I’m here to read a petition on social assistance rates from Dr. Sally Palmer.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and soon $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a basic income of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I fully support this petition and will sign it for Vedant to take to the table.

I have a petition to raise the social assistance rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and soon $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a basic income of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I will sign this petition and give it to Liyao.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas in the First and Second World Wars, over 7,000 First Nation members, as well as an unknown number of Métis, Inuit and other Indigenous recruits, voluntarily served in the Canadian Armed Forces; and

“Whereas countless Indigenous peoples bravely and selflessly served Canada at a time of great challenges for Canada; and

“Whereas this spirit of volunteerism and community marked the life of the late Murray Whetung, who volunteered to serve in the Second World War; and

“Whereas many First Nations individuals lost their status after serving in the wars off-reserve for a period of time; and

“Whereas despite this injustice, many continued to recognize the value in continuously giving back to their community; and

“Whereas the values of volunteerism and community are instilled in the army, air, and sea cadets across Ontario; and

“Whereas the Murray Whetung Community Service Award Act establishes an award for the cadets and tells the story of Indigenous veterans’ sacrifice and mistreatment;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the passage of the Murray Whetung Community Service Award Act, 2022.”

I will sign my name to this petition and provide it to Nolan.

Thank you. I’ll remind the members once again that it’s preferable to make reference to other members by their ministerial title or their riding name, as applicable, even when reading from a text.

I’m pleased to address my question to the Minister of Infrastructure. This bill before us has two schedules. It’s fairly compact; it’s only five pages long. But the section about infrastructure, specifically—I’m wondering how transferring control of the 14 properties to the Minister of Infrastructure is going to make things better.

When I had read the recommendations from the Auditor General’s report about the real estate portfolio, the AG referenced a lot about how poorly Infrastructure Ontario was managing the government’s real estate portfolio. It wasn’t recommending that the agencies hand them over to Infrastructure Ontario to manage.

This bill, from where I sit, appears to address a problem that I can’t identify. If the minister could answer that for me, I’d appreciate it.

Thank you to the member for the question. I think the Auditor General was very clear in her recommendations in terms of finding efficiencies and optimizing office space. I think it’s very difficult to do when there are many, many different agencies making various different real estate decisions.

To be able to optimize office space and also find efficiencies—because we try to be fiscally prudent in this House—is to have a holistic view and a central place where that decision is being made.

I have a petition here to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas in the First and Second World Wars, over 7,000 First Nation members, as well as an unknown number of Métis, Inuit and other Indigenous recruits, voluntarily served in the Canadian Armed Forces; and

“Whereas countless Indigenous peoples bravely and selflessly served Canada at a time of great challenges for Canada; and

“Whereas this spirit of volunteerism and community marked the life of the late Murray Whetung, who volunteered to serve in the Second World War; and

“Whereas many First Nations individuals lost their status after serving in the wars off-reserve for a period of time; and

“Whereas despite this injustice, many continued to recognize the value in continuously giving back to their community; and

“Whereas the values of volunteerism and community are instilled in the army, air, and sea cadets across Ontario; and

“Whereas the Murray Whetung Community Service Award Act establishes an award for the cadets and tells the story of Indigenous veterans’ sacrifice and mistreatment;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the passage of the Murray Whetung Community Service Award Act, 2022.”

I fully support this motion, will add my signature here too, and pass it to page Jaden.

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 1, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 69, An Act to amend various Acts with respect to infrastructure / Projet de loi 69, Loi modifiant diverses lois sur les infrastructures.

Thank you very much to the member for the question. I think the easiest way that I can explain this—I’ll use different ministries as an example. Our government is often very proud of the fact that—how closely our ministries collaborate and work together in order to make decisions, rather than ministries making decisions in silos. Similar structure here: agencies reporting to ministries. Of course, our ministries work together, but in order to have a real, holistic ability to make decisions, to make recommendations, to find efficiencies, to optimize and modernize space, I think it would be extremely helpful to government to have it all in one place so that we can take a look at the picture and make decisions and recommendations to government.

If there are very technical questions that you have, I would be happy to honour the member and arrange for a briefing.

I want to thank the member for that question. I want to make it very clear that the EA process is not in any way being compromised. The proposed legislative amendments are minor and will not have any impact on the existing class EAs or environmental protection. The EA process requires proponents to assess potential environmental impacts, identify mitigation measures and consult with Indigenous communities, the public and stakeholders before the project can proceed.

Again, this process is not affected. To be clear, the environmental assessment standards will remain in place.

What we’re doing here today is ensuring that when there’s an approval, there is no 30-day waiting period for municipalities—which are the number one proponents of most of these EAs and are the ones that are most involved in it. So there’s no requirement to wait 30 days while you’re twiddling your thumbs and contractors are waiting to get the job done. We can waive that period. It is now within the purview of the minister—and every situation will be judged by the minister, but the minister will have that opportunity and that authority to waive that 30-day waiting period should they choose, and that is going to move projects ahead more quickly, more effectively and perhaps even avoid the winter season to get a job done.

Further questions?

I’d like to thank the Minister of Infrastructure for her presentation this morning. I listened intently. I did have a question. This bill is very young; it’s about a day and a half old. The official opposition has reached out to the government benches. It seems to be this government’s standard practice that bills are dropped without offering any briefing, without offering any of the tools that are really common and traditional in this House.

My question is, Speaker, when will this government be providing the official opposition with a briefing on this bill?

My question is to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, who earlier this morning made a great presentation and spoke about the environment and how it relates and fits within Bill 69. If he could expand a little bit more on whether this legislation will have any impact on existing class EAs and overall environmental protection?

I appreciate the minister’s response, and I agree. I came across, in the recommendations from the Auditor General—about optimizing office space. I did want to know, though, how does taking the properties and transferring them to the responsibility of the minister address office space? Also, IO doesn’t even directly manage the real estate holdings that it oversees. That’s contracted out to private providers, and the client satisfaction is lacking, to say the least. How will this make it better for those 14 agencies? Are those 14 agencies happy about having a change in management? This bill is only a day and a half old; I haven’t had a chance to hear from them, so if you could share.

Just for the folks at home, this is a relatively small bill. It’s got two schedules, one about the Environmental Assessment Act and one having to do with infrastructure and specifically the realty portfolio. The government and Infrastructure Ontario have a significant real estate portfolio, and this is delving into what that will look like in the future, and so, of course, we have questions.

This bill was introduced a day and a half ago, and I’m doing my darndest to kind of gather all those pieces. I will say right off the hop that this bill does indeed put something forward that maybe addresses a problem to solve, but it’s a problem that I can’t identify. So we’ll talk more about that, but when I look at the Auditor General’s very comprehensive reports, both about the environmental protections and about the real estate services, I’m not seeing the need for this. Hopefully, over the course of debate, the government will be able to shine a more specific light on what they’re hoping to achieve with these pieces.

For example, when we have bills introduced in this House, the government is always given the opportunity—excuse me; any member is given an opportunity—to give a brief explanation of the bill. In the eight and a half years I have been here, I have never seen what I saw the other day, which was that the government was given the opportunity to give a brief explanation, and the explanation was, “No, thank you, Mr. Speaker.” They would not take that time. However, in fairness to the minister, they gave an hour this morning where we got to glean a little bit more.

But I’m going to give my comments on these two schedules. I’m going to fill an hour, which is going to be a treat for the folks at home and the folks here, but I think it’s an opportunity. Of course, I come to this House as a former educator—although, are you ever a former educator, as an educator?—and I am excited to share much of the very thoughtful recommendations from the Auditor General’s reports. So get comfortable, and then we’re going to get educated. I hope that by doing that, the government will maybe hear a few things and think, “Ooh, that’s what we should do next,” or, “Hey, how come we didn’t put that in this bill?”

The minister spoke this morning about reducing efficiencies or cutting red tape or being more fiscally responsible to the taxpayer. All of those things sound just fine, but I feel that there are missed opportunities if that really were the goal. The two speakers this morning, I would say, if I’m being kind, ragged the puck a little bit, because it’s hard to fill an hour when you’ve only got two schedules, so there was a lot of—I might do the same today, so fair is fair.

So, Speaker, what do we have? We have Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act. The minister’s introduction this morning—section 1 is giving the Minister of the Environment more flexibility with respect to the timing of approvals to proceed following the end of a comment period for a class environmental assessment. With a class environmental assessment, there is a 30-day waiting period. There is a 30-day period where hopefully governments would thoughtfully consider public input.

There may be times when there is limited public input, so we’ve heard the minister or the parliamentary assistant say today, “Then why take the time?” I think his exact words were, “You have to wait for no good reason.” I get a little twitchy about the term “for no good reason.” There may be examples—and I will be fair to the Minister of the Environment. We had a brief chat yesterday when I said, “What on earth is this bill about?” And he gave me a few examples of when the government felt there was a need to move forward more quickly.

My concern is giving a blank cheque to any of the government members, frankly—no disrespect to that particular minister, but any of the ministers. On a case-by-case basis, maybe, in the hands of a responsible government, there might be an opportunity, but in the hands of this government, I get twitchy that it will be taken advantage of, and there is nothing in the track record of this government that would put my mind at ease.

In fact, in today’s hour-long presentation, half of it is going to be going through some of the Auditor General’s recommendations and highlighting times when the government has maybe not held up their end of the deal when it comes to listening to public comments or providing that opportunity as they are supposed to. I’m going to make the case that I don’t think it’s a good idea to give a minister that opportunity to just skip that 30-day period entirely, because even though the government has said, “Oh, case by case, once in a while, maybe, if needed,” well, what if “once in a while, if needed” becomes “all of the time” and it becomes standard practice?

Schedule 1 of this bill allows the environment minister to waive the 30-day waiting period required under the Environmental Assessment Act following the end of a class EA comment period before granting approval to provide with an undertaking—often, or one example, an infrastructure project.

Schedule 2 of this bill is where we get into the infrastructure side, and it’s supposedly in response to the Auditor General’s 2017 report on real estate services, which criticized the poor management of government properties. I’ve read those recommendations, and I don’t see where the government landed on this particular solution. I’ve heard the minister’s justification for it, but it isn’t clear to me from the recommendation, so I’m going to delve into that, and hopefully, the government can answer my concerns and my questions.

Back to schedule 1: It basically allows the minister to ignore public comments that are received following the completion of a class environmental assessment. There are lots of different kinds of environmental assessments, but in this case, a class EA has that 30-day waiting period, and this bill says ixnay on the 30 days. There could be, in some cases, as I said earlier—maybe there is a justifiable reason from time to time. Actually, the minister gave me an example, and the parliamentary assistant used an example: Bombardier. That was what the minister told me—that this one specific construction project, they wanted to make it faster. There was the opportunity, and the minister took it, to go to cabinet. The fact that something might take however long to get on the cabinet agenda has nothing to do with me; that has to do with the government’s House.

But if there is such a need, there is a channel, there is a way to do that. So this blank cheque, I would say, is an overreach—or maybe overkill, in this case. Waiving the 30-day period might allow an important project to move forward without delay, but, again, I still think that it’s the wrong way of going about it. We have seen that this government has repeatedly—I’m trying to be parliamentary. They have not shown that they have prioritized public input; they have not shown that they care about that public input. And I will make that case today, if anybody wants to get ready to heckle me. Particularly with respect to the environment, we have seen what looks like contempt—am I allowed to say that? It would appear that the government doesn’t care to hear from the public. Examples like Bill 23: My colleague—I’ll read her letter—wrote to the Auditor General and flagged how that process unfolded, and yes, that’s a concern. Bill 109 will delve into that. You guys cut off the comment period two weeks early, if I recall, but I’ll delve into that. It’s not the best track record. What do they say: “the best predictor of future behaviour is past”? Work with us here.

There’s so much to cover, and it’s only two schedules. All right, buckle up, kids.

We’ll start at schedule 1. Following the end of the comment period for class environmental assessment, waiving that period—this seems like it could be a minor change, but what if it isn’t? What if there is public comment to be considered and the government says, “But we don’t want to have to,” and they just do away with that process? If there are no public comments, that’s one thing, but there is no reason to trust that this government would responsibly use any additional discretion it gives itself, however minor, when it comes to fast-tracking environmental assessments.

If we look back, in 2021, a court ruled that this government broke the law and violated the Environmental Bill of Rights when it passed a different schedule of Bill 197 without the legally required public consultation—and remember that the whole point of that 30 days is to consider what the public has offered. The public input is to supposedly consider it, maybe improve legislation or improve a decision or factor something in that might improve a project. Why on earth would you want to rush something like that? Thoughtful consideration shouldn’t be something that—the former minister of MNRF had said, “You have to wait for no good reason.” I wrote it down and highlighted it. I didn’t like that. I may come back to that again.

The Environmental Bill of Rights requires that the government notify and consult with the public before it makes a decision on a proposal that could affect the environment. Section 35 of the Environmental Bill of Rights also requires that the government consider public comments that are received during a public consultation before making that decision. The Environmental Bill of Rights doesn’t specify how long the government should consider the comments, but it says that they’re supposed to consider it. In practice, the government has regularly proceeded with a decision barely hours after public consultation periods end, with limited evidence that they’ve even considered it.

How many of us have sincerely served at committee, listening to people who have come before committee to make a bill better, to flag concerns for government, to offer expertise, and then no sooner than they’re finished, the committee process is over—the committee hasn’t even put its report forward yet, and we’re already moving forward with the next step of the government making that law. Many times it has felt quite insulting to the deputants, to the people who come all the way to Queen’s Park or who prepare their thoughtful comments, only to have the process steamroll them, really, not appropriately consider their input.

That said, and I hate to be cynical, but that 30 days, it’s not even—if we maintain that 30 days, I challenge the government to do better anyway, to actually thoughtfully consider public input. I guess what I’m saying is, even if we keep it, I have no faith that the government will utilize that time as intended. I guess it’s about making better legislation or just making faster and I guess more partisan legislation. That’s the challenge of any government, right? How many pieces of legislation do you want to get through in your time here and how many of them do you want to endure? I guess that’s up to every government. The next government in the province of Ontario will have to make tough choices too. I look forward to having to make those difficult decisions, but I know that, when we’re government, we’ll do what we have always done, which is listen to the folks in our communities and consider their input when crafting legislation.

Recently, the Auditor General warned this particular government that they violated the Environmental Bill of Rights again, since 2021, by passing Bill 109 at third reading while public consultations were still under way. The Auditor General later informed us, in response to the letter that the member from University–Rosedale had sent, that the government may have violated the Environmental Bill of Rights again by passing Bill 23 at third reading while public consultation of several schedules of that bill were still under way—not a good look.

I took the opportunity to reach out to some folks in the conservation authority world, and the concerns that they raised were I think the concerns that folks at home would have and I know folks on this bench would have, that this proposed schedule is one more attempt to limit the ability to carry out a fulsome review of potential impacts from a proposed undertaking subject to the EA process. As this person has shared, “The current EA process provides that there is a 30-day pause after the environmental assessment comment period. This pause is important as it allows the ministry to review all comments received and any concerns raised and then determine if the proposed undertaking should be subject to further study ... in order to address concerns and ensure that potential impacts can be mitigated.” The proposed legislation does away with that pause.

Speaker, I would say that a key principle of a successful environmental assessment would include a systematic evaluation of impacts from a proposed undertaking to determine environmental effects and how they can be mitigated. This proposed legislation and this change would undermine the ministry’s ability to ensure a fulsome review. I don’t feel like that should be the goal.

Let’s unpack some of our history here in the province of Ontario. From the Auditor General of Ontario, December 2022, this report was Operation of the Environmental Bill of Rights. What I’m going to do is basically read the Auditor General’s report—not the whole thing, don’t worry, folks—highlighting a couple of pieces that will explain why I’m concerned about waiving this 30-day pause, waiving this 30-day opportunity for the ministry to consider public comments to ensure a fulsome review.

From the report, the heading is, “Ministries again chose not to follow EBR Act requirements to consult Ontarians about several environmentally significant proposals.

“The municipal affairs ministry did not meaningfully consult Ontarians before implementing significant changes to the Planning Act, and was not transparent about the outcome. In March 2022”—that was already a year ago—“the ministry introduced Bill 109, the More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, in the Legislature. Bill 109 proposed significant changes to the Planning Act, including creating a new type of zoning order, at the request of a municipality, to which the provincial policy statement, provincial plans and municipal official plans would not apply, and limiting the amount of parkland that a municipality can require a developer to provide for developments in transit-oriented communities. The ministry posted a proposal notice for these changes on the Environmental Registry for the minimum 30-day public consultation period, but the bill received third reading and passed into law before that comment period had ended, cutting short by two weeks Ontarians’ opportunity to provide feedback that could influence the outcome.”

It begs the question, how much does the government care about public input when they cut it short by two weeks?

Another section here:

“Ministries again chose not to follow EBR Act requirements to consult Ontarians about several environmentally significant proposals.

“Public consultation is at the heart of the EBR Act and its purposes. The EBR Act sets out rules for how a ministry must consult the public about its environmentally significant proposals. In particular, the act requires a minister to do everything in his or her power to consult Ontarians for a minimum of 30 days using the Environmental Registry before implementing an environmentally significant proposal. Further, the minister is required to take every reasonable step to ensure the public’s comments are considered before making a decision.”

I’m going to read that last section again: “The minister is required to take every reasonable step to ensure the public’s comments are considered before making a decision.” That is not what we have seen to date, and now what we have before us, again, is giving the minister the opportunity to waive that 30 days in a class environmental assessment entirely.

The Auditor General’s office found in 2019, 2020 and 2021 that some ministries deliberately did not consult Ontarians about major environmentally significant decisions. Again, in 2022 we found that three ministries—municipal affairs, energy and environment—did not notify and consult Ontarians in accordance with EBR Act requirements before making several significant decisions.

This is not a good pattern. Maybe it’s something that this government doesn’t care about because they’ve already made the decision. That’s sort of the “father knows best” thing that I pick up a lot from this government. They have an idea, they have a plan and they’re going to move it forward. But what if there was something thoughtful and there was expertise out there to be learned from, to be gained from, to make it—whatever it is, whatever the piece of legislation or project—better or to prevent a problem? Why wouldn’t you want that information? It’s 30 days.

As a side note—and hey, I’ve got the time. I can do whatever I want right now; well, within reason, Speaker. When you’re talking to municipal partners—and I hope this government does that more often than I think they do. When they’re talking to municipal partners, they’re probably going to hear that there is a lot of improvement that could be made to the environmental assessment process. Municipality to municipality—they have feedback. Their engineers have feedback. So work with your partners. If you’re wanting to move forward, if you are wanting to take full advantage of that construction season, then make sure those projects that are ready to go are indeed ready to go. And when you’re talking to municipal partners, they will highlight for you the ways we can streamline or make sure that projects are able to advance.

This way here feels to me like it was something the minister tripped over with this example of Bombardier—which sounds like it was a significant project and they wanted to make it faster. Maybe work on how things get to the cabinet table faster if that couldn’t be done for three weeks, rather than this blank cheque.

Speaker, another piece here is that municipal affairs did not meaningfully consult Ontarians before implementing environmentally significant changes to the Planning Act.

It says, “On March 30, 2022, the municipal affairs ministry introduced Bill 109, More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, in the Legislature. Bill 109 would make environmentally significant changes to the Planning Act. In particular, one proposed amendment would create a new type of minister’s zoning order, at the request of a municipality, to which the provincial policy statement, provincial plans and municipal official plans would not apply. This could mean, for example, that such an order could approve a development that was inconsistent with policies that aim to protect significant wetlands, woodlands or prime agricultural land. Another proposed amendment would limit the amount of parkland, or equivalent cash, that a municipality can require a developer to provide in an area designated by the province as a ‘high-density transit-oriented community.’ The city of Toronto has estimated that, on the basis of this amendment, it could see a reduction in parkland dedication by 33%, affecting the quality of life for city residents far into the future.”

The 30-day period ended April 29, 2022; “however, on April 14, 2022, Bill 109 received third reading and royal assent—two weeks before the end of the public comment period on the proposal.” Well, that’s not supposed to happen, and that’s not allowed, but the ministry did not formally update the notice, using the normal—could I get water, please? Thank you. I’ve got a fair bit of time here. I’ve got to make it through, Speaker. “The ministry did not formally update the notice using the usual ‘Update’ banner at the top of the notice, which meant that the notice was not moved to the top of the list of recent notices on the main page of the registry, and interested Ontarians may not have been aware of the update.”

Now I’m in the weeds, but I’m okay with being in the weeds because it makes the case that this government really doesn’t seem to care about having people involved in the process or knowing about the changes. Even for something as simple as when the government has an update, there’s a certain way they do it so that folks can see it and interested Ontarians are able to notice it and access it. And that minister was like—well, I won’t say what the minister said because I wasn’t there, but that ministry did not follow the normal procedure.

As it says here, “By continuing to solicit public comment after April 15, the ministry gave the false impression that there was still an opportunity to inform decision-making around Bill 109. Indeed, some Ontarians continued to submit comments on the proposed amendments through the registry up and until April 25, 2022, 10 days after the decision was made.”

Well, that doesn’t seem fair or right.

“The ministry’s description of the effect of public comments on the decision,” according to the Auditor General, “was misleading. Only eight of the 32 comments submitted in response to the registry notice were submitted before Bill 109 passed... in making the decision, the ministry could not have considered the remaining 24 (75%) of the comments submitted after Bill 109 passed.”

So as the Auditor General said, “Clearly the ministry did not consult Ontarians about this proposal for the statutory minimum 30 days. Moreover, ministries are required to consider providing additional time for the public to comment on proposals in order to permit more informed consultation, and providing additional time for public consultation beyond the mandatory minimum was warranted in this case. The environmental significance of the proposed changes was great, and the proposal was part of a package of multiple, complex proposals, including a proposed guideline for the use of the new type of minister’s zoning order ... Several municipalities expressed concern that the 30-day comment period was insufficient to provide an informed response.”

The Auditor General’s office “asked the ministry for information about any steps the minister took to ensure the public received notice of the proposed Planning Act changes ... The ministry responded: ‘While the ministry posted Bill 109 on the’ Environmental Registry ‘the day it was introduced for a 30-day consultation period, the passage of all bills, including Bill 109, is determined by the will of the Legislature, not the ministry or the minister.’” I don’t know. That feels like a snarky response.

Rather than prioritizing public comment and access or recognizing that good governance is about listening to the people, considering their comments—none of that here.

Speaker, the Auditor General points out, in a section called “Many Ministries Repeatedly Omitted Information in Environmental Registry Notices—Undermining Transparency, Accountability and Meaningful Public Participation”—she says: “When ministries do not provide sufficient information in a proposal notice, there is a risk that Ontarians will not be able to meaningfully participate in a government’s environmental decision-making, as intended by the” Environmental Bill of Rights Act. “In turn, the government misses out on the benefits of public participation, including improved environmental decisions and outcomes.”

Here’s another case where the government, on purpose, with this schedule, is missing out on “the benefits of public participation, including improved environmental decisions and outcomes.”

Speaker, here is an article: It says, “Opposition Parties Wary of PCs’ New Bill to Shortcut Certain Environmental Assessments.” It says that, after the story “was first published, a member” in the Minister of the Environment’s “office ... stressed that ... the changes only apply to class environmental assessments” and “that large transit projects ‘would likely’ still be subject to a full environment assessment.” “Would likely”—so I guess it’s cross our fingers and just trust them. It’s not the story that you’ve been telling here.

We heard from Environmental Defence. They have said about this 30-day waiting period that “it’s a time when the ‘minister is supposed to be considering, and the public is supposed to be debating, whether to refer a project for a more detailed assessment.’” But instead, this government and this minister have said, “No, we don’t need it.”

Man, I thought I would run out of material before I ran out of time. I’d love to go back and tell the story about Duffins Creek.

While I’ve got the former minister from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry—remember, Speaker, when they declassified the wetland? I do. That was when facing massive public pushback and there was a lot of public input from the environmental side and the municipalities.

The town of Ajax had said, “As the minister responsible for protecting our natural resources including provincially significant wetlands ... allowing up to four million sq. ft. of warehousing and distribution space to be built on 57 acres of key natural heritage and hydrological features—including” provincially significant wetlands, “significant woodland, and significant wildlife habitat—would be precedent-setting. It would send a very strong message to developers and communities about the priorities of your government, and should not be taken lightly.” There are some fighty words there, right? These were strong words from across the community.

That story played out. There were some lessons learned, I think, on the government benches. But there were really important lessons learned across the community, which is that their voices don’t matter and, “We’d better band together in order to be heard.” So now, with the 30-day comment period at risk, I worry that the public’s ability to influence government decisions to shape policy will be further diminished.

Speaker, I’m going to move on to the second half of the bill. I appreciate with this schedule 2 that I’d had the opportunity to ask the Minister of Infrastructure a couple of specific questions about it. As my colleague had requested—traditionally there was a briefing that would be offered when a new piece of government legislation hit the table so that opposition critics would be able to do their jobs to the best of their ability, ask those specific questions and provide, hopefully, a thoughtful critique and raise issues, but this is only a two-schedule bill so there’s not necessarily a lot of meat to it. But what I want to know is the implications. What I want to know is its effect and its impact. So, as I said, I have no idea what problem this bill is meant to solve.

Schedule 2 prohibits some entities from owning or managing real estate and would require them to hand over their real estate interest to the Ministry of Infrastructure, presumably to be managed by Infrastructure Ontario. There are 34 agencies that manage their own properties right now, and this government has chosen—and I don’t know how they chose—these 14 of 34. I can’t provide comment on what sets them apart but maybe there will be more after this; I don’t know. These entities are Agricorp; Education Quality and Accountability Office, or EQAO; Province of Ontario Council for the Arts; Ontario Media Development Corp.; Ontario Trillium Foundation; Ontario Financing Authority; the Fire Marshal’s Public Fire Safety Council; Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corp., also known as Destination Ontario; Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario; Ontario Securities Commission; Human Rights Legal Support Centre; Intellectual Property Ontario; Skilled Trades Ontario; and Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

The government’s press release suggested that these changes will address the 2017 Auditor General’s report that has “identified opportunities for the province to deliver the real estate portfolio more efficiently through initiatives that centralize authority and decision-making.”

As far as I can tell, in the 45 pages filled with about 11 recommendations, the Auditor General’s report didn’t say anything about poor management by agencies like the 14 that I’ve mentioned, EQAO or Agricorp. It didn’t say anything about their poor management, but the AG report delved into how poorly Infrastructure Ontario was managing the government’s real estate portfolio. The Auditor General did not recommend that these agencies hand over their holdings to Infrastructure Ontario.

When I asked the minister about that, she talked about optimization of office space. That was indeed one of the recommendations, but I am curious how this accomplishes that. If managing them means having access to their books and being able to figure out square footage or who is using what—I don’t know, but I know there’s a lot to management. In fact, Infrastructure Ontario doesn’t directly manage the real estate holdings that it oversees. It contracts property management services out to private providers. The providers and the services were quite fairly and comprehensively criticized in the AG report. The AG criticized the procurement of these contracts for being uncompetitive. The fact that they were being awarded to contractors who had a poor track record, whose clients who were having their snow plowed or having the lights changed or whatever—the building management had not good stuff to say; really low client satisfaction. But again, this was then a property manager that was re-awarded a contract. The AG criticized Infrastructure Ontario’s poor oversight of these contracts.

In short, this bill doesn’t do anything to address the actual problems that were cited by the Auditor General in the 2017 report with respect to the Minister of Infrastructure’s poor oversight of Infrastructure Ontario’s poor oversight of its private contractors’ poor oversight of government properties. So as far as the Auditor General had highlighted that Infrastructure Ontario was the problem, this bill would make that problem worse by giving Infrastructure Ontario even more properties to manage, maybe poorly.

There were a lot of recommendations with clear opportunities for the government to make those corrections and make things better, and honestly, I suppose it’s possible that Agricorp or EQAO or the Human Rights Legal Support Centre—maybe they do an even worse job of managing their real estate portfolio than Infrastructure Ontario and its private contractors do. Maybe further centralization will improve the management of these properties, at least up to the level of Infrastructure Ontario’s poor management.

But I have no evidence that any of these agencies do a poor job. Does the government? Is that part of the story? Because this morning, when we heard the Minister of Infrastructure give her remarks, I felt like we were watching an infomercial, and it was a positive one. It was talking about the great work that all of these agencies do, like Skilled Trades Ontario or the Ontario Securities Commission. It thanked them. We were like in a brochure for each of them.

But I haven’t heard yet how they feel about this and what will that look like when they want their snow plowed. Do they call the minister directly? Because that’s something that—we have transferred control of these properties to the Minister of Infrastructure. I would like to know how that would make things better.

I did hear stuff about optimizing and efficiencies, but what does that actually look like for the folks who can’t get—their property isn’t being properly maintained? Do they call the government? Because I know how well that’s going for folks at home who are picking up the phone and trying to get help from the government: The voicemail doesn’t get checked; the phone numbers aren’t connected. If you go on INFO-GO, it would seem that nobody works in the government ministry or we’re down to a skeleton crew here. I don’t know; adding more to the government’s plate—I would love to know how that will make things better.

Speaker, I’m going to delve into the 2017 Auditor General’s report on real estate services. I had the opportunity years ago to sit at public accounts and listen to these discussions and be a part of them. They’re with Infrastructure Ontario. It was actually kind of a fun little exercise, a very worthwhile exercise to go back and review these recommendations, because I remember being a part of the conversation at the time.

One of the things that the Auditor General sets out to frame our understanding of the government’s responsibility when it comes to their real estate portfolio is the following: “Infrastructure Ontario is responsible for helping its client ministries and agencies find space by either matching their needs to available space in government properties or leasing other space within the private sector. It is also responsible for managing these properties, including the costs of cleaning, repairs and maintenance, security, utilities, property taxes, and, for government-owned land and buildings, their sale or demolition. Infrastructure Ontario has an external property and land manager, which is a real estate services company, that provides all the operating and maintenance work for Infrastructure Ontario’s client ministries and agencies. Further, Infrastructure Ontario is responsible for overseeing capital projects, namely the construction, rehabilitation and renovation of government properties.”

Some of the things that I said in there—I’m wondering how the minister feels about being responsible and having the property management transferred to her responsibility. Again, it’s cleaning, repairs and maintenance, security, utilities, property taxes for government-owned lands and buildings, sale or demolition—all of that in these buildings.

This is quite a list, these 14. I’m not suggesting that these properties are up for sale. I do know that the EQAO building that’s on Yonge is prime real estate. So I think all of us are going to be watching this with interest to figure out what is actually the goal here, because “optimizing office space” feels hollow. This is a lot of real estate.

The Auditor General’s audit “determined that Infrastructure Ontario’s management of government properties was impacted in part by weaknesses in the enterprise realty service agreement”—so in the actual agreement between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure. “The agreement does not set out any mandatory, minimum standard of performance for managing the costs of capital projects. It also does not set out timelines for meeting the accommodation standard for office space designed to ensure that existing government properties are used efficiently, and timelines for maintaining the state of government-owned properties to the agreement’s standard”—yikes.

I’ll just read the headlines here, or the top sections of the report and recommendations. These were what they highlighted: “The design of a request for proposals (RFP) approach attracted few bids for the management of 7,500 capital projects.” Remember, it’s not Infrastructure Ontario when you pick up the phone and say, “Hey, can you come shovel my snow?” They’ve got property managers that do this. But it attracted very few bids for the management.

Another problem: “Better oversight of external project managers’ procurement methods for capital projects is needed.”

“Infrastructure Ontario is using preliminary estimates to prioritize which capital projects to do.”

“Minimal incentive exists for external project managers to manage costs”—that was a fun section to read. There is no incentive for them to manage costs at all. There’s no disincentive for them to keep the costs careful.

“External project managers do not have an incentive to complete projects on time.”

“Capital repair funds used to fund operating costs for managing government properties”—that’s a problem.

“Infrastructure Ontario provides insufficient information on operating and maintenance services to its client ministries and agencies.”

Here’s one—and I’ll focus on this one because the Minister of Infrastructure, in response to my question about how transferring the responsibility of these properties to her will make the world a better place, how this bill makes things better, had talked to me about office space optimization. Well, from the Auditor General’s report: “Office space per person exceeds the ministry standard. Over $170 million in office accommodation costs could be saved annually if effective steps are taken to reduce the space occupied per government staff person to comply with the 2012 office accommodation standard of 180 rental square feet per person set by the Ministry of Infrastructure. Neither the ministry nor Infrastructure Ontario has set a goal for when this standard should be met.”

If we’re going to talk about office optimization, where is that in the bill? When do we get to see that the ministry has indeed set targets? That was a criticism, that they haven’t set a goal for when this standard should be met, and it’s a standard that they have set.

“Almost $19 million was spent” in one year “on operating and maintaining 812 vacant buildings.”

“One private-sector company with a history of poor performance is still being awarded new contracts by Infrastructure Ontario.” These are some concerns that were raised by the Auditor General, and we don’t see them answered in this bill, which says, “Hey, this bill exists because we’re answering the Auditor General’s concerns.”

The conclusion by the Auditor General in this report was, “Infrastructure Ontario could maintain government properties more cost-effectively by better overseeing the companies that it has engaged to provide most capital repair and property management services to ensure costs for capital repairs and property management services are reasonable and projects are completed on time. As well, existing government properties could be used more efficiently, with people occupying less space per person. The agreement between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure needs better performance standards to incentivize Infrastructure Ontario to manage and maintain government properties more cost-effectively.”

We’re just at the beginning of the report. If the government wanted to go through carefully and look at each recommendation and try and answer that—because there’s a lot of money being spent. There are some really tangible suggestions about how to find efficiencies. The office optimization is an interesting one. I’m not arguing that that’s a concern if it’s raised in here and the minister recognizes it as well, but what does that look like? Now that the minister has this holistic control of these properties, how do you figure out the number of square feet per person? What is that going to look like? What is the plan going to look like with each of those agencies?

One of the other concerns is that the project managers who were receiving such poor scores on the customer satisfaction survey that Infrastructure Ontario had completed—and these are client ministries. These aren’t just random folks; these are people that we rely on, that the government relies on, and they had some major concerns about how they were being treated, everything from salting the sidewalks and snowplowing to basic maintenance in the building, that they weren’t getting the service they needed. This particular company—what does it say here?—“gave it scores ranging between 25% and 69% in these years: The required score to pass the performance measure was 80%.” That’s how low it was being assessed or rated by client ministries.

“Infrastructure Ontario did not consider past performance when it assessed”—it only got three bids and it didn’t consider those scores. It just gave it to them. And the penalty for doing a poor job was set by the property manager. So you’re policing yourself and setting your own penalty rate, and the government is like, “Oh, that’s fine.”

“The penalties that could be levied for poor performance, such as projects not on time, on budget or of poor quality, in Project Manager B’s new contract were lower than” the other project manager, and that’s because they set them lower. In the Auditor General’s report, “if Project Manager B failed to meet all performance measures it would” only “lose a maximum of 25% of its annual management fee,” whereas the company that didn’t have bad ratings gave itself a higher penalty. They would lose 45%. You’re asking the fox to police the henhouse here.

“Infrastructure Ontario did not attempt to negotiate to increase the amount of its penalty to bring it more in line with” the other company. What are they doing? And now you’ve given them 14 more properties, I think, or the minister; I’m not exactly sure what this will look like. I guess we wait until regulation.

So here’s a recommendation: The Auditor General recommends “that Infrastructure Ontario review and adjust accordingly its process for procuring project management services”—you’ve now added 14 more agencies to these folks—“to formally prepare a new business case, ... include standard penalties for all contract managers on future RFPs; and incorporate past performance.” If they do a garbage job, why are you giving them more contracts?

First, I would like to thank the Minister of Infrastructure for the ongoing commitment to the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund, which is a fantastic fund which has provided over $12 million of infrastructure funding to the riding of Essex. That’s going to help towns in my riding, like LaSalle, Amherstburg, Essex, Harrow, Kingsville and Belle River, build infrastructure like sewer lines, which is good for our environment, keeping our environment clean.

I have a question about the environment: How is the government keeping the environment top of mind while reducing inefficiencies at the same time?

Question?

This question is to the Minister of Infrastructure. In your speech earlier this morning, you noted several reports that all talked to strategic management of properties aligning the real estate model. You quoted reports from Pricewaterhouse in 2018, the Ernst and Young report, the Deloitte report. All of them talked to aligning the real estate model.

The question to the minister is, how will the centralization of real estate under these agencies help the government achieve its priorities?

So that’s why we’re changing it.

They do it all the time.

To the member from Oshawa: The Reducing Inefficiencies Act, the bill we’re talking about today, Bill 69, is about being fiscally prudent, saving taxpayer dollars, cutting red tape and practising good governance. Speaker, we’re also looking at, as you’ve heard earlier today, how we can reduce administrative burden on standard infrastructure projects while maintaining our strong environmental and consultative processes.

Through you, Speaker, to the member from Oshawa, can she today, given what I’ve just described, tell us whether she’s going to support this legislation, yes or no?