The titles that come from this government are very inaccurate for what actions are really happening under the content of their legislation. I think back to when the government started, originally with the licence plates. That was a debacle. Then they went to ServiceOntario and they sole-sourced ServiceOntario to Staples. We’ll see how that debacle turns out, because nobody knew that was coming. Also renewing the permits on your plates; that was a debacle. People are driving with expired plates and being fined for that.

I want to ask the member: She talked about the 407. What would real change look like if this government took real responsibility and got it done and took the tolls off the 407 to make life more affordable for people driving every day to work in Toronto?

I thank the speakers for their comments. Perhaps the member from Beaches–East York—first of all, I’m a little bit hurt. See, I thought that I was her favourite member. But anyway, I’ll get over it.

I want to talk about transit, because—and I’ve got a brother and sister-in-law that live in that riding, in your riding. They talk about transit all the time. This government is investing the most in transit in the history of the province, everywhere. In the city: 34 years, no transit built—we’re getting it done. Isn’t that something the member can support, and will it not have benefits for members in her riding?

I want to thank both speakers for their comments. I’ll say this: Having worked in the municipality and having to come against some of the environmental assessment restrictions that do add costs that could otherwise be better spent on actual environmental remediation, do you see an opportunity nonetheless in improving the regulations that do exist so that we’re not spending far more without a resulting outcome, and we’re simply spending more on a project?

I think one of the most controversial projects that I had back in my former council ward in the town of Tecumseh was the construction of a multi-use path alongside Riverside Drive. That is an identified route for the Trans Canada Trail, the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, and soon, hopefully, we will get some connectivity with the rest of the trail, once the gaps get filled in.

One of the most strenuous debates was with a couple of people who I know well. They’re really very partisan Liberal activists, but they did not approve of the use of the municipal class environmental assessment A+ schedule, which actually pre-authorizes multi-use trails. They thought the trail needed to have a more thorough investigation as to the impacts of public safety and security, health, environment—for example, will a 12-foot path have a significant amount of runoff that would cause flooding or give cause for flooding? This trail ended up being a debate for probably two and a half years, at which point, when it was finally done, the escalation and price that we’ve seen in construction increased the cost by about $1.5 million. Initially, it looked like it was coming in over budget. The federal government gave a grant, but then that was all eaten away and then some by just the consumer price index increases. Ultimately, we had the same result, but the way that—who could know? If we still had to go through a schedule B municipal class environmental assessment, that would have added a significant amount of time to getting this trail built and connecting to the great trails that we have in our glorious country.

And so, when I see opportunities to streamline the environmental assessment, do just like what the McGuinty government did and introduce schedule A prime, that’s a good thing—because there are certain projects that you will undertake in a municipality that are routine. They’re the same every single time.

I designed sewers and sewer systems. I designed bike paths. I didn’t design a building in full, but I administered the project. That particular project, I’ll get into a bit later, but do you know what? When I design a sewer, I submit to the MECP for my approval. It is a very set process. You know what the application is, you submit your drawings, you submit your sewer design sheets and you have certainty. The only thing you are uncertain about is the review timeline from the ministry.

Now, with recent changes, the linear assets evolution at the ministry, that’s actually left in the hands of the municipality. I see that as, again, a good thing. A professional engineer must stamp a drawing and a design. It doesn’t matter how long ago I did that design; I’m responsible if I fail in my job, in my duty as a professional engineer.

So when one approaches engineering design with a lens of skepticism, that we’re all unethical as engineers when we design—and unfortunately, I’ve heard that sort of suggestion in a couple of debates that we’ve had. I’ll say, number one, I want to serve the public as a professional engineer, and those who are involved with environmental assessments want to serve the public too. It doesn’t matter if you’re a land use planner—sometimes it’s a biologist—you take your knocks.

Going through the process, public consultation, is a key part of the environmental assessment process. You have to go through it. Schedule B: You’re required to do one project meeting and then you can create a project file at the tail end. Schedule C: You have to have a minimum of two public meetings and do a thorough report. Now, as a fail-safe, you want to do a whole report just in case there is a—it used to be a bump-up request that the minister used to deliver; now, again, that’s the decision of council.

At the end of the day, you do a biological assessment. You do an archaeological assessment. You do a storm water assessment. You do a traffic assessment. You spend a lot of money on studies to make sure that things are going right. It’s clockwork when you have a process that is set and established. You know what you need to do. So in the case of what the previous government did with schedule A-1, again, it’s a good thing. I support it. It means that what is routine and default should not result in unnecessary delays to achieving the societal good that your project would bring in.

Changes to the EA process to provide a wider breadth of scoped projects, ones where you know what you’re getting—a waste water treatment facility—you get newer technology, but, fundamentally, you can write out the design with a pen and paper. You know what the processes are for cleaning water. You know you have primary treatment. Ideally, you will have secondary treatment. In a perfect world, maybe we’d have tertiary treatment; that isn’t compulsory. But the secondary treatment is one where you can decide: Do you use light? Do you use ultraviolet? Do you use ozonation? Do you use membrane technology? It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, there are only so many technologies out there and so many directions you can go down.

There are certainly opportunities to standardize a process, to introduce a quicker process and to ensure that you don’t run into unnecessary delays and barriers in trying to achieve public good. Cleaning water is a public good. Providing a bike lane is a public good. And yes, building a neighbourhood street, rebuilding a neighbourhood street—hereby called a “highway,” but the Highway Traffic Act includes all roads, including that 20-foot-wide lane. That’s what a highway is. It’s not a freeway.

So at the end of the day, there are plenty of great reasons for which to make the kinds of changes that are being proposed here. It’s not just for municipal infrastructure; it’s private infrastructure as well. It’s actually—I call it more stringent, because now you have geotechnical reports, whether it’s private or public or municipal, but they go through more intensive environmental site assessments. You have to prove that there’s no contamination on your property. Like, if your property was a gas station at one point, hey, you need to clean that soil. Again, it comes back to, as a designer, as a professional, you’re not doing your job and you are unethical if you don’t do your due diligence.

Now, adding the kind of—call it “public contact points” and all of what that entails—there’s merit to having public consultation, but sometimes that public consultation is repetitive. If you’re trying to improve storm water or add active transportation facilities and people don’t like it, well, you’re going to have some battles in front of you. And you know what? You can solve those projects on a political basis: Tell your city council not to fund it. But to actually encumber the process by politicizing it, effectively, instead of making it on a technical basis isn’t the best approach. It’s one of the flaws that we’ve had in our environmental assessment system. I’m happy to see the depoliticization and standardization of environmental assessments that are being called for in this legislation.

Not only did I serve as councillor, but I served as a designer in the municipality. I worked with contractors of many types. I’m representing the public good. In fact, I was the drainage superintendent as well. I was the regulator. I would say no. I had to impose the conditions of the Drainage Act. A lot of them are costly, and people push back. And you know what? Sometimes I’d agree with them. We were creating work for the sake of creating work. There’s no measurable benefit.

I think of a culvert installation on a property that’s on a drain that was established 120 years ago. If someone wants to move that culvert, they can’t just move the culvert and replace like with like. They actually have to go and do an entire drainage assessment of the whole drain—the entire length—to see what the impact is, even though the culvert next door is the same size on both sides so this particular culvert change is not going to change the flow. That’s where engineering judgment comes into play.

You need to be sensible with your decision-making, and sometimes the rules that we have imposed upon ourselves really detract from that. They add costs. They add time. And that cost that you’re wasting could be used for actual environmental remediation, actual environmental improvement, not just bringing process into it and having study after study when you know it’s not necessary or, worse yet, it has no bearing.

It’s a pretty cumbersome process to develop a property today. I think of the fire hall project that I went through. I know I’ve heard some concerns over the prospect of—call it weakening environmental regulation and, particularly, species at risk. The municipality can afford to wait—I worked for a municipality—and put in the time and money. So when all was said and done, a $5-million fire station project that I had that was delayed for two and a half years because of the efforts to get a beneficial-use-impairment permit and all that entailed—which was a three-to-one land compensation elsewhere and 10 years of monitoring on-site for snakes, the willowleaf aster and Butler’s garter snake, in addition to a number of construction techniques that were explicitly developed to ensure no harming of the snakes. This was after we had spent 30 days with a person on the site visibly pulling out every snake we could find to be able to relocate them to the offset site.

So in compiling the costs, it was a full million dollars and counting for the future monitoring added to the project cost. I look back at that—we only have so much we have in our household. We earn a paycheque; we try to provide for our kids, we try to take care of our parents, and we want to do the best that we can for them. When we’re diverting funds to engage in activity that really accomplishes no environmental improvement, to me that doesn’t feel like a win.

Having the standardization, as this is proposing, will set clear rules and clear compensation for the environmental impact in a standardized way. You know what you’re getting into. You spend the money to achieve that environmental improvement. It’s very definitive. This is something that is a way to not only reduce the cost, which we all would love to do so we can invest in other things, but it also significantly reduces the time spent on a project.

My very first project, which was dealing with basement flooding—and I mean sanitary basement flooding—was back in 2006. There’s a company called Amico Infrastructures that was the first contractor that I dealt with. Not too long ago, in learning about the government’s changes, the president of that company actually submitted some comments about this legislation. Dominic Amicone, the president of Amico, said: “Environmental assessment processes exist to recognize and protect the sometimes-delicate balance of the environments in which our clients build and operate. These new MECP initiatives will help manage the equally delicate balance of streamlining development while ensuring appropriate environmental protections. Amico supports policy innovations that facilitate near-term initiatives and long-term sustainability.”

Amico is an expert on this, because they were also a contractor on the fire station; they’re the contractor on the Gordie Howe International Bridge that had a significant amount of compensation involved. In fact, we have a whole linear network of trails that was put in by the previous government. I give them full credit; they spent a ton of money taking care of the natural environment in Windsor and LaSalle. If you go down Highway 401, on your way to the new bridge—you can’t access it yet because it’s not built yet, but the rest of the freeway has been there for about 10 years now—you will see the environmental compensation. You will see the wildlife crossings that they have brought in and all of the offsets that that project entailed. There are, again, ways to standardize this type of compensation, where you set the rules in advance and you ensure that you deliver excellent value all across the board. So I’m very happy to see that Amico—this was unsolicited by me—came out and showed some support for this.

Further, municipalities get the phone calls, just like we get phone calls as MPPs. The city council just wants to see some achievements for their time, too, and their investment. Why does it take two, three, four years to resurface a street? I’m exaggerating a little bit with this; the street rehabilitation is pre-approved, but a street expansion is not. If you have a schedule B or a schedule C process, you are going to be spending an inordinate amount of time trying to reach a conclusion that you generally know is already going to work. Ultimately, you do need some degree of public consultation, but there are times when you need public consultation—other routine projects—where it really does not add value.

I’ve actually hosted, as I’ve administered environmental assessments under the MCEA—six people attended over a three-hour period, and their only ask was, “How much will it cost me?” So when I see that Bill 162 proposes to address some of these obvious deficiencies that we know we have and that municipalities support—actually, we’ve got AMO who says, “Modernized environmental assessment processes are a critical enabler for housing, streamlining processes for municipalities to help them build infrastructure like roads, sewers, and water systems more quickly. The initiatives announced today take a risk-based approach to environmental management, removing red tape for straightforward municipal infrastructure projects and focusing resources where they are needed most. AMO looks forward to continuing to work with the ministry on implementation details.” That’s Colin Best, AMO president and regional councillor for Halton. I know Mr. Best has been quoted extensively as being an expert in these chambers, and so I hope that Mr. Best’s contributions to this carry the same weight that they did for some of his previous comments on other pieces of legislation.

I see I’m running out of time. I just have about a minute left, and I only touched a small part of this bill. There’s a lot more—I think of road tolls. The city of Windsor would like to have tolls on E.C. Row Expressway to toll for the county residents who use that road. Obviously it’s not a provincial highway but, look, there’s a prospect and discussion for road tolls, and the government is saying very definitively this should not be part of our future. A gas tax is an absolutely more efficient way to raise funds. There’s a whole lot of infrastructure and paperwork involved with road tolls. So if you’re looking at the best way to actually levy a charge on a driver, the gas tax has the least amount of costs and has the most amount of revenue that you can carry forward.

There are arguments in favour of tolls; don’t get me wrong, but if you’re looking to make life easier for Ontarians, this is not the way to go. Anyway, thank you very much, Speaker.

To the member, thank you for that question. I’m going to state again that the toll on the 407 is very expensive. Ontarians are facing a massive affordability crisis, and removing those tolls is just going to better the families of Ontario. It’s going to put more money into the people of Ontario’s pockets. Open up the 407—it’s going to help with the gridlock—and get off of Highway 413.

Of course, I always like questions from my favourite MPP across the way. Thank you for that.

Yes, I’m always for—I’m not going to say “efficiencies” because that word has been used—

Interjection: Hijacked.

The problem is I think people have lost faith in this government when they do things because they’re either just bulldozing in to do something and then reversing on it, or wasting people’s time. I do feel there is a chance to do that, but can this government do it? I don’t know.

Interjection: Mulroney.

I appreciate that question from the member, and I think I understand where you might be going with it, given the government has reduced the gas tax. But at the end of the day, when you’re comparing versus tolls, the differential is shrunken. But previously for tolls, you had a person staying there—actually the border crossings in my community still have a person. You’re creating jobs by having toll booths, and now as we evolve to more of an electronic version, you don’t need those jobs. So in fact, yes, there’s a loss of jobs with automation, but it’s actually a big cost driver. The gas tax way is something that’s just tied to the cost as you fill up at the pump, and you don’t have the spending involved with the collection of tolls versus the gas tax. You don’t have a lot of spending involved with collecting a gas tax, and that’s the basis for my opinion.

I know for the 412 and 418, $68 million is the estimated five-year savings for the drivers in Durham region. I know the member from Oshawa spoke, and very passionately, about the importance of removing those tolls, and I certainly applaud her for her advocacy on that.

Also, the freezing of driver’s licence charges and fees: $22 million since that freeze came in and then $66 million to come between now and 2029—so that’s money back into people’s pockets by initiating these changes. In an affordability crisis, we need to help, as government, keep money in people’s pockets, not keep on taking it away from our families.

It’s now time for questions.

Thank you to the member from Windsor for a great analysis. I wanted to get your perspective on what this bill is doing in terms of affordability for the people of Ontario. The opposition, I know, has mentioned over and over again this is a “nothing burger” bill. I want to read what Stephen Laskowski, president of the Ontario Trucking Association, was quoted as saying: “This is also the type of legislative measure that all governments should be looking at to control inflation and help the entire supply chain and families reduce their costs.”

There’s also supportive quotes from Vince Accardi from the Ontario Motor Coach Association and multiple mayors across the province, including the previous Liberal leader himself, Steven Del Duca.

So my question to the member is, if the opposition feels that this is a “nothing burger” bill, do you feel all these mayors and all these representatives of various businesses and stakeholder groups in the province feel it’s a “nothing burger” bill as well?

Thank you to my colleague who did a good presentation. My question is—as we know, we have only one taxpayer, one person who is paying every fee, every tax. By cutting the gas tax, by cutting licence plate renewal fees, by freezing the drivers’ licence fees—also, One Fare, which was just announced last week—we are saving more than $1,600 per person annually using public transportation. All this cost-cutting is saving money, putting money back in the pockets of the people of Ontario.

Can my colleague tell me what this will affect in the day-to-day life of the people of Ontario who are struggling to make ends meet?

It’s a very good question. What’s the fair thing to do? When the 407 was pitched by the former Rae government, they said it was going to be tolled. In fact, it wouldn’t have been built truly absent those tolls to get the capital in hand. And now, we’re paying back the cost of the highway, and I know there’s a lot of history and a lot of thoughts about that. But 407 is tolled. We know it’s tolled. Everyone has known it’s been tolled, from day one. What people are not terribly happy about is when a road that they paid for through their existing taxes, their existing gas taxes, becomes tolled, because they’ve already paid for it. Should they pay a second time? The maintenance can come from our gas tax, and that’s truly the key difference. If you’ve already paid for the road, you shouldn’t toll it after the fact.

Further questions?

I’d never blame the member for the past, but the 407 and rates that they charge are really the past of the Conservative Party. In the last session of government, the 407 actually broke the terms of the contract, in the sense that they did not collect enough, they did not have enough ridership on their highway, and that triggered a penalty of a billion dollars to the province of Ontario. Your government, the one you didn’t sit in yet, decided, “Hey, 407, we don’t need a billion dollars. Keep it.” Would you have decided the same thing had you been sitting in this chair?

I’d like to begin today’s debate just asking the simple question as to how the government comes up with names for their bills. I’ve heard rumours. One rumour is that the guy responsible actually designs bumper stickers, because we’re debating the Get It Done Act.

Now, another thing that I’ve thought and I’ve heard, actually, is that they’ve got, essentially, a cauldron full of random words put together, and someone reaches in and pulls them out, and that’s how you’re able to get something like Get It Done. You read this and you have no idea what we’re talking about. If it’s the destruction of health care in this province, they’re getting it done; that’s for sure. There’s many different ways in which they’re getting it done.

I’m going to tell you a little bit about what they’re doing here, but before I do that, I want to talk a little bit about this government, particularly the government’s backbench. I’d like to begin with that, because I have to say something. I think you have a really tough job and I think you have a tougher job than we do, because we can come day in and day out with a clear conscience and oppose bad decisions, and you’ve got to go along with them. The thing is, it’s not easy for you. It can’t be easy for you; it really can’t.

I see, sometimes, during question period when we put out a question to this side, and people are literally struck on the government side with an epiphany. They’re just sitting in their chair reeling sometimes. They’re having a crisis of conscience. They can’t believe that this is what their government and this is what their ministers are up to. They just can’t. They put their names in hoping to have a hand in change for the province of Ontario, bringing their own philosophies to bear, whatever it is, and they come here day in and day out and sit absolutely powerless—powerless to leave a mark, to leave a legacy, to do absolutely anything. All they can do is sit there and take it. That’s all they can do on a day-to-day basis.

Now, I think it’s better to not call them backbenchers; it would probably be better to refer to them as parliamentary assistants, because this is probably the government, per capita, that has had the highest number. For that, I congratulate you. That gives you an opportunity to be nearer to decision-making. But I think this is what you quickly found out: It doesn’t matter that you’re a parliamentary assistant; you don’t get to make a decision. You are a parliamentary assistant because it is a means of control. Because when you are faced with having to rubber-stamp bad decisions, all you’ve got staring you in the face to keep you in line is the brand that they could threaten to take from you and a PA-ship, and yet you still do it. You may not want to admit it now. You may not want to admit it now, but maybe at 2 a.m. when you’re going to get milk out of the fridge because you can’t sleep, you’ll think about it then, and if you don’t think about it now, you’ll think about it soon.

One of the things I’ve always noticed about these same members is I think they’re terrific people. I really, really like many of the members on the government side. I talk to them in the halls all the time. I talk to them outside of the chamber. One thing I never, never truly understood was how it is that a group of individuals like these—principled, good, who want to make change—end up making decisions like the ones that we face here in the province day in and day out.

And then you go to the next level: the ministers. I’m going to get into that as I discuss one of the schedules in this bill. Do the ministers make decisions? Are the opinions of the ministers actually respected? I would say no. I would say, for the most part, no. You get all the way up to the highest levels, to leadership itself, and I think that the decisions don’t even come from there, because at the highest level of this pyramid of power exists, on the shoulders of power, one side that’s a PR guy, and the on the other side it’s special interest.

An example of that is the bill we were debating earlier, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act—another fun title, because it’s actually doing the opposite. In that case it was Enbridge. A decision was made and within 15 hours of the decision, somewhere intermediary someone high up in Enbridge—maybe its $19-million CEO—called out, reached to someone high up in this government and said, “This is completely irresponsible. Don’t allow this.” Now, their own investors didn’t want it, but they said they would pass that on to customers. And this government rubber-stamped it. This government came out within 15 hours. You have individuals of all stripes, people fighting so many different things, and they could never get even a phone call across to a member that could make a decision in this government. But the people with power always, always do.

So what are we getting done here? Environmental Assessment Act, schedule 1: Based on some of the conversations that I’ve heard, an EA is just nothing more then an impediment. As I had said before, it was Conservatives of the past that established conservation authorities in this province. The Conservatives of the past have legacies. In fact, the public energy system, hydro, was delivered by Conservatives, and they said it should be at-cost. How far has this government fallen? How is it described that EAs are essentially an impediment? This government has no interest in quality control. What they want to do is now presuppose decisions and say, “Go along. Do whatever you want. Forget an EA. We don’t care about them anyway. They’re just really a hassle.” They’re not something that this government is interested in. But you know there are cases where people will purchase newly built condos, homes and other things before the developers even purchase lands. They will put that out for sale, and guess what? The project doesn’t get through. And who is left holding the bag? Consumers. There are reasons why you can’t put the cart before the horse, but the government doesn’t want to hear it.

I want to move on to schedule 4, the Photo Card Act. What this one reminds me of are licence plates in this province. Licence plates trigger for me what this government has been, which has been an entire month of wasted time going back and backtracking on bad decisions they made.

Now, again, government backbenchers, I don’t blame you individually for this, because none of you had any choice in any of these decisions. Someone high up at the top will come up with something that you have no control over, and it makes its way down, and then you’re told with a piece of paper, “This is what you’re doing. This is how you’re going to vote. No opinion on your part is necessary. Just do what you’re told.” And so you do.

But this government has done nothing but backtrack over and over and over again. And so I would say when you actually look at a portion of this here—this should not be called the Get It Done Act; it should be called the “get it undone act,” because there’s a portion in here that the government did around regional boundaries where they did it and then they undid it, and then in this they’re undoing what they undid. But that’s only a little bit of what they have undone.

There is actually a long list of what they’ve undone. The wage cap law—and this comes from the Canadian Press. Bill 124 capped salary increases. What did they have to do? They had to get it undone because it was ruled unconstitutional. And what did that bill do? It further damaged health care in this province. It directly damaged health care in this province. And how did it do that? Well, I’m going to let you in on a little bit of Tory math.

As we all know, we have long waiting lists when it comes to surgeries or getting treatment in hospitals and other places, when it comes to health care. But this government, above all, wants to privatize health care in the province of Ontario. They can’t say it openly because—remember how I told you that at the height of leadership, there’s a PR guy and then there are special interests on this side? The PR guy knows that Ontarians take pride in the public health care system; that this government doesn’t. They will find ways to destroy it, and one way is through planned obsolescence. How do they do that? Well, nurses and nursing agencies. They’ve done reports on this. The Auditor General has reported on this. It has been reported widely in the media. In southern Ontario, in some places, by up to 25 times more than the past, hospitals are having to rely on nursing agencies to bring in nurses. Why? Because our nurses are burnt out, they’re not respected, and they’re not paid what they deserve. So at a cost of something like $35 to $50 an hour for one of these hospital nurses, at the current rates, this government allows these hospitals, or pushes them, even, to go to agencies, to pay over $100 an hour—double. And of that $100, a quarter of it goes to an agency, it goes to their administration, it goes to profits; it’s not going to health care.

Nurses are leaving public jobs to go into those ones that you’re helping create. In fact, it was the spouse of a former Tory Premier who got into that business a long time ago. So what’s happening is this: For the cost of two nurses at the current rates, you’re getting one nurse through an agency—a nurse who is going to a new hospital, learning the place, at many times. Patients are there, and they’re seeing a different nurse every single day.

Our current nurses are burnt out and disrespected. And what is this government doing? They’re making the situation absolutely worse. Do you know why? Because when they go into private industry and that money from the government goes into more private pockets, where do you think that money goes? It goes from the taxpayer into a Conservative bank account. That’s what it does. It’s the circle of life for the Tories. That’s all that happens here.

They had to repeal Bill 124 because the courts made them. The dissolution of Peel: Guess what? They had to undo that too. They came in here—they’ve had no respect for municipal boundaries in many different ways—tore it up, and there it is; official plans, again, regional boundaries, the greenbelt.

Do ministers have control? Here’s where I get to that point. I would say no. And I think the greenbelt scandal showed that, because you can’t have it both ways.

This government, during an election, said time and time again, “We’re not going to open up the greenbelt.” They tried to open it again, and then, when they couldn’t do it, they weaken conservation authorities, they tear up EA processes, they do everything they can until eventually—remember the special interests I told you about sitting, on this shoulder? The special interests said, “Don’t listen to the PR guy.” He reached across, put his hand over the mouth of the PR guy and said, “Just do it. It’s where the money comes from.” Right? “What are we paying you for?” And so, what they did was they tore up the greenbelt.

At the time, the minister had to face question after question after question, and with a sweaty face—in fact, his documents damp from the sweat—he had to sit up here and defend decisions until he had said, “I had nothing to do with that.” How do you have it both ways?

So was the minister making these decisions or was he not? And then he ended up losing his job as minister. So if he didn’t make the decisions, why is he not in the chair? He did nothing wrong.

Well, whatever they did with the greenbelt led to the RCMP investigating this government. Again, I go back to what I said: I have tremendous respect for the backbench and the PAs and the ministers of this government. They had nothing to do with these decisions. They’ve got to wear them day, in and day out.

Imagine how embarrassing it is for a government that prides itself on being all about law and order to be investigated by the RCMP. It is nothing short of an embarrassment. And the government members feel that embarrassment. When we asked questions at the time, I remember standing beside—

I’d like to thank the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for his presentation. A question regarding schedule 6 of this bill: Schedule 6 prohibits tolls on highways, but those highways that the government is “removing tolls from” are highways that already don’t have tolls. The one highway that does have true tolls is Highway 407, and this bill does not remove the tolls on Highway 407. It’s the same highway where this government inexplicably waived a billion dollars in congestion penalties.

Can the member please explain, why would you remove tolls on highways that don’t have tolls but keep the tolls on highways that do have tolls?

Point of order, Speaker.

That was quite a performance, and congratulations. I find it incredulous that you would sit there and scold us on how we do our jobs. Take a look at the disarray, take a look at the organization, take a look at your own backyard, and then talk to us. Get your own house in order.

Speaker, we have cut taxes in this government—cut taxes. We have grown our economy. We’ve created an environment to see $50 billion more come into our treasury. How many fees, how many taxes—what would you do on the backs of Ontario people to make their life more unaffordable?

I recognize the member from Willowdale on a point of order.

I turn back the member from Humber River–Black Creek

Next question?

Thank you to the minister for that. I’m just trying to commiserate with the government. The reality is, I’m telling them, Speaker, individually that it’s not their fault, because they had nothing to do with the decision-making process. Because they never do—they never do.

So was it this government? Was it a minister? Do they have power or not? Well, we’re going to find out as the RCMP continue this investigation on who knew what. But these are exactly the issues that we’re facing from this government. They’re not accountable to the people because the people making the decisions claim they have a mandate. It’s not them. It’s not the people that put their names forward, fighting to make change for their community, who get to make any decisions here. It’s PR guys and special interests. That’s it.

Now, the “notwithstanding” clause: Again, this is a measure that is supposed to be brought in, I mean, literally, under extreme circumstances. Well, these guys are using it to change toilet paper in the bathroom—for anything. It doesn’t matter. Do you know why? Because if they can’t get their way, they will break it out.

And you don’t know the amount of flack they got for that. And I was getting flack on their behalf, people calling and saying, “I can’t believe this is even happening.” They thought this is inside baseball; nobody is going to know. Do you know many lawyers and judges were rolling their eyes at the abuse of this government with regard to the “notwithstanding” clause?

The licence plates—I’m going to get into it again. What an embarrassment, right? Vanity plates that can’t be read. They can’t be seen in bad weather. They can’t be seen at night. They can’t be seen in the sun. Get it undone. Then they announced a plan to do nothing about it. That was the plan: Don’t do anything.

One of the first times this government had to backtrack was on the autism file. They won’t listen to the advocates—autism advocates. They’ll pick up the phone call from Enbridge. So they came in here and they made changes, and families and individuals were out by the hundreds, if not the thousands, on the front lawn, and they had to again get undone the damage they did to the system.

Public health, e-learning, class sizes: I mean, the pandemic taught us how successful remote learning can be in some of these cases. But these were things that they all talked about. A French university—they lost a member over this. They took aim at French-speaking people in Ontario. And then they had to go back on it.

Legal aid: Tear that up too, right? Imagine, at a time where they want to talk about law and order, and there are victims of crime, they don’t even want to support them. It goes on and on and on.

And in the time I have left, I won’t be able to get into schedule 5 much. I already talked about Enbridge, how Enbridge called them up and said, “Guys, we’re paying you. We want to charge customers. It’s not going to come out of our bottom line. It’s not going to come out of our profits.” Well, guess what this government did? They passed it—

But I’ll get on to the final thing, in the minute left: schedule 6. And there’s not much time. The 407, highway tolls—the only time tolls have ever been collected on the 412 and the 418 was by this government. So they’re removing tolls from highways that in other cases don’t have tolls, and then in other cases, the 407, which under the past leadership—and I won’t blame them individually—allowed the cost of the tolls on the 407 to balloon to the highest-cost toll highway in the visible universe. That’s what we’re facing. Do something about it.

In the 30 seconds left: They had an opportunity in the last session of government, a billion dollars that the 407 owed the people because they breached their own contract. They did not reach the level of cars that they were supposed to. This government could have taken them to the cleaners and said, “You owe us a billion dollars.” Do you know what the government did—why? Because the 407 sits right here on that shoulder of special interest. They said, “Keep the money. The people of Ontario don’t need a billion dollars; you have it. Make more money on the backs of Ontarians.” That’s what this government’s been all about.

Interjections.

Again, thank you to the member from Humber River–Black Creek. That was a master class, and I appreciate—you in our caucus, really, are a very well-respected member of our caucus, and now you can see why.

My question—really, I want to focus on—and you said it: the idea of who is on the shoulders, the big shoulders of the top leadership in this House. My question to you is, did this come to your mind when the Premier said that what Ontarians need, what legislators need is a lesson in sales and marketing?

It seemed to me that then I understood that this is not a Premier that wants to govern; this is a Premier that thinks that being the Premier is about sales and it’s about marketing. I would say that speaks directly to what you’re saying, that this isn’t about good governance. It isn’t about governing wisely and well. It’s about selling, and it’s about marketing. The title of this bill says that exactly.

It is now time for further debate.

Interjections.

I recognize the member for Kitchener Centre.