Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and such a pleasure and honour to be able to stand today in the House. I just want to thank the Minister of Red Tape Reduction for his incredible speech already this afternoon. You know, all of us have important events in our ridings over the weekends. I know we have the opportunity to speak with constituents about the issues that matter to them, and we hear from them about the things that they care about, the ways they want to see their governments making changes and responding to the needs of the people. I know I come fired up and ready to go on Monday to hear about red tape reduction, and I think that the speech that the minister gave spoke so eloquently to the needs of the people of this province and how our government is stepping up to that challenge.

So my thanks to the minister and his entire team as well as my team at the Ministry of Red Tape Reduction, who are continuing that work led by, of course, Premier Ford, first and foremost, who understands the importance of ensuring that businesses and people are able to access the services they deserve in a rapid fashion and that they’re able to rely on that, but also the leadership shown by so many previous Ministers of Red Tape Reduction who demonstrated their commitment to reducing the red tape here in the province of Ontario, and then Minister Parm Gill stepping forward and leading the charge today as only he can do. So my thanks to the minister here for speaking about what is in the legislation that I have the privilege of contributing to debate on this afternoon.

Bill 46, Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, is an important piece of legislation that builds on a legacy. I know all of us who come to this chamber come here for various reasons, but all of us come to ensure that our province is being built up. I look around and I see members from every corner of this beautiful province. I see some who have been here perhaps not that long, but I see others who have been here for quite a time—in fact, some from, you know, prior to the time that I was even born. I see the member for Oxford over there, elected in 1995 as part of a government that wanted to get things done as well, if I remember correctly, the Common Sense Revolution coming in and ensuring that people were getting money back in their pockets, that the proper role of government was being restored by perhaps being removed from the lives of some of the people in Ontario and that taxpayers were being respected. I know he has also led the charge on reducing red tape here in the province of Ontario.

Unfortunately, we saw for some 15 years governments that didn’t care. We saw a Liberal government come in to this chamber, actually sit on this side of the House, on the governing benches, and for 15 years just slap on red tape after red tape and regulation after regulation. You know, we would see the Canadian Federation of Independent Business release reports about Ontario having the most regulations of any province in Canada, and the Liberals didn’t care. The Liberals wanted more red tape. They seemed to enjoy tying up the entrepreneurs and the hard-working people of this province with this red tape. And we saw them: They were choking out when it came to business leaving this province. We saw our job creators flee. We saw them move to the United States. We saw them move to other jurisdictions. We saw them even move to other provinces.

I have to say, growing up in that environment, for most of my life only ever experiencing a provincial Liberal government, was disheartening. It was disappointing. And so much of that was tied up with red tape. What I heard from my family members who started small businesses or were the sons and daughters of immigrants, people who came here to Canada to build a better life—they would talk about just the onerous regulations, the ridiculous rules and measures that were being put into place. It frankly disheartened me. It disheartened me, and so when I was first elected in 2016 on a promise of hard work and hydro, to make sure that I was addressing the issues that the people in my riding cared about, one of the things that I spoke about already at that time was reducing red tape.

I’d had the privilege of serving as a policy adviser in Ottawa. At that time, I did some work, actually, on the standing committee for the scrutiny of government regulations, a federal committee that then had the opportunity to go through these regulations which the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau was bringing in—red tape upon red tape, regulation after regulation; I mean, just a repeat of what we saw here for 15 years in Ontario.

I think I’m not the only one to say that there were many in our constituencies who were losing hope that there would be a government that would listen to them—challenging times. But that changed. In 2018, we saw a government elected to this chamber that said, “We’re going to take leadership. We’re not going to take the status quo as the answer. We believe that better is possible, and we’re going to make better our reality.”

Today, some nine months into a new mandate, having been sent back here with the largest majority in some 30 years, I believe—the largest returning majority since the 1920s, again if my memory is correct—we’re continuing the legacy of cutting red tape, putting money back into the people’s pockets, reducing the time it takes to access government services and unleashing the creative potential of the people of this province.

I know that that’s what the minister spoke about so eloquently. He spoke about the ways that this legislation is going to accomplish that, and I think he spoke very well about the changes to the various acts that the legislation is going to have, but I’m going to be speaking a little bit about some of the perhaps non-legislative ways that our government has made changes.

With that, Speaker, I speak to the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2023, by highlighting the fact that we’ve brought forward two high-impact red-tape-reduction bills every single year since coming to office—one in the spring; one in the fall—and that has been going on now for coming close to five years. Since July 1, 2018, our government has reduced the number of regulatory compliance requirements affecting businesses by 6.5%.

Now, that might not sound quite as large as you want it to be, and I think we agree. That’s why we continue to bring forward measures to say, “No, we can do better. We can keep cutting red tape.” But you have to remember, this is after an institutionalized inertia that was within government after 15 years of Liberal mismanagement that grew red tape year after year after year. The ship of state doesn’t turn on a dime. It doesn’t turn around like one of these tops that people play with. It’s something that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to spin around.

The reason I say that, Speaker, is that I do think 6.5% is actually a high number, because if you look at how many regulations are coming out on an annualized basis, how much red tape was being introduced into this House, to not only slow that growth—which is what I often hear governments say: “We’re not necessarily growing the state as much as it was before. We’re not nationalizing as many things as there were before. We’re not taking over whole industries and sectors, like we know the NDP want us to do.” That’s good enough, right? No. We said, “We’re not just going to slow down the creep of the bureaucratic state. We’re not just going to slow down the growth of red tape. We’re actually going to stop it, turn it around and start cutting that red tape.”

Now, of course, it’s not the rules and the regulations that are protecting the health and safety of our hard workers, and ensuring that the environment that we all enjoy, cherish and participate in when we’re out for walks with our family or when we’re enjoying a glass of clean water—it’s ensuring that those things are being maintained, that we have good regulations in place, that we have practical protections in place, but not ones that are onerous and burdensome, that are duplicative and don’t accomplish their intended, or at least stated, reason for existence.

Actually, reducing by 6.5% is a rate of reduction that compares very favourably with other leading jurisdictions. It’s above what we’re seeing in other jurisdictions, and it has provided significant and sustainable relief for Ontario’s business. That’s because this Premier and this government made a commitment to grow good jobs and investment in Ontario by making it less expensive, by making it faster and easier to do business, and to set out one of the best regulatory service standards in North America. Under the leadership of the Premier and of Minister Gill, we have delivered on that.

We also made a commitment to save Ontario businesses when we first came to office. We made a commitment to save them some $400 million a year. This wasn’t $400 million in one-time costs, and that’s something I’ve spoken with my constituents about. They said, “Well, $400 million seems like a lot of money, but I guess if you do $100 million a year over the course of four years, that’s $400 million, so yes, that seems doable.” No, no, no. We’re talking about $400 million a year in annualized savings, so $1.6 billion over the course of our mandate. It seems like quite a lofty goal, and it’s one that I’m very proud to be able to tell this House we not only achieved, but in fact exceeded—exceeded substantially. Our red tape reduction measures have so far saved businesses, not-for-profit organizations, municipalities, school boards, colleges and universities, hospitals—the institutions that we all expect to be functioning well in our society—more than $576 million per year in compliance costs.

Interjections.