My question is to the Minister of Health.

The region of Durham is one of the fastest-growing communities in Canada. New neighbours are joining us every single day, and we need the health care infrastructure to support them. Durham needs a new hospital and we are ready to go, with the proposed site in Whitby selected by an expert panel two years ago. For two years, families have been left waiting for hours at our overburdened care centres.

Seven MPPs represent the Durham region; six of them are government members. I support a new Durham hospital.

Minister, do you agree that Durham needs a new hospital?

In the last couple of budgets, we have not seen planning grants.

Minister, all we need to get started is a planning grant. Will it be approved, and when can we expect it?

My question is to the Minister of Transportation, who said in his remarks that they would give our municipal partners what they need. So in that spirit, today, the region of Durham council passed a resolution requesting the permanent removal of tolls on the provincially owned portion of Highway 407. They say:

“Whereas Highway 407 from Brock Road ... in Pickering to Highway 35/115 is provincially owned and tolls are set by the province;

“And whereas the province introduced legislation that if passed would ban tolls from provincially owned highways including all 400-series highways except for Highway 407 which is located almost exclusively in Durham region”—they go on to make other important points, but they ultimately resolve to request “that the province of Ontario include the provincially owned portion of Highway 407 in any legislation banning tolls on provincially owned highways....”

My question to the Minister of Transportation is, will he indeed give our municipal partners what they need and meet this request?

That advocacy continues. I have here a request from the town of Whitby. On January 31, Durham region council said, “Whereas the temporary removal of tolls on Highway 407 during Winchester Road construction work would improve overall travel times and alleviate the traffic impacts on surrounding regional and local municipal roads.” They asked this government to temporarily remove those tolls during that period of the Winchester Road construction work.

And would you believe it, Speaker? February 6, the Ministry of Transportation says it “is not considering subsidizing or removing tolls for use of Hwy. 407 at this time.” Then, two minutes later, we have this bill. So when a community asked for no tolls, how come you’re telling them, “Too bad”?

They won’t.

Won’t get it done.

It was 2022.

Congestion penalties.

I appreciate that the member just spent an hour breaking down this bill for us, which—the bill really was already fairly broken anyway.

Schedule 6 is the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act and, as you’ve already said, it prohibits tolls on provincial highways unless the toll is authorized by an act, and that this schedule would prohibit tolls on highways that already have no tolls, except for the toll highway, the only one that exists. And earlier today, I asked the Minister of Transportation—read a resolution from the region of Durham, from their council, calling on the government to remove the tolls from the 407 east which, for the folks at home, is the part that’s still owned by the province. I got a bunch of malarkey. But basically, it would be interesting to see, because they’ve already refused one request to temporarily remove it when we’ve got major construction in the area.

So when they’re refusing a municipal ask for this kind of alleviated pressure with the toll removal, why are they braying about taking the tolls off when they actually aren’t?

I am pleased to be able to rise in my place and debate Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, or the so-called Get It Done Act, and I’m able to stand here as the official opposition critic for infrastructure, transportation and highways.

This bill, despite its catchy title, is mostly performative, and it actually doesn’t get much done. It certainly doesn’t get anything done to fix health care or build housing or make life more affordable.

What we have seen in the last stretch of time is a government that has had to backtrack on many major policy decisions. I’m starting to look at bills now that they’ve tabled and think that each time a new bill hits the table, we’ve entered that pre-repeal time in a bill’s life in this House, because so many have had to be reversed. But this government is—I’m going to assume; I won’t impute motive, but I would image that they’re quite desperate to distract from their never-ending scandals, and I don’t think they love it when we remind about the RCMP investigation etc.

This is a bill called the Get It Done Act, and they can’t get it done on the biggest issues facing Ontario. We have a strained health care system, worsening housing crisis and the skyrocketing cost of living—although, like I had discussed with my colleague, can’t get it done or won’t get it done? I mean, this is a government that has now been in power, been in charge for coming up on six years. So this is not first day on the job. They could be doing better, and to see a skimpy little performative piece hit the table here in this bill—I’d say it’s a missed opportunity.

People across the province are struggling. They’re not interested in symbolic gestures. They’re interested in meaningful, serious solutions. I would say we have been focused on delivering real solutions for housing, health care and the rising cost of living.

This government—we have talked in this House about Super Bowl ads, about this government’s fascination with advertising, how much money and investment they’re making into getting their message out to folks. So they are probably wondering what the audience response is to this particular piece of legislation, and I would say that people don’t believe the hype, nor are they excited about this nothing bill. In fact, I’d like to share from a TVO opinion piece entitled “Doug Ford’s Omnibus Bill Is Bad Policy That Will Accomplish Nothing.” This has been written by John Michael McGrath. I’ll read:

“MPPs returned to the Legislature for the spring sitting on Tuesday, and the government’s first priority is a beefy new omnibus bill dubbed the ‘Get It Done Act.’ Much of the bill had been previewed last week in press conferences by” the Premier, “who announced that the government would introduce new legislation that would prohibit the use of road tolls on provincial highways and that, in a separate section, would prohibit the province from introducing a carbon tax without first submitting it to a referendum.”

He goes on to say, “They are profoundly silly acts to put before the Legislature: They don’t accomplish anything concrete, they can’t do what they claim to, and they can’t be changed into anything meaningful without committing a form of constitutional vandalism. And that’s before we get to the part where they’re also bad policy.”

There’s a section that I’ll come back to that is quite interesting about their carbon tax referendum piece, but as he frames it, “That’s the reality of governing, though: doing meaningful things usually costs money, while performative nonsense is free....

“In the meantime, we’re left with the irksome elements of the so-called Get It Done Act. We could call it a stunt, but stunts are usually captivating or entertaining. This bill is a dull retread of an idea that was bad the first time. And if it does anything at all, it will be to make the electorate even more ill-informed about governance than it already is. In a better world, the government would never have introduced it.”

That’s some of the audience reaction to this piece of legislation.

Because we’ve had an hour from our critic responsible for the environmental pieces, I’m going to stay in my lane—pun intended—as the critic for transportation, highways and also infrastructure.

Looking at the schedule 2 changes, there are changes to the Highway Traffic Act, and it sets a statutory driver’s licence fee of $7.50 for each six-month period equal to the—wait for it, Speaker—“existing” fee, which is set by regulation.

Schedule 4 is the Photo Card Act, and it sets a statutory photo card fee of $3.50 for each six-month period equal to the “existing” fee, which is set by minister’s orders.

Why I highlight the word “existing” is because this is not a change in the experience of Ontarians—drivers or those getting their photo card. These prices, these fees, these costs have already been determined in regulation. What this bill does, or barely does, is now put it into statute, into actual law and out of regulation. It’s a nothing burger. It’s the status quo. There’s no change. We’re not saving anybody anything. It’s the same as what they’ve been paying as determined by regulation.

Another part that is accomplished by schedule 2 is, it establishes a framework enabling an automatic licence plate renewal system, with details to be determined by regulation.

Speaker, while we’re here, and since the government has brought it up, let’s talk about licence plates, because that’s what they brought us here to do. I’m a little out of practice, though. It was an everyday thing, that I got to stand in this House and talk about licence plates—but it has been four years since the absurd mess of their PC vanity plates that can’t be read.

I would like to remind us, with a recent piece—because folks haven’t forgotten. This is a piece by Allison Jones of the Canadian Press from February 14:

“As of this month there are 124,000 blue licence plates on the road....”

The Premier’s “government has a plan to get its blue licence plates off the road, four years after discovering they are barely visible at night—and that plan is to sit back and wait.

“The blue licence plates are set to simply disappear through attrition....

“That approach has been in place since November 2022, according to a senior government official not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.”

This is from a press secretary for the public and business service delivery minister: “After carefully considering potential options for implementing a dedicated collections program, the Ontario government has decided to naturally phase out existing blue licence plates.”

Speaker, it’s interesting, because every year around this time, mid-February, marks the anniversary of these blue licence plates, and every year the media tries to figure out what the government’s plan is, after they had committed to getting those licence plates off the road. And now the plan—and there is a plan; it was actually decided in 2022—wasn’t communicated. In fact, various FOIs were unsuccessful based on the grounds that the government wasn’t ready to announce it yet. It turns out what they weren’t ready to announce but had decided was, “Shh, let it go away”—as they put it, decided to naturally phase out existing blue licence plates. Sure.

But here’s the thing—and this is my question to this government, since they’ve brought up licence plates. It has been four years, and still we’re talking about the Premier’s blue licence plates. There’s still 125,000 or so left driving around on the roads, and each one of them is that true-blue reminder of the epic fail that this whole mess has been. The government promised that they would get them off our roads. It has come to light, as I just read, that the new plan is a passive phase-out. Ontarians know and, Speaker, you may remember—the folks at home certainly remember—these plates disappear in bright sun. They disappear at night. They disappear when being scanned at the US border. They disappear in heavy rain. And now this Premier wants them to disappear from our memories. So, the PC Party blue vanity plates, while impossible to read, are impossible to forget.

So, I guess I have an ongoing question: Why can’t they just fix this? Why won’t they just “get it done” when it comes to licence plates? And look, the Premier had said the other day that we needed to learn about—I don’t even remember—marketing and branding and stuff like that. But here we have physical, tangible, visible reminders of an epic and ongoing fail, of ineptitude or a rush job or—I don’t know, but people look at them and yes, it’s a safety problem. I mean, they’re appropriate for a getaway car, sure, but other than that, people see them, and except for those who are a bit sentimental and are keeping them as collectors’ plates, I think folks every time they see them think, “Oh, yes, man, they sure can get it done, can they?” So, if you want to talk about branding and you want to talk about marketing, maybe that’s a case study for the Premier.

But, Speaker, I will continue. Speaker, schedule 6—I will continue with that one. I’m going to skip a few of the others because, as the critic for transportation, I’m going to stay focused on what the government has given me and that is Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, schedule 6. It prohibits tolls on provincial highways unless the toll is authorized by an act. Schedule 6 would prohibit tolls on highways that already have no tolls—so we’re prohibiting tolls from where they aren’t and don’t exist—but would not prohibit tolls on the one Ontario highway that does have true tolls, Highway 407.

And remember that the Highway 407—people may think of it as one long stretch, but there are two sections: privately owned, the Highway 407 ETR—that’s the part that got sold for a song and all of us are still mad about it and paying for it—and then there’s Highway 407 east. The 407 east and the 412 and 418, those highways are still owned by the province, okay? They haven’t yet sold them to some foreign consortium—still ours.

So only one highway in Ontario has true tolls, and the tolls are authorized by the Highway 407 Act and the Highway 407 East Act, and those are untouched by this nonsense piece of legislation in front of us. The fact that the government keeps choosing not to rein in the high tolls on the 407—the government is missing an opportunity to make better use of the underutilized highway. They could be reducing or removing tolls for transport trucks; the NDP has proposed that. They’ve been hearing that across various stakeholder groups.

Also, in 2021, the Ford government inexplicably waived a billion dollars in congestion penalties that was owed by the private 407 ETR operator for setting tolls too high and allowing traffic to fall below minimum volumes required under the agreement with this government. So, legitimately, they didn’t meet their obligations, even though during that time—because you may remember it was around COVID time—the other 400-series highways were congested. People were on the roads. Highway 407 was so underused that a plane was able to land on it in the middle of the day with no problem.

We have called on the government to go after the 407 ETR for those congestion penalties, but this government—and I won’t put words in their mouth, but what’s a billion dollars? They waived it. It legitimately was owed that and chose to waive it.

Speaker, Bill 162 would prohibit tolls on provincial highways unless the toll is authorized under an act. The funny thing is, as the Auditor General noted in her 2022 report on highway planning, “The ministry does not have authority under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act to implement tolls on provincial highways.” Literally, the provincial government doesn’t have the authority to implement tolls on provincial highways.

So here in this bill, they’re like, “We’re going to ban tolls.” They don’t actually have the authority to implement them—fun fact. They don’t have the authority without a highway-specific act, which brings us back to the Highway 407 Act and the Highway 407 East Act, which are unchanged by this schedule.

Speaker, earlier today I took the opportunity to ask the Minister of Transportation directly about a resolution that was passed today by the region of Durham, by their council. It was a motion requesting the permanent removal of tolls on the provincially owned portion of Highway 407, between Brock Road in Pickering and Highway 35/115. I won’t read the whole thing, but I will set it up for folks at home:

“Whereas Highway 407 from Brock Road ... in Pickering to Highway 35/115 is provincially owned and tolls are set by the province;

“And whereas the province introduced legislation that if passed would ban tolls from provincially owned highways including all 400-series highways except for Highway 407 which is located almost exclusively in Durham region;

“And whereas if excluded from the proposed ban on tolls, Highway 407 would become the only tolled provincially owned highway in Ontario, resulting in unfair economic impacts to Durham region residents and businesses;

“And whereas”—I am reading more of it than I was planning, but they say good stuff—“the province of Ontario has previously removed tolls on Highways 412 and 418 located within Durham, demonstrating the willingness to removing existing unfair tolls on provincially owned highways and should therefore include the provincial 407 as part of the proposed legislation; ...

“Be it resolved” that they request “that the province of Ontario include the provincially owned portion of Highway 407 in any legislation banning tolls on provincially owned highways.”

Speaker, the minister said—not in response to me, but in his remarks—something about “give our municipal partners what they need.” Well, I will reiterate to the Minister of Transportation and the folks at home that we have here a municipal partner asking to have this section of a provincial highway included in this act so that the toll could be taken off the provincial portion, the 407 east. I won’t hold my breath, but it’s a legit ask. I’ll tell you why I don’t hold my breath, Speaker: Because the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

On January 31, in echo to the town of Whitby’s resolution on January 16, the Durham region resolved:

“Whereas the temporary removal of tolls on Highway 407 during Winchester Road construction work would improve overall travel times and alleviate the traffic impacts on surrounding regional and local municipal roads.

“Be it ... resolved that:

“The province be requested to temporarily remove tolls on Highway 407 in Durham during the duration of the planned Winchester Road construction work.”

Speaker, they asked this. They sent it to the province, and that was January 31. By February 6, the answer was no—a resounding, definite no. It says here, as was reported in the paper, “An effort by Durham regional councillors to press the province to temporarily remove tolls on the Durham section of Highway 407 has received a quick curt response: ‘No.’”

The quote here is the response from the Ministry of Transportation six days later: “The ministry (of transportation) is not considering subsidizing or removing tolls for use of Highway 407 at this time.” And then, how many minutes later, and we’re dealing with Bill 162, which, with all of its fanfare—“We are going to be prohibiting tolls from provincial roads, except where they already are.” I obviously take exception to that, because why is Durham the exception? And this is a provincial government that says, “We’re not going to toll folks.” Well, you know what? Their behaviour is taking a very detrimental toll on the people in Durham region.

Speaker, unsurprisingly, I’ve used up my time, but I want to say that there are actual things this government could choose to do to help Ontarians. There’s a lot in this bill that’s kind of lip service and nothing burgers and really doesn’t change things or advance things, and that’s a missed opportunity. Where are the interventions to make people’s experience with our health care system better? Where are real affordability measures? How are we housing people because of this bill?