Oh, wow. This guy over here has YouTube Premium.

But either way, if you don’t have it, you get this ad. It says, “There’s no place like Chrome.” You’ve seen this ad where it talks about how your tabs go where you go, and it’s a very nice little ad that’s on a lot of these YouTube videos. The whole premise, of course, is that if you use Google—which not everyone does; I get that. But I do. I happen to love my Google Docs and my Google Sheets. They make life much easier. Wherever I go, I can open it up, and—boom—everything is filled in, so you don’t have to fill in your shipping address every single time. You don’t have to fill in your information every single time. I know some people aren’t comfortable with that, and then they don’t use that service. That’s fine. I respect that. For me, I love it that I can sign on to any computer, log into my Google Chrome, and when I log into my Google Chrome, it’s instantly available. I don’t have to spend all my time filling out all the information for whatever form I’m going through—a table to be filled out very rapidly.

And so, it’s the same thing in terms of government services. We have to recognize that we’re living in a digital age. There might be some people who don’t want to do everything online, and I respect that. I understand making the option—having a physical option available is important. But to the vast majority of us, we do so many things online already, and if we’re able to have a digital process that is simpler than having to physically bring over papers and physically fill out papers, and perhaps miswrite something or have a letter that’s backwards or whatever it might be—when we have this in so many other aspects of our lives, governments have to respond to that as well, and so we are recognizing that. Our third principle is that any entities should be able to have accessible digital services wherever possible.

The fourth principle is that regulated entities like businesses, services and broader public sector organizations which demonstrate excellent compliance should be recognized. We recognize that we shouldn’t be punishing those who have done excellent jobs, have a healthy track record and have a very strong history of maintaining a regulatory environment and maintaining a compliance level that demonstrates their commitment to good corporate citizenship. They shouldn’t be under the exact same pressures as someone who perhaps hasn’t demonstrated such good faith and has not met the requirements that are in place to protect health, safety and the environment. We should be making sure that regulations which are in place are recognizing the different backgrounds and the different histories of individual organizations.

The fifth principle, one that I know my father would agree with, is that unnecessary reporting should be reduced and steps should be taken to avoid requiring regulated entities to provide the same information to government repeatedly. This is one of those ones that I’ve had so many conversations with people about. Actually, this is one of the questions I and my team also regularly ask. When we’re dealing with, let’s say, a renewal requirement, there are all sorts of requirements for different organizations, for different licensing and for different pieces where people have to provide a renewal every year, a renewal every six months or a renewal every two years. Often the question we’ll ask is, “Why is that the time frame? Why do we have to renew that every year? Can it be done every three years? Can it be done every five years? Is there a way to make sure that we don’t have to have people repeatedly submitting information again and again and again when it’s the exact same information year after year?”

Now, again, there are caveats to that. We recognize, of course, that there are changes in life. Look at, for example, your driver’s licence. Once you have your G, you don’t have to go back every year and redo it all over again and submit all your information. We understand that you have your G licence, but we also recognize that when you turn 80, there is potential for some challenges, health challenges, and that there needs to also be some conversation and a testing period. But generally speaking, we don’t force people to renew everything all the time, and we shouldn’t be taking that approach with regulations as well. We want to prevent people from having to unnecessarily resubmit information to the government again and again and again.

The sixth pillar is that instruments should prioritize the user by using clear communication, setting reasonable response times and establishing a centralized point of contact. It’s very straightforward, this pillar: People and businesses should be able to understand the requirements imposed upon them by the government. Yet I actually think this pillar is one of the most difficult to implement, and it’s also one of the most important pillars. Saying that we should have clear communication, a reasonable response time and a centralized point of contact I believe is, unfortunately, aspirational. It should be very basic, but the reality is, if you’ve spoken with anyone who’s had to interact with governments and had to interact with different bureaucracies, they probably don’t have one centralized point of contact that they can call with all their questions. They probably don’t necessarily even have a clear expectation of what a reasonable response time is. In some ministries or in some organizations, it can be within 24 hours. In some, it’s 90 days. In some, it’s 30 days. In some, it’s 10 business days. So we want to make sure that that changes, that there’s a reasonable response time expectation and a centralized point of contact for anyone who has to deal with regulations to make sure that they’re able to have a one-stop shop that they go to, to be able to know “This is who we have to deal with in order to get things done.”

The seventh principle is that an instrument should specify the desired result that regulated entities must meet, rather than the specific methods used to attain the result. Good outcomes are what we’re concerned about, and we recognize that there are many different ways to get to the same outcome. If the outcome is intended to protect health or the outcome is intended to protect workers or the outcome is intended to protect the environment, we need to recognize when people are acting in good faith towards those outcomes and not simply checking boxes. You could have people who check the boxes who do a process that’s technically accurate, but that doesn’t mean that the result is where we’re trying to go. So we have to be results-oriented, we have to be responsive and we have to recognize some flexibility around people’s ability to attain those results and not just focus on the process to get there.

The minister mentioned in his remarks earlier this morning that this year’s spring red tape reduction package focuses on three key themes, and in the time left I’m going to walk through a few of those themes: paving the way for better services, helping Ontario businesses grow and saving Ontarians time. I know he already walked through many of the measures in this legislation, but I’m going to spend a few minutes speaking to some of the other initiatives in the package which will help us realize these commitments.

I’d like to highlight an initiative that’s coming from the Ministry of Transportation when it comes to paving the way for better services. This Ministry of Transportation is looking to modernize agency governance at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. This is an agency which has an important role to play in our government’s plan to build a stronger Ontario. We’ve committed to restoring passenger rail service from Toronto to northern Ontario, a service that was cancelled by the former Liberal government in 2012, and we’re well on our way to delivering on that promise with planning under way and three new state-of-the-art trainsets on order from Siemens Mobility.

With this work, our government is going to be proceeding with developing a new and clearly defined transportation-focused mandate for Ontario Northland, which will be brought forward in this House in the future as part of modernized legislation. Speaker, this is necessary because the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Act is a legacy piece of legislation from 1902 which has seen limited changes and does not align with modern agency legislation. To put that in context, Speaker, 1902 is six years before the Ford Motor Company invented the Model T.

Clarifying the agency’s mandate with regard to transportation, when a lot has changed in the last 120 years, will help result in increased agency alignment with our strategic vision for being responsive to the needs of the people in the province and will empower the agency to deliver on key priority projects such as the Northlander.

Another way that we are paving the road to better services is by proposing amendments to the Ontario Energy Board to protect ratepayers. Speaker, you might be surprised to learn that, currently, utilities can pass on costs they’ve incurred because of failing to comply with their statutory obligations to ratepayers through increases to rates. What that means is, they break the rules, and you pay the price. At the end of the day, when they fail to meet their legislative obligations or their regulatory obligations, which results in greater costs, they don’t take those costs and eat them. They actually pass those costs along to the ratepayers and say, “Sorry. We made this mistake, whatever it costs—millions of dollars. It sucks to be us. But guess what? It’s okay, because we don’t have to pay for it; the ratepayers do.” No longer. We’re making changes under this legislation to make sure that when they break the rules, the ratepayers aren’t the ones who are paying for it. We’re putting an end to that practice. It would protect energy ratepayers from paying for costs incurred because of non-compliance and help keep rates predictable.

Speaking of the Ministry of Energy, there’s another way that this red tape reduction package is helping businesses grow. We know that Ontario’s clean energy grid can be a real competitive advantage when we’re looking at attracting businesses and investments to the province. But we can do much more. That’s why we’re proposing amendments to the Ontario Energy Board Act which will allow the Ontario Energy Board to remove certain regulatory barriers to innovative pilot and demonstration projects. There are a lot of projects in the province that, unfortunately, we’re not able to proceed with, under the restrictive regulations of the Ontario Energy Board. This will expand the Ontario Energy Board’s authority to facilitate pilot and demonstration projects, such as exploring the idea of peer-to-peer energy trading. There’s vast potential for energy innovation that could revolutionize the way we produce, distribute and consume energy. Eliminating the red tape associated with these pilot projects will have the potential to reveal real value for the sector and for customers. Innovative projects that could come forward through these changes will benefit electricity ratepayers through lower rates and a more reliable and resilient system—as well as having a positive impact on Ontarians.

Speaker, I know that we’re running close to time, but I do want to focus on an initiative from the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development that is intended to save time for the people of this province. We’re seeking to clarify the concept of “survivor” in the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act in relation to terms such as “surviving spouse” and “cohabiting,” as well as other related issues. Modernizing the approach that the WSIB takes in relation to survivors will improve operational consistency in decision-making, reduce administrative burden, and also provide the WSIB with the ability to process claims faster and save Ontarians time.

There are other ways that we’re working to save Ontarians time. We are proposing amendments to electronic forms delivery under the Pension Benefits Act, which will eliminate the need to send retiring plan members unneeded reminder notices, reducing costs and duplication.

We will have permanent changes made to several business law statutes in the Condominium Act to allow for corporations, including not-for-profits, to hold virtual meetings. Some businesses aren’t able to hold virtual meetings. We’re making changes to allow them to continue to hold those virtual meetings to save everyone time and money. This has been a very popular and successful measure.

Speaker, I wish I had more time to speak about all the other actions that are in this legislation. Unfortunately, due to my tangents, we are not able to continue, but I appreciate the—