I’m pleased to be rising in the House today to debate Bill 39, the Less Red Tape, More Common Sense Act. I always smile when I read the titles of the government’s bills, because sometimes the title of the bill is very different than what’s in the bill itself. Right now, I’m doing some work on the government’s affordable housing bill, where the government is looking at changing the definition of affordable housing to something which is actually going to create less affordable housing than we currently have. It’s very interesting.

I’m going to talk a little bit about this bill. Overall, this bill isn’t that bad. It has some housekeeping items which are needed to be done. I’m going to go through some of them right now.

Number one: Schedule 1 looks at the Agricultural and Horticultural Organizations Act, and it has some minor technical amendments for that.

Then schedule 2 looks at the Algoma University Act, and it also has some technical amendments in that. It would allow the chair of the board to sit for a period of up to eight years, to be determined by the board, and it could only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors. We don’t see any huge red flags with that. But when we are starting to get into the schedules, the thing that comes to mind is around priorities. What are this government’s priorities? When I think about how we can fix the post-secondary education sector, extending the term that a chair of the board can sit is not the top priority for universities and colleges today.

In my riding, I have the University of Toronto. We’re the biggest university in Canada. We’re a huge economic driver for my riding in Toronto. When I host student forums, or when I speak to the faculty association, or I communicate with the board of governors, they don’t bring up the length of terms for board chairs; what they bring up is the high cost of student fees. When we increase student fees, it means people with means, people who have families with means, are more able to go to university, and people who don’t—that door to go to college or university is closed. Or if they do go through that door, it means they will take on an increasing amount of debt, which, in this day and age, especially for young people, is very challenging, because it has never been more expensive to live in Ontario, especially if you’re a young person. Rent is so high, food costs are so high, transportation and transit are exorbitant, and then you’ve got exponentially increasing student fees on top of that. That’s the big issue I hear when I talk to students.

We’ll go on. I don’t see anything about making post-secondary education more affordable, and I don’t believe allowing the chair of the board to sit for a period up to eight years is going to achieve that.

Next we have schedule 3, the Charities Accounting Act. This removes the notice of requirement to the public guardian and trustee where, in a will, property or right or interest in property is given to a person for a religious, educational, charitable or public purpose. We don’t have any red flags there.

Schedule 4, the Commodity Futures Act: This amendment is to reduce the minimum period during which the Ontario Securities Commission is required to give a reasonable opportunity to interested persons or companies to make written representations with respect to a proposed rule from 90 to 60 days—okay.

Then we’ve got schedule 5, the Corporations Act. Once again, this is a housekeeping amendment. This proposes amendments to the Corporations Act. These are technical amendments that enable the government to reduce the risk of dissolution of social clubs: “Currently, section 2.1 of the Corporations Act governs the continuance of social companies from the act to the Non-Profit Corporations Act, 2010, the Co-operative Corporations Act or the Business Corporations Act. And subsection 2.1(4) currently provides that if a social company has more than one class of shareholders, the special resolution passed by the corporation to authorize the continuance must be approved by each class of shareholders by a separate vote.” That subsection is proposed to be repealed—definitely a housekeeping bill. A complementary amendment is proposed to subsection 2.1(7). So no huge red flags there.

Then, we’ve got schedule 6. This is a technical amendment—another one—that would make it easier for credit unions to issue shares to purchase other credit unions, prepare investor offering statements and take deposits from brokers who manage money on behalf of clients, and it would allow a credit union to accept deposits from a member in trust for a named beneficiary, and there’s a regulatory proposal out on that. It seems reasonable. My hope is that you’ve done outreach to the credit unions in Ontario. My guess is that they’re asking for it.

Schedule 7 is the Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act. There are minor technical amendments there.

Schedule 8 is the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario Act. This proposed amendment is to reduce the minimum period during which the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario is required for feedback from 90 days to 60 days—again, housekeeping, technical amendments. Okay.

Schedule 9 is Modernizing Ontario for People and Businesses Act—love those titles. You’ve got some housekeeping here. You’re changing the definition of “minister” so that it names the Minister of Red Tape Reduction—classic, classic Conservative move—and changes the term “businesses” in one provision to “regulated entities.”

Schedule 10: minor technical amendments to the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act.

Schedule 11: the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act. This changes section 23(c). It provides for exemptions of classes of persons, and not just classes of development, from requiring a development permit. Since the statute already grants the minister broad authority to prescribe exemptions for classes of developments, I suppose this could be an incremental change and does not necessarily signal an intention to exempt more activities from requiring a development permit in the Niagara Escarpment, which is part of the greenbelt. We’re not entirely sure what this means, so we’re doing outreach to stakeholders.

When we’re talking about schedule 11 and the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, the thing that comes to mind for me is this government’s continued attempt to open up precious farmland, forests and wetlands to development, which is a problem. Whenever I see anything related to the Niagara Escarpment or the greenbelt or municipal boundaries, instantly what I think is, “Oh, is this another clever way where the Conservatives are looking at opening up land so their developer donor friends can win big because they buy the land cheap when it’s zoned for farming and then, once it’s zoned for development, the land is worth a whole lot more?” Often, these developers don’t even build on the land. They just sell it because they’ll get the profit margin even more quickly. So we are curious about what schedule 11 means.

Schedule 12 is the Nipissing University Act. This is a minor amendment to schedule 2, and it applies to Nipissing and would allow the chair, under certain circumstances, to serve for eight years instead of six. It could only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors. Once again, no red flags.

Schedule 13 is the Ontario College of Art and Design University Act. This is the same as schedule 2 and schedule 12. It would allow the chair, under certain circumstances, to serve for eight years instead of six. Once again, it can only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors—no red flags.

Schedule 14 is the Ontario Heritage Act—ooh, heritage. It always makes my eyes open wider when I see this government wanting to meddle with heritage. This is what this says: This bill will amend the Ontario Heritage Act to allow alterations of heritage attributes related to religious practices in a building used for religious practices. If the alterations are required for religious practices and all prescribed conditions are met, a limited religious exemption seems reasonable. The associated regulatory notice, which we have looked at, lists the criteria in which a municipality would be required to allow an alteration on religious grounds to the building, to the heritage attributes to be altered, to the alteration of the heritage attributes for religious practices—this makes sense to me—any additional conditions prescribed by regulation, and the applicant provides counsel with an affidavit or sworn declaration that the application meets the conditions in the act or prescribed in regulation.

Schedule 15, the Professional Engineers Act: This repeals section 7(1)10, which eliminates the ability of the PEO council to prescribe forms of applications for licences, certificates of authorization, temporary licences, provisional licences and limited licences and requiring their use. There are related amendments to this restriction. The issuance of these temporary licences and so on is now through the registrar. Other amendments here appear technical, again, in order to modernize the act. It changes reporting requirements when the registrar is investigating a potential act of professional misconduct or incompetence. The registrar must report the findings to the complaints committee instead of the council of the association. It adds the requirement to report the findings of the investigation to the subject of the investigation.

Then, we’ve got schedule 16, the Retirement Homes Act. There are some minor technical amendments there.

In my work as the housing critic, we have done some work to amend the Retirement Homes Act, and the reason is because we do have some fantastic retirement homes in our riding, and then we’ve had some retirement homes that we’ve lost. The one that comes to mind is Davenhill. Davenhill was a retirement home just south of the Toronto Reference Library. Unfortunately, the land underneath Davenhill was sold, and the building was bought by a company that wanted to turn it into a condo. What we found in working with the residents there is that there aren’t enough protections for people who live in retirement homes. What we found is that when you move into a retirement home, you are protected by rent control for the actual cost of renting your small room, but there are no restrictions on how much the owner of the retirement home can raise the fees for the services that you need to live there. If you are using nursing services, if you require regular medication, if you are going to use the dining room or use food or parking—there are no restrictions on how much those fees can be raised. What we saw, in talking to residents, is that if a retirement home wants to remove someone or generate more revenue, they’ll increase the cost of those fees to a point where residents have to give up and move out. I think that’s very concerning. We have introduced legislation to call on the government to look into this loophole that allows big increases for fees for people who live in retirement homes, and I think it’s worth the Conservatives taking a look at it. When you are a senior, you’ve got health issues, you don’t work anymore, you’re on a fixed income, so a small increase in the amount of money that you have to pay for your home and for the services can have a really negative impact on your life. So it makes a lot of sense, when we’re looking at amending the Retirement Homes Act, that this government take a look at how we can make things more affordable for people who live in retirement homes.

Schedule 17 is the Securities Act. This is similar to the provisions that have been outlined above. It reduces written feedback for proposed changes from 90 days to 60 days.

Schedule 18 is the St. Lawrence Parks Commission Act. It adds a clause to section 6 of the act, allowing the commission to dispose of an interest in land by the grant of an easement without the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Essentially, the commission would be able to use commission lands for a limited purpose unilaterally. Section 6 currently grants powers to the commission, at the behest of cabinet, to acquire purchase, lease or appropriate any land. The St. Lawrence parklands are part of the historic Crawford Purchase treaty and border a number of First Nations.

I have never visited the St. Lawrence parklands; I would love to do so.

Schedule 19 is the Université de l’Ontario français Act. It is similar to other provisions in this bill. It allows the chair of the board to sit for eight years instead of six in certain circumstances, and it can only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors—no red flag.

And then schedule 20 is really similar to other provisions. It applies to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and it would allow the chair of the board to sit for eight years instead of six in certain circumstances.

So that’s a summary of the schedules in this bill, Bill 139. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that there are not a lot of red flags in this bill. Many of the proposed schedule changes are supportable, and it’s essentially a series of housekeeping amendments to tidy stuff up. I do wonder when I read a bill like this—I think about what’s missing. And when I think about red tape—the government loves to use the term red tape. In fact, this schedule even has a proposal to change the minister’s name to the Minister of Red Tape Reduction.

I think about some of the letters that have been sent into my office that have talked about red tape, and I’d like to read one to you now. This letter is a Q&A, and it comes from a family doctor in my riding who is very concerned about the amount of red tape they experience just doing their job of meeting patients and working to heal them and help them. We asked them a bunch of questions, and this is what they said. This person is Dr. Vivienne Lemos.

Dr. Vivienne Lemos has about 850 patients. She works part-time. We asked her, “Are you forced to turn away new patients?”, and she said, “Yes. I currently only accept newborns whose parents are currently my patients. I receive multiple requests a day to accept family and friends of patients and have people cold-call my office to request the same.” This experience that this doctor is having is very similar to the experience that I hear from other doctors in my riding, and it’s also similar to the experience I hear from constituents who can’t get access to a family doctor. They just can’t. They’re one of the 2.2 million people in Ontario who can’t get access to a family doctor or a primary care provider, which is a huge concern.

So then we asked the doctor, “What’s the volume ... like, and how does it affect care?” She said, “The volume is very high. Despite having an hour each day I am in the office for same-day urgent appointments, I am” completely “overwhelmed. These slots fill up within minutes of them becoming available....

“My practice largely consists of patients over the age of 60 who are medically complex. Each appointment often 30 minutes and some require translators. In order for me to provide the high level of care to which my patients are accustomed, I have to book fewer of them, which in turn is reflected on my billings and my availability to my patients.”

Then we asked her about the administrative burden. The reason why I want to talk about the administrative burden is that when we’re talking about red tape, this is an administrative burden that seems like an example of red tape that is actually a problem. This is how she describes her administrative work:

“The administrative burden has become unmanageable. I spend 20 hours or more a week on paperwork. Despite the part-time clinic hours, the rest of the time I am not in clinic is spent in the quagmire of paperwork that is involved in running a practice: redirecting referrals, prescription refills, responding to patient emails, reviewing results, meetings with lawyers and contractors about our upcoming (non-OHIP-funded) office renovations, bookkeeping, human resources issues etc.

“I would not have the time to do any of these things if I was working in clinic full-time.”

She says, “The costs of running a practice are overwhelming and our income has not even kept up with inflation. My overhead is 40% of what OHIP pays me every month—the average for most physicians is 25% to 30% but we are located in downtown Toronto and our rent is high. There is little left after paying taxes.”

The reason why I bring up this example is because when I think about my riding and what really affects the constituents in my riding, I think about access to a family doctor. I think about how we can reduce the administrative burden for family doctors, so that they can see more people. I think about how we can expand the scope of registered nurses, midwives and more, so that they can see people directly and be a primary care provider. I think about the high cost of housing. I think about education and how our classrooms are full. I think about how we are doing nothing—nothing—to address the climate crisis and the environmental issues we face.

And I wonder why this government, at this time, is looking at introducing a housekeeping bill when there is so much more that we could be talking about.

Thank you to the member for Essex for that question.

You know, there is a lot in this bill that is supportable. A lot of these minor technical amendments that are in the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act that you describe—this is something we are looking at, that we’re talking to stakeholders about. But overall, for us, our concern is less around the bill itself and more around priorities.

When we’re talking about what kind of bills we could be introducing in this Legislature, what I would really hope to see is a bill that ensures that everyone has access to a primary care provider, that housing is affordable, that people who rent—the 30% of Ontarians who rent—can afford their rent and not go on to be illegally evicted.

It would be nice to see a bill that focuses on the education issues that we have in our province. I have kids in the TDSB school system. The class sizes are so large and kids that are struggling just don’t get the teacher’s attention. When I talk to my constituents—

Right now, if you have an issue with a tenant or you have an issue with a landlord, you are waiting a very long time to get your hearing date: six months if you’re a landlord and up to two years if you’re a tenant. And then what we’re also finding is that even if an adjudicator rules in your favour—say you’re a tenant and you were illegally evicted—the Landlord and Tenant Board is not following up and they’re not enforcing their ruling. So most landlords aren’t paying the fine, which is small to begin with, and they’ve gotten away with illegally evicting a tenant, for example. So if we’re looking at something that can be done, that’s practical, it would be to make our tribunal system and our Landlord and Tenant Board work for Ontarians.

What the Ontario Medical Association also asked for is for this government to get serious about fixing the crisis in primary care so that those 2.2 million Ontarians can have access to a family doctor. Also, the OMA also had a lot of concerns about the difficulty it is for people with complex medical conditions who live at home to have access to home care. It’s very hard to get comprehensive home care so that your loved one can have some time off and so on. They’re the two additional things that the OMA asked for and they’re not in this bill.

What we can say is, you mentioned the Minister of Health is looking at bringing in home care legislation and, unfortunately, we do have a lot of concerns with the home care legislation, specifically because we feel that it opens the door even further to privatization. When we allow the privatization of home care, it means more money goes into shareholders’ pockets, CEOs’ pockets and less money goes to personal support workers and nurses who are providing that front-line quality care. So, we have a lot of concerns about that.

The reason why it’s so important to me right now is because we just did a forum in Chinatown. We spoke to many older Chinese Canadians, and they told us loud and clear that they don’t have access to a family doctor who is fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin. Then we did a little bit of a deep dive and looked at how many doctors in the area provide services in Cantonese and Mandarin, and we discovered that the average age of those doctors is 70. So all these people who are being served by these family doctors are in a really tough spot, because many of them are going to retire, which means that there is a real opportunity there and a real need to bring in more nurse practitioners to provide primary care and to really address the family doctor shortage in communities that are already being underserved.

Thank you to the member for London West for her excellent presentation. I know and I recognize the huge amount of work you’ve done to improve workplace conditions. I’d like to get your perspective on the government’s changes to digital workers. Where are they falling short?