With respect to the Auditor General’s report—which was quite scathing, talking about the mismanagement of Ontario real estate assets by Infrastructure Ontario—being able to cause such a rift in the Auditor General’s report, and now the government is actually suggesting that this ministry be given more responsibility when they’ve mismanaged the assets so poorly.

I’ve heard repeatedly now this government talk about the Ontario Science Centre falling apart and how Ontario Place is being mismanaged, but all of that happened under their watch. How can the member across justify more responsibilities now consolidated in the hands of Infrastructure Ontario when they’ve done such a poor job with the responsibilities they have?

Thank you to the member for her excellent presentation.

Infrastructure Ontario is, obviously, by way of this motion from the government, being offered more responsibilities and more authority. And they’re consolidating a number of different real estate assets under the ministry. I would say that when one gets more responsibility, it should be because one has done a very good job—better outcomes, better timelines, better management of facilities, better management of dollars—but we’re not seeing that. Instead, we’re seeing a ministry that’s rather secretive.

My question to you is, why would the government offer Infrastructure Ontario more responsibility when they seem to be struggling with the responsibilities that they have now?

The presentation was extremely helpful. I wanted to share with you an experience I’ve had at city council where I’ve seen different types of environmental assessments placed before different Ministers of the Environment in different administrations and, depending on the type of assessment and what the cities were oftentimes asking for, you would get different speeds of response. For example, assessments around bike lanes or perhaps sidewalk widening and inclusion of bike lanes and road narrowing—it takes a long time for any Minister of the Environment to come out and approve it. Assessments with respect to urban sprawl that may have impact on endangered species or perhaps has impacts on flood protection, sometimes that happens a little quicker.

But in this legislation, the schedule allows the minister to use discretion on whether or not she then waives the 30-day notice, but there’s no prescription to what would lead them to that decision. Does that trouble the member of the House?

The question to the member from University–Rosedale is that the government claims that the bill is largely in response to an Auditor General report regarding its management of real estate services. In particular, the Auditor General cited that Infrastructure Ontario has not done a good job of managing real estate assets on behalf of the people of Ontario, in particular its management of private contractors and its uncompetitive bidding process, as well as the lack of managerial oversight of those private contracts.

Is there anything in the bill that actually addresses the concerns that the Auditor General raised, based on her 2017 report?