Questions?

I think it’s question and answer and then—do I have only two minutes?

Madam Speaker, our government has a bold transformative plan to build Ontario. That is why we’re continuously looking at new and innovative ways to improve efficiencies, save taxpayers’ money and improve quality of life across our province. Bill 69, Reducing Inefficiencies Act, 2023, is an important step in our plan and, if passed, it would support timely decision-making.

Our proposed measures have the potential to allow for faster deployment of critical projects. They would help reduce duplication and burden, and by making minor changes to the Environmental Assessment Act, we have the potential to reduce delays in construction projects without compromising environmental safety. The bill, if passed, would help cut red tape and streamline processes so we can continue to practise good governance on behalf of the people of Ontario. This is all a part of our plan to enhance fiscal management and save taxpayers’ dollars.

Madam Speaker, as part of this plan, I would like to take a few moments to highlight some of the work we have been doing over the past few years to support our communities and economy. Our ministry plays a critical role in the quality of life enjoyed by all Ontarians. Infrastructure is the backbone of a strong and healthy economy, and it is essential for the quality of life of all Ontarians, both today and in the future. When a new road, highway, transit line or bridge is built, we’re helping hard-working Ontarians get home to their families safer and faster. When new infrastructure is installed to improve access to high-speed Internet, we provide families with the opportunity to work and educate their children from home. And when we build hospitals and long-term-care homes, we’re ensuring our most vulnerable members are provided the care they deserve.

That is why our government is building Ontario like never before, laying the foundation for a stronger and more productive Ontario. We have dedicated over $159 billion over the next decade to support priority projects such as transit, highways, schools, hospitals and long-term care. That is the province’s most ambitious plan in its history, and it includes so many projects that will help build a stronger, more productive Ontario.

The government is proposing legislation that will waive the waiting period for the ministry to review environmental assessments and public comments. Now, that might not be a problem in some situations, but the record of this government on environmental makes me worried.

Let me quote the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force: “Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts.” And yet the Premier is selling off the greenbelt just so wealthy developers and donors to this government’s party can profit.

Speaker, through you, to the member opposite: Can you explain how we can trust that the ministry won’t weaponize this change so they can ignore public comments, ignore communities and ignore concerns about the environment, and fast-track through projects and enrich their friends?

I recognize the member from Brampton West.

Madam Speaker, through you, to the member opposite: To be crystal clear, the environmental assessment standards will remain in place. The EA process is not being compromised. The EA process requires the proponents to assess potential environmental impacts, identify mitigation measures, consult with Indigenous communities, the public and stakeholders before the project will proceed.

The 30-day waiver is after the successful completion of the environmental assessment if there is no other concern in the assessment.

That being said, we are almost one step closer to modernizing a 50-year-old burdensome process.

Having said that, the 2017 Auditor General’s report, as well as other third-party reports, has been identifying these opportunities to have an efficient way to manage and oversee the real estate portfolio. Since then, our government has been in consultation with these entities and our stakeholders and, of course, all the oversight ministries to make sure that we come up with a plan that reduces the burdens—

The expected outcome that the member opposite is looking for from this legislation would be a better-managed government office realty portfolio that provides more responsive client service, that has strategic real estate decision-making authority, and reduced red tape, as I mentioned. And, of course, it will optimize existing funds and real estate funds and reinvest these savings into addressing market inflation, capital repairs and rehabilitation.

By doing so, we can, for example, get a municipal road project to speed up—we can make sure that our government can work with municipal partners and stakeholders to get shovels in the ground faster. That way, we can optimize the way our government works with our stakeholders to build Ontario for the future and for generations to come.

For example, when it comes to optimizing the funds in these entities, we can save a lot of funds and reinvest these funds to work on market inflation. We can reinvest the same funds into capital repairs or rehabilitation. So there is space to be efficient, to operate this in an efficient manner, so that definitely is going to cut red tape and save—

Further questions?

Response?

Further debate?

One of the things that struck me about this bill is there are portions—the process for EAs, for example; it was first put in place 50 years ago. Whenever we do something that reduces red tape, we’re looking at good government practices and good governance in general. Does it make sense, really, to have something that was put in place 50 years ago? Simple things like technology—we were using a Brownie camera to take pictures of things at that point. We didn’t have the computer technology that we have today. All of those things, to me, make sense, that you can speed up some of those processes.

My question is, how is this legislation going to make lives better for people in Ontario? Because, ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to do, make lives better for the people we represent.

My question is for the member from Scarborough–Rouge Park. The member talked about modernizing and modifying the real estate authority of 14 different agencies. Has the government consulted with these agencies ahead of the legislation being introduced in the House?

It’s an interesting bill that we have here before us with Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act. Unsurprisingly, we see yet more buzzwords being thrown into more legislation. Rather than having an acronym, there’s these business buzzwords.

But to begin my remarks, I wanted to clearly state that trust is something that is not freely given on everything and anything, nor should it be. Trust is something that really needs to be earned. Trust is about dialogue. Trust is about respect. Trust is about accountability and transparency—all the things that are treated like buzzwords but actually have real, valid, tangible meaning.

I listened very intently to the Minister of Infrastructure’s presentation, and we heard many of these buzzwords—we heard about “efficiencies,” “streamlining,” and so many buzzwords, quite frankly, people at home could fill out a bingo sheet and have a heyday each day and every day with this government. But when we take a look at the government’s record on the environment, it’s a dumpster fire. It’s a dumpster fire with toxic waste in it, for heaven’s sake.

This government wants trust. They want us to trust their words. They want us to take them at their word. They want to simply smile and say, “There’s nothing dubious about this.” They have categorically been denying the official opposition the customary briefings that were typically provided as part of the tradition, respectability and honour of this House. I did want to inform the House that earlier, in my questions of the Minister of Infrastructure, I asked why the requests for briefings had gone unanswered thus far, and it’s unsurprising that directly after that question was asked and on the record, publicly available, suddenly that request for a briefing has been honoured. So I do look forward to the briefing that will be available for the official opposition—again, something that was customary and something that happened after each and every bill was introduced, but something now that has to be requested, apparently.

We also hear words like “fiscally prudent and responsible,” “efficiency,” “streamlining”—all these sorts of things—and I would say that this bill does not achieve that in that it does not tackle the real issues that the Auditor General has pointed out.

As I begin my remarks, I’d like to start with schedule 1, the changes to the Environmental Assessment Act. This will allow the minister to waive the 30-day waiting period that is currently required following the end of a class EA comment period before granting an approval to proceed with an undertaking, such as an infrastructure project.

In the Auditor General’s report from December 2022, Operation of the Environmental Bill of Rights—I’d like to read a couple of the recommendations into the record.

Recommendation 2: “To provide Ontarians with a minimum of 30 days to comment on environmentally significant proposals for acts, and to provide prescribed ministries with sufficient time to consider any comments submitted before the proposals are implemented....”

Recommendation 3: “To provide Ontarians with a minimum of 30 days to comment on environmentally significant proposals for acts, and to provide prescribed ministries with sufficient time to consider any comments submitted before the proposals are implemented, as required by the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993....”

Speaker, this is clearly a bill that is an attempt or a very overt gesture to gut the Environmental Bill of Rights. It’s a workaround. It’s a way to deny the customary comment period. It’s a way to ignore the public. It’s a way to deny consultation.

I did want to also introduce some recent information to this House. We recently passed legislation in this House, and the mayor of Central Elgin was completely caught off guard by the legislation that was passed by this House. The title of this article is, “‘Completely Off Guard’: Central Elgin Mayor Shocked by Province Annexing 700 Acres.” Mayor Sloan said, “I think a little more than surprised”—when he responded to Bill 63. “Of the 1,500 acres, 75% of that lies in Central Elgin. The concern that Central Elgin has, is that some of that was marked for development land for economic development for Central Elgin. Now we’ve lost that revenue.”

Clearly, the government did not consult with Central Elgin in the implementation of that legislation. This will be a great economic boon for the area, but it’s something that Central Elgin is clearly losing out upon. The government did not do their due diligence by contacting all interested and affected parties, and we see the exact same sort of operation here with this bill. There’s a claim that this will be more efficient, it will be streamlined, it will be faster, and perhaps that’s true. Obviously, stomping on environmental rights is a way for this government to be faster and be more efficient. They must see that as being somehow more efficient, which is concerning to the official opposition.

I’d also like to quote from a letter that was sent from the Auditor General to the official opposition, to the MPP for University–Rosedale. The Auditor General says, “In your letter, you asked my office to review whether the government has violated the Environmental Bill of Rights....

“Sections 15 and 35 of the EBR require ministers to do everything in their power to give public notice of a proposal at least 30 days before the proposal is implemented, and to take every reasonable step to ensure that all received comments relevant to the proposal are considered when decisions about the proposal are made.”

She goes on to say that she has concerns whether all of the comments related to Bill 23 were meaningfully considered before decisions were made. Obviously, these are huge concerns. This government will claim that these are not concerns. The comment period for Bill 23 was incredibly short. When we look at Bill 69, we wonder if this is yet more of the same.

As I turn to schedule 2, schedule 2 is about the Ministry of Infrastructure Act. It would allow the ministry to assume a lease entered into by the entity with a third-party landlord. So we look at all of the 14 entities that are mentioned in schedule 2 that ostensibly Infrastructure Ontario will start to take the management of and look after the servicing of, but there are so many problems that the Auditor General has already identified with Infrastructure Ontario that have not yet been addressed. So I’d like to take a look at some of the operations of Infrastructure Ontario in my comments today.

In 2014, the Auditor General released a report showing that public-private partnerships, which are administered by Infrastructure Ontario, showed wastefulness and incredible overspending—$8 billion more on projects, allowing these P3 companies to siphon money off of the public purse, to take money away from health care, to take money away from education. She stated back then, “If the public sector could manage projects successfully, on time and on budget, there is taxpayer money to be saved....”

She looked at 74 projects. They included several hospitals, the Eglinton light rail line; they were all built with these P3 models, also known as alternative financing and procurement or AFP. These were all administered under Infrastructure Ontario. She found that with these projects, they cost about 14 times what the government does for financing. It’s really become almost an industry that we see here in Ontario, and it’s the largest infrastructure company in all of Canada, because the government is quick to waste public money to make sure it gets into a few private hands. They’re taking everyone’s money, and they’re making sure that only a few people benefit from it.

Also, Infrastructure Ontario’s chief CEO at the time said, “The guys we’re outsourcing this function to, this is their core competency”—but they aren’t showing that they’re competent whatsoever when you consider the cost overruns, the way in which they overstate the risk, and the fact that also, if these projects do come in on time, which is very rare, and if there is more money that they’ve allocated, it comes to them in a windfall profit.

Back when this report was tabled: “Interim Progressive Conservative leader Jim Wilson said the first step is for the Liberals to get rid of their ‘bias’ in favour of private partnerships, and analyze projects more objectively.

“‘They have a bias—which normally we would be accused of as Conservatives—[of] wanting to always use an alternative finance plan,’ he said. ‘They need to get rid of the bias.... You’re basically skewing all your contracts into one stream.’

Now, that goes against Conservative ideology, which is that there ought to be competition, there ought to be people who are doing this for the right price. That’s supposed to drive costs down. But really, what we’re seeing with Infrastructure Ontario is something completely different.

Now, Lysyk also saw that these calculations are very wonky. They assume that if the public is managing projects, it’s going to cost a great deal more and, also, that the government will fail to meet its obligations.

It’s very interesting that it’s this sort of negative attitude that the government has about its own self—the government thinking that it, itself, is going to fail and fall behind in terms of the maintenance and fixing of infrastructure. It’s incredibly odd. But these are assumptions that, apparently, are completely acceptable in Infrastructure Ontario.

Further, when we look at the way in which these P3s operate, they also really benefit a whole host—I would say that there’s an entire industry behind this. They deliver economic benefits to corporate law firms and financiers. They earn enormously high fees arranging complex contracts, lending money to the government at rates higher than what the government normally pays. That’s bad business. The government could borrow money at a much better rate, and yet they choose not to. They’re choosing to fill the pockets of a few people. That’s not fiscally prudent. That’s not fiscally responsible. It is incredibly difficult. Overall, the Auditor General found that Ontarians paid 28% more for these projects than they ought to have. It’s incredibly, incredibly problematic.

If we also look at the way in which these projects are financed, it’s a sneaky way of the government hiding the money that they’re spending, because the borrowing is stretched out over decades and these financing charges will often account for 80% of the extra charges of these massive P3 projects.

They also hide behind these value-for-money assessments. It was actually quite groundbreaking that the Auditor General was able to get as much information, because many of these value-for-money assessments are—basically, they’ve been called “window dressing.” They claim commercial confidentiality. They really don’t want anyone to scrutinize the numbers. That’s why we’re so lucky in Ontario to have the Auditor General, who is able to provide that unbiased scrutiny of government spending.

Back when the Conservative government was in opposition, they loved the Auditor General. Now that they are in government, they suddenly—I don’t know if that relationship is really the most fond one, at this time.

I’d like to quote: “Canada’s largest P3 agency makes decisions on tens of billions of dollars of public spending using assumptions with no basis in fact.”

It’s often been called Stephen Harper’s evidence-free policy-making that we’ve seen when it comes to this blind adherence to this for-profit and P3 model. It doesn’t bear any real fiscal prudence. It doesn’t make any sense.

The large companies behind P3 projects can also walk away at any time. They risk only the equity that they place into a project. Generally speaking, that’s about 10% to 15% of the cost.

Toby Sanger also points out: “Infrastructure Ontario has been paying the big P3 companies”—

Interjections.

My question is to the member for Scarborough–Rouge Park. It’s interesting that the ministry is transferring all of this responsibility over to Infrastructure Ontario, because the Auditor General identified so many concerns about their oversight and their management. To be clear, Infrastructure Ontario actually contracts out their property management, and they can’t even do that well, Madam Speaker.

What is the rationale for moving these 14 agencies into Infrastructure Ontario, because that’s likely where it’s going to end up, when the Auditor General—and thank goodness we have an Auditor General who actually shines a light on the inefficiencies and the lack of accountability on every government. I mean, let’s be honest, the Liberals kept her very, very busy, but this government has got her working non-stop. What’s the rationale for moving these agencies into Infrastructure Ontario?

Some of the stuff with the environmental assessment, the processes were put in place 50 years ago. Fifty years ago, we used the IBM 360 computer. It was a four-bit processor. What we have here is a two-bit party that wants one bit of discernible progress, so I’m really confused by this. Could the member from London North Centre please give me an idea of why the NDP loves red tape so much, why they want to keep so much red tape in there and why they don’t want any progress over 50 years?

What could go wrong?

The member for Carleton will come to order.

I apologize to the member. He may continue.

Would the member for Carleton please come to order. Thank you.

You may continue.

—“that unsuccessfully bid on P3 projects up to $2 million per bid to cover some of their costs.” That is an amazing consolation prize.

So these few companies that bid on these projects can actually receive a cash windfall for simply putting in an application—not even for being successful, for just simply putting in an application. Toby calls it “a cozy fraternity of lucratively paid P3 companies and consultants getting wealthy at the public’s expense.” That is not fiscally prudent. That is not good business.

Back in the day, the Conservatives, as opposition, were quite critical of this sort of spending, yet now that they’ve changed to the other side of the House, they’re quite happy with the status quo. In fact, they have become the status quo.

I’d also like to take a look at some of the Auditor General’s report on real estate services. Now, the Auditor General states—

Interjections.

The Auditor General said that the agreement, the enterprise realty service agreement, between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure—here are the problems: “The agreement does not set out any mandatory, minimum standard of performance for managing the costs of capital projects. It does not set out timelines for meeting.” And it does not make sure that government properties are being “used efficiently.” These are all the buzzwords that we hear from this government all the time, and they’re not doing it. It’s abundantly clear that this is not being upheld. They are not doing their due diligence. They are not participating in what is a good business model.

So if we take a look at the request for proposals, the RFP approach, the Auditor General pointed out that that attracted only a few bids for the management of 7,500 capital projects. These were projects worth about $900 million over five years. There was not a broad range of companies that bid on this. It’s very curious.

She also criticized—it says, “Better oversight of external projects—

Interjection.

She also states, “Better oversight of external project mangers’ procurement methods for capital projects is needed.” She goes on—she believes in competition. She believes that things should be fair. And on the side of the official opposition, that makes sense. She states, “Infrastructure Ontario does not track how many vendors bid on capital projects and which vendors are winning the bids.” They actually don’t track what they are responsible for—wow. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the transparency?

The Auditor General talks about the vendor rotation process, which is supposed to be an electronic bidding service that’s supposed to provide these contracts in a more fair manner. “However”—this is where it’s interesting, Madam Speaker—“since 2013-14, Infrastructure Ontario has allowed its external project managers to select vendors from its ... list and manually add them to the list of bidders.” So they cherry-pick the ones they wanted to get the contracts to make sure they got the contracts.

Speaker, as we look at Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, there is far more that this government needs to do in terms of reducing inefficiencies. On the side of this official opposition, we hear this government with all of their buzzwords, we hear them with all of their rhetoric and their language, but we’d like to see actual action that is reducing inefficiencies. We’d like to see a better business model where there is true transparency, accountability and actual efficiency.

Let’s see the government do this. Let’s not hear them talk about it; let’s see it reflected in legislation. I look forward to the briefing, and I want to thank the Minister of Infrastructure for providing that.

This program showed great promise. It cost about $18,000 per person per year, rather than the cost of a mental health bed. It was great cost savings. It was efficient. It was amazing. And it was also something to be prescribed by a doctor. The device and the program would be prescribed. It was to be added to the Assistive Devices Program. I heard lots from this government about how ADP is 30 years old and it’s for mobility devices and sensory aids and that’s it. They had the opportunity to modernize ADP and they chose not to, so I’m tired of hearing—

Further questions?

Further debate?

I certainly get concerned when this government, any time, talks about the environment. We see their attack on the greenbelt, where reports are now saying that they could build two million homes without touching the greenbelt. We are losing over—this is important. I know they’re not really listening over there; they’re playing on their phones. I guess you can do that in here.

We are losing over 315 acres of farmland every day in the province of Ontario. The cost of our food is going up 12%. My question: Do you trust this government to protect the greenbelt?

I’ll tell you a quick story, because I’ve only got a few seconds left. The Peterborough hospital, which was built with 349 beds that were publicly built—it cost $349 million. And he knows this story. In St. Catharines, when they did the new hospital, almost the exact same size, do you know what it was under a P3? It was $1.1 billion. So you could have taken that $700 million, saved taxpayers’ money and put it back right into the community, right back into health care—

This government was elected on a mandate to clean up the mess after the 15 years of Liberal mismanagement. Under the previous government, hydro rates skyrocketed, taxes soared and taxpayers’ dollars were mismanaged.

Bill 69 is about good governance, cutting red tape and streamlining oversight. Why does the NDP want to add red tape and slow down the government?

Meegwetch to the member for the presentation.

I know we talk about environmental assessment and we talk about the last 15 years of the Liberal government—never mind the last 15 years. As First Peoples of these lands, we’ve been doing environmental assessments and environmental stewardship for thousands of years as First Nations people.

When we talk about infrastructure and reducing inefficiencies and whatever, I wish we were talking about the takeover of infrastructure such as water sewer systems in far northern Ontario. They always talk about good governance; they always talk about the people of Ontario. But we’re always left out. It would be so cool if we removed the boil-water advisories in far northern Ontario. That would be the change—

I’d like to thank the member from Niagara Falls for his excellent question. No, I don’t think that anyone in Ontario at this point trusts the government on the way in which they’ve handled the greenbelt. They’ve talked about this swap where they’re actually adding lands that already had some protections on them. They’d like to pretend that they are doing this thing where it’s an equal exchange, but if we look at the greenbelt as a chain, if you weaken any links of that chain, such as a watershed or something else that is contributing to the filtering of our water, then that entire chain is weak.

What they’re doing to the greenbelt is odious. They’re making sure that it’s going to be easier for these developers to make McMansions, which is not what we need more of. We need more inwards and upwards development, we need affordable housing, we need rent control, we need vacancy decontrol, we need protections for tenants—none of the things that this government is doing, because they do not care about tenants.

They, on the side of the official opposition, said that they were going to change things. They agreed with the Auditor General. And now that they’re on the government benches, we see a completely different change in attitude. They’re upholding many of the things that they criticized the Liberals for, including Infrastructure Ontario, including Tarion. Now they’ve even created yet more government bureaucracy with things like HCRA.

But this attack on the greenbelt is absolutely odious. They’re also taking money away from municipalities when they need it the most. The government should be having a public builder building housing, not expecting private, for-profit agencies to—

The government has a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to clean drinking water. The fact that there are places in this province which do not have access to that basic human right in the 21st century is unconscionable. It’s completely unacceptable.

There are areas close to my riding that have been under boil-water advisories for 25 years. If that were to happen in any large urban centre, it would be corrected immediately. It would get government attention. But we’ve seen governments, past and present, who simply want to kick the can down the road. They want to finger-point for jurisdictional change, and they simply don’t want to do the right thing. They could get clean drinking water there; they just choose not to.

With the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, we travelled the province and we heard about the people who are struggling. And yet we see bills like Bill 23, which are just actually—they wrap that bill with the word “housing,” but really what it’s about is McMansions, and it’s about seizing land from the greenbelt.

Instead, what we should make sure is we should have a government that’s actually looking at how Infrastructure Ontario operates. We should have a government that looks at how Tarion operates. When people make the largest purchase of their lives, they deserve to have some—

For many years, we criticized the Liberals for this. But this government is doing it almost on steroids. It is unbelievable what they have achieved with Bill 23, with Bill 7, with so many different things and ways—