I am rising today to speak to Bill 142, Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, and I have to say there are certainly things in this act that I really applaud and find interesting.

For example, it adds language barriers as a reason a person may not be able to understand a consumer contract and therefore could get out of that contract. I think that’s a very important provision. Also, it’s an unconscionable act to enter into a contract with a consumer “if the person doing so knows or ought to know that there is no reasonable probability that the consumer will be able to pay the total amount owing under the contract.” That really stands out to me as an important change.

But what is interesting for me—now, I spend a lot of time in a particular seniors residence, a commercially owned seniors residence—I went through the bill, just doing a search looking for the word “seniors” and it actually doesn’t appear anywhere in the bill. Now, maybe that’s fine. We refer to vulnerable people getting taken in by unscrupulous actors, so perhaps it’s fine that it doesn’t mention seniors, but I really worry about seniors.

For example, I’ve seen, in this particular commercial residence, that the contract is not being met in terms of the food service that’s offered and promised. There are supposed to be three highly nutritious meals a day and yet often they are being served hot dogs and wieners, frozen hamburgers—a lot of things that really don’t qualify as nutritious food. So what does a senior do in that circumstance? Who do they go to? They can complain to the home, but things just don’t change. That is something I worry about.

Also, what I’ve seen are increases in rent by 7.5%. Over a couple of years, two rent increases, the cost has gone from $5,000 to $6,000. That’s a very significant increase and, again, I worry: Where does a senior go to complain? There is the seniors’ bill of rights; there’s a phone number you can call, but you will sit on hold forever and you’ll wait forever for somebody to call you back.

In this instance, I’m actually thinking back to the idea of having a seniors’ advocate. I also know that when people reach a certain age, they’re no longer confident about picking up the phone and making a lot of different phone calls to try and figure out who on earth is available to advocate on their behalf. This also brings me back to the idea of the consumer watchdog, so that people are not flipping through their phone books or going to their friends and saying, “Do you have any idea how to address this problem?” If there’s one place they can go and know that they can get good advice, I think that’s very valuable. Knowing that there are all kinds of particulars in the bill, these clauses and so on that might be get-out-of-jail-free clauses—they’re not accessible. They’re not easily accessible to people, so there needs to be a central place.

I want to add to that a comment that, again, when we’re thinking about seniors, what we have seen is the transition of almost every single government service into an online platform. Again, I know many seniors, including my mother who is 96, who is fluent on the computer—

Interjections.