As an individual who has dealt and worked within the courts system for a number of years, I was very happy to see a modernizing of the juror system with respect to the composition. I continuously get calls from constituents asking about this specific issue. So the ministry recently identified two issues that have affected the composition of jury rolls in Ontario. How are you working to prevent these errors from happening in the future? Is this the right time to implement further changes to the jury system?

I started my debate this morning—of course, then, it was statements. So I’m going to just finish off the rest of my contributions to Bill 46, which is, essentially, as we know, a cutting-red-tape bill. There’s a lot of housekeeping in that bill. Some of those things obviously need to be reviewed.

This morning, I talked about systems. Red tape is a system where we look at what’s working and what’s not, and try to make things better.

The justice pieces of the cutting-red-tape bill: There are eight schedules. Schedule 2 is about the Courts of Justice Act. Of course, we know there are backlogs in our justice system. One of the things the government is proposing in schedule 2 is to have judges come out of retirement and contribute more hours so that they can help with the backlog of cases, so that people can actually get justice. Yes, that’s an important step.

We also need to look to the future. Judges are retiring. We don’t have enough judges. I’ve heard from the Ontario lawyers’ society in London that that needs to happen as well. In combination with that piece, I hope the government is looking towards the future and making sure we don’t get into this predicament again. Courts were backlogged prior to the pandemic, so let’s not keep perpetuating that kind of system, that kind of red tape, so to speak, that disadvantages people who are seeking justice.

The other part with justice in this bill is schedule 3, the Juries Act. Basically, the schedule is providing that a person’s jury questionnaire may be obtained, completed and returned electronically. The government’s modernization of the Juries Act is—they’re proposing to make it easier, so that a juror’s questionnaire is available online, and they’re testing the feasibility of moving it away from sending a jury questionnaire through the mail. One thing I like about this part is that they are actually—except if you request it by mail. We know that all through parts of northern and rural Ontario, there’s not always access online, Internet. That would be something that is a reasonable proposal. They’re looking, of course, to cut costs and make it easier for prospective jurors to participate in the court system.

I met with the Salvation Army group yesterday, and in their report they address justice. They’re doing a lot of good work in our communities to help people who are in vulnerable situations, whether it be recovery or pathways to going to school and supporting them. One of the reports that they had for London, Middlesex, Huron, Perth, Elgin county and Chatham—635 referrals were made to adult community justice programs. One of the things they talked about was, again, the system. They only get $30,000, funded by the government, to create these referrals into the community, and they were saying that they have to raise all the other money.

We don’t want people in the justice system if we can redirect them to a better situation and lifestyle. It costs more money, quite frankly, to have people be recidivists, coming back into the system. That’s not a goal I think anybody here aspires to.

The other thing I want to talk about when we’re looking at justice today: I got a Google alert earlier today that—as we know, there has been a challenge in the court system on Bill 124. Again, there have been a lot of court challenges with this government, so when they’re creating legislation and creating rules, they really need to look at the logistics and the legalities of it. This article that I have was published in September 2021. Since 2018, they had 14 challenges in their legislation. I don’t know if Bill 124 is part of that one—I don’t know, but they’ve lost that legislation. They’ve been defeated. Bill 124, according to my Google alert—“An Ontario court has struck down a ... bill that limited wages for public sector workers.”

So when we are creating legislation, let’s not tie ourselves up in red tape and in courts. Let’s make legislation that actually works for workers—if that’s what we’re doing. Let’s make legislation where there aren’t constitutional challenges. You’re causing your own red tape. You’re causing the backlog of the court system—which we don’t really need to do.

I was talking about systems and how schedule 8 of this red tape bill, Bill 46, does look at different schedules and what systems there are.

The health care system is also something that needs to be looked at very closely, and there need to be changes.

The government believes in the changes they’re making, but they don’t work for everybody.

My constituent Tammy has a serious medical condition. She has a visible flap on her head, and she needs surgery to cover that flap. Her doctor gave her a referral, but she has to wait two years in order to get that. Her question to us is, what is the government doing to address specialist wait times? Some people can say that’s elective surgery, but if you’re the person waiting for that, it doesn’t seem elective, and waiting two years is really unreasonable; that’s just uncalled for. The health care system does need more help. Like I say, the government is saying that they’re helping the health care system, but when you have to wait two years—that is not the help that people are asking for.

I want to also talk about the WSIB—I believe that’s the last schedule in this bill. We know that the WSIB is being moved from Toronto to the London area, which we’re happy about. The government says no job losses will occur, but we are asking for more transparency around the bidding process. What’s going on with that? Where are they looking? How long is it going to take? It was announced, I think, just around the election—again, that was a surprise announcement.

The other thing is, right now, that property that is owned by WSIB is government land, so it would be nice to know, transparently, what’s going to happen to that property. We would like to see it stay in the government’s ownership in order to provide affordable housing—affordable housing being maybe some social housing or geared-to-income housing, which would help the people of Toronto tremendously. We know that that is a crisis in the making for many decades, and those kinds of propositions, when there’s land available, would be very helpful, because other bills that the government has proposed are opening up the greenbelt, and they’re looking at that land or farmland. When you have that asset already in a government coffer, why not use that for proper affordable housing as well?

Speaker, I want to wish everyone a wonderful, merry Christmas, and to wish that everyone be safe, and to say thank you to our first responders, who are going to keep us safe through the holidays. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I think—

Interruption.

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?