I want to thank the Minister of Infrastructure for her leadership on this issue and for recognizing how important it is that everything that we do in this government dovetails with our plan to build Ontario and make life better for the people who call Ontario home. There are so many entities that she has touched on in this bill, and it actually speaks to the importance of recognizing that government is not one little thing here and another little thing there; it’s a group, a conglomeration, of many ministries and entities, and sometimes it would appear that they’re working at cross-purposes. So by bringing these all together, it makes it much more efficient and keeps us focused on our promise which we made in 2018 to build Ontario and make it open for business.

I’m going to get back to some of that a little later, but first I want to deliver remarks on behalf of the ministry that I am the parliamentary assistant for, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, which kind of has a half of this bill, but a very important one, and I’ll tell you why.

I’m here almost 20 years—I know, I know; the best-before date has long expired, some might say. But for every one of those 20 years, what I have heard from people in my riding is, “Yak, why does it have to be so” blank “complicated? Why is government always making it more difficult, not less difficult, to get it done?” Isn’t that a phrase that we used in our campaigns—get it done? That’s what this bill is all about.

I am going to read the remarks that I have here and then I’ll get back to some things.

Again, I want to thank Minister Surma.

It is my pleasure to rise in the House to speak to the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks’ proposal for Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act (Infrastructure Statute Law Amendments), 2023. With this bill, our government is proposing to continue our efforts to modernize Ontario’s almost 50-year-old environmental assessment process.

Like a house that is 50 years old, while the foundation is still strong, it requires updates to reflect the changes that have occurred over the past five decades, because today our environmental assessment process is too slow and too unnecessarily burdensome and costly. We believe that Ontarians deserve better. We believe that our environmental assessment program should be effective and efficient. It should deliver strong environmental oversight and consultation opportunities, while supporting and building our strong economy. We can accomplish both. We can no longer afford to do things in the older, slower, less efficient way.

Today’s global economy moves at too quickly a rate, and Ontario cannot afford to be left behind. That’s why our government is looking at smarter, more modern ways of doing business. We want to make sure that important public services and infrastructure, including roads and bridges, can get shovels into the ground faster without unnecessary costs and delays.

For the long-term, we are committed to building a strong environmental assessment program that considers the input of local communities and ensures that we focus on projects that have the highest impact on the environment—things that Ontarians expect of us, things that Ontarians deserve from us.

With the Reducing Inefficiencies Act (Infrastructure Statute Law Amendments), 2023, we are proposing to build Ontario and provide appropriate environmental oversight by continuing to modernize Ontario’s environmental assessment program to better serve Ontario now and into the future. We are proposing a sensible, practical change—a change that would provide environmental oversight while reducing delays to get shovels in the ground on projects that matter most to Ontario communities.

But let me be crystal clear: Environmental standards and protections will remain in place and continue to be a top priority for our government as we work to ensure Ontario has good-paying jobs, affordable housing and a strong economy.

I’m pleased to report that our government has already taken steps to modernize the environmental assessment process. We have been taking a phased approach to advance various components. In April 2019, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks released a discussion paper with broad themes for modernization. Subsequently, the Environmental Assessment Act was amended.

In June 2019, through the More Homes, More Choice Act, 2019, the Environmental Assessment Act was amended to exempt over 350 low-impact projects. In July 2020, the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020, further amended the act, allowing for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to begin to transform the environmental assessment program by working on implementing regulations and carrying out consultation. And in December 2021, a minor amendment was made to the act to make it clear that a class environmental assessment can be amended to change the projects that can follow that process.

Today’s proposed change to the Environmental Assessment Act marks a small but important step in our journey to modernize Ontario’s environmental assessment program.

So what are we proposing? Today, our government is proposing a change to the Environmental Assessment Act to provide the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks the ability to waive or alter the 30-day review period, allowing projects to begin sooner. The current environmental assessment program requires a 30-day review period between when a class environmental assessment is completed and when the proponent may begin project activities.

To help the members of the Legislature here today, I will give you a brief overview of a class environmental assessment. Class environmental assessments can be developed for classes of undertakings that are similar, routine in nature, they have known potential environmental effects that are predictable and well understood and they can be managed through established impact management methods. The class environmental assessment establishes a planning process for projects that fall within the class of undertakings, such as a municipal class environmental assessment for municipal infrastructure projects or a class environmental assessment for minor electricity transmission facilities. The majority of all class environmental assessments are undertaken by municipalities. A class environmental assessment is a proponent-led self-assessment process.

This means that a project that falls within the class of undertakings in a class environmental assessment is approved as long as the proponent successfully completes the approved planning process in the class environmental assessment. There is no formal Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks approval required for the class environmental assessment project. Let me assure you that any class environmental assessment requires public consultation and a comment period.

The current environmental assessment process requires a 30-day review period between when a class environmental assessment is completed and when the proponent may begin project activities. This 30-day period provides the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks with the opportunity to require the proponent to undertake a higher level of environmental assessment. For those 30 days, once a project has completed class EA requirements and there are no outstanding issues, the project cannot proceed. For 30 days, permits cannot be issued. The project cannot proceed, and everyone involved just waits until this 30-day period expires. In many cases, this is an unnecessary delay. In many cases, this is an unacceptable delay.

Just imagine a municipality waiting to begin a much-needed infrastructure project, like the building of a bridge or widening of a road critical to the lifeblood of their town. Imagine that municipality being ready and able to start a project at the beginning of August, wanting to get it under way and make progress while the weather is still warm. Then imagine that you are that municipality, and you are being told that, no, you’re going to have to wait 30 days, even though you’ve done an excellent job on your class environmental assessment and the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks has absolutely no reason or plans to require you to undertake a higher level of environmental assessment. You have to wait for no good reason but that you have to wait.

I cannot think of a better example—sorry, let’s say a worse example—of unnecessary red tape. This government, our government, is committed to cutting unnecessary and burdensome red tape which is preventing Ontario’s people and businesses from reaching their full potential. Over the last four years, this government, our government, has reduced the estimated net annual cost of complying with regulations for businesses, not-for-profits, municipalities, colleges and universities, school boards and hospitals by—listen closely now—$576 million. This achievement actually far exceeds the target we set in March 31, 2022, of $400 million. We’re ahead of schedule, and we’re going to stay that way.

But we’re not done. As part of our plan for building Ontario, we are continuing our efforts to reduce red tape, to help create jobs and make it easier to invest and build here in Ontario while ensuring appropriate regulatory oversights remain in place to protect the public, workers and the environment.

Currently, there is no ability for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to unilaterally waive the 30-day period, even if there is no intention or plan to intervene. It should be noted that the waiving of the 30-day period has previously occurred to move a road construction project forward more quickly, but to do so required a time-consuming Lieutenant Governor in Council regulation. In August of last year, a Lieutenant Governor in Council regulation exempted Bombardier Inc., in partnership with the city of Mississauga and the region of Peel, from the prohibition on proceeding with the Derry Road East and Alstep Drive road improvements during the 30-day period. This decision allowed Bombardier Inc. to proceed with road construction faster and not miss the construction season timing. How important was that? Construction was to begin in the fall of 2022, with the target completion date of spring of 2023.

If the amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act are made, in the future such an exemption could be provided through a minister’s order, avoiding the need for an LGIC regulation, avoiding the need for unnecessary delays in critical infrastructure projects with no outstanding issues—projects that are needed to keep Ontarians moving.

That is why today, our government is proposing a change to the Environmental Assessment Act to provide the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks with the ability to waive or alter the 30-day review period, allowing those important projects to begin sooner. Class environmental assessment proponents, including municipalities, that have completed the relevant process would directly benefit if their projects are able to get shovels in the ground sooner.

Let me assure you, Speaker, that the changes we are proposing today would not reduce environmental oversight. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks remains committed to maintaining oversight for projects that may significantly impact our communities and ecosystems.

I hope I’ve fully explained the amendments this government is proposing here today to the Environmental Assessment Act as part of the proposal for Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act (Infrastructure Statute Law Amendments), 2023. I’m asking for the support of all members of the Legislature in helping to pass this bill, a bill that would eliminate unnecessary red tape, a bill that would be welcomed by municipalities and other proponents looking to provide much-needed infrastructure in our province, a bill that will help build Ontario.

That is the information I’m providing today from my ministry, the ministry that I’m the PA to. I’m proud to be here this morning to bring that clarification and that message from my minister, the Honourable David Piccini.

Now, I do have some time left—a fair bit of time, actually—and I do want to comment somewhat on the address of the Minister of Infrastructure this morning, too. I’m going to tidy up these papers a little bit. It’s the first time I’ve ever had papers given to me that are written on both sides and I actually find that a little cumbersome, to be honest with you. My eyes aren’t that good that I can read the page numbers that are really, really small at the bottom. But somehow we got through it, and I hope the message was understood and clear.

Speaking of a clear message—I want to thank the minister this morning for her message explaining why we are bringing forth this legislation. It is so much completely tied in and dovetails with our plan for Ontario. But we can’t make that kind of progress if we aren’t bringing forth the kind of legislation that provides for the vehicle to get it done. She has touched on so many entities that will be impacted and affected, even the changes with real estate and the inefficiencies that exist because government is complicated.

I get back to my riding, where people say, “Why do things have to be so complicated?” And that’s exactly what they are. But from the time that Premier Ford was running in the 2018 provincial election—he was not the Premier yet, of course—he made it clear that we’re going to make life in Ontario less complicated. Because we are in a worldwide battle, a worldwide battle to bring jobs and businesses and manufacturing back to Ontario.

You have to remember—and for those of us who were here, like myself, years ago, we saw the devastation that was brought to Ontario by the previous Liberal government in our manufacturing sector. I know my friend from Essex understands it as well as anybody because that’s one of the areas in the province where manufacturing is such a key component of their Ontario. We saw literally the hollowing out of our sector because the Liberals had no interest in getting a board in the game of real life in the world we live in today. So while other jurisdictions were taking our jobs away, they sat there kind of dumbfounded and thought that somehow the tooth fairy would come along, they would have a tooth and a wish under the pillow and everything would be fine in Ontario. But it didn’t happen. It just didn’t happen.

We saw 300,000 jobs—remember: These are the well-paying jobs in Ontario. The manufacturing jobs are the ones where people say, “Boy, I hope I can get a job at factory XYZ or whatever, because that’s a job that is going to provide me with a good living to raise my family and have a good retirement when I’m done, and be a good part of the middle class.” But those jobs were disappearing, and do you know what happens when those jobs disappear? So do the people. The people who wanted those jobs and could be benefited by those jobs start to find other places to live and work and raise a family, because you’ve got to go where the jobs are. So we’re sending a message out to the world today: Come on home. Come on home to Ontario, where you belong and where you always did belong, because we are now building the Ontario that works for you. That is what were doing here in Ontario, and I’m so proud to part of this team that is laser-focused.

There are many, many things that you have to do in government. Some of them are the mundane things of just operating the business as usual, making sure that people have the necessary supports that are important in a society such as ours. They’re kind of the day-to-day things. We’ve got to make sure that the Treasury Board can cut the cheques and pay the bills and all of those kinds of things. But if you’re really, truly going to face the future, you better be looking into that looking glass and getting an idea of what the future is going to look like so you’re actually in the game when the future arrives, because tomorrow is just a day away. Tomorrow is just a day away, and if you want to live in yesterday, then tomorrow is going to pass you by. That’s not going to happen in Ontario under our leadership.

The minister talked about the things that we’re doing to support families, and I just wrote a few of them down here. The gas tax cut: You know, the folks on the other side didn’t like that. They didn’t think we should be doing that, but on June 2, Ontario thought we should be doing that. Because we took our budget—Minister Bethlenfalvy brought forth the budget last year, and we took it to the people, and the people gave it a resounding—not just a pass; it was an honours pass. They didn’t just re-elect us; they re-elected us with a higher number of seats than before, one of the biggest Conservative seat totals in history. And the opposition, on the other hand, lost seats. They lost seats because they wanted to campaign on yesterday. Premier Ford campaigned on tomorrow.

We saw what was happening across the country with the federal government and their punitive carbon tax. It is hurting every single family across the province. And we said, “We’ve got to do something that will help them.” So we’re cutting the gas tax, but at the same time we are making historic investments in infrastructure, hospitals, schools. What did I hear the Premier say yesterday? There’s $50 billion in hospital projects on schedule in this province, approved and ready to go—$50 billion in hospital projects in this province. And do you know what you need to build hospitals?

Back to the minister: There is no evidence whatsoever that giving a big corporate developer a tax break will lower the cost of buying a home. There’s no evidence whatsoever, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, AMO estimates that municipalities are on track to lose $5.1 billion in development fee revenues because of Bill 23. AMO presented to us at finance committee. This is revenue that is earmarked to pay for affordable housing, for transit, for sewage and parks—services that make our towns and cities great places to live.

Minister, it’s budget season. What exactly is your plan to help municipalities pay for the infrastructure needed to help our towns and cities grow?

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.

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?

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?

Oh, I know—all the time.

Recommendation 2: “We recommend that Infrastructure Ontario obtain sufficient procurement data from external capital project managers, including all bids, change orders and bid evaluations.” That’s not in this bill.

Recommendation 3: “In order to ensure the fair and economical procurement of project contractors, we recommend that Infrastructure Ontario obtain sufficient information on procurements conducted by external project managers, and analyze this information to determine whether there are any trends that suggest non-cost-effective procurement practices and ... implement its planned controls over external project managers.” It goes on—not in this bill.

There’s a section: “Ineffective measures to hold external project managers accountable for controlling costs and time to complete projects.” Why aren’t you reining them in? This is about efficiencies?

Interjections.

So in the last little bit of time here, I’m going to read this section, because this is what my concern is about these 14 agencies whose properties are being transferred to the Minister of Infrastructure. If they’re going to find themselves at the mercy of the same operating and maintenance services as being provided by these contracted-out project managers or the contracted-out services, I feel badly for them if this hasn’t been remedied.

Again, from the Auditor General’s report, these are just some client ministries. These are your ministries, okay? These are not random folks.

“Client ministries’ written comments on operating and maintenance services....

“‘We have also found that new contracts for cleaning, snow removal, etc. are tendered by [the external property and land manager] and services have been removed or frequency of services have been changed. We have no input in these changes and in some instances the [external property and land manager’s] on-site maintenance staff are not even made aware of the change. For instance I noticed that the parking area (at one building) was not being cleaned as it normally was and I mentioned it to [the external property and land manager] after some time [it] told me that the cleaning of the parking garage was removed from the last parking contract. After many months they have hired the building cleaning company on a separate contract to clean the garage.’”

Again, we’re in the weeds here, but folks have a job to do. The government is navigating these contracts. It’s contracted out, and nobody is paying attention. What kind of management is that? And now you’ve got 14 new agencies who get to be a part of this management family? I wonder how they will feel.

Another client ministry said, “‘[Regarding] interior cleaning, [we] have yet to see a schedule of what is done where/when even though we have asked a number of times.”

Here’s another one. They used to have an agreement in the early 2000s “‘that detailed all the services for the building and who had the responsibilities to perform those services.... Currently, occupancy agreements provided to [our ministry] do not identify individual buildings or provide specific details of services provided for them. We no longer have a quick reference document that can confirm what services are provided for ministry-occupied buildings, and must contact IO ... or their service provider to get those details. If we request a copy of a lease from IO, typically only a portion of the applicable segment of the agreement is provided. If we request a copy of a service contract, IO does not provide a copy, only some details as they deem relevant. This can be an issue as illustrated in a very recent example. [Our ministry] questioned the cleaning services being provided to another building. [Our ministry] was initially told by IO that certain services were not part of the cleaning contract, and [we] acquired a third-party vendor to perform those services. It was recently discovered, after much persistence on [our] part for IO to verify the contract, that those services were in fact included in the original contract. [Our ministry] has been paying twice and we are now in the process of rectifying this issue and hoping to be reimbursed for the error. We have estimated that we paid approximately $16,000 unnecessarily over the last five years.’”

Just another day in Infrastructure Ontario’s management portfolio.

Speaker, recognizing that we are coming to the end of an hour—and I appreciate that when I said, “How am I supposed to fill an hour?” my party whip said, “Oh, you can fill an hour.” Yep, I guess so.

I’ll distill it down here: We have a bill in front of us that I’m surprised they have brought forward as its own stand-alone bill. Normally, we see these types of amendments or schedules put into a larger government bill. But as I said, this sort of solves a problem I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s been a day and a half; I’m trying to understand what motivates them, and hearing things like “efficiencies” and “holistic,” whatever—that doesn’t mean anything to the folks who go to work every day in one of those properties. What will it mean for them? I guess I would like to know, what is the end goal? Is this a part of the story of improving things as per the 14 recommendations of the Auditor General for the real estate services portfolio?

And when it comes to the class environmental assessment, that 30-day waiting period, we’re holding our breath about how often that will be used. This government’s track record on how it treats public input and consultation on the environment is poor. I would say the public is treated with disdain, frankly, and often so is the environment. Perhaps the government can take today’s debate as an opportunity to walk us through how the environment will continue to be protected and how this piece of legislation, indeed, will not just reduce efficiencies but make the world a better place, because I don’t see it.

I don’t know. I can’t answer that. How? How does this do those things? Walk me through it.

There’s no way that the Auditor General, given the 2014 report, would recommend that Infrastructure Ontario take more responsibility for 14 other agencies. It does lend a question: What is the motivation here?

One can only think of what’s happening at Ontario Place. Now, Ontario Place is one of those cultural, iconic places in Toronto. It is one of those special places that brings people together. The government of Ontario owns it, and yet they have contracted out, just as IO will end up doing, to a couple of agencies that have determined that a spa will celebrate the original vision of Ontario Place; that it will be a destination for all Ontarians, a spa; be a vibrant waterfront and open space, a spa; achieve environmental resilience and sustainability—a spa.

Does the member from Oshawa have any concerns that this opens the door to removing that layer of accountability and oversight on these important infrastructure projects?

I’m pleased to rise today to speak about Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, 2023, that would, if passed, make amendments to the Ministry of Infrastructure Act, 2011, and complementary amendments to nine other acts, and amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act.

Madam Speaker, the people of this province re-elected our government to build Ontario now and for generations to come. They are expecting us to be fiscally prudent by making smarter and more effective decisions, while also respecting how tax dollars are being spent, and, of course, by cutting red tape by removing and modernizing outdated regulations.

That’s why our government is taking the necessary steps to unlock our province’s economic potential, deliver better jobs, and provide cost savings for families and businesses across Ontario. We have already made significant progress. For example, we have unlocked thousands of cost savings for taxpayers and businesses; we have seen thousands of more people trained for rewarding careers in the skilled trades. We are also delivering one of the most ambitious infrastructure plans with a historic investment of more than $159 billion for over 10 years. Our government was re-elected on a promise to protect and grow Ontario’s economy and build our communities so that the people of this province are supported, and we are delivering.

Our government has a plan, and that’s why I’m proud to rise in the House today and speak to our government’s Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, 2023. If passed, our proposed measures would help cut red tape, enhance fiscal management, boost the economy and save taxpayers money. We are practising good governance for the people of this province, and this bill we are proposing contains two initiatives.

The first proposed initiative would better maintain and better manage real estate. If passed, this legislation would establish a framework to modify the real estate authority of 14 entities and provide the Minister of Infrastructure with control over real estate previously under the control of the prescribed entities.

Madam Speaker, each of these 14 entities has a critical role in health, in well-being and economic prosperity of Ontario. Their work impacts many different sectors that people in our province depend on daily, from schools to businesses, health care, the digital sector, human rights, equity, the skilled trades, arts, media, tourism, agriculture, fire safety and so many. We know that the past several years have brought significant challenge to each of these industries, yet members within each of these entities have shown great leadership and adapted to keep their work, programs and services moving forward.

If passed, this legislation would create a framework to centralize the real estate authority of these entities, which would reduce red tape and create a more efficient process so these entities can better support the people of Ontario.

These 14 entities would also be able to leverage the government’s realty model for office space. This model was developed to support the government’s commitment to plan and manage provincial real estate assets to ensure consistent, efficient and sustainable realty services across the entire general office realty portfolio.

The expected outcome would be a better managed government office realty portfolio that provides a responsive client service, provides strategic real estate decision-making and reduces red tape, optimizes existing funds and real estate and reinvests savings to address the market inflation, capital repair and rehabilitation.

Bill 69, if passed, would amend the Ministry of Infrastructure Act, 2011, and nine other acts, including the AgriCorp Act, 1996; Arts Council Act; Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021; Capital Investment Plan Act, 1993; Education Quality and Accountability Office Act, 1996; Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario Act, 2016; Fire Protection and Prevention Act, 1997; Human Rights Code; Securities Commission Act, 2021.

Madam Speaker, I want to emphasize that real estate is one of our government’s greatest resources, but currently, accountability for this portfolio is highly distributed among many entities. Each of these entities have individual processes and protocols for decisions and for transactions. Our proposed initiative is the first step in allowing our government to increase operating efficiency. It would also support our objective to act as one holistic organization when it comes to overseeing and managing the real estate portfolio of ministries and entities.

Since 2020, the Ministry of Infrastructure has consulted with key stakeholders, including the 14 entities and their eight oversight ministries. The oversight ministries of these 14 entities support our initiative of acting as a more holistic organization. That’s because these changes would help reduce duplication and will help reduce the burdens for ministries, entities and our government.

We are confident that this bill, if passed, would help ensure that real estate expertise within our government is being leveraged and that decisions are made strategically so we can continue to make the smart strategic decisions and investments that people across this province deserve and need.

The second initiative within this bill will help reduce delays with changes to the Environmental Assessment Act while ensuring continued environmental oversight of class environmental assessment projects.

This proposed legislation, if passed, would allow the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, on a project-specific basis, to alter or waive the 30-day waiting period for class environmental assessment projects. This would bring our government one step closer to modernizing an almost 50-year-old environmental process that is slow, costly and burdensome, without compromising environmental standards and protections.

Madam Speaker, I really want to highlight this portion here: without any compromise in terms of environmental standards and protections.

Our people and businesses across the province face red tape and regulatory barriers, and we are focused on easing those burdens and making Ontario better—better for people by assessing and modernizing important regulations, and better for businesses by removing unnecessary processes that hold them back. By providing new and innovative solutions, we continue to improve quality of life across the province.

The proposed measures in this bill include concrete action that would provide lasting solutions. For example:

—increasing operating efficiencies by implementing a more structured and effective way to manage real estate;

—ensuring our government can better align our policies to enhance government-wide decision-making capabilities through using a more centralized, holistic approach;

—reducing regulatory burden for certain class environmental assessment projects to help get projects built faster; and

—saving time and money that could be spent on other projects that matter most to the people in our province.

The benefits of a more centralized decision-making real estate model, in addition to our amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act, are very, very clear. I’m proud to say that this is part of our government’s promise to make life better for the people of Ontario. That’s why we are consistently taking action to develop new, flexible, innovative and responsible plans to navigate new challenges and build Ontario for the future.

That includes rethinking and modernizing our approach to managing and making decisions about our real estate portfolio. For example, our government is looking at new ways to assess and upcycle real estate properties that sit unused and empty, to better meet the needs of our province. We are doing this by implementing a more efficient process to identify buildings and properties that are no longer needed to deliver programs and assess them for economic and social-purpose opportunities. By revitalizing surplus government properties, we are saving taxpayers’ money while building stronger communities and increasing our potential to deliver more services. We’re also working to distribute a great portion of the agency workforce across the province and boost economic growth in these communities.

Our government has heard very loud and clear from businesses and workers that they expect more from our government, which is why we took action to drive this change. Just last year, we announced that our government is working with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in planning the relocation of its Toronto-based head office to London. This is part of our government’s Community Jobs Initiative, which aims to distribute the greater portion of the provincial agency workforce across the province to foster economic growth in these communities. This initiative expands, relocates and grows agencies’ presence in communities across Ontario so more people have access to high-quality jobs.

We have made it clear our government will take action for the people of Ontario. We will get shovels in the ground to build highways, to build hospitals, transit and other key projects that will boost our economy and improve our day-to-day lives. This is part of our plan to build Ontario. We are also working to ensure our communities are able to access faster and more reliable and seamless transit. Ontario is seizing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build vibrant, mixed-use communities across transit stations across the greater Golden Horseshoe. These transit-oriented communities, also known as TOCs, will improve transit access and bring more housing, jobs, retail and public amenities within the short distance of transit.

We are also redeveloping Ontario Place into a world-class year-round destination with family entertainment, parkland, waterfront access and more. Repair work has already started on the iconic Cinesphere, Pod complex and bridges. This spring, we expect to begin construction to bring the site services up to modern standards including water, sewer, gas and electrical systems. It has been an entire decade since Ontario Place closed its attractions, and our development project will create a beautiful and cohesive landscape across the site that will integrate the improved areas with enhanced parkland and public space. With our investments, Ontario Place will be a destination where families near and far can come together to create lifelong memories.

These projects are just a few examples of how we are investing in infrastructure for the people of Ontario. Our government has always been open and transparent with the people of Ontario. And we know that these are challenging times. But by working harder, smarter and more efficiently, we are continuing to build on our previous commitments. We are continuing to explore ways to improve quality of life for the people of Ontario. That’s why every day, in every corner of our province, our government is getting the job done.

Modernizing government process and oversight, reducing regulatory burden and saving taxpayers’ dollars through improved efficiency measures like the ones we are proposing today are key to building Ontario. It is key to strengthening communities and ensuring our prosperity today and for many years in the future. Together with the initiative from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, this bill, if passed, would cut red tape. Madam Speaker, the changes that our government is bringing forward would help build Ontario’s economy and prosperity.

I will now turn it over to parliamentary assistant Amarjot Sandhu to talk more about the proposed legislation and Ontario’s plan to build.

Thank you to the member for Oshawa for her comments. There was a lot of, “I don’t know if you guys do this”—and then a drive-by smear, if you will, of the government.

One of the things she said which I just want to get on the record is that she doesn’t know if we consult with municipalities. I can tell you that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has set up regular meetings with municipalities all through our last term of government. He has probably done it more than any other minister, ever.

The member did say—and I was listening intently—that she doesn’t want us to be sending things to consultants and finance experts all the time and that she has more faith in government. This legislation, if passed, would modify the real estate authority of the 14 entities and provide the Minister of Infrastructure with the ability to oversee and manage.

So I think, based on what you said, you should support this legislation. Am I right?

When it comes to oversight or accountability, transparency, I have a lot of concerns, as most Ontarians do, around these big infrastructure projects. When the government keeps shoving them into that P3 closet where we don’t have an opportunity to know what’s going on in there, we just have to wait until it gets handed back and if it gets handed back with the delays and the costs.

We’ve seen that as being part of this government’s approach, so everything they have been doing is kind of like handed away from government to a contracted service provider or consortium or a bunch of financiers. I’m sure they know better than government. I actually have more faith in the ministry workers, frankly, a lot more than it would seem this government does.

Do I have concerns? Yes. I don’t think this government has the same definition of “accountability” or “transparency” that the rest of Ontarians do.

I don’t know that any government member should be asking questions about accessing clean drinking water. They have a responsibility where that’s concerned. But I will answer the question that he asked about “do I understand?” Yes. This is about the minister taking the adequate time to consider the comments. As I said earlier, if there is a big project and municipalities and all folks are rowing in the same direction and there aren’t the community comments, the minister does have the opportunity to go to cabinet if, in this case, he wants to make things go faster. That’s what has happened in a case that the PA mentioned earlier. Do I want the minister to thoughtfully consider any of those comments—it’s a chance to consider them? I do.

On a case-by-case basis, then make the case, don’t write a blank cheque. People in Ontario don’t—

On page 10 of their task force report, they said, “No, we can do this without the greenbelt.”

The government’s own words had the criteria that in order for land to be even taken out of the greenbelt, it had to meet those criteria—and one of them was about it being serviced or adjacent to service. I know, in Durham, they don’t meet that criteria. According to the government, they have said, “If it doesn’t meet the criteria, it will be returned to the greenbelt.” So if I trusted them, I would know that land like that, like in Durham region, would be returned to the greenbelt. Feel free to prove me wrong.

I don’t know what else she asked. She can ask again.

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?

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.

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—