I thank the member opposite for the question. Yes, I’m honoured to serve on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with the member opposite. That is a very special committee because as a member of the opposition, he is the Chair. That is the tradition. That’s right out of the standing orders.

Some of the measures we’ve adopted in addition to a member of His Majesty’s loyal opposition being the Chair include the fact that all members sit amongst each other rather than opposite each other, as would normally be the case in any assembly or House. We routinely, both because the act provides for it and as a matter of practice, invite the Auditor General to the committee to comment on reports that the Auditor General has authored. This is a very important and valuable aspect of the work that the committee does, hearing from the Auditor General, and we will continue to call upon her to do so.

But also, in addition to the Auditor General, many witnesses come before the committee, including deputy ministers from various departments. This is essential to the work that we do—

Our plan is to work 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, implementing new technologies and techniques that will increase the competitiveness and sustainability of the agri-food sector. Ontario is taking action, or is proposing to take action, by this bill to strengthen the agricultural sector, proposing to modernize the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Act, 1990.

Allowing for retired judges to come back to serve, even temporarily, will help get us through this very difficult time of dealing with these backlogs. We believe that that will have a major impact and is a positive—but temporary—measure.

I want to thank the member for his thoughtful comments.

He discussed removing the need to apply for leave to construct on energy matters, approval for consumer-funded transmission projects and impact transmission system upgrades being planned in the province. My question is, will removing the need to apply for leave-to-construct approval for consumer-funded transmission projects remove or impact existing rights to municipalities or utilities?

I want to thank my colleague from the Durham riding for an excellent presentation. Speaker, one of the areas that he spoke about was the Grow Ontario Strategy, and I’m not surprised by that, because in the region of Durham, as the member from Durham knows, we have an economic recovery plan. A feature of that economic recovery plan is our agri-food agriculture sector. So through you, Speaker, I’d like the member from Durham to provide more detail about how he thinks the Grow Ontario Strategy will benefit the growing agri-food agriculture sector within the region of Durham.

Thank you to the member from Durham for his great comments. I wondered if he could talk a little bit more about Indigenous consultation that we are engaging in and changing so that that assists our Indigenous partners in removing red tape and accessing more business opportunities, for example, that would benefit everyone. I wonder if the member from Durham, in the short time he has, can expand further.

Thank you. We’re going to move to questions.

For the next question, I recognize the member for Whitby.

I’m rising this afternoon to speak to Bill 46 which, if I understand it from my friends in government here, is about reducing red tape. In my remarks this afternoon, I want to focus on three schedules of the bill. I want to focus on schedule 5 and schedule 6 to highlight what the bill could do more on taking the climate crisis seriously. The member from Guelph spoke about this earlier this afternoon. I also want to begin by speaking briefly about schedule 9, the changes to the WSIB from an angle you may not expect, Speaker, and I hope you’ll give me a little latitude with this.

We had a significant event last week in the province of Ontario. On Thursday last week, the province of Ontario saw the election of the first Black Somali Canadian disability rights activist to this chamber in this place’s history: Sarah Jama. The people of Hamilton Centre elected Sarah Jama to take her seat in this place, and she’ll be doing that next week I’m excited to tell members of this House. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to meet Sarah, you’re in for a real treat, and for those of you who are from the great city of Hamilton, you know about Sarah and you know about the work she’s tried to do to help people with disabilities, and beyond that, just to be an incredible community organizer in her own right.

I had occasion to talk to her earlier this afternoon; she came and caucused with us for the first time. I asked Sarah as we were getting ready to move into that caucus meeting, “What are you feeling right now?” She said, “You know, I’m feeling the burden of a responsibility.” The burden of a responsibility as someone coming from a physical disability, coming from the legacy city of Hamilton—a significant amount of folks in the city of Hamilton live with physical or mental disabilities or challenges all the time. She told me, “I feel a responsibility to come into this place and not just criticize the government but to bring something positive home to my community and do something with the resources we’re given in my community.” I thought how fitting to be debating what this government could be doing with this bill to reduce red tape for people with disabilities.

The member for Thunder Bay–Superior North has spoken about it in a number of the question she has posed this afternoon. I think about the penalties assessed to persons with disabilities when they enter into a romantic relationship with someone—even with a modest income, immediate penalties in their income. You and I both know, Speaker, as people who live in Ottawa and work with people with disabilities, that they live in crushing poverty already. People are living in crushing poverty already, and there should be no penalty for falling in love. There should be no penalty for making administrative errors on one’s account, for missing a letter.

But right now, I want to impress upon this government that a way you can improve this bill is by dealing with the incredibly suffocating amount of red tape that people with disabilities and their loved ones and their families and their friends, through them, face every single day.

And do you know what is also related to that, Speaker? I want to impress upon the government that working for this government right now are thousands of caseworkers who work with folks on ODSP and OW who would like to see their talents put to better use. In Ottawa, Speaker, it is common for an ODSP caseworker to have a 400-to-1 ratio. You heard that right: 400-to-1. How is one supposed to be an empathetic voice, an enabler of opportunity to someone when you have that kind of caseload? You can’t. You do triage. You do communication by email, by text, by happenstance. That is an army of folks, available to this government, that could be sent out into the community to actually help people find opportunities in their lives.

I just want to impress upon the government that if you want to reduce red tape, if that is the intent and purpose of this bill—I was listening to the member from Durham in his remarks, and I appreciated an opportunity to talk to him off-line; I know he and other members of this government care about people with disabilities—think about the red tape that you could do to reduce the burdens in people’s lives so they can embrace those opportunities the member was talking about.

Second—and this is another diversion, Speaker, so you’re going to have to maybe give me some latitude. Maybe our friends in government won’t call me on a point of order and I can get this out. I think something that’s missing in this bill is help for local and amateur sport. And I had occasion just earlier this afternoon to briefly talk to the minister responsible. As you know, Speaker, I came to this chamber, still kind of surfing and glowing because the Carleton University women’s and men’s basketball teams both won the national championship last weekend. Speaker, I’m not trying to—I know the University of Ottawa is in your riding and it’s a great university with great sports teams, including basketball teams. But as I took in that national championship on YouTube in the basement of our family home with both of our kids that play in the Ottawa system, and both universities draw heavily upon the amateur system, something occurred to me that I think is red-tape-related.

So the women played their national championship against Queen’s University Gaels—fantastic team, had the fewest points allowed this year, 515; great team, tough game—in Sydney, Nova Scotia. It’s a great place—I got family in Nova Scotia—but it’s far-flung.

The men played their game in Halifax in front of 9,000 fans. Quite a disadvantage for our squad, I have to tell you, Speaker, because the STFX X-Men that played the Ravens men’s team this year, who have appeared in 17 consecutive national championships, had 9,000 screaming fans in there, and they played a heck of a game. But what struck me as red tape in that viewing experience as a lifelong basketball fan, as a sports fan and as someone who really believes that sports is an enabler for our youth—and for people of all ages, frankly, but particularly for youth—is that the women were playing hundreds of kilometres away from the men in a tiny stadium at the same time as the men. And I said to myself, “That seems ridiculous.” If we want to travel this national championship around, absolutely—let’s give that economic opportunity to different places. But I want to see an Ontario that platforms women’s sport as much as it does men’s sport. I want to see 9,000 people out to cheer the women on, not just the men.

It’s the case locally in Ottawa, Speaker, where we have a harder time finding volunteer coaches in the women’s basketball programs, more cancelled games. And I want to say to any of the friends opposite, if you go on our website, I wrote an update. My last column was on this historic weekend—the first time in 38 years that one university has captured women’s and men’s national championship. It’s a really incredible achievement to coaches Taffe Charles and Dani Sinclair—an incredible accomplishment. But my daughter remarked to me—we watched the women’s game in its entirety and then we switched to the men’s, as it just happened to be going into overtime. I said to myself this game, as every game at the university you and I serve, Speaker—we always have both games there so fans can celebrate both teams.

So I want to invite my friend in government who I know takes sport very seriously and that responsibility—let’s pursue that conversation with youth sports and the people who regulate basketball, because I certainly was so proud to be a Carleton University Ravens basketball fan, but there was a little sting in the tail there as I took that in, and I think we can improve that. I think that’s something we can maybe work on together at committee.

Okay, let’s get to the topic of the week as far as I’m concerned, and that is the climate crisis. Schedules 5 and 6 of this bill deal with two different acts, two different statutes, that I think will be really important in the actions this province takes on climate change—not the only statutes, but important. In schedule 5, the government is making the case that carbon sequestration is going to be an important part of our ability to mitigate against climate change, to address climate change. My friend the member from Sarnia talked earlier about how important carbon sequestration is in his community, and I take his point to heart on that. But I just wanted to make sure we read into the record—and I believe the member from Guelph did it earlier, but I want to do it again because some things bear repeating.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said yesterday in a press conference to the world: “Our world needs climate action on all fronts—everything, everywhere, all at once.” And there were three particular demands he put forward to the world, because as I am going to talk about in my remarks this afternoon, this is not all doom and gloom. I think too often when we think about how we can change our economy and our society, we get trapped in doom-and-gloom conversations and people tune out. We can’t do that as politicians. We have to make people excited to embrace the challenges and opportunities presented to us by the climate crisis we’re living in.

There were three things Secretary-General António Guterres mentioned we absolutely cannot do. One was we absolutely have to stick, hard and fast, to the goal of ensuring net-zero electricity by 2035; two, we have to stop any expansion of existing oil and gas reserves all over the world; and three, we have to be shifting subsidies from fossil fuels to a just energy transition for folks who work in the fossil fuel industry, something I think is critically important.

I say that, Speaker, because there are people from our families, from our great province here in Ontario—my own family—who have gone out to work in the oil sands in Alberta or on the east coast on oil rigs. They are incredibly skilled people. I often say to myself, as a researcher, what do we do with these skilled trades folks? What is their future, going forward? Because when I look at their own industries, whether it’s the enormous dump trucks that are driven in the oil sands or whether I look at the servicing of the oil rigs on the east coast, increasingly all those jobs are being automated, like so many other jobs in our world. The fossil fuel industry does not care about those workers. The fossil fuel industry is increasingly finding ways to get rid of those workers. But we urgently need those workers to plug into the green energy transition in our economy. That is essential.

You and I both live in Ottawa, Speaker, and just for the benefit of everybody else here, I’ll repeat an example I mentioned in debate with the minister—the minister; maybe one day he’ll be a minister—the member for Guelph. I said to him, “Ottawa-Gatineau has a particular contribution we can make to bringing Ontario to that finish line of net-zero electricity by 2035 that Secretary-General Guterres was talking about yesterday, and that is by renewing the energy partnership we currently have with the province of Quebec.”

The province of Quebec right now has more power than it knows what to do with. We are—and I think this is a positive element of what the government has been doing recently—encouraging investments in electrical vehicle manufacturing in Ontario. I give the government credit for doing that. But the question is, we can encourage the manufacturing of these products here, but how do we make sure that those products are going to be able to be used here in Ontario?

On this note, I speak from personal experience, because the summer before last, my partner and I, we took the leap; we bought the same vehicle the member from Guelph drives, a Chevy Bolt EUV. It’s a great car, but in the winter, you get a range of about 200 kilometres to 250 kilometres on that car. You need to know where all the charging stations are. Forget driving to Toronto; that is a tricky enterprise, potentially, if you need to stop and recharge. I often take the train. But if the members opposite are serious about the electrification of transport in Ontario, which I think is a fantastic goal, we have to build the infrastructure to sustain that.

What hydroelectricity in Quebec represents, as some advocates have said—think of it as a giant battery, a giant battery beside our existing hydroelectricity system, our existing, though not large enough, renewable energy system and the way the grid functions with nuclear power. Thinking about that opportunity with Quebec that costs, depending on whose estimates you believe, five cents to seven cents per kilowatt hour, that is an enormous opportunity for us.

But instead, what I’ve heard the Minister of Energy—who is someone I’ve enjoyed debating and talking to over the years. But I’ve heard him say, recently, “No, Joel, we’re going to be moving out of this permanent agreement with Quebec. We are going to be moving into spot markets.” That’s kind of transactional, in the moment. That’s not a commitment. So what does Quebec do? Well, Quebec says, “If Ontario is not serious about taking our power, let’s sell it to the United States.” In some cases, depending upon the amount they’re cranking out, they may be selling that at a loss.

But here we are, their neighbouring province, desperately in need of this power. Depending on whose estimates you believe, we have to have either a 75% increase or double our electrical capacity in Ontario if we want to electrify buses, if we want to encourage more electrical heat pumps in people’s homes or if we want to do that in larger buildings—or if we want to have more electric buses running in our streets, as I know the great city of Toronto is doing and Ottawa is trying to embrace, and I’m sure other cities. We need more power for that. So Quebec presents an opportunity for us to explore that relationship further, Speaker, and we’re not taking it. We’re not taking it.

I want to make sure that members of this House are aware of some of the news from yesterday because, as I said earlier, sometimes when we talk about the climate crisis, it can be doom and gloom. Here’s the truth. The truth is, in 2015 the countries of the world met in Paris and made a collective recognition that we have to try to limit the growth of emissions, we have to stop the heating up of the planet, we have to stop it at 2 degrees Celsius. In 2018 they revised that estimate and they said it needs to be 1.5 degrees Celsius.

We were on track at that point to get to 3.5 degrees Celsius of a warmer planet—3.5 by the end of the current century—and we know what that means. In Ottawa, we’ve seen it: five major massive weather events, two once-in-a-century floods and two massive windstorms. This has been devastating for farmers, devastating for homeowners, devastating for our electrical system. Tens of millions of dollars of damage. So that’s where we were on track, but actually, if you look at what the scientists are telling us, given some of the changes countries around the world have committed to, we course-corrected to some extent to 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer, which is still way too hot.

But if you look at what was recently negotiated in the last round of the global Conference of the Parties discussions, we are now back on a track potentially of 1.7 degrees Celsius. So these commitments and the changes some countries are making are making a difference. I want people watching at home to know that that does matter. Writing me and writing any politician in this House, pressing with your employer, pressing with your community organization to embrace the climate crisis: All of that work has led us to something. We’re on track. But it’s not far enough.

The big step Ontario made was phasing out coal-fired electricity. That was an enormous step we made, and I give the previous government—previous to this government—credit for doing that, having been pushed, of course, by environmental advocates.

But what we cannot do, what we absolutely cannot do, is what my friends in government have currently proposed, which is massively increase the footprint of gas-fired electricity in this province. As the member from Toronto–Danforth said earlier in question period, that will erase all the benefit that this government has attempted to do with major manufacturers, major emitters like Dofasco or Algoma Steel. Any of that work you’ve done with the EV industry in attracting that investment is all wiped out if you increase gas-fired electricity by 300% or 400%, depending upon the estimates you believe. Don’t just believe the socialist from Ottawa Centre; look at the scientists that are informing the UN report and the IPCC report from yesterday. They—

Interjection.

That’s all the time for questions. So we’re going to continue with further debate.

Minister, is that a point of order?

That’s not what I said at all—

Thank you for your speech today and for talking about the UN climate report, where they said we need action on climate change—everything, everywhere, all at once.

What I have to say is what we see from this government—everything, everywhere, all at once is building on the greenbelt and building on protected lands, and that’s not the direction we should be going.

I was just at an announcement from the federal government, and they’re going to study the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, which is where the government wants to build houses. There are many people there advocating against this, including people from Ontario Farmland Trust who said we are losing farmland and our watershed that’s integrated—it protects farmlands.

Can you talk about how this government is destroying farmland—building in the Holland Marsh with the Bradford Bypass, building near farmland—and not having a plan as to how we’re going to protect ourselves from climate impacts and actually feed ourselves?

Tomorrow I’m going to bring a motion to the Legislature that is going to ask this government to eliminate discriminatory practices for people on ODSP according to living conditions, for people who live in room and lodging. This government talks about eliminating red tape, and I think this regulation could actually alleviate some of the red tape concerns under schedules 2 and 3.

Can the member speak to some of the experiences he has heard from people who have reduced ODSP who live in a room-and-board situation—$867, compared to someone who lives independently, at $1,228. How could that red tape help alleviate the juries’ and the judges’ red tape that the government is proposing?

I would like to introduce six of my constituents who came down from Newmarket–Aurora today to hear second reading of my private member’s bill. I would like to welcome Donna Evans, Bob Evans, Carole Mirkopoulos, Lori-Ann Seward, Jean Bouchard, and Daniel Niesing.

Welcome to the chamber.

Report continues in volume B.

I would like to thank the member for Ottawa Centre for his passionate comments.

In your definition of red tape, you also pointed out the barriers that people face on the Ontario Disability Support Program.

During the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs discussion of the progress on the Plan to Build Act, Bill 36, on November 24, I added the words of Lane Sargeant, a constituent of mine. Lane wrote, “Worse yet, ODSP is even a hindrance when it comes to forming relationships. In many instances, disabled people lose benefits if they marry or cohabit, having to wager the value of the roof over their head against the chance at a stable relationship. We have to fill out questionnaires about our love lives to determine if we are worthy of groceries? The state has no business indeed.”

The government understands the red tape that has been created through the ODSP program yet chooses not to fix it. Why does the member think that they have chosen not to fix this within Bill 46?

We’re going to move to questions for the member.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion that the question be now put, please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be now put, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Interjection: On division.

We now move to third reading. Mr. Gill has moved third reading of Bill 46, An Act to enact one Act and amend various other Acts.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Point of order, Speaker.

I wanted to ask the member—and I appreciate his heartfelt presentation and comments in this debate.

We know that in 2017—and that was for the term of the Liberal government, 2014 to 2018, when the NDP was not supporting the Liberal government—businesses were paying $33,000 in annual compliance fees, $4,000 more than any other province, and they faced the largest regulatory burden in Canada. Now we have a government committed to reducing that burden, and we’re saving businesses over $500 million annually.

Despite some of the critiques, will the member and his colleagues support this bill?

I want to thank the member from Whitby for that question.

Any time you are in Ottawa, I would love to introduce you to our farm-to-table movement. The farmers and our farmers’ market, the rural and the urban and the suburban, have a great, strong relationship, and they are critically important.

I would invite the member to consider that it’s not necessarily a good move to be moving into arable land, whether it be the greenbelt or whether it be other forms of land that can be used to grow crops, can be used for animal husbandry, can be used to make sure we can nourish and sustain the province that we want going forward. But I take the member’s point: These are critical industries.

I would also say—and I keep getting a reminder of this when I go to farmers’ market after farmers’ market—that the smaller operations are at a distinct disadvantage still and they are supported less in Ontario relative even to Quebec and other provinces in Canada. I think those smaller family operations are giving us a diversity of product for the consumer that deserves the government’s further support—something to work in the future.

As I think I’ve said in this place many times before, I really would invite us to not look at ODSP recipients as anything other than our neighbours, who have an enormous amount of talent to share with us.

There is no festival in the city of Ottawa that functions without ODSP recipients. To qualify for ODSP, you have to demonstrate that you can’t maintain a connection to full-time employment, but you can volunteer. I think about a fantastic organization like Bluesfest in our city. I invite any member to go with me this summer, if you want to see it for yourself. It gives people on ODSP and OW enormous opportunities to make new friendships, volunteer, be part of something, and that’s extremely valuable. But I would like to see an Ontario in which those folks can earn double the ODSP rate they currently have so they wouldn’t be showing up to do that voluntary work dishevelled, in obvious poverty, nursing injuries. That’s rough, and I know we can do better.

I thank the member for her work in spotlighting the issue, for sure.

On the issue of costs for business: My goodness, yes; we—both of us from Ottawa—could introduce you to hundreds of small businesses, through the pandemic and now—whatever moment we’re in now; we’re still in the pandemic—that have gone through a wrenching, difficult process and need help and support. I think everybody in this place would agree to that.

Reducing WSIB costs for big employers like McDonald’s and Loblaws and Home Depot—that was a handout, in many respects, to enormously profitable employers engaging in pandemic profiteering, often at the expense of workers.

So we have to really, when we think of supporting small operations—and the member has run one, so he knows. Let’s make sure the support goes there. McDonald’s and Loblaws and Home Depot—Galen Weston does not need our help, but main street needs our help, for sure.

What I can say is this—pro tip: I love this book. It was recommended by a community kitchen provider at home, Karen Secord from the Parkdale Food Centre. If you’re listening and you’re looking for something to read, pick up the book by Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists. It is one of the best cases for a universal basic income I have ever read. One of the chapters of that book says, “Give away money to the poor and watch economic growth happen.” It’s counterintuitive, I know, but here in Ontario—we had Feed Ontario in this building this week. They told us that poverty costs Ontario $33 billion a year—and if we doubled ODSP and OW, that’s about another what, members? About another $9 billion? Think about less strain on our hospitals and more dignity for people, less police interactions, less people incarcerated with multiple police interactions. We could give people dignity and give people opportunity, but we have to get over that hurdle of thinking that it’s coddling folks; it’s not. What’s expensive for Ontario is poverty.

Let me be just succinct at the end of my time: This is a debate about capitalism. This is a debate about whether or not we tell the very, very powerful folks in our economy that they can’t have everything they want. They make powerful cases to this government: “You need to give us access to this land, despite what you said previously about the greenbelt, despite what you said previously about not doing what the Liberals did.” They’ve been convinced that they need to, but this is a moment when the government has to use its influence to say no, because the evidence that I’ve read suggests we don’t need to develop into the greenbelt.

You don’t need to do what the Liberal government did once upon a time—what you’re poised to do now. You can save that arable land. You can intensify urban neighbourhoods like mine and save Ontario.

I’d like thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for his presentation. He would have heard me earlier talk about the agriculture sector and agri-business for a couple of reasons. Durham region is not unlike other parts of Ontario. Beef farmers are really an integral part of the agri-food sector.

A couple of stats I want to leave with you, Speaker, before I move to questions: The beef cattle value chain is an estimated $1.41 billion, supports over 51,000 jobs, and represents $2.65 billion in gross domestic product.

Can the member from Ottawa Centre agree that ensuring the success of the Ontario Feeder Cattle Loan Guarantee Program is critical to supporting the Ontario beef farming sector and, in fact, our economy?