I’d like to thank the associate minister and the member from Perth–Wellington for their introduction today.

I believe it would be an understatement to say that this government has an embarrassing track record when it comes to respecting local democracy. In my area, the removal of ranked balloting—a popular, forward-thinking and successful democratic innovation was stripped away by this government, even though that was wasteful and costly. It seems that the government has dropped “collaboration,” “consultation” and “listening” from their vocabulary, and even if the government does use these words, it’s almost as though they ring hollow.

Some of the problems with Bill 112 are that the preamble mentions supporting local governments, but there’s no negotiation process, there’s no requirement for local council approval and there’s no consideration of even local viewpoints.

I would like to ask the member from Perth–Wellington—Bills 23 and 39 weaken local democratic institutions and authorities. How can the member convince anyone that Bill 112 isn’t more of the same?

I’d like to thank the member from Niagara Centre for noting that this legislation is part of a broader pattern where we’ve seen the Conservative government interfering in Toronto city council elections in 2018, as well as stepping over London’s successful and widely popular ranked balloting system.

I’d also like to thank the member from Niagara Centre for pointing out that the antithesis to this legislation would be to enhance democracy, to strengthen municipalities with charter cities.

My question is, is this bill yet another attempt to contain, curtail and control democracy as well as other levels of government?