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Decentralized Democracy

Hon. Todd Smith

  • MPP
  • Member of Provincial Parliament
  • Bay of Quinte
  • Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
  • Ontario
  • Unit 8 5503 Hwy. 62 S Belleville, ON K8N 0L5 Todd.Smithco@pc.ola.org
  • tel: 613-962-1144
  • fax: 613-969-6381
  • Todd.Smithco@pc.ola.org

  • Government Page
  • Apr/5/23 3:50:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 91 

I appreciate the question from the member opposite. It’s very important, first of all, and our job here in the province is to ensure that we get the infrastructure to the doorstep of the individuals across the province so that they can access high-speed Internet service for their businesses, so their kids can do their homework, all of those important things so they can do their business from home. We put $4 billion out there, and the Minister of Infrastructure has been working extremely hard to ensure that happens by 2025. The reverse-auction that she has run has been successful in ensuring that we have the ISPs, those Internet service providers, that are going to do the work to get it to the door.

I’m not exactly sure what the question is that the member is asking, because it’s still going to be up to individuals to sign up with that ISP to get the Internet service so that they can run their business, and it will be up to them to make that decision, but the Internet service will be available to each and every home and business across Ontario.

For an example, there are companies and manufacturers in our province that are operating battery storage facilities. They would be able to share, peer to peer, the energy that they’re producing and storing in their facilities, and potentially making that electricity available to their local distribution companies. So if it’s in Ajax, they would be sharing the electricity they’re producing, with a fee, to Elexicon, which is the local distribution company, which will then make our grid even that much more stable.

These are some of the ideas that we’re looking at, and there’s lots of innovation opportunities in the sector.

Every time we bring forward a piece of legislation, you know what you’re going to get out of the New Democratic Party: You’re always going to get a no. But I think it’s pretty rich to allege that this government hasn’t done anything on housing. We’ve done more on housing than any government in our province’s history.

Interjections.

Red tape is suffocating businesses in this province, but not as bad as it was five years ago because of all of the legislation we’ve brought forward to reduce red tape. The red tape bills that we have brought forward have had an impact on just about every sector.

One of the blessings, I guess, of being a new member back in 2011 and given this portfolio was going out and seeing just where red tape was impacting people across the province, and it wasn’t just small businesses. Certainly it was impacting small businesses, but it was impacting our delivery of health care. It was impacting our delivery of education. It was impacting our delivery of social services. It was impacting all of the ministries that deliver very, very important services to the province.

So we set out on a mission to reduce that red tape and we have surpassed our goals, but we’re not stopping there. Minister Gill is still charging forward like a bull at a red flag in front of him to remove red tape.

547 words
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