I’d like to thank the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke for his presentation.

That government has claimed that schedule 2 of Bill 69 is a response to the Auditor General’s 2017 report. That report criticized Infrastructure Ontario’s uncompetitive procurement and their poor oversight. Infrastructure Ontario pays big P3 companies that are unsuccessful in their bids on P3 projects up to $2 million per bid. That’s for unsuccessful bids—what a consolation prize.

My question to the member: Does the member think it’s okay for Conservatives to continue the party with the public purse?

—“that unsuccessfully bid on P3 projects up to $2 million per bid to cover some of their costs.” That is an amazing consolation prize.

So these few companies that bid on these projects can actually receive a cash windfall for simply putting in an application—not even for being successful, for just simply putting in an application. Toby calls it “a cozy fraternity of lucratively paid P3 companies and consultants getting wealthy at the public’s expense.” That is not fiscally prudent. That is not good business.

Back in the day, the Conservatives, as opposition, were quite critical of this sort of spending, yet now that they’ve changed to the other side of the House, they’re quite happy with the status quo. In fact, they have become the status quo.

I’d also like to take a look at some of the Auditor General’s report on real estate services. Now, the Auditor General states—

Interjections.

The Auditor General said that the agreement, the enterprise realty service agreement, between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure—here are the problems: “The agreement does not set out any mandatory, minimum standard of performance for managing the costs of capital projects. It does not set out timelines for meeting.” And it does not make sure that government properties are being “used efficiently.” These are all the buzzwords that we hear from this government all the time, and they’re not doing it. It’s abundantly clear that this is not being upheld. They are not doing their due diligence. They are not participating in what is a good business model.

So if we take a look at the request for proposals, the RFP approach, the Auditor General pointed out that that attracted only a few bids for the management of 7,500 capital projects. These were projects worth about $900 million over five years. There was not a broad range of companies that bid on this. It’s very curious.

She also criticized—it says, “Better oversight of external projects—

Interjection.

She also states, “Better oversight of external project mangers’ procurement methods for capital projects is needed.” She goes on—she believes in competition. She believes that things should be fair. And on the side of the official opposition, that makes sense. She states, “Infrastructure Ontario does not track how many vendors bid on capital projects and which vendors are winning the bids.” They actually don’t track what they are responsible for—wow. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the transparency?

The Auditor General talks about the vendor rotation process, which is supposed to be an electronic bidding service that’s supposed to provide these contracts in a more fair manner. “However”—this is where it’s interesting, Madam Speaker—“since 2013-14, Infrastructure Ontario has allowed its external project managers to select vendors from its ... list and manually add them to the list of bidders.” So they cherry-pick the ones they wanted to get the contracts to make sure they got the contracts.

Speaker, as we look at Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, there is far more that this government needs to do in terms of reducing inefficiencies. On the side of this official opposition, we hear this government with all of their buzzwords, we hear them with all of their rhetoric and their language, but we’d like to see actual action that is reducing inefficiencies. We’d like to see a better business model where there is true transparency, accountability and actual efficiency.

Let’s see the government do this. Let’s not hear them talk about it; let’s see it reflected in legislation. I look forward to the briefing, and I want to thank the Minister of Infrastructure for providing that.

This program showed great promise. It cost about $18,000 per person per year, rather than the cost of a mental health bed. It was great cost savings. It was efficient. It was amazing. And it was also something to be prescribed by a doctor. The device and the program would be prescribed. It was to be added to the Assistive Devices Program. I heard lots from this government about how ADP is 30 years old and it’s for mobility devices and sensory aids and that’s it. They had the opportunity to modernize ADP and they chose not to, so I’m tired of hearing—