Tomorrow, we will welcome 15 students and their teachers as spectators. These students have an interest in mining and/or emergency services.

“Our local volunteer firefighters will also be in attendance.

“This is the brainchild of my husband, our local mine rescue officer and myself.

“To our knowledge, it’s never been done before.

“Important people at Compass Minerals, Workplace Safety North, and Unifor are paying attention ...

“Not sure how it will go ... but tonight we are pretty excited about it!

“Name tags, flashlights, ear protection and handouts are ready to go ...

“This year’s ‘problem’ was written by an MRO (mine rescue officer) from the southern district.

“The MRO from our region, who wrote the problem was sent up to Timmins to judge and facilitate up there ...

“Because as we all know ... the Hollinger mine disaster is the reason that we have Ontario Mine Rescue at all ....

“This is one of two MROs that train Windsor, Goderich and Hagersville ...

“There are only two teams at districts this year ...

“There should be three.

“We will all be missing our friends from the competition team at Windsor.

“We play hard together, but we learn from each other. We support each other.

“When the tornado hit Goderich in 2011, the only fatality in the whole town was the man who was working the boom, loading boats at the mine.

“Windsor was called in for mutual aid to recover the body. This was a hard job for Windsor because a lot of people on the Windsor team were originally from Goderich ...

“To quote my husband:

“‘We are used to working together.

“‘We are used to learning together.

“‘Salt is always salt. Work is always just work ...

“‘And our miners here hope that Windsor gets back to work because we miss the friendly competition and the opportunity to learn together to keep our workplaces safe ...’”

Thank you, Speaker and my colleagues, for allowing me to share that. I know that we all care about safety for our mining communities.

I’m proud to stand and talk about the Queen’s Park Restoration Act. I’m going to say this bill is exciting and extremely dull. It is exciting because of the work that we’re going to do, but in terms of the bill itself and what’s in the bill, it’s very dry and dull and spells out how to move forward. As a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I’m going to share some of the process of how we got to here. I’ll also talk about the bill itself, but I think that in the debate we’ve had so far, the meat and potatoes of the bill have been discussed a lot, and there’s a good understanding, I think, from all of my colleagues about what’s in the bill.

This morning when I was thinking about what I was going to say and preparing, I thought of the Greek proverb, “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” Obviously, this was written a long time ago, when it was old men who made the decisions, and so I want to recognize, as well, women and everybody else who makes decisions. But I think that’s the core of the journey we’ve been on in committee when we look at the restoration of Queen’s Park.

When we first started discussing it, we all came to the table with what we wanted, things we’d like to see, even small things in terms of—there’s technology in use here, but there are no charging stations. There’s no way to plug in anything at our desks. I have, a couple of times, had to go to my office to plug in my laptop to let it recharge so I can come back to have it here.

Very quickly, we learned as a committee, as a group, that this really was about planting trees under whose shade we’ll never sit. Some of us might be here when the project is completed. But the reality is that political careers typically do not last a very long time, and this project will probably end after many of our careers have sunsetted—either after we retire or after we’ve been replaced—because as I say often here, we are just renting these chairs. When that realization hit for all of us, I think what happened for many of us is, we understood the opportunity we had to make this place better for everybody, and that, I think, is when the committee really clicked. It really was a turning point for the committee.

I really enjoyed being on the committee, I have to say—the opportunity to work together, to have very open conversations. A lot of what we do here can feel adversarial at times, but I think that when it comes to what we’re doing for the Queen’s Park restoration, that sense of “adversarial-ness” is gone.

It’s easy for us as parliamentarians to think about what changes we would like to see. For example, many of my colleagues from the government side don’t have a place to put their stuff when they come here. I have an office really close to here, actually, just one floor up, but some of my colleagues on the opposition side have to walk as far as the north wing. Many of the Conservative members, the government members, show up and put their stuff in their car, or they all pile it into the whip’s office, or they’re working in the cafeteria or holding meetings there. It’s an opportunity to expand in that area and make this a better workplace for the people who want to meet with ministers and to have that flexibility.

But it’s not really about us. We feel sometimes like we’re the centre of the universe. Once you’re elected, everyone here is incredibly nice to you, incredibly polite. I’m reminded of this because the first time I was at Queen’s Park, I was kicked out, as a visitor, for being too rambunctious—and honestly, I deserved to be kicked out, and our group. In the gallery, you’re not allowed to make comments. We were upset and we made a lot of noise, and they cleared the galleries. But the reality is, coming back, it was a whole different experience. When you’re escorted out of this building and then the next time you come back they hold the door and call you, “Sir,” it’s a little startling.

When we come here as MPPs, we feel like the centre of the universe because we’re preparing for debate. The days are very hectic. Yesterday, by noon, it felt like I had done two days of work with the meetings that I had, with everything going on. That’s how it can feel. But in order for us to be effective like that, in order for us as MPPs to be that engaged with our community and bring their voices forward, there is a whole system behind this that also has to be successful. There are our staff, specifically. But there are also the Clerks. There are also the maintenance people. There are also the cleaners. There are the tour groups and the students who come. There are all these other components to the building that, if you’re not paying attention, you just don’t recognize. These facility upgrades are for them; we’re a small component of it. A lot of the place really works well for most of us. So there’ll be some tweaks and nudges that will help us as MPPs, but the majority of what we’re doing, the majority of what this project is—that we’re going to plant trees that, for many of us, we may not see the shade—really is about the people who work in this building, who have careers in this building, and the people who visit this building, the students who come here.

It’s also about improving the safety. I’m reminded, for example, that half of this building is made out of wood and half of this building is made out of marble. The reason half of it is made out of marble is because there was a fire. The wooden portion burned down, and they were only able to save half of the building. So the architect who redesigned it chose marble for the building. I don’t want to frighten people to think that this is a fire trap or anything like that, but there are things we can do to lessen the risk of fire, to ensure fire protection services.

That’s something we need to keep in mind, understanding that not only is this our workplace, but this is a tourist destination. This is a place where, all the time, people are wandering around on tour, learning about this historical site.

There have been some renovations that have been done in the past—obviously, there are cameras; when you think of a building from 1893, there wouldn’t have been cameras back then—but there haven’t been a lot. It has been a lot of piecemeal work. I worked in construction for more than a decade, and there is only so much you can do before you’ve got to start from scratch; there’s only so much you can do to tinker and nudge.

We were fortunate, on the standing committee, to go for a tour of this building. Many of us in our offices would recognize there’s some need for improvements. I’m in one of the corner offices of the building before it goes into another hallway, and there is a snake of Cat 5 cables that goes through my office. Our House leader is next door to my office, and there’s probably one less cable in his office and one less in the office after that. But it is literally just a snake of cables all tie-wrapped together that punches a hole through the wall and goes to the next office and the next office. It’s because there’s no more room to bring it through the walls; there’s no more room to cover it up. We went into the air return system, which is only supposed to be for air coming in and out of the building, to allow some ventilation and clean air, and a lot of that space is being used for cabling and infrastructure to go through. It was shocking to see a lot of this stuff—and not shocking in a Mike Holmes, Holmes on Homes renovation disaster way, but just to understand how flexible the maintenance workers have been in upgrading the building and what has happened.

I want to recognize as well that as a committee, we also went to Ottawa to see the House of Commons, which is already going through a restoration project. That really helped open our eyes about the restoration and what we’re up against. We want to be as fiscally responsible as possible. We know that this is an important project, but we also know that the people of Ontario want to ensure that we’re spending money wisely. The project in Ottawa is massive; it’s much larger than what we’re going to be doing here, but it really helped us understand the scope of what’s happening.

We live in a museum. This is very old building. It’s a lot of historical site—so it’s not the same as renovating your house, where you can just kick down a wall. There are a lot of things that we have to do here to ensure that we preserve the structure around us. Everywhere I look in this room has carvings and, really, art. Our chandeliers themselves are art. The ceiling is painted as art—the cameras can’t pan up there. It’s a beautiful building.

It reminds me, actually, of one evening when I was leaving late, and one of the precinct protection officers, Ralph, was staring at some cabinets on the first floor, on the west side. I was coming down the stairs, and Ralph was looking into the cabinets, and I thought maybe the glass got broken or something, and I asked if everything was okay. He said, “Oh, yes, we just rotate through, and I haven’t been here for a while. They changed the display, and I’m just enjoying it. Are you open to some advice?” I was very new—it was within my first year of being an MPP—and I was open to any kind of advice, so I said yes. And Ralph said, “Long days, short years. How many times do you rush to the House and walk past the artwork on the walls without stopping to look at them? These are long days that you’re having, but looking back, they’re going to be short years, and one day, you won’t be here anymore. I would recommend that you enjoy them.” And I do make a point of looking at the different artwork that’s on the walls, the busts, even the marble handrails or the flooring—I don’t know the right term for the flooring, but the tiny little stones, the mosaic in the flooring that someone on their hands and knees placed individually to make the design. Those are all things that I ignored for the first couple of months when I was elected, or took for granted—but recognizing that all of this stuff that is in here makes this place where we work beautiful. As ugly as it can feel some days—we can really get heated in debate—it’s a beautiful place to work.

Yesterday, the OLIP interns were here, and my first intern kept saying that my office was the most smiley place that she’d ever worked. And one of the reasons I think I’m always smiling here is that I know how privileged we all are to be here and to be the voices of our ridings. No matter what kind of mood I’m in, even if I’m not feeling well, I am always smiling in this building because it is a beautiful place to work, and we’re all so fortunate to be here.

I’m going to go to the bill. I’m feeling more nostalgic about the work that we do, but in terms of the bill, we have real hazards in the building that have to be addressed.

We have a steam heating system. We’re at the time of year, I think, when many of us are happy to be on House duty because there’s a sense of air conditioning in here that we haven’t been transitioned to in our offices. It’s warm outside, but the steam heating system is still running, because if we get a cold snap, it takes a long time to restart it, and so we have to transition. There is a time where it’s very, very warm here, and it’s not comfortable in a suit; it’s not even comfortable in a T-shirt. So we have a steam heating system that is not energy-efficient, to begin with. It’s outdated. It requires a lot of fabrication in order to repair it—because sometimes the maintenance people have to actually get parts fabricated to fix it. And it’s potentially a fire hazard. Steam can be dangerous under pressure. There’s a lot of work behind that.

We have a wiring system that’s out of date. I talked about the Cat 5 cables, but also, the cable trays are absolutely loaded. There has been a project to remove redundant cable, but it’s hard when they’re buried and twisted. There are areas that have been discovered that have exposed wires, like any building, that are being addressed. I don’t want to panic people, but there’s a lot of work over the time.

Anyone who has been to Queen’s Park will notice that we have Culligan Water containers on every floor, because you can’t drink the water because of the lead pipes that are in the building.

As in most buildings this old, there’s asbestos and lead and PCBs that have to be addressed. So when we do this project, we’re going to have to decant. We can’t all crowd over to the east wing while they do the west wing; it just won’t work. It’s going to be a large project, and going to Ottawa helped us to understand that.

This is going to take a long time to do, like I’ve said often. Best of luck to all of us that we will be here at the end of it, but the history is that many of us may not be. One of the members resigned to pursue another career option recently. So that’s the reality for us. We can come back as visitors. But this really isn’t about making the place great for us; it’s about making this place great for everybody else.

With all the work that’s coming ahead, I want to recognize the members on the committee and the work that they have done together. This is really, I would say, the most non-partisan committee I’ve ever been on. And my colleague was on the committee with me previously—it felt non-partisan then too. It is very non-partisan. I don’t think my mom would ever understand that I get along with Mike Harris. But, quite frankly, that member and I are the co-chairs of the subcommittee, and we have casual conversations, straight-up conversations about concerns and what we can do.

Part of this project really is about, when we do the renovations and we make this investment, that we want to ensure that this building reflects all of the people of Ontario. The quote I said talked about “old men,” and implied in that is “old white men,” in the Greek philosopher days. But the makeup of this province and the leadership of this province is no longer just old white men, and we want that to be reflected. We want newcomers to Canada to be reflected in this building. We want people from different backgrounds to be reflected in this building. We want this to feel like a place that reflects Ontario and everyone in Ontario. We want people to feel seen when they come into the building. We want to improve the security of the building—not just for ourselves, but for the staff who are here and for the visitors and the tours.

We want to ensure that we have consultations with as many people as possible. I think that, as a committee, the thing that worries us most is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And so as we’re reaching out to Indigenous groups and heritage experts and accessibility advocates, we start thinking about: Who we are missing? What advice will we not get? In our last meeting, actually, we were talking about: How do we open this so that people can just apply and submit information? And quite frankly, we’re going to get something wrong at the end of the day, because we’re human.

I’m reminded often of this quote: “The sign of a good negotiation is when both sides walk away with a rock in their shoe.” And so our goal, at a minimum, is not to get it so very wrong that people feel like they have more than just a rock in their shoe—that there’s a nudge of something we could have done a little bit better, but they understand that we were absolutely doing the best that we can.