I would like to thank Dr. Sally Palmer for her tireless advocacy for people on OW and ODSP.

“To Raise Social Assistance Rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to survive at this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I fully support this petition. I will sign it and give it to Ananya.

The member from London West.

I would like to thank Claire Quenneville from Azilda in my riding for this petition. She is one of 1,170 people to have signed this petition.

“Save ‘the Spot’ Supervised Consumption Site ...

“Whereas Sudbury’s overdose death rate is three times the rate of the rest of Ontario;

“Whereas an application was submitted to the government in 2021 for funding of a supervised consumption site in Sudbury called the Spot;

“Whereas the Spot is operated by Réseau Access Network with municipal funding that ends on December 31” of this year, “the province must approve funding very soon, or the Spot will close putting many people at risk of death;

“Whereas in 2023 alone, the Spot had 1,000 visits, reversed all 17 on-site overdoses, provided drug-checking services and prevented many deaths;”

They “petition the Legislative Assembly ... as follows:

“Immediately approve funding for the supervised consumption site in Sudbury to save lives.”

I fully agree with this petition, will affix my name to it and ask Saniyah to bring it to the Clerk.

« Sauver des organes pour sauver des vies ... »

« Alors que l’Ontario possède l’un des meilleurs programmes de greffe d’organe au monde;

« Alors qu’il y a 1 600 personnes en attente d’une greffe d’organe en Ontario;

« Alors que tous les trois jours, une personne en Ontario meurt parce qu’elle ne peut pas obtenir une greffe à temps;

« Alors que le don d’organes et de tissus peut sauver jusqu’à huit vies et améliorer la vie de jusqu’à 75 personnes;

« Alors que 90 % des Ontarien(ne)s appuient le don d’organes, mais seulement 36 % sont enregistrés;

« Alors que la Nouvelle-Écosse a connu une augmentation du nombre d’organes et de tissus destinés à la transplantation après la mise en oeuvre d’une loi sur le consentement présumé en janvier 2020;

Ils et elles demandent à l’Assemblée législative « de changer la loi pour permettre un système de don basé sur le “consentement présumé” tel qu’énoncé dans le projet de loi 107, commémorant Peter Kormos (Sauver des organes pour sauver des vies) ... »

J’appuie cette pétition. Je vais la signer et je demande à ma bonne page Saniyah de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

“Protect Kids from Vaping....

“Whereas very little is known about the long-term effects of vaping on youth; and

“Whereas aggressive marketing of vaping products by the tobacco industry is causing more and more kids to become addicted to nicotine through the use of e-cigarettes; and

“Whereas the hard lessons learned about the health impacts of smoking, should not be repeated with vaping, and the precautionary principle must be applied to protect youth from vaping; and

“Whereas many health agencies and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada fully endorse the concrete proposals aimed at reducing youth vaping included” in my bill;

They “petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To call on the Ford government to immediately” implement the bill, “Vaping is not for Kids Act, in order to protect the health of Ontario youth.

I support this petition, will affix my name to it, and ask my page Saniyah to bring it to the Clerk.

« Doubler les taux d’aide sociale ...

« Alors qu’il y a plus de 900 000 Ontarien(ne)s qui sont obligés de dépendre sur l’aide sociale;

« Alors que le gouvernement Ford a promis d’augmenter les taux du Programme ontarien de soutien aux personnes handicapées (POSPH) de seulement 5 %, et n’a fourni aucune aide supplémentaire aux personnes qui bénéficient du programme Ontario au travail (OT);

« Alors que l’inflation n’a jamais été aussi élevée depuis 40 ans et que les personnes à revenu fixe sont obligées de faire des sacrifices tous les jours, simplement pour survivre;

« Alors que les bénéficiaires ... vivent dans une pauvreté profonde imposée par la loi, une maigre augmentation de 58 $ ... et aucune aide supplémentaire aux bénéficiaires d’OT ne feront pratiquement rien pour améliorer la vie des personnes vivant de l’aide sociale;

Ils et elles pétitionnent l’Assemblée législative de l’Ontario « de doubler immédiatement les taux d’aide sociale, afin que les gens puissent vivre une vie digne et saine. »

J’appuie cette pétition, monsieur le Président. Je vais la signer, et je la donne à Saniyah, ma page qui est très bonne avec moi, pour l’amener à la table des greffiers.

“Improve Ontario’s Children and Youth Mental Health Services....

“Whereas children and youth across Ontario experience mental health and addiction issues that impact their lives and the lives of those around them;

“Whereas the demand for community child and youth mental health services is increasing, in Sudbury-Nickel Belt, 50% of them are waiting over six months and 20% for longer than a year for services;”

They petition the Legislative Assembly as follows: “to tell the Ford government to properly and equitably fund community children’s mental health services immediately to improve access to timely services for children, youth and families in our communities.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it, and ask my very patient page Saniyah to bring it to the Clerk.

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 31, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 142, An Act to enact the Consumer Protection Act, 2023, to amend the Consumer Reporting Act and to amend or repeal various other Acts / Projet de loi 142, Loi visant à édicter la Loi de 2023 sur la protection du consommateur, à modifier la Loi sur les renseignements concernant le consommateur et à modifier ou abroger diverses autres lois.

This petition is entitled “Our Health Care: Not for Sale.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts” of the health care system;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to” further “privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124” to help with recruitment, “retaining, and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days” to keep people healthy;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario,” where there is a shortage;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

It’s my pleasure to affix my signature to this petition and give it to page Owen.

It is a privilege to join the debate today on behalf of the people I represent in London West and to continue from the remarks that I had started the other day.

As I was saying, the people in London, in my community, are struggling like never before with the affordability crisis that has hit this province and this country. And just to give you a sense of how deeply that crisis is affecting Londoners, I want to share some statistics from the London Food Bank that were just released at the end of September. The food bank reported that in the first eight months of 2023, they saw a 43% increase in the number of families they helped each month. That is an increase over the previous year, 2022. It represented a 91% increase over the number of families they had helped in 2021. They also report that more first-timers, that is, people who have never used the food bank before, are getting monthly hampers.

The food bank is strained, Speaker, as Londoners are faced with the challenges of trying to make a paycheque last the week or last the month. That’s why consumer protection legislation and strengthened protections for consumers are so important, particularly for low-income consumers and vulnerable consumers who absolutely need to be able to rely on consumer protections when they purchase goods and services. While we are pleased to see some of the protections in this bill, and we will be supporting this bill, we believe there is much more that the government could and should be doing to provide those protections that consumers need.

I talked about the demands on the food bank, and certainly we have all heard about the price gouging that is taking place in this country. We have seen Loblaws and Sobeys and some of the giant food retailers reporting record profits—record profits—and massive wage increases for CEOs while consumers are hit with food prices for basic necessities that have skyrocketed since the pandemic. And so while this legislation includes new provisions to prevent price gouging, one of the concerns that the NDP has raised is that the price gouging provisions only apply to individual businesses; they wouldn’t apply across a sector. When you have a whole industry with inflated prices, the provisions of this bill won’t have an impact. It won’t help ensure that consumers aren’t hit with unfair price gouging when they go to the grocery store, and that is one of the biggest concerns that I think all of us hear from our constituents, the rising price of groceries.

The other concern is very much around enforcement. We all know that legislation on the books is only as good as the enforcement that is available to make sure that the protections are in place. This legislation improves consumer protection laws—certainly it’s an improvement over the previous act that had been in place since 2002—but it still leaves consumers having to go to court if they want to seek justice against companies that have treated them unfairly. And we know how expensive it is, how intimidating it can be to take a case to court, and so, therefore, there is a real concern that, when court is the only way to seek a resolution, that consumers won’t actually be able to get the redress they deserve.

That’s why, Speaker, one of the missed opportunities for this government was to include in this legislation the creation of an Ontario consumer watchdog. That position has been proposed in private member’s legislation from the official opposition, from my colleague the member for Humber River–Black Creek, and it would create an independent watchdog organization to oversee all consumer protection matters in Ontario. This would give another avenue for consumers who have a complaint about a good or service that they have purchased, and it would be much less barriers than having to pursue redress in the courts, much less costly and disadvantaging to the consumer.

As I said, it’s a missed opportunity that this government had before them to really create strong consumer protections by creating that consumer watchdog position, as had been proposed by the official opposition.

I just want to point out that yesterday we heard very clearly, and the member from London also referenced it today, the predatory door-to-door sales, which were banned but are still somehow happening, especially, based on the CBC Marketplace investigation that was done on this very topic—it demonstrated through a hidden-camera exposé on the tactics that some of these companies engage in. They witnessed high-pressure sales tactics. They witnessed claims that were not backed up in truth. They saw these salespeople engage in what this government should stand up against, and yet we have a piece of legislation before us that is really permissive. It allows that loophole to continue.

What does the member think about a government bringing another weak piece of legislation to the floor of this Legislature?

My question for the member who just spoke, the member from London West: She made some representations with regard to enforcement that I disagree with. She suggested that a court order is required and that people would have to go to court.

I draw her attention to section 95(1), which reads: “If the director is satisfied that a person has contravened or is contravening a prescribed provision of this act or the regulations, the director may, by order, impose an administrative penalty against the person in accordance with this section and the regulations made by the minister.”

So, the question is this: Now that I have read that section, does the member agree no court orders are required; you just need to go to the director?

So I just want to ask the member from London West, you will agree with me, right? You wouldn’t tell your constituent to go to court; you would tell your constituent, “Write a letter to the director, and seek enforcement under section 95(1).” That’s what you would tell your constituent, right?

I would like to ask a question of the member on the opposite side about the consumer watchdog position, which is the proposal that had been brought forward by the official opposition.

We know that it can be very difficult for consumers to exercise their consumer protection rights. Often, the only avenue is to pursue matters legally. That is not available to many consumers, and it is cost-prohibitive. So, a consumer watchdog position would be able to provide those protections that consumers deserve and need without having to pursue legal action.

It’s a great bill.

Further questions?

Madam Speaker, through you: In our fight for consumers’ rights, how can we strengthen our advocacy for seniors and other vulnerable populations to ensure they are adequately protected from scams and predatory practices underneath this new legislation?

So now, on the topic of consumer protection, if you read section 80, there’s a whole section about investigations and the power that the director has to launch investigations, including issuing a search warrant. So the director can actually issue a search warrant, get a justice of the peace search warrant, and order an investigator to go into any business in Ontario. Wouldn’t that be what you would tell your constituents to seek? Why would you send your constituents to court? Why wouldn’t you just send them to the director, who has the authorization and the power to investigate every single business in the province of Ontario with a search warrant?

The issue with the price-gouging provisions of this bill is that they apply to companies. They don’t apply to sectors where similar suppliers are all charging the same inflated price. So if a constituent comes to me with concerns about price gouging, I would tell them to advocate to the government to put in place strengthened protections for consumers to prohibit unscrupulous price gouging by large companies across a sector, as we are currently seeing in the sale of food and groceries.

Unfortunately, this government voted against the private member’s bill that we had brought forward and also chose not to create that consumer watchdog position, despite the support for that position and the advocacy for that position from many consumer protection experts.

We have pointed out several places where the legislation could be improved. We’ve also raised a concern about a number of provisions being shifted to regulation, and so without being able to see those regulations, it is difficult to ascertain how exactly this legislation will impact consumers in this province.

Okay, I just thought the government would want to speak to this particular piece of legislation, if you’re so proud of it. But I’m very happy, Madam Speaker—

I join the debate here on consumer protection, and I just want to say, this is a government that continually says, “Why don’t you support us? Why don’t you like us? Why don’t you vote with us?” You give us so many reasons to take pause and to take a step back when you present legislation. I’ve always said in this House, much of it has to do with the process of creating said legislation. If you do your due diligence, if you do appropriate consultation with stakeholders, you will create a better piece of legislation.

Why the government has brought forward a consumer protection bill that hasn’t been updated in a fair sense since 2002—and we know so much more about where the weaknesses are in consumer protection for Ontario. We know who’s actually being taken advantage of: primarily seniors; to a large degree, new immigrants and refugees; and then there are a number of marginalized folks in our communities who have no choice at some point, right? They sign on to a contract, sometimes for hot water heaters, sometimes for a service around the house, and they are locked in.

The government is well aware of this. You’re well aware of the vulnerabilities. I know as an MPP in Waterloo that the services that our constituency office provides—we are seeing a growing number of seniors come into our office, I want to say primarily women, who have signed a contract for some services, who have been promised—because it’s incredibly misleading. The company is incredibly misleading. They have an official Ontario name. Sometimes, they use the provincial government’s logo and people feel that this is a service that is legitimate—so why Bill 142 actually prevents this from happening in Ontario is beyond me.

I will say that when you look at this bill—and any bill that aims to increase protections for consumers has to be given some consideration for approval, right? Because it is so, so bad out there right now. This bill does fall short. If there is a willingness on behalf of the government to send this bill to a committee and have that committee actually try to make the legislation stronger, we will have many amendments and many recommendations for the government with regard to Bill 142. I hope that there’s a genuine interest in getting to that place. I know that sometimes bills get sent to committee where they die. They die there. I personally have a very important bill that’s currently at social policy, the Till Death Do Us Part act—

I would just think that the government right now is really desperately looking for a channel changer, like if I put myself in your seat. And I think that if you want to extend an olive branch to the people of this province after really undermining some core trust issues, a lack of transparency and accountability—that core trust is broken—calling that bill to social policy and having an honest discussion about why we still separate seniors in long-term care or care options, why it’s not enshrined in legislation that we want couples who have invested in this province, have paid their taxes, have volunteered in their communities and then, at the end of their lives, much to their dismay and stress, they find themselves unable to find care options where they can stay together—and I’ve said this from the very day. When the new member from Cambridge was elected, I said, “Listen, if there’s ever a non-partisan issue, reuniting seniors in care options should actually be something that we can all agree on.”

I just want to say, just on this final piece about the committee and where bills go and trying to make legislation better, I’m happy to say that if you call the Till Death Do Us Part act and you call the experts and we call in the delegations and we can make that piece of legislation stronger, I’m 100% already there. Time is ticking, though. There is an urgency here. I don’t want to get emotional about it, but Jim and Joan McLeod have been separated now for six years, and they’ve been married for 65 years. The clock is running down here. So let’s help each other out, hey? Let’s get a good-news story out of Queen’s Park, because it isn’t happening any time soon, and let’s call the bill to committee, identify the weaknesses in the legislation—

Interjection.

Coming from somebody who was convicted of an integrity violation.

Oh, no, Queen’s Park—I’m talking, really, about the Ford government. I was just heckled, and I’d like to clarify. You guys are on the ropes. Let’s change the channel together. Let’s do something good. Let’s restore some trust by calling the Till Death Do Us Part act. And I have to—

Just to my friends across the aisle and the new Minister of Long-Term Care, when this bill goes to committee, we will be fully embraced and fully engaged in trying to make it a piece of legislation that actually protects consumers. Do you agree, my friends?

It is interesting to hear—because people are pretty sensitive around here these days. But it’s worth noting that for a number of years experts have been calling for regulation on new home sales and their warranties. I just want to thank members of our caucus. MPP Rakocevic has been stellar on this file. He knows it inside and out. He’s been solid.

This bill puts in new provisions for NOSIs—NOSIs are notices of security interest—but does not include any provisions on putting in rental hot water heaters in contracts for new homes. Why does this matter? It matters because this is a situation where people will sign the biggest purchase of their life—their entire life—and then once they’ve moved in, once they have start receiving those bills, they realize then that they’ve signed up for something that they didn’t necessarily know they were agreeing to. This is a huge concern. It’s a huge concern, and it’s a gap in the legislation, and considering that we are in a cost-of-living crisis in Ontario, these shady dealings—because this is predatory. This needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed in the legislation, and it needs to be addressed in the regulations, because you can write the best legislation, but if there’s no oversight or if the regs don’t guide the behaviour or change the behaviour, then you have a weak piece of legislation, and that’s what I would suggest we have before us.

Our office in Waterloo has been supporting a growing number of seniors who have been victims of these types of scams. As I mentioned, right now they’re primarily elderly women. The feeling when they come into the office is complete desperation. They are filled with anxiety. They have panic attacks. They’re wondering how this could happen in the province of Ontario.

In the middle of an affordability crisis, it’s all the more reason to bring in a piece of legislation which does protect the finances of seniors, which are often fixed incomes. Why not make sure that they are protected? It’s actually in the best interests of all of us to make sure that these predatory practices are gone from the province, or at least discouraged—or at least send a clear signal that Ontario knows what’s going on and wants to deal with it.

These scams began years ago when illegitimate HVAC companies went door to door selling products to homeowners, typically targeting seniors. Sales of home appliances like air conditioners and furnaces eventually resulted in companies placing notices of security interest, NOSIs, on the properties without the homeowners knowing. Lawyers claim that these scams have resulted in homeowners losing tens of thousands of dollars.

My colleague from London was mentioning the affordability crisis in Ontario, and I too just met with the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. I hope some of my other colleagues also had the time to meet with them. But this is how bad it is in Waterloo, which is why you need to protect the very limited resources that seniors have at their disposal today: Numbers are higher for food bank use than they were in 2008, in the recession. That’s how bad it is. If you remember that time, that was a time of panic, that recession. The peak of the pandemic were also very bad in this regard, but in the riding of Waterloo, 5,201 people used the food bank last year—this was 15% more than 2021—making 58,684 visits, or 7% over 2021 as well.

There is an impact for inaction. This is a core understanding that we certainly have. I know our member from Kiiwetinoong has also tried to draw the connection to the social determinants of health, the impact on the economy, the impact on the health care system, the impact on education. That’s what the Food Bank of Waterloo Region really drove home today, along with Feed Ontario, is that there is a cost to not addressing the risk factors around affordability.

When people have paid their higher rent, their rent that goes up now—obviously in new builds—by 3%, 5%, 10% or 24%, a senior cannot absorb a 24% increase in their rent. It’s just not possible, and so they have a choice: They either pay their rent and stay housed or they go to the food bank. It’s a huge issue for a senior to go to a food bank after their entire lives. You can’t underestimate that.

And yet, the piece of legislation that is before us is very permissive, actually embedding some loopholes whereby people can still practise these predatory practices of ripping off seniors.

Actually, I just met with the Canadian Bankers Association, as well. They have identified that this is now a priority for the Canadian banking sector, to train their tellers to look for fraud—I was going to say “corruption;” it just comes so naturally—and for predatory practices. Their tellers are specifically trained to watch for those vulnerabilities, because they’re happening so often.

So the private sector, the Canadian Bankers Association—I had a great meeting with them. We talked about some common areas that we can move forward on, but certainly consumer protection was an issue where we found common ground. I feel that they may be actually submitting a delegation to this particular piece of legislation, as well.

So I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, Feed Ontario and the Canadian Bankers Association. It’s so good to see a not-for-profit that understands the affordability issues in Ontario also connect the need for labour laws, for housing, and for the social assistance reform that is needed.

We can do so much better for the most vulnerable in our society. I don’t know who in this House could possibly live on $730 a month; it’s just not doable, on Ontario Works.

I think there’s a level of malaise, if you will, with this government—to bring forward a piece of legislation, understanding where the gaps are in society, understanding that those safeguards do not exist, and claiming to understand how vulnerable seniors are, in particular, and then leaving these loopholes in the legislation.

I reached out to the Waterloo region police, as well, and they say that scams like these persist due to loopholes in provincial legislation, under the Consumer Protection Act, that make it possible for the notices of security interest to be placed without the homeowners knowing. We’re in a housing crisis, everybody agrees; it’s one of the very few things that we can agree on in this House. Why make that very precarious purchase even riskier by not addressing these loopholes? Homeowners, especially senior homeowners, deserve to be protected, and this bill, this government is failing to do that.

It always leads me to wonder, if you had the power to fix this, if you had the privilege to be in a position of power to address a piece of legislation and to get it right, why wouldn’t you? This goes back full circle to the whole trust issue. Who’s driving the agenda for this Ford government? We’ve seen multiple examples now of decisions not being driven or not even being motivated by the people of this province. Therefore, you have the Auditor General calling the greenbelt issue indefensible. You have the Integrity Commissioner calling into question the lack of oversight and accountability and lack of transparency of the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

When you get to this point, when trust is so broken, this is an opportunity for the government to say, “This legislation is going to be strong. It’s not going to be weak. It’s not going to be flaccid. It’s not going to be passive. It is going to be a strong piece of legislation,” to demonstrate that the government actually understands what the people of this province are experiencing, that lived experience of Ontarians.

If you go back—and you have to go a little bit way back—we don’t actually see the actions that will address the situation where consumers are exploited by unethical HVAC companies. It’s not here in the legislation.

Back with the Liberal government, we saw that there was a ban on door-to-door sales, and that was a good thing. It did take them a monumental amount of time to actually bring in this ban, after multiple cases that were brought to their attention here on the floor of the Legislature. It was near the end of 2018, and let’s be honest, people were getting a little desperate to do something good, so the ban on door-to-door sales happened. That was a start, sure. It was another half measure. However, as I mentioned, that legislation had no teeth, so there really wasn’t much by way of enforcement.

This government has heard for numerous years about the exploitive actions of many of these companies. I just want to say that some of these companies are fully aware of where those loopholes are. They have pushed the envelope. They’ve never got caught. There were no consequences—almost like the Landlord and Tenant Board, when we saw that only 11 landlords over the last five years actually faced punitive measures for being negligent, for being predatory landlords in Ontario—only 11 in that time. We have 11 open cases right now in Waterloo, in my office, of landlords who are looking to renovict or demovict or just evict, just testing the system. That’s the power imbalance with regard to consumers and with regard to some of those predatory businesses.

As I said, many in the private sector have recognized that trust is important in building those relationships and ensuring that the most vulnerable are kept safe and secure. And then you have a government that doesn’t necessarily understand that when that trust is broken, you should use every opportunity—every opportunity—to rebuild that trust.

Obviously, this piece of legislation is going to move through the House. It is going to go to committee. When it gets to committee, we, as Ontario’s official opposition—and certainly as the finance critic for the province of Ontario and Treasury Board critic, I’m going to be following the money on this because there is a cost to the economy and to our communities when a piece of legislation is so weak and flaccid.

Once again, Madam Speaker, what a pleasure to stand in my place and address this piece of legislation.

Questions?

Pursuant to standing order 50(c), I am now required to interrupt the proceedings and announce that there has been six and a half hours of debate on the motion for second reading of this bill. This debate will therefore be deemed adjourned unless the government House leader directs the debate to continue.

I recognize the Minister of Northern Development.

To continue, Madam Speaker.

I want to recognize the member from Waterloo for her comments today. You were talking about this government rebuilding trust, and in this consumer protection bill, there are some real weaknesses in it. One that came up in the debate is that it’s not retroactive. We’ve got homeowners who have been hit with liens of $40,000 on hot water tanks and furnaces. This legislation does nothing to backtrack, to say that those liens are going to be expunged with this legislation. What should the government do to protect the consumers who have already been ripped off?