It is a privilege to rise today to lead off third reading debate on the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, 2023. This proposed legislation is a testament to our commitment to building our province in a safer, more efficient and cost-effective manner.

As we kick off this third reading debate, it is my pleasure to reiterate our government’s plans for a future marked by progress and prosperity. This legislation, if passed, would create a catalyst for the positive change our province needs. One that ensures that our infrastructure projects are pillars of strength for future generations to come.

Speaker, we frequently debate about infrastructure in this House. We do so because of our government’s unwavering commitment to building the vital infrastructure that Ontario needs. It serves as the backbone of a thriving society and the foundation upon which economic growth, job creation and community development are built.

I’m continually reminded of the great work that can be accomplished not just during these debates, but also, last week, at the Standing Committee on Justice Policy—and I will elaborate further on that shortly. I’m always impressed by the thoughtful and careful examination that bills receive in this House. I want to thank all members for their outstanding work in that regard, and I want to thank the representatives from all the organizations who took the time and effort to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy. We heard from the Electricity Distributors Association, the Ontario Energy Association, the Association of Ontario Road Supervisors, the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association, Enbridge Gas, Toronto Hydro, Alectra Utilities, Hydro One and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. All of these organizations play an essential role in the daily lives of Ontarians, and one thing was clear: They understand the need for the legislation we are debating this morning.

On behalf of my ministry and our government, we sincerely appreciate the time that all participants have taken to give input. We have thought extensively about what these stakeholders had to say not just during public hearings but also through a series of extensive consultations throughout last year, 2023. These consultations were held by the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and the Ministry of Energy to listen to the municipalities and the businesses involved in the locate system, to hear from them on ways to improve the system as we work together to build the Ontario of tomorrow. In fact, last spring we hosted round tables with dozens of stakeholders from all areas of the industry, including underground infrastructure owners, excavators and builders.

I want the stakeholders to know that I sincerely appreciate their valuable feedback during the development of this bill, and that I am committed to continuing our conversations as the needs of the industry continue to evolve. The current bill under consideration is a culmination of those consultations, individual meetings, letters and constant communication, wherein stakeholders relay the challenges of the current locate system to the government.

Bill 153 is a response to those concerns and the culmination of these tireless efforts across this government to provide real solutions by way of proposed legislation. That is why Bill 153, I believe, received unanimous support on both its first and second readings. Just yesterday afternoon, it was reported back to the House with unanimous support from the committee.

Speaker, now this brings me to the details of the bill at hand. The Building Infrastructure Safely Act, 2023, aims to prohibit underground infrastructure owners and operators from charging fees to locate essential components such as telecommunication lines, water mains and gas pipelines. This prohibition is a crucial step toward protecting the public from damages to critical infrastructure and keeping costs down for a wide range of construction projects, aligning seamlessly with Ontario’s broader plan to facilitate the efficient and safe completion of vital infrastructure projects.

If passed, this bill will play a valuable role in empowering our government’s ability to ensure responsible construction practices and community development. That is why today marks a significant milestone in the pursuit of a safer, more efficient and cost-effective approach to building critical infrastructure in our great province. But more importantly, it is a response to the changing landscape of infrastructure development in Ontario. It demonstrates how our government understands the pivotal role that robust infrastructure plays in connecting communities, fostering innovation and enhancing the overall quality of life for our fellow citizens and residents. We’re dedicated to ensuring that these infrastructure projects are not only impactful, but also executed with the highest regard for safety, efficiency and protection of our existing vital underground infrastructure while at the same time keeping costs down.

I submit that it is a particularly timely bill for us to be debating, as people across our province prepare for another construction season starting this spring. Mr. Speaker, the safety of our workers, our citizens and all residents is paramount. Ontarians can rest assured that we are steadfast in our commitment to implementing and upholding the highest safety standards. Our workers are the backbone and future of Ontario, and their well-being is non-negotiable. That is why we will spare no effort in creating the work environments that prioritize safety for them and the communities those workers serve.

Safety also means looking out for our families, our neighbours and the larger community around us. This bill, along with previous amendments to the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012, is aimed at promoting safety. For that matter, it is actually goal number one across my ministry. While we work hard to balance a number of other priorities, safety is always top of mind. Throughout the consultations, for example, strong support has been expressed from the utility sector, as it would provide a system that will ensure the delivery of safe locates with public safety always remaining the top priority.

Efficiency is also one of the keys to unlocking the full potential of our infrastructure initiatives. Our government is acutely aware of the need to streamline processes, eliminate bureaucratic hurdles and foster collaboration among all stakeholders. By aiming to expedite project timelines, reducing unnecessary delays and delivering results, we can meet the evolving needs of our citizens and residents in a timely fashion. Now, to achieve all of these goals, Mr. Speaker, and to have successful infrastructure projects and policies, we continue to work closely with municipalities, private sector partners and community stakeholders.

I believe that many stakeholders agree with the Ontario Good Roads Association, who expressed that our government is delivering on its commitment to improve efficiencies and locate delivery by addressing stakeholder concerns and ensuring an efficient and sustainable operation of Ontario One Call.

Through a thoughtful and collaborative approach, the changes we are proposing would enhance the existing framework and contribute to a more streamlined and effective system for all stakeholders involved. These are the kind of changes that would help improve housing starts and reduce upward pressure on property taxes throughout the province, especially in northern and rural communities. To reiterate this further, I would like to share a quote from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario: “Timely locates”—according to AMO—“for underground infrastructure are critical for safe and efficient construction. The government’s improvements to the locates system will make it more streamlined and accessible, helping municipalities and others to build faster and safer.”

Since becoming Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, this is the second bill I have had the pleasure of introducing to this House. Last fall, I introduced, and this House passed unanimously, Bill 142, which included the new Consumer Protection Act, one of my ministry’s cornerstone statutes. Both of these bills were built on extensive consultations in order to find the right solutions for the long term.

In hearings last week of the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, I mentioned that we are focused on solutions to get things done the right way. This means a solutions-oriented approach that is going to help move us forward in addressing the challenges faced by underground infrastructure owners, excavators and others who work with the network of cables, pipelines and tunnels that intersect beneath us. We are looking at the solutions that help maintain strong safety standards.

We are also considering the needs and the priorities of numerous stakeholders to arrive at a place that meets the needs of all of those involved. In fact, there have been at least three different rounds of consultations leading up to the introduction of this bill. It is a critical part in every area of my ministry’s work as we build better services for the people of Ontario that are easy to access where and when they need them. That is our entire focus. That is the focus on enhancing services for Ontarians and businesses throughout Ontario. It’s right there in the name: the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery. This work goes well beyond the walls of my ministry. We help improve government services across the entire government with behind-the-scenes information technology expertise. And not to be forgotten are the archival and record-keeping services and advice provided by the Archives of Ontario in maintaining records of our great history in Ontario.

Speaker, all of this comes back to the bill at hand, because a great deal of my ministry’s work is guided by a deep and abiding commitment to protect consumers and ensure public safety. I want to reiterate, and it bears repeating, that just as an accident involving underground infrastructure can extend well beyond the immediate area, getting this work done safely, smoothly and reliably is intrinsically connected to many other government priorities.

As our government is working hard to build infrastructure—infrastructure like new homes, roads, public transit, high-speed Internet—we need to make sure that these projects can be moved along. And while we do not always see the groundwork or, in this case, the underground work being done before digging starts, we must make sure that locates can facilitate this work getting done and getting done right.

In fact, our Minister of Infrastructure noted that our government is investing over $185 billion to revitalize schools, hospitals, public transit, roads, housing and access to high-speed Internet for every community across the province by the end of 2025. Speaker, that is the most ambitious capital plan in our province’s history. This critical infrastructure will support the quality of life that Ontarians deserve to enjoy. It is what brings us together and keeps us connected to our families, our friends, our workplaces and our daily activities of daily life that are near and dear to us. That is why we are using every tool available to ensure our infrastructure projects are built safely and allow communities, businesses and individuals to feel the benefits of those projects.

The Minister of Infrastructure strongly supports this important work to get these proposed changes in place to get key infrastructure projects built more efficiently, while ensuring communities across Ontario benefit today from these projects and for generations to come. The Minister of Energy also believes that this bill will help keep costs down and make it easier to build more cost-effectively while protecting our workers and the critical underground infrastructure that keeps our province powered and connected. Additionally, excavators and municipalities appreciate our government’s work in limiting costs, as when we allow for spiralling costs, it would create challenges for construction companies and, particularly, small municipalities otherwise.

And while the need for infrastructure is clear not just for our current population, it is also essential for future growth, and we have extensive growth expected in the years ahead, within this decade alone. Our population is growing by nearly 500,000 people in the last year. More than 170,000 net new jobs were created in the first nine months of 2023 alone. This is good news; however, it has also created a huge pressure on housing, and that is why the need to work collaboratively to build better, to adapt to our growing population is so important.

Speaker, we have talked much about infrastructure in this House. Our government has been so focused on creating lasting and stable infrastructure that ensures that Ontario can run better. And whether we are talking about building better transit and roads, expanding high-speed Internet availability or getting homes built for our growing population, some of the challenges are the same. You do not have to go very far to hear about many of them. Access to skilled labour, increasing costs and many other construction challenges are all well documented.

Now, before I go any further, allow me to provide you and my colleagues in this House some context, Speaker. There is one area that we tend not to talk about very much, and that is the network of infrastructure that is underground, delivering many of the services that make homes and businesses run. Underneath all of us, beneath our feet, are vast, complicated networks of extremely vital infrastructure that have been built, updated and expanded throughout the history of Ontario.

The water mains, telecommunication cables, gas and oil pipelines and high-voltage electrical cables all fuel the economy of Ontario, and if we want every corner of Ontario to move forward, we need to improve that infrastructure. Every single one of these is critical. They provide necessary services, the loss of which would represent inconvenience at the least or grave danger at the worst.

For example, in today’s digital world, having reliable Internet access is crucial for work, education, health care, communication and entertainment. Ontarians understand the frustration when they are left offline and in the dark for too long. Families should never have to worry about their children being unable to access online learning while at home, nor should a business owner have to struggle to work at home due to lack of connectivity. Think of the risk of losing water pressure, which could compromise the ability of firefighters to respond to an emergency. There is really no shortage of practical, real-life examples.

Part of maintaining the reliability of these networks is the requirement to make sure that anyone involved in a construction project gets the necessary information to identify where infrastructure is buried before breaking ground. From planting a tree in your yard to large commercial construction, having a clear knowledge of the vital infrastructure below the site is a must for public safety and for safeguarding the valuable services provided to our communities by our underground assets.

These concerns are not unique to our province. Allow me to share some examples of cases where construction projects have caused significant damage to underground infrastructure.

Just over a year ago, in January 2023, CBC reported a series of interruptions in telecommunications services in northern communities, including in the Northwest Territories. Internet, cellular and phone services were cut off when a construction crew in nearby Norman Wells, only 470 kilometres away, accidentally hit a fibre optic cable. Services were out for two days, and people who needed emergency services were encouraged to drive to their nearest RCMP detachment.

Last October, an entire town of 10,000 people had to be evacuated in Middleton, Idaho, just outside of Boise. This occurred after an excavator ruptured a 22-inch natural gas pipeline. The local fire chief said, “It was a pretty substantial explosion just due to the pressure in that line.”

Earlier again in 2023, the New York Times reported on an accident in Frankfurt, Germany. This was of a Deutsche Telekom construction crew, Germany’s main telecom provider. It was confirmed that a fibreglass cable buried five metres, or more than 16 feet, underground had been severed by a concrete drill during construction work. This accident took thousands of customers in the greater Frankfurt area offline. It also resulted in nearly 150 cancelled flights and another 247 delayed flights around the world because it knocked out Lufthansa airline’s ability to communicate with airports around the word. The result: Thousands of people were stranded in Germany’s main travel hub and its largest airport.

Speaker, while these are some large-scale examples, I want to be crystal clear on a couple of things:

(1) We want to ensure that the system works well for individual property owners as well as it does for large commercial projects.

(2) We know that accidents have happened in Ontario before, and we need to put safety precautions in place to prevent them from happening again.

In the examples I just mentioned, I was happy to see that there were no reports of injuries, but it’s not hard to see how that could have been quite different.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, we as a government also must weigh multiple factors. I believe I have covered the safety aspect of things, but the flip side of each story is the service outage. We cannot just say, “Well, as long as no one was hurt, it’s all okay.” Part of the equation we are continuing to explore and to try to resolve is to maintain the reliability of our underground networks and to make sure that excavators get the necessary information to identify where infrastructure is buried before digging.

It is easy to see how important it is not only for people to call or click before they dig, but also we need that system to work well so that the information can be obtained efficiently and allow the process to work smoothly. This is prevention, and it’s an essential aspect of what this bill is about and the improvements that it makes on the existing legislation.

This brings me back to the first and arguably most important part of this bill: that is, to explicitly prohibit owners and operators of underground infrastructure from charging fees to provide locates. The proposed legislation seeks to enshrine into law a free-of-charge locate system mirroring the long-standing industry practice observed across Canada and the United States. This would ensure that projects can be built cost-effectively, while protecting our workers as well as the critical infrastructure below us. This keeps our great province powered and connected. By banning locate fees, we would stem the possibility of a spiralling cycle of costs that would delay the construction of key infrastructure projects and reduce their feasibility.

This legislative change also removes a cost barrier to accessing locates, which should improve public safety, in my submission. Costs associated with the provisioning of locates could encourage individuals or businesses to skirt the locate system and dig without the necessary information to do so safely.

We have heard loudly and clearly from stakeholders like the association of road supervisors of Ontario on their support for this change, both in the interest of public safety and for cost-efficiency. They have all expressed that charging for locates will not simply transfer the cost to the owner or the party requesting the locate. With the administration of these charges, including invoices, payment, collection and processing—all those tasks that would incur additional costs to both the owners of underground infrastructure and excavators—they will likely want to recover themselves by adding to the fees that they charge. All of these added costs simply do not add value to the entire process and would in fact, I submit, undermine the process. Particularly in an area where staffing is in short supply and municipalities and other organizations are already overburdened, the addition of administrative tasks could potentially create delay, and that delay would affect adversely the timely execution of any locates needed. These delays would, in turn, add further costs to building infrastructure.

Our government is building a stronger Ontario by leading one of the most ambitious capital plans in Ontario’s history. This proposed legislation would help make it easier to build the housing, the roads and the public transit for our growing needs. At a time in our history when being more connected, having more affordable homes and improving our transportation options are at the forefront of our province’s continued success, making sure this process is cost-effective and working smoothly is in everyone’s interest.

These things are not solely about timelines; they are also about predictability and being able to make long-term plans. This is something my ministry has heard from businesses in other areas. Whether it takes three days or three weeks to get something done is not always the point. Obviously, it is usually better to only have to wait for something for only three days, but if you know that it is going to take three weeks, that is a timeline you can plan around and know when you need to have people in place to get things moving.

We have heard, Speaker, from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. The members of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce have expressed support for extending locate delivery timelines for larger projects, specifically phase 1 of our government’s proposal, which calls for locates for large projects to be completed within 10 business days. That is to begin in May of this year. We understand that this change would help mitigate some of the challenges we have heard in delivering locates within five business days for all locate requests, regardless of the size and complexity of a project.

As our government moves into phase 2, this would enable opportunities to further differentiate between dig projects based on size. As such, moving to more attainable time frames for locates will also give added visibility to the locate industry to better align resources and to better provide for attention focused on large-scope locates.

A few weeks ago, when Toronto was in the middle of a cold snap—one of the few this year so far—many of you may have driven by construction sites when it was as cold as 22 degrees below zero. Now, it has been a while since we have had temperatures that low, and seeing workers who were digging trenches, laying pipes and running cables in that particular cold snap, it does give us an understanding that you do not want people standing out there, waiting to do that work because they have to wait to get the locates. It’s not only frustrating but also expensive, and quite frankly, quite inconvenient.

Another concern we have heard is the spiralling of costs I touched upon earlier. If locates were ever done for a fee before beginning construction, I want to repeat, there is a long-standing industry practice that now we’re explicitly putting into the proposed legislation: a ban on those locate fees. This is a practice that’s followed throughout Canada and the United States, but we’re taking the legislative lead on enshrining it in law. For example, a local hydro company charging a municipality for locate requests when that hydro company is digging nearby before beginning a new construction project—that fee for the locate would be an additional expense.

Expanding critical infrastructure is a large-scale project. We are not talking about a few backyard fence posts, Speaker. We’re talking about underground infrastructure that could stretch over hundreds of kilometres. The cost of those locates could be very significant. By charging that fee, one entity, the hydro company, could recover the costs of the delivery of those locates, meaning the municipality would then have an outstanding expense. So the natural inclination in such circumstances would be that the municipality too would have to charge fees when providing locates that would be later on for the utility companies before their new water mains can go in the ground or be repaired. In fact, it is not just an inclination; it becomes an imperative to recover costs from excavators. So it does not take much imagination to see how this would end where every underground infrastructure owner and operator is charging and being charged to identify infrastructure. Speaker, this is what I do mean by a spiralling cycle of costs. It has ripple effects that would be obvious. That is why the long-standing industry practice was followed. To the extent that there was a concern—and there was a concern—that it may not continue to be followed, we took action with this proposed bill.

In fact and in effect, at some point, in a pay-for-locates system, as you charge one company and then they charge another, those fees simply come back to you when you need to get locates done. These very same underground infrastructure owners and operators who complete locates may themselves need locates done with completing their own infrastructure projects. Underground infrastructure owners and operators have a responsibility to each other. It just makes common and financial sense to maintain the current standard of requiring underground infrastructure owners and operators to complete locates without charging for them. If infrastructure owners and operators do this work without charging fees, there is also a natural motivation to do the work in the most cost-effective manner possible, while protecting their own capital investments in underground infrastructure.

Speaker, this spiral of costs, at some point, would have reached a level of absurdity. But possibly, the bigger risk is what happens on the ground when crews are in place, ready to work. These are the kinds of things we heard from stakeholders when we met with many of them earlier this year and last spring. It raises the question of whether it is possible that digging could begin without locates being done. While I want to think that no crew would take this risk, I could also see a situation where higher costs could create an incentive for someone to cut a corner here or there. Speaker, let me be clear, that is a very dangerous and potentially illegal move.

Our goal is to create legislation that eliminates that possibility. This is a scenario that we can help avoid, and I think it is incumbent upon this House to take steps like this that help put the conditions in place to make the entire locates process smooth, efficient and cost-effective. If we can do things that help move along the process without undue costs to anyone who is digging, I think we owe it to the people of Ontario to make that happen.

Now, Speaker, there are additional measures that this bill would address, and I would also like to speak about these additional measures for just a few minutes. For most people, requesting a locate is a simple enough process. For example, many of us who own a home may have contacted Ontario One Call ourselves to request a locate. This could be for projects like planting a tree or drilling holes to support a new deck.

The process to request a locate is generally quite easy. One simply visits ontarioonecall.ca, fills in the email address and the relevant phone number and then follows the prompts on screen. A few days later, people from utility companies, telecommunications and pipeline owners and operators will mark their infrastructure: red for electrical, blue for potable water, yellow for gas and other pipelines and so on. These are the multicoloured spray-painted lines, or sometimes what we observe as small flags that we see on the ground as we walk past ground that is about to be dug up.

For a homeowner on a small, discrete project, it is usually that simple; however, on a large scale with larger projects and at a system-wide level, matters start to become somewhat more complicated. There is a lot of other work that must go in behind the scenes to get all of these locates done in a timely manner. That is why Ontario One Call, one of 12 administrative authorities under my ministry, has a growing role in helping to make that system work well and to educate the public every step of the way.

Before I get into the additional improvements this bill would make to Ontario One Call, I would like to address for the House some general points about administrative authorities—some call them delegated administrative authorities. While many people think an administrative authority is the same as a government agency, it is not, Speaker. Whereas a government agency is usually controlled by the government, an administrative authority is an independent, not-for-profit corporation that operates within a strong accountability and governance framework. Administrative authorities are designated certain responsibilities by the government in specific sectors and industries to administer and enforce certain Ontario laws, including laws regarding consumer protection and public safety.

Some of these administrative authorities help ensure that certain businesses that Ontarians receive services from are qualified and competent. In fact, Speaker, going back to what I mentioned earlier about the breadth of my ministry’s purview, if you use the services of a real estate broker or salesperson, or you live in a condominium, you have benefited from the work of an administrative authority. Also, if you have ever hired a licensed electrical contractor, rode in an elevator or enjoyed a glass of Ontario’s VQA wines, you have benefited from the work of one of our administrative authorities—one or more of our administrative authorities in the case of condominiums. And if you have ever hired an Ontario travel agent, bought a car from a motor vehicle dealer or have needed services from a funeral director or a cemetery, you also have benefitted from the mandate of an administrative authority under the authority of my ministry.

These organizations ensure that equipment is properly maintained and that consumers are being educated about their rights when making certain purchases. Government retains its law-making, regulation and oversight roles while giving the administrative authorities responsibility for the daily operations of how to best carry out their mandates, including matters such as licensing, enforcement and other relevant concerns or things or matters. It is our government’s responsibility to ensure that they are consistent in the way they work, the powers they have and how those powers are used.

In March 2020, this House, the 42nd Parliament at that time—we are now in the 43rd Parliament of Ontario—passed the Rebuilding Consumer Confidence Act. It had an important role in harmonizing some key accountability, governance and transparency requirements for most administrative authorities.

The Rebuilding Consumer Confidence Act started bringing some much-needed consistency to the way in which administrative authorities work. Strictly speaking, this bill before us today is not technically related to that act. However, it does build on the spirit of that act by proposing changes to help make One Call more consistent with their administrative authority counterparts.

As I said, Ontario One Call is one of 12, and one can compare and contrast the various mandates and powers that each administrative authority has, and in doing so, one can understand some of the aspects of this act that add authority to the Ontario One Call mandate. Better aligning their powers and their responsibilities with other administrative authorities is part of these proposed changes; that is, specifically better aligning Ontario One Call’s powers and responsibility with those other AAs is a crucial part of this proposed legislation.

The proposed amendments to the act would also allow the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery to specify additional objects for Ontario One Call. Think of objects as the jobs an administrative authority has been assigned to do by government. This is very similar to the TSSA, another administrative authority. The TSSA is the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. That particular administrative authority is responsible for elevators, for example, and for amusement park rides at Canada’s Wonderland, the CNE and other small fairs that we see across the province in the spring, the fall and throughout the year.

Like the TSSA, with respect to its mandate, this proposed bill would give the government the ability and flexibility to expand objects for Ontario One Call in the future and to address evolving needs. It would provide that some provisions of the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, 2010, as they relate to member approval of bylaw changes needed to implement ministers’ orders would not apply to One Call. As it is presently constituted, One Call needs to get approval from members in order to pass bylaw changes needed to implement ministers’ orders.

Some other changes to the One Call act would include protections for the authorities’ officials, their officers, directors, employees and agents, from personal liability. That’s an important proposal. These are common protections for officials that work in other administrative authorities. I submit, Speaker, it is reasonable for this to be extended to Ontario One Call.

These changes are needed now because One Call is different than it used to be. Not long ago, One Call largely acted as a call centre, taking requests from excavators and relaying them to underground infrastructure owners and operators. As our government is now asking Ontario One Call members to take on more complex work to support the improvement of efficiencies and locate delivery, that requires better systems, backed up by better and sustainable resources. These changes are needed to meet the needs of industry, but more importantly, to meet the needs of Ontario’s growing population as we work on our government’s priorities.

This is not the first time that this government has made changes to Ontario One Call’s governing legislation. In April 2022, near the end of the mandate of the 42nd Parliament of Ontario, important changes were made to the One Call act as part of the Getting Ontario Connected Act, 2022; changes that saw numerous improvements that we are following through on today. For example, the Getting Ontario Connected Act created a dedicated locator model. This was for projects related to broadband Internet expansion projects. This allows a project owner to get all of their locate services done by one locator, rather than waiting on a different locator for each utility or municipality, and that locator does the work for the duration of the project.

It also extended the validity period of locates to help reduce duplicative work and to drive efficiencies. We are continuing this work and we intend to consider further changes in this year, 2024. Duplication was also reduced by allowing contractors working on the same dig site to share locate information. Speaker, these changes are improving the locate delivery system and making the process of obtaining locates much more efficient and, most importantly, they maintain Ontario’s strict safety standards—our top priority, to repeat what I said earlier.

This bill would also remove an excavator’s ability to seek compensation through the Ontario Land Tribunal against One Call members that fail to provide a locate within the legislated time limit. It is very important to note that the changes passed by the Getting Ontario Connected Act will still hold underground infrastructure owners and operators accountable for completing locates within the time limits. Within the act, it provided Ontario One Call the authority to issue administrative penalties, also known as AMPs or administrative monetary penalties. These could be administered or issued against non-compliant members and excavators in the industry.

These powers come into effect via a minister’s regulation on May 1, 2024, and would enable One Call to transform into a modern regulator with the administrative monetary penalties as an enforcement tool and, as such, maintaining the Ontario Land Tribunal recourse provisions would become redundant or duplicative. My understanding is that the recourse to the Ontario Land Tribunal, while it existed briefly and while it’s now going to be phased out if this bill becomes law, was rarely, if at all, used by anyone.

At the same time, Speaker, I want to acknowledge that some One Call members may be apprehensive about administrative penalties. I want them to know that administrative penalties may be and are just one tool, but they are not the only tool intended to encourage compliance. They—administrative monetary penalties—are really a tool of last resort.

Owners and operators of underground infrastructure should find that that is reassuring and would know then that administrative penalties are only one of many tools that One Call has at its disposal to encourage compliance with the law. At the same time, I would also say that excavators should find the results of the changes from the past year quite encouraging.

From January to July 2022, only 45% of locates were completed on time; however, last year, in the period from January to July 2023, approximately 70% of locates were completed on time. This shows a significant improvement, and I believe that our government working with Ontario One Call can help move those improvements along even further.

Now, Speaker, to pick up again on something I mentioned earlier, this is a balanced and reasonable approach that helps get us all toward a common goal.

I would like to highlight a quote in this regard from the president and CEO of Electricity Distributors Association, Teresa Sarkesian. Ms. Sarkesian stated, and I quote:

“Bill 153 equips Ontario One Call with a powerful tool to encourage active compliance. The discretion given to Ontario One Call also allows it to administer a fair compliance process with intention. Ultimately, Bill 153 takes us one step closer to an entirely modernized regime for locating underground infrastructure safely and efficiently.

“The proposed legislation represents a balanced approach that will ensure faster construction times for housing and infrastructure projects, worker safety around high-risk assets (such as underground wires and cables), a reliable and uninterrupted supply of energy to Ontario’s families and businesses, and most importantly, respect for customers.”

Speaker, it is clear the province is at a critical juncture in our history. With the continuing use of online services, our need to get better broadband connection to every corner of the province is more important than ever. We simply cannot afford to leave entire communities without access to online services and information because they do not have a connection to high-speed Internet.

Getting more homes built that people can afford and enabling them better ways to get from there to work and everywhere they need to be—these are today’s infrastructure challenges. Our government is all in on these and we are making investments that will help make them a reality for the people of Ontario. But to make that happen, we really need to dig in on the issues that are slowing them down.

Before shovels can go into the ground on these projects, we need to make sure that the critical safety steps are taken and followed. As I indicated earlier, the explicit banning of locate fees is part of that because we would not want to see any motivation to skip steps that would compromise safety, and the spiralling cycle of costs associated with locate fees being charged would, I believe, create a grave risk of that. Safety must come first.

I’ve shared today about some very large-scale accidents with far-reaching consequences, where accidents have created explosions, service outages and stranded travellers. We want to be the government that took forward-looking decisions, rather than the place where the mistakes were made and lessons learned too late. This forward-thinking approach of our government is, I submit, a non-partisan issue. It is why, I believe, at second reading and at committee, this bill received unanimous support from everyone, from all parties, and why I hope and believe that all parties will support this bill unanimously at third-reading vote.

While we have worked hard in the past few years to get that work done faster and more smoothly, it is not enough to sit and admire our work. This rising above partisanship, as it does, must create a sense of urgency. As we build Ontario together, this approach to locates, to efficiently delivered locate processes must be part of building Ontario. It is a key component of our future, and so we must keep moving forward.

More needs to be done to help contain costs, especially at a time when we are seeing inflation, labour shortages and competition from other jurisdictions. But like the Minister of Finance, I was heartened yesterday to see inflation down to 2.9%—an improvement or a lowering of that rate of inflation even beyond our hopes and expectations at the end of last year.

When we look around, for example, at the intense competition to secure new electric vehicle battery facilities, can we afford to be a place where construction is cumbersome and inefficient or potentially unsafe? No, we cannot, I submit. Among all the things to consider, can we afford not to be the best? That is why Ontario would be a leader if these amendments under this proposed bill are passed. I urge the opposition and all parties in this House to support this bill and continue the trend that was begun at second reading and in committee, because we can act together on some initiatives, this being one.

Speaker, by 2041, Ontario’s population is expected to grow by 30%. Now is the time to meet the demands of the future. This is why our government has introduced this bill. This is why, by this bill, we are proposing to ensure that government is nimble and responsive to the needs of the community. That is why I believe that we have support from across the aisle.

With our growth, new and increasing pressure is put on Ontario’s infrastructure capacity. We cannot look away from this challenge. We must make the critical investments today to keep up with a growing population. That is why Bill 153, I submit, is so vital: so nothing can stand in the way of Ontario reaching its full potential.

I understand that my colleagues in this House have expressed support in preventing owners and operators of underground infrastructure from imposing fees for locates, and I appreciate that support. Prohibiting infrastructure owners and operators from charging for providing locates maintains this, as I said, long-standing industry practice that locates are and should be provided free of charge to avoid and to stem a cycle of potentially increasing costs that could burden anyone who wants to dig or create incentives to take shortcuts and compromise safety.

At the same time, we must continue putting systems in place that will help the framework for the delivery of locates to keep up with industry needs. That is why we are proposing these important changes to this legislation: so that the administrative authority of Ontario One Call can be more consistent with those 11 other DAAs.

To make it more adaptable to a rapidly changing landscape can help unearth a greater level of potential from industry as a whole, and it is necessary for the more complex role that we are asking One Call to fulfill. Now, while One Call was originally conceived as an organization to route information from people or businesses that are looking to dig to infrastructure owners and operators, that is no longer the case. They are filling an important role to help get all our infrastructure built faster and make the process smoother and more efficient.

Speaker, there are parallels to be drawn between the consumer protection act, Bill 142, that received royal assent at the end of last year and that was recently debated in this House. There are parallels between that act and this Bill 153, and that parallel is one of shared interests. We appropriately named Bill 142, the consumer protection act, the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, 2023. It’s a shared interest in consumer protection shared by consumers and shared by businesses who want to find it easier to comply, because that’s good business. And we are all consumers, after all. We all have that shared interest, just as we have a shared interest in building infrastructure efficiently, safely and cost-effectively and just as we have a shared interest in keeping all matters running smoothly, without interruption, without outages and without potentially fatal accidents.

Like consumers and businesses, excavators and infrastructure owners/operators have these shared interests—interests in maintaining safe and reliable networks that get us the services we need when they are needed. We should all do what we can to foster that work and to get it done in the best possible and a safe manner.

To summarize, Speaker, if passed, I believe that this bill would better protect public safety by legislating the long-standing industry practice of requiring locates to be provided free of charge and to stem that cycle of potentially escalating costs if locate fees were charged. I also believe that this bill, if passed, would support the evolving role of Ontario One Call. The bill would, if passed, provide that expanded authority to align One Call with other administrative authorities.

If passed, and I want to address this point clearly again, the bill would remove the ability for excavators to seek compensation through the OLT, the Ontario Land Tribunal, for delivery of locates past the legislated time limit. Now, this takes away an appeal route, but at the same time, we have balanced with that the administrative monetary penalties as a tool of last resort and other compliance tools in between. At the same time, the reality is, was this a regularly used, or used at all, appeal route? My understanding is it wasn’t. So it’s a redundant remedy and is being replaced by, I submit, a more effective remedy, with the expanded powers of Ontario One Call and the ability, as a last resort, to impose administrative monetary penalties—as a tool of last resort—and to ensure compliance with this legislation, because, of course, as it’s been said many times in this House and outside this House, we must be a jurisdiction, a nation, a province governed by the rule of law. We are ruled not by people but by laws. Ensuring compliance with the law, both with the letter and spirit of the law, is an essential aspect of what we must do. So while this ministry has the oversight, the delegation to administrative authorities to ensure compliance with the law is essential. As of May 1, 2024, underground infrastructure owners and operators can be subject, then, to administrative penalties imposed by One Call in respect to late locates, to be clear.

I conclude by submitting this: Bill 153, unanimously supported thus far, is a testament to our commitment to building our province more safely, more efficiently and more cost-effectively. That is the shared interest of all of the people that every member of the House represents in 124 electoral districts. That is our shared commitment, and that is why I believe this 43rd Parliament should continue the trend of supporting this bill unanimously.

I want to thank all of those who helped us get our work to this stage. Over the past many months, my ministry officials—and I want to thank my deputy minister and her team, in particular, and each and every ministry official who participated in this—have worked so hard on this to make it a priority piece of legislation, to get it close to the finish line, as we are now. I also want to thank the many, many industry leaders and the Ontario One Call staff, who have come together to discuss ways to make the locates system work better.

My grandfather was fond of the saying “Come, let us reason together.” I believe that is what has happened in the lead-up to the introduction of this bill and the debate surrounding this bill, a bill that goes above partisanship and is right for the people of Ontario, for the future of Ontario and the need to plan to build the Ontario of tomorrow, today.

Thank you to all the honourable members for their attention to this bill. I strongly encourage all members across this House to support it, for empowering our province to build the infrastructure of tomorrow is a goal that we all stand behind.

I would like to thank the member for his hour speech on this infrastructure bill. But I would like him to address very specifically the fact that it’s important that consumers aren’t charged for locates and that locates happen quickly. I would like him to address the notion that in the north, “call before you dig,” or One Call, doesn’t work. They end up so often with delays and delays. Because it’s such a short construction season, they often don’t want to get bogged down in that, if they’re trying to build in the short period when they actually don’t have to compete with the permafrost. One size doesn’t necessarily fit all when it comes to Ontario.

How are you going to ensure—how are you going to enforce—that those penalties, when the locates aren’t done on time, are actually levied? And what will Ontario One Call be doing with those penalties if they in fact do show some rigour and enforce that?

As I’m being heckled, Speaker, I will only once acknowledge the heckle: It is very exciting to talk about locates for an hour, but while I have the floor, I’m happy to also be excited about talking about other ways that this government could be building infrastructure safely or more safely.

Interjection.

I’m going to read a little bit from a press release from Ontario One Call. This is from their Dig Safe Month, but I think that information about safety—it’s always the right time to share this. This is from their press release, and I think it helps to illustrate to the folks at home what on earth we’re talking about. Locates may not be something that folks are super familiar with.

“Everyone has a role to play during April’s ‘Dig Safe Month’

“According to a recent survey, two out of three Ontarians planning to dig this year will inadvertently put themselves, their loved ones, and their community at risk by not requesting a locate through Ontario One Call.

“Digging without locates is dangerous and against the law....

“Ontario One Call is raising awareness about the need to ‘Click Before You Dig’ for any size excavation project.

“‘We are working with all our partners to ensure that everyone in Ontario understands that if they are planning to dig this year, by law, they must request a locate. That way buried infrastructure owners can identify where their vital cables, wires, and pipes are situated and provide locates,’ says Ontario One Call’s Director of Industry Engagement, Ian Simpson. ‘Everyone needs to dig safely, and the first step is to contact Ontario One Call and request a locate.’”

They have stats that they provided:

“There were 4,769 reported damages to buried infrastructure, which is an increase of 8% from the previous year (averaging 19 damages per day);

“—37% of reported damages were due to digging without locates (not requesting and/or digging before receiving a locate);

“—61% of damages caused by people digging without locates were on hazardous and dangerous infrastructure.

“These damages cost billions of dollars to repair and put people at risk. Under the law, if you dig without a locate you are subject to potential fines and liable for any damages....

“‘We do not provide the actual locates,’ says Simpson. ‘We are the one-stop shop that connects people who want to dig with the owners of infrastructure. There is no cost to request a locate through Ontario One Call and you will reduce your risk,’ says Simpson. ‘It’s a win-win.’

“If you are planting a tree, building a fence, replacing a mailbox, putting in a new garden, or planning to dig for any reason, you must follow these five steps.” Basically, the first step is to reach out to ontarioonecall.ca, request a locate—“wait for all buried infrastructure owners, like the gas, electric, Internet, water, and sewer companies to locate their infrastructure;” review the paperwork provided “to make sure there are no conflicts with where you want to dig;” and number five is to “dig safely.”

All of that to say, Ontario One Call came from that original private member’s bill to establish that one point of contact for anybody who’s wanting to dig safely. Now we have government legislation that has had to evolve—and that’s what we’re here doing, not just today, but have been doing through this process to make sure that indeed it meets the needs of the organization. It’s not a new idea, as I said.

Here’s an interesting piece from the Horticultural Trades Association. This is from an article from January 2012. I won’t ask the pages how old they are—but some of us might remember. This says, “At the provincial Legislature at Queen’s Park on December 2, the Ontario One Call Act, or Bill 8, received all-party support on second reading....

“This bill affects all of us in the landscape industry. It requires that all municipalities, utility firms, locate companies and other companies who have utility infrastructure in the ground be part of the One Call process....

“Presently, before digging commences, some landscape and excavation companies need to make as many as 13 calls to ensure that all underground wires, pipes, cables, gas mains, etc., are located. This is a major endeavour by the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance to unite the industry to support efforts to create an efficient, cost-effective and simple system....

“This legislation will save lives, make workers safe and provide an effective cost-efficient process to provide locates for all who live and work in Ontario.”

This, again, goes way back, and here we are, still talking about it, but I don’t see that as problematic if we continue to fine-tune and make improvements.

I was glad to have a briefing at the beginning of this process, when the bill first was tabled, and this is a bit of a summary as to what is accomplished in this bill. I’ll delve into some of these chunks. There are essentially four buckets of changes handled by this piece of legislation. The first one is prohibiting the infrastructure owners from charging for the locates. The current practice is to not charge—but the act is silent. This isn’t about anybody charging for locates. If I want to put in a deck and I call One Call, and Bell Canada provides the paperwork to let me know what’s there, I don’t get a bill for that. Obviously, it would be a deterrent if I had to pay money to get that information. Maybe I’ll think, “Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” and then we’ll end up in a mess. However, the existing act that we’re amending with this bill is silent on fees. It doesn’t say you can, but it doesn’t say you can’t. This bill says, “Now you can’t.” There was some talk about Enbridge going to start charging $200 per locate—not for homeowners, but for excavators. They are going through the OEB process to figure out their costs and how to recoup them and whatnot. I’ll read a letter from them later. They backtracked on that; it was an idea and it’s not happening, but this bill makes sure it can’t.

The other bucket is better aligning One Call with other agencies. As I said, this bill initially came in as a private member’s bill. It wasn’t drafted by government whizzes in the back. So some changes are necessary to make, as we can understand.

Another bucket is removing a certain recourse provision in the act that excavators have—excavators being the folks who would be digging. Now don’t think about a deck; think about a massive infrastructure project. Think about, oh, I don’t know, one day a subway being built somewhere ever, or a significant building in downtown Toronto. We want to know, as I said, what lies beneath. So removing a certain recourse provision in the act that excavators have and allowing them to take the infrastructure owners to the Ontario Land Tribunal—it hasn’t been used to this point, but it removes that provision, anyway. I think that there’s still some discussion in the industry about what happens when things go wrong, but that’s outside the purview of this act.

The fourth bucket is to enhance the regulation-making authority that the minister has. Provisions for One Call are housed in the act. Some things that One Call would like to be more responsive—this allows the minister to establish. We can talk a bit more about that, but there were specific examples that felt a little in the weeds, and they were not controversial; they were more about an agency running its day-to-day affairs.

That’s what we’re talking about. That is the bill. We’re here at third reading; the bill has been to and through committee and out the other side. We had a number of presenters at committee.

We heard from the Electricity Distributors Association. They presented at committee, and I’ll share some of their thoughts:

“The EDA represents Ontario’s local hydro utilities, the part of our electricity system closest to customers. Publicly and privately owned utilities, otherwise known as local distribution companies (LDCs), deliver electricity to 5.4 million residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional customers—powering every community in the province.

“The sector owns more than $30 billion in electricity system infrastructure and invests more than $2.5 billion annually in the electricity grid. This sophisticated network of infrastructure delivers a significant amount of energy into which billions of dollars have been invested. A substantial proportion of this infrastructure is the subject of the matters considered within this proposal.”

Speaker, you can appreciate that an organization representing folks who have $30 billion in electricity system infrastructure would like to know who’s digging into it and have thoughts and opinions. They shared that they were supportive. They did say other feedback, though.

“As we outlined in our previous submission, we encourage the ministry to provide advanced visibility into locate requests. Currently, when a requestor submits a ‘work to begin date’ more than 10 days in advance,” Ontario One Call’s “system will suspend the request, and then only bring the request back online 10 days before the work needs to begin. This function doesn’t give LDCs a line of sight into projects in the queue because the requests are sitting in suspension until they hit the 10-day trigger. We recommend removing this operational hurdle to give LDCs earlier visibility of those advanced locate requests and allow them time to plan resources accordingly.” Well, that makes sense.

“We also welcome the opportunity to continue engagement with the ministry and OOC to further refine the categorization of locate types and the associated completion times as OOC’s system evolves and offers more flexibility. As OOC makes changes to its system and potentially more data stratification is available, it would be beneficial to further separate very large projects and consider excluding them from the AMPs regime given they can be delivered using the dedicated locator model.”

I’ll read one other part that they have shared here: “We wish to reiterate our appreciation to OOC for its collaborative work with the sector and the government’s leadership in continuing to build Ontario.” How often has it been in the last 10 years that I stand here and am able to share that industry partners and others have said that there was actually a collaborative process with the government? That’s good. Keep that up.

There were some other thoughts. People were supportive of what is in this bill. I will share, though, a little bit from the Independent Telecommunications Providers Association. This is from their committee submission:

“The Question of Jurisdiction”—oh, just a second. Hold on. Oh, well, this was interesting. I’ll flag this so that the—I figure that there are bureaucrats who will be watching this speech, who understand the guts of some of these comments more than I do at this stage. I’m not a locates expert. I’m learning along with you, Speaker, and other folks at home. One of the things that they have raised is:

“At the outset, as it relates to the regulation of underground infrastructure owned and operated by Canadian carriers, the ITPA submits that the province does not have the necessary jurisdiction to impose regulations on this infrastructure. This underground infrastructure, also known as telecommunications facilities, are under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission”—or the CRTC. “In its letter dated 10 February 2023, regarding the province’s administrative penalty regulations, the ITPA raised the issue of jurisdiction and requested a formal response from the province that provides the legal basis for provincial regulation of underground infrastructure in light of the settled fact of federal jurisdiction over telecommunications facilities in Canada. To date, the ITPA has not received a response to this request. The ITPA reiterates its request for a formal response from the province.”

Interesting. I won’t speak to the merit of their challenge or their question here, but they’re waiting for a response, and that’s a matter of jurisdiction. Maybe answer their letter.

Anyway, it says, “However, as it is currently structured, the system is open to gaming by the excavation industry. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the environment on excavator side of the locate regime is the equivalent of the ‘wild, wild west’.”

Some of the challenges raised here is that excavators abuse the locate request mechanism through poor planning or wilful disregard for any party’s interest other than their own. For example, ITPA members report instances where excavators—remember, excavators are the people who want to dig—request locates for both sides of a street and then build on only one side of the street. Excavators order locates too far in advance of actual construction, so that the locate goes “stale,” and then request a fresh duplicate locate. Excavators order multiple locates on the same parcel of land. Excavators engage in locate ticket dumping or flooding the system with locate tickets.

Here is an example: A fencing contractor canvassed a neighbourhood providing free quotes and ordered locates for the entire neighbourhood at the same time so the company is in a position to begin construction if one or more homeowners accepts the quote.

These are interesting, very specific examples. But I appreciate that they are raising it because, within the broader provincial framework that seems to be basically agreed upon with Ontario One Call, I think that the folks at Ontario One Call and the government can kind of take that back and figure out, how do we ensure that it’s the best use of people’s time and safety, and that we don’t have actors, in this case, that are maybe taking advantage of the fact that it’s free and, as they said, the Wild West? But when we’re thinking about massive infrastructure projects or a neighbour who is wanting to do work around their property, this looks like it’s the right fit in those cases, especially with these changes.

They raise some other issues because, again, with this Independent Telecommunications Providers Association, these are not the large companies like Enbridge, right? They’re independent telecoms folks. They’ve made a point here: “Unlike large companies such as Enbridge, small business such as ITPA members do not have the capability to flow through costs incurred via the locate regime to a customer base that numbers in the millions. Enbridge’s large customer base enables it to limit the cost impact of the regime on a customer-by-customer basis. ITPA members do not have the same luxury,” and moreover, unlike ITPA members, Enbridge does not operate in a competitive market.

So remembering the small business piece of this in comparing to some of the big dogs, I think that that needs to inform the continued improvements going forward.

Government members have this submission as well, and they can take a look, but there were a series of thoughtful suggestions by the Independent Telecommunications Providers Association.

We heard from Cogeco: “Cogeco commends the government of Ontario for continuing to address lingering challenges with locates, and for actively engaging with industry stakeholders throughout the process that led to the tabling of Bill 153.” They say, “The passage of Bill 153 will play a crucial role in expediting broadband deployment, which will support the government’s objective of achieving full connectivity by 2025.”

I’m so excited to talk about broadband. But even more than that, I would really love for the government to reassure me that we are ever, in my lifetime—pages, in your lifetime—going to see broadband across the province, because, to be reminded of the government’s stated objective of having that full connectivity before the next election, by 2025, if that’s right, I don’t think that this bill has been what’s standing in the way. We don’t see the broadband yet. You can tell me it’s coming, but we haven’t seen the dollars get spent. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

One of the other things that I would say here that Cogeco has raised is they say. “While we support Bill 153, we would like to seize this opportunity to remind the government that significant labour shortages in the locating industry are causing significant delays in the fulfillment of infrastructure projects across Ontario. The recent launch of the Accelerated High Speed Internet Program has brought about an increased demand for locates, thereby exacerbating an already precarious situation. In the last year, a number of Cogeco’s broadband expansion projects were put on hold for many months due to a shortage of locators. If left unaddressed, this underlying issue will continue to have negative impacts on all underground infrastructure owners and excavators.

“We encourage the government to continue addressing labour shortages across the locating industry, particularly through investments in skills training.”

So those are some thoughtful suggestions, and I think it’s stuff we’ve talked about in this room before, but what I had just said is that this particular bill isn’t going to help us get the broadband faster. Recognizing that someone in the business, Cogeco in this case, has said that in addition to this bill, we need to focus on labour shortages and some of those challenges, right—that’s outside of this bill, but a next step for us to keep working with, because broadband matters a lot. I know that we all sing that same song. We want to make sure that we get there.

Actually, while I’m talking about broadband, let’s review a couple of stats here. The government has announced significant spending. Everybody across party lines has been in agreement that this is what is needed. Whether we’re talking about agricultural business needing the connectivity, kids at home doing their homework, small-business folks working from home, all of us in this space—no matter where we look, from banking to libraries, our world is online, and we have that need to have broadband expanded.

I had raised concerns in this chamber, and I continue to have them, about the last-mile connection. So even if we get broadband from this government, if it is indeed coming, I worry about the last-mile folks. What I mean by that is the rural or—it’s not always that remote or rural, but the folks that it isn’t lucrative for the big broadband companies to connect them. They’re not making the money on it, so who is going to chase them and make sure that it happens?

We’ve had reassurances from this government that it will, it will, it will, but the contracts have gone to the bigger Internet service providers and not the local smaller Internet service providers. Now, they may be contracted for some of that work but, again, by the bigger ones. They couldn’t even get into the process. We understand that many of them had to sign non-disclosure agreements to even be able to get that initial information to be able to get into the bidding process or find out about it. And those regions, the parcels of land—some of the smaller Internet service providers, which might be local and do an excellent job in our community, can’t compete. If they look at that map chunk and say, “Wait a second, we don’t have the infrastructure, the equipment or the human resources to be able to serve that whole area. I guess I can’t bid. I can’t compete on that”—whereas they would be fantastic in their smaller home community and have a vested interest, both because they have a business reputation and because it’s their neighbours—maybe their neighbours in Nickel Belt—that they want to connect. So it’s been a process that—I have been disappointed to see that a lot of them were knocked out initially.

But when I look at the money that’s been allocated—and I take us back in time to estimates and looking at public accounts—the 2022-23 interim actual for rural broadband infrastructure was $76.7 million. That was just 11% of the previous year’s $693-million broadband budget. So that was an underspending, and it was an underspending problem that started before that, okay? There have been lots of announcements. There has been very little action on the ground that we can point to. The government can correct me if they can show where that money has been going or flowing, but what we’re seeing is, according to the public accounts, this government spent only 3.6% of its $405.6-million broadband budget. In 2021-22, 3.6% was spent. It spent only 1.37% of its broadband budget in the 2020-21 year and spent zero the year before that.

So we’ve got four straight years in which the government has failed to spend the vast majority of its broadband budget.

Back in February 2023, so a year ago, at that time, the government had underspent on infrastructure by $700 million, including broadband and ICIP projects, which were delayed. Now, that was a year ago. Let’s flash forward to this February: the third-quarter finances—this is February 2024—a $451-million decrease in planned expenditures due to an updated construction schedule for the broadband program. This is an in-year cut to planned broadband spending of nearly 70%. I have no idea how much the government will actually end up spending—maybe all of it; we’re only in Q3. Again, the government is failing to spend the broadband expansion money. Evidently, the government has its priorities, and we stand here hoping to be reassured with evidence, but what we see is a focus on spending public dollars on Therme’s luxury spa at Ontario Place, but we don’t see the connectivity; we don’t see the broadband. Rural folks who are waiting so patiently for broadband—I wonder when they’re going to finally notice and start getting mad. The government might start spending money on broadband when that happens.

Back to talking about locates and calling before you dig: As Cogeco, who does the work and is in the broadband and in the Internet business, has said, there’s some human resource pieces and labour shortages but there’s not anything in this particular bill that is holding up broadband—not specific to this. I wouldn’t say that’s a missed opportunity. I haven’t heard from either any on the excavator side or the industry side that there’s a challenge with locates in regard to that.

I had mentioned earlier that Enbridge had kind of—I won’t say “threatened,” but there had been talk that there was going to be a $200 per locate and for every relocate request, which was looming. They rescinded that or they clarified that that was not going to happen. Again, back to this bill and what’s actually in this bill: There can’t be fees, so that can’t happen.

Speaker, we’ve talked about the industry side of things. One of the things that I will mention is that the backlog of getting locates is really challenging to smaller communities, more rural communities. When we knew that this bill was coming back to the House for third reading and through committee, we had a conversation—and talking to my colleague from Nickel Belt, there are a lot of folks in rural communities that when they pick up the phone and want to call to get those locates and make sure it’s safe to dig, it’s unbelievable how long it takes. If that’s the case, if they pick up the phone and call Ontario One Call and they’ve got to wait too long, they’re going to not call or they’re just going to move forward, and we all cross our fingers.

I think that if Ontario One Call can take that back and do the math on how to make sure, on the customer service side, that the actual residential locates process is faster—and I think that maybe speaks to the labour shortage. That may be a part of it, but we’ve got to make sure that we do things safely.

Speaker, this bill, as I have said, is called the Building Infrastructure Safely Act. People in Ontario want infrastructure built. People in Ontario want that infrastructure to meet their needs. They want it to reflect what it is that communities or cities are asking for, are needing, what they depend on. They want to know that their roads are going to be safe to travel on and not deteriorate. They want to know that buildings, whether they’re residential, a hospital or a mall, are not going to fall down around them, that it’s going to stand the test of time—all of that, right? We want infrastructure physically to be built safely, but we also need infrastructure to be built based on plans, not just whims. I think that sounds like common sense and yet.

When we see rushed process, we see less safety. I have an article here, and I am happy to bring it back and share it again because it’s one that I still just shake my head about, and I know there are some members in this room who remember when I shared it the first time and probably enjoyed it not as much as I did. Regarding minister’s zoning orders, it’s entitled “Ford Government Forced to Fix Rushed Zoning Order That Put Tower on Flight Path.” This is a Global News piece, November 2023: “The Ford government was forced to scale back a minister’s zoning order after the developer was given permission to build a skyscraper right in the middle of the flight path of Pearson International Airport, sources told Global News, after a rushed process.

“Months after it was issued, the zoning order was quietly amended when airport officials told the government it couldn’t allow a 50-storey tower to be built on a flight path utilized by hundreds of aircraft.”

Now, I will be fair that I don’t know it was that obvious. I’m not making excuses, but I don’t think it was a really busy flight path. My understanding is it might have been a bit of an emergency, once-in-a-while flight path.

The point still stands that if you’re going to build a 50-storey tower, you would hope that by the time it comes to you to approve, there are plans and due diligence has been done. When we have a rushed process, we have problems, and we have embarrassing headlines. Fortunately, we don’t have people living in a flight path or we don’t have office workers in a flight path, and fortunately, we don’t have emergency flights having to go around a surprise building.

Now, it says, “The gaffe is likely to draw more scrutiny to the province’s use of minister’s zoning orders or MZOs, a controversial tool that allows the province to overrule and replace planning decisions made by local councils.”

Speaker, I see it. I see it often. I see it locally. All of us know Orchard Villa. We’ve heard that name. I don’t think we’ll hear that name much going forward except by the families and except by the people who want to remember it. But the people who want to turn the page—corporate entities, perhaps this government—it’s being rebranded. The government, in an MZO, is allowing for a 30-year licence extension, a whole whack of new beds and a rebuild and a rebrand. And the care that had been provided by Extendicare—in the military reports, people died; it was awful. Extendicare is not in the mix anymore. It’s a whole new company to provide the care. In fact, it’s a company that, to the best of my knowledge, has never existed before, has no track record and is connected, I believe, to the building owners, to Southbridge homes. It’s called “south care” or “Southbridge care,” something like that.

Anyway, in all of this, we’re talking about building infrastructure safely, but we also want infrastructure to be built for safety. We’ve got loved ones in long-term care. I have stood in this place and said that that building, that process has been a mistake. The Pickering council, and I know Pickering council—there’s politics all over the place in Durham region and relationships all around this room, and that’s fine. That’s going to happen. Welcome to Ontario. But that council said that they had wishes and that MZO ran roughshod over them. It was against what the council had wanted. And now we have the families—the families of Orchard Villa and the Ontario Health Coalition have taken legal action against this government in trying to prevent this 30-year licence extension.

So we want infrastructure built, but we need it to be safe, and we want the reassurances that—look, if the government wants to say that Southbridge has now turned over a new leaf and they’re magic and sunshine and they have made all of the changes and they’re going to be awesome and care is just going to be top-notch, why are they still even willing to risk a 30-year gamble on that assumption? Right? They don’t have the track record to back up 30 years. I’m not standing here saying, “We’ll give them a five-year one and then we’ll re-evaluate.” This has been a reward for poor behaviour, but without something to point to that justifies it or reassures communities.

So while this bill might be about locates, we are watching decisions being made that are going around the planning process, a rushed process. We definitely have safety in mind in the Durham region. The Pickering community—but it’s not only Pickering. Families in my riding have loved ones that were at Orchard Villa.

I’m talking about 50-storey towers that might have been built right in the middle of a flight path to Pearson airport. I’m talking about long-term-care buildings; we want to ensure that the government has done its homework to make sure that there will be safe care. There’s lots to talk about. When we see infrastructure being built, we want to know that it’s being built well and with safety in mind.

This is a government that has such—I was going to say “obsession,” but they have such commitment. This government has made such a commitment to P3s and building things with the P3 model, and ideologically I am opposed to big giant consortiums who get to take the reins and make decisions and we don’t get to put eyes on projects mid-game. How do we know, when the province puts together a contract with a big financial consortium who hires everybody and all the contractors—they do this and they say, “Trust us. We’re going to build something, and I promise it will be on budget and on time.” But then it’s not, and we pay a 30% premium to be able to transfer the risk to the private sector and off the public. That’s the best the Auditor General can rationalize this 30% premium that we pay for P3s.

But when often we see these massive projects be super delayed and way over budget—let’s think for a minute. These massive financial consortiums, it’s not in their best interest to deliver on budget or on time. It’s in their best interest to drag their feet and make more money, fundamentally.

The other problem is, it’s in this black box or behind the P3 curtain, where I’ve seen people in this Legislature ask the former Minister of Transportation, “Why is this project over budget?” or “What’s happening? What’s the delay?” And we don’t, as a government, have the ability to get those answers. I didn’t see her able to get those answers. I think more broadly—not that minister—when we sign our rights away to peek behind the curtain, and just get the project back at the end, we don’t get to know, and that’s a problem. We’re talking about building infrastructure safely. How do you know it’s safe?

I’ve got an hour to kill, so why not: I remember when I was the critic for community safety and correctional services, and I would show up at jails—the front door, by the way—and do surprise tours. I went to, I think—I’d have to look at my notes—17 of our provincial jails, and a number of probation and parole offices.

I remember being at the Toronto South Detention Centre getting a tour—and this is super in the weeds, but I don’t care. That building was built as a P3, and when I got the tour, walking around both with the management side and the union side, they were pointing out physical things in this jail that were so dumb—and when I say “dumb,” I mean so dumb, like design things that were just dumb: Where the drains were in the showers, they weren’t built with the right grade, so the water was running into living areas instead of into the drain; they had to put towels on the floor. It was just things where you think, “Have you never built a floor before?”

There were other challenges that I remember—and I still don’t know who paid for this; maybe some bureaucrat wants to send me a note who paid for this. But there were areas in that jail where inmates are transported from one section to another, so it was still inmate areas. It was found out after it was handed back after the P3, after they had commissioned this jail, did all the contracts—bought and paid for; the jail comes back to provincial hands—there were inmate areas where the glass was breakable. Breakable glass, and they were like, “Oh, no. That’s not safe.”

Do you know what? It turned out that in the contract, we the government or whatever had not specified that it needed to be not-breakable glass. Even though it was a jail, they did it to condo specs in that section. I remember thinking, “What are you talking about?” This is so in the weeds, and it’s a bit absurd that I’m telling this story. All of that breakable glass in the jail had to be replaced, and we’re on the hook for it because we didn’t specify that it not be condo spec in that one section—super nitty-gritty and ridiculous. But you extrapolate that nugget to massive infrastructure projects—billions of dollars—where we don’t have access to those contracts, and we just have to trust that they were done well.

I’ve spent a lot of time at committee talking about real estate—and I don’t mean today; that’s a different bill. I’m talking about the realty portfolio specific to hospitals years ago—and it was the same thing that we were asking Ehren Cory at the time, who was the head of Infrastructure Ontario: “Have you learned your lessons about how to write contracts for these P3s and the hospitals?” We kept getting into messes. I remember being sort of reassured with, “Yes, we are looking at the lessons that we learned.” Oh, my gosh.

So are we still signing contracts where we are not specifying jail glass instead of condo glass, and then the taxpayer is on the hook for 30 years of maintenance of this glass and replacing it? I’m in the weeds.

This bill is called Building Infrastructure Safely Act. I think when you involve the public, folks who know what they are talking about, rather than the private consortium—their goal is to make money for their investors. Why would they do things well? Why would they do things on time? Why would they do things on budget?

I’m surprised I’m not getting yelled at more that I’m against P3s—and that’s what they tuck themselves in with at night. Still, this is the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, and I get to raise in my hour lead other things to consider for how to build infrastructure safely.

Interjection.

I want to congratulate my very knowledgeable colleague the member for Oshawa for walking us through the legislation that’s before us today, the Building Infrastructure Safely Act. She made some comments regarding the locate requests that are affected by this legislation, and those locate requests are other than dedicated locator requests that are related to designated broadband projects. She made some comments about this government’s track record on implementing broadband throughout Ontario.

I wondered if she wanted to elaborate a little bit more on the government’s progress in achieving its broadband goals.

It’s always a privilege to be able to rise and to get in depth in the conversation on Bill 153, Building Infrastructure Safely Act.

My question is to the colleague across the way there. With the bill proposing major changes for the third time in less than two years, can the government clarify the rationale behind these frequent amendments? How do these changes address the concerns missed in Bill 93 and in Bill 23, particularly regarding stakeholder consultations? I’m not sure if there is a relevant question about the lack of comprehensive consultation the first time around.

I understand that the bill removes the requirement that the owners of infrastructure pay compensation when they miss deadlines. Now, there’s been a lot of debate, so I apologize if I’ve missed something along the way, but we do know that a lot of northern communities talk about making the one call but then waiting and waiting and waiting. They’ll try and back step and call the actual utility and so on, or people call the MPP’s office. I’m just wondering if there’s anything in the bill that actually calls One Call to account or the utilities to account if they continually miss deadlines.

It is my pleasure to rise in the House today to reiterate my support for Bill 153, the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, 2023.

This bill is just one component of our government’s ambitious legislative agenda to build the infrastructure Ontario needs today and to address the needs of tomorrow. It is also a testament to our government’s dedication for fostering a safer, more efficient and cost-effective environment for developing infrastructure in Ontario. This includes key priority areas such as housing, health care, transit and Internet connectivity.

Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight how this bill fits in the context of our government’s broader vision and commitment to ensuring a prosperous and sustainable future for Ontario. With Ontario growing at an incredible speed, this bill would also play a vital role in maintaining public safety and safeguarding the critical underground infrastructure systems that support our communities and our economy.

Under the leadership of Premier Doug Ford, Ontario has embarked on one of the most significant capital investment plans in the province’s history. This significant commitment aims to revitalize schools, hospitals, public transit, roads, housing and to provide a universal access to high-speed Internet for every community across the province by the end of 2025. That’s why this bill focuses on eliminating locate fees, streamlining processes and protecting both workers and critical infrastructure. That positions Ontario as a leader in responsible and forward-looking governance.

We know that by building and maintaining more infrastructure, we are growing communities. And we know it will take a concerted effort, led by the government and accomplished by strong partnerships. It is thanks to strong stakeholder support from a wide range of stakeholders that we have gotten this far.

As we plan for Ontario’s future, we will make use of every tool available to make sure the infrastructure projects we all need are built, whether small or large. We will ensure that all infrastructure is built and maintained to the highest standard of safety standards, because we owe it to our communities, to businesses and to individuals to ensure they feel the benefits from these projects. This includes our construction workers, our trade workers and our skilled workers—all the hard-working people who help build this province by creating and maintaining our infrastructure. It is all part of building Ontario faster and strengthening our communities and laying the foundation for long-term economic growth.

Madam Speaker, the most important of the proposed legislative amendments to the One Call act is the prohibition on underground infrastructure owners or operators from charging fees for locates. Our goal is to keep costs down for a wide range of construction projects while protecting the public from damages to critical infrastructure. Not only would this be consistent with a long-standing industry practice across Canada and the United States, this would also align with our broader plan to facilitate the efficient and safe completion of vital infrastructure projects.

Bill 153 proposes amendments to the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, which is administered by One Call, an administrative authority overseen by the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery.

Within our ministry are 12 administrative authorities that have certain delegated responsibilities in specific sectors and industries, and they administer and enforce certain Ontario laws regarding consumer protection and public safety. For example, if you live in a condominium unit, you have benefited from the work of administrative authorities such as the Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario. If you have ever hired a licensed electrical contractor, that contractor has been licensed by the Electrical Safety Authority, which enforces the Ontario Electrical Safety Code. The Travel Industry Council of Ontario regulates all Ontario registered travel retailers. It also administers a fund that can reimburse consumers if their registered travel agent has major financial troubles. The Technical Standards and Safety Authority regulates technical safety, including elevating devices and amusement park rides.

All of Ontario’s administrative authorities have one thing in common and that is their responsibility to protect consumers and the public interest. Because they are governed by different statutes that have been amended over the years, their frameworks have evolved in different ways. Through the Rebuilding Consumer Confidence Act, 2020, steps have been taken to address these differences and to improve and harmonize the accountability, oversight and transparency requirements of most administrative authorities. Over the past few years, ministers’ orders have directed several administrative authorities to make changes to the governance and composition of their respective boards of directors. The overarching goal is to ensure the delivery of critical consumer protection programs and services, and public safety laws.

Our government has asked Ontario One Call to take on a more complex role. As such, it is important to provide them with the tools to help them work better with us. This includes more complex work to support the improvements of efficiencies in locate delivery, which requires better systems, backed up by better and sustainable resources.

Madam Speaker, this bill also advances important changes made under the Getting Ontario Connected Act, 2022, in improving the locate delivery system and making the process of obtaining locates more efficient, all while maintaining Ontario’s strict safety standards. Among these changes made to the Ontario One Call act, it included requiring designated broadband projects to use a dedicated locator. A dedicated locator is agreed to by the project owner and the affected members, and it is responsible for responding to locate requests for the duration of the project. This model helps drive efficiencies and avoid duplication by allowing a project owner to get all their locates completed by one locator, rather than waiting on different locators from each underground infrastructure owner or operator.

These proposed changes to the One Call act similarly work to streamline processes, providing One Call with the explicit authority to charge and collect fees. It would allow One Call to make bylaw changes to implement ministers’ orders without requiring member approval and allow the minister to specify additional objects for One Call. This ministerial power would, if passed, give the minister the ability and flexibility to expand One Call’s role in the future and address unexpected issues.

Some other proposed changes to the One Call act include protections for the authority’s statutory officials, officers, directors, employees and agents from personal liability. These are reasonable protections currently provided to other administrative authorities, and this amendment, along with other measures, would bring One Call more in line with other administrative authorities.

Madam Speaker, these are necessary changes if One Call is to evolve as a public safety administrative authority. These changes are in response to the feedback we received in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, such as underground infrastructure owners and operators, excavators, municipalities and others, on how to improve and ensure locate delivery and ensure the sustainable operation of One Call, while limiting cost impacts.

Before I wrap up, this bill, if passed, is a key part of our government’s plan to build Ontario. I hope that all my colleagues in this House will join us in supporting legislation that will ensure our province has the capacity to grow at the pace we need it to. Our government is proud of what we have accomplished, but more work must be done. And I can assure you that we will continue to work with our public and private sector partners to ensure that the critical infrastructure Ontario needs is built.

I appreciate all those who supported our bill for the benefit of our fellow citizens and residents. I’m looking forward to hearing from my colleagues in this House on how we can build—