You hear the member for Kingston and the Islands: “I got elected”—as independent members. They are not a party. But the arrogance of the Liberals to suggest that the votes of the province of Ontario were wrong not only in 2018 but in 2022 and that we should forget about the verdict of the people of the province of Ontario and restore them to a party in this Legislature—that is the arrogance of the current Liberal Party. I wish you could say it was the current Liberal Party, because that is typical Liberal Party arrogance.

But despite that arrogance, we provided a motion: changes to the standing orders that provided time allowing independents to reply to opposition day motions, because before we came here, independents could not reply to opposition day motions. They hum and holler, but who gave them that opportunity? This government gave them that opportunity. Who didn’t give independents that opportunity? It was 15 years of Liberals, who never ever once thought that independents should have a voice in this place. They’re going to hum and holler and scream, “Oh, you’re taking our rights away,” but, systemically, we’ve given it back. Will the Liberals or the NDP take that away? I hope not and I highly doubt it.

We allowed for members to co-sponsor private members’ bills by up to four members, including members belonging to the same party. How often have we brought private members’ bills to this place where more members wanted to participate, to bring cross-party unity, to bring members of a caucus who have worked on something? We allowed that to happen. Will the opposition take that away? I highly doubt that they will. But do they hum, holler and scream at these standing order changes? Absolutely. They will take none of it away but, I guarantee you, they’ll hum and they’ll holler.

We allowed debate of the same bill in the one-hour morning and afternoon sessions of the Legislature, so that we can more effectively use the Legislature’s time and give more opportunity for members to participate.

We permitted the temporary committee substitutions for afternoon sessions of the committee with at least 30 minutes’ notice, and we’ll have more on that in these standing order changes.

We established time for questions and answers following each speech given during debate on government bills, replacing the two-minute comments. Now, Madam Speaker, you will not remember this, but when bills happened in the place, members actually didn’t debate—so a debating chamber that had no debate. You gave a little speech about your bill or government legislation, you’d get up for two minutes, and then you would sit down, but there was no debate back and forth. That’s a hallmark of the Liberals, right? Because the Liberals don’t like debate, so why should we have debate in the chamber? So it’s clear to me that if they ever got the opportunity, they would take this away, because for 15 years, they didn’t put it in.

I know my colleagues in the NDP actually like debate. We debate quite a bit on policy. We have disagreements on things. We have vigorous debate back and forth. But for 15 years the Liberals thought it best not to engage in debate back and forth, because for 15 years they systematically destroyed the province of Ontario. So why let members debate what it is that they were doing? “Let’s crush that. Let’s crush the representation in the Legislative Assembly.” That was a hallmark of 15 years of Liberal rule, and we decided in 2018, starting with the changes in 2019, that we were not going to have that, that a flourishing democracy in the 21st century needed to have—go figure—debate in the House on the bills, and that that was good for democracy.

The Liberals will take that away. I’m hopeful that the NDP won’t, but we’ll see.

Interjection.

We’re permitting temporary committee substitution in the afternoon sessions, with at least 30 minutes’ notice.

We established time for questions and answers, as I said—we’ve done that. This was in our first standing order changes back in 2019. I don’t recall how people voted on that, so I’m not going to suggest whether they voted yes, but I do remember the speeches. Everybody was dead set against it. Oh, my God. The world was going to fall apart if we made these changes. If we allowed debate to happen in this place, the world was going to fall apart. So I hope we’ll hear from the opposition, in particular the Liberals, who I know are going to get up on their feet today and hum and holler because they don’t like debate in this place. Which one of these from 2019 will they take away if they ever got the opportunity? Which one will they take away?

In the fall of 2020, a whole host of additional changes, Madam Speaker—frankly, I knew as far back as 2020 that the people would return us with an even larger majority in 2022, so we started on making even more changes to increase the ability for members to participate and for democratic reform. What did we do? We enhanced the focus of private members’ business by considering one item per day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I remember the hollers on this. “Holy mackerel, if you focus on one private member’s bill a day, what’s going to happen? How am I going to bring my people? We should do it on Thursday.” Thursday afternoon, when the House is empty, is when we used to do private members’ business here. Thursday afternoon between 1 and 4, we would stuff three private members’ bills into one day and then that would be the end of it, right? That, I didn’t believe was a good focus for private members’ business. So what did we do? We made it once a day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so that a PMB can be the focus of everybody’s attention on that day.

And then—well, I’ll get to that; well, I’ll get to it right now, because we’re talking about PMBs—we said the vote had to be deferred. You’ve got to be able to vote on a PMB, not just a few people but everybody. If you’re bringing a private member’s bill here to this House, then all members should have the right to vote on that bill, so, while you debate it one night, after question period the next day, the entire House is here and you vote on that PMB. You stand in your place and you be counted—a change that we made and brought to this place, and I think it is a change that has worked very well in ensuring that private members’ business is elevated in this place. Will the opposition take that away? I’m hoping to hear in some of their remarks if they will take that change away. I’m particularly interested in the member for Kingston and the Islands, who’s humming and hollering, because you know where I got that standing order from? The federal Parliament, where we both served. He was very silent there with respect to some of the private members’ business. So we’ll see if he’s still feisty about the changes.

I already talked about how we’d defer private members’ votes so that all members can have the opportunity to speak. Again, I think that is one of the better changes. I have to say, the PMBs happening on a daily basis so there’s one focus with a deferred vote where all members are held accountable, I think, is one of the better changes that we made.

We also changed debate time, making debate time more equitable by adjusting the length of questions and answers to five minutes for any speeches shorter than 10 minutes. I think all colleagues will understand and remember why we did that.

Allowing more debate time on legislation by extending the sitting day if the afternoon routine lasts longer than 60 minutes. That’s a very technical one—extending the day if routine proceedings go more than 60 minutes. What does that mean? That means that if for some reason there are obstacles or something happens in the daily routine, as opposed to reducing the amount of time that members have to debate something, we’ll actually extend the day so that we can continue on the process of debating very important bills. We know the Liberals will probably want to take it away, because they’re never really here past 5 o’clock anyway, so they’ll probably take that away anyway. I challenge more than one of them to stand up and disagree with me on that right now. I doubt that they will.

We established a take-note debate. We created the provisions for a take-note debate—this was in the fall of 2022—allowing the debates to take place after the House would normally adjourn so that we are not impacting House business. This is something that we never had before in this place, a take-note debate. We have utilized it in the last Parliament on a couple of very, very important issues. It allows members to speak freely on issues of the day that are very, very important. We’ve used it on a couple of occasions in this place. I think there were very successful debates that highlighted important causes for members. I then again ask, is that something that will be taken away in the standing order change? Those colleagues who were here in the last Parliament will recall the humming and hollering on that provision.

We allowed deferral of closure votes so that the schedule of the House could be more predictable and so that more members can have the opportunity to vote, which I thought was really good.

Something that we created, Madam Speaker, another exciting provision: We created more opportunity for debate in the Legislature by adding a 30-minute report stage when a bill is reported back from committee. What does that mean? Why would any government that has passed a bill add a provision in the standing orders that allows for more debate on a bill that just came out of committee? Why would any sane government with a massive majority, both in the last Parliament and in this Parliament, add this provision? Why did we add the provision? Because it would allow the independents, who don’t necessarily serve on a committee, to have a debate and talk about the issues that they were not able to participate in a committee on and raise that here in the House.

How many times, colleagues, have the independents risen in their place to take advantage of this important provision in the standing orders—10, 20, 30? We’ve had hundreds of bills—zero. In fact, the only ones that have triggered that have been us, to give them more opportunities in the last Parliament to debate something that the member from the Green Party, if I’m not mistaken, wanted more opportunity to debate.

So while they hum and they holler and they scream and say, “We don’t get enough time. You’ve got to give us more time,” when you give them more time, do they use it? No, because for them it is all about show, no substance. It’s all about convincing the people of the province of Ontario that the people are wrong and that the Liberals are right. The people are wrong, and the Liberals are right. They should be a party because—you know what—the people were wrong; they were wrong, and they should be a party.

I’ve got something here from—in fact, I think this quote says it best. I’ll get to this quote again later because I think it’s important—the Liberal House leader: “Worst of all, these changes were put forward without consultation at all with the independent members”—I mean, it’s tabled; we’re debating it, and they have a right to vote on it, but I digress. “The independent members represent more than 1.8 million people.”

I get elected in my riding. I feel I represent 125,000 people. I’m not arrogant enough to assume that because I was elected in the government I represent 16 million people, like the Liberals do. That small grouping of seven, eight—whatever it is—they, like any other member here, represent everybody. We represent the people in our riding, in our constituency, and we do it very, very effectively. I would suggest that most members in this place do it very effectively, but the difference between Liberals and NDP and Conservatives, frankly, is that we don’t bring an arrogance to Parliament that they do. We don’t bring an arrogance to Parliament that they do because we are strong believers in this place. I’m a very strong believer in how this place works.

We went even further. We actually gave the independents and the opposition more opportunities to ask questions in question period. That is something that we did. We allowed more questions for them to hold the government accountable. Guess who did that? We did that. That’s right; we did that.

We closed an additional loophole that would allow a bill to be debated in the morning, afternoon and the night sitting. It was a loophole that existed. We eliminated that loophole so that there could not be a bill rushed through this Parliament without due debate time. And, of course, we made a number of minor amendments as well, back in 2020.

Colleagues will remember the outrage at these changes—two packages of changes—outrage at both of them. But I challenge the members opposite: Which one of those changes are you going take away? I challenge them very, very clearly. As you’re debating this, stand and let us know which one of the other ones you are going to take away. Which one of the very reasonable measures are they going to take away? Because I think that is very, very important for people to know.

We eliminated deferral slips in 2021 for all recorded division. You’ll remember, Madam Speaker—or you won’t, Madam Speaker, but when you went to defer a vote, you had to come out with a deferral slip and go up and defer. It’s now automatic because we think people should have the opportunity to vote and their vote should be counted. So deferral slips are automatic.

We allowed committees to recall themselves when the House stands adjourned. Again, what government with a massive majority would then write into the standing orders that committees, which I believe are one of the most important parts of this place, could recall themselves even when the House was adjourned? You would think that that should have just been in there, but it wasn’t. And do you know why it wasn’t? Because for 15 years, that group, which is now a group of independents, treated this place as an afterthought. They didn’t want debate, neither in the House or in committee. We made the change so that the committees could work stronger and more effectively and so that they could be recalled even when the House was in adjournment.

Madam Speaker, you will remember this change—and I will say the opposition NDP were upset with this change, and I still, to this day, don’t get it: We instituted bipartisan leadership on committees by requiring that Vice-Chairs of committees be elected from a party other than the party from which the Chair of a committee is elected. You remember this one, right? We thought that maybe the roles should be shared—it shouldn’t just be a government Chair or government Vice-Chair—so we decided, “Let’s allow the opposition to be Vice-Chairs of committees or Chairs of committees.” And we would split—so we had to force them. And then I was actually accused of being too bipartisan. Do you remember that? Colleagues, you were here the last time. I was accused by the then opposition House leader, who’s now the whip, of being too bipartisan; I was working too closely and too collaboratively, and it had to stop. The speeches on that—“My gosh, this guy is working too much with us. He has to stop. We don’t want to be Vice-Chairs of committees. We don’t want to be Chairs of committees. Stop it.” I didn’t know what to say about that. I have never been accused of being too bipartisan. Maybe I work too closely with the opposition; maybe I take that on myself, colleagues. Working together is something that I like to do. Forcing the members to be Vice-Chairs or Chairs of committees—I was very happy about it. I think it works out very well. I think it is something that is long overdue, frankly. And I tend to believe now that upon reflection, my good friends in the opposition actually enjoy this and think that this is a good change to the standing orders.

Here’s the other thing: Right now, on two of our committees, we have independents who are Vice-Chairs. We have the—I’m not sure what his title is, to be honest with you. He sits on the front bench there for the Liberals. He’s their leader in the House but not their House leader. They’ve managed to double up positions with a caucus of eight people. They’ve red-taped themselves to death. They’ve doubled themselves up. He serves as a Vice-Chair. The leader of the Green Party serves as a Vice-Chair of another committee. I challenge anyone to find for me in any Western parliamentary democracy where independents serve as Vice-Chairs of committees. This change allowed that to happen. I wonder if they’ll take that change away, colleagues. But they’re going to holler about it and scream about it.

In fact, we went even a step further in this Parliament. Not only do we have two independent member Vice-Chairs, we actually have an independent member who serves as one of the deputy Speakers of this Legislative Assembly. I challenge any member—I challenge the Liberal members, any one of the six or seven or eight of them, whatever it is—to stand in their place and tell me, in any other Western parliamentary democracy, where that has happened. I guarantee you they will not find that.

How does that happen, Madam Speaker? You will know that the Legislature votes on the Speaker, but how do the rest of them—how do you and the other Speakers? It is via a motion from the government. The government puts a motion forward that is debated and voted on, setting the officers below the Speaker. It is not any other fashion; it is the government that brings that forward.

It is this government that put an independent member in the Chair as a Speaker. It is this government that allowed independents to serve as Vice-Chairs of committees. It is this government that allowed independent members to have a voice in question period. This is the government that gave up our questions so that they could ask a question or two, unlike any other parliamentary democracy.

These are the changes that we have made so far. It is this government that has allowed this place to be a chamber that actually debates bills. It is this government that has systematically, since 2020, been making changes to improve how this place works.

Now, let me go on to some of the changes that we’re talking about now. I’m just only going to be brief on this one, because I don’t want to conflate it in what we did. Let me just say, I think yesterday we had a very historic day in this place. We made changes that allow Indigenous languages to be automatically recognized in this place. I think all members were unified in their support of that. I don’t want to say any more than that, but that was a change that was long overdue. It’s very, very important. I think all members will agree with that. Very clearly, we separated it out, because we didn’t want it to be the focus of what could be differences on this. But I thank all members for that, something that was probably—not probably—something that was very, very, very long overdue and, again, that we worked together on.

The other changes that we’re bringing forward: We’re permitting any parliamentary assistant to answer a late show question. For those who don’t know what a late show is, if somebody answers a question and a member doesn’t like it, they can ask for further debate in the evening. This is something that we had done in the last Parliament. The parliamentary assistant would be able to participate in the rebuttal and the reply. It worked very well, so we’re just bringing it back.

The next one that we’re doing—I’ll acknowledge this a bit: We are extending the five minutes for reply to a ministerial statement to eight minutes and allowing independent members to use any time of the House as a group. Right now, in a ministerial statement—and I acknowledge that before the House left, I refused consent to allow the independent members to speak to something. It became something that it wasn’t intended to be, Madam Speaker—

Interjection.