Further debate?

I thank the member from Cambridge for his presentation. I would like the member to talk about the impact of this legislation a little bit more fully on the small businesses in his riding, Speaker, who impact, as he well knows, the local economy.

Questions?

Thank you for the question. I think it would help to promote and encourage businesses that are honest and above board to move further, and they would increase their business load. The whole purpose of this act is to dissuade the bad actors, identify them and move them away, and protect the people of Ontario.

It’s my pleasure to stand here today and talk about Bill 142, the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, because, as I said earlier, consumers don’t know what they don’t know.

Right now, this bill is going to repeal the Consumer Protection Act, 2002, and this will be the act in its place. The act maintains that many of the traditions in the existing legislations—they’re going to consolidate them, and they’re going to move many of the items into regulation, and consumer protection legislation that covers both the goods and services.

I agree that many times legislation needs to have a review. When we were debating I think it was Bill 139, the red tape bill, last week, the government talked about looking at bills every—I think they said every 10 years to make sure that the regulations are working. If I recall, that’s the timeline. It is welcomed that they are going to be looking at this bill that’s over 20 years ago to make things better for consumers in this province when they are purchasing goods and services.

One of the things that I wanted to talk about was with regard to when someone purchases a good, for an example. Now, many of you know that last week the organic organization was in the Legislature. They were hopefully meeting with every MPP and explaining what some of their hurdles are in the organic sector. One of the things we know is that food is obviously something we all need to sustain ourselves. One of the messages they came to talk about to MPPs was that the organic industry needs to be regulated.

Right now the enforcement is through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, so any agricultural product that’s labelled organic is regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. However, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not typically investigate complaints about misuse of the terms unless the product: (a) bears a Canadian organic logo or (b) carries an organic claim and is being sold outside of the province of its origin. You see, there is a problem in this process here. When we’re talking about consumers accessing products and services, the organic sector has rightfully pointed out that they need to be regulated, because what happens is somebody who gets into the organic business, they can just slap a label on their produce and the consumer at the other end will not even be aware of what those standards are that enable that label to be organic. So they’re buying something, quite frankly, that could be not organic and that’s what those representatives were telling us.

We need to have regulations in Ontario about why—when we buy something, that it is actually organic. So why do we need Ontario organic regulations? They told us that it’s to protect organic farmers who have worked so hard to meet the standards. You’re not just protecting the people who are buying the produce, but you’re also protecting the farmers who are supplying that produce. It’s to reduce the consumer confusion and maintain food integrity by protecting consumers from misleading use of the term.

Again, we’re talking about Bill 142, how to protect consumers. This is something that the organic sector has been asking for quite some time, and it would be very important to look at that. I know there was a bill through the Legislature—the member from Danforth brought forward the exact bill about regulating organic food in Ontario. The representatives I’ve talked to said that unfortunately that hasn’t—you know, the government hasn’t taken that on to pass.

By regulating the organic industry, it also strengthens the organic brand in the system while continuing to improve it. It’s giving farmers and, quite frankly, the producers—I met with a woman named Julia. She would obviously receive the produce from the farmers and then she actually manufactures it. She was saying, as a young woman entrepreneur, that in order for us to create more jobs in the organic field that are—first of all, the organic sector is regulated, but also financing and helping with funding with entrepreneurs that are starting to develop and manufacture those organic products.

In many ways, it’s a great thing that this bill has come forward and is protecting consumers, but there is a product right in front of this government. It’s about food. It’s about food security. We need to make sure that we support our farmers when they decide to go into a different range of food and go the organic route. Quite frankly, it’s consumer choice. When people go to the grocery store, they often want organic. They know they—for whatever reasons: They want to make sure that they’re healthier, so they believe buying organic is going to give them a better quality of product. There are going to be less chemicals and pesticides used. They want to support organic farmers.

If the government is changing regulations, if the government is talking about better consumer protections, then having the organic sector regulated would be a good step in complementing what the government wants to accomplish by cutting red tape and also by protecting consumers in the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act. That’s just my opinion. I think that there’s lots to be done under this government that could improve access to organic food and making sure when people spend that money—because it does usually cost a little more to buy organic—that they are getting what they pay for, because they are saying that part of this bill is informing consumers, making sure they’re not getting gouged. To me, that is an important piece.

The other group that came in last week was the kinesiologists, and there were many colleagues in that area in the reception room meeting with the kinesiologists. One of the asks that they were asking for, again, was to create regulations, and one of them was they wanted to have kinesiologists actually regulated as a health practitioner agency or health care provider service, because when there are car accidents, they’re not a regulated health care provider for those treatments. So, again, many people could be accessing kinesiology under accident benefits, not realizing that they’re not a regulated health care professional under the accident benefits which means that they would have to probably pay out-of-pocket if they’re not regulated. So they wanted to be a part of that team. Many times, the conversations when we talk about consumer protections, the sector of the product people are buying or the service they’re accessing is not regulated.

So I think this is a good bill, as our critic has said. Overall, it includes encouraging improvements to the things that people are trying to access. One is the time-share example. I had a constituent come into my office years ago and, unfortunately, there was very little that we could do but refer him to legal counsel in order to resolve their dispute—or, actually, they wanted out of the time-share.

The other part of this bill—I noticed that they are going backwards on it. They are retroactively doing that, and that’s very important because one of the things I think we’ve talked about is protecting seniors. Many people who are younger get time-shares, absolutely, but, generally, the population that look at time-shares are people who are more mature, and they might have that extra time that they can flex off because they’re not working and access their time-share that they purchased. So having it be retroactive is a very important piece, I think, in this legislation.

I think the 25-year limit is also a fair step—that if you enter in a time-share, people are aware that their commitment is 25 years and then after that, they have a responsibility to do as they wish with that time-share, and they’re not locked in, because oftentimes people get—maybe they’re not well, they get sick and they can’t use a time-share. Then you’ve got to run around and look for somebody to take your time-share, and bottom line, you still have to pay for that time-share. It’s not an easy thing to be strapped with, held down on, if you don’t have the means to get there for health reasons, and then, again, as you age, you’re not interested, maybe, in going there for the rest of your life. A lifetime commitment is a lot to ask for for a time-share, so I’m glad to see that that is in there.

The other one that I wanted to chat about was the NOSIs. I was here when the minister gave his speech, and he talked about the increase in how many NOSIs have been registered, and I believe he used the number 38,000 NOSIs have been registered in a very short time. For those that don’t know what a NOSI is, it’s a notice of security interest. These are relatively new and, quite frankly, very bothersome at this point, when someone can basically—I’ll call it a lien on your property because it is a notice of securing some financial interest on your property.

The interesting part that the minister alluded to was that because they go through the land registry, land registries can’t differentiate if they’re actually a NOSI or if they’re actually a true lien on someone’s home, or a mortgage for that matter. As we have all had many examples of NOSIs on properties, I’m glad to see that they are going to be addressed as a serious problem, because everyone needs a furnace, let’s say, and the fact is that you may be financially in a precarious situation, so you might have to take it out as a lease.

Again, as the bill points out and many examples talked about, people are paying far more than the product is actually worth. To me, that’s unconscionable. The government talks about unconscionable deals and those NOSIs—when people have to pay double or triple or even just are under the gun when they have to sell their home and have to pay a bill when they had no idea that there was a NOSI registered on their property, it’s quite disturbing actually.

Then, even if the people can pay that NOSI, it’s a big financial hit because it’s quite—thousands and thousands of dollars. Many people are on fixed incomes. When you sell your home, you’re maybe relying on the sale of your home for some financial security. It may be your retirement. To have to pay a NOSI and come up with $10,000—in some examples we talked about, people were paying NOSIs of $60,000. That’s just ridiculous. So it’s good to see that the NOSIs are in this legislation and that the government acknowledges that they have to be dealt with.

The other part of the consumer affairs—they talked about cancellations. I was a broker in my previous life. We would send out—automatically, you would renew house insurance and car insurance. When I worked in insurance, it was a paper, a paper document that you mailed out. So we would mail out the renewals. Now, I don’t know if they offer them electronically; I certainly get mine still in the mail. But every renewal would have, on the back, a cancellation clause.

The renewals generally would go out 30 days ahead. People would know what the price was, and then people would know when the renewal date was. Then, they could decide if they wanted to cancel, but they did have to sign off the cancellation and mail it back to the broker before the renewal date. Then, they could get what they call a flat cancellation, which means there’d be no fee beyond the renewal date because the previous period expired as of the renewal. If you mailed in your cancellation after the renewal date, they would cancel it on a short-rate cancellation, which meant they would retain a penalty for that cancellation—an administrative fee, so to speak, but most people had no idea that would occur.

Again, this is where the cancellation fees, products—people have to be informed of what they’re getting into. Insurance is one of those products and services that many people buy at the time not understanding a lot of the—in this example, the cancellation clause.

I actually want to talk about also Rogers. You know, the Internet—people have talked about how digital services are changing and how consumers buy services and products. Rogers, you know, they’re Internet; they’re cable. I have an example of a constituent who purchased Rogers cable and Internet. What happened was—it’s a very reasonable monthly fee, but unfortunately that person sometimes would not pay it on time, and they’d maybe get three months behind. They would eventually catch up, but the issue was they didn’t get notified that their service would be cancelled. There was no notification. Finally, when the person went to reconcile with the accounts, they expected to pay the three months plus some late fees. However, they found out—and again, this is what kind of gets disturbing when it comes to business practices. Rogers is a big conglomerate, right? They should have informed this constituent of the fact that when they don’t pay, not only do they get late fees, but they also get what’s called a “suspension fee.” And that suspension fee prevented Rogers from cancelling their service.

Now, in some ways, they’re maybe protecting them from not having any service at all. But when the person was ready to pay their outstanding bill, they noticed that the amount was extremely high. It wasn’t the regular amount plus, you know, $5 or whatever the service fee was for late fees, and they questioned it. That’s the only way they found out that they were getting this suspension fee. And then they were furious, and they wanted to cancel the service. So they talked to the representative at that point—well, first, they were talking to the account representative, who transferred them to the cancellation or the service department, whatever it was, and they explained the situation. They explained they weren’t happy and that they wanted to cancel their Rogers service. They wanted out.

Speaker, have you ever tried to cancel a Rogers service? I see you have a little grin on your face. Trying to cancel any online kind of service, whether it’s Internet or cellphone—they try to upsell you, they give you discounts, whatever, extend your contract with lower rates. It’s so hard to cancel your service.

The government talks about the cancellation of services in here, and subscription is one of the examples they used, but I’d love for this to be something the government takes on and that we can actually reply by email to these companies like Rogers, where there is a record of the person asking for that cancellation—because the constituent was kept on the phone for so long. What happened is they were kept on the phone for so long that they got frustrated, and they hung up. So how is it that a consumer decides that they want to cancel a service, and they don’t have access to doing that efficiently?

I use the example of myself as an insurance broker. When someone would call you and say, “I want to cancel my insurance,” you would give them the instructions on how to do it, and you would say, “Well, did you get your renewal policy? It’s on the back.” They would say, “Well, I got it, but I can’t find it.” Because we’re registered brokers of Ontario, we were obligated to send them a form—an actual cancellation request form. We weren’t let off the hook because they didn’t find the form, or we didn’t try to stall them—yes, we did try to give them some feedback about the service we provided and the coverage they have: “When you go somewhere else, make sure you get the same coverage”—because, again, you could go to another business and they could undersell you. Maybe they didn’t give you the loss of use. Maybe they didn’t give you the income enhancement, and so you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m getting the same insurance coverage and I’m paying less somewhere else, and that’s why I want to cancel today.” And then the other piece was, also, we would tell them about the short-rate cancellation.

Under this act—again, overall, it’s an improvement. It’s supportable in second reading. I know the critic is going to want to give feedback during committee of how to make it better, and we talked about the consumer watchdog that’s been proposed in this Legislature. But there are lots of things that when a consumer asks for something—because there are things that we get when we don’t ask. You get something in the mail. You think, “Well, I didn’t ask for that,” and it’s already been sold to you without you knowing.

But when you want to cancel a furnace lease, when you want to cancel your Rogers, when you want to cancel life insurance, gosh, anything—when you want to cancel something, you need to have a direct avenue to put it in writing, because there is always the case where you phone in and they say, “Well, we don’t have that note here on the computer,” and that’s not good customer service. That’s not good consumer services—and that happens. People don’t record it, and then you end up getting another bill and they say, “Well, so sorry, there is no note here,” and then you are, again, chasing the tail of getting it cancelled. I see some of my colleagues nodding because that does happen.

So the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act is a good start. There is a lot there that we agree with, but I would hope that it makes it easier for consumers, when they don’t want a service, that they have access to that pathway and that businesses aren’t giving them the runaround and there’s documentation on it.

I wanted to raise the issue that the member from Humber River–Black Creek has proposed, last session and then this session, which is the idea of a consumer watchdog. While you have put a lot of new legislations and regulations in place, how is this government going to have an overall sense as to whether they’re having any impact, and whether there are actually positive outcomes for consumers, particularly vulnerable consumers? Similar to the Auditor General or the Ombudsman, you would be able to have a sense of the industry at large. Can you comment a little bit on the notion of a consumer watchdog that would be a complement to these regulations and legislations that you’re putting in place?

I just want to thank the member for his speech earlier today. It has been an interesting afternoon. We talk about better for consumers, better for businesses—very important when affordability is an issue all across the board.

On this legislation, we talk about consumers feeling safe in the marketplace. We have a choice of where to spend our money and how to spend our money and we have to, obviously, look at spending our money wisely, and we want to make sure we give our consumers peace of mind when spending their hard-earned wages.

I’m just wondering if you can elaborate on the steps the government is taking to enhance consumer confidence and ensure that people feel safe and secure when engaging in marketplace transactions, especially when it comes down to refunds. Can you touch on that? It was a little bit in your speech.

I enjoyed the portion of time that I have been in the Legislature this afternoon listening to this bill and hearing our critic’s opinion, the member from Humber River–Black Creek.

One of the things that I was thinking about is—and talking with him, he has definitely raised it at the same time—there may be positive changes to the bill, but if people still have to go to court, they’re still incurring court costs and it’s still a barrier. Would the member not agree that there are still barriers in place from protecting those consumers who have already found themselves in a bad position?

Thank you for the question—a difficult question to answer, to say the least. As far as punishing people, that will be determined in the regulations. Price protection: I think it’s up to the consumer to do his research, and with what we have available today as far as using the Internet to come up with different pricing, that consumer has a lot more ability today to find the best price and the best product, with the best terms, online.

Thank you to the member for his speech. I appreciate that this legislation does talk about and refer to price gouging as something unconscionable. In essence, it defines price gouging as taking, let’s say, a product and comparing the price of the product to the other competitors and then looking at the range. One of the problems or challenges that I see with that is, how do you address industry-wide problems? So if a particular thing that’s being sold by an entire industry, we feel, is too expensive, how do you suggest or would you be willing to look into ways to bring down gouging across entire industries as opposed to punishing individual businesses?

Questions?

Thank you to my colleague from Cambridge for his remarks.

Speaker, I know the weather is getting a little cooler. The snow is starting to fly and has flown in some parts of this province already, and many seniors in my riding have time-shares in warmer climates. They’re obviously complicated contracts, ensuring that our seniors are protected, that they know what they’re getting in to.

Many time-share operators currently don’t offer buyback or take-back programs, so this can leave consumers locked indefinitely into an agreement, and often timeshares have little to no value on the resale market. So if the owner of the time-share falls on hard times, the costs often increase for the consumer, and nothing can be done.

My question to the member from Cambridge is, can the member please tell us what this new legislation will do in order to keep time-share owners accountable and to provide options to consumers when they are investing?

Questions?

With regard to contractual disclosure—I’m sure that all members of this House have experienced something similar, and people in Essex county have talked to me about the same thing. When they’re presented with a contract, frequently, it’s a very standard contract, such as a car rental contract, and yet the provisions of the contract are buried in fine print and not readily disclosed at the top. Since you’re in something of a hurry and you think it’s a very standard form contract, you have a tendency to sign it and move on with your life. This particular legislation proposes that such contracts will be required to highlight the main provisions—at least the main provisions—so that people in situations like that will have at least the highlighted main provisions of the contract before they sign, so that they know what the main provisions are before they sign.

I invite the member to express an opinion about that. Does she think that’s going to help some of the constituents in her riding?

Thank you to my colleague for her remarks.

I know long-term leases on home-comfort appliances like HVAC have been a focus for bad actors in Ontario.

And I know our government wants to ensure, with this legislation, that all Ontarians feel protected when they make a significant purchase for their home.

We remain steadfast in our commitment to reducing costs for terminating long-term leases.

I’m pleased to see that the members opposite, in their remarks this afternoon, have been supportive of these efforts.

I was wondering if the member could elaborate on how this bill will help her constituents, who are in some of those long-term leases, with HVAC and other home-comfort appliances.

I want to thank my friend from London for her comments.

I was inspired in particular by what you were saying about the practice of how we regulate organic food. I know the organic growers were in the building last week, and I had occasion to meet with them and really enjoyed the experience. But it was yet another reminder that for consumers who go to farmers’ markets—like the Lansdowne farmers’ market, which is where I was this weekend, picking up pumpkins to carve, vegetables to roast, and all that kind of good stuff. A lot of those folks who go the extra mile of preparing organic products for the marketplace don’t get the recognition they deserve. There’s no credential to prevent large operators like Loblaws or Metro from labelling their products as organic, despite not having gone to the same trouble.

So I’m wondering if the member could elaborate on how this bill could be improved to make sure that organic produce, organic food, is really organic.

Questions?

Further debate?

I just want to say, on a different note, that I want to congratulate the Unifor members at Stellantis who have a tentative agreement. More than half of those workers were at the Windsor assembly plant, and I’m thrilled that, while it was a short strike, they won’t be on the line any longer.

I’m wondering if the member has seen anything in this bill—since it talks about being better for consumers—that actually stops stores and these large corporations; for instance, the Westons, who have been found guilty of price gouging or price-fixing. Is there anything in this bill from the government that would actually stop these companies from price gouging consumers and bring the cost of groceries down; of produce, whether that’s organic or otherwise?

I’m going to repeat a question I asked earlier. I was talking about my own constituents in Essex county, who are getting more and more involved in their credit ratings and their credit scores—because that, in modern society, has become far more important and more common for people to check and for people to use. I think that people in my riding will welcome the initiative that goes along with this bill—to open up the access to credit ratings and credit scores on a more frequent basis for consumers. I know that’s going to be welcome in my riding of Essex, with my constituents.

I would like to ask the member if she thinks that the constituents in her riding will welcome greater access to their credit scores.