Further debate?

Thank you for your excellent presentation.

Since we are talking about justice and there are elements of justice being dealt with in this bill, I just want to bring back an issue that was talked about a lot in the last session.

Do you believe that if the government is contemplating justice, we need to talk about repealing the cuts to legal aid? Do you believe, in this system, that there is pure access to justice in a way that’s accessible to all, or do you still believe that there are barriers? If we’re talking about justice, shouldn’t we be talking about some of that stuff too?

My thanks to the excellent member for London–Fanshawe for her participation. I always value her concise and yet insightful approach to debate and the ability that she has to contribute in a meaningful way. I appreciated the remarks that she made this afternoon. I know that in the role of opposition, it’s important to always look at the legislation before you with that critical eye and provide that accountability, and I respect that.

I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit about the importance of carbon sequestration in achieving our climate goals, and ensuring that we’re reducing carbon here in the province of Ontario and are able to also reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit about those changes and how important that is as Ontario seeks to make changes that will ensure future generations have a clean and safe environment to enjoy.

We’ll move to questions.

I don’t know what’s creaking.

I think that really makes a difference. When Bill 124 has been repealed, I think they’re going to feel better about what they do.

With that, I’m going to conclude my debate. I look forward to questions and comments.

The fact that the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act is in here, in schedule 5, and then the Ontario Energy Board Act, under schedule 6—as far as I’ve heard, I haven’t heard a lot of analytical pieces to it; we’re still waiting on the climate change experts we consult with. We are waiting to see what comes out of that. The government has had many turbulent decisions around climate change. Hopefully, when we get that feedback, a little more expertise, we’ll be able to see that that is in the right direction.

Reinstating the funding to legal aid is going to help the system function better. I don’t know about other members, but I suspect that they get calls all the time from people who are desperate for justice. Legal aid is so busy that they’re actually triaging people and having to turn them away or delay their access. They have a deadline in court, and that isn’t helpful. So reinstating that funding is crucial for low-income people who are in vulnerable situations.

Today is Wrapped in Courage—we know that a lot of women who earn a low income are seeking justice for various reasons, and one is, of course, family matters.

When you can’t afford the cost of the courts, which is astronomical—you don’t want to go there if you don’t have to. Having legal aid supports is extremely important for vulnerable populations.

It’s an honour to rise in the House this afternoon to speak in support of Bill 46, Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, introduced by the Minister of Red Tape Reduction. I want to thank him and his team for their work on this bill. I’d like to share my time today with the member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

As you know, Speaker, the previous Liberal government doubled the number of provincial regulations, adding over 10,000 new regulations every year. That’s an average of 30 new regulations every day for 15 years. Four years ago, when we formed government, we inherited the largest red tape burden in Canada. This red tape added over $33,000 in the costs per company, far higher than most other provinces. We lost 350,000 manufacturing jobs because Ontario wasn’t competitive for business.

As the Minister of Economic Development said last week, Sergio Marchionne told Premier Wynne that her policies were putting Ontario at a disadvantage. I met with Frank Stronach recently, who told me that he told her the same thing. Last week, he wrote in the National Post about the ongoing problem of regulations that do nothing to serve the public interest, while creating costs and frustration for both producers and consumers.

We have passed eight red tape reduction bills since 2018, including over 400 actions to reduce red tape. As the minister said, these were common-sense changes to save time and money while still protecting health, safety and the environment. So far, these bills have reduced costs by over $576 million every year for businesses, non-profit organizations and the broader public sector, including municipalities, school boards, colleges, universities and hospitals. The results are clear: Ontario is the economic engine of Canada once again, with one of the fastest-growing economies in North America. In the last two years, we have attracted over $16 billion of investment in the auto sector alone, including over $11 billion for the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries. And this is only the beginning.

I want to take a moment to thank Andrew Dempsey, Doug Grodecki and Mohamad El Mahmoud, senior executives at Stackpole International, for taking me on a tour of their facilities in Mississauga–Lakeshore on Friday. Speaker, Stackpole is a top-three global parts supplier for hybrid and electric vehicles, and, like many others, now they’re looking to invest and expand their foot-print in Ontario. If passed, Bill 46 would build on this record of success, with 28 new initiatives to make Ontario more competitive and to make our supply chains stronger and more secure.

One of this government’s first bills four years ago was the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act. This policy would have cost Ontario consumers and businesses billions of dollars every year. But the Auditor General reports the previous government never confirmed that this would actually reduce carbon emissions. In 2016, the Auditor General reported, “These funds may be leaving Ontario’s economy for no purpose other than to help the government claim it has met” its targets. As Frank Stronach said, this would do “nothing to serve the public interest.”

In contrast, carbon capture and storage technology is already being used to capture over 40 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, including four megatonnes in Canada, but mostly in Alberta and Saskatchewan. If passed, schedule 5 of Bill 46 would amend the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act to move towards a regulatory framework for carbon capture technology in Ontario. It would provide clarity to the industry and encourage innovation to qualify for the federal government’s $2.6-billion carbon capture and storage tax credit introduced earlier this year in the 2022 federal budget. We know this will have an important role in meeting Ontario and Canada’s climate targets.

Dennis Darby, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, reports that, in a survey earlier this year, manufacturers ranked investment in carbon capture technology as a top priority to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

If passed, schedule 6 of Bill 46 would also amend the Ontario Energy Board Act to exempt consumer-funded transmission lines from certain OEB approval requirements. And as we compete with other provinces and states for investments across the electric vehicle supply chain, this change will help to reduce legal costs and make Ontario more competitive.

Mr. Darby said, “We’re pleased that the province continues to listen to our concerns, and put measures in place that increase regulatory certainty to achieve a cost-effective energy transition and help manufacturers grow.”

Speaker, last week, I met with Thomas Barakat and his team from the Ontario Good Roads association about asset management and environmental best practices. For example, each spring in Ontario, our roads are weakened by excessive water during the annual spring thaw. Pavement reductions are up to 70% greater in the spring than any other season. This means the same axle can cause up to eight times more damage to the roads in the spring than any other time of the year. For this reason, the Highway Traffic Act allows municipalities to reduce vehicle axle weight limits in the spring. However, the restrictions needed and the time period they’ve needed depend on the region and the road conditions each year.

I’m glad to hear that the Ministry of Transportation is working in partnership with the Ontario Good Roads association on prediction models that will allow municipalities to reduce these restrictions when conditions allow. This will improve and strengthen our supply chains in the auto sector, in agricultural trucking and right across our economy while protecting road infrastructure.

Earlier this year, in March, the Minister of Government and Consumer Services, now the chief government whip, announced the Building Ontario Business Initiative to strengthen Ontario’s supply chains and to provide Ontario companies with greater access to the public procurement operations through Supply Ontario, which is now part of the Treasury Board. The government has set a target awarding $3 billion in contracts per year to Ontario businesses by 2026 to help drive growth and job creation.

Again, if passed, Bill 46 would help build on this progress. For example, as the minister said, the Ministry of Transportation is now reviewing the use of corporate performance rating to evaluate bids for engineering services. In practice, CPR tends to creep upwards, and the rates cluster together, with little or no distinction between high and low performance.

Some members will remember a case under the previous Liberal government that was highlighted by the Auditor General in 2016. A contractor installed a truss upside-down on the pedestrian bridge on Highway 401 in Pickering. The contractor’s performance was so poor, Metrolinx had to take over and manage the $19-million project. And yet the Auditor General wrote, “Although Metrolinx was aware of this contractor’s lack of experience, its poor work ethic, and its unwillingness to improve performance,” this same contractor was awarded the contract for the second phase of the project. It then built a stairway incorrectly and caused $1 million of damage. Metrolinx terminated this contract too, but later awarded the same contractor another, even larger, project valued at $39 million.

Speaker, as the minister said, giving less weight to CPR would help make the procurement process simpler to administrate, fairer for everyone and, most importantly, it would help ensure value for taxpayers’ dollars.

To conclude, again, I want to thank the minister and his team for this work on another important bill that will improve Ontario’s competitiveness, strengthen our local supply chain and make government services easier to access. I would urge all members to join me in voting for Bill 46.

Thank you, and now I will share my time again with the member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

The next question.

We don’t have time for other questions, so we’ll go to further debate.

Thank you, member from London–Fanshawe, for your presentation. I always like the different perspectives that you bring to this House.

Cutting red tape across government has many benefits. It’s making interaction with the government easier, to reduce our dependency on postage, and it is improving the environment by reducing our dependency on paper.

Why does the opposition continually vote against all of our red tape reduction measures and the many benefits they have for the people of Ontario?

Thank you for that question.

I mentioned earlier that I worked in the insurance industry before I came here, and we analyze everything ad nauseam and always look for details. Anywhere you can make things work better—if there’s a cost savings, of course, that’s going to improve people’s lives.

I think the member said $500 million—I’m not sure what number he used. That savings—

Of course, we all know that if you don’t get the help you need, you get worse; your quality of life and health deteriorates. It’s hard enough to get home care to come and help. So upfront investments that prevent people from waiting years go a long way and actually save the health care system money.

I said earlier today that a person has been waiting since 2016 for a doctor, and that’s just unspeakable—I don’t even have words. That’s what we’re doing here in Ontario.

So I hope the government can do better when it comes to wait times for all areas, including access to primary care doctors.

For me, coming from the insurance industry, where we had files upon files, I tell you, that’s the best system for me—when it’s reliability—but that doesn’t mean the absence of the electronic and saving costs. As you can see, I always come prepared with paper, just in case my laptop doesn’t work, just in case the Internet goes down. It is a cost-saving measure that needs to be addressed. Most of the time, it’s very reliable. But when you work in insurance and you’ve got an insurance background, you’re always making sure that there’s not something around the corner that you can’t prevent. So I do appreciate that we need to be online, but that’s just my way of working.

I want to thank my colleague from London–Fanshawe for her debate on this bill.

It’s interesting that the government’s question was related to justice. I just want to put it out there, for those in the House who haven’t heard the news, that Bill 124, which was a direct attack on our front-line health care workers, has been deemed unconstitutional by the courts. When we’re talking about access to justice, we know this government has gone to court several times, fighting bills that have been unconstitutional. They certainly keep the lawyers in this province busy, but they do not necessarily take care of the people in this province.

I’d like the member from London–Fanshawe to talk a little bit more about access to health care and the delays that people are seeing in getting surgeries.

Some people might think that waiting a year or two years to get a hip replacement or a knee replacement isn’t that big of a deal, but I know, from hearing from my constituents and knowing people who have had to have those replacements done, that it is indeed incredibly painful, and oftentimes they can’t function until they get that surgery done.

Could the member from London–Fanshawe talk about how we’re seeing issues with people being able to access health care and what we might be able to do to fix that?

I’m honoured to rise to speak on the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2022. Most of my comments will be regarding the impact the bill will have on small business and the business community in general. As many know, I’m a proud small business owner myself, employing hundreds over the years.

Speaker, red tape causes delays and complication every day for governments, businesses, not-for-profit organizations, the broader public sector and individuals alike. Over my many years in business, I have run into too many instances of red tape slowing down processes. Not only can it be frustrating, but also time-consuming. It is a significant barrier to productivity, economic competitiveness and development. Red tape drains valuable resources and takes focus away from doing business.

Our government has heard these complaints from everyone, whether it is individuals, businesses or in the media. We need to quickly act to keep Ontario competitive with other regions in Canada and throughout the world.

One of our government’s top priorities since 2018 has been to remove unnecessary and outdated regulations that are holding businesses back. We’ve made great progress so far, but there is still more work to be done. Over the past five years, our government has reduced Ontario’s total regulatory compliance requirements by 6.5%. In addition, we have saved over $576 million in regulatory compliance costs since June 2018. Those savings have directly helped not-for-profit organizations, municipalities, businesses, school boards, colleges and universities and hospitals. The progress has been achieved through common sense. The changes save both time and money, Speaker. The government has passed eight high-impact pieces of red tape reduction legislation since 2018.

Speaker, there is much more work to be done. Ontario’s people and businesses are facing big challenges. On top of everyday difficulties, there are supply chain disruptions that have been made much worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. My business has felt many of these supply chain issues, and they still persist two and a half years into the pandemic.

Every business owner I have spoken with in my travels throughout Stormont, Dundas and South Glengarry has felt the immense impact and stress of the supply chain disruptions on their business and relationships with their family. In fact, two thirds of Ontario businesses report that supply challenges have gotten worse this year.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen huge shifts in demand as the habits of people and businesses have changed, often suddenly, putting even more pressure on a fractured supply chain. On top of that, there are ongoing labour shortages that are impacting day-to-day life in Ontario’s economy, especially in consumer goods and the food service industries, which my business is in. More than one third of businesses say that labour shortages will limit their growth.

We know that government can play a supportive role to ensure that businesses develop well-functioning supply chains and solve challenges like what we’re seeing with the labour market at this time. There are more things our government can do to cut red tape. Through consultation with stakeholders, we’ve been creating an inventory of ideas that are continually being assessed and that are driving current and future actions.

The Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2022, is our ninth burden reduction bill since 2018 to cut more red tape. Our intentions are to:

—strengthen Ontario’s supply chain;

—support farmers and agribusinesses;

—grow our labour force;

—make life easier for people and businesses by making it easier to interact with the government; and

—ensure Ontario remains competitive in the global market.

The Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2022, outlines a series of proposed legislative and regulatory changes as well as policy announcements we intend to make moving forward to achieve these objectives. The bill, if passed, will streamline processes and modernize outdated practices across multiple areas of government and multiple sectors of Ontario’s economy.

This proposed legislation will lead Ontario to more economic certainty, confidence and stability, something every business owner would welcome in these uncertain times. It will help to ensure our province continues to be competitive in the global market. This bill, and all the actions we will take along with it, will help build a stronger Ontario where people and businesses can continue to thrive now and into the future.

Five guiding principles consistently direct our efforts to reduce red tape. The first principle is to protect public health, safety and the environment. We’ve worked to ease regulatory burdens in a smart and careful way to ensure that health, safety and environmental protections are maintained or enhanced. The second principle is to prioritize the important issues. Here, we’ve assessed which regulations cost the most time and the most money, while looking for innovative ways to ensure rules stay effective and efficient. The third principle is to harmonize rules with the federal government and other jurisdictions where we can. We’re targeting red-tape duplication and aligning with other jurisdictions where possible to eliminate steps that cost job creators time and money. The fourth principle is to listen to the people and businesses of Ontario. We’ve committed to hearing from people and businesses on an ongoing basis to learn what we can do to remove obstacles standing in their way. Our fifth principle is to take a whole-of-government approach. We’ve taken a coordinated approach to make sure everyone is on the same red-tape-reduction page, a broad, informed perspective that would deliver smarter government for the people and higher economic growth to match.

The next set of proposed changes I’d like to discuss support Ontario’s workplace insurance and compensation system, or WSIB. The proposed legislation will make a number of changes to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act in support of Ontario’s broader red tape reduction efforts to streamline and modernize outdated practices within our government to make life easier for Ontarians. The changes, if adopted, would improve WSIB’s operational efficiency and reduce undue administrative burden to allow the WSIB to focus on key functions, including supporting injured workers and the businesses.

The proposed changes would:

—ensure injured or ill apprentices receive loss-of-earnings benefits at the same amount journeypersons employed in the same trade would receive;

—provide more flexibility regarding how often the WSIB board of directors must meet by changing the requirement that they meet every two months to a required minimum of four times a year;

—update the requirements of WSIB governance documents to ensure that they are consistent with and do not duplicate other government directives;

—streamline the requirements for WSIB office lease transactions by excluding them from the requirement for Lieutenant Governor in Council approval; and

—ensure the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, does not reference repealed statutes.

The WSIB is one of the largest insurance organizations in North America. Reducing the administrative burden at the WSIB will enable them to operate more efficiently, creating an agile system that is able to better cater to the needs of workers and businesses in Ontario.

With this bill, our government is creating conditions that let businesses and the people of Ontario thrive and prosper. The proposed legislation will grow our labour force and increase Ontario’s competitiveness in the global market. As a result, if the bill passes, the legislation will benefit business and people living in our great province.

I’m happy to share a few words on Bill 46, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act.

I would like to start by saying that I think it’s a good thing—or something that’s at least okay—for us to be working with our judges post-retirement. However, I do note that this can create less opportunity for more diverse judges, for younger judges. I’m not being ableist, but I’m just recognizing that there are some justices who may be more attuned to technology, attuned to equity issues than those retired judges.

What I also want to ask the government about is the piece around red tape and mental health—

I want to thank the members for their presentations.

They touched on the WSIB and workers. One of the questions that I always hear from folks in Scarborough, in my riding, is—a lot of workers struggle with deeming. I know we talked about this in this House, as well. When they are deemed to be qualified for a job—which, by the way, does not exist, especially in their area. The WSIB assumes they are able to find this job which does not exist, and then they’re compensated based on that—or lack of.

I would love to hear from one of the members who just presented what they think of deeming. Should it be something that we address? I truly believe that it needs to end, and we need to do a better job for all our workers.

I enjoyed listening to my colleague from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry’s address to this bill. Both of us, having come from business, understand that to compete in this world, we have to be as efficient as possible, and any time we’re going to compete, we have to reduce red tape within our businesses and within our industries, not only locally but provincially, pan-Canadian-wide or globally.

I was particularly interested in your comments with respect to the WSIB and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. We know red tape will reduce the burden of people—will unleash productivity.

My question is, how do the amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, support the government’s efforts to reduce red tape?

We’ll now go to questions and answers.

Pursuant to standing order 50(c), I am now required to interrupt the proceedings and announce that there have been six and a half hours of debate on the motion for second reading of this bill. This debate will therefore be deemed adjourned unless the government House leader directs the debate to continue.

The Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Thank you to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London—that’s almost as much of a tongue twister as Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

The WSIB is one of the largest insurance organizations in North America. Reducing the administrative burden for the WSIB will enable them to operate more efficiently, creating an agile system that is able to better cater to the needs of workers and businesses in Ontario. The more efficient WSIB is, the better it works.

A case-by-case basis, I think, would have to be understood—to know if they’re deeming them into a proper new career in that regard. To me, you need to live within the confines of that employee, so if they have a severe injury, they would be more prone to go into the office work side of things—but I’d need to know each case by case because I haven’t necessarily had to deal with that in my business itself.

Continue debate.

I want to thank the member for that question.

As you know, it has been very difficult to hire new judges in the court system at this present time because of COVID. That’s why we’re looking at having retired judges come out of retirement to help us with the backlog that has been going on in the court system.

I agree with you that we have to look at diversity, as well, and younger judges who are more able to use technology over the older judges. Thank you very much for bringing that to our attention.

I have one question with regard to WSIB. I’m wondering what the government thinks about the billions of dollars, the WSIB surplus, that is going to employers, to big corporations, as opposed to injured workers. We know 50% of injured workers are living in poverty. I’m wondering if this bill addresses injured workers in a comprehensive way that actually puts money back into their pockets.