It’s always an honour to be able to stand in this House—I believe it’s the first time since the break that I’ve been able to speak—and to start the debate, or my portion of the debate, on Bill 63, An Act respecting the adjustment of the boundary between the City of St. Thomas and the Municipality of Central Elgin.

I listened all day to the debate, particularly to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, but before I talk about what’s inside the bill, I’d like to talk just for a few minutes, in my role as House leader, about the process of the bill. The bill was dropped yesterday in the House—fine. That’s the first time we saw it. Then, last night, it’s up for debate. I don’t know how long the government has been looking at it. I take it that they’ve been looking at this for a long time, and I appreciate that, but in my years of business, when you’re burned a couple times, you get shy.

If you’ll remember, a bill went through this House that you needed to use the “notwithstanding” clause to get something done, and you clapped and you hit each other on the back. You were so happy. And this had to be done right away. And a week later—it was the shortest life in history; it was the Men in Black bill—you rescinded the whole thing. It had to go so quickly.

If you will remember another bill, a bill about broadband, which I completely supported except for the middle part that had the MZO in—the minister of the crown at the time, when I asked him a question, said, “Well, if you don’t like that part, just rip it out and pretend it’s not there.” Now, in my personal career in business, if somebody did that to me twice, you know what? I wouldn’t do business with them the third time, and I think every business person here would have the same opinion. So forgive us if we’re a bit reluctant, when it’s dropped, no briefing—so we’re expected now to debate this bill. And it’s our job as the official opposition, yes, to be critical, but also we are proud Ontarians. We want this province to move forward just as much as you do, believe it or not—just as much. The government can’t even produce a briefing before this bill is likely going to get to second reading. So I hope with the businesses you’re working with to secure these contracts, that you know how to do business with them better than you know how to do the business in this House, honestly.

It is really hard to do that. It’s really hard. And notwithstanding that, when you get a bill—and I will give credit where credit is due on this bill. At least this bill is on one subject, right? We’ve had a few hours to look through it, haven’t even had a full day, and it’s on one subject.

So the first thing we do is you have to look for the poison pill in the few hours we’re getting, and when you only get a few hours, you get suspicious right away, right? The bill is dropped, and then the next day, a full day of debate. Well, then you get suspicious: What are we missing. What are we missing? That’s where it starts. So forgive us for being critical and a bit less than trusting of what the government is reporting. That’s where we’re starting from.

And just for future reference, if the way—and I’m going to sound like I’ve been here way too long, and maybe I have; there are lots of people trying to end that. In days of yore, a bill could drop and you might have a week or two weeks to be able to do your research, to call the people who were involved in the bill, so you could actually have a fulsome debate. That hasn’t occurred with this government, and it also hurts this government. It hurts your government because if you think that when you have to rescind a bill after a week—if you think that was a proud moment, then you are sadly mistaken, sadly mistaken. Every one of you could have stood in your place and said, “Oh, no, no. We shouldn’t do the ‘notwithstanding’ clause,” and you sat—oh no, you didn’t. You cheered, until a week later, I didn’t see any cheering. And that’s hurting yourself. And I—

I listened intently to the Minister of Municipal Affairs this morning, a minister who I try to work with. I don’t agree with everything philosophically; often we disagree philosophically, but he’s a good minister to work with.

Coming from municipal government, as many of us do, his explanation of having a big project—and this is a mega-site for, obviously, a big project; we don’t know what exactly. And I fully understand that in business there are certain commercial things we can’t make public. I also understand, as a business, you want to deal with one municipality. As a former councillor, I understand that. That makes perfect sense to me. That explanation I don’t have a problem with. You want a business, regardless of size, but the bigger they get—they want to be able to deal with one municipality. If you’re dealing with rules—and I always go back to my own personal business; I had farms in a couple of townships, and even that was difficult sometimes. So I can only imagine what it is like when you’re dealing with a huge business.

One part, as a farmer, and as someone who is very conscious of loss of agricultural land—there will be some loss of agricultural land here, and that is somewhat contentious. But as you will recall, the official opposition, under my name—we proposed something called an agri-cultural impact assessment. The government voted against it and said it was too much red tape. But I would put forward, just in my mind, how this would have worked on this project—yes, there’s going to be agricultural land lost, but there is also, on one side, a huge benefit. So is there a bigger benefit for this project as a whole compared to the production capacity that’s lost? And I think I don’t have purview to everything that we’re looking at, but the proximity to the 401, the proximity to the town, the size of the project, the land that is needed, in my mind, the way I would see that process going, it wouldn’t take years, it wouldn’t take—it would—well, click, click, click, yes.

So there is going to be some opposition regarding the loss of land, but I think that the benefits of this project, if it is for batteries for electric vehicles—we all know where the car manufacturing sector is going. We all want the car manufacturing sector to succeed, regardless of where we are in the province.