Questions?

Thank you very much for the question. Again, I want to highlight what we see as some real, solid and tangible benefits, which are industries and emitters which we know strive to reduce those emissions yet at the same time protect the jobs that they have and the investments that they’ve made and potentially any future investments. We want to work with them to enable a framework, to take that carbon that they’re emitting, again, go through those many steps that create a safe and environmentally responsible framework to capture that carbon and then store that carbon. Thankfully, in Ontario, we have the geology for it that will allow that to happen. So we’re uniquely positioned here in Ontario to be able to support industry that way, and there will be some great outcomes, both, again, environmentally and economically.

Thank you, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, for that wonderful presentation. As part of the red tape bill, we heard so many things. Thank you for all that important information you have provided to this House.

The level of carbon in the atmosphere has been consistently increasing. Greenhouse gas emissions are a huge issue, and this is damaging the environment. You talk about carbon capture storage. These are very, very important new concepts to Ontario. Could you explain, please, Minister, more about what are the economic, health, social and environmental benefits through this bill?

False.

It is not false.

We have a regional level of government that the government may or may not like—or they may or may not like the hard line that’s around the region of Waterloo. We have seven municipalities within that regional umbrella. The government is downloading the responsibility for housing and development to those seven other lower-tier governments. Right now, the region of Waterloo coordinates, collaborates, has the big picture on these infrastructure projects, like housing, affordable housing, not-for-profit. They are missing one part. They are missing the money from the province of Ontario; I can tell you that much. They have found a fairly strong partner in the federal government. Now, because of Bill 23, all those seven little municipalities, who have staffs of 10, 12 or 13 people, are going to have to figure out the planning process for the new housing projections—if it matches the provincial direction, whoever is going to determine those provincial priorities. Is it the Minister of Municipal Affairs? Is it the Premier himself? Is he going to determine what the provincial priority is? Right now, nobody really knows. So this, in effect, is going to create double the work at those lower-tier governments, and it will likely slow down housing developments and housing starts. In fact, the housing starts in the fall economic statement had been downgraded.

All of this comes at a time when we hear members of the government saying fairly disparaging things about these municipalities. My counterpart the member for Kitchener–Conestoga, just last Wednesday, was saying that the township of Woolwich didn’t even know that they had $6.5 million, and that $200 million was in reserves, and that nobody was spending the money.

So what did I do? I did what I’m supposed to do. I wrote to all of those municipalities, I quoted the member from Kitchener–Conestoga—I pulled out his comments, which were fairly negative, I have to say—and I reached out to those municipalities. You could imagine their surprise, because they have a five-year, capital-forecasted budget for $6.5 million, and all of it is allocated. I give these municipalities full credit for planning, for doing their due diligence, and for working within a very tight timeline and guidelines that are determined by the provincial government, because they are creatures of the provincial government.

At the end of the day, when you hear back from the municipalities and they say, “All of this money is allocated for five years”—someone in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs just looked at a number and said, “That’s outrageous,” but they didn’t meet with them, they didn’t talk with them, they didn’t consult with them.

And I have to say, this is a government that has $4.5 billion in a contingency fund, unallocated. Who does that, especially when the FAO says a reasonable contingency fund is $1 billion?

So what I see with Bill 46, as I said, is some housekeeping amendments, but you’ve always got to pull back the layers with this government, because they’re always up to more than what appears. What a disrespectful way to treat municipalities in the province of Ontario.

This is a very interesting question coming from the government, because we have stood in our place now, day after day, talking about the importance of delivering publicly funded health care, for instance—the government says, “Well, we want to streamline,” and they even put out the memo asking local health agencies to work around the clock.

We believe in public services. We believe in delivering services efficiently, and that, certainly, is not happening in our health care system.

So I guess the question is—and this was the theme—why is the government so inconsistent in your treatment of the very people whobuild this province and really hold communities together?

The Ottawa LRT is a perfect example of addressing administratively and, through legislation, improving the transparency on these projects. At the end of the day, this isn’t the government’s money or the opposition members’—it’s the people of this province, through their tax dollars. Once it goes into this massive contract, which is usually a consortium of some magnitude, you lose touch with that project and you lose the accountability factor. And when you lose the accountability factor, things go very, very wrong, as has happened with the Eglinton Crosstown, as has now happened with the Ontario Line.

To see a project like the Ontario Line go from $10.9 billion to $19 billion, and then the Minister of Transportation says, “Oh, well, it’s Metrolinx. I’ve told them”—

I do appreciate the minister giving us sort of his version of carbon sequestration. For us, it’s always, who’s driving the bus on this legislation? Who’s motivating it? In this instance, it does seem like this is coming from Ontario businesses that have been interested in pursuing new underground geological storage projects.

It’s amazing how fast a business can get action. Why can’t the nurses in the province of Ontario get action?

My thanks to the member for Waterloo for her presentation and participation in debate this afternoon, and I appreciate her speaking to the various aspects of the legislation.

I think the carbon sequestration piece is very important. Obviously, I’ve never been accused of being a socialist, but there are aspects of the NDP that I admire, and one of those is their commitment to fighting for the environment. I believe that’s a value we share. We understand the importance of ensuring that we’re protecting future generations, especially with regard to climate change and ensuring that we’re reducing emissions and protecting the environment that we all hold dear.

They bring forward many bills, they bring forward many motions and, obviously, I respect that as the role of the opposition—critiquing our legislation. And yet, I’m wondering why the NDP haven’t brought forward any plans to address carbon sequestration here in the province of Ontario in their own history and why they haven’t introduced similar legislation in the past.

I’m glad to be able to ask a question in response to an excellent presentation by the member from Waterloo, as we’re talking about Bill 46, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act.

She rightly highlighted the Ontario Line and the inability for folks to follow the money, and I know that she likes to be able to do that, which is part of the problem with P3s—that with the public-private partnerships, we don’t have the accountability. Certainly, she raised the Eglinton Crosstown—but I will see the Eglinton Crosstown and raise her the Ottawa LRT as a perfect example of when things go awry. Remembering that P3s are not about public infrastructure; they’re about private profits—these are financiers that we entrust the project to. The province, in effect, is handing over the Ontario Line and saying, “Make it happen.” They’ll get it back in the end, and then we’ll find out how many years late and how many billions more.

In terms of outsourcing responsibility—I’d love for her to shed a little more light on why we do need accountability and oversight in the province of Ontario

I want to thank my colleague from Waterloo for her excellent presentation this afternoon.

Last week, our hospital in St. Catharines actually announced that there were going to be pediatric surgical delays in order to create space and capacity, because our health care is in crisis right now.

So why are we literally talking about anything else right now when our health care is in crisis—a crisis that has been exacerbated by serious underfunding by this government over the past half a decade?

My question to my colleague from Waterloo is, why are we not talking about how we can improve our health care when it’s in a crisis?

Questions?

Questions?

Thank you to the member from Kitchener–Waterloo for your comments today.

You mentioned a number of Metrolinx projects where the initial cost projection has doubled when the project was actually delivered and the delivery was late. You’ve also talked about those projects being funded through a P3 model, which cost taxpayers—I believe the Auditor General said it’s an additional 26% on each of those projects.

This government seems to be wedded to Metrolinx, to rewarding incompetence.

So what is your recommendation to the government as far as getting public infrastructure built?

Thank you very much to the member from St. Catharines.

It does speak to priorities.

I was very shocked when we brought forward our opposition day motion to the government to discuss and to plan, to work together, for a human resources health care strategy—because as I said, you can build a bed, you can build a hospital, you can build a long-term-care home, but without the people, it’s not open, and it certainly isn’t serving the people that we are elected to actually make their lives better.

Housekeeping bills are one thing, but for me, when I read Bill 46, especially on the Indigenous communities issue—not consulting Indigenous communities for Bill 23; having them write an open letter to the minister and to the Premier saying, “You have a duty to consult.” This is the pattern of this government—they put out a press release, but then they do something else entirely.

My recommendation is to go back to the Auditor General’s report, because her recommendations will help you. The question is, do you want to be helped? You seem to be very focused on helping some people—but not the people of this province, I’ll tell you that much.

I really do enjoy late-afternoon debate. Everybody is kind of settling in at the end of the day. It’s Monday. People are a bit tired; they’re a bit distracted. Hopefully, we can liven things up a bit here.

There are things that are good in Bill 46—

Interjections.

Modernizing the courts, clearing the backlog, adding more judges—good things.

Putting jury questionnaires online is a good thing—a long time coming, for sure.

Carbon capture: When we get into that, it sounds to me like cap-and-trade light. I don’t want to pick on you guys, but it’s like going part way.

Actually, what’s in this bill is not what I want to talk about today; it’s about the red tape reduction that families need. It’s easy to pull off the pieces of tape that are on the top, and every government does it—it’s like the annual Christmas present. After the fall economic statement, we’ve got to get something on paper, so let’s put all this stuff together—again, a good thing. But it’s what’s missing that is the problem.

Here’s what’s missing: OHIP+. One of the first things this government did when it came in was to roll back OHIP+ if people have insurance. Every child up to age 18 was going to get drugs—like we do for seniors. This government said, “If you’ve got private insurance, no matter what it is, OHIP+ isn’t going to cover you; you’re not eligible.”

Here’s the thing: If you need an expensive drug—if you have cystic fibrosis, and there’s an expensive drug on the market that might be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and you have private insurance, OHIP+ isn’t going to be there. How is it that it’s not at least even the payer of second resort for people who need that drug? That’s a serious consequence. And all the way through on OHIP+, it can affect people in different ways—but what it does make people decide to do sometimes is either pay out of pocket, give up their benefit plan to take OHIP+, which creates other problems with their employer, with their other children, and sometimes they can’t.

That’s the kind of red tape people want us to remove. It’s not affecting everybody, but the people that it really affects—it has a real, negative impact on their lives.

I’m still trying to get my head around why we would be the payer of first resort for everybody over 65 and the payer of second resort would be insurance companies. My mom, who’s 90, has public service coverage from the federal government—she’s got two coverages—but it’s not good enough for our kids. If that’s not red tape, I don’t know what is. That’s the kind of red tape the government needs to remove.

On top of that, there was the beginnings of what was called a rare disease strategy. That has been orphaned for four years. This government stopped doing it. People who have a rare disease or have children who have a rare disease—their lives are complicated. It’s full of red tape. It’s full of trying to figure out who’s the next person you have to go to or what’s the next thing you have to do. That’s why we need a rare disease strategy. I’m glad I hear some noises about the government starting it up again, but this four-year hiatus just left a whole bunch of red tape for families.

Take-home cancer drugs: How long have we all been talking about that? That’s red tape. You get them if you go into the hospital, but you can’t take them home with you. Why is that? Is there a good reason? None that I can see—and it has been around for a long time. That’s the kind of red tape we need to be removing here in Ontario.

Bill 124: I know you’re all going to be excited about this. Bill 124 wrapped our hospitals, our long-term-care homes, our family health teams and our community health centres in a restriction that no other private interest had. What’s happening right now is, it makes it harder for all those groups, family health teams, to recruit people, to retain people because they’re restricted to 1%. I know the government is going to say, “Yes, but that’s all going to end this spring. That’s all going to be over.” But you sent the wrong message to people by saying to nurses and the front-line health care workers, “You don’t get to bargain.” I guess you elevated it up to—the next thing you were going to do was just use the “notwithstanding” clause, but then our friends in the construction industry spoke up and everybody dialed back that red tape, which you didn’t use. And I want to thank you for dialing that back.

I know the Minister of Labour will be interested in this, because I’ve talked to him about it on a couple of occasions: People of similar work don’t have the same workplace safety coverage. So if you work in a retirement home, which largely is the same amount of work or the same type of work, I should say, as a long-term-care home—if you’re in a long-term-care home, you get WSIB. You’ve got great coverage. In a retirement home, they have to be covered, but not by WSIB. So in the retirement home industry, there’s a whole mishmash of people who aren’t fully covered. We all want to make sure that we’re protected. There’s a reason we have the workplace safety and insurance, and that’s to protect people. The few people who get hurt and injured at work—we want it to be there for them.

So why will we hedge on people working in retirement homes? But here’s the kicker: If you work in a group home that’s run by the province, you’re covered. If it’s a private group home, you’re not covered by WSIB. It has to be some sort of private insurance. I don’t understand it. People are doing similar work; the risk profiles are the same. The government hasn’t changed it. I’ve been talking to the minister about that. I put forward a private member’s bill, and will be doing it again this session, to speak to how we should be allowing people who are doing the same job, being delivered in different places, to be afforded the same coverage by WSIB—straightforward. It’s simple: We should all be covered. We should all be covered if we’re doing similar work.

Now, I know we’re not covered here, but the people working in retirement homes, the people working in group homes, the people working with adults with developmental disabilities or children with development disabilities, autistic kids—they should all be covered by WSIB. That’s red tape around their lives. They’re less protected.

Now, of course, Bill 23: We’ve heard how the member for Waterloo—it’s always hard to follow her—mentioned that the government didn’t take the time to consult with First Nations, which really runs against the spirit of truth and reconciliation. The government is in such a hurry. What does Bill 23 do? Well, what it does is it takes a lot of red tape off for a few rich people so they can become a little bit richer. The government’s own task force said, “You don’t need to open up the greenbelt. You’ve got enough land. You’ve got enough land, so why are you opening up the greenbelt?”

It’s the people’s greenbelt. This is what the greenbelt does: The greenbelt feeds people, it cleans water, it cleans air, it provides recreational space for people. It’s something that we established here in this province for the people. It’s not the Premier’s greenbelt or the minister’s greenbelt or the government’s greenbelt. It’s the people’s greenbelt.

Thank you. I’d like to remind the members of the House that debate has to go through the Chair. Thank you.

Questions?

Interjections.

Member from Ottawa South.

I’m pleased to be able to ask the member a question. We had been speaking earlier about the Ontario Line, because as we’re talking about Bill 46 and less red tape and a stronger Ontario, I have concerns about the P3 model. The member, who comes from the Ottawa area, perhaps has heard of the Ottawa LRT and is probably familiar with what can go wrong with a P3. What we have here is a bill that wants to reduce red tape, but a P3 project—once the government hands it over and says, “We trust you; please make this happen,” there’s no red tape behind there. It’s just whatever happens behind that curtain happens. We get it back, and then we are left as a province to pay the bills.

So my question is, less red tape—is this government, in its obsession with just having no regulation—are those two things the same?

It’s always interesting to listen to a presentation from the interim leader of the independents, particularly when in 2017, under the previous Liberal government, Ontario had the highest cost of compliance in Canada, totalling $33,000 per business. Can you imagine that? In contrast, we’re looking to be able to save over $500 million in annual compliance costs. Will he stand in his place for once and support small—

They want houses.

No, what they want is a greenbelt. What they want you to do is to actually build on the land that you have.

Just because the Premier believes it’s part of his job to make his already really rich friends a little bit richer, we’re opening up the greenbelt. You took all the red tape off for those few very rich people who are going to make a little bit more money, even though your own commission said to you, “You know what? You’ve got the land. Don’t do this. You don’t need to do it.” But you did it anyway. Why? Because the red tape you were interested in removing was for a very small number of people.

That’s not the red tape we need removed. We need red tape removed from OHIP+, a rare disease strategy, take-home cancer drugs, Bill 124, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.

I’ll be happy to take any questions; I’m sure I’ll get a couple.

Listen; there are good things in here—that’s what I led with—but here’s the thing, to the member opposite: I know you don’t want families to have a harder time getting the drugs that they need. I know that you want to have a rare disease strategy here in Ontario. I think you would like to have take-home cancer drugs, too; I’ll make that assumption.

What I’m saying is, that’s red tape in people’s lives. And when we talk about red tape—you know, there’s nothing wrong with doing what we’re doing; we still have to dig into it a bit more, but we actually have to look at what’s happening in people’s lives. If they can’t get the drugs that they need because the government has made up some crazy rule, that’s red tape. That should be in this bill. That should be changed. That should be fixed.

It would be easier to vote for the bill if you had something like that in it.

And you know what? What would be really nice is if you could save those families that are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on drugs 5,000 bucks a year. That would be a great thing.