SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
October 25, 2023 09:00AM
  • Oct/25/23 10:00:00 a.m.
  • Re: Bill 139 

I want to thank the member opposite for that important question. Obviously, one of the ways that—any item that we’re bringing forward in a piece of legislation or other changes are done in consultation with the stakeholders from the industries. In this case, as well, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities held a very comprehensive consultation in terms of what it is that we’re able to do to continue to support the sector, especially universities and colleges. We heard it loud and clear with some of the changes that we’ve introduced in this piece of legislation, addressing some of the concerns that were raised by them, to continue to help them become more efficient so they can continue to provide an important education for all students across the great province of Ontario. That’s the item that is always kept in mind.

Currently, let’s say, if there’s a small, minor repair that needs to take place to a place of worship and that happens to fall under the Ontario Heritage Act, they would have to go through a lot of different approvals to get minor repairs done. Let me give you an example: If a window breaks down or glass breaks down, before that could be replaced, they would need to go apply to the municipality and ask for an approval to be able to change something as simple as glass in a window.

Some of the changes in this bill will help places of worship to continue the important work that they need to do by not having to go through some of those unnecessary approvals for some of the very basic repairs to do with a place of worship.

At the same time, we’re also looking for efficiencies to help doctors, to take the burden away from them when it comes to filling out unnecessary forms. We all know that in some cases, on an average week, doctors spend anywhere from eight to 10 hours just filling out forms. So this piece of legislation and the changes we’ve introduced in this will help them save, roughly, about four and a half hours a week. Altogether, it works out to about 95,000 hours, Madam Speaker. What is that translated into patient visits? About 285,000 patient visits, where they will be able to see patients and provide them the service. That’s what they’re trained to do, not to fill out—

It wasn’t until we formed government and we turned this into a priority—so to give you an example, Madam Speaker, previously, on average, businesses were spending about $33,000 a year in compliance costs alone. Thanks to our efforts and 11 bills, businesses are now saving nearly $950 million annually in compliance costs.

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