I want to invite two members of Barrie–Innisfil who are here for Model Parliament—Lucy Duncan and Yael-Eden Grinman.

Welcome to your House.

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the second reading of the Get It Done Act. It really shows you, this act, how Ontario is growing at a rate not seen in half a century. If you use the latest figures from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, our province’s population grew by nearly 465,000 residents. To put it in perspective, that’s almost half a million people in 12 months. In addition, that’s like adding the entire city of London, Ontario, as well as the town of Innisfil from my riding, in one year. It’s like adding Thunder Bay in the north, Sarnia in the southwest, Kingston in the east and my hometown of Barrie all within one year. And they all have something in common: They want to make life in Ontario better.

Perhaps some of them came here, those who live in those parts of Ontario, with an idea and wanting to create a new company after having heard all the great things our Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade has said about the investments not only that we’re making in Ontario but the amount of red tape we’re cutting and the amount we have cut over the last six years. That’s not only making this province more competitive, it’s actually making it the best place to start a business and to thrive.

I’m sure more than a few of you have heard about Ontario’s natural beauty, our great parks we’re building and the green spaces we’re increasing, but also how we’re creating healthier communities and economic prosperity through protecting our air, land and water. They’re not mutually exclusive; we can do them hand in hand.

This population growth will help to boost Ontario’s economic growth, it will help boost the folks who go into our provincial parks, it will help boost our employment activity, it will help boost the amount of people who use our local transit and it will provide the required steps to ensure that we have the economic growth that we need.

This means, though, building the necessary infrastructure for this growing population. That includes our transit, it includes our roads, it includes transmission lines, our provincial parks, our homes and all core infrastructure, because, over the next 20 years, Ontario’s population is expected to grow by almost six million people—six million people. That’s more than the current population of the entire province of British Columbia.

Our government is doing just that. This government is building the infrastructure we need for our communities to grow and prosper. We’re making historic investments: $98 billion over the next 10 years to build new roads, highways, public transit, including Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. As mentioned by our Minister of Transportation, this will unlock gridlock. It will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For those folks who can’t take transit, it helps them embrace the electric vehicle economy, which we’ve been working so hard on in attracting the investments we have. To date, it’s in fact $28 billion in the EV economy that this government has attracted in as a short as three years—that’s fast.

This shows you it’s a real team effort by this government. Every ministry is doing their part, pulling together. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks has an important role to play. For many of these large infrastructure projects, my ministry’s responsible for overseeing environmental assessments. When the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act was created back in 1975, it was the first of its kind in Canada. Unfortunately, while there have been some changes since that time, the framework of the act remains largely the same.

In the last 50 years, much has changed. Technology has changed, the way the environment department does assessments has changed and much of our information and knowledge-sharing has changed. What has worked before may not work anymore, not for a province growing at the rate that it is, not when so much needs to be done to meet the needs of the future generation. The world has become faster and more efficient, and it needs a government that keeps up with that.

My ministry has been working very hard to make changes, to make the processes more efficient while maintaining environmental oversight. Throughout this process, we’ve been consulting with the people of Ontario, with Indigenous communities, members of the public, municipalities, industry and not-for-profit organizations. I am pleased to say that after extensive consultations, we are now implementing our vision for a more modern environmental program.

I would like to highlight one particular regulatory change, which came into effect just last week. The current EA process is moving to what we call a “project list approach.” What it does is it lists the type of infrastructure projects that still require the highest level of environmental assessment—these projects would include things like large landfills and electricity generating facilities—while specifying those who may follow a more streamlined process. This in itself will get shovels in the ground quicker on projects that matter most to Ontarians while continuing to maintain environment safeguards.

Let me give you just one example of how this new approach will help build Ontario’s infrastructure faster: In 2019, my ministry approved the environmental assessment for the East-West Tie transmission project. This project is a 450-kilometre transmission line connecting Lakehead Transfer Station near Thunder Bay to Wawa transfer. It will also connect to the transformer station in Marathon. It provides the flexibility and capacity needed to build prosperous communities in the north, because, Speaker, our government believes in the north, maximizing its economic potential and its beauty, and we do not call it “no man’s land,” like members of the opposition.

But, Speaker, this is an example of how, even in the north, the growth—the growth in mining, the industrial sectors, the long-term reliability of the electricity system is so important to the sectors and the people looking to live there.

The comprehensive EA process for this project, though, took more than five years to complete. To put that in perspective: The CN Tower was built in 26 months. Maple Leaf Gardens, for those Leafs fans out there, was built in five months and two weeks. But this project that I just talked about, up north—more than five years, Madam Speaker, just to complete an environmental assessment for the project, which is very routine.

I think we can all agree that five years is simply too long to wait to get started on infrastructure that is critical to the economic future of our province. Five years is too long to wait to get started on infrastructure that will help Ontario families get to work, get to school and get home at the end of the day to see their families. And five years is simply too long to wait to get started on infrastructure needed to accommodate the 500,000 new Ontarians coming to our province every year.

With the changes this government enacted last week, a similar project could follow a streamlined environment process that can be completed within two years, while still undergoing a mandatory consultation process and continuing strong environment oversight. Some of the time savings are a result of the streamlined processes not requiring what’s called a “terms of reference” for a project, which can take up to two years, as the streamlined process already builds on these requirements and sets out these requirements.

In fact, all highways, railway and electric transmission lines will now be able to follow streamlined EA process and save up to four years. This is a massive improvement that saves both time and money while still protecting the integrity of our environment.

Using a project list approach brings Ontario in line with other similar jurisdictions, including the federal government, Quebec and British Columbia. Certain projects—typically more complex ones, such as large landfills and very large water-power facilities—will continue to require the highest level of environmental assessment called the comprehensive EA.

I can assure you, Speaker, that whatever level of EA is required for proposed projects, we’ll continue uphold our world-class environment standards.

Our work continues on modernizing and improving an environmental assessment process with the Get It Done Act. To help municipalities, provincial ministries and other provincial government agencies when planning for infrastructure development, we are proposing a minor change to the Environmental Assessment Act. This proposed change would clarify that expropriation is one of the ways property can acquired for a project before an EA process is complete.

I should point out that acquiring property for a project is already allowed under the EA Act before a proponent is authorized to proceed with the project. This clarity will provide greater certainty to municipalities and other proponents as they plan for future projects.

Let me assure you, Madam Speaker, that project proponents will continue to have to comply with other applicable legislation for expropriating land, such as the Expropriations Act, and agreements will still be the preferred method for land acquisitions for the province.

I want to thank everyone for allowing me the time today to highlight some of the changes to the environmental assessment process we have made, changes needed to streamline and improve upon a 50-year-old system to help build infrastructure necessary for the six million additional Ontarians who will reside here in the next 20 years.

I thank the House for allowing me to explain the changes we are proposing for the Environmental Assessment Act as part of the Get It Done Act. I’m asking all members of the Legislature to support the bill to help infrastructure projects begin sooner to help build a stronger Ontario while maintaining strong environmental practices.