For women like Emily—and I say “women,” because there are a lot of women who are struggling with even finding the—I hesitate to say strength, but to have faith in the system, to even enter the system, to come forward with an accusation and step into the system. And then to have gone all the way through it and to not get the day in court, to know that her abuser or the perpetrator had gone free—I don’t know the words to say to someone like Emily. But I do have the words to say to this government—and that is, Emily is not an anomaly.

There are a lot of folks out there who deserve justice, not only access to justice. What we can do to fix the system, we have to do.

We’re going to move to questions for the member for Oshawa.

Thank you to the member for Oshawa. You talked about the backlog in the courts and the delay. The government likes to say that it’s because we don’t have tough-minded judges, but in fact, it is the delay in the court system.

The most poignant—there are a number of poignant stories, but I want to share again the story of Emily, who was a young woman who was sexually assaulted in her home. She bravely took her rapist to court despite how difficult we can imagine that is, only to have her case delayed again and again, and then finally it was thrown out because it passed the 18-month timeline.

To the member from Oshawa, can you imagine the indescribable feeling of being violated not once, but twice by this system and a government who puts this bill forward and doesn’t put anything in there to make sure that something like this does not happen again in the province of Ontario?

As the member mentioned, recently our Premier has made disturbing statements about his desire to increase political influence over judicial candidates. You will all remember in the House, when we asked, he said it, and then the next day he doubled down, and on the third day he tripled down, and on the fourth day he quadrupled down that he wants to make sure that judges are people who support the Conservatives’ ideas, no matter what people think.

There have been many, many people within the judicial system who say that in order for the judicial system to be as strong as possible, it has to be independent of politicians’ views.

Do you see anything in that bill that will rebuild the public trust after the Premier’s comments?

I think that there was so much “pivoting”—that word almost causes stress, because we all had to pivot so much—during COVID, and so much was learned. So, I’m not going to say that these advances or that these digital systems or modernizations were all bad. In fact, it allowed the systems to continue once we got to that point.

But talking about tribunals—why is that all that we can do? Why did we have 11 in-person hearings at the tribunals last year? That’s it. That should be an opportunity. Technology should be an option and an opportunity. It should not be the requirement.

Even the letter that I read from Jackie—she’s 70 years old, and she has no idea what to do with Zoom. Why is that her only option to access justice?

I think, disappointingly, the positives in this bill are going to get lost because folks right now have less faith than they did in the direction that the Premier is going when he has doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on appointing like-minded judges. I’ll continue in that vein.

The Federation of Ontario Law Associations have called on this government to depoliticize and return independence to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee. One of the things that they have shared is that the Premier’s comments contaminate all of the government’s judicial appointments, and that is really problematic, because with judges who are there based on merit—now it’s up to the average Ontarian to guess which ones, if the government is highlighting that they want political appointments. That undermines people’s faith, and the government knows that, and yet, they’re doing it anyway.

When we’re talking about those partnerships that help people stay safe or, as the member just raised, how we support victims of crime—this is a government that voted against an NDP amendment in committee that would have required the Attorney General to make a plan to increase the amount of compensation available to victims under the Victim Quick Response Program+, which was a replacement, by the way, for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, which had its own problems, but victims had access to money that they don’t anymore.

Also, the amendment wanted to extend the program’s deadlines, making it more accessible to victims of historical crimes and making that program available to eligible victims regardless of their access to other available publicly funded programs. And you said no.

I thank the member for her statement.

I was working within the courts during COVID, before and after, and it was remarkable, actually, because they went from a system where we filed papers to get things done. The AG flicked a switch over the course of a few weeks, and they hit the gas and they modified and they modernized the courts in a way that literally was unprecedented when it comes to speed. He should actually be applauded for that because that was absolutely remarkable. I watched it happen in real time, and I have a real concept of how that was difficult for the legal community. But the courts worked throughout the pandemic.

I’m just wondering, don’t you think these initiatives were positive? What would be the alternative had we not been able to modernize the way we have through this new legislation?

As all Ontarians know, the NDP and the Liberals have a strong passion to protect offenders by defunding the police and also freeing the offenders back to the street ASAP.

This government’s Enhancing Access to Justice Act, 2023, would, if passed, make it easier for more victims of crime to sue an offender for emotional distress and also increase access to justice for victims by making changes to the Victims’ Bill of Rights, 1995, and its regulations, allowing victims to sue for emotional distress and related bodily harm for more crimes, including terrorism, motor vehicle theft, human trafficking etc.

So what specific policies in this proposed legislation does the member have issues with?

Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

On division.

Next question?

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion that the question be now put, please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be now put, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

MPP Downey has moved third reading of Bill 157, An Act to amend various Acts in relation to the courts and other justice matters.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on February 29, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 162, An Act to enact the Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act, 2024 and amend various Acts / Projet de loi 162, Loi édictant la Loi de 2024 sur la protection contre les taxes sur le carbone et modifiant diverses lois.

Amending the environmental stuff.

Go ahead.

Interjections.

It’s always an honour to speak in the House—and I hope someone can hand me a briefing note.

The working title is the Get It Done Act. A lot of parts of this bill came out in the press before we actually saw the legislation. I have to admit that the first thing that came to my mind when I heard “Get It Done” bill—in my part of the world, it’s the “get ’er done.” I thought, they’ve finally come to a new low: They’ve hired Larry the Cable Guy to write their legislation. But at least Larry is funny.

In my part of the world, when you say “get ’er done,” it doesn’t really mean quality; it doesn’t mean careful. It just means “just get ’er done.” You don’t hire a carpenter who just gets ’er done. It’s just not something that exudes confidence.

As we went farther and farther, more reports and more reports—

Laughter.

If you will recall, at some point the Ford government decided to remove the need for licence plate stickers for registration— get ’er done. They seem to have forgotten that you still needed to remind people to register their plates—when it came to where they realized that is when police started to pull people over because their plates weren’t registered. I know the police were doing that because they pulled me over as well—get ’er done. I, like many other Ontarians—we have busy lives and just didn’t realize. In true—I don’t think it’s Larry the Cable Guy fashion; this one is more Homer Simpson. D’oh. We need to make sure that people don’t get charged because we no longer need them to register their cars. That’s a big part of the “get ’er done” bill.

Interjections.

Something else that the “get ’er done” bill—I can’t get the “get ’er done” out of my head. There’s another analogy that I could compare this with, but I’m not sure if I can go there.

After I thought of Larry the Cable Guy and then Homer Simpson, what this bill really reminds me of—and my own party might not even like this analogy—the Dukes of Hazzard.

We all know who Boss Hogg is. We don’t have to go any further with Boss Hogg, right? We had—and it had been a long time, so I’ll think. I think the sheriff was Rosco P. Coltrane—

Interjections.

Enos was the apologist. Deep down, he knew what the Boss and Rosco were trying to do just wasn’t 100%—it was more “get ’er done” than it was “let’s make this work and let’s make it work for everybody.”

Really, the question for me is, who are the Roscos on the other side and who are the Enoses?

The Get It Done Act reminds me and many other Ontarians—it seems tired.

I was recently at the annual meeting, the annual banquet, of Beef Farmers of Ontario. I’m pretty sure you can’t get a much more conservative group than Beef Farmers of Ontario. We were talking about Get It Done—and I respect the people I was talking to. They were Conservatives; no doubt about it—old-style Conservatives, like, “Do things right.” They described this bill as gimmicky. Even the title, Get It Done—come on. “Get ’er done.” No.

This is the bill that takes the tolls off where there are no tolls?

This is the bill that tries to force future governments to have referendums on carbon pricing, except for the carbon-pricing regime that this government already employs. Let’s make it clear: This government does have a carbon-pricing regime, but Ontarians can’t vote on that one, but for any subsequent one, they can have a referendum.

There are many other things that could have had referendums. Perhaps a referendum on the greenbelt, before they—

To the government’s credit, they made a mistake and they retracted. But if they had had a referendum early on—“Do you want to destroy the greenbelt?”—I think Ontarians would have said a loud no. It would have saved them a lot of grief.

Applause.

It was just like this, and it was done.

You know, the Get It Done Act is probably one of the best names I can think of for everything that our government has been doing for the last several years.

I actually got into politics—and I appreciate that the member is concerned about his constituents and his community, as well as anybody in this room. But I remember knocking on doors when I wasn’t a politician and wondering—and I represent Thornhill. It doesn’t have a subway. It hadn’t had a subway. It hadn’t gone north of Finch for decades, and it was traumatic, literally, to get cars up and down the corridor. I would knock on doors, as I said, as a young mother, saying, “When are we going to get this infrastructure in? When is it going to happen?” Previous governments did not get it done but, God bless us, because you know what? I’m at Finch subway station, they’re digging and they’re getting things ready. We’re getting it done, and that’s what we do.

And a well-deserved round of applause.

It’s now time for questions.

Speaker, you know, you can’t make this up. This government put out these blue plates not that many years ago. Those plates couldn’t be seen in bad weather, couldn’t be seen in the light of day, they couldn’t be seen in the night, and it was an embarrassment, right? Because border officials, officers were saying, “Guys, get it done. Get these plates off. They’re a safety issue. They’re a safety issue”—over 150,000 on the road.

And so what did this government do? The minister came out and he announced a plan. Do you know what he announced the plan to get it done was? To let weathering and rust take care of the plates. The plan was to do nothing.

My question is, why can’t this government get it done right?

This government fails to see the ramifications—even if it’s smallest changes to legislation that affect people’s lives who literally have to pay the price, they pay figuratively and literally.

I also think this government’s tendency to pass hasty legislation and figure it out later is negatively impacting our communities time and time again, and I’ll give an example. Tom is one of my constituents. He got pulled over and got a $300—

Interjection.

Tom got a ticket because his driver’s licence expired—$300, Speaker. Now, Tom honestly and genuinely didn’t know his licence was expired because this government stopped sending out notices to people, but they forgot to tell people.

I’d like to ask the member, now that Tom has received a $300 fine, what would you think this government would say to Tom and will they take ownership for the mismanagement that they’ve created for people like Tom who got a $300 fine for not having a licence?

Congratulations to the member on a wonderful speech.

I know the member is from northern Ontario. I am from Brampton, which is north of here but not quite north Ontario, and I heat my home with natural gas, so I pay carbon tax on that. I drive in to work—took the train today, but about half the time, I drive in to work—and pay the carbon tax on that one. When I go to the grocery store—I’m not old enough to remember what groceries used to cost, but they certainly seem to cost a lot of money—I pay the carbon tax on that.

So I guess I’m wondering—the member, I presume, heats his home and drives a car and pays for groceries, so I’m just wondering how much carbon tax does the member pay and, I guess, if we had a referendum on implementing a carbon tax, how would the member vote on that referendum? Would he vote yes or would he vote no?