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—

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.

I have the privilege to rise again today to speak about one of the highlights of our government’s ongoing strategies to build a prosperous Ontario: Bill 46, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act.

Interjections.

The reduction in red tape is directly proportional to the reduction of administrative costs, and that is a major factor that keeps our existing businesses away from thriving and new businesses pushed away to make those investments right here in Ontario.

Let’s say, for an example, there’s a company with a revenue of $10, with a cost of $8. The revenue is more than the cost. That means it’s a sustainable business. But when you add red tape, when you add higher taxes, what happens, Madam Speaker? The revenue is $10, and your cost becomes $12. Your business becomes unsustainable. And what happens then? Such businesses will not stay here; they will go to places where they can have a lower cost, maybe same revenue or sometimes even higher. We’ve seen it over the last 15 years, businesses moving to China, moving to Mexico. Under the previous Liberal government—I don’t think it’s a hidden secret; we all know—supported by the NDP, our province got plagued with a never-ending stream of red tape and higher taxes. You remember the times when Ontario had the largest regulatory burden in the country. This drove away jobs, investments and opportunities from our province. In the last 15 years, we lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs, and that’s a shame.

Since red tape is a significant barrier to productivity, our work is more critical now than ever. It is challenging our economic competitiveness, development and innovation. When revenue is going to be $10, we want to make sure the cost is $8—it’s less than $10, and that is what our government is doing: sustainable business practices. We are making sure the cost of doing business in this province is less, and the benefit is all going to be enjoyed by all of us, by all Ontarians.

Madam Speaker, being a science student, I love Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, and I just was thinking: How can I put them together in a perspective in the political world? So I just thought maybe I can try. As you know, the first of Newton’s three laws says an object won’t change its motion unless a force acts on it. In other words, without someone exerting effort to make it happen, nothing will take place, so the status quo is not an option. That is why, under the leadership of Premier Ford, we have created a new Ministry of Red Tape Reduction. I just wanted to acknowledge the minister and the PA for doing an incredible job.

The second law states the force on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration. The greater the headwind, the larger the bureaucratic inertia, the more effort is required to gain momentum. But once in motion, it does not stop, and that is why our minister and the ministry are doing an incredible job by bringing more and more of these bills, so that we do not stop and we keep fighting red tape and we keep reducing the cost of doing business in the province of Ontario.

The third and final law states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I’m sure, colleagues, you know what I’m talking about. When you take an action on the government side to do something, what do you hear from the other side?

I listened intently to the member’s comments. At the beginning, I thought he was going in a direction that had something to do with the legislation. Over time, the emphasis of his comments really shifted. He started to get into OHIP+ and some other programs that aren’t in this legislation. So I guess, perhaps, I didn’t get a very clear picture of where he was coming from with regard to the actual legislation on the floor of the assembly. I mean, he made, I believe, a brief comment about carbon sequestration, but aside from that there were a lot of detours on this road trip that he took us all on.

Really, as he presented, I was hoping to get some clarity around what he actually thought of the legislation itself. So my question to the member opposite is, are you going to actually be voting for or against this legislation? Yes or no?

Complaining.

Opposition, complaining—to every action, they are going to complain, but that does not mean we should stop taking action. That is why this bill, if passed, will streamline processes and modernize outdated practices of government in multiple sectors across Ontario. It will increase our competitiveness, strengthen the provincial supply chain, grow our labour force, support farmers and agribusinesses, and make interaction with government services easier. That’s what we are doing here: We are reducing red tape.

If we want to achieve sustainable growth, it is essential to remember Newton’s three laws of motion. Start by applying a force—the first keyword is “start;” if you will not do it, it will not happen. Once you’ve got the motion going, keep driving it and driving it hard. That’s what this ministry is doing. That’s what this government is doing. Finally, always be ready to counteract any opposition that you might face. When leaders stop rowing, the boat stops moving, so if you want to make sure to grow our Ontario, we need to keep working, irrespective of the opposition we may face, and that is what we are doing through this bill.

The burdensome red tape and overregulation, as many of my colleagues talked about, are costing an average of $33,000, one of the highest in North America. That’s $4,000 more than any province in Canada, but thankfully we have a government, we have a member of this caucus who is standing strong and making sure those dark days are now behind us. We will continue to fight, and we will continue to work together.

Since 2018, under the leadership of Premier Ford, we took significant action to reduce red tape by making a plan to remove unnecessary, redundant and outdated regulations that are holding our businesses back. Over the past five years, we reduced Ontario’s regulatory compliance requirements by 6.5%.

Interjection: It’s a good start.

The actions we took saved businesses, not-for-profit organizations, school boards and hospitals $576 million annually. As I said earlier, when you reduce costs, businesses become sustainable, they want to invest more, and they grow more. And when they grow more, they prosper. What prospers with them is our province and our Ontarians.

We’ve made great progress, and this progress has been achieved through common-sense changes that save both time and money. I’ll give you an example. We passed eight high-impact pieces of red tape reduction since 2018. We took more than 400 burden-reducing actions. And guess what? It was all without compromising health, safety and/or the environment.

The result, Madam Speaker? Through these changes, we’ve been able to reduce—for an example, in July 2020, the Legislature passed the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act to help address infrastructure backlogs for businesses and communities. We cut red tape by modernizing and streamlining a 50-year-old environmental assessment process. What happened? It reduced the timeline for many projects from six years to three years, and a greater number of important infrastructure projects are now able to move forward without unnecessary delays.

I’ll give another example: We live in the 21st century, yet our high school students were still required to submit their important diploma requirements through paper. When we made that change, it saved time and frustration for students and administrators alike. As a part of the Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act, we helped students digitally submit their forms on community involvement activities.

Madam Speaker, every time I talk about community involvement—I just want to take a moment to talk about that. On Saturday, November 26, my wife, Aruna Anand, and I had the opportunity and pleasure to attend the centennial celebration of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, organized by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha. To commemorate his precious words, “In the joy of others lies our own.”

December 7 marks Pramukh Swami Maharaj’s, creator of BAPS mandir, 100th birthday. It was held at International Centre in Mississauga–Malton and attended by thousands of devotees. I want to say thank you to BAPS for your Ontario spirit.

Madam Speaker, by the way, do you know who joined me? It was Minister McNaughton, along with his wife, the famous political wife Ms. Kate Bartz, so I want to say thank you to them as well.

Today is also the Shaheedi Diwas, the martyr anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, the ninth Sikh guru, who gave his life to protect human rights. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s priceless thoughts are:

—respect for all beings is the foundation of non-violence;

—outside of our thoughts, fear does not exist;

—show empathy for all living things because hate causes destruction; and

—great things are composed of small things.

Even after almost 350 years, his teachings remain highly relevant to today’s society. We cannot thank Guru Ji enough for his sacrifice and service to humanity.

Madam Speaker, I also want to mention that it is already November 29 in India, and soon, it will be the 29th here. This is the day when my father, Sardari lal Anand, a person full of life, left us for his heavenly journey. Born in 1940 in Gujranwala, he was always at the forefront in helping community members, especially helping countless families through bathing the deceased person, a ritual done before cremation. He always believed in providing the help before it is asked, and I just want to take a moment and thank my father for his teaching of the art of giving. I just want to say, Papa, you left us with a void that can never be filled.

And I am thankful to the person who has shown the most strength in the last three years, Madam Speaker, and that is my mother, Santosh Anand. My deepest gratitude and thanks to my mother for being so strong and providing strength to all of us.

Madam Speaker, nothing in life is permanent. I want to give you an example of a hidden gem of Malton, Carlton Chambers. Carlton won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Games in 1994, Olympic gold medal in 1996, world champion in 1997. He’s in the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, 2004; Mississauga Sports Council Hall of Fame, 2005; Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, 2006; Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame, 2010; Brampton Sports Hall of Fame, 2016. However, a car accident aggravated his groin, troubling him for the remainder of his career, and he never regained his previous Olympic form and retired. Despite the sudden end, he remains the national high school Canadian record holder.

With the athletic track being built in Malton, I hope this will give Carlton Chambers the opportunity to support the local talent. The last many years have been tough for you, and I hope, Carlton, that God will give you the strength to come back and help our youth.

Madam Speaker, back to the bill: We are taking the whole-of-government approach to reducing red tape with 28 measures from 11 ministries, including actions to drive efficiencies within the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, it is my honour to work alongside the skilled trade professionals and knowledge experts to help ensure that Ontario works better for people and smarter for businesses. We are making sure that Ontarians have better jobs and bigger paycheques.

The proposed piece of legislation would amend the WSIB, Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, to eliminate administrative burdens when reviewing, renewing or extending lease agreements for the WSIB offices. It is important to know that these potential changes would not apply to the acquisition or disposal of the property, nor would they eliminate government oversight.

The act would update current requirements of the WSIB to ensure they are consistent with other government directives. Right now, WSIB is required to provide both a five-year strategic plan along with an annual business plan spanning three to five years. This is a perfect example of burdensome red tape: Requiring the WSIB to provide both a strategy and business plan is duplicative and only leads to more costs and delays.

To ensure a better and greater responsiveness, we are proposing greater legislative flexibility to the WSIB to align with other large agencies like Metrolinx, the Ontario Energy Board, and Ontario Health. By modernizing and updating the governance structure of the WSIB, we are supporting Ontario’s overall red tape reduction efforts to streamline outdated practices that no longer serve a purpose. With the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, we are continuing to meet this commitment.

Madam Speaker, what does that mean really? It means with less red tape, should the unfortunate need arise, we are proposing to give WSIB the ability to determine all injured apprentices’ average earnings be equal to those of a journeyman employed by the same employer in the same trade, for the purpose of calculating loss of earnings. It means that an apprentice would benefit from full earning potential if they were injured.

Not only that, this change also supports Ontario’s prosperity and economic recovery and aligns with our continued commitment to people and workers. Madam Speaker, I truly believe that all we’re doing here is helping our businesses and making sure that we are sustainable. We have seen that by reducing the red tape, there are many, many organizations who have invested into Ontario, and I just want to give you some of the examples of organizations: Borrowell, Wealthsimple, Equinox Gold, Pfizer, Bombardier, Nestlé, Square, Oracle, Fujitsu—all these organizations are making investments because we are making sure that we are reducing the red tape, we are reducing the cost of doing business.

Again, Madam Speaker, when we reduce the cost of doing business, we’re making sure that the organization becomes sustainable. They can take this extra money and reinvest back into their businesses and can grow their businesses. Together, when they grow the business, our Ontario grows as well.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, red tape reduction is in high demand. Site Selection Magazine, an internationally circulated business publication, not too long ago awarded Ontario the Canadian Competitiveness Award for the fourth consecutive year, and it was primarily because of the factor of our commitment to red tape reduction.

The proposed legislation will reduce administrative burden and costs in matters linked to 11 ministries through new practices and updates to the old acts.

Let’s not forget that members of the general public also benefit when businesses can grow and thrive. A competitive business climate created through the reduction of red tape brings economic growth, jobs and new investment to our wonderful Ontario.

Minister of Red Tape Reduction and PA for the Minister of Red Tape Reduction, I want to acknowledge you’re doing an incredible job. You have started a broad public consultation on the potential modernization of countless acts. So I encourage everyone: Please come forward, join us, join the moment and participate in this consultation. Your valuable consultation will help the ministry and your government to give back more to the communities we live in so that we have a stronger, more prosperous Ontario.

Speaker, I will be voting in favour of this tremendous piece of legislation, and I’m looking forward—both sides of the aisle, let’s come together and let’s rise above the politics and support our Ontario. Let’s build a better Ontario, a stronger Ontario.

Thank you to the member opposite for that wonderful question.

Talking about my stakeholders in Mississauga–Malton, it’s one of the biggest and the best ridings in the GTA. We have 78% visible minorities; 61% of the residents of Mississauga–Malton are born out of Canada.

There are a lot of small businesses in Mississauga–Malton, and each and every one of them, especially during the pandemic and even before that, because of the burden, has been struggling. Every time we went to them, we asked them, “What can we do for you?” And the first thing, the most important thing they always asked is, “Reduce the red tape. Reduce the government cost.” When you reduce the cost with the same revenue, we will become sustainable, and that’s what we’re doing through this bill.

My question is to the member opposite, who spent that full 20 minutes breaking down some of the bill, which is an omnibus bill—essentially housekeeping. I think I’m heartened to know—sometimes it’s hard as a member in this House in opposition to thoughtfully break down stuff that is fine; there are some pieces in here that are fine. There are other pieces that—we look forward to hearing from stakeholders—may be problematic or we would want to bring forward amendments.

So I would like to ask the member—who talked about lots of stuff, some not even remotely connected to the bill. But connected to the bill, I would like to ask the member: What is he hearing from stakeholders? Real ones—I don’t mean the ones that the government minister was talking about at that level, but from his community, his community stakeholders for whom this bill is relevant in their lives?

I would like to remind the members of the House to please focus your remarks on Bill 46.

Questions?

I’m very proud to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the good people of Toronto Centre, specifically on Bill 46. The title is Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act.

I read the bill with quite a bit of interest, and I thought, “Hey, this is going to be good, because who doesn’t want a stronger Ontario and who doesn’t want less red tape?” But here we go.

I found, as I was reading the bill—and I will admit that I haven’t had as much time with it as I would like. But as I was reading the bill, I was recognizing that it’s actually not what the bill says, it’s what the bill doesn’t say that seems to be of importance. Although this has been touted as a bit of housecleaning bill, it’s a large omnibus bill. I think one thing that I would offer is that I’m not seeing as much of the stronger Ontario in here as I would like to see, because there are some missed opportunities, which of course can always be corrected through collaboration, as the good member was speaking about just earlier: collaboration perhaps at committee; there could be amendments there.

I want to recognize that we have a framework of discussion on a number of key, important issues that I think the government should be tackling, but there are some missing components that I want to highlight. There are so many to go through, so I will recognize that my time is limited; I won’t be able to get through it all.

As the official critic for the Attorney General, I’m going to focus on the justice system changes that are outlined in this bill, which I think are important. Allowing electronic notification, electronic filing, is perfectly acceptable, and I think we should all be welcoming that. We should embrace that wherever we can because that is a good thing to do, but it doesn’t seem to go very far beyond that. One of the missed opportunities I would offer is that we can also build up our legal aid system. We can invest in community legal aid clinics to make sure that we can actually provide stronger, more fair, faster access to justice. That clearly is not in the bill. That would probably eliminate quite a bit of red tape.

Studies into legal aid impacts in other Commonwealth countries—I’m going to pull some examples from Australia just because it’s got a parliamentary system similar to ours and it’s got a legal system that’s very comparable to ours, especially through our evolutionary histories as Commonwealth nations. What they have identified is that legal aid is revenue-neutral. Efficiencies that can be found can be diverted from the social justice systems by saving courts some time, making sure that people are adequately represented so that people do not have to wade through what is an arduous, long, red-tape-bounded process. It also means that people who are waiting for justice can get there a lot faster, and then there’s the human value and the human cost that is very difficult to measure.

I had a meeting with the Ontario trial lawyers earlier in my term, when I just began—I got here in June, you’ll remember, Speaker. I had a lot of people wanting to meet, and one of the groups was the Ontario trial lawyers. What they were offering was what I thought was a very strategic way of cutting through a lot of red tape and that could get us through the process of getting access to justice a lot faster. What they have offered is that the government should end the use of civil juries, not in every single case, but there are enough cases that we should consider it. They built a very strong business case, so it’s about efficiencies for cost as well as efficiencies to reduce red tape and a faster pathway to justice.

“Civil litigation,” as noted by the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, “involves many types of disputes, but a large portion of those disputes arise from injury claims and mainly involve insurance companies. Claimants are often unable to work and in desperate need of health care not funded by OHIP”—and in desperate need of support. “Some have no choice but to rely on social assistance as they wait for their case to come to trial.” In many cases, what they’ll be living with is the loss of income as well as escalating medical needs. So they’re in the system, they’re being dragged out, the clock is running on them, and they’re not getting to where they need to go. That’s a very obvious red tape elimination that could take place if we actually eliminated the option for civil juries.

The other thing that is critically important for us to note is that in Canada there is no constitutional right to a jury trial in many of those civil matters. Ontario is one of the last Canadian jurisdictions to grant parties the right to choose jury trials for most civil matters. In most provinces, civil trials are presided by judges alone. Even in Ontario, civil juries are eliminated for matters where a claimant seeks $200,000 or less, or there’s a distinction between the claim that’s $200,000 or $200,000 plus $1, which seems very arbitrary. How did they come up with that quantum, and then to be able to give us an option that is going to then be bound by more time?

Here’s another example of red tape that’s not contained in the bill that could be addressed in the bill so you can make things move a little faster and eliminate that red tape. Civil juries actually cost a lot more time than judge-adjudicated trials. They’re more costly, and they demand many more resources from the courts. Lawyers spend extra time preparing and presenting evidence for a jury trial. They have to coordinate the logistics of actually obtaining a jury, and it sometimes could take weeks, if not months, to actually get that jury to come together. There are numerous interruptions that occur throughout the jury trial when a jury is excused from the courtroom so that lawyers can discuss the finer points of law. There are so many other examples that I could draw from, but that is just one piece of the pie.

Finally, I want to bring home the costs and why I think this would be a great example of how the government could use the powers that they have, which is this super-majority, to actually eliminate what is a significant amount of red tape that’s literally choking our courts system.

We could consider the burden of jury duty on the individual. Think about it: When you get the notice through the mail—and your average citizen will in Ontario—do they jump for joy when they get this notification that they’ve been chosen for jury selection? Most likely not, and this is why. Juries are paid nothing for the first 10 days of service and a mere $40 up to day 49, and then $100 a day for 50 days of service. They actually have to lose money—they’re literally walking away from whatever employment they have to make less than minimum wage to sit through a jury trial. So there aren’t a lot of people who are actually jumping up and saying, “Give me this opportunity”—ut it’s not just the lack of compensation for the individual jurist; it’s the fact that they’re also having to carry additional expenses such as child care. Employers that are relying on those employees while they’re serving on juries, with these very long and unpredictable schedules—all of that is red tape. All of that is going to cost taxpayers, ultimately, a heck of a lot of money, and we’re not going to get a better, quicker, expedited judicial process for it.

If we’re going to name a bill the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, then I would expect more content—and that’s why this bill is so difficult. I don’t blame my friend across the aisle as he struggled to make some sense of the bill. I was struggling myself, trying to find out exactly what this bill is trying to do and what it is not going to do.

I want to talk a little bit about WSIB. WSIB is actually a reference in this bill, and of course, there’s all sorts of things that we can say about it—but there’s also the request to move the WSIB headquarters from Toronto to London. Companies move all the time. That’s perfectly fine, and we can certainly accept that. But when it’s a public agency, there should be some public accountability. You’re going to have to explain to the public, why is this happening? What is the business case? Where’s the value-for-money proposition that you are using to justify this move? Companies move to Toronto all the time. Companies leave Toronto. But I have nothing in this bill that explains to me why this is happening. So not only will jobs leave my city—yes, I should be concerned, but Toronto is a magnet for employment. Many of your children, many of your family members, friends and family, all come into the city of Toronto to work, so it’s not the biggest concern for me. However, what’s left behind? There’s a $600-million asset sitting on the street, at Simcoe and Front, and it’s not really clear to me what happens to that asset. Given the government’s track record of unlocking government assets and quickly selling them for perhaps not the highest and best use and not necessarily the maximum dollar, I think there is a massive loophole that’s there, and I want to be able to rein that back in, or at least to ask questions that the government should, in terms of justifying why is this happening.

If we’re going to be talking about WSIB—how are we seeing the impacts of WSIB? What we know is that COVID is still among us, and one thing that the WSIB has been very poorly performing on is how are they taking care of COVID long-haulers, those with long COVID, as they call it. Those are symptoms that are not going to be quick to resolve. They may emerge and they may disappear again, but it becomes a chronic, underlying illness. So now you have Ontarians who have contracted COVID during the global health pandemic living with, now, long COVID that may be coming in sporadically, and there isn’t a strategy within any of this act that actually deals with this piece specifically. Ontarians are getting sicker, and there isn’t a package or program to support them.

So we’re not making Ontario stronger by any stretch of the imagination, and I think that we need to be able to put aside our differences here in this House—ensure they exist.

This is a very serious issue that I think we need to address, especially for the 10% to 20% of the people who have been infected by COVID who are seeing their symptoms last 12 weeks or longer. Some of those symptoms render them unable to work—and this is the important part. They have weakness, they have brain fog, they have elevated risk of strokes—and so what that means is this red tape act that’s before us isn’t really getting to a better outcome.

I want to talk a little about carbon capture and storage. There has been lots of good discussion about it, and there’s a foundational assumption here that it’s a good thing. I want to be able to talk about why that is maybe not the best strategy. Carbon capture and storage has been explored for over 50 years, and it still has not shown any meaningful promise to turn the tide on greenhouse gas emissions, but it has been used time and time again as some type of political cover to allow us to keep drilling, keep digging, extract as much as possible. But how can we do that when the whole world is talking about reversing the climate emergency? “Let’s move towards CCS. Let’s make sure all of that is discussed and we’re going to package it up”—because it’s nice, meaty language. It’s a lexicon that not everyone understands, and if you say it enough times—carbon capture and storage—you sound awfully smart.

What do the smart scientists around the world tell us about carbon capture and storage? Well, what they tell us is that the very best strategy of removing CO₂ and carbon and keeping it sequestered is actually very simple: As much as possible, especially in the age of the climate emergency, keep it in the ground. But there’s another tangent to it: You should also be planting, building and investing in forestation, investing in the ecosystem, investing in trees. That is the best technology that exists on the planet to actually reduce carbon emissions, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to actually reverse the trend of the climate emergency.

And just to quote the Ontario Forest Research Institute: “Forest management offers some means of reducing negative impacts to forests if the anticipated levels of climate change occur. Thinning to reduce moisture stress and early harvesting of stands deteriorating due to stress, followed by planting with more climatically adapted populations and species could help maintain higher levels of productivity. Climatic adaptation could be increased through tree breeding aimed at increasing pest and stress tolerance. Forests are important in their role in absorbing and storing carbon from the atmosphere. Although not presently a stated goal, carbon sequestration (storage) could in the future become an objective of forest management.”

All of that being said, in a very long way, is that—if you plant trees, if you don’t go into the ground to extract, which is a very dirty, very earth-damaging process, you actually are better off. You’re going to do a better job of protecting the environment. It’s also good for the economy, at the end of the day, and there are business cases for that.

I mentioned earlier that Australia has done some really good work, but they’ve also been looking at this issue for a much longer time. In Australia, they call their carbon capture and storage experiment the Gorgon Project. For the past 20 years, Chevron has been touting their Gorgon Project, and it’s sort of their excuse to go into the ground: “We are going to capture carbon; we’re going to store it,” and the Gorgon Project is their marquee example—as Chevron, the oil company, wanted to put forward—of why they should be given permissions to dig.

What we learned is that despite receiving $60 million of taxpayer money and three years later, after their first project began in 2019, they are actually seeing significant problems emerge. All the promises, all the claims that this is the way to dig safely and this is the way to offset carbon emissions have been proven untrue. So what we know is that Gorgon emitted over 7.7 million tonnes of CO₂ between 2016 and 2017; that’s a 12-month period. They wiped out all the savings made by all the rooftop solar panel installations in Australia that same year. Can you imagine how large this country is? With everything that has gone on, they’ve installed all these rooftop solar panels—all of that diversion went away.

The Western Australia Environmental Protection Authority then concludes that Chevron should be held accountable for the venting gas from the Gorgon project, arguing that due to the two-year delay in storing emissions, Chevron is likely to fail to meet the requirement to capture and store at least 80% of the project’s emissions.

We’ve just heard that this bill is going to bring Ontario to a stronger place, that by removing this sort of red tape, you’re going to be able to build a stronger economy. I also heard that the government has said, “Businesses want us to do it. All the businesses are asking for this.” Well, I’m sure that businesses are not saying to you, “Let’s actually let go of the need to reverse climate change so we can get as much out of the ground, and then have a different problem on our hands.” The strategy you put forward to offset actually doesn’t work. Then the question would be, why are we doing it? Which businesses are asking for this, and who’s paying? Ultimately, from what I can see, it’s actually the taxpayers who are going to pay for a failed strategy that doesn’t work, but then future generations are going to pay because there’s not much of an environment left for them to inherit. This could be a very technical conversation. I do have some more notes on it, but I can see that perhaps it’s a topic that’s not easy to digest. so I want to move on just for a moment.

I want us to recognize that—actually, I will just say it say for myself. I can’t speak for everybody in the House, but I’ve noticed there’s a disturbing trend in the House, and that trend in the House—and I’ve seen it before. Obviously, it’s not my first time at the rodeo; this is my 12th and a half year in government. But what I’ve seen before is that the title of the bills don’t oftentimes match the intention of the bills. This is just a great example of a bill that has a lot that’s packed in it, that claims to be doing something—because we’ve heard members of the House on the government side speak to all the great things this bill does—but I can’t see a shred of evidence, or at least not a lot of it anyway, that that is what the bill does.

I guess the part that’s most challenging for me is, what is the purpose of what I think is a clean-up bill when it opens up a whole new can of worms that we’re not going to be able to get to, a whole new problem that we’re not going to be able to get to—because this bill is obviously not that exciting. The media is not reporting on it. It’s probably going to sail through committee—because, God knows, if there’s 10 hours of debate, it’s going to go down to 20 minutes of debate. And yet, it actually opens up so much that needs to be answered and is not answered.

I fear that we’re going to make some bad laws here—laws that don’t serve the people of Ontario, not this current generation or the generation next, but it will be touted as some type of government announcement that they’re cutting red tape when it doesn’t really do that.

First, before I answer the question, I just want to acknowledge the member from Mississauga–Erin Mills for your advocacy. You’re doing an incredible job for your residents. Some of us call you “Professor,” too, by the way.

Madam Speaker, asking about the gasoline volatility regulation: The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks are proposing changes that would simplify the requirement for petroleum refiners, importers, terminals and storage solutions to report summertime gasoline volatility limits in Ontario. This would reduce the compliance risk by aligning with the national standard and reduce the administrative burden and cost, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, Madam Speaker. We’re making sure the cost of doing business is lower. When you reduce the cost of doing business, you have extra money which you can invest back into your business and grow your business. When you grow your business, you grow Ontario.

We’re making sure your cost of living is lowered by reducing the five cents in gas. We’re making sure, through LIFT, that for up to $50,000 income, you don’t pay any tax. And through these measures, Madam Speaker, we made sure that you don’t have to pay for your licence plates and that you’ve got the money back. These are the ways we’re reducing.

But at the same time, I want to urge the member opposite: Let’s all stand together and fight the carbon tax, so that we can get more relief to our province of Ontario and the Ontarians in their fight for—

Madam Speaker, this is an amazing action that the member and his ministry are taking. Ontario is working with the agri-food sector to determine current and future research needs that promote innovation and enable farmers to be on the cutting edge of best production practices. Every time I go to Adolphustown, I always see, “Farmers feed cities,” so I want to take a moment and say thank you to all our farmers. Thank you for your hard work, and we are all enjoying the benefits in the province of Ontario.

I had the opportunity to talk on Bill 23, and I just want to say, from your government to each and every Ontarian, for somebody who’s here or who’s planning to come to Canada, you have a government who is going to be with you, for you.

We are in a housing crisis, and we will make sure that everyone who wants to buy a house or rent a house has a roof over their head. That is why Bill 23 is making monumental changes so that we can have 1.5 million houses in 10 years.

Speaker, if the member could help us understand an issue very important to my stakeholders and to stakeholders throughout Ontario: Why is the ministry proposing to modernize the ARIO Act?

Thanks to the member from Mississauga–Malton. You spun a very good tale in this House, I will say this, about that. He did talk about the importance of consultation and working with us across the lines, and I find it a little ironic, I have to say. The member is on finance with me, and I got 20 minutes on the fall economic statement—20 minutes instead of 15 hours.

The consultation piece, though, in Bill 23 I think is one of the most egregious moments for this House, when you did not welcome the Association of Municipalities of Ontario—444 municipalities. The member from Mississauga–Malton talks about how important it is to consult and how to rise above politics, and yet the former mayor of Toronto, John Sewell, at the age of 82, had to disrupt Bill 23 delegations because you shut him down. That’s not good practice, and I’m going to give the member an opportunity to correct his record.