I want to acknowledge that today is Scottish Heritage Day in Ontario. It’s the second time that we’ve had it, and I want to thank former member Jimmy McDonell for putting it forward as part of a private member’s bill. I suspect that Mr. McDonell will be watching at some point today, so I’m proudly wearing Scottish attire. This is Black Watch. It is universal; anyone is welcome to wear it. And I am wearing my McPherson clan tie because I am part of the McPherson clan.

What we’re talking about today, though, is red tape reduction.

One of the things that our government embarked upon four years ago was reducing the amount of red tape. When we first were elected, we took a look at how many regulations we have in Ontario. What did we have in comparison to other provinces? We had more than 350,000 regulations in Ontario. As a number, 350,000 could be fantastic; it might be low—or it might be high. Just looking at it by itself, when you think about the amount of legislation that there is, the amount of things that government has to do, 350,000 could be a legitimate number. But upon further inspection, we found out that the province that had the second most regulations was British Columbia, at 169,000 regulations. We had about 150,000 more regulations than the number two province. I don’t think there’s anybody who would say that British Columbia has a low standard of living or that British Columbia isn’t a safe place to live. They are able to do with 169,000—that’s number two. Ontario had the most regulations of any province. When we looked at what those regulations did, what it meant for people in Ontario, what it meant for business in Ontario, we found that a lot of the regulatory burden existed in a way that stifled innovation, in a way that stifled business, in a way that made it more difficult.

I’ve said a number of times before that government’s role is to regulate to the point of integrity but not to the point of interference. I think the Ontario government, over the years, has gotten to the point where we’re beyond interference now. It’s very difficult for different industries to be nimble.

This morning, I was downstairs, in the legislative dining room, and there was a reception being held by OBIO—an organization that helps start-up companies in health care—and what we heard today was a prime example of that red tape and why red tape needs to be reduced, why we have to cut through so much of it. We have a large number of Ontario-based companies that are innovators in health care, that have done fantastic work. Their products are being sold in the United States and Europe, but they don’t meet the procurement requirements in Ontario—where the company exists, where the technology was developed, where the innovators live. They can’t do business in their own province because of some of the burdens that government has placed on simple things like procurement.

This is why we have embarked on red tape reduction bills. We can’t find ourselves in a position where Ontario has great innovations, where Ontario has fantastic intellectual property, where Ontario leads the world in something, but Ontario will not support the businesses from Ontario that are doing that. That’s why there’s a need for these red tape reduction bills.

When we were looking at the history of it, we discovered that the regulatory burden for compliance in Ontario in 2017, before we were elected, was about $33,000 per business. Granted, there are small businesses and large businesses, and the larger businesses obviously are paying more, and the smaller businesses may not pay quite as much—but when you divide it up, $33,000 a year in regulatory burden for the average business.

We know that more than 95% of businesses in Ontario are small and medium-sized businesses that employ the most people. The vast majority of companies in this province found themselves in a position where it was costing close to $35,000 a year, before they opened the door, before they turned the lights on, before a single person walked into the office, walked into the store, walked into the business—$33,000 a year. Think about that in terms of the small mom-and-pop shop. Think about that in terms of the corner convenience store. Think about that in terms of the landscaping company that’s employing a number of students over the course of the summer. Before they turn the lights on, they’ve got a $33,000 bill that they have to pay. Through some of the things that we have been doing so far, we have reduced that by about 6.5%. We’re making it easier for business to function.

This bill is no different than all of the others; this bill is making it easier to do things—and I want to touch on one of the things, in particular, on it: the Grow Ontario Strategy.

We know that we’ve got some of the greatest farmers in the entire world. Ontario feeds the world. There has been an expression for a number of years, “Farmers feed cities.” It is so true. And why is it that Ontario farms are so productive that way? Because of the innovations. I’ve talked about some of them in the past: automated milking, robotic milking, high-tech in dairy farming. I’ve made the statement before; I’ll make it again, because it is so true: Happy cows produce more milk.

In my riding of Peterborough–Kawartha, we have a number of dairy farms that have switched over to robotic milking or automatic milking. What all of them have said is, they’ve been able to reduce their herd by 50%. That’s 50% less cattle that are being fed, 50% less cattle that have to be looked after, 50% less cattle that have to see a vet—reducing the operating costs for that farm, but producing as much or more high-quality Ontario dairy products.

This is what can be done in a province when we reduce the amount of red tape that there is. The Grow Ontario Strategy is one of those things that’s going to help with that, because it’s taking that agri-food business and it’s making it that much more efficient. It’s going to add to how we produce things in Ontario.

And we’re not stopping just there. We’re embarking on a tour of northern Ontario. As the parliamentary assistant to northern development, I get the pleasure of being involved with the Ministry of Agriculture and going up to northern Ontario, to the Clay Belt, to see what we can do there to help improve Ontario’s ability to feed the entire world.

We’ve seen what has happened in Russia and Ukraine. Food insecurity is something that exists around the world. It’s not something that we’ve had a problem in producing enough food in Ontario for—but because we produce that extra amount, we have the ability to help with that food insecurity across the entire world.

There are a couple of really interesting things—potatoes, for example. I know; who gets excited about something like potatoes? I’m Scottish, so I don’t get excited about potatoes quite the same way that the Irish do. At one point, Ontario produced the most potato seedlings of any province in Canada, and we’ve got the ability to get back to that. We’ve got the ability to store, through innovation, those potatoes, so that they can be used year-round, instead of having to go to a southern state to pick up their crop in the winter.

These are all innovations that are done because you reduce the amount of red tape. When we reduce red tape, it means that our businesses have the opportunity to be more innovative, to pivot, to do things that are going to help the entire province, the entire world.

The Ontario government should not be the burden; we should not be the reason why Ontario businesses cannot thrive. With the amount of red tape that has been put out there, the amount of regulations that we have, we are not at the point of regulating for integrity; we’re at the point of interfering. Governments need to get out of the way. Businesses will innovate; businesses will improve; businesses will employ more people, giving a higher quality of life to the people who live in this great province, as long as we, the Ontario government, take that step back, remove those unnecessary burdens, make it easier for businesses to thrive, and make it easier for businesses—like in the health care sector—to actually sell their products to Ontario instead of having to rely on foreign markets.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 29, 2022, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 46, An Act to enact one Act and amend various other Acts / Projet de loi 46, Loi visant à édicter une loi et à modifier diverses autres lois.

Point of order.

I want to thank the member and my colleague for that very passionate speech. He talked about some of the costs to an average business out there—to the tune of $33,000.

We know that when we inherited government back in 2018, Ontario had the highest burden across the country—and the work that we have been doing over the last four and a half years in terms of reducing red tape.

I’m wondering if the member can speak to some of the items that we have introduced in this piece of legislation—how those might help his constituents and businesses in his riding.

Thank you to the member from Peterborough–Kawartha for his discussion this morning. He talked a lot about the importance of removing red tape.

We’ve heard recently at Queen’s Park, and last term, about the red tape surrounding getting medications—for cystic fibrosis, for example. Last term, we talked about the red tape surrounding take-home cancer medication. If you’re in the hospital, the cancer medication is covered, but if you take it home, you have to pay in advance and get a rebate.

I’m wondering if the member from Peterborough–Kawartha would talk about the importance of removing red tape for people who need medication and have to go through this unnecessary burden of paying for it in advance in order to get reimbursed afterwards.

I have a question for the member, specifically on schedule 9 in the bill.

WSIB is now moving from Toronto and going to London. I understand that there are talks happening, but no one knows what prospects there are of where they’re going to relocate. There are also questions around the selling of the property here in Toronto. Is it going to stay in public hands so it can be used for things like true affordable housing?

Can the member talk about why they feel transparency and lack of openness about what’s going on in that process is red tape? I’d like to know why we can’t have those open discussions to eliminate red tape there.

Questions?

That’s a fantastic point that reiterates exactly what I was saying at the very beginning. I talked about OBIO, who are here for a lobby day today, talking to us about how we change things in health care so that those great innovations can get to hospitals, can get to health care, can be used by the people of Ontario. These are all things that we have to do, absolutely; I agree 100%. We need to make sure that the Ontario government’s procurement rules do not get in the way of the fantastic work that’s being done in Ontario. We’re promoting a made-in-Ontario approach for pretty much everything that we’ve got, and the previous governments made it so difficult for companies in Ontario to get their product to consumers in Ontario.

We’re embarking on an entire process. We’ve worked on it for the last four years, and we’ll continue working on it to reduce that burden, so that great innovations from the province of Ontario get to be used in the province of Ontario by the people of the province of Ontario to the benefit of everyone who lives here in Ontario.

What we’re doing in this bill is, we’re taking 28 different actions across 11 different ministries to reduce the cost of doing business in this province, to make it easier—something as simple as filling out a form online rather than having a paper copy of it, something as simple as having jury descriptions being made available online, having the ability to fill that information out. Why is that important?

I’m going to go back a little bit to something that happened with our Minister of Finance—he was actually President of the Treasury Board at the time. Fax machines were something that were constantly in use. Someone had to physically take that paper, feed it into a fax machine, take it from the other side, and then retype it into a computer. Simple things like that make a massive difference in the operating costs for companies, and these are things that we’re making changes to.

What we would be doing is—if we broadcast how much money we’re going to spend to do this, all of the bids would come in at $1 less than what we have said that we’re going to spend on it.

Anyone in business knows that when you’re going to put a procurement out, you do not lay on the table how much you’re going to spend on it. You want a competitive bidding process, where people are bidding to get to the lowest price, to save the taxpayers of Ontario as much money as possible and deliver the best possible service.

I like to say that I’m in the productive middle and there are the fringe corners on either side of this side—because our government is so big that we span that entire side as well as a large chunk of this side of the House.

There are so many things that are in this red tape reduction bill that are going to help so many different businesses. I’ll touch on two of them.

If you’re doing jury duty, for example—if you get called to that, not having to waste your time filling out paper forms for it, being able to go on and do it electronically at your ease, at your comfort, is one of those things. It doesn’t sound like it’s a big deal, but all of those small things start to add up.

On the agriculture side: Our Grow Ontario Strategy is something that’s not only going to help agriculture, it’s not only going to help husbandry and livestock, but everyone who consumes all of those. There’s an expression in Ontario that one in eight work in agriculture, but I can guarantee you, eight out of every eight people eat what comes from agriculture.

The NDP can virtue-signal all they’d like. They can throw out all kinds of different things to distract from the great work that we’re doing.

This is one of those bills that will make a positive difference for the people of Ontario. This is one of those bills that will reduce the cost of doing business, which will reduce the cost to every single person in this province. This is one of those things that’s a good-news story.

I’m sorry that the NDP doesn’t want to talk about the good things that this government is doing for the people of this province.

Interjections.

I want to start, definitely, with Bill 124 and the decision of the Superior Court of Justice. I’m asking the government not to appeal the decision—

I’m asking the government not to appeal it. The court recognized the unconstitutionality of Bill 124. So make it right. Stop hurting the workforce, and encourage it. We need more hands on deck.

When you look at a title like Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act—well, repealing Bill 124 will help that. ERs are crowded. Surgeries are postponed. Let’s cut the red tape for the 15,000 international nurses and have them accredited to work in Ontario and help our hospitals. Why isn’t that the plan?

The province is facing many issues at this moment, and this bill does not address any of them—the crisis of workers in health care, or the multiple issues that First Nations communities are facing, such as boil-water advisories and contaminated soil; shortage of housing; access to benefits under the workers compensation board, the deeming; the need for development of more affordable housing; the backlog with the Landlord and Tenant Board and in our court system.

This government chooses to ignore the proposals of hospital administrators that came from my constituents. They asked for help, they brought help—yet no answers. It has been a year and a half—and still no answer. I asked two questions in the House to the minister, delivered in their hands, asking them to respond—still no response. It chooses to ignore the concerns of the environment while waiting to carve up the greenbelt, by big developers. And they are doing nothing to help alleviate the financial burden of students with their post-secondary tuition fees. We have the highest tuition fees in the country.

This bill is simply a list of housekeeping items and amendments. This doesn’t address the immediate needs of Ontarians. I call it a “change the channel” bill.

Ontario is signatory to Treaty 9. This government seems to forget that.

Four years ago, Kashechewan signed a new agreement to relocate the community. When you were elected four years ago—this is one of the changes you’ve done. You pretty well changed the colour of the agreement and then signed it—still, nothing has been done. Yet, we hear about how fast it’s going to go with the Ring of Fire, how fast it’s moving ahead. But that community is still waiting. Every spring, they’re threatened to be evacuated, and yet we have an agreement that was signed by this government to move this community that are facing—every year, they’re threatened by flooding.

Attawapiskat still has fuel contamination. Some of it was fixed, but they still have fuel contamination in their community. The community wants to expand. There’s nowhere to expand—because there’s a road and the De Beers mine put a bump on it in protest, so now they can’t build. That’s the only way they can expand. It’s on their traditional territories, and yet they’re not permitted to expand. The other option they have is to move the airport. The airport is right by the community, and they’ve been complaining about the fuel and the dust and the noise.

A lot of communities have water advisories. My colleague Sol Mamakwa, the MPP for Kiiwetinoong, has said that the community has a 27-year boil-water advisory. If you want to remove red tape—that’s the red tape you need to remove. Fix boil-water advisories. In my community of Attawapiskat, people have to open windows to take showers because there are too many chemicals in the water. That’s reality.

If you want to help communities, if you want to do good red tape—these are examples of good red tape. Attawapiskat declared an emergency on the lack of housing that there is on their traditional territories, and yet they’re not permitted to expand. You go into First Nations communities, and they’ve got a stack of mattresses in their living rooms. Tell me that’s all right. Tell me that is fair.

WSIB and the deeming: You want to remove red tape that will help? That is good red tape—injured workers who are living in poverty. There is no work. You need to realize that up north, communities are sometimes an hour away and more. So they’ve been deemed to do, let’s say, I don’t know—

Just to your last comment—I don’t know if you realize we’re losing 315 acres of prime farmland every day in the province of Ontario. If we can’t feed ourselves—I thought COVID-19 would have taught us something—we’re going to be in big trouble. So my suggestion is, stop attacking our farmers and protect our farmland.

I think we’re all happy in here—and I’m talking about all my colleagues—there was an important victory for workers yesterday. I don’t know if you all heard about it. I know the PCs say they work for workers; they have bills for workers. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has struck down Bill 124 in its entirety.

Interjections.

It violates the fundamental constitutional rights of collective bargaining.

Do you agree with that decision?

I’d like to ask a question of the member with regard to the Ministry of Health, the Mandatory Blood Testing Act, and what the ministry is proposing and if there are any financial implications associated—

Further questions?

We’ll allow the member to start. Please remember that we are discussing a different bill.

Thank you very much to our member sitting opposite there. It’s music to my ears when I hear how the red tape bill will support and benefit businesses.

I’ve run my own business before, and there were many times that I finally gave up doing some of the work for the government because of the red tape and the amount of time I had to spend there.

I would also like to know who else will benefit from these changes and how.

Our government is cutting red tape to improve the WSIB’s operational efficiency, and it will have a direct and positive impact for workers and their families, because WSIB would then be able to focus more on supporting injured workers, rather than dealing with duplicative reporting processes. From the comments made by the member opposite, I assume that this is something he would support because it should help workers and their families.

Questions?

I want to make sure that I compliment the member for Mushkegowuk–James Bay on his conversation. On this side, we regularly talk about the need for boil-water advisories in Ontario and how shameful it is—for a very long time, 27 years, which goes back through multiple governments, so I’m not pointing the finger. But I am saying that the government of the day, the Conservative Party, has been in power going on five years now. This is your opportunity to take just one of those boil-water advisories and fix it. He mentioned that one of them has been there for 27 years. Does he think there’s any reason that the Conservative government couldn’t tackle one of these and get rid of the boil-water advisory? And would that cut down on red tape and burden for businesses?

Park cars.

In this bill, they’re talking about WSIB selling their office in Toronto and moving it to London. And yet, nothing in the bill talks about that money going to injured workers.

My good friend just talked about injured workers. Speaker, 50% of injured workers today are living in poverty. The main reason they’re living in poverty—he’s right on the money, because it has been brought to this House—is deeming.

You had the opportunity, with a majority government, to pass Bill 119, and you chose not to.

Injured workers go to work every day and get hurt, through no fault of their own. They are deemed, and they are forced to live in poverty. Do you know what happens to them? They lose their family. They lose their kids. They lose everything.

Why isn’t that in the bill? Why aren’t you helping injured workers in the province of Ontario?

If we remember the last time, under this government—

Park cars. Or hotel clerks. Because the jobs are not available in their community, they’ve been deemed, so they pay 85% of the difference between the job—not the whole thing. So they’re being deemed, when the jobs don’t exist in their community. And that’s fair?

That is good red tape you could reduce. You need to do better, as a government. You know about this, because injured workers have come to you. They’ve knocked on my door. I’m sure they knock on your door.

Yesterday, we all met with paramedics. What they’re asking for is to have a regulated college for professional paramedics. Right now, paramedics are working outside of their scope, because they’ve been asked by this government to work outside of their regulations. So they’re working unregulated. And you think that’s fair? You want to make good red tape reduction? Make that—you’ll save $21 million. We don’t hear you on this. Why aren’t we hearing this? If something happens to any of these paramedics, guess what? It will be on them, because you’ll all wash your hands of it. I think it happened in Windsor, the situation they were telling me—and the paramedic was the one who was dinged for it. Where is the fairness when you’re asking paramedics to work outside of their scope, unregulated? Where is the fairness in that for these workers? You say you’re for the workers.

I heard one of the government MPPs saying that it’s music to her ears when she hears about red tape reduction. Well, it’s not music to the injured workers’ ears when they’re being deemed; I can tell you that much. It’s not music to the paramedics’ ears when they’re being asked to work outside of their scope or in unregulated places and they’ve been stepping up to the plate over and over and over again. I can tell you it’s not music to the ears of First Nations communities when they can’t expand their communities, when they have a lack of housing. Two or three generations are living in a house that was only made for a small family, because they have nowhere to go. That is not music to our ears. It shouldn’t be music to your ears. And yet, you don’t address that red tape. You always play political Ping-Pong—“Oh, it’s federal.” I’m sorry, but it’s not federal—you’re a signatory; we’re all signatories to Treaty 9, for that matter. Boil-water advisories should not exist in Ontario. That is not music to our ears. It shouldn’t be music to your ears, either.

Do the right thing. Fix boil-water advisories in First Nations. Fix the housing crisis in First Nations. Fix deeming. And repeal Bill 124.

Did you know that if you lose hearing in one ear, you’re not qualified because you hear in the other ear? And yet, if you hurt a shoulder, they take that into consideration. How does that make sense?

Deeming doesn’t make sense. Deeming should be—

When you look at northern Ontario, because of the isolation—they shouldn’t be subject to have to move because there is not work in their community. The government should pass a bill saying that for anything farther than 60 kilometres, people should not be—because it affects the family. They lose their family, unfortunately—

Interjections.

Interjection.

Our duty, as the official opposition, is to question—and recommend. We do a lot of recommendations in committee and all this—and how much do you take? Absolutely zero. So I’m sorry, but no, unfortunately, this is our job, and we want to make sure that we tell the government what needs to be done.

I want to touch on some of the things that you talked about in your speech—or rather, that you didn’t talk about in your speech. You talked about things that weren’t in this bill, but I’d like to remind the member that every time we’ve introduced an omnibus bill, the NDP have objected to it and said that we’re piling everything together.

In my speech, I mentioned that we had more than 350,000 regulations in Ontario—the next largest province was British Columbia, at 169,000. Would the member opposite change his mind and support an omnibus bill that wipes out almost 200,000 regulations so that we could get back down to what was in other provinces, and that includes a number of the things he’s asking for, if we were to do that?