I want to thank my colleague opposite.

It’s undeniable that the crisis that we have in auto theft is completely unacceptable—people’s doors are being knocked in at 5 in the morning and people are being demanded to hand over the keys. That’s why we’ve never had a government—we’ve never had a stronger government, our government, led by Premier Ford, that takes this so seriously.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the OPP and Toronto police have teamed up to lead a province-wide task force to fight auto theft, and in January, this past year—the proof is in the pudding, because of what they have accomplished: 89 people arrested, 554 charges laid, and hundreds of vehicles returned.

Our investment of over $100 million is working. Supporting over 21 police services with auto theft grants is working. We’re treating this with high priority.

Mr. Speaker, we know, on this side, where we sit, but the opposition does not stand for public safety. And do you know why we know it? Because when police board budgets went before their councils for approval, the proxies for the Liberals and the NDP voted no in Ottawa, in London, in Hamilton, and in other cities. It’s completely unacceptable.

I am concerned about what’s happening, and I spoke to Aamjiwnaang’s Chief Plain yesterday to discuss the situation and the impacts on the people of his community. I also spoke to representatives from Ineos and made it clear that we expect them to quickly work to identify the source of these emissions and implement a solution.

Make no mistake: When it comes to protecting health and safety, we will not hesitate to use our strong regulatory tools and enforce actions to hold emitters to account.

As of now, our mobile air-monitoring truck has already been deployed for several days and remains on site in Sarnia indefinitely.

I will continue to ensure that compliance with all past orders made to Ineos, including requirements to install emission-control equipment, are done and air quality is monitored.

I remain deeply concerned, and I do have an additional call with Aamjiwnaang’s Chief Plain this afternoon. We currently already have environmental compliance officers who have been conducting site visits at Ineos. But we will not hesitate to take additional actions to protect the people of Sarnia and Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

And welcome to the board from Waste to Resource.

I want to thank my friend from Peterborough–Kawartha for his commitment to public safety in his community. And I want to give a shout-out to his police chief, Stu Betts, who does a great job to keep Peterborough safe.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve said this many times, and it’s absolutely obvious: The carbon tax has a direct impact on the cost of public safety. As an example, the OPP spend over $4 million a year just in carbon tax. And by the numbers—as of April 1, Ontarians are now paying 18 cents a litre for gas and 21 cents a litre for diesel; that means on every vehicle that is being used for public safety, there’s carbon tax.

We know where we stand. We know where they stand.

Bonnie Crombie has to come clean and say this is regressive and it’s affecting our community—

Interjections.

Let’s just talk about Peterborough. As of April 1, 3.3 cents a litre was added to the carbon tax; that means the vehicles for Peterborough Police Service have to pay this—in every vehicle, at every fill-up. This means they’re paying, on average, $800 a year just for the increase in the carbon tax. And do you know what, Mr. Speaker? Bonnie Crombie knows this. She sat on the board of Peel police services for many years. She knew how to read a budget. She knew that the carbon tax is embedded in the cost of fuel.

She should come clean with Ontarians and say, “This is wrong. I will call Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet in Ottawa and tell them it’s affecting our community safety.”

The Minister of Health has repeatedly claimed that no one needs to pay for health care with their credit card. Yet my constituent Khalid was charged $3,590 to get his cataracts fixed. Khalid’s doctor said the surgery was medically necessary.

Can the minister of Minister of Health please explain to Khalid why he had to pay for the surgery and the tests on his credit card?

One of the things Khalid was charged for was the lenses used for his surgeries. The doctor told him he needed to have this lens because he has astigmatism. These lenses cost him $1,590.

And Khalid is not alone. We know from the Ontario Health Coalition report yesterday that thousands of people across our province are being charged fees like this every single day for procedures they don’t need.

Why is the Minister of Health allowing private clinics to upsell patients on services by telling them that they are necessary when they are not?

It gives me pleasure to present the following petition on behalf of Paul King in my riding of London North Centre. It is also a petition that has been put together by Architectural Conservancy Ontario.

Now, given the changes to the standing orders, we are not able to read the entirety of the petition text, so I will do my best summarize the key elements within this petition.

It talks about the changes that this government made to the Ontario Heritage Act—all of the changes that were made in 2022—and it talks about the heritage properties that are currently listed which are at risk. There are 36,000 heritage properties at risk, and the meagre protections for them will end January 1, 2025, unless this government acts.

What this petition does is it calls upon this government to correct that mistake that they have made—to backpedal upon yet another mistake that they have made—and amend the Ontario Heritage Act to give municipalities an additional five years, giving them until January 1, 2030, before heritage property listings expire.

I completely support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Armaan to the Clerks.

Within this petition, it talks about the difficulties that two-spirit, transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and intersex communities face when it comes to accessing the vital health care upon which we all rely.

It’s important for us to recognize that, unless we make sure that the government understands that this is a necessity, people within medical circles are not going to be taught in a way that respects people’s identities. So what this calls upon the government to do is to create an advisory committee to make sure that we address those gaps within the education system of medicine, and make sure that there’s greater access and coverage for gender-affirming care in Ontario.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Shiara to the Clerks.

I rise to seek unanimous consent for the following:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario calls on the Ontario government to protect Ontario’s water supply and not repeat the tragedy that happened in Walkerton 24 years ago by ensuring the current safety regulations, including Ontario’s free and public water testing, remain unchanged.

So, the three petitions today—I’ll just summarize each one very briefly.

The first one is to invest in a dedicated OPP hate crime unit. The second one is to provide mandatory, standardized training for all employers about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and to do it at the same time as they get training about accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities. And the third one is to make some changes to the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act, the Ontario Provincial Police government advisory council and how the Ontario Provincial Police operates in order to help combat anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

I’m very happy to present these petitions today, Speaker.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Small Business.

Canada’s inflation rate just rose to 2.9% this past month thanks to higher gas prices. Data from Statistics Canada indicates that if it wasn’t for gasoline prices, inflation would have actually gone down month over month.

We know that many small businesses rely on transportation to deliver goods and services. The carbon tax is making it more expensive to run their operations. The federal government must fix their broken tax measures, scrap the carbon tax and deliver real affordability for small businesses across Ontario.

Can the associate minister please tell this House how the carbon tax and high gasoline prices hurt our small businesses in Ontario?

Thank you to the great member from Brantford–Brant for his strong advocacy for his small businesses.

So many of our small businesses rely heavily on transportation and energy-intensive operations to deliver their goods and services. Ontario’s agricultural and agri-food businesses, from family farms to processing facilities, have seen their transportation and operating costs skyrocket. But the opposition Liberals and NDP have ignored the basic economics of why the carbon tax is bad for business. In fact, they think business owners and customers are better off.

So if you’re a lover of farmers’ markets, you can thank a Liberal the next time you see the price of Ontario produce go up. And when you pick up the necessary groceries for your family, you can thank a Liberal when you have to make those tough decisions on what to pick up and what to put back.

Join us and tell the Trudeau Liberals that this expensive, unaffordable tax has to be axed.

Point of order.

Mr. Speaker, obviously, we’re not going to entertain a substantive motion like that. If the Liberal Party would like to bring something on the floor, they have many opportunities to do that—as opposed to playing games, perhaps they would take their work seriously and bring something to the floor of this House. But I can assure the member that we will be voting against a motion that we have neither seen nor have been advised about what the contents of it are.

Supplementary question.

Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

The member for Kingston and the Islands has a point of order.

There being no further business this morning and no deferred votes, this House stands in recess until 1 p.m.

The House recessed from 1142 to 1300.

Report deemed adopted.

First reading agreed to.

Thank you very much, Speaker. It’s my pleasure to introduce my private members’ bill for the first time.

I want to thank Karissa Singh, who’s the legislative assistant from my office here at Queen’s Park as well as OLIP’s Steffi Burgi for their dedication to crafting this legislation.

Ms. Fife moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 189, An Act to enact Lydia’s Law (Accountability and Transparency in the Handling of Sexual Assault Cases), 2024 / Projet de loi 189, Loi édictant la Loi Lydia de 2024 (responsabilité et transparence dans le traitement des cas d’agression sexuelle).

Section 2 of the act provides that the Attorney General shall prepare and publish a progress report describing the extent to which the Ministry of the Attorney General has implemented certain recommendations set out in the Auditor General’s report and shall lay the progress report before the assembly.

Section 3 of the act requires the Standing Committee on Justice Policy to establish a working group to review the progress report and report on their review to the assembly.

Section 4 of the act provides that the Attorney General shall review the efficiency of the Victim Quick Response Program and report the results of the review to the assembly.

Section 5 of the act requires police services that receive a sexual assault complaint from persons who are 16 years of age or older to make the person aware of the independent legal advice program.

It is my pleasure to table this bill and I look forward to the debate on May 15.

This petition honours a young woman named Lydia who waited two years for justice. In those two years, Speaker, the pain and the stress and the tension that she and her family experienced is inexcusable in a province like Ontario, for people to have to wait that long for justice.

This petition specifically speaks to two recommendations from the Auditor General, and that is to ensure that the Attorney General of Ontario is reporting back to this House what’s actually going on in our justice system with regard to the cases specifically around sexual assault that have been thrown out.

So we have gathered some signatures and are asking the government to support this legislation to address a constant and prevalent and systemic level of injustice that is happening to women who come forward and report sexual assault in Ontario.

It’s my pleasure to affix my signature and give it to page Brayden.

This is a petition calling on the Minister of Long-Term Care, the member for Willowdale, to call Bill 21 to committee. It has been at committee now for almost 400 days. It is time for the committee to address the issue of spouses being separated in long-term care.

This is a petition that honours Jim McLeod from Waterloo region. He and his wife, Joan, have been married for 65 years, now separated in two different facilities for six and a half years.

The research is very clear. When spouses and family members are able to stay together, their health improves. We knew through the pandemic that when you do have a spouse with you in a long-term-care facility or a care campus, they do a lot of assistance with the caretaking and caring for that individual. It’s a win-win-win to keep people together. It is cruel to separate spouses who are in long-term care, especially after these seniors contributed to the health and well-being and financial success of this province.

I’m calling on the Minister of Long-Term Care to call Bill 21 to the social policy committee. Let’s fix this together. It’s the least we can do for seniors in Ontario. Thank you very much.

My question is for the Solicitor General.

Since the introduction of the Liberal carbon tax in 2019, life has become more and more unaffordable for Ontarians. With the support of the Liberal members in this House, the federal government continues to punish Ontario families who are already struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes. It’s forcing Ontarians to pay more at the gas pump—a 14-cent increase just yesterday. This is not what the hard-working people of the province of Ontario deserve.

The carbon tax is costing everyone, including our front-line heroes.

Ontario deserves better, and our government must do all we can to fight this regressive tax.

Can the Solicitor General please explain the consequences of the federal carbon tax on our province’s public safety system?

It is truly disappointing to see the federal government ignore the significant financial burden the carbon tax places on all of our front-line heroes.

Unfortunately, both the NDP and the Liberal members in this Legislature continue to support the federal Liberals and their unjust carbon tax. They just have to make a phone call to Jagmeet and Justin and ask them to change it.

Speaker, since our government was elected in 2018, affordability has been one of our top priorities. Unlike the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, our government is fighting the carbon tax. We’ve frozen the gas tax, and we’re saving Ontarians’ hard-earned money.

We’re keeping the pressure on and calling for the carbon tax to be scrapped so that the first responders who keep our communities safe won’t be impacted by this regressive tax.

Can the Solicitor General please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is negatively impacting law enforcement and public safety agencies all across Ontario?

Again, Aamjiwnaang First Nation has called upon the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to immediately impose a shutdown of the Ineos facility to reduce the ongoing benzene emissions and to protect community members. This is a major health and safety issue. Wellness in the First Nation is at an all-time low.

The ministry continues to ignore the concerns. How many more people have to get sick before Ontario shuts it down and takes action?

Interjections.

It’s my pleasure to table a petition regarding organ donation. Many people in the province of Ontario don’t understand how this program is in crisis. Our health critic has been gathering signatures from all over Ontario, but there are currently 1,600 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant in Ontario. It’s a shocking number, Speaker. Every three days, someone in Ontario actually dies because they can’t get a transplant in time. We know that we need to be more proactive around organ donation, so our health critic, the member from Nickel Belt, has a petition that would allow a donor system based on presumed consent, which means that you would have to opt out instead of ensuring that organs are available for donation.

It’s a worthwhile program, built on many years of advocacy across the province. This is something we can do together. It should not be a partisan issue. With that, I will table this petition on behalf of the member from Nickel Belt. Thank you very much.

I have a petition with a number of signatures that were collected by Dr. Sally Palmer, who is a professor at McMaster University and is passionate about the urgency of raising social assistance rates. We’re proud to support her efforts because the petition points out how far below the poverty line individuals on Ontario Works and ODSP receive from this government: $733 for individuals on Ontario Works, $1,308 for those on ODSP. As the Speaker knows, that won’t even rent you an apartment, much less provide resources for food and electricity and other essentials.

The petition also talks about the fact that this government’s decision to tie ODSP to the cost of living does nothing to lift people on ODSP out of poverty and, in fact, just condemns them to legislated poverty for as long as they are collecting social assistance.

The petition also reminds us that the federal government had a CERB program during the pandemic that provided a basic income of $2,000 per month, which the government had determined was about what people needed in this country to be able to live during the COVID pandemic. So the petition calls for a doubling of social assistance rates for Ontario Works and ODSP, which is something I fully, fully support and am happy to affix my signature.

We have EAs who are feeling unsafe, who are often on long-term disability because of the violence that they experience in our schools. Teachers are reporting more violent incidents. Students and parents are reporting more violent incidents in our classrooms. Much of that is connected to the fact that our schools are terribly understaffed. The mental health supports available for students are terribly under-resourced. All of this contributes to that crisis that we’re seeing in our classrooms.

So the petition calls on the Legislative Assembly to take effective action to address the violence in our schools. It calls on the Legislative Assembly to invest in more mental health resources and to properly fund our schools so that we can have smaller classrooms and more caring adults in our school buildings.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 17, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 159, An Act to amend the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act, 2019 / Projet de loi 159, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2019 sur les services provinciaux visant le bien-être des animaux.

Further debate?

Meegwetch, Speaker. Remarks in Anishininiimowin. It’s a good day.

It’s always an honour to be able to speak on behalf of the people of Kiiwetinoong and, at this time, to be able to address some of the issues with Bill 159. There is so much for me to advocate for regarding animal welfare and animal wellness in the riding of Kiiwetinoong. I talk about that because it is so important that we make sure that we are not passing legislation that we know people in Kiiwetinoong communities and people in the north will be in contradiction of because they cannot access veterinary services.

But I want to do a shout-out also. I want to thank Matawa First Nations as well on supporting me and speaking to this bill by passing along very important information about animal welfare in First Nation communities, but also to be able to talk about their own pilot project. When my office was talking to them, their work was based on fulsome consultation with Indigenous people.

Ontario’s animal welfare models and services take almost no consideration, if any, for on-reserve communities in the province of Ontario.

I want to reiterate as well that governments have come a long way when it comes to dogs. As members of the Legislature, I think more people should know about the history of how sled dogs have been treated in this country. I spoke about this last month, but I want to take a minute again to remind you that for all First Nations—not just First Nations, but also Inuit communities—sled dogs were not historically pets but rather work animals that were necessary for our ways of life when we were on the land. They helped us transport hunting supplies, moving camp to camp.

Speaker, one of the things that happened is that the colonial governments used violence to aim at taking away First Nations and Inuit ways of life. For decades in the 20th century—the 1950s specifically, the 1960s—government officials, RCMP officers, shot and killed our people’s dogs. The reason they did that: Because they wanted to disempower and take away our ways of life, the independence, by taking away our ability to hunt for food. That’s why I keep saying governments have come a long way on how we treat animals and our pets and our work dogs. When I talk about that, this is one of the many ways, one of the many violent tactics used by the government to try to force us to assimilate and one example of the many ways that the government has interfered in our ways of life, changing our relationship to animals and the land.

Before I continue, I want to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for London North Centre.

Also I want everyone to consider today what it looks like for the community in the north, what it looks like in Kiiwetinoong, where there are no veterinary services, because it’s very clear; I see it. We end up with overpopulation and suffering by both the animals and also people. This spring, as an example, in Nibinamik First Nation, also known as Summer Beaver, over 20 dogs were lost because of an outbreak of parvovirus, a very contagious and often deadly disease. The death of these dogs and the heartbreak it entailed for families could have been prevented if vaccines were regularly available and if there were veterinary professional models of service delivery, but there was none.

This should be a reminder of the very real consequences that the lack of animal care imposes, which is also felt across the border in Manitoba where a state of emergency was declared last month because of animal overpopulation crisis. Speaker, without proactive measures to control dog populations, because of the lack of veterinary services, some communities are forced to resort to dog culls, which is traumatic for everyone involved. If spay and neuter clinics were available so that overpopulation could be prevented proactively, there is no doubt the community would choose this option.

Much like the situation in Nibinamik First Nation, dogs suffer unnecessarily from diseases that could have been prevented by delivery of consistent vaccines and veterinary services. Zoonotic diseases like rabies, giardia, leptospirosis are of particular concern and pose risks to people as well.

Speaker, I’m sure almost everyone here has felt a bond with an animal at some point. Imagine how the mental health of community members is impacted by the absence of veterinary services, with traumatic outcomes that cause people to feel distress without witnessing the needless suffering of animals in their communities.

Turning to the substance of Bill 159, I ask everyone to consider how the people in far northern Ontario will feel if they hear about these laws that they will be accidentally in contravention of, just of where they are located. If a situation is considered to be a puppy mill because female dogs are having litters three times a year, then with an unintentional breeding caused by the non-existence of veterinary services, people in communities without veterinary services will be seen to have puppy mills. It should go without saying that this is unequitable to people in these communities in far northern Ontario, as well as animal welfare partners and the dogs themselves.

Speaker, there’s a simple solution: to provide more veterinary services. But why is Ontario not finding a way to do this? Why is Ontario hiding behind jurisdictional disputes to avoid taking any accountability or responsibility for the animals in on-reserve communities and on-reserve lands?

We need First Nations voices to be heard at the transition council when regulations are being crafted to ensure that there are not barriers for First Nations Indigenous communities and that systemic racism does not occur. We also need answers. Will dog owners who have no access to spay services for female dogs in their communities get charged under Bill 159?

I mentioned Matawa at the beginning of my remarks, who provided so much helpful insight. Everyone should go check out their Facebook page called Matawa Pets and People, where pet owners in the Matawa communities, Matawa First Nations share their experiences.

Speaker, I want to share a project. I want to tell you about a pilot project that they are in the midst of implementing until March 31, 2025, which establishes an animal services community-of-practice. This important project was a result of the Matawa Chiefs resolution that was passed in 2023 during the Matawa Chiefs Council’s regular business meetings and should serve as an example of how we can find innovative solutions to help bring more animal services to northern communities.

Speaker, Matawa’s pilot project recognizes the changes that have occurred in our relationship with our animals, especially dogs, which have been especially affected by colonization. We have new animals that we did not have traditionally, and the practice of dog sledding has almost disappeared—something I spoke about a few weeks ago as well during the debate for the vet care bill, Bill 171. The poor animal health and dog overpopulation that is often a result of these changes negatively impacts our communities. We see instances of dog bites, pack aggression, dog mauling deaths and potential for zoonotic disease transmission.

I wanted to share as well that Matawa’s pilot project also recognizes and embraces the many responsible pet owners in our communities and, in some communities, the wonderful volunteers who are helping.

The pilot project in Matawa I spoke about will do the following:

It will work with part-time animal guardians in each Matawa community to learn, to be trained and supported by an animal services lead coordinator.

They will improve education on animal wellness in Matawa First Nations.

They will improve animal wellness, reduce fertility rates and safer, healthier communities using an animal-human “one health model.”

They will provide animal wellness and spay/neuter clinics in seven of the nine First Nations in Matawa. That started in March 2024.

They will also work on getting feedback from the people in the community and leadership on how they will want to see the animal situation, complete with an animal population survey and sustainability plan for when the project is completed.

They will work with online veterinarians to learn to do rudimentary first aid, give basic vaccines and medications, as required.

They will contribute to the Matawa Pets and People site on Facebook to better educate the public on what other communities are doing.

They will advocate with governments on animal issues in the First Nations in Matawa.

And finally, they will complete a final report on a community of practices which can be used as a model for other First Nations in Canada who are both road-access and fly-in First Nations.

Speaker, First Nations in Ontario have experienced time and time again the harms of jurisdictional finger-pointing between colonial governments of this country. I know that, once again, on the issue of animal services, First Nations are in between federal and provincial jurisdictions. It’s not only that this is unacceptable, but because it results in no animal services being provided, it leads to the system for services for animals—pets, dogs—to become unjust.

I just want to call on the government to acknowledge this problem and to respond to this instead of continuing to leave our communities on the sidelines when we want to better the system for the pets that we have in the north as well. You cannot use jurisdiction as an excuse not to do anything. When you continue to use jurisdiction as an excuse not to do anything, it is very colonial, and when we talk about services for dogs, we have to acknowledge that.

As I spoke to earlier, the adverse effects of leaving First Nations out not only neglect the First Nations and neglects the communities, but put us in a position where we contravene the legislation because of the lack of veterinary services that we have on-reserve. The question is what is going to happen to the people that live in these communities when you implement this legislation.

Speaker, thank you for listening and thank you to the members for listening and also sharing my thoughts. Again, as I said before, I will be sharing my time with the member of London North Centre. Meegwetch.

The member for London North Centre.