Thank you for the passionate presentation by the Ottawa West–Nepean member.

Since 2018, the PC government has been focused on building Ontario. We have built schools. The previous Liberal-NDP coalition closed schools. We are building hospitals. The Liberal-NDP coalition brought our health care system to its knees. We are building transit, with four new transit lines in the GTA—when the NDP voted no.

Bill 69 will help—predictable infrastructure projects and let us build infrastructure faster without compromising the EA process.

Why are the members opposite against building the infrastructure that the people of Ontario need and deserve? Why doesn’t the opposition want to join us in building Ontario?

I would like to thank the member from Ottawa West–Nepean for her excellent presentation showing how Bill 69 is actually creating a loophole that undermines or even negates the Environmental Bill of Rights.

It seems that this government is a government of backroom deals and escape hatches when you look at Bill 28—the bill that never was but never was—the “notwithstanding” clause, MZOs, Bill 124, and now Bill 69.

You talked about the Auditor General’s 2017 report, and you pointed out how Infrastructure Ontario management was ineffective, with no standards of performance, and that there were no timelines. It has even been pointed out that invoices were non-specific and did not have proper addresses on them—so it wasn’t necessarily as though these invoices were even related to the properties that were being managed.

My question: Is it fiscally prudent or socially responsible to give further contracts to Infrastructure Ontario?

Questions?

Interjections.

Further debate? I recognize the member for Oakville.

I enjoyed the member opposite’s comments, but I’m a little bit confused, I will admit. I’ve just read the bill, sitting here, in detail, and a lot of what you’re debating—respectfully, I understand your opinions—I don’t think is fully applicable to this bill.

Again, when we see “reducing inefficiencies”—I think we would all agree that the easiest thing to spend in the world is somebody else’s money, the taxpayers’ money. I know with this government, this Premier and our ministers—what the Minister of Infrastructure is trying to do is to reduce the red tape and cut costs.

As I said—through Bill 63—we can’t cut our way to prosperity, but we can be more lean, we can be more efficient.

I am still a little bit confused, again, why the opposition wants to make sure that we are not going to be as efficient as possible. Why does the NDP want to spend more taxpayer dollars, when I think that we’re spending more than we need to right now? We’re going to invest dollars, in this government. Why do you want to spend more money inefficiently?

There were a lot of buzzwords in that question. But I certainly agree with the member opposite that this government has a track record, and that track record is what I just spent 20 minutes outlining. It is a track record of undermining environmental assessments, undermining our green spaces and our waterways, undermining the future of our children.

Let me tell you, the government has done a great job of creating jobs cleaning up from natural disasters. But we could create a lot of jobs by investing in retrofits, building more sustainable infrastructure for our communities and things that would actually prevent and reverse climate change and help us to build more sustainable communities, which would allow my children and everyone’s children to have a healthy future in our province.

No, it’s not at all fiscally prudent to keep giving an organization that has such an incredibly poor track record contracts. And it hasn’t been great management on the part of that organization to keep outsourcing contracts to companies with incredibly poor performance. In fact, one starts to wonder after a while if the point of the contracts is not the actual work being done, but who is on the other end receiving the money for the contracts—which is another pattern recurring with this government that we have seen.

I will try to clear up your confusion efficiently for you.

I think one of the most inefficient ways of spending taxpayer money is to spend it on an organization that is not delivering good oversight, is not delivering good value for the citizens of Ontario—and what we saw in the Auditor General’s report is that Infrastructure Ontario has clearly not been doing that. We’ve repeatedly seen occasions where outsourcing by the government has led to incredibly inefficient management of services. It results in money going into people’s pockets; it has not resulted in better services for Ontarians.

This government’s love of P3s also frequently results in inefficient services for the people of Ontario—once again, money going into private pockets and incredibly inefficient oversight. If the member has any doubts about that, I would love for him to come to Ottawa and ride on our train that was built as a P3 and does not have round wheels and has doors that do not open in the heat or the cold.

I would also add to that that our city of Ottawa is still waiting for our expenses from that storm to be reimbursed by the province. I can tell you, it’s incredibly inefficient for the city to have to clean up after such a major storm. It was incredibly expensive for the residents of Ottawa West–Nepean to have to rebuild their roofs, to purchase new vehicles. For many of them, it cost the entire contents of their freezers and fridge; for many others, there was an incredible cost in trauma and psychological suffering, because they were trapped in their own homes.

We’ve seen this government, just recently, refuse to require generators that would allow people to get in and out of their own homes in the case of these storms.

We’ve also seen, with the floods in Ottawa, that allowing people to have homes built on hundred-year flood plains results in having homes that are eventually flooded.

That is why it is valuable to have an environmental assessment done—so that you are not building your homes and your buildings and your roads in places that are going to be destroyed by climate events.

Thank you to the member for the question.

He’s absolutely right; this government has a track record. It’s a track record of undermining environmental assessments, of undermining our green spaces and our waterways and our clean air at every turn.

There is absolutely no future for the province of Ontario if we don’t have green space, if we don’t have farmland, if we don’t have clean water, and if we don’t take action to stop irreversible and catastrophic climate change.

I want to thank the member for Ottawa West–Nepean for that excellent presentation.

I’m wondering if she could elaborate again on the derecho and how that impacted our community. I understand that our friends, through this bill, are wanting to be reducing the capacity for environmental assessment, but sometimes, it would seem to me—and I welcome what you think about this—that when we reduce the capacity to properly assist environmental risk, we invite incredible costs down the road. The derecho cost Ontario $875 million—that is the sixth most expensive storm in our history—and our own city $19.5 million. So are we achieving efficiencies in the short run for huger costs down the road? I’m just wondering if you have Ottawa West–Nepean stories about this.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 69 will reduce red tape, optimize office space, improve economic growth and save taxpayers’ money. This is what our government has been doing since 2018. We’re cutting down red tape. We’re cutting down the regulations. We’re creating an environment for businesses to come and invest in Ontario.

As the Premier has said many times, governments do not create jobs; governments create an environment for businesses to come and invest in Ontario. When they invest in Ontario, they will create jobs, and when businesses thrive, Ontarians will thrive.

My question to the member opposite is, why doesn’t the NDP want to reduce red tape?

I thank the member from Oakville for his comments. I listened intently.

We had the opportunity to travel on the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, and we heard from many folks and organizations across the province who underscored the importance of housing as a social determinant of health.

Here on the opposition side, we believe in stretching a dollar as far as it goes. We believe in upstream investments, such as the province creating affordable housing, making sure that there’s robust primary care infrastructure, making sure that we have nurse practitioners and family health teams.

My question is specifically about business. I would say that it is bad business—is it not?—to reward somebody who does not deserve it, somebody who has not earned it, somebody whose track record actually means that they are not doing the correct job. When we look at the example of Infrastructure Ontario, we have heard, in the Auditor General’s report, about how ineffective they are. My question is, why is the government cherry-picking only the things that they like out of the Auditor General’s report and not responding to all the things that need to be done?

This bill will directly affect how we protect the environment. It will impact the environmental assessment process.

Frankly, Speaker, this government has a terrible record when it comes to the environment.

If the government is so confident and so willing to push forward the bill to reduce inefficiency and thinks that this bill will actually serve in the interest of Ontarians, then why did the government provide barely any notice, little to no communication, no briefing for the opposition, no public consultation?

What is the government’s plan when it comes to ensuring that the public will have a say in this bill?

With the uncertainty in the world right now and the cost pressures on family budgets, I’m wondering if the member can tell me how this will better the lives of Ontarians.

Questions to the member for Oakville?

Member for Oakville.

Thank you to the member opposite for his discussion about this bill.

The government’s news release about this bill talks about this being in response to the 2017 Auditor General’s report.

I’m wondering if the government has had consultation with the Auditor General about this legislation in advance and what their office’s response was, i.e., does this actually meet their recommendations; does it fulfill all of the recommendations from that report? If not, what other steps will the government be taking to close those other gaps found by the Auditor General?

Thank you to the member opposite. It was great travelling across the province with you. I got to know you a little better, and I appreciated getting to know you better.

I will disagree with you, though, on what you just mentioned with respect to Infrastructure Ontario. Having had the pleasure of working as a parliamentary assistant in the last Parliament for some time in that ministry, I can assure you that Infrastructure Ontario is a world-class organization—so much so that we had people from all over the world and Europe coming to visit Infrastructure Ontario to learn about all the great things we’re doing. But as you point out, the Auditor General did point out some issues. There’s always room for improvement. Every human being, every government, can always improve things, so there are certainly some things that the Auditor General pointed out, perhaps rightly, that they can improve on. But overall, I can assure you that we have one of the best organizations in the world right here in Toronto.

Part of being a government is that there are bills put before that Parliament and debated on a regular basis—and no one bill is going to solve all the problems of our province; there are so many components to it.

This bill, I think, has some very specific goals, targeting getting building done quicker and more efficiently. If we can do that, I think it will make industry more competitive. I think it will make housing more affordable. It will help municipalities be able to get the facilities they need built quicker, more efficiently. I really believe this is legislation that very well could be supported by the opposition. We’ll have to see how they support this, but I think in the best interest of Ontarians they may well support it.

This is the people’s House. We debate bills and we have the opportunity—we’re on live TV right now, in front of the people of Ontario, so we’re debating and we’re discussing.

The government of Ontario has been very forthright and open with the legislation that we are now proposing to put through.

You did mention some of the issues related to the environment. Well, I will add that it’s our government that increased the renewable content in ethanol gas from 10% to 15%. We’ve added acres to the greenbelt—in fact, it’s the largest expansion in the history of the greenbelt since its inception. Over 2,000 acres are being added to the greenbelt—I don’t hear that from the opposition questions too often. And we are now going to be a global hub for EV vehicles.

We are doing so much more. We have the opportunity to talk and debate today.

The legislation that we’re putting through in reducing inefficiencies is going to have no negative impact on the environment whatsoever—period, full stop.

You did mention what are we doing in a positive way for the environment, that we don’t often hear in the media and in the House: the largest investment in transit in Canadian history. People forget about that.

I talked about Infrastructure Ontario being a global leader in P3s and infrastructure development, which we should be very proud of. That’s one thing I think Canadians and Ontarians need to do more—show the world what we’re doing.

Ontario has over 90% emissions-free electricity, most of which—or a lot of that, a very high component—comes from nuclear. I’m not sure where the opposition NDP stands on that; I think there might be some division in the party, because I don’t hear them talking too much about that.

We’ve got great programs in place. We’re going to continue on this path to build Ontario and make it a great place to work, live and raise a family.

I thank the member from Oakville for his terrific remarks.

You mentioned 50 years and what an extraordinarily long time that is—some folks here not born yet. I can tell everyone that I was born—I was 13 years old 50 years ago. You can do the math. In fact, 50 years ago, I had just finished being a page the year before, so there you go. In fact, 50 years ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs had just won the cup six years earlier—wow.

The environmental track record of this government has been mentioned. I’ve got to say, I’m very proud of what we are doing, whether it’s the biggest transit investment in the history of the province, whether it’s over 90% of our electricity production being clean, whether it’s what we’re doing in the steel industry, cleaning that up—and on and on it goes.

I want to ask the member, consistent with those measures and the upgrading of the environmental assessment process, how will this help achieve our goals for Ontario?

My friend from Oakville said on several occasions that there’s no impact to environmental assessments.

I just want to direct his attention and hear some comments about schedule 1, where this bill actually allows the environmental minister to waive the 30-day waiting period that’s currently required following the end of the class EA assessment.

I’m wondering, am I not reading the legislation correctly, member? Is there not a significant change that would allow some—

I appreciate this government’s goal to reduce red tape. If a regulation is unnecessarily burdensome, then we should consider amending or removing it. For example, I am supportive of changes that allow businesses to submit information to the government digitally when possible.

But I have to say that I and others on this side of the House still have a lot to learn about the goals and outcomes the government hopes to achieve through this bill.

I was very confused upon reading schedule 2, because while this bill purports to reduce red tape, it may in fact actually add to it. As it stands, Ontario’s crown corporations are able to manage their own real estate. Often, they rent space in an office building, as many small and medium-sized organizations do. But if this new legislation is enacted, these crown corporations will have their real estate authority stripped from them and placed in the hands of the mega Ministry of Infrastructure.

For example, today the EQAO can decide for itself, within its approved budget, where its couple of dozen employees will work. If they needed help with that decision, I expect the Ministry of Infrastructure staff would be happy to offer advice; instead, now the ministry will decide. So if I understand correctly, the EQAO will have to go to the ministry to say that their lease is up for renewal, and a decision will have to be made by the minister whether the lease is renewed or they will need to relocate. It seems to me this could in fact add layers to this decision. For example, an employee in the ministry will consider the issue and go to their superior, who will go to their superior, who will go to the deputy minister. Because of possible bottlenecking, this decision could actually take longer than it does today, and if there is a bottleneck with approvals and decision-making, I can envision a scenario where the deputy minister will have to hire a contractor who may even end up making the same decision the EQAO would have in the first place. Instead, this decision will have taken longer, will have cost the taxpayers more money, and will have been done with less transparency.

This government does have a clear track record of making decisions without consultation and without being transparent with the voters of Ontario about their rationale—for example, the strong-mayors legislation; reducing conservation authorities’ ability to protect the environment; invoking the “notwithstanding” clause; and, of course, opening up the greenbelt after saying that they wouldn’t.

When I say here today that my constituents have become skeptical about decisions like this one that come from this government, I hope the government will listen and be more transparent about the rationale for this bill. The only explanation provided is that it stems from an Auditor General report. The member from Oakville could not say if the Auditor General had been consulted in advance of this legislation being developed.

The Auditor General did indeed recommend that Infrastructure Ontario work with ministries and agencies on how to more efficiently use their real estate. She did not recommend this heavy-handed approach of seizing real estate powers.

I am keen to hear more about how this bill will reduce red tape, what the financial business case for this bill is, and what actual dollars and efficiencies the government hopes to achieve.

I will also be looking to learn more about whether or not they did consult the crown corporations affected and the relevant public sector unions that may also be affected, to see if this really is the best course of action. Perhaps this is an opportunity to move these organizations to locations that are lower-cost, but it may not help them fulfill their mandate.

Speaker, I also have requested a briefing from the Minister of Infrastructure. I’m happy to say that I’ve been told I will be meeting with him next week, and I look forward to learning more about this legislation.

I don’t really see this legislation as being about red tape. It seems to have a different rationale, and I do hope we get transparency on that.

Thank you very much. It can be done.

The following are the titles of the bills to which Her Honour did assent:

An Act respecting the adjustment of the boundary between the City of St. Thomas and the Municipality of Central Elgin / Loi concernant la modification des limites territoriales entre la cité de St. Thomas et la municipalité de Central Elgin.

An Act to revive Sapore Di Calabria Inc.

An Act to revive 1748317 Ontario Inc.

An Act to revive 933834 Ontario Limited.

An Act to revive Maizal Tortilleria Inc.

An Act to revive 2103890 Ontario Limited.

An Act to revive Woodstock Moose Lodge No. 1141 (Holdings) Limited.

To the member opposite: I think we’re reading the same thing but maybe looking at it differently. But in the end, there is no change to the environmental assessment program—zero, period, full stop.