I would like to say thank you to the member opposite for the question. The environmental assessment process: As I stated earlier, the first step with any proponent, any municipality that is looking to start the project, is, we want to make sure that they follow the class EA process and there is nothing pending. What this bill is going to do is not going to compromise anything on the environment assessment. But what it would do is the proposed legislative amendment will make sure that it will modernize the process. Rather than waiting for 30 days to deliver those important infrastructure projects, you’re able to deliver it in time to the people of Ontario.

In 2017, you talked about Auditor General’s report and other third-party reports that have identified opportunities for the province to deliver the real estate portfolio more efficiently through initiatives that centralize authority and decision-making. Again, this government is not the owner of the assets; we’re the custodian of the assets. We want to make sure we give the best value back to the people who gave their trust on June 2 and make sure that we keep that trust and we keep that confidence they gave to us. We just want to say thank you—

The Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks would continue to have the ability to consider section 17 order requests, which may be made on the grounds that the order may prevent, mitigate or remedy adverse impacts on constitutionally protected lands and rights, Madam Speaker.

Ontario will continue to ensure strong environmental protection and standards while protecting good governance and reducing inefficiencies, and that is exactly what Bill 69 is doing.

What our government is doing is our government is building Ontario. We are formalizing the ability, meaning standard projects that occur across the province, like the creation of new municipal roads or stormwater infrastructure, could be ready almost a month earlier than previously. Sometimes if you’re starting somewhere in August or September, it’s not just one month; you’re just doing one or two seasons ahead.

That is why the legislation we introduce today is another great step in fulfilling our promise to Ontarians of good governance, fiscal responsibility, a plan to build. If you’re looking to come and live, Ontario is the best place.

I’d also like to welcome the fine folks from Forest Hill in St. Paul’s. Welcome to your House.

My question to the government: I’m wondering how the government feels that this piece of legislation is going to build trust in community with regard to the environment when we have seen this government slash the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. We have seen this government sell off or attempt to sell off parts of the greenbelt. We have seen this government not support nature in a way that actually allows our upcoming generation of leaders to be safe without climate crisis anxiety. What is there in this piece of legislation that’s going to ensure that Ontarians can actually trust what this government has to say about the environment?

Before I pose my question, I want to take the opportunity to welcome guests that we have in the Speaker’s gallery. We have the Forest Hill community group joining us here this afternoon. Thank you very much.

My question is about an enshrined right of the people of Ontario. We have the Environmental Bill of Rights, which is a right that we have access to. Your government is taking that right away. You’ve also been shown in court to have violated people’s rights a number of times. The Minister of the Environment has said that these rights are nonsensical and that they are burdensome.

Part of the rights that people have under the Environmental Bill of Rights is a part II bump-up request. In Hamilton, we used that to make sure that a gasification plant in a neighbourhood in Hamilton was not approved.

What do the changes you are proposing do for part II bump-up order request?

I’d like to thank the member from Mississauga–Malton for his presentation. I think it’s important that we recognize that trust is not something that is freely given; it is something that is earned, and it’s earned based on reputation and based on past behaviour. Frequently with this government, we see many pieces of legislation that are very concerning. We see a government that is very interested in backroom deals and escape hatches. There are many workarounds that this government has created with legislation, such as Bill 124 to trample on the rights of health care workers, as well as Bill 28, the bill that was until it wasn’t, with the “notwithstanding” clause. Also, MZOs are yet another example of this.

Does the member think that environmental protections are worth protecting? Why are you creating an escape hatch to override environmental protections?

I’m pleased to be here today to speak to this bill, Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act. I love the titles that you folks come up with. It’s always interesting to read what efficiencies and inefficiencies can mean when this government really gets to work.

This bill is pretty short. It has two main pieces to it. One is to essentially give power to the Ministry of Infrastructure to manage government properties, both leases and land that is owned by 14 provincial agencies. Those agencies include Agricorp, EQAO, the Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Creates, Ontario Trillium Foundation, OFA, Fire Marshal’s Public Fire Safety Council, Destination Ontario, FSRA, OSC, Human Rights Legal Support Centre, Intellectual Property Ontario, Skilled Trades Ontario and the Higher Education Quality Council.

We’ve reached out to them this morning just to ask for feedback on this bill, because it’s very important when we bring in bills to this Legislature that we take the time to do outreach to the agencies, to the individuals, to the organizations that are going to be impacted by this bill to find out what they think: What do they like? What don’t they like? What kind of amendments do they want to see?

It remains to be seen whether the government did that kind of consultation. I guess I’ll wait and see and find out.

The second piece of the bill is to accelerate approvals of infrastructure projects by allowing the 30-day period for class EAs—by basically allowing the government to waive the 30-day period that exists after public comments have come in. The whole purpose of having a public consultation period—time where people can give their feedback in writing—is for the government to consider what Ontarians think about a bill and how it’s going to impact them. This government is making the decision to stop even the pretense of caring what people think, and just doing away with it altogether, which is a concern.

I’m going to focus on the first section of the bill, which is about the real estate piece, with the time that I have. I’ve listed the agencies that are impacted and, in short, these agencies will be prohibited from owning and managing real estate. It requires all real estate to be handed over to the Ministry of Infrastructure.

The first part of this, and I’ve heard the minister talk about this, is that it would allow the Ministry of Infrastructure to control office leases. You amalgamate agencies; you try and get a good deal with leases so office space is rented out at a good price. On the surface of it, I don’t have a lot of problems with that.

One thing that I noticed when the minister was talking is that this is being done because the Auditor General did an investigation into Infrastructure Ontario, which is going to be the likely agency managing this, and actually found out that it’s Infrastructure Ontario itself that is doing a bad job at managing office leases. That’s interesting that you’re potentially going to be handing over these office leases and all this real estate to an agency that doesn’t have a very good track record of managing these agencies, these leases and these real estate portfolios. So I’m kind of intrigued by that.

The other thing that I was really intrigued by when I went and printed out the public comments section for the regulation for this section was the part that this decision to consolidate real estate is the first step in a broader plan this government has to centralize real estate under what is essentially a single entity. And when I hear about that, I begin to think about what does this government want to do with the public land that Ontario owns and what could we be doing instead with the public land that Ontario owns? That’s where my mind went.

The reason why my mind went there is that Ontario owns a whole lot of public land. And they happen to own public land—not just crown land, but also land in dense urban regions that have extraordinarily high rents and extraordinarily high housing prices. So there’s this real opportunity here to use the land that Ontario has to address one of the biggest crises we’re facing in Ontario today—it’s a generational crisis—and that is housing affordability.

The Centre for Urban Research and Land Development—it’s a department within TMU, Toronto Metropolitan University—did a scan to look at how much land Ontario and the federal government and the city own that we could build affordable housing on. They found there’s 6,000 government-owned properties in Toronto alone that we could be using to build affordable housing on—very exciting. Maybe, maybe the government is looking at moving ahead and building affordable housing on public land. Maybe this is part of that broader strategy.

Then I thought to myself, “Okay, well, let’s take a little bit of a deep dive and look at what the Ontario government, what this government, has done already when it comes to building on government land.” I think about the foundry property in the member of Toronto Centre’s riding where this government made a secret deal with Dominion—a very secret deal; we don’t even know the details of it today—where Dominion was given the authority to build a whole lot of housing, and very little of it, I would say almost none of it, was affordable—

Interjections.

Then I think about Mimico GO Station, which is in the riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore. There’s a big development that went ahead there, and, once again, the deal was secret. It was public land and there was no affordable housing requirement with that land as well.

I think about Ontario Place, also public land, and then I see this government moving ahead with making secret deals with for-profit corporations when this is public land that could be used to deal with and address the crises that we have of our time. Because when I speak to Ontarians, they do not say to me, “We need another spa. What’s going to make my life so much better is a spa.” No, no, no. They’re talking about affordable rent. They’re talking about being able to pay the bills.

So that is this government’s track record so far over the last four and a half years when it comes to using government land. They’ve been using it to make secret deals for large condos, lots of housing, and there’s next to no affordable housing requirement. I’ve got a lot concerns about that. The reason why I have a lot of concerns about that is because we should be using this land in ways that will truly tackle the affordable housing crisis.

I think about the value of moving forward with inclusionary zoning so any new development that’s built next to a transit station has an affordable housing requirement. The Ontario government gutted that. I have so many big buildings going up in my riding. We do need new housing, but there’s no affordable housing requirement in these buildings. It’s very concerning.

I think about what’s happening in the city of Toronto right now with Housing Now. It’s a very innovative program. They’re looking at using 21 government-owned sites to build 13,000 homes, and 5,400 of them are affordable. That’s a great example of how we can be using public land to tackle the housing supply crisis that we have and the housing affordability crisis that we have in a way that keeps our resources under public control. I’m not seeing it with this government and I’m very concerned about that.

The second bit which I’m just going to conclude on is the government’s decision to waive the 30-day waiting period after public consultation has been done on a class EA. This just falls totally within the playbook of how this government treats the natural environment, treats people who don’t agree with their values and them, and really has contempt for democratic processes. It falls in line with all that we saw in Bill 23 with the gutting of conservation authorities to share their expertise; with the decision to eliminate planning by upper-tier municipalities; by the decision, with Bill 39, to bring in strong-mayor powers and do away with representative democracy on some of the most important legislation that Toronto passes, including the city budget. I have a lot of concerns about that and I have a lot concerns about this bill.

Further debate?

I do not believe that public consultation is red tape. I don’t believe that we should be doing away with democratic processes because we want to make things more efficient for some people—many of them might be donating to the PC Party—in order for them to make a whole lot of profit.

Often this is done in the guise of building new homes. This party is very much in support of the commitment of building 1.5 million homes across the province. In fact, a recent report came out by a planner from Waterloo, making it very clear that we already have more than enough land already zoned for development.

I also am not a fan of this idea that just because we want proper public consultation—and I want to respect the fact that we live in a democracy—we do not want to build anything. It’s just a wrong correlation.

I think about this government’s decision to move forward with Bill 23. There are a lot of flaws in Bill 23. I think about this government’s decision to move forward with opening up the greenbelt, even though everyone from local municipalities to the farming sector to citizens who care about their natural environment are telling you, “Hey, hold on. We don’t need to open up the greenbelt for us to build the homes that we need for current or future Ontarians.”

So there is, yes, a lot of skepticism and mistrust when this government starts talking about doing the right thing for the environment.

It’s 30 days. People take the time to write public comments. It’s municipalities that write public comments. It’s expert planners. It’s the cement industry. It’s stakeholders. It’s a whole lot of people who take the time to write, and the reason they do it is because they’re concerned about how this project or this regulation is going to affect them.

You’re government; our job is critics, but I think it’s our responsibility to take the time to read it and give it good thought. Waiving that 30 days entirely gives the attitude that you don’t really care about what people have to say.

The Auditor General’s concerns were very much focused on Infrastructure Ontario’s failure to get a good deal for taxpayers and not properly doing their job, so I’m not seeing this solving the Auditor General’s concerns in that 2017 report.

My point is this: It’s our job to look at this legislation that you’re introducing and moving through the House very quickly, and to say, “Hey, look, we’ve got some genuine concerns with this.” When we’re talking about public consultation, I’ll use Bill 23 as an example. Much of the feedback that we got with Bill 23 was how it would affect one of the biggest sectors that we have in Ontario, which is our farming sector. So when we’re talking about growing our province, improving our industries, taking feedback from key stakeholders like the farming sector is pretty important, and that’s not about saying no; that’s about making sure we make the kinds of decisions that benefit the vast majority of people, so I reject your point a little bit.

Just a question for the member: About 15 years ago, under changes to the environmental assessment process for municipalities, cycling infrastructure was exempted from a number of the consultation measures that had previously been required, and that was a way to ensure more got built faster to help promote active living and environmental protection in many ways. You don’t see reforms like this as being on par with some of those changes that had happened under the previous Liberal government?

I do recognize the loyal opposition and their opposing views to the government side of the House, in terms of bringing their perspective and point of view to what we are discussing here today. I’ve heard many comments from my government, from the minister to many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and strongly believe that we are taking steps in the right direction, from the Auditor General’s report that we keep talking about, looking to deal with efficiencies.

To get efficiencies, we have to look at that report and work towards saving taxpayers money. If we don’t do that, it’s saying that we are not doing what the Auditor General’s report states. We have zero effect on just about everything in terms of the environment. My question is: Why can’t the opposition come along with us on this very vital—why can’t the opposition support this bill? Because it’s moving in the right direction of more efficiency.

There’s nothing in this act that compromises the environmental assessment—

Interjection.

Does the member not believe that improvement to processes is necessary and needed so we can continue to develop this province?

I appreciate the opportunity to pose a question to my colleague from University–Rosedale. In the course of reviewing this bill, you, like I, have felt a great deal of concern about whether or not the government is acting on a good-faith basis when it is trying to reduce environmental protections. Could you cite one or two of the main experiences you’ve had or seen that would give rise to a person feeling they can’t trust this government on environmental issues?

Questions to the member for University–Rosedale.

It’s an honour to rise in the House to speak about Bill 69, the—well, it’s called the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, but it’s actually the reducing public consultation act.

I’m in the NDP in part because I believe in a progressive society. A progressive society is one in which we leave the next generation with better opportunities than we had ourselves. The most important thing we can do for the next generation is to leave them with a healthy planet, and yet time and time again, we see this government weakening the Environmental Assessment Act.

We have a history in this province of environmental catastrophes. I’ll give a couple of examples. In 1976, I was driving with family—my parents, at the time—to Sudbury, and 30 kilometres outside Sudbury, the trees disappeared. This was because of sulphur dioxide, because of acid rain. All of the lakes within a 30-kilometre circumference of Sudbury were dead, and the trees were dead. This was because of the way that nickel was being smelted in Sudbury that released the sulphur dioxide into the environment. It has taken decades for Sudbury to recover. It has taken millions of dollars and incredible community effort to green Sudbury again. I am happy to say that Sudbury—and I’ve been up there over the last decade or so—is a green, beautiful city once again. But this environmental catastrophe could have been prevented if we had known what we know nowadays and if we had had an Environmental Assessment Act in place.

Another example: I lived in a small town in northern Ontario that used to have a mine. The tailings from the mine were laid on the ground, and there was mercury in those tailings. The mercury was leaking into the nearby lake, so even though this town was built on a lake, they could not draw their water from that lake because of the mercury poisoning. Again, it took decades—and this was the town of Geraldton. There was a very visionary mayor of that town, Michael Power, and he sealed in the tailings and built a golf course on that site, just to seal it in, so it was possible to remedy the site.

The other example of environmental catastrophe that we had in this province: Grassy Narrows. For four decades, the First Nation community of Grassy Narrows has been dealing with Minamata disease—mercury poisoning—because of a mine that had been located in that area.

We need to protect the environment. We need to make sure that the projects that we undertake in this province protect the environment for future generations. That’s what the Environmental Assessment Act is about, and that’s why weakening the Environmental Assessment Act with Bill 69 is a step in the wrong direction and it’s a step that leaves our next generation vulnerable.

What this act does is it allows the environment minister to waive the 30-day waiting period after the comments have been received as part of a class environmental assessment. So the community gets together, and they provide feedback to the government about a project from an environmental perspective. Normally, the minister has to consider those for a 30-day period. The idea is that the government is actually going to respect the feedback that they get. But what’s happening with this legislation is, the government could receive a submission from a community member at 5 o’clock on a Thursday night, and that ends the comment period. The next morning at 9 o’clock in the morning, the minister could go ahead with the project without ever considering that community member’s consultation or their input.

And the thing about it is that we in the government do not know everything. We don’t have the local knowledge, and that’s why it’s really important—when we’re passing legislation, particularly legislation that has to do with the environment and the future generations of this province, we have to consider the local input because local community members and agencies and companies have knowledge that we do not have in the government. That’s why it’s important to have this public consultation.

I’ll give you a couple of recent examples where this government has not followed their own legal obligations for public consultation. In January 2019, demolition crews rolled into the foundry site in Toronto Centre, my colleague’s riding, and they were going to demolish the foundry, which is a heritage property right in downtown Toronto. It’s nestled in a bunch of condos, and the city was already working on ideas on how to redevelop this heritage site. We’ve seen in the city of Toronto how successful the redevelopment of heritage industrial sites can be. The Distillery District is a huge tourist magnet in downtown Toronto, as well as a wonderful place to live, and the foundry has that kind of potential as well to be an economic generator. But these demolition crews rolled into the site and were prepared to demolish it. The community and my colleague Kristyn Wong-Tam and the MPP at the time, Suze Morrison, and myself, we organized and we worked with save the foundry; we worked with the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association. And we were able to save that site because the government had violated its legal obligations under the heritage act for public consultation.

The other example that I want to give from my community is Ontario Place. Right now, there’s a proposal that the government is pursuing, and they’re going to be spending an estimated $650 million redeveloping Ontario Place: $200 million to bring it up to scale, and then they’re going to build an underground parking garage for 2,000 cars. The estimated cost of that kind of parking garage is about $450 million. So $650 million of taxpayer dollars is going in to redevelop Ontario Place, only to hand it over to Therme, which is an Austrian spy company—oh, sorry, spa. They’re not a spy company. They’re a spa, an Austrian spa.

There’s nothing wrong with this Austrian spa, except that it has nothing to do with Ontario. Ontario Place was designed to celebrate this province. It was supposed to be a showcase for the province. John Robarts, who was the Premier who announced the project, said that every piece of steel at Ontario Place is being mined and smelted in Ontario. It was designed—it had silos representing our farming area. It had areas representing the Canadian Shield. It was a showcase for the world to come and see what Ontario was all about. Now this government is leasing it out to two private, for-profit companies, neither of which have anything to do with the province of Ontario.

And the other thing about their project is that they’re exempting the Therme project from the required environmental assessment because they’re arguing that this is being done by a private company and therefore they’re exempt from the environmental assessment requirements, when, in fact—and this is the contradiction here—the government, Infrastructure Ontario, the government’s own agency, is the one that submitted the plans for that spa to the city of Toronto. So the government is making two different arguments here, and they’re trying to avoid the need for an environmental assessment.

The concern that we have in the community and across Ontario is, first of all, what is the environmental assessment of building what is essentially a 12-acre greenhouse on the waterfront? And the government is also not following its own obligations under the heritage act, and it’s skirting its obligations under the Environmental Assessment Act, so it’s a real concern that before us in the House today is Bill 69, which further weakens the requirements for environmental assessment.

I ask the government to reconsider, to actually respect and make sure that future generations have a healthy planet to inherit and stop weakening the Environmental Assessment Act.

Further debate?

If there are no outstanding concerns, if the community has not put in any comments to the consultation process, then the project can go ahead. But that’s not what’s in this legislation. What’s in this legislation is that the minister no longer has to consider the comments that they’re getting and the feedback that they’re getting from the community.

Cindy Wilkey, a community member in Spadina in my riding, talked about this. She’s also the head of Ontario Place for All. She says this bill “is a further step in making public consultation an empty formality.” It means that the government will not be benefiting from the local knowledge that people have. It’s disrespectful not just to my community, it’s disrespectful to community members across this province because this government will not actually be considering the local knowledge that they could bring to these projects.

This is the lesson that we learned from Hurricane Hazel. There were houses in Etobicoke floating down the Humber River and people died because of Hurricane Hazel, because we built in the ravines. So then, in Toronto, we protected those wetlands and created the ravines, including the Humber River, the Don Valley, the Rouge River—all these protected wetlands.

If you don’t do the environmental assessment, the next time there’s an environmental catastrophe, it will be magnified because you didn’t do your homework.

You think that you’re saving money, you think that you’re being efficient, but in the long-term, future generations are going to pay billions of dollars for the mistakes that this government is making right now.

When this government is consolidating all of the government’s land holdings into one body, it’s deeply concerning. Because the record of this government is that they make secret deals with developers—like they did with the foundry—and then they start to demolish heritage buildings and they start to pave over wetlands.

My question to the government is: Are you consolidating all of the people of Ontario’s land holdings into one body so that you can more efficiently sell it off?

So if you’re not going to actually consider it, why bother doing it? If it’s just a rubber stamp, if you’re just going to take the consultation submissions but not actually listen to them, not actually read them, then what’s the point in doing the consultation at all? I think it’s incredibly disrespectful, and I think this legislation is disrespectful to local community members who actually take the time to give feedback to the government.

I really want to thank the MPP for Spadina–Fort York for reminding us of some of the environmental disasters that we are still paying the price for and reminding us of the importance of why environmental assessments are in place.

I also just would like to highlight that this is a government that doesn’t believe in environmental assessments and calls them burdensome. The Minister of the Environment said that, in fact, they’re nonsensical this morning. And they’ve exempted themselves from the Bradford Bypass, a huge highway project that goes through the greenbelt, that bisects rivers, that goes through the Holland Marsh, and they don’t feel that an environmental assessment is necessary.

It’s bad enough that they disrespect the environment, but the fact that people take the time to care about their community, they take the time to give public comment, and this government is clearly thumbing their nose at them by deciding that they will not take that into account when they make their decision.

Would you like to speak a little further on how people feel outraged by the betrayal of the environment and of their transparent opportunity to have public input into their communities?

Thanks to the member opposite for his presentation.

As we all have been discussing about this bill, this bill makes it very crystal clear that the environmental assessment standards will remain in place. For example, assessing potential environmental impacts remains in place; identifying mitigation measures are in place; and, of course, the consultation with Indigenous communities, the public and stakeholders are in place.

What this bill does is, after the successful completion of an environmental assessment, if there’s no other outstanding concerns, it will allow the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to waive the 30-day waiting period. That’s exactly so it is cutting the long red tape here.

My question to the member opposite is, why does the NDP want to add red tape and slow down the government?

My question to the member opposite, the member for Spadina–Fort York, is: Why does the NDP want to slow down the process for 30 days after the full completion of the environmental assessment, after there are no outstanding concerns? Why do they want to slow it down?

I just want to recognize Kevin Modeste. He’s come to visit us. Hi, Kevin, nice to see you here. He can’t stay away; it’s so exciting here.

My question is to the member for Spadina–Fort York. You’ve talked a lot about the environmental assessment process and, like you, I really wonder why you would want to get rid of that 30-day period just to read some of the comments that people give. They take their time to give them.

I also was wanting to ask your opinion on the second piece, which is really around consolidating real estate into the Ministry of Infrastructure. Why would they be doing that? Do you have any concerns about that?

Is he okay?