It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak on Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, tabled by the Minister of Infrastructure.

This bill has two schedules, one about the Environmental Assessment Act and one that addresses infrastructure, specifically in relation to the real estate portfolio of government agencies.

The first schedule will directly affect how we protect the environment in this province, and I share the hesitation that has been voiced by my colleagues in the official opposition on how this bill will impact the process of environmental assessments. I think that hesitation is justified, given a long list of transgressions against the environment that this government has committed. When this government comes forward with a bill with very little communication, no briefing for the opposition before we begin debating, that directly impacts the future environmental well-being of this province, I don’t have much confidence that this government will utilize this legislation with the best of intentions, and I don’t think Ontarians have much confidence either.

The process of environmental assessments is one of the only things that stands between projects proposed by this government and the destruction of this province’s green spaces, waterways and climate. The concern that I and my colleagues in the Ontario NDP have with this piece of legislation is that it could allow the process of environment assessments to be circumvented, and we believe we need those assessments in order to protect the province’s environment. We have this concern because this government has demonstrated time and time again that protecting Ontario’s environment is not high on their list of priorities; in fact, the opposite is true. They have shown that they cannot be trusted when it comes to the protection of our environment or doing land deals in the interest of the public and of our collective future.

This bill allows the environment minister to waive the 30-day waiting period that is currently a requirement that projects must go through following the end of a class environmental assessment comment period. Projects must go through this before being granted approval to proceed. Taking this 30-day waiting period off the table is taking away another protection for our environment, as its purpose is to ensure that the minister has enough time to adequately consider public comments. These comments have the potential to lead to a recommendation of further assessments or may even result in the class environmental assessment being upgraded to a full environmental assessment. So getting rid of this waiting period means that the minister does not see any reason or value in spending time considering public input on environmental projects.

Speaker, I can see that in situations where there are no comments submitted or all the comments submitted are in support of a project, maybe waiving the 30-day waiting period would allow a project to proceed without further delay and that could benefit an important project’s timeline. I can wrap my head around that specific situation. What I cannot understand is how this government would think that we would believe that that is all they will use this legislation for, when we have seen repeatedly that this government has disdain for the very principle of public consultation, especially when it comes to the environment.

Schedule 1 of this bill would pave the way for this government to ignore public input without even having to pretend that they care, and further separate public participation and decisions that directly impact the environment.

We have seen time and time again that what this government puts forward as simply an option, for the minister to waive the 30-day period, soon becomes regular and routine practice.

This government can say that all they are trying to do is to remove red tape, but that is not the case. They have twice been found in violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights by Ontario courts for taking away rights that guarantee that the public is notified and consulted on matters affecting the environment, as well as having their comments considered before a government decision is made. We have seen through multiple situations and scenarios blasted across newspaper headlines that this government is always fighting with the public, fighting against their right to be notified and to have input on how decisions are made, and how this government uses not only taxpayer dollars but the land within this province—the land that is our collective heritage.

These two instances where courts found this government in violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights are not the end of this government’s troubles with the Environmental Bill of Rights.

The Auditor General, in her most recent report, began by summarizing the Environmental Bill of Rights as follows: “30 years ago, Ontario had laws in place to protect the environment, but there was growing public concern about whether those laws offered sufficient protection. Paired with this was diminishing public confidence in the government to protect and provide environmental sustainability. The Environmental Bill of Rights ... was enacted in response to these concerns.

“The EBR Act recognizes that, while the primary responsibility for protecting the environment lies with government, ordinary Ontarians should have a means to ensure that this is being achieved in an effective, timely, open and fair manner. The EBR Act gives each person the right to participate in, and hold government accountable for, its environmentally significant decisions....”

The Auditor General followed this summary by warning that the government was yet again in violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights because they passed Bill 109 while public consultations were still ongoing.

In a surprise to no one, the Auditor General said this government may be in violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights yet again by passing Bill 23 while public consultations for multiple schedules within that bill were still under way.

Let me tell you, Speaker, the public wanted an opportunity to speak on Bill 23, but their concerns were unheard by this government. My office was flooded with emails and phone calls and walk-ins on Bill 23. Many community organizations in Ottawa requested an opportunity to provide insight to this government, but when they did, their requests and their concerns were ignored.

Because of the complexity of Bill 23, organizations such as the Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa asked that the government take the time needed to listen to more stakeholders affected by the bill, to consider the impact on the environment, and to continue to allow conservation authorities to comment on development applications if requested by the city. But this government was more focused on their plan to push this through without any consultation than they were on actually listening to the public.

Now we’re seeing a similar story here. The government is more focused on pushing this through with as little input as possible, because they don’t care to listen to those who will be affected by this bill, just as they want to ignore public comment on real concerns following a class environmental assessment process or recommendations for a full environmental assessment on proposed projects.

If this government is confused at all as to why the public may be concerned, maybe they should consider the fact that the effects of climate change are becoming more present than ever. In Ottawa, the Rideau Canal Skateway did not open for the first time in its 53-year history this year, after an extremely mild winter with higher-than-average temperatures. This is deeply concerning. The Rideau Canal Skateway is emblematic of Ottawa. It brings in thousands of tourists and supports small businesses throughout the winter months, and now we are living with the possibility of not knowing whether it will open winter after winter. The National Capital Commission is working with people at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, trying to find creative ways for us to get it open, to create ice sooner, or to create ice that is strong enough to support thousands of skaters—despite Ottawa being known as one of the coldest capitals in the world. And yet, this government would much prefer to remove environmental assessments and exacerbate the effects of climate change, rather than work harder to prevent it.

My riding was also devastated by the derecho that struck last May and left tens of thousands of people without power for up to 10 days across Ottawa West–Nepean. It devastated the tree canopy of Ottawa West–Nepean. It took out people’s roofs and cars. It was incredibly destructive.

In the last five years, my riding has also lived through two once-in-a-century floods, displacing many residents and destroying many homes.

And in 2018, a tornado hit Ottawa West–Nepean, again leaving residents without power, destroying many homes and trapping others in their homes.

Speaker, this government continues to fail in addressing climate change in the province, and my constituents are suffering the effects of it. How many more once-in-a-century floods, wind disasters or extreme weather events will it take for this government to take climate change seriously?

A constituent who wrote to my office when this government was pushing through Bill 23 and Bill 39 rightly pointed out that biodiversity loss and climate change are existential threats, hitting us particularly hard over the past few years. The majority of our wetlands have been lost, paved over, and the list of endangered species continues to grow. This constituent is one of many constituents who have reached out to me and to the government, imploring this government to engage with the public, with Indigenous partners, municipalities, conservation authorities and civil society stakeholders to support development that is in line with pre-existing protections and actually acknowledge climate change as a threat here in Ontario.

With this demonstrated contempt for the Environmental Bill of Rights, it is not surprising that when you look back on this government’s record on the environment, you find a long list of decisions that undermine environmental assessments.

In 2020, the government weakened the Environmental Assessment Act with Bill 197, an omnibus bill, where they slipped in amendments where they made it so that many projects that previously were subject to public and ministerial oversight now have little to no public input.

One of the best examples of this, which just proves how much this government can’t be trusted on environmental affairs, is their current record on carving up the greenbelt under the guise of providing more homes to Ontarians. In a report released this week, it was found that Ontario has more than enough land to build two million homes without carving into the greenbelt, yet this government continues to bulldoze their way through criticism, ignoring the facts that are being presented to them.

It is incredibly distressing that this government has proposed the removal of over 7,000 acres of protected lands in the greenbelt. The greenbelt is meant to protect Ontario’s farmland and green spaces, which are precious and part of a sustainable future. Once this land is paved over, we won’t be able to recover it. However, yet again we are seeing this government’s attempt to carve it up to benefit their developer buddies.

Ontario’s green spaces and farmlands have continuously been in this government’s crosshairs, and they have been very consistent in introducing legislation, such as Bill 69, that will undermine the processes this province has in place to ensure that land and green space and water are protected and that if there are developments being proposed, they are done so within a time frame that allows for community participation.

This government has also been known to abuse ministerial zoning orders, which allow the province to bypass local planning rules in order to expedite developments—and using them to push through deals for developers, instead of listening and appropriately responding to the feedback and opposition from local communities.

As was said in a CBC News article published last year, “A minister’s zoning order, or MZO, is a trump card that lets the province immediately authorize development and bypass local planning rules to expedite what it wants built”—and use this trump card they did, so much so that they were criticized not just by the official opposition, but by the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, who said that these orders were intended to be used sparingly, not how this government was using them when they doubled the total amount of MZOs over two years compared to the previous 18 years. This audit concluded with the mention of a lack of transparency, something this government has become well known for.

This government is also currently surrounded by criticism over spending $650 million of public money in order to simply give away a piece of Ontario Place. And who are they giving it to? A for-profit company based out of Austria.

I bring up these examples because they demonstrate that this government can say their legislation intends to do one thing when, in reality, it is aimed at further muddying the waters of public insight in order to push through their agenda, which usually involves big opportunities and payouts to their biggest backers.

This bill will also allow the Ministry of Infrastructure to control real estate interests of prescribed entities that presently manage their own real estate interests—things such as property ownership and lease agreements. We can assume that with this bill, these real estate services will be under the control of Infrastructure Ontario, which is currently the purveyor of real estate services for most government properties. Within this part of the bill, the government claims they are responding directly to the Auditor General’s 2017 report on real estate services. That report criticized the bad management of government properties and focused its critique on Infrastructure Ontario. It did not discuss the management of agencies such as Agricorp and EQAO. These are the agencies that Infrastructure Ontario will assume control over with this bill, which completely misses the point of the 2017 report.

The 2017 Auditor General’s report stated: “Our audit determined that Infrastructure Ontario’s management of government properties was impacted in part by weaknesses in the enterprise realty service agreement ... between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure. The agreement does not set out any mandatory, minimum standard of performance for managing the costs of capital projects. It also does not set out timelines for meeting the accommodation standard for office space designed to ensure that existing government properties are used efficiently, and timelines for maintaining the state of government-owned properties to the agreement’s standard.”

The report then went on to suggest that there are many opportunities for savings within the current structure, such as:

—“reducing the square footage in government office space to meet the 2012 office accommodation standard of 180 rentable square feet per person;

—“more effectively disposing of vacant buildings that were incurring carrying costs; and

—“revising future AFP agreements to better support hospitals in obtaining cost-effective maintenance agreements.”

The Auditor General concluded her report by stating, “Infrastructure Ontario could maintain government properties more cost-effectively by better overseeing the companies that it has engaged to provide most capital repair and property management services to ensure costs for capital repairs and property management services are reasonable and projects are completed on time. As well, existing government properties could be used more efficiently, with people occupying less space per person. The agreement between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure needs better performance standards to incentivize Infrastructure Ontario to manage and maintain government properties more cost-effectively.

“We also found that the alternative financing and procurement maintenance framework often did not support the cost-effective management of building maintenance and hospitals that was intended when the arrangements were structured.”

With this information, coupled with the fact that Infrastructure Ontario does not actually directly manage government real estate—it instead outsources property management to private contractors—and the fact that the report quoted above focuses on criticism of Infrastructure Ontario’s uncompetitive and poor oversight of private contracts, we don’t actually know what problem this bill is meant to be solving.

The Auditor General went further in her criticism of Infrastructure Ontario and how Infrastructure Ontario continues to award contracts to private providers that had in the past demonstrated poor performance: “One private sector company with a history of poor performance is still being awarded new contracts by Infrastructure Ontario—Infrastructure Ontario does not have a formalized performance evaluation program of private sector companies during the maintenance phase of the AFP contract, and new AFP contracts are awarded without consideration of past performance. This has resulted in companies with past poor performance receiving contracts. For example, one private sector company that has been in dispute with a hospital since 2013 over what work is included in the AFP agreement was awarded contracts—in 2016 for $1.3 billion and in 2017 for $685 million—to design, build, finance and maintain two more hospitals. The dispute is still ongoing.”

It definitely does not solve the issues revealed in the Auditor General’s 2017 report. In fact, this bill may make the issues highlighted even worse than before.

The press release that the government put out when introducing this bill explicitly claims that Bill 69 “will address the 2017 Auditor General’s report and other third-party reports that have identified opportunities for the province to deliver the real estate portfolio more efficiently through initiatives that centralize authority and decision-making.”

However, as we’ve seen from the conclusions made by the Auditor General in her 2017 report, the 2017 report did not reference the poor management of agencies such as EQAO and Agricorp. Instead, it criticized the poor management of the government’s real estate portfolio by Infrastructure Ontario itself and made 14 recommendations on how Infrastructure Ontario could, with more cost-effectiveness and better oversight, better maintain government properties. There was no recommendation made by the Auditor General in 2017 that references handing over control of these agencies’ real estate interests for Infrastructure Ontario to manage.

So, once again, we are left wondering why the government read this report and concluded that the Auditor General was calling for a resolution that the Auditor General was not calling for, instead of actually addressing the real problem.

I’d like to conclude by urging that the government actually address the real problem and take urgent action on climate change.

I just want to share one little anecdote, to conclude. In 2018, when we were told that there were only 12 years left to prevent catastrophic climate change, the daughter of a friend, who was 12 years old at that time, broke down in tears and asked her mom, “Why don’t the grown-ups care about our future?” I think about that every day with regard to my own children—that this is the world that we’re leaving them, that they are growing up in.

I would really like the government to take seriously the world that we’re passing on to our children and actually address climate change, instead of trying to undermine environmental assessments at every turn.