I am glad to be able to take my place in this Legislature—at any time, I’m glad to be able to rise on behalf of the people of Oshawa, but certainly, to be able to stand and speak for a second time for a full hour, I am overjoyed.

Here we are, all of us together, for what will be a riveting one-hour lead. I’m pleased to be able to stand as the critic for the official opposition for infrastructure, transportation and highways. Today, as we have before, we are discussing Bill 153, which is the Building Infrastructure Safely Act.

Really, this is a focus on “Call before you dig.” When we think about digging into the ground to do a home project, if we’re putting in a deck, or whether we’re thinking about putting in broadband—hopefully, one day—across the province of Ontario, we want to know what lies beneath. We want to know that we’re not going to dig and accidentally turn out the lights, at best, or at worst, cause harm to workers or to community members. The “Call before you dig” or “Click before you dig” initiative is obviously an important thing that most of us are familiar with, as residents of Ontario.

I have a lot of voices to share today that were raised before the committee process, but also during the committee process, explaining why parts of this bill are important and also making some suggestions about the next steps for this agency, Ontario One Call, or for the government generally to keep eyes on.

Speaker, this is a bill that makes very small updates to the Ontario One Call system, which has already undergone two previous major updates in the past couple of years. Based on stakeholder reaction, it was something that came from, dare I say, extensive consultation within the stakeholder community and the industry community.

The need to call before you dig and build infrastructure safely is not a new idea for the NDP. In fact, the Ontario NDP co-sponsored a private member’s bill back in 2012—the former member for Hamilton East–Stoney Creek co-sponsored Bill 8, the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, with the member from Sarnia–Lambton. When we think about a private member’s bill, many of us who have had the opportunity to table one know that while it might be great and done with the best of intentions, it isn’t necessarily fleshed-out government legislation. That is why we are here and why we have been here before. That private member’s bill has had to evolve, because it ultimately established Ontario One Call as a single point of contact for all underground utility location services in Ontario, and there have needed to be improvements and changes as that agency and organization has come into its own, so to speak, and as they have received feedback from the broader stakeholder world, as I said.

Everyone agrees that locates are a key part of building safely. I’m glad to see, in this case—well, I would always be glad to see it, but in this case, I am able to say that I am pleased that the government did consultation, as we’ve heard from stakeholders. To me, it’s a novelty to be able to stand here and say “good job” on listening to folks—because that’s not usually what we hear. I’m glad to see them listening to excavators and infrastructure owners, and addressing their concerns about efficiencies, inefficiencies, backlogs.

We’re hoping that this is all that’s needed to make this process what it needs to be. We’ll be glad to discuss what we’ve heard from the building industry, environmental partners and municipalities about what is needed to build infrastructure safely in this province going forward.

And because the government has named this bill the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, it’s fair game for me to be able to spend some of this hour talking about other ways that the government could be building infrastructure safely outside of locates. Talking about locates for a full hour—I can do it; many can. But I just want to make sure that we get as much out of this and put as much into it as we can in that hour, so—