The premise of the question, that we didn’t do anything, is nonsense, because if you even look economically, we led the G7 in jobs and growth for five years until 2018. We were top three for foreign direct investment. We had historic investments too in public transit, in hospitals—all sorts of things.

And you know what? When we did those investments, guess who voted against it? Not you guys, but there are a few who did vote against it on the other side. So let’s not—

Interjections.

Here’s the other thing: I know you guys are big on auto, but guess what? In 2009—the bailout, the crisis—we had a vote in this House. Guess who voted against the bailout? Your party. So don’t throw that stuff out. It was a good question, but forget that stuff, because you guys voted against as many things as we did, and far worse.

Yes, the government is collecting tolls while it’s outlawing—okay. Did I say that? They’re collecting tolls while they’re proposing a law to outlaw them—collecting tolls but outlawing them.

There’s a solution to that: Amend your bill; take the tolls off the 407 east. And you know what? You’ll get support from all of us.

And I think the member from Scarborough–Guildwood just said, “Look, I was up north. I heard this.” She doesn’t live there. Those aren’t her constituents. She’s not searching for votes up there. There’s a big problem.

I just said earlier, if you hadn’t sold the 407 or if the tolls were lower or if you took some of the tolls off it, maybe you wouldn’t need quite as much as you’re building right now. That’s the kind of thing you have to think about.

I would just say to members of this House, go and take a look at the map of who owns all the land on the 413 and their connections to the government. You might find some of the same names that you found in the Auditor General’s report—

I really do enjoy late-afternoon debate. Everybody is kind of settling in at the end of the day. It’s Monday. People are a bit tired; they’re a bit distracted. Hopefully, we can liven things up a bit here.

There are things that are good in Bill 46—

Interjections.

Modernizing the courts, clearing the backlog, adding more judges—good things.

Putting jury questionnaires online is a good thing—a long time coming, for sure.

Carbon capture: When we get into that, it sounds to me like cap-and-trade light. I don’t want to pick on you guys, but it’s like going part way.

Actually, what’s in this bill is not what I want to talk about today; it’s about the red tape reduction that families need. It’s easy to pull off the pieces of tape that are on the top, and every government does it—it’s like the annual Christmas present. After the fall economic statement, we’ve got to get something on paper, so let’s put all this stuff together—again, a good thing. But it’s what’s missing that is the problem.

Here’s what’s missing: OHIP+. One of the first things this government did when it came in was to roll back OHIP+ if people have insurance. Every child up to age 18 was going to get drugs—like we do for seniors. This government said, “If you’ve got private insurance, no matter what it is, OHIP+ isn’t going to cover you; you’re not eligible.”

Here’s the thing: If you need an expensive drug—if you have cystic fibrosis, and there’s an expensive drug on the market that might be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and you have private insurance, OHIP+ isn’t going to be there. How is it that it’s not at least even the payer of second resort for people who need that drug? That’s a serious consequence. And all the way through on OHIP+, it can affect people in different ways—but what it does make people decide to do sometimes is either pay out of pocket, give up their benefit plan to take OHIP+, which creates other problems with their employer, with their other children, and sometimes they can’t.

That’s the kind of red tape people want us to remove. It’s not affecting everybody, but the people that it really affects—it has a real, negative impact on their lives.

I’m still trying to get my head around why we would be the payer of first resort for everybody over 65 and the payer of second resort would be insurance companies. My mom, who’s 90, has public service coverage from the federal government—she’s got two coverages—but it’s not good enough for our kids. If that’s not red tape, I don’t know what is. That’s the kind of red tape the government needs to remove.

On top of that, there was the beginnings of what was called a rare disease strategy. That has been orphaned for four years. This government stopped doing it. People who have a rare disease or have children who have a rare disease—their lives are complicated. It’s full of red tape. It’s full of trying to figure out who’s the next person you have to go to or what’s the next thing you have to do. That’s why we need a rare disease strategy. I’m glad I hear some noises about the government starting it up again, but this four-year hiatus just left a whole bunch of red tape for families.

Take-home cancer drugs: How long have we all been talking about that? That’s red tape. You get them if you go into the hospital, but you can’t take them home with you. Why is that? Is there a good reason? None that I can see—and it has been around for a long time. That’s the kind of red tape we need to be removing here in Ontario.

Bill 124: I know you’re all going to be excited about this. Bill 124 wrapped our hospitals, our long-term-care homes, our family health teams and our community health centres in a restriction that no other private interest had. What’s happening right now is, it makes it harder for all those groups, family health teams, to recruit people, to retain people because they’re restricted to 1%. I know the government is going to say, “Yes, but that’s all going to end this spring. That’s all going to be over.” But you sent the wrong message to people by saying to nurses and the front-line health care workers, “You don’t get to bargain.” I guess you elevated it up to—the next thing you were going to do was just use the “notwithstanding” clause, but then our friends in the construction industry spoke up and everybody dialed back that red tape, which you didn’t use. And I want to thank you for dialing that back.

I know the Minister of Labour will be interested in this, because I’ve talked to him about it on a couple of occasions: People of similar work don’t have the same workplace safety coverage. So if you work in a retirement home, which largely is the same amount of work or the same type of work, I should say, as a long-term-care home—if you’re in a long-term-care home, you get WSIB. You’ve got great coverage. In a retirement home, they have to be covered, but not by WSIB. So in the retirement home industry, there’s a whole mishmash of people who aren’t fully covered. We all want to make sure that we’re protected. There’s a reason we have the workplace safety and insurance, and that’s to protect people. The few people who get hurt and injured at work—we want it to be there for them.

So why will we hedge on people working in retirement homes? But here’s the kicker: If you work in a group home that’s run by the province, you’re covered. If it’s a private group home, you’re not covered by WSIB. It has to be some sort of private insurance. I don’t understand it. People are doing similar work; the risk profiles are the same. The government hasn’t changed it. I’ve been talking to the minister about that. I put forward a private member’s bill, and will be doing it again this session, to speak to how we should be allowing people who are doing the same job, being delivered in different places, to be afforded the same coverage by WSIB—straightforward. It’s simple: We should all be covered. We should all be covered if we’re doing similar work.

Now, I know we’re not covered here, but the people working in retirement homes, the people working in group homes, the people working with adults with developmental disabilities or children with development disabilities, autistic kids—they should all be covered by WSIB. That’s red tape around their lives. They’re less protected.

Now, of course, Bill 23: We’ve heard how the member for Waterloo—it’s always hard to follow her—mentioned that the government didn’t take the time to consult with First Nations, which really runs against the spirit of truth and reconciliation. The government is in such a hurry. What does Bill 23 do? Well, what it does is it takes a lot of red tape off for a few rich people so they can become a little bit richer. The government’s own task force said, “You don’t need to open up the greenbelt. You’ve got enough land. You’ve got enough land, so why are you opening up the greenbelt?”

It’s the people’s greenbelt. This is what the greenbelt does: The greenbelt feeds people, it cleans water, it cleans air, it provides recreational space for people. It’s something that we established here in this province for the people. It’s not the Premier’s greenbelt or the minister’s greenbelt or the government’s greenbelt. It’s the people’s greenbelt.