I have to say I’m disappointed to hear the member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell—the comment that you just made to this member, who does not do what you just said, ever. He comes to this House, and he presents an honest, true picture of what is going on in his riding. For you to question that is shameful. That’s on you.

My question to the MPP for Timiskaming–Cochrane, a well-respected member of this House: Why, fundamentally, do you think the government would throw down so hard for a for-profit, basically regulated monopoly when the evidence continues to pile up that people need to get off fossil gas, to get off methane gas? Why do you think they’re desperately hanging on to this when people in the province of Ontario need affordability and they need to face the fact that climate change is real? This strange weather that we’re having is not a coincidence. Why do you think this government is throwing down so hard on the side of a huge monopoly?

I would like to personally welcome one of our future legislators here from my riding of Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas: Araf Faruquzzaman.

Welcome to your House, and I certainly hope question period doesn’t scare you away.

I just want to, before I begin, acknowledge that February 28 is Pink Shirt Day, and you will notice my colleagues and members of the House are all wearing pink today. This is an important day to raise awareness for bullying with our kids and our children. At a time when one in five kids is affected by bullying and struggling with mental health, raising awareness by wearing pink shirts on one day will help all of us work to create safe environments, to create kind and inclusive environments for our kids and our youth in Ontario and across the world. They deserve that, absolutely, so thank you.

I also would like to acknowledge, as have other members in my caucus—the member from Oshawa and the member from Ottawa Centre, particularly, who spoke so eloquently in describing and acknowledging the passing of Ed Broadbent. He meant so much to us in this NDP family. He represented a lifelong commitment to social justice, to inclusion and just human decency, something we need more of.

I also wanted to talk about the fifth anniversary of the passing of another exemplary legislator, Dr. Richard Allen. Dr. Allen was elected as the NDP MPP for Hamilton West in 1982. He went on to serve in the 32nd, the 33rd, the 34th and the 35th Parliaments, and under Bob Rae, he served as a cabinet minister. I had the privilege of being the next NDP in the same riding, following along Dr. Richard Allen.

He was a remarkable historian; he was a fearless politician and universally described as a wise, caring, compassionate person. Richard was the son of a United Church minister, and this influenced his life’s work, which was dedicated to social justice. His first book was The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada. Richard described his belief that there is an essential connection between our faith and social action, and this was at the heart—the guiding principle in his political career. That is a tradition that goes back through the NDP to important CCF figures like J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas.

Richard was always a really busy guy, and he published his last book in his 90th year, just before his death. That book was entitled Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies: The Protestant Ethic and the Quest for Social Justice in Canada.

I was lucky to have had Dr. Allen as a mentor. When I was first elected, it was a difficult time, and I confided in Richard that I was feeling a little despondent in the changes that this government was making and my ability to help the people in my riding. So he sent me a note, and I think this is inspirational advice that we could all use. It comes from a script from John Wesley. I’ll just read it here: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” I want to thank you, Richard, for that piece of inspiration.

Now turning to the bill, Speaker, I just want to set the tone or the theme, if you will, the motif for my debate today on this bill, and I want to set it in the light of the Premier’s recent remarkable comments in this Legislature. They weren’t the comments about his political interference in the judicial system; those were remarkable enough. But these were the comments that he made in response to a question from our finance critic, the excellent MPP for Waterloo.

Interjection: All-star.

Did the Premier address any of MPP Fife’s concerns for the struggles of Ontarians? No, he did not. Instead, he told the Legislature that we need a lesson in marketing and sales. Imagine. And that’s when I really understood—that’s when the penny really dropped, Speaker—that this isn’t a Premier that wants to govern in the best interest of the people. He’s not governing; he’s selling.

I don’t know if anybody has seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. Has anyone seen that excellent movie? The line in that is, “Always be closing. A, B, C.” And I would say that is very telling of the pattern of this Premier.

This bill, the Get It Done Act, Bill 162, really is the Premier’s lesson to us in marketing and sales. It just exposes his modus operandi when it comes to addressing the people of the province of Ontario.

So is this a bill? It’s really, actually, a bill of goods. I mean, if I could rephrase it: The Premier is marketing, I would say, an empty promise and he hopes that the buyers of this empty promise will be all of us, the people of Ontario. But after what we’ve been through with this Premier—the greenbelt scandal, the land grab, the RCMP investigation—people don’t have faith in this government, so I’m pretty sure nobody is buying what he is selling with this bill.

Now I will admit—I don’t know; maybe I need a lesson in sales and marketing. I’m not quite that slick. But I don’t know, colleagues, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s a fantastic strategy to give bills titles that just beg to be mocked. I mean, you can’t help it. Let’s do it together: “Get ’er done.” We tried—

Interjections.

Let’s be clear that people see through this. They’re tired of the theatre. They’re tired of hearing sales pitches in the Legislature. They’re tired of the Premier actually just paraphrasing the ads that go on ad nauseam on our TV.

The media, they got into the fun. The Star said, “It’s not unreasonable to say that Ontarians might have gleaned a better understanding of the contents of this unholy mishmash had the province named it the crazy clown car act, or the empty political gestures act, or, as a political historian once joked, the poke the opposition in the eye act.

“In the era of constant campaigning, it appears governments now see even the simple act of titling bills as just another opportunity for partisan messaging.

“But there’s more to the matter than mere mischievous wordplay. At core in this bill, the Ford government is again flaunting its ... disregard for transparency and accountability.”

I can’t help but quote the TVO article that says, about this bill, “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. In the world we actually have, we can perhaps just pass it speedily and never speak of it again.”

So while this is kind of funny, I have to actually say that none of this is actually funny at all. It’s not funny. It’s deadly serious because people in the province of Ontario, as you all know, are struggling. We know. It seems to be that there’s a cone of silence on the other side. They don’t seem to understand that people can’t pay their bills, that people don’t have access to primary health care. People don’t have adequate housing. People are going to food banks to feed their children in this province. That’s what’s deadly serious in this province.

But what we see again and again is a PC government that only gets it done for their friends and their donors and their insiders. This continues to be an insiders-first agenda that we have seen from day one from this government. So, let’s just say, what can they get done? Well, they can get it done by overriding democracy, by stacking the courts with their like-minded politically appointed judges, but apparently they can’t fix the system that they’ve broken so that that it works for people seeking justice. They can get it done for a for-profit corporation, giving them a 99-year lease on Ontario Place public lands, destroying parkland, thousands of trees and natural habitat, and they can pony up millions of tax dollars for Therme’s luxury spa, but they can’t provide the taxpayers of the province of Ontario with the details of this sketchy deal.

They can get it done, as we are seeing over and over again, for private, for-profit health care operators by destroying our public health system in order to privatize it, but they can’t get it done for the 300,000 people who are currently waiting for a mammogram in Ontario that will give them the life-saving care that they need.

Who can this government get it done for? They can get it done for Enbridge. They can get it done for Staples. They can get it done for Walmart. They can get it done for Loblaws. Who have I missed, folks? They can get it done for Metrolinx.

Can they get it done for the people of Ontario? I would say, and this bill is proof positive, no, they can’t.

Exactly; exactly. I think that’s the point. Can they not get it done, or is it that they won’t get it done? That’s the question that rings through everyone’s head.

We saw it even this morning when we asked questions in the House this morning about appointing political insider ex-staffers and lobbyists of the Premier to a panel that would appoint judges. They’re clearly showing that they can get it done for lobbyists, but they can’t get it done for Ontarians who can’t afford a lobbyist or don’t have a million-dollar CEO or a $19-million CEO, in the case of Enbridge who seems to have unlimited opportunity to whisper in the Premier’s ear. As the member from Oshawa said, the real question is, is it that they can’t get it done for us or that they just won’t?

I contend, Speaker, that as we move through the schedules in this bill, you will see who this government is working for. It’s clear that this bill will lay out, in all its glory, again, the unfolding motivation of this government to get it done for their friends and for insiders.

Let’s start by turning to schedule 1 of the bill. I mean, it needs to be said that while this bill is mostly performative and doesn’t get much done, it certainly does have serious implications, particularly when it comes to the environment.

I just have to say, as the environment critic for the province of Ontario, oh, my God, the poor environment. It has been treated with such disregard by this government. The Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Bill of Rights—this bill has been prodded, poked, molested. It has been debased. There’s everything this government has done to make sure that the things that protect the environment and the laws that we have to protect the environment are toothless, if you will, despite the fact that this is a 50-year-old history, a proud history, of being one of the first in the country to have a bill and to have laws that protected the environment. This government seems really hell-bent on dismantling all of that.

And so we see here in schedule 1—I’ll just describe what schedule 1 does. It essentially amends the Environmental Assessment Act with the effect of confirming that expropriation may proceed prior to the completion of an environmental assessment. The minister is describing this as a minor tweak, a small thing, but I would argue that nothing about the way this government has moved when it comes to the environment is minor at all, particularly when we pretty much understand that this schedule—again, further watering down the Environmental Assessment Act—is most likely serving the Premier’s desire to ram through and bulldoze Highway 413.

In doing that, they are content to water down environmental protections and expropriate private land, without evidence that they need it, that it’s appropriate and how much they need. It’s kind of clear that this schedule in the bill is a way to legally prevent, I would say, landowners who aren’t in on the government’s plans to be able to hold on to their property.

Let’s just talk about the 413, because it’s heralded time and time again as something that is going to save time, when that is a debunked myth. We know that the 413 is only going to save 30 seconds, but it is a $10-billion—at a minimum—boondoggle that is going to be paid for by the taxpayers of the province of Ontario. And what will be at risk? Not only is it going to cost us tens of billions of dollars—and I’ll go on to say how it’s going to cost us important farmland in the province—let’s just say what Highway 413 plans to do. It’s going to pave over 2,000 acres of class 1 and class 2 farmland. It paves over 400 acres of protected green land. It crosses over 85 rivers, streams and wetlands. I would like to add that only 5% of Canada’s land mass is class 1, 2 and 3 farmland, and this highway severely impacts that.

The construction of the 413 and its maintenance will produce 113,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, at a time when we’re not meeting our targets and we’re going in the wrong direction when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change. This estimated cost to build the highway doesn’t take into account the estimated cost that it will cost almost $1.5 billion to address the health issues and the damage that Highway 413 will cost to local ecologies.

It has been said many times before in this House: Not only is this an ecological disaster, it’s most likely going to be a financial disaster that this government won’t pay for, but the people and the taxpayers of the province will pay for, for years to come.

I think it’s shocking when I hear the Minister of the Environment describe the changes to environmental assessment as minor. When this government talks about modernizing and streamlining, does that give anybody confidence in this House? Because when you hear that, you know that they’re doing this not in the interests of us, but in the interests of who they work for.

And so I really want to say that it was shocking to hear the minister, in the Legislature the other day, in her question-and-answer. The member from Newmarket–Aurora said, “Thank you to the minister for her response. It is great to see our government bring forward changes that will protect world-class environmental standards while helping get shovels in the ground”—is there anybody left in the province of Ontario, except on the other side, who thinks that we have world-class environmental standards anymore? We used to, but now, those have been—there’s been a fire sale on the things that we cherish so much in this province.

She went on to say, “Can the minister please elaborate on how our government is protecting strong environmental oversight and making it faster to build in Ontario?” Does that seem like—what is that expression? The Progressive Conservative, the forward-backward—what is that expression? Really, you’re going to protect strong oversight and make it faster to build in the greenbelt? That’s just ironic, I guess, is the word I’m looking for.

Yes. I’m not going to sing today.

The Minister of the Environment went on to say, “Such projects as highways, railways and transmission lines ... are going to be subject to streamlined assessments. These will allow us to focus our resources on projects that have a greater potential for environmental impact.”

Honestly, when I hear this, I think, “What could have greater environmental impact than a highway through the greenbelt?” But apparently, according to this government, this is a low-risk project. We can streamline. We can water down the environmental protections to make this happen. Again, I would remind you that this government keeps talking about spending $98 billion on highways and infrastructure. At the same time, they are dismantling any protections for the environment. So I don’t take anything that this Minister of the Environment says at face value, and I don’t think the people of the province of Ontario do anymore at all.

As I said, not only does this schedule continue its assault on environmental protections in the province; it makes it easier, it’s designed to prevent landowners who aren’t in on the Highway 413 scheme—you know, those people, private landowners that aren’t developers and connected donors of the Premier. It’s designed to prevent them from legally challenging the seizure of this land. We know the government is moving quickly to destroy habitats, waterways, I guess Indigenous sites also, but this bill very specifically targets individual landowners along that route. So, what I want to focus on is who would be some of those landowners connected to the loss of farmland in this province?

The people that are most upset and concerned about this schedule are farmers—farmers that farm on the greenbelt, that are along the proposed route of the 413. They know what’s up. They can see the writing on the wall. This government is getting ready to seize their farms, to pave, to build a highway, to perhaps have an ONroute, to put a Walmart or a Staples on land that used to grow vegetables in the province of Ontario. Farmers know what the score is.

There was an Ontario farmer that says “he fears he could lose his family farm if the Doug Ford government goes forward with the proposal to build Highway 413, which would cut through ... a quarter of his land.”

He’s saying that it doesn’t “sound like a huge amount to a lot of people. It’s only 25%, but a lot of the margins for grain growing are really slim.” The 25% he’s prepared to lose will make it impossible for him to grow because it will bisect his property.

Farmers are now fighting back. They have an ad campaign that says, “Farmers against the 413.”

They advocate that “the money earmarked for the highway”—this billions of dollars—“could instead be used to preserve farmland, adopt climate change strategies, and improve rail and public transportation.”

Well, there’s an idea. Rather than pave over our food source, rather than ruin our environment and spend billions to do it, why wouldn’t you use that money to come up with climate change strategy or improve public transportation? There’s an idea.

The David Suzuki Foundation’s Gideon Forman said, “The research we’ve looked at suggests that thousands of acres of prime ... farmland will be paved by this highway.” That estimate is growing.

I think that it’s really important to know that, given the information and the research that’s coming out, these farmers believe that there’s absolutely no good reason for Highway 413 to go forward. It’s a bankrupt notion. It continues to be debunked. It doesn’t save the time in travel that they purport. They talk about a single mom who can get home faster to their family, but I put it to you that that single mom is going to have to be working longer hours to pay her taxes that are going to be the financial impact of this boondoggle that this government is putting forward. So don’t pretend to me that you’re on the side of a single mom trying to get home to her family when none of your policies have shown that that’s anything that’s in your plans or that is in your realm of concern.

I also want to say that I had the pleasure of meeting with farmers in my riding, the Loewith family. They have a farm called the Summit Station Dairy farm. They really spent time with me to explain how important it is not only to protect farmland but to understand that if you bisect farm land, if you make it impossible for large farm equipment to move around, you really are reducing their ability to have productive land.

If you’re ever in the neighbourhood, I highly suggest you visit Summit Station Dairy. They’ve been in business for 75 years. In 1947, Joe Loewith purchased 100 acres, and it was known as “Summit” because it was the highest point along the railway line between the cities of Brantford and Hamilton. They started with 15 cows, and now they have a fully fledged operation, and they, since then, have spent much money in a streamlined and modernized operation.

They also have a really, really lovely storefront where you can buy milk right off the farm. They have strawberry milk, chocolate milk. They’re working on a coffee-flavoured milk. This is the kind of product and this is the kind of thing that we should be proud of, this kind of homegrown, generational family farm that this government is putting at significant risk to build a highway that benefits simply their friends.

While we’ll talk more about highways when we get to the notion of taking tolls or taking phantom tolls off phantom highways, I think we just need to understand that this government will move heaven and earth to get things out of the way. We hear the Minister of Housing say, “We’re going to get all the obstacles out of the way to build housing. Nothing’s going to stop us.” And this bill, this actual schedule in this bill, says yes, nothing’s going to stop them: not farmers who want to preserve their land, not expropriations of land when people don’t want to sell it, not loss of farmland. And I’m here to say what’s also not going to stop them is, again, the environment.

I just want to talk a little bit about a fish, a minnow, because it’s sort of—

Interjection.

This fish, even though it’s little, plays a significant role in the ecosystem. They are very sensitive to changes in environment like those wrought by the climate crisis or urban development. For that reason, they’re seen as indicators of larger problems in a watershed. If they start dying, it’s a sign that other species might soon be in trouble, too.

The Ontario government’s last assessment of the species in 2020 concluded it was at imminent risk of being wiped out in the province. That wasn’t good enough. The government now has taken the time to remove this little fish from the Species at Risk Act because, again, they do not want anything to get in their way of building this Highway 413. In fact, I would say that if they could actually expropriate this little fish’s waterways, they would do that. But instead, what they’re going to do is make sure that it is not protected so that they do not have to take that into consideration when they bulldoze, pave and otherwise destroy the habitat of this little fish. And that’s just one little fish. There are so many species at risk along that route.

It’s shameful to preside in a Legislature where the government will allow our species at risk to die off; that, by their actions, we will see more of the things that we cherish when it comes to our biodiversity and natural spaces—the government doesn’t care. They truly don’t care.

The species at risk—exactly. They need a lobbyist, or they need a $19-million-a-year CEO to whisper in the ear of the Premier to say, “Move the highway somewhere else,” because we know the route got moved. We don’t know why. My suggestion is that somebody else made a little whisper in the Premier’s ear about why they moved the route of the highway. It would be nice if they could move the route of the highway to protect this little minnow fish, but I don’t think that’s happening.

Interjection.

I think, also, that it’s really shocking to see this government that talks about that they’re for the people, that they don’t want to interfere, that they are supposed to be not about big government—but this is a government that is nothing but about heavy-handed, big-footed actions on the part of the government. They consolidate power in the Premier’s office. They give a minister, one minister, the power to issue MZOs, despite the mess that they got themselves in with MZOs.

Interjection: Two ministers.

I would just like to read what the Regional Chief Glen Hare had to say about this. He said, “We don’t have that word, expropriation [in Anishnaabemowin]. It’s time for these elected leaders, the ones we put into office to stop flying around on their jets while people, we are dying in this place, from drugs, from suicide, from unclean water. And these are issues that are affecting people no matter the colour of their skin. It’s time for Indigenous leadership to be respected.”

I just find it so heartwarming—the concept of expropriating land is something that’s not in their culture. But at the same time, they had to face, every day, a government who’s prepared to bulldoze over their land and their rights, who’s prepared to bulldoze over their traditional territory, and certainly is not prepared to engage in meaningful consultation when it comes to such important things as the loss of lands that are important to them.

Now, again, this “Get ’er done” bill—

Schedule 3 of this bill should have a particular title, which should be the official flip-flop schedule in the bill, because it talks specifically about, yet again, this government’s meddling in official plans of regions and municipalities across the province. This is the third kick at the can in two years for this government when it comes to meddling with regional and official plans.

Bear with me here. So the government forced urban boundary expansions on municipalities and regions that they didn’t want. They issued MZOs that, including the urban boundary expansions—this is all part of the greenbelt scandal—were seen to have been given preferential treatment that came directly from lobbyists into the minister’s official plans, and we know that resulted in what? It was described by the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner as what can only be described as a corrupted, unfair process. It gave preferential treatment to insiders. It led to an RCMP investigation and so, really, this whole thing was a mess. You would think that this minister and this government wouldn’t want to kick this hornet’s nest again, but no, here they are.

This schedule is reversing reversals from a previous reversal to regions’ official plans. Confused yet?

Interjection.

The minister himself, I would say, inherited this mess, if I could be so bold to say that, and the minister was really clear that this process was less than adequate. In fact, at the time it’s reported that municipal Progressive Conservatives told the Star that Calandra was taken aback by the mess he has inherited. Calandra also said that when “reviewing how decisions were made regarding official plans, it is ... clear that they failed to meet this test.” And that’s the test of appropriate procedure—

The minister is quoted as having said he has been “reviewing past decisions of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to ensure they were made in a ‘manner that maintains and reinforces public trust.’

“He said ’it is clear’ the changes made to urban boundaries ‘failed to meet that test.’” And there was “‘too much involvement from the minister’s office, too much involvement from individuals in the minister’s office’ in those decisions.”

I would say that what we have here with schedule 3, when we’re talking about the official amendment act or the official amendment flip-flop act, we’re doing the same thing all over again. I mean, it’s not clear where these requests to reinstate changes that were removed—where did these requests come from? There’s no clear evidence that we know where they came from. It’s been said that they came at a request of municipalities. Did they write a letter? Did they make a phone call? Did they have any kind of municipal process that made clear that this pushback was something that wasn’t just a mayor of a lower-tier municipality getting on the phone to the Premier?

I say we have not learned our lesson. We’re still making changes to official plans or reinstating changes to official plans that were based on a flawed—which is an understatement—process in the first place. Have we learned nothing? We’ve learned, but has this government learned nothing? I would suggest what they have learned is basically not to get caught, to do it in a more oblique way than they have been doing it in the past.

The Trillium reported that this Get It Done Act to rezone land was requested by PC donors, but we don’t know who made these requests. We don’t know where this information is coming from.

Again, who is this government getting it done for? Is it municipalities? Is it lower-tier municipalities? Is it regions? I would suggest that, given the significant impact this has on our regions and the regions’ ability to get on with it—I mean, they’re confused. They keep getting conflicted messages and provincial planning in this province is an absolute mess, and it’s a mess because of your government’s bungling and constant interference. So I will just say that all across the province this is the case, but I want to talk about Waterloo because by all standards, Waterloo is exemplary community when it comes to planning.

But a constituent had this to say, and it’s long so I’ll read it quickly: “It’s all red flags. Every red arrow is problematic. How the province can force open and destroy thousands of acres of farmland without any data, rationale, or justification when the region has spent five years and million of dollars on planning, land needs assessment studies, consultant reports and come up with a plan so broadly endorsed by our community of municipalities, passing almost unanimously with none of these additional lands is astounding.”

It goes on to say, “Both Waterloo region and Halton region are being decimated by the province here and our official plans are destroyed.” And I mean, honestly, that’s so much time and so much money, the resources, the effort, the lost opportunity, all because this government cannot get it right, can’t help themselves from meddling on behalf of Mr. X and third parties.

I miss Mr. X. Do we all miss Mr. X a little bit? Have we forgotten about him?

Yes, I miss him. Come on, bring him back.

So don’t be fooled, right? Back to what I said about what this government is peddling: Don’t be fooled by the tag line. Don’t be fooled by the marketing. These changes? They’re not minor. These are major changes that this government is making, and they’re going to have significant impact on regions and planning and our ability to build housing.

We know we need housing, 1.5 million homes. Where are those homes? How are regions and municipalities supposed to build those homes when their official plans have holes in them, are riddled and are a mess because of this government?

I heard the Minister of the Environment say that six million people are going to be coming to Ontario. Well, you don’t even have homes for 1.5 million. So stop with this interference. Stop with this working for insiders, and actually make good science-based, evidence-based decisions when it comes to planning in the province of Ontario. It’s really way past time.

Okay, now, this is—I see, sadly, I’m having more fun than I thought I would.

Interjection.

So I just have to say, news flash to the government, news flash to the people of the province of Ontario: This government has a carbon tax, and I don’t remember a referendum. Do you remember having been asked what we should do? Why does this government have a referendum? I really don’t understand why this government would be braying about a referendum when it just points out to the fact that they have already a carbon tax in this province.

Let’s go back, shall we. Ontarians were exempt from paying the federal levy until this Premier cancelled the previous cap-and-trade alliance that we had with Quebec and California. That cost us $2 billion annually, and I have heard that we still owe California money, that they still want us to pay up.

So cancelling that cap-and-trade cost us $2 billion annually. That’s money right out of the coffers, right out of the Treasury Board at a time when this government is running a record debt and deficit. This government is in more debt than any province in Canada with the exception of Newfoundland. You could have used that $2 billion not only to address climate change, but to pay for nurses, to pay for health care. That would have been some good money that we could use.

Just like the Premier advises that we need some sales and marketing lessons, I agree that part of sales and marketing is caveat emptor, buyer beware. And I can’t think of a more appropriate clause that this government has said that they’re going to introduce a carbon tax referendum that, number one, won’t bind any future government at all. It’s just completely performative. And the second part of all this is that this government—like any sales pitch, you have to read the fine print, like those drug ads when you have to listen to the disclaimers that they read really quickly. The fast-talking fine print in those ads is so that advertisers don’t run afoul of false advertising laws.

I would say that the biggest disclaimer that’s not mentioned in this schedule is that the PC government already has a carbon tax in Ontario. They launched a new carbon-pricing system on January 1, 2020—

I think it’s also really interesting to note that in committee, one of the members—

They cost money, and the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston agreed in committee. He said, “The government is made up of elected officials. They’re elected to make decisions on behalf and in the best interest of the public. Referendums”—sic—“cost money.... That’s why we have debates. That’s why we have committees. That’s why we have debates within the chamber.” Shockingly, I can’t imagine that I agree with the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, but apparently he’s at odds with what his Premier thinks is important for us to do in the province.

I can see that I’m running out of time, Speaker. I think that I’m going to just cut to the most ludicrous of all, if I have to say; the most—how do I want to say it?—Orwellian schedule. The title of the schedule is Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act. Have I got that right?

So we have this asset. We have it here. Take the tolls off it. Certainly you could take the tolls off for truckers, so that that would relieve congestion and make roads safer for the people of the province, and perhaps you don’t need to build your Highway 413, that big boondoggle that’s going to cut through the greenbelt.

Now, in addition, why is this government so beholden to this—let’s be clear: You have the power to take the tolls off the part that we still own; the part that you didn’t sell, that the people of the province, the taxpayers, paid for, that you sold. You have the power to do that, but you’re just refusing to do that. You’re refusing to do that. Also, we saw an instance where this government forgave—was it a billion dollars? And was it twice? I think it was a billion dollars twice. They forgave this for-profit corporation a billion dollars in penalties.

Congestion penalties—which basically means because this highway was so underutilized, based on the contract, they were required to pay a penalty of a billion dollars, and that was forgiven. Like, “Oh, don’t worry; a billion bucks between friends. What’s the deal? Buy you a coffee. That should settle it, right?” And so—

If you took the tolls off Highway 407, you would not need to burden the taxpayers with your giant boondoggle of a highway, and you would remove gridlock on the 400 series that you’re talking about. The evidence is quite clear. The evidence is in that—actually, there’s good consultants that provided really extensive reports, consultants that were contracted by this government that said, “You want to solve congestion? You don’t need to build another highway. You need to take a serious look at the 407,” because that is a way—particularly for drivers in Brampton, who do deserve faster and cheaper commutes, 100%. But you could do it. You could do it. You could reduce gridlock. You could ease commute times. And you could save taxpayers all kinds of money.

So having this schedule that says you’re going to remove tolls on highways but not on the Highway 407, I have to say, people don’t even need to read the fine print to see what a hollow promise this is. People that don’t even pay attention to politics—God love them—they just hear this and they know that it’s complete bunk. They know it. I don’t know who this government thinks that they’re fooling, but they’re not fooling the people of the province of Ontario when it comes to their Highway 407.

Let me spend the time that I have left talking about why this bill—not only is it a failure to meet the moment, not only does it not address the critical concerns that people are facing in the province, it’s like an out-and-out insult. Do you think the people of the province of Ontario are buying what you’re selling anymore? I say they do not buy it. They’re not buying it. They know what you’re up to. They’ve seen it time and time again. And they’re all waiting with bated breath to see what the RCMP investigation will reveal. Because I think that the investigation will just confirm the baked-in belief, the baked-in conviction that Ontarians have that this government is not working for them. This government is working for insiders. This government is working for their donors. This government is driven by profit, not what’s in the public interest, what’s in the best interest of the people of the province of Ontario. There have been so many troubling things that have happened under this government’s watch, but even particularly just in the last session, in the last few months.

I want to start by saying I am shocked that this government has not learned from the greenbelt scandal, has not learned from an RCMP investigation and hasn’t learned from the fact that the people of the province of Ontario don’t any longer take what you say at face value. My suggestion is, it’s not that you haven’t learned—or it’s not that you feel that you actually are a government that’s supposed to be looking out for the people of the province of Ontario. It’s not that you’ve learned that the people of the province of Ontario cherish the greenbelt. It’s not that you learned that a loss to our environment is not only a loss for the future generations and our responsibility to steward the province—it’s not only those two losses, but it’s a loss, a substantial loss, in people’s faith and trust in this government.

I don’t believe that you’ve learned that. I think what you have learned is that you’re just going to go at it another way. You’re just going to come in the back door with these cute, clever bills that still get the same thing done. You’ve masked them. The cover story is, “These are going to save people in the province of Ontario money,” but the fact of the matter is that there’s more to lose here than what you ever are going to give them by saving them $7 every six months on a licence fee. It’s not a lot.

I sit here a lot, and I happened to notice this carving right above my head. It’s Latin, and it’s “gubernatio bona fructumparit.” I looked it up, and it means, “Good government bears fruit.” But what I have to say, and I don’t mean to be funny, is that this government’s actions have been fruitless for the people of Ontario who need your help. Let’s just start with the fact that you have wasted so much time in this House—staff time; taxpayer dollars—putting forward half-baked bills, putting forward bills that have to be rescinded because they don’t rise to the level of integrity and honesty that the bills in the province of Ontario should.

It used to be that bills and statutes in the province garnered a certain level of respect; that you would be very careful before you threw them out there; that it would reflect on your government as a government, as we say, that knows how to govern wisely and well. But instead, we’ve seen a government that has flip-flopped and has had to rescind and repeal so much legislation.

In fact, we’ve estimated that this government has spent a total of about 19 days and counting—because we’re still working on this bill that is just a rescindment of bills—undoing things that you put forward. You had to withdraw Bill 124. You had to reverse the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, like Bill 150 and Bill 136, which were the reversal of the greenbelt grab and the reversal of the urban boundary expansion, which was greenbelt grab number two. We spent time debating them, but not as much time as we should have because you used your time allocation, which means you rammed it through. Shockingly, on Bill 150, people weren’t even allowed to come to depute on that.

So we are now here again with another bill reversing the changes that you had to reverse. Basically, my head boggles, but you’re wasting time with your incompetent, poorly thought-out bills that are not intended to do what they say they’re intended to do. They have some other purpose and people see through that.

Let me just close by saying that this House has been seized for hours and hours with these reversals at a time, as we have said—as we’ve all been saying—when the people need your help and they need your help urgently. Instead, what do we see? We see a minister who spends time closing ServiceOntario centres where people access the things that they need—which are small businesses—unilaterally, without notice, closing those and giving those contracts to Walmart and Staples. And if that wasn’t enough, these small business owners that spent their own money to renovate their storefronts did it on their own dime; Walmart and Staples are getting their spaces renovated on your dime, on your tax dollars’ dime.

I also want to say that this government’s move to stack the courts is completely chilling and shocking. I mean, the Premier said he’s quadrupling down on this. Appointments for insiders and friends and an RCMP investigation aren’t enough; he says they want to appoint “like-minded judges.” But what we want is fair-minded judges. Isn’t that what we want? Don’t we want a justice system that delivers impartial justice?

Again, this government is eroding any trust that the people in the province of Ontario have in systems that they used to be able to count on. There is nothing that this government won’t meddle with. There is no level of respect for fundamental law and order, for justice in this province. You see it all as a sales and marketing job. It’s all just sales and marketing, that the Premier, to get re-elected, would talk about the courts like it’s just another way for him to build his popularity, when it should be about a fundamental commitment to justice in this province.

I just want to close by saying this government—a quote by Margaret Atwood, who said, “Here comes tyranny: Rubber stamping judges are a litmus test for #Totalitarianism.” And Margaret Atwood is the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is about a totalitarian state. So when an international icon of Canadian literature like Margaret Atwood calls this government totalitarian, you can believe other people think that, too.

I feel like this is this Bizarro World, because that’s a question I’d like to ask you. Do you feel it’s appropriate that the people of the province of Ontario have to pay tolls on a highway, the 407, that they already paid for with their taxpayer dollars? The Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris sold it for a song, and now they have to dig into their pockets to pay. They paid once, they paid twice, and they continue to pay.

So absolutely, if you want to help people to be able to afford groceries, take the tolls off the highway. Take the tolls off the highway. If you want to expropriate farms, expropriate the 407 back. That’s what I suggest to you.

But the whole point of this is that you cannot have a referendum that binds future governments. All they will do is undo it with legislation, so it’s completely performative. It’s completely performative. It is a sales and marketing pitch, a ploy that is perfectly fitting for a Premier who sees this province as something that is all about selling and profiting.

This complete gimmick of a referendum that not only will cost taxpayers untold tens of millions of dollars to hold—a member of the PC Party spoke against referendums, and what will it accomplish? Nothing, so stop wasting our time, the people of the province of Ontario’s time, with these performative bills that John Michael McGrath said are nothing more than the power of a “damp Kleenex.”

So, yes, I have learned from this government that they seem to have no compunction to charge Ontarians, to increase taxes and to take away people’s entitlements, all at the expense of your insiders, your donors and your corporate lobbyists.