[Inaudible] that the NDP ironically voted against and now try to take credit for. One of the great things that we’ve been doing since we got to government—again, after 15 years of destructive Liberal government where they refused to build long-term care. They didn’t add to our medical schools, Mr. Speaker—

Interjection.

Interjection.

Applause.

Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

L’École de médecine du Nord de l’Ontario est un succès pour augmenter le nombre de médecins dans le nord de l’Ontario : 50 % de leurs diplômés choisissent la médecine familiale et plus de 90 % des apprenants et apprenantes demeurent dans le nord de l’Ontario. Aujourd’hui, plus de 400 000 résidents et résidentes du Nord reçoivent des soins primaires et aigus d’une médecin ou d’un médecin formés à l’EMNO.

Lorsque le gouvernement a créé la première école de médecine autonome au Canada, il savait que ça coûterait plus cher—4 millions de dollars de plus, pour être exacte. Parry Sound, Muskoka et de nombreuses autres communautés de circonscriptions du Nord ont écrit au premier ministre pour appuyer la demande de l’EMNO d’augmenter de façon permanente son financement de base.

Quand est-ce que le gouvernement va accorder à l’université de l’EMNO le financement annualisé de 4 millions de dollars dont elle a besoin pour rester à flot?

Thank you, again, to the member from Brantford–Brant. Creating the environment for success is what leadership is about; that is what this Premier and this government have done. In fact, 15,000 purpose-built rentals, up 7.5% year over year—this is success.

I would also add that we need to, humbly submitted, pass the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act legislation before this Legislature. It’s going to lower costs. It’s going to cut red tape. It’s going to work with our municipal partners. It’s bold, it’s innovative and it’s results-oriented.

Speaker, we have a mandate to act and, I would conclude, we have a duty to succeed. We will get the job done.

Individuals and families across Ontario should be able to find a home that fits their needs. From the associate minister’s response, it is clear that our government is making progress in boosting housing starts. However, there needs to be a significant increase in the overall housing supply across Ontario, especially rental housing. More needs to be done to boost rental housing starts and to reduce barriers in their construction so that more Ontarians have more choice and access to affordable housing.

Speaker, can the associate minister please explain what measures our government is implementing to increase rental housing supply throughout Ontario?

Thank you.

The supplementary question.

The supplementary, the member for Sudbury.

There being no further business at this time, this House stands in recess until 3 p.m.

The House recessed from 1143 to 1500.

I’ll go back to the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you to the hard-working member from Thornhill for that great question.

Mr. Speaker, yes, our government is currently making an unprecedented investment in housing. As we see before our eyes, the population within our province is growing at an outstanding rate, and these people need somewhere to live and ways to get around. Our government is aware of these challenges— and if left unchecked, will lead to more issues in the future.

That is why we have introduced the Transportation for the Future Act, which aims to help build more GO Transit stations, which in turn will help to generate more housing and mixed-used communities around transit infrastructure. This will result in a more convenient commute across the greater Golden Horseshoe while also helping us to meet the goal of getting 1.5 million homes built by 2031. It is one of the ways we’re building up Ontario for families in the years ahead.

Mr. Speaker, our proposed legislation would create a station contribution fee as a new tool to allow municipalities to stimulate the construction of new GO Transit stations. This will bring a return of investment that will include accelerated transit expansion as well as vibrant mixed-use communities that will contain much-needed housing. This legislation also seeks to give permission to municipalities to recover costs from funding new GO Transit stations. The station contribution fee would be collected until the full station costs are recovered. This will result in a reduction in other development costs.

Mr. Speaker, building these transit-oriented communities will lead to more housing, local businesses, investment opportunities, reduced travel times and will create better connections between regions. And to add to that, our subway Transit-Oriented Communities Program has already led to 13 new sites, creating 48,000 new housing units.

Our priority is to ensure we have a safe and efficient highway network across our province, particularly in northern Ontario, where the winter months pose significant challenges for drivers. Previously in my role as a parliamentary assistant to transportation, Mr. Speaker, I have done four-day driving tours throughout Ontario, starting from Thunder Bay all the way to North Bay, to see the work that’s been going on.

I want to highlight one thing: Ontario has nation-leading standards in place when it comes to winter maintenance, and we intend to keep it that way. Also, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to northern Ontario, under the leadership of Premier Doug Ford, we are bringing the Northlander back.

It is my honour to present the following petition entitled “Expand Ontario Seniors Dental Plan.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas seniors have to access the Ontario seniors dental plan through local public health units;

“Whereas the number of dentists registered with public health units to be covered under the Ontario seniors dental plan is low in northern Ontario;

“Whereas the small number of dentists registered with the Ontario seniors dental plan limits the capacity of public health units to serve their patients...; and

“Whereas the income threshold for seniors to be eligible for the Ontario seniors dental plan is unreasonably low—an annual net income of $22,200 or less for a single senior; a combined annual net income of $37,100 or less for a couple—thus creating a huge barrier for low-income seniors to access dental care;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“—to invest in community health centres, aboriginal health access centres, and public health units to build and expand dental suites and to hire more dentists; and

“—to facilitate the implementation of the federal dental health care plan, which covers all seniors with income lower than $75,000, when it becomes law.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it, through page Sophia, to the Clerks.

I would like to thank Kevin Lomack for signing the petition Housing for All.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas all Ontarians have the right to adequate housing;

“Whereas to ensure an adequate supply of housing, Ontario must build 1.5 million new market and non-market homes over the next decade; and

“Whereas the for-profit private market by itself will not, and cannot, deliver enough homes that are affordable and meet the needs of Ontarians for all incomes, ages, family sizes, abilities and cultures;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to implement a comprehensive housing plan that ensures the right of all Ontarians to adequate housing, including:

“—ending exclusionary zoning and enabling access to affordable and adequate housing options in all neighbourhoods;

“—stabilizing housing markets and stopping harmful speculation; establishing a strong public role in the funding, delivery, acquisition and protection of an adequate supply of affordable and non-market homes;

“—protecting tenants from rent gouging and displacement, and ensuring the inclusivity of growing neighbourhoods; and

“—focusing growth efficiently and sustainably within existing urban boundaries, while protecting irreplaceable farmland, wetlands, the greenbelt and other natural heritage from costly and unsustainable urban sprawl.”

I fully support this petition, sign it and give it to page Isabella to give to the table.

My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure.

After years of neglect by the previous Liberal government, the housing crisis is affecting thousands of individuals and families across our province. Many Ontarians are facing challenges in finding housing that suits their needs, and the lack of transit infrastructure is also creating barriers to accessing convenient transit services. That is why our government must implement solutions to address these important concerns in order to unlock our province’s full economic potential.

There are many economic, social and environmental benefits that can be achieved by increasing the housing supply and bringing housing closer to transit stations—like the Yonge North subway extension.

Can the minister please explain how our government is addressing Ontario’s housing and transit needs in order to build a stronger Ontario?

While the opposition parties continue to say no, our government knows and understands that housing and transportation are amongst the most important issues facing our communities. Communities that are built around transit infrastructure create an environment that will bring about more options for housing as well as opportunities for businesses and community services. It is vital that our government continues to pursue all options that will support solutions for housing and job creation.

Can the parliamentary assistant please explain further what actions our government is taking to help improve the lives of Ontarians for generations to come?

“Whereas Alzheimer’s disease affects over 250,000 people in the province of Ontario;

“Whereas it is estimated that approximately 400,000 individuals will be diagnosed with dementia by” the year “2030;

“Whereas by the year 2050, more than” 1.5 “million Canadians are expected to be living with dementia, with an average of 685 individuals diagnosed each day;

“Whereas Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging and is irreversible;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge the government to work on improving dementia care, support, and equitable access to service for those living with Alzheimer’s disease through the passage of Bill 121, the Improving Dementia Care Act in Ontario, 2023.”

I support this petition wholeheartedly. I will affix my name and give it to page Vera-Claire.

This petition is entitled “Stop the Demolition of Rent-Controlled Buildings.” I’d like to say thank you to the members of No Demovictions from Toronto−St. Paul’s and across the GTA for the work they’ve been doing in this regard.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas demolition evictions” of purpose-built, rent-controlled buildings in fine, livable condition “are becoming commonplace across Ontario in the middle of an affordability crisis, this practice displaces tenants from their communities, diminishes the supply of affordable housing, causes environmental waste, contributes to the growing number of people experiencing homelessness, and disrupts the lives of fixed-income seniors, young families, and low- to middle-income tenants;

Whereas displacing tenants from their homes will have a negative impact on their livelihood, social supports, sense of community, and mental health, which makes the protection of their housing vital to ensuring their quality of life;

“Whereas development is important to building more homes, the practice of demolishing existing housing is counterintuitive and does not consider the long-term ramifications for existing tenants, Ontario residents, or the broader community;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to stop the demolition of rent-controlled buildings across Ontario, to ensure that people are housed in the middle of an affordability crisis, and that the government is growing the stock of” real “affordable housing, not diminishing it.”

I couldn’t agree more. Thank you again to No Demovictions of Toronto−St. Paul’s and those across the GTA. I’m handing it over to Bella.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine—including every other medical school in the province of Ontario—has 20 additional residency positions under this government. We have made those expansions—at least 20.

To sit and hear the NDP talk about the investments that need to happen—where were you when we were doing as-of-right in the province of Ontario, legislatively saying, “If you have a licence and can practise in any part of Canada, you can come to Ontario and immediately start working while your licence is getting passed.” Where were the NDP? Respectfully, they were saying, “No, not appropriate.” Where were the NDP when we were writing the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and saying, “Please, you must—I direct you to make sure individuals who are waiting on those lists to get assessed and ultimately licensed to practise in”—

My question is to the Premier. Believe it or not, they are calling for snow in northern Ontario this week and we all know what happens when we get snow in northern Ontario. Highway 11 and Highway 17 once again become even more dangerous than they are now. They’re closed a lot now in the summertime, but with the first snow, we can almost guarantee it.

My question to the government is: What progress is the government actually making with driving schools to ensure that every driver that’s trained and licensed in Ontario is actually equipped to face the conditions that they will face when they go over Thibeault Hill?

I would like to bring this government’s attention to what is happening outside the silo of Queen’s Park. Outside these doors, Ontarians are really struggling, more than we’ve seen in, I think, generations. They’re struggling with the steep increase in rent, mortgage, groceries, gas. Basic necessities are feeling like a burden. People even with two, three jobs are lining up at food banks. Ontarians are worried that homelessness is around the corner for them—and many more are experiencing that first-hand. Wages aren’t going as far as they used to. Mental health supports aren’t keeping up with demand.

These are the stories that I’ve heard, whether I was meeting Ontarians right here in Toronto or in Peterborough or Sudbury or Kitchener or Kapuskasing. I’ve seen and felt the same stress and helplessness all across the province.

But instead of offering hope that things can be better, instead of taking action to change things, this government has been busy lurching from scandal to scandal. They’ve been busy helping their friends instead of helping the people who need it most. We’re talking about a massive land transfer—a land transfer scheme that would make their friends and donors of their party billions of dollars richer. And the people of this province, of any political stripe, cannot swallow this.

Mr. Speaker, what’s worse is that this government essentially used the housing crisis as a scapegoat to cover up their greenbelt grab. It’s shameful. They had the audacity to tell weary Ontarians that they needed to carve up the greenbelt and give it to their friends so that they could build housing—never mind that the land was already being flipped for a profit before a single foundation was laid, never mind that the proposed developments wouldn’t even be affordable to most working people. But the fact that they used the housing crisis like this, as a pretense to help themselves, is unforgivable.

Even the Premier’s own hand-picked housing task force recommended the absolute opposite of what this government did. Every single expert voice—the government’s own housing task force; housing experts; municipalities, mayors, councillors, reeves; environmental advocates; First Nations—said that we do not need to sacrifice the greenbelt to build housing, that we have enough land within existing boundaries.

According to Environmental Defence, “Even before the 2022 boundary expansions and greenbelt removals, there was more than 35,000 hectares ... of unused land already designated for suburban development in the GTHA. That is more than three times the size of Paris, France.”

The Premier may have promised to reverse this decision, he may have apologized, but Ontarians still want to know why—despite pushback from all sides, why did the Premier and his government chase the greenbelt? Who tipped off the developers? Why was a cabinet minister getting massages in Las Vegas with a land speculator who stood to benefit from the greenbelt swap?

Speaker, we in the official opposition, NDP, New Democrats, want to make life better for people. It’s what drives us. But you cannot do what needs to be done without first restoring trust, accountability and transparency back here at Queen’s Park. And unfortunately, that is something that this government has completely destroyed.

This is why, today, the official opposition is calling on the government to form a select committee on changes to the greenbelt, to ensure Ontarians are able to get the answers that they so deeply deserve.

Unfortunately, the Premier and the Conservatives are not in this to help Ontarians. This is a party that has a single-minded vision to only benefit their select few friends at the expense of everybody else and, frankly, at the expense of the well-being of this province.

Sadly, this is a government that has made it clear again and again that they cannot be trusted. Just a week ago, when the Legislature returned, the housing minister stood up in the House and said, no, they won’t be passing the greenbelt restoration act. That was the NDP’s legislation that would have reversed the Conservatives’ changes and restored those land protections. In fact, the Conservatives voted it down before it even got to first reading. That is almost unforeseen. They said they’re introducing their own legislation, but it’s nowhere to be seen—and here we are, another week gone by, and we’re still waiting.

This government has made it so very hard to trust their words and their promises. The official opposition’s requests to the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner revealed significant evidence that this government did not follow due processes and, in fact, that they gave favourable, preferential treatment to a select few developers over the interest of Ontarians. Before they got caught, they were ready to put billions—billions—in the pockets of their insider land speculators at the expense of essential agricultural lands and ecosystems.

The Auditor General’s report, though, left no doubt—there is no way that a single staff member acted alone to rig the system. This starts at the top.

The NDP’s initial letter to the Auditor General raised concerns about the shift of wealth to land speculators who were not building any homes, including concerns about Mr. Silvio DeGasperis and his ongoing efforts to remove 1,300 acres of DRAP lands.

Let’s review this. Mr. DeGasperis is the president of TACC Construction Ltd. and TACC Developments. The DeGasperis family are prominent donors to the Conservative Party and have donated at least $163,362 since 2014. That’s a pretty penny. The DeGasperis family began purchasing parcels of cheap farmland in north Pickering as early as 2003 with the hopes of building new subdivisions. This land was totally undevelopable until the Ford Conservatives, the members opposite, changed government policy. We know that the DeGasperis family acquired more of this land as recently as 2020.

We also know that Silvio DeGasperis asked a court to block the Auditor General from interviewing him in response to a summons as a part of the greenbelt investigation. It makes you wonder what they’re hiding. What else is there to uncover? What revelations are still to come?

Similarly, Ontarians would also like to understand the suspicious timing of land purchases by Michael Rice, his donation ties to this government and to speculators. Michael Rice is the CEO of Rice Group, and he is also listed as the president of Green Lane Bathurst GP, a company that bought $80 million worth of land which was, at the time, five undevelopable parcels in the greenbelt, two months prior to the government’s November 2022 announcement. Michael Rice has also donated significantly to the Progressive Conservative Party.

In July 2023, Mr. Rice went to court to avoid answering questions regarding his company’s dealings in the greenbelt after—yes, again—he was summoned by the Auditor General. Again, this just begs the question of what else is not being shared?

Speaker, we’re clearly just scratching the surface here, and that is why we in the official opposition NDP are proposing a select committee. A select committee would be able to summon these two developers, who are witnesses but yet refused to co-operate with the Auditor General’s investigation, and they would be compelled to provide their evidence. This is how democracy functions, and Ontarians deserve answers and accountability.

I’m going to offer a few more details about the shady backroom dealings that this government has been engaging in since day one, because I think it helps to lend some colour, let’s just say, to why we might want to actually hold a select committee and why it might be in the best interest of this government to shine a little light on those dark corners.

We know that several individuals who attended the Premier’s family wedding were developers who received favourable ministerial zoning orders and at least one individual who benefited from the now-reversed greenbelt land swap.

But the backroom dealings go further back than November 2022. The Conservatives—the Conservative government—have had their eyes on the greenbelt for their donor-speculator friends since 2018. Here’s a timeline of events that took place prior to November 2022, when the Conservative government decided to remove thousands of acres of land from the greenbelt.

Let’s just start—and this isn’t even going that far back. We know, of course, that the Premier did promise developers in 2018 that he was going to carve up the greenbelt and serve it up to speculators. We have that on record. But let’s go back to April 2022. Luca Bucci was Minister Clark’s chief of staff from January 2021 until April 2022. He joined as CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association in July 2022, just a few months later. But on May 30, 2022, Mr. Bucci registered to lobby the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on behalf of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, despite guidelines in the Members’ Integrity Act and the Lobbyists Registration Act that actually prevent a public servant from lobbying their former employer for at least one year. That’s the rule here in Ontario—at least one year—and that’s, of course, to prevent any real or perceived conflict of interest.

Here’s another date: June 2022. Andrew Sidnell, a senior aide in Premier Ford’s office, circulated the Premier’s feedback on a 47-page slide deck in an email sent after midnight on June 28, 2022; that’s according to documents that were released through freedom of information. The email chain, which was obtained by the Narwhal, is the first set of records that have been released by the government that suggest the Premier may have been privy to policy discussions about the greenbelt as early as June 2022. That’s just weeks after, let’s remember, the people of Ontario elected this government expecting, believing that they would act with trust and integrity.

September 15, 2022: Green Lane Bathurst GP Inc. purchased five parcels of greenbelt protected land in a group sale for a total of $80 million. The sale listing described the property as a “prime land banking opportunity.” The company lists, as I mentioned earlier, Rice Group CEO Michael Rice as its president.

Then, this summer, the walls start to close in on the Conservative government’s apparent breach of Ontarians’ trust. On June 29, 2023, the Auditor General issued a summons to Silvio DeGasperis, president of TACC Group of companies, to ask him to provide information related to properties owned by his companies that were removed from the greenbelt. Mr. DeGasperis filed a letter with the courts asking to block the summons.

July 5, 2023: Michael Rice, CEO of the Rice Group, filed a notice of application with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice seeking to block or delay a summons from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk that he be interviewed and provide records related to land he owns in the area that, as we know, was now cleared for development.

August 1, 2023—follow along here—Luca Bucci, former chief of staff to the then Ontario housing minister, suddenly leaves his position as CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, days before the Auditor General announces their office is about to release that special report on changes to the greenbelt, which we in the official opposition, along with leaders of the two other parties, had requested.

Why not clear the air, with all of that? What is this government hiding?

The Integrity Commissioner’s first report found that the member for Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes had breached sections 2, conflict of interest, and 3.2, insider information, of the Members’ Integrity Act. But those are just a little glimpse into how deep this scandal goes, and the people of Ontario deserve to know the actual full extent of the biggest scandal in Ontario’s political history.

How can we begin to trust a government that has tied itself up so neatly in this web? How can we trust a government when one of their own former cabinet ministers didn’t tell the full story to the Integrity Commissioner under oath about taking a trip to Las Vegas with a developer and making policy on the massage table with them?

According to the Integrity Commissioner, the parties involved—Mr. Rasheed and then-principal secretary to the Premier, Amin Massoudi—said they took the trip in December 2019 and “exchanged pleasantries” with developer Shakir Rehmatullah in the lobby of a hotel. That was the extent of it, apparently. Mr. Rasheed told the Integrity Commissioner that he is friends with Mr. Rehmatullah but didn’t know he was going to be in Las Vegas—what a coincidence. Mr. Rehmatullah is the founder of Flato Development, a company listed as the owner of two of the sites removed from the greenbelt. However, records show that former-Minister Rasheed actually went on the trip—guess what—in February 2020, and the three men also—what a coincidence—got massages at the same time.

Speaker, is this how a government that apparently is concerned about the housing crisis acts? This scandal has cost this government three cabinet ministers, and they’ve set the province back at least five years in meeting our housing targets. Because of this government, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Ontario has the biggest housing unit supply gap in the entire country. The Premier and his government have destroyed any confidence at all in the system. We need them to move forward with a select committee so we can get to the bottom of it all—because the fact of the matter is, you can solve a housing crisis without a corruption crisis.

We knew when we rang the alarm bells that none of this was ever about housing. In fact, the Conservatives’ corruption scandal only further fuels land speculation and worsens the accountability crisis and the affordability crisis that Ontarians are struggling with every single day. It further encourages greedy speculators to play unethical real estate games to rake in even bigger profits without delivering the homes that we know people actually need. It creates expensive sprawl, which the Auditor General’s report indicates will cost Ontarians billions for roads, sewers, water and other services.

Madam Speaker, if the government actually cared about addressing the housing crisis, there are many, many tools at the Premier’s disposal, if they wanted to take just a minute away from thinking about the interests of their developer friends—those land speculators who are their donors, who they have committed to making richer and richer each day. I can give them a few of those tools right now, if the housing minister would like to take notes.

For starters, this government could bring back real rent control. That would stop the housing affordability crisis from getting worse. They could end exclusionary zoning—a recommendation of their very own housing task force. They could pass the official opposition’s housing critic’s motion to set up a short-term rental registry and restrict short-term and mid-term rentals to a person’s primary residence in those areas where we have low vacancy rates.

I want to quote the member for University–Rosedale here. She said, “Our province has a housing affordability crisis, and we must take every practical measure to make housing affordable for Ontarians again. Cracking down on short-term rentals in investment properties is one way we can make renting more affordable and stable.” I’ll say. Yes, indeed.

Those are just a few of the solutions that we in the official opposition NDP have recommended to help people today—not 10 years from now, but today.

Let’s be clear: This government didn’t walk into a housing crisis on June 3, 2022. This is a crisis that has been years in the making. The Premier has claimed many times that his party didn’t run on the greenbelt land swap because there wasn’t a housing crisis at the time. Oh, please. Come on. The Integrity Commissioner’s report notes many times that staff had discussed greenbelt removals prior to the election. In fact, according to the commissioner’s report, just 27 days after his re-election, the Premier was giving the former Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs explicit instructions to start carving up the greenbelt. The Premier claims that that all happened as of June 2. Come on. In fact, Andrew Sidnell, the Premier’s former deputy chief of staff, told the Integrity Commissioner that he understood that the housing crisis was a priority this government was just elected to solve, which is completely contradictory to the Premier’s comments.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much more left to be uncovered. If the Premier has nothing to hide, then why are they not co-operating? If they have nothing to hide, why did this government say no to the official opposition’s request for a Speaker’s warrant? Let’s do this—if the government has nothing to hide. Even at the height of the Liberal government’s absolutely disastrous gas plant scandal, that government, those MPPs, co-operated in forming a select committee to investigate what happened.

The Auditor General’s report also revealed that the Premier was using his personal device—this is something I raised in question period this morning, and I didn’t get any answers, interestingly. The Premier was using his personal device for government business; even the former housing minister’s staff were found to be using personal email accounts to conduct government business—by the way, I think they then deleted some emails. This is not how government is supposed to be run.

It’s shady.

The NDP believes that these facts constitute a troubling pattern of behaviour by this government and a pervasive disregard for record-keeping and transparency, and possibly attempts to avoid public scrutiny.

That’s why, in the official opposition’s continued efforts to restore order, trust and accountability, we have also written to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, as well as to the secretary of cabinet, the head of Ontario Public Service, asking both offices to recover and retain all records pertaining to this government’s changes to the greenbelt. I will note that that secretary of the cabinet, the head of the Ontario Public Service—that person’s priority seems to be to trace who actually spilled the beans on the mandate letter; not securing the servers, which I think is shameful, actually.

Today, I want to make one thing very, very clear: The NDP—we on this side of the House—will continue to use every single legislative tool to get to the bottom of what happened with the greenbelt. We will not stop. We will not stop because an apology from the Premier is not enough. For nearly one year, this government was busy cutting their close friends—those land speculators—backroom deals, and since getting caught, they’ve been so busy with damage control from these never-ending scandals that they’ve lost total sight of their responsibility to Ontarians.

Let’s get it straight; as I mentioned at the start of this, Ontarians are going through a very, very hard time. They are lining up at food banks in record numbers. They are struggling to stretch their paycheques until the end of the month. They are worried that homelessness is around the corner. And right now, during so much financial hardship and uncertainty—and let’s remember, as well, things are not better after five years of this government; they are far more difficult today for people in this province. Maybe not for the land speculators who donate to the Conservative Party, but for real Ontarians, things are tougher today. The last thing that the people of this province need is a government that is unstable, a government that is refusing to be transparent with them and that is refusing to be truly accountable to them and to be responsive to them.

A select committee will help Ontarians get the answers and the transparency that they are looking for. I want to remind the government again: A prior select committee helped uncover misconduct in the former Liberal government’s gas plant scandal. That led to the former Premier’s chief of staff being sentenced to four months in jail. The creation of that select committee was supported by MPPs of all parties. Why not now? I heard the member opposite, the member from Nepean, say, “But that was a minority government—special circumstances.” I just want to point out that I think these are special circumstances. We have the worst political scandal in this province’s history, I would argue—unprecedented. Now is the time. A select committee is another tool that we, in the Ontario official opposition, NDP, are going to use to bring trust and accountability to government.

I would deeply urge and strongly suggest to the government that they co-operate today and pass this motion.

I appreciate this opportunity to address the motion.

I had the opportunity, 10 years ago, to sit on the committee that carried out the inquiry into the gas plant scandal. All of us should be grateful to the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner for the work they did, shedding light on what has happened with the greenbelt scandal. But I know from experience, sitting on that committee of inquiry, that more can be done in finding out what happens when a government goes wrong.

For those who may not remember, in the 2000s the Liberal government commissioned two power plants to be built in Oakville and Mississauga, respectively, to deal with local electricity demand. In the run-up to the 2011 elections, the government faced growing problems with voters in the ridings hosting the plants and those who were neighbouring those plants—so much opposition that, in an attempt to secure government, the McGuinty government cancelled both plants, one before and one during the 2011 election. Of course, those cancellations triggered legal actions by the builders, and ultimately the Auditor General found that they resulted in losses to the ratepayers of approximately a billion dollars.

By the way, the Auditor General was much lauded by the Conservative Party at the time, and rightly so. The same Auditor General dug into the shenanigans around the removal of parcels of land from the greenbelt, for which she received much less goodwill from the same party, and she found that benefits to friends of the Premier came in at over $8 billion. No one has ever said that the Premier was not ambitious and generous with his friends, and he proved it with this.

Again, as a refresher, Premier McGuinty did not win the majority in 2011, and in the minority Legislature that followed that election, an inquiry into the gas plant scandal was forced into existence. After an attempt at stalling by the Premier, who prorogued the Legislature for a number of months, the committee was allowed to resume its work, calling civil servants, ministers and participants in the whole process before the committee to answer questions. There were 400,000 pages of documents provided to the committee of inquiry. We did a lot of reading.

There were a few things that became clear from the introduction of the emails and from the testimony of the many who appeared before the committee. The first thing that became clear was that the absence of emails, of records of activity were substantial—and the vital role of access to records in establishing what happened, even with the destruction of records. You should know, by law, government records were to be preserved and archived, and many weren’t. In fact, almost nothing came out of the office of the Minister of Energy and his staff. That led to a secondary examination by the privacy commissioner, who found large-scale destruction of records. Ultimately, the large-scale destruction of records led, as my leader has said, to criminal prosecution of senior members of the Premier McGuinty staff, with the conviction and jailing of chief of staff David Livingston. And, man, did that ever give us the sense of the moral compass of that government; did that ever clarify to the people of Ontario who they were dealing with.

In his report, the Integrity Commissioner noted that the calendar for the minister’s chief of staff, Ryan Amato, had times blocked off for meetings in the relevant period that were critical to the transfer of those lands but no participants noted, or purposes of meetings noted. The man must be incredible in terms of memory. I don’t know about other people in this room, but I can’t remember every item on every calendar day. I’m impressed.

There was a notable absence of emails and use of personal phones and personal email, apparently to get around the laws on preservation of archival material. An inquiry would give us a much better sense if there was an evasion of the Archives and Recordkeeping Act and the potential scale of that evasion.

I have to say to all of you that access to the actual records was critical to reconstructing what happened in the gas plants scandal. Something we discovered when we were questioning Liberal political staff and politicians in the committee was the staggering rate of early-onset memory loss. These were people in the prime of their lives, and they had the memory of people in their nineties. It was astounding to watch. I felt sorry for them, being struck down so young with that kind of malady. The records that didn’t get deleted did actually give us a chance to understand what happened.

Speaker, I think it’s going to be critical for a committee of inquiry to get records, because I have a sense that under pressure of testifying under oath, there may be some Conservative staffers and politicians who also suffer early-onset memory loss, and so in order to establish what’s going on, or what went on, access to records, even if they’ve been disturbed, will be critical. We need to ask: What did they forget, and when did they forget it?

The second thing that became clear from the records that did survive was what led to the decision to cancel the plants—I’m talking now about the gas plants scandal. The government and its ministers, who had seats directly affected by the plants, were distraught—you had to read the emails to understand it, to appreciate it—at the level of anger they were dealing with in their ridings. They were besieged. What we saw in their internal emails was raw political fear—raw political fear that translated into decisions for cancellation of plants and incurring of huge losses for the people of this province.

It’s hard for me to believe that a similar examination of emails and texts from current government MPPs wouldn’t show the same kind of fear in the lead-up to the reversal. You don’t snatch $8 billion worth of profits out of the hands of your friends, people who show up for your daughter’s wedding, unless there is, on the other side, a powerful political motivator, like a career-ending event at the hands of your angry voters. If fear motivated the reversal, it would be interesting to delve into the records to see what motivated the savaging of the greenbelt in the first place.

I accept that the buck stops with the Premier. He said it himself.

No one buys the fairy tale that this had anything to do with the housing crisis. We need to find out, what did the Premier order, and why did he order it?

The third thing that became clear in the course of that inquiry—and that could be made clear in the course of another inquiry—was that the Liberal government knew very early on the scale of the cost to ratepayers of Ontario. The chief of staff to the Minister of Energy made inquiries when this whole thing was about to go forward, when the whole idea of cancelling the plants was first promoted, and some prescient bureaucrat suggested the cost was in about a $1-billion range. I don’t know who that bureaucrat was, but whoever they are, man, they knew energy costs.

It’s hard for me to believe that with this greenbelt scandal, there were not senior political and bureaucratic staff who didn’t do the rough math themselves—maybe the developers did it for them—to see what kind of staggering gift of public value was being made to those who had the chance to get a piece of wedding cake served by the Premier. The public deserves to know. Cake and billions—what an amazing combination; what a wedding gift. What did the government know about the value they were giving away, and when did they know it?

The fourth piece of clarity that came out of that gas plants scandal inquiry—and, I think, would come out here—was a look into the operations of government itself, which was something that few people ever get a chance to do. At one point, we were given access to the interviews of senior bureaucrats and political staff by the OPP. In one interview, a senior bureaucrat talked about his concern that the top political staff in the Premier’s office didn’t keep records of their daily meetings. The chief of staff’s senior people would meet every day. They had one sheet of paper with headings like “Shutting Down Hamilton” or “Making St. Catharines a Free-Enterprise Zone”—I don’t know. There were no records kept of any decisions or discussion. That was it. That’s how the province was being run. I have to say, this was so noteworthy that in the final report on the inquiry, the Conservatives put in their own dissenting opinion. They quoted from the OPP interviews. They went out of their way to quote the cabinet secretary talking about the lack of Liberal records. Here is the text: Cabinet secretary Peter Wallace told investigators that he warned David Livingston, McGuinty’s chief of staff, that “the only organizations that did not maintain records were criminal organizations” and that “a practice of no record-keeping would be embarrassing”—the second one, yes, it would be amazingly embarrassing; the other would have a greater punch, I thought. I have to ask myself, with the way that the Integrity Commissioner describes the avoiding of government phones and emails to communicate about these parcels of land, with missing calendar entries, with the use of envelopes full of plans given out at events, what would that civil servant say today? What would a legislative committee find with regard to the Premier, his ministers and his operatives with the questions—what did they delete, and when did they delete it?

As I go door to door in my riding talking to my constituents, the questions come up constantly: What really happened with the greenbelt? Who did this? They know, generally, the Premier was running things, but through what persons did he do it? Who benefited? Why wasn’t this stopped? Why wasn’t it stopped internally when people realized, “This is bad news”—aside from the fact that there were other considerations, not just bad news.

A public inquiry with the power to compel evidence could give us answers to many of these questions—maybe not all, but to many of these questions. We need to get those answers. Let’s get going with this committee of inquiry.

It’s shady.

Further debate?

Further debate?