Carol Brisseau is a retired London West senior who lives with her adult son on ODSP. They are one of many London West families struggling to afford skyrocketing natural gas bills. Carol doesn’t know how she will afford to heat her home and worries she may have to leave retirement and find a job to avoid her utilities being cut off.

Families like Carol’s are facing an affordability crisis like never before, but this Premier seems more intent on allowing mega-mansions to be built on the greenbelt than in helping people afford basic necessities like food, housing and utilities. This Premier’s rubber-stamping of gas rate increases has meant a doubling of Enbridge gas prices in the last two years and left families at the mercy of price-gouging energy companies and volatile energy markets.

The NDP stands with Ontarians in calling for immediate relief from the rising cost of natural gas. The government should be providing financial assistance to help people struggling to heat their homes. They should be bringing back and expanding rent control. They should be doubling social assistance rates. They should be taking on greedy corporations that are using the guise of inflation to gouge. And they should be funding aggressive energy conservation programs that will help people stay warm and comfortable while cutting back on use.

Will we see these measures in this year’s provincial budget? Speaker, Londoners like Carol will be watching.

Nope.

We need to keep operating costs for Ontario businesses as low as possible, while maintaining and strengthening those standards that are essential to keeping people healthy and protecting the environment.

The biggest single way we can support Ontario businesses is to make regulations easier and faster and less costly to comply with. We’ve been working very hard to do that so we can intensify our work to modernize regulations so that businesses can stay open and grow.

Interjections.

To help address infrastructure backlogs for businesses and communities, that act cut red tape by modernizing and streamlining the environmental assessment processes, while ensuring protections were still maintained. This was accomplished by updating the almost-50-year-old environmental assessment program to focus resources on projects which would have had the most impact on the environment. Through this change, approval timelines for some projects have been reduced from upwards of six years to three, and a greater number of important infrastructure projects have been able to move forward without unnecessary delays. To reduce delays for sewage and stormwater projects, the act was updated to provide a single consolidated environmental compliance approval process for low-impact municipal sewage collection and stormwater management projects. And this change is allowing simple, routine changes by municipalities, including alterations, extensions, enlargements or replacement projects, to be preauthorized so that construction can start without needing separate approvals for each project.

In addition to this, to help people and businesses in the construction sector, the act made it easier and faster to update the building code. Streamlining the building code development process by supporting harmonization with national construction codes and allowing Ontario to respond faster to the needs of the construction sector helped keep more people working and communities operating smoothly across the province during a very challenging time.

I think one thing we can all agree on is the importance of speeding up construction projects to keep people working and, especially during the current affordability crisis, to build more homes for all Ontarians.

In November 2020, the Legislature passed the Main Street Recovery Act to support the small and main street businesses that fuel our economy and bring life to our communities. It was part of the main street recovery plan to support small businesses and modernize rules that would help them innovate and meet the challenges of today so that they could pursue new opportunities. Small and main street businesses all over Ontario dealt with urgent and unexpected pressures related to cash flow problems, customer limits and physical distancing since the onset of the pandemic. The last thing they needed as they navigated a profoundly disruptive event was outdated and unnecessary rules that slowed them down and cost them more money.

One important measure in the Main Street Recovery Act was making 24/7 truck deliveries to retailers, restaurants and distribution centres permanent, building on temporary changes that had been brought in to keep store shelves full through the first wave of the pandemic, when many retailers were experiencing low supplies. Benefits of this measure include reducing rush hour traffic—something we all want to see—lower fuel costs for businesses, as well as reducing greenhouse gas and other emissions. It’s a simple solution that helps boost productivity, cut costs, and give businesses the flexibility they need to be successful and grow.

Other examples from this act include increasing the diversity of products sold at the Ontario Food Terminal and allowing the terminal to promote local food. These changes help support main street retailers, restaurants and shoppers by giving them greater access to the products they need. Thousands of small businesses, including independent shops and restaurants, rely on the Ontario Food Terminal for their supplies. It helps support the growth of Ontario’s agri-food economy, and it gives the terminal support in competing in a crowded marketplace.

In December 2020, the Legislature passed the Better for People, Smarter for Business Act to strengthen Ontario’s economic recovery, support businesses on the ground, and help governments deliver clear and effective rules that promote public health and safeguard the environment without sacrificing innovation, growth and opportunity. Changes in the act, along with other measures, included:

—requiring gas and electric utilities to adopt Green Button technology, which allows utility consumers to automate the secure transfer of their energy use so that they can understand their energy consumption and reduce costs;

—allowing single traffic studies for an entire specified highway corridor or area to reduce duplication and enable developers to get shovels in the ground faster for crucial infrastructure projects, like the 413, that we all rely upon;

—making it easier to get environmental information that we need by moving from a manual, paper-based process to a much faster digital delivery platform; and

—cutting red tape for intercommunity bus carriers to improve transportation options in rural and northern Ontario, making it easier for workers and families to access more transportation options.

In June 2021, the Legislature passed the Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act to help businesses and governments deliver clear, modern and effective rules that promoted public health, safeguarded the economy and created jobs. This was a comprehensive package of some 90 regulatory and legislative actions and announcements to position businesses for new opportunities as competition ramped back up and as the economy reopened. Among other things, this red tape legislation was intended to help consumers save money on electricity, to help innovative pilot projects that supported our automated vehicle industry—a fledgling industry, but one that’s taking off—bringing more Ontario processes and services online, such as the sticker renewal for commercial vehicle licence plates. I would also note this was around the same time that we got rid of licence plate sticker fees for regular vehicles, which I think is a very important step towards affordability. And it also supported the not-for-profit sector and other corporations by allowing them to continue virtual meetings.

In December 2021, the Legislature passed the Supporting People and Businesses Act to continue our work cutting costly red tape and reducing unnecessary administrative burdens. Highlights included making it easier for people to become volunteers by providing free police checks. And the act laid the groundwork for licensed restaurants and bars to extend their outdoor patio spaces last year, when they needed it most. It also laid the groundwork for additional financial supports and a simplified application process for the Second Career program—a program that helps those looking for employment training for occupations in high demand.

The Fewer Fees, Better Services Act introduced last February was our eighth red tape reduction bill. It consisted of legislative changes and policy announcements designed to support businesses and individuals with the certainty for successful economic recovery as Ontario emerged from the pandemic and moved beyond. This package included financial relief for millions of Ontario vehicle owners, including removing the requirement for and providing refunds for the licence plate renewal fees. It also gave drivers a break by removing tolls from Highways 412 and 418. It also put Ontario businesses front and centre for government procurement; established a single window for business services that set service standards so businesses will know how long it will take them to get the information they need from government; as well as unlocked the value and optimized the use of government real estate to attract investment, identify social benefit opportunities and support communities across Ontario.

In March of last year, we announced the Building Ontario Businesses Initiative, strengthening supply chain resiliency.

And in the 2022 budget, we committed to cutting more red tape to support individuals.

Speaker, I am running out of time.

Interjections.