There are many redundancies in government left behind by the previous administration—much unnecessary overhead and burdens and hoops to jump through.

But there is plenty of oversight for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer, and the Auditor General continues to have a very broad mandate for value-for-money audits.

What we’re doing is removing redundancies, removing duplication. That’s part of reducing red tape and regulation without compromising oversight. That’s the key to this bill.

Again, a little bit of a history lesson when we talk about minority governments and official opposition—yes, His Majesty’s loyal opposition, that’s the name for it for a reason. However, minority versus majority governments—when there is a budget bill, when there is a minority government, you can bring the government down. The NDP could have done that from 2011 to 2014 but did not do so. They aided and abetted the Liberal legacy.

There are a number of acts being amended or proposed to be amended by this bill.

The Courts of Justice Act—to remove the requirement of the Auditor General to audit the accounts and financial transactions of the Office of the Children’s Lawyer. Again, oversight is still there, but it’s removing duplication.

The Creditors’ Relief Act will include electronic formats, if those amendments are passed.

The Execution Act—for a principal residence exemption in forced sales. That amendment will be made if this act is passed.

Updating hearings before the hearing and appeal divisions under the Law Society Act—I covered that off in my speech, but that gives the chair the discretion to go to one-member tribunals instead of three, if appropriate.

Amending the Substitute Decisions Act, updating that—this would clarify that an attorney has the power to access personal information about an incapable person.

Updating the Trustee Act to facilitate investment of trust investments—and, of course, the amendment to The Hague Convention to allow proper enforcement of child support orders.

These are very important measures, and I urge all members of the House to support them.

There is absolutely no doubt that this bill is the beginning of throwing open the door to private, for-profit investor-owned corporations into our public health care system. This is the beginning; let’s make no mistake. And we already have evidence from the Auditor General that these private, for-profit health care facilities are not regulated. There’s no oversight. In fact, the Auditor General said, “More specifically, there’s a higher risk that privately owned organizations may prioritize profits by charging patients for add-ons, and those charges would not be adequately monitored and scrutinized by the ministry.”

So my question to you is—you say that you can guarantee people won’t be overcharged, you can guarantee that they won’t be put to the bottom of a wait-list because of not agreeing to sign up for the add-ons by these private clinics, but you have absolutely no government mechanism to oversee them. What do you say to the Auditor General’s questions about this lack of oversight that you’ve done nothing to address?

Thank you very much for the question from the member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. In fact, I would think the members opposite would be supporting Bill 60, because for 30 years in this province, we’ve had something like 900 independent health facilities, and what Bill 60 does is integrate those 900 independent health facilities—which, by the way, have been renewed licences for 30 years under every government of every political stripe in this province. But this piece of legislation actually integrates those formerly—after we pass Bill 60, hopefully—independent health facilities into integrated surgical community centres, which will be integrated with our health care system.

But what are we doing to make sure people are not having to worry about oversight, etc.? We’re making people post uninsured charges online and in person so a discussion can happen ahead of time; a process for responding to complaints; patients can’t be denied treatment if they don’t purchase uninsured services; and the Patient Ombudsman—