Thank you, Mister Speaker, for the opportunity to lead off the debate today on our spring 2023 red tape reduction package, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, 2023.

I’ll be sharing my time with my parliamentary assistant, the great member from Niagara West. I want to thank him for all of his assistance and his hard work in helping develop this great piece of legislation and leading some of the consultation work around the province and hearing from Ontarians and businesses. He has done a tremendous job.

Mr. Speaker, it was just two weeks ago when we were right here in this place, debating our fall red tape reduction bill, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, at third reading. Members may recall that I spoke about how red tape causes frustration, expenses and needless delays and complications for everyone: individuals, businesses, not-for-profit organizations and the broader public sector. We talked about how regulatory burdens are a barrier to our productivity, innovation, economic competitiveness and development. We talked about the cost of failing to act, because red tape has huge cost implications. Last year, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that red tape costs small businesses in Canada approximately $11 billion each year. That’s $11 billion, Mr. Speaker, and that’s just small businesses in our country.

The number one thing I hear from Ontarians when I meet with them, whether they are small-business owners, a volunteer or charitable organization, or even other elected officials outside of our province—you know what they hear, Mr. Speaker? The first thing that they say to me when I speak to them is, “We are so happy that there is a full Ministry of Red Tape Reduction here in the province of Ontario.”

And you know how and why we have this ministry, Mr. Speaker. It’s because, under the leadership of our Premier, Premier Ford, we are taking a critical look at how government impacts both people and business. We know that to build a stronger economy, improve services and save Ontarians time, we need to continue to look for ways to reduce the red tape that people and businesses face in their everyday lives.

Speaker, I am pleased to report that, since 2018, our government has reduced Ontario’s total regulatory burden by 6.5%. The changes that we’ve put in place have saved businesses, not-for-profit organizations and the broader public sector nearly $700 million in annual regulatory compliance costs. This is of course a substantial increase over the $576 million in savings that we last reported in the fall Burden Reduction Report and serves as proof of our government’s ongoing commitment to reduce burden and continue to find savings.

We have achieved these savings by making practical changes that save Ontarians time and money, including the nine high-impact pieces of red tape reduction legislation that this Legislature has passed since 2018 and the more than 450 individual burden-reducing actions we’ve implemented so far, Madam Speaker. These actions, of course, have led to many businesses around the world taking notice of Ontario. They have come to meet with me and some of my colleagues, and they have invested right here in our great province of Ontario, and some of them in a big way.

Let me just say, Speaker, that unlike the 15 years of the Liberal and NDP coalition, it is now far easier to start and expand a business right here in Ontario.

Interjections.

The results of course speak for themselves. Under the previous Liberal-NDP coalition, the automotive manufacturing sector was fleeing our province. Good-paying jobs were obviously drying up and, in some cases, leaving our province, from Oshawa to Windsor and everywhere in between.

Since taking office in 2018, our province has seen these jobs coming back to Ontario in record amounts. By lowering the cost of doing business and removing unnecessary red tape in Ontario, we have seen $17 billion invested in the auto sector alone. That’s $17 billion, Madam Speaker. The changes made are obviously what’s contributing to all of these investments coming in, and obviously the changes being made are obviously to protect and continue to create jobs in the province. The ability for someone in, say, St. Thomas to now work close to home, with a bigger paycheque—and soon we’re going to see a Volkswagen EV manufacturing plant—is only possible because of the work our government has done and continues to do.

That’s why our new bill, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, continues to build on the success. It is focused on paving the way for better services, helping Ontario businesses grow and saving people time and money.

But make no mistake, reducing red tape is not just about counting the number of regulations and trying to reduce them; it’s about the impact those changes are having on real people and businesses across our great province. I can say with confidence that this bill we are debating today proposes substantial changes that will have those real impacts for people—changes like accelerating timelines for municipal approvals for broadband projects in support of our goal of bringing high-speed Internet to every community across our great province by 2025. This is essential to live and work in the 21st century.

This package is the product of continued collaboration across government with our ministry partners and extensive consultations with a range of stakeholders and people across the province to develop an unparalleled inventory of red tape reduction ideas.

I’m proud to say the legislation we are debating today, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, is our 10th and our largest burden-reduction bill so far. It’s an important part of our larger spring 2023 red tape reduction package, which contains additional regulatory amendments and policy changes that contribute to a common goal of reducing red tape. This bill, if passed, would streamline processes and modernize outdated practices across multiple areas of government and multiple sectors of our province’s economy.

A wide-reaching red tape reduction bill like this one simply isn’t possible without the assistance of our partner ministries across government.

But let me be clear, Speaker: Our government acknowledges the importance of having robust rules and regulations in place. They help protect public health, safety and the environment. They keep our children safe when they’re at school. They protect workers so they can come home to their families each and every day.

With those principles in mind, I would like to talk a little bit about some of the items within the Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act and how they will make life better for people right across our great province. As I mentioned earlier, this is a very large red tape reduction package. This bill we are debating today includes 37 different schedules making up more than 200 pages. Our complete spring 2023 red tape reduction package has 42 individual items, including regulatory and policy changes that complement the legislative changes found in the bill.

Speaker, many of us have rural areas as our ridings, and we all know how important farmers are for our province. As we began to put this bill together, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs was a very important partner. We worked closely to identify some red tape that farmers are facing when going about their day-to-day business. Any minute that a farmer spends dealing with unnecessary government bureaucracy is a minute too long.

In our bill, we have proposed amendments to the legislative framework for financial protection programs. Financial protection programs, or FPPs, help protect farmers from financial risks, like defaulting on payments for farmers’ grain or livestock or an elevator operator who doesn’t return grain to the farmer upon demand. These can threaten their livelihood.

Let me explain a little further, Speaker, the details surrounding FPPs. They were established in the early 1980s and are currently governed under three separate acts: the Grains Act, the Livestock and Livestock Products Act, and the Farm Products Payments Act.

As you may recall, Speaker, this was a time before the Internet, before modern payment methods, and before anybody even knew what cyber security was. And while the FPPs remain critically important for our farmers, the legislative framework of three separate acts has made it burdensome to administer the programs. That’s why our bill proposes a common-sense solution to protect farmers’ livelihoods. By streamlining the existing FPPs under one new governing act, we can ensure those FPPs do what they were always meant to do, to help our farmers do what they do best, which is to farm.

These updates to Ontario’s farm financial protection program will help to reduce the red tape by streamlining and clarifying the process to obtain and renew grain dealer elevator operator and beef cattle dealer licences. But most importantly, consolidating FPPs under one act will allow our government to better support 28,000 grain and 19,000 beef cattle farms more efficiently and effectively. We want to build on this work in the future, Speaker, and we are hopeful, of course, that we can make it easier to expand financial protection to other sectors in the future as well.

On the topic of farmers, I would also like to highlight a proposed regulatory amendment to the Milk Act, one that has come directly from ongoing conversations with the Ontario Dairy Council. This is an industry with over 4,400 dairy farmers in our province, many in the ridings of the members opposite. As with other industries, Ontario’s dairy industry has changed over the last several decades and regulations have not kept pace with new technologies, practices and products.

Yet, some legacy requirements remain in regulation resulting in unnecessary costs for dairy producers and processors. That’s why we have an opportunity to modernize certain regulatory requirements while continuing to maintain the highest food safety and quality requirements in three specific areas: the frequency of cleaning and sanitation in a dairy plant; milk grader certification for on-farm processors; and administrative burden related to expiration of milk grader certificates.

By modernizing the regulations under the Milk Act, we will help reduce burden and costs for dairy processors, while maintaining the high food safety standards that people have come to expect from Ontario’s agri-food sector. Speaker, this vital sector produces over 2.5 billion litres of milk annually and we will always be here to support them.

Speaker, we are also supporting families who are navigating the province’s support orders system. There are over 8,500 families right here in Ontario who have to spend time and money trying to access support orders. If passed, we would streamline the system to provide Ontarians with access to faster, more efficient and easier processes to establish, change and enforce support orders internationally. What that means is that families will see payments flow more quickly and reliably.

Some important context to this, Speaker: This change comes out of the 2007 Hague convention, and if we pass this schedule, Ontario would be one of the first provinces to implement this, proof that, with the Ministry of Red Tape Reduction working across government, our province now moves quickly to implement supports like this.

Next, I’d like to share three modernization measures coming from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, who are doing exceptional work preparing students for the jobs of the future.

First, this legislation is proposing new measures to collect outstanding debts by bad actors. Under the Private Career Colleges Act, 2005, administrative monetary penalties are levied against career colleges and other institutions that contravene the legislation. These rules help to address bad actors who prey on students, protect compliant institutions and uphold the integrity of the private career colleges sector.

However, the available collection tools have proven to be inadequate, resulting in unpaid monetary penalties by those not adhering to the legislation. This is simply unacceptable. That’s why the Ministry of Colleges and Universities is working with the Ministry of Finance on legislative amendments to strengthen collection of outstanding administrative monetary penalties from non-compliant career colleges by leveraging enhanced collection tools, such as liens on assets or property. By enhancing our tools for collecting outstanding monetary penalties, we can ensure the accountability of training providers, protect students, and promote a healthy and vibrant private training sector.

The Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act is also proposing to require legislative reviews of the Private Career Colleges Act every five years. When originally passed back in the day, the act included requirements for a review seven years after coming into force. This requirement was completed, of course, in 2013, and now there is no requirement in the legislation for any further review. By introducing regular reviews of the act, Ontario is supporting career colleges in staying responsive to the needs of the economy and employers in preparing students for great careers. Finally, we’re also proposing to update the name of the Ontario Career Colleges Act. This change signals the importance of career colleges in preparing students for high-demand professions.

Speaker, we have seen over 660,000 manufacturing jobs flood back across the border to Ontario. Not all of these jobs require a university degree. Training, upskilling and retraining is vital in some of these industries. Our government is focused on ensuring that people, young and old, have access to the skills they need to keep Ontario thriving and to keep Ontario the economic engine of our country.

I’d like to focus on a change from the Ministry of Infrastructure which is playing a leading role in our government’s plan to build Ontario, with transit, highways, hospitals, universities, and, yes, broadband. As a government, we have committed to connecting every community across the province to high-speed Internet by the end of 2025, because high-speed Internet is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity. And, Speaker, this is a goal we’re getting closer and closer to meeting day by day.

As an example, just two weeks ago in my great riding of Milton, we announced a joint investment with the federal government to expand broadband to underserved rural areas in parts of my riding. I know many of my colleagues have made similar announcements in their home communities. Yet despite this positive momentum, some Internet providers are still facing unnecessary delays in receiving necessary municipal permits and approvals when they go to build broadband infrastructure. Simply put, it’s taking too long to get Ontarians connected online. That’s why our bill is proposing amendments to the Building Broadband Faster Act, 2021, that would work to prevent delays in the permitting process between municipalities and these Internet service providers. This will ensure that Internet service providers can plan, design and, of course, build high-speed Internet projects as quickly as possible, connecting more communities across Ontario to high-speed Internet faster.

But it’s not just the broadband that our government is building. As I mentioned before, in the last two and a half years, Ontario has attracted more than $17 billion worth of investments by global automakers and suppliers of batteries for electric vehicles, investments from top-tier companies like Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, General Motors, Stellantis, LG Energy Solution, Magna and Umicore.

This is huge news for our economy. Ontario is truly the place to build the electric vehicles of the future.

But these projects are going to require access to many critical minerals, and we have a responsibility to ensure the miners who do the difficult work of supplying those critical minerals and other raw materials our province needs are kept as safe as possible.

That’s why, working with our colleagues at the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, we are proposing to amend various provisions in the mines and mining plant regulations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to reflect current practice and technologies, keep the regulations up to date and increase flexibility and reduce regulatory burden while maintaining, and in many cases enhancing, worker health and safety protections. It will see new technologies, like drones, being used to ensure these stronger health and safety requirements are met. It’s a fantastic example of how red tape reduction can enhance safety protections for workers while providing employers with more flexibility to meet these requirements.

Just yesterday, I had an opportunity to meet with one of the foremost leaders in lithium extraction and refinement, and he told me that companies around the world are finally eager to invest in Ontario, not just because we have the raw materials required for the next generation, but because Ontario is truly open for business. As I mentioned before, one of the first things he said when we sat down was, “I wish every jurisdiction had a Ministry of Red Tape Reduction.”

In working with my colleagues at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, we are building on progress made and proposing amendments to the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act to accommodate innovation in new technologies. Businesses in Ontario have been eager to innovate their ways to capture and store carbon. With this new regulatory framework, we now have the ability to establish protective checks and balances for testing and demonstration projects on private lands. We are talking about piloting technology that has the potential to store 30 years’ worth of carbon emissions.

This is something that will develop into a self-sustaining sector in our province. These changes will help evolve our energy system, create good-paying, local jobs and attract investment while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a win-win for Ontario.

Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to touch on some items from the Ministry of Transportation, which is helping move people and goods safely and efficiently across Ontario. I think it’s fair to say that people who clear our roads in stormy Ontario winters don’t quite get the recognition they deserve. But they are the ones who keep our roads safe and our province moving.

Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in motorists making dangerous or unsafe manoeuvres just to get around the plows that are keeping our roads safe and driveable in winter conditions. That’s why the Ministry of Transportation is proposing an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act that would add clauses to prohibit impatient drivers from overtaking snowplows working in a staggered formation across highway lanes. The proposed amendments intend to reduce motor vehicle collisions with snowplows on high-speed, multi-lane highways. This will make the public safer and reduce the burden on emergency responders, health care services, the insurance sector and the legal system, Madam Speaker.

The ministry is also proposing to remove duplicative requirements for the towing and vehicle storage sector. To improve safety for people needing a tow and those working in the towing industry, the province is taking steps to implement a certification program that will require tow operators, tow truck drivers and vehicle storage operators to meet certain requirements to operate in Ontario. But as we roll out this province-wide program, the ministry is also proposing amendments to the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act that would ensure operators and drivers in the towing and vehicle storage industry are not required to pay multiple licensing or certificate fees, or adhere to different municipal requirements when the provincial certification program is in effect.

We are also proposing additional measures in our red tape reduction package to encourage and reinforce the need for pre-consultation with the Ministry of Transportation for any Planning Act submissions, such as official plans, development proposals or housing proposals that include work adjacent to provincial highways. Pre-consultation with MTO will help streamline and ensure timely comments, approvals and permits by ensuring proponents and municipalities are aware of MTO requirements before starting a significant project. This could translate into a tangible cost savings of thousands of dollars by avoiding project implementation delays and reduce the potential for frustration or dissatisfaction for proponents and municipalities.

Speaker, it is an honour to speak about some of these items included in the proposed Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, 2023, and how they will benefit people and businesses right across our great province.

I am now going to turn it over to my parliamentary assistant, the great member from Niagara West, to speak to some additional items in this important piece of legislation.

I want to thank my colleague for that important question. I can assure him that one of the things we do at the Ministry of Red Tape Reduction is work across government. So we have an opportunity to work with every single one of our colleagues and every single one of our cabinet ministers to look at ways—and I know the Attorney General has been doing a tremendous job over the last number of years modernizing our justice system—and it’s across government, and we all help one another. We all work closely with one another, and all of us, I would say, do a really good job listening to our constituents and listening to our stakeholders. A lot of these ideas—where do they come from—that we’re able to put in our piece of legislation? They come from Ontarians through the consultation process, through the relaunch of our online portal where we get amazing feedback from just regular Ontarians, businesses that are impacted, that are frustrated, that are spending countless hours filling out unnecessary papers.

We recognize we have a lot more work to do and we’ll continue to do the hard work.

Well, it’s really interesting to get a question like that from my colleague, because if you heard my original comments, the entire theme is about what you prioritize over what you don’t prioritize, and that inconsistency in policy application is problematic for us—and also making the case that we support streamlining some regulations, but not when they compromise the health and safety of workers in Ontario.

We would like to see a stronger application of addressing those who are vulnerable in Ontario, like the ODSP example that I gave you. When people are on ODSP, they shouldn’t have to prove every single month or every single year that they still are an amputee. That’s ridiculous. So for us, we are looking at this legislation through a different lens.

As I said at the beginning, we really just got this bill in this morning in hard copy. We’re still doing that stakeholder consultation, and as we peel back the layers, we hope that the government will be amenable to some changes. Certainly on the housing front, we should be doing everything that we can to support municipalities in true partnership, including making them whole, as the minister promised to.

This is exactly one of the examples that I was giving, that in order for us to really see how this plays itself out in the community with the underfunded sector, how this will improve the lives of those who have developmental disabilities—and the entire section for me is actually highlighted, so I think that it warrants further attention.

When you don’t do proper consultation, I’ve often said, then you have a flawed product, and that’s what Bill 23 is. Bill 23 is not working, will not work, in fact, will undermine the goals the government has said they want to see happen, which is more housing. We challenged the government on the assertion that that housing must happen on the greenbelt. That, in fact, is very problematic for the province of Ontario.

I also would like to say to the member, respectfully, that the Conservative Party of Ontario, under several leaders, was the official opposition during those years. You had the opportunity to hold that government to account, just as we did. When it was a minority government, we were able to secure the Financial Accountability Office to increase financial transparency for Ontarians, which I think was time well spent and was worth our energy to fight for.

But we are very focused on solutions to the issues on energy, and $6.5 billion in subsidies is not a sustainable amount of money that this province can afford to address energy costs.

Report continues in volume B.