Earlier this month, the Ombudsman released a report on the Landlord and Tenant Board. In response to questions, the Attorney General stated that Ontario’s tribunals were in shambles when this government took over in 2018; however, the chapter entitled “Issues Contributing to Delay” notes that the problems started in 2019, Mr. Speaker. Delays were specifically attributed to the Conservatives’ decision to leave positions unfilled, presumably waiting for preferred candidates, while experienced applicants were available or could have been renewed.

Mr. Speaker, under this government’s watch, Ontario’s tribunals have fallen into a shambles. Will this government commit to putting aside what the Ombudsman called the “political nature of elections,” especially when tribunals have many unfilled positions, so that people can have timely access to justice?

Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General knows well that the timeline for the problems at the Landlord and Tenant Board, as identified by the Ombudsman, started in 2019 and made no mention of the Liberal government.

Tribunal Watch Ontario, in response to the report, said, “Experienced and proven leaders were replaced, in some cases, by people for whom political affiliation seemed to be the main qualification.” This seems to be a common theme with this Conservative government. It’s okay to ignore what’s broken in Ontario so long as their friends are taken care of.

Mr. Speaker, let me be constructive. Will the government commit to creating a non-partisan oversight body that protects the independence of Ontario’s adjudicative tribunals?

Interjections.

I’m not sure which of those questions to answer but I’m going to tell you what we are doing at the Landlord and Tenant Board. We are investing so much money and effort and time to make sure that the people of Ontario are served.

When the Liberals left the fire that was in tribunals, when they left it to us to fix it, Mr. Speaker—I can tell you, the back office system was not working. So we undertook, as soon as we came into office, to start rebuilding the backbone of the tribunal system, and the Landlord and Tenant Board in particular. We worked with the province of British Columbia, an NDP government, to see what they were doing. We’ve adopted parts of their system. We’ve invested $26.5 million, Mr. Speaker, to fix that part of the LTB alone.

He can talk about the Ombudsman’s report, Mr. Speaker. There were so many things that they left undone that we’ve had to fix, but we are going to get it done.