I’d never blame the member for the past, but the 407 and rates that they charge are really the past of the Conservative Party. In the last session of government, the 407 actually broke the terms of the contract, in the sense that they did not collect enough, they did not have enough ridership on their highway, and that triggered a penalty of a billion dollars to the province of Ontario. Your government, the one you didn’t sit in yet, decided, “Hey, 407, we don’t need a billion dollars. Keep it.” Would you have decided the same thing had you been sitting in this chair?

I’d like to begin today’s debate just asking the simple question as to how the government comes up with names for their bills. I’ve heard rumours. One rumour is that the guy responsible actually designs bumper stickers, because we’re debating the Get It Done Act.

Now, another thing that I’ve thought and I’ve heard, actually, is that they’ve got, essentially, a cauldron full of random words put together, and someone reaches in and pulls them out, and that’s how you’re able to get something like Get It Done. You read this and you have no idea what we’re talking about. If it’s the destruction of health care in this province, they’re getting it done; that’s for sure. There’s many different ways in which they’re getting it done.

I’m going to tell you a little bit about what they’re doing here, but before I do that, I want to talk a little bit about this government, particularly the government’s backbench. I’d like to begin with that, because I have to say something. I think you have a really tough job and I think you have a tougher job than we do, because we can come day in and day out with a clear conscience and oppose bad decisions, and you’ve got to go along with them. The thing is, it’s not easy for you. It can’t be easy for you; it really can’t.

I see, sometimes, during question period when we put out a question to this side, and people are literally struck on the government side with an epiphany. They’re just sitting in their chair reeling sometimes. They’re having a crisis of conscience. They can’t believe that this is what their government and this is what their ministers are up to. They just can’t. They put their names in hoping to have a hand in change for the province of Ontario, bringing their own philosophies to bear, whatever it is, and they come here day in and day out and sit absolutely powerless—powerless to leave a mark, to leave a legacy, to do absolutely anything. All they can do is sit there and take it. That’s all they can do on a day-to-day basis.

Now, I think it’s better to not call them backbenchers; it would probably be better to refer to them as parliamentary assistants, because this is probably the government, per capita, that has had the highest number. For that, I congratulate you. That gives you an opportunity to be nearer to decision-making. But I think this is what you quickly found out: It doesn’t matter that you’re a parliamentary assistant; you don’t get to make a decision. You are a parliamentary assistant because it is a means of control. Because when you are faced with having to rubber-stamp bad decisions, all you’ve got staring you in the face to keep you in line is the brand that they could threaten to take from you and a PA-ship, and yet you still do it. You may not want to admit it now. You may not want to admit it now, but maybe at 2 a.m. when you’re going to get milk out of the fridge because you can’t sleep, you’ll think about it then, and if you don’t think about it now, you’ll think about it soon.

One of the things I’ve always noticed about these same members is I think they’re terrific people. I really, really like many of the members on the government side. I talk to them in the halls all the time. I talk to them outside of the chamber. One thing I never, never truly understood was how it is that a group of individuals like these—principled, good, who want to make change—end up making decisions like the ones that we face here in the province day in and day out.

And then you go to the next level: the ministers. I’m going to get into that as I discuss one of the schedules in this bill. Do the ministers make decisions? Are the opinions of the ministers actually respected? I would say no. I would say, for the most part, no. You get all the way up to the highest levels, to leadership itself, and I think that the decisions don’t even come from there, because at the highest level of this pyramid of power exists, on the shoulders of power, one side that’s a PR guy, and the on the other side it’s special interest.

An example of that is the bill we were debating earlier, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act—another fun title, because it’s actually doing the opposite. In that case it was Enbridge. A decision was made and within 15 hours of the decision, somewhere intermediary someone high up in Enbridge—maybe its $19-million CEO—called out, reached to someone high up in this government and said, “This is completely irresponsible. Don’t allow this.” Now, their own investors didn’t want it, but they said they would pass that on to customers. And this government rubber-stamped it. This government came out within 15 hours. You have individuals of all stripes, people fighting so many different things, and they could never get even a phone call across to a member that could make a decision in this government. But the people with power always, always do.

So what are we getting done here? Environmental Assessment Act, schedule 1: Based on some of the conversations that I’ve heard, an EA is just nothing more then an impediment. As I had said before, it was Conservatives of the past that established conservation authorities in this province. The Conservatives of the past have legacies. In fact, the public energy system, hydro, was delivered by Conservatives, and they said it should be at-cost. How far has this government fallen? How is it described that EAs are essentially an impediment? This government has no interest in quality control. What they want to do is now presuppose decisions and say, “Go along. Do whatever you want. Forget an EA. We don’t care about them anyway. They’re just really a hassle.” They’re not something that this government is interested in. But you know there are cases where people will purchase newly built condos, homes and other things before the developers even purchase lands. They will put that out for sale, and guess what? The project doesn’t get through. And who is left holding the bag? Consumers. There are reasons why you can’t put the cart before the horse, but the government doesn’t want to hear it.

I want to move on to schedule 4, the Photo Card Act. What this one reminds me of are licence plates in this province. Licence plates trigger for me what this government has been, which has been an entire month of wasted time going back and backtracking on bad decisions they made.

Now, again, government backbenchers, I don’t blame you individually for this, because none of you had any choice in any of these decisions. Someone high up at the top will come up with something that you have no control over, and it makes its way down, and then you’re told with a piece of paper, “This is what you’re doing. This is how you’re going to vote. No opinion on your part is necessary. Just do what you’re told.” And so you do.

But this government has done nothing but backtrack over and over and over again. And so I would say when you actually look at a portion of this here—this should not be called the Get It Done Act; it should be called the “get it undone act,” because there’s a portion in here that the government did around regional boundaries where they did it and then they undid it, and then in this they’re undoing what they undid. But that’s only a little bit of what they have undone.

There is actually a long list of what they’ve undone. The wage cap law—and this comes from the Canadian Press. Bill 124 capped salary increases. What did they have to do? They had to get it undone because it was ruled unconstitutional. And what did that bill do? It further damaged health care in this province. It directly damaged health care in this province. And how did it do that? Well, I’m going to let you in on a little bit of Tory math.

As we all know, we have long waiting lists when it comes to surgeries or getting treatment in hospitals and other places, when it comes to health care. But this government, above all, wants to privatize health care in the province of Ontario. They can’t say it openly because—remember how I told you that at the height of leadership, there’s a PR guy and then there are special interests on this side? The PR guy knows that Ontarians take pride in the public health care system; that this government doesn’t. They will find ways to destroy it, and one way is through planned obsolescence. How do they do that? Well, nurses and nursing agencies. They’ve done reports on this. The Auditor General has reported on this. It has been reported widely in the media. In southern Ontario, in some places, by up to 25 times more than the past, hospitals are having to rely on nursing agencies to bring in nurses. Why? Because our nurses are burnt out, they’re not respected, and they’re not paid what they deserve. So at a cost of something like $35 to $50 an hour for one of these hospital nurses, at the current rates, this government allows these hospitals, or pushes them, even, to go to agencies, to pay over $100 an hour—double. And of that $100, a quarter of it goes to an agency, it goes to their administration, it goes to profits; it’s not going to health care.

Nurses are leaving public jobs to go into those ones that you’re helping create. In fact, it was the spouse of a former Tory Premier who got into that business a long time ago. So what’s happening is this: For the cost of two nurses at the current rates, you’re getting one nurse through an agency—a nurse who is going to a new hospital, learning the place, at many times. Patients are there, and they’re seeing a different nurse every single day.

Our current nurses are burnt out and disrespected. And what is this government doing? They’re making the situation absolutely worse. Do you know why? Because when they go into private industry and that money from the government goes into more private pockets, where do you think that money goes? It goes from the taxpayer into a Conservative bank account. That’s what it does. It’s the circle of life for the Tories. That’s all that happens here.

They had to repeal Bill 124 because the courts made them. The dissolution of Peel: Guess what? They had to undo that too. They came in here—they’ve had no respect for municipal boundaries in many different ways—tore it up, and there it is; official plans, again, regional boundaries, the greenbelt.

Do ministers have control? Here’s where I get to that point. I would say no. And I think the greenbelt scandal showed that, because you can’t have it both ways.

This government, during an election, said time and time again, “We’re not going to open up the greenbelt.” They tried to open it again, and then, when they couldn’t do it, they weaken conservation authorities, they tear up EA processes, they do everything they can until eventually—remember the special interests I told you about sitting, on this shoulder? The special interests said, “Don’t listen to the PR guy.” He reached across, put his hand over the mouth of the PR guy and said, “Just do it. It’s where the money comes from.” Right? “What are we paying you for?” And so, what they did was they tore up the greenbelt.

At the time, the minister had to face question after question after question, and with a sweaty face—in fact, his documents damp from the sweat—he had to sit up here and defend decisions until he had said, “I had nothing to do with that.” How do you have it both ways?

So was the minister making these decisions or was he not? And then he ended up losing his job as minister. So if he didn’t make the decisions, why is he not in the chair? He did nothing wrong.

Well, whatever they did with the greenbelt led to the RCMP investigating this government. Again, I go back to what I said: I have tremendous respect for the backbench and the PAs and the ministers of this government. They had nothing to do with these decisions. They’ve got to wear them day, in and day out.

Imagine how embarrassing it is for a government that prides itself on being all about law and order to be investigated by the RCMP. It is nothing short of an embarrassment. And the government members feel that embarrassment. When we asked questions at the time, I remember standing beside—