Again to the Premier: Abiola is a grade 4 student from my riding. She wrote to me with some important questions about this government’s plans to build housing on the greenbelt. She asked: Does the government know that they will ruin that piece of protected land? Why is the government harming the natural resources of the province? When there is plenty of available land outside the greenbelt, why do they choose to build houses on a more important piece of land?

Speaker, why does a grade 4 student understand the environmental harm of this government’s greenbelt carve-up but this Premier does not?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and ... (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Leonard.

Thank you to my colleague the member for Ottawa West–Nepean for highlighting the financial costs of failing to act on climate change.

We recently received a report from the Financial Accountability Officer that failing to act on climate change, even in an optimistic scenario, would mean about $171 billion in costs over the rest of the century to deal with road, rail and bridge repairs alone. The Financial Accountability Officer also highlighted that that is the optimistic scenario, but costs could climb to as high as $322 billion because of damage to transportation infrastructure and other costs if there is an increase in heat, flooding and extreme weather events.

The problem is that environmental protections are not red tape. That is an issue that this government continues to fail to understand. You can’t erode clean water protections, you can’t gut conservation authorities’ responsibility for flood control, and you can’t water down the environmental assessment process in the name of eliminating red tape. That is not red tape. That is a threat to the health and well-being of the people of this province.

Thank you to the member for Hastings–Lennox and Addington for his question.

I did hear the minister make that statement, but I tend to look at someone’s track record before I believe what’s coming out of their mouth. And what I have seen from this government is a track record that gives me no confidence whatsoever that this government will act responsibly and take environmental impact into consideration when it is deciding to fast-track municipal projects. I mentioned the city of London’s climate emergency action plan—more than 200 specific strategies. Not one of those strategies included watering down the environmental assessment process for municipal projects.

We have seen a government that has basically shown complete contempt for environmental protections in this province that have been established for 30 years.

Under an NDP government, in 1993, we brought in the Environmental Bill of Rights to require the government to consult with the public on public sector undertakings.

What we have seen from this government is the most massive overhaul of the environmental assessment process that has ever occurred in Ontario. This is just one step further to water down the environmental protections that Ontarians rely on, that Ontarians need, that our climate needs if we are to make it through this climate emergency.

I fail to understand how a bill that consolidates 14 public agencies that manage properties that are owned by the Ontario government under the auspices of an agency—Infrastructure Ontario—that has been so roundly criticized by the Auditor General for its inability to efficiently and effectively manage government real estate in any way benefits people of this province.

We have not seen any evidence from the government side that schedule 2 of this bill will do anything to actually save taxpayers’ money.

It is a pleasure to rise today on behalf of the people I represent in London West to participate in the debate on Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act.

Speaker, this is a bill that the government claims, in its news release, will reduce red tape, save taxpayer money, and boost economic growth. Yet in the six hours of debate we have had so far in this place, we have heard absolutely no evidence from the government that the measures set out in this bill will achieve those goals.

This is a relatively straightforward bill. There are two very distinct schedules. Schedule 1 deals with the 30-day waiting period for class environmental assessments. Schedule 2 deals with the government’s real estate holdings—certain real estate holdings—and the holdings that are held by prescribed entities.

We have some concerns about these measures, as innocuous as they appear, because we have seen this government in action.

It’s interesting to read the press release that accompanied the government’s introduction of this legislation, in which they state that schedule 1 is necessary because the environmental assessment process is too slow, too costly and too burdensome. They also state that schedule 2, the schedule that deals with real estate holdings, will address the 2017 Auditor General’s report. I’m going to go through those two statements in some detail and explain why we have reservations, why we have concerns, and why we will not be supporting this bill.

Schedule 1, as I said, changes the 30-day waiting period for environmental assessments because the government feels that environmental assessments are burdensome red tape. That is not a view we share, and I can tell you that is not a view that is shared by the vast majority of people in this province, as we live in the midst of a climate emergency that is just getting worse.

We heard, interestingly, from a member across the way earlier this afternoon that this bill actually changes nothing with the environmental assessment process, which is curious to understand—if that was the case, why the government would bring in legislation that apparently the government believes will do nothing. But that’s another issue.

When we read the legislation, we see that schedule 1 of the bill allows the minister to waive the 30-day waiting period that is currently required under the Environmental Assessment Act.

Let’s review why the Environmental Assessment Act includes a 30-day waiting period. That period provides the minister with time to consider public comments that may be received after a class environmental assessment process, before making a decision whether to issue an approval to proceed. Waiving this waiting period would mean that the minister doesn’t really see any point in taking those 30 days to consider those comments. We know that the Environmental Assessment Act was introduced in this province decades ago in order to provide that important opportunity for sober second thought to assess the impact of environmental projects on the environment, sensitive wetlands, flood plains and other public places. This schedule just waives that 30-day waiting period and allows the minister to move much more quickly than they would have in the past.

I do want to make the proviso that we have seen this government repeatedly ignore public input, so I have to say that in many ways what this schedule does is to allow the government to just ignore public input faster. They can ignore it from the day that it is provided, rather than having to wait 30 days before they decide to ignore what the public has to say.

We also have seen this government twice be found by the courts to have violated the Environmental Bill of Rights in terms of the notice period that they give the public on matters affecting the environment. They have also violated the Environmental Bill of Rights in terms of the public’s right to have their comments considered by the government prior to the government making a decision or introducing legislation. We saw this numerous times under the Ford government, with legislation that has been brought in either before the 30-day waiting period has ended or without any regard to the responsibility to put legislation out for public input before it is passed.

I want to quote Environmental Defence’s Phil Pothen, who is the Ontario program manager—a great champion of the environment and an honest critic of this government. He has raised the concern about the elimination of this 30-day waiting period, that it’s worrisome, because, he says it’s a time when the minister is supposed to be considering—by legislation—and the public is supposed to be debating, whether to refer a project for a more detailed assessment. I understand that in response to some of these concerns that were raised by Environmental Defence, the environment minister’s office clarified that large transit projects in this province—not to worry—would likely still be subject to a full environmental assessment. The government also reassured Ontarians that the waiting period would only be waived in certain circumstances. I have to say that that is cold comfort to the many Ontarians who have seen the track record of this government in taking into account the impact of their legislation and policy decisions on the environment, and in particular the environmental assessment process.

This is a government that, in 2020, completely overhauled the environmental assessment process, completely eroded the protections that had been built into the environmental assessment process with Bill 197. That bill said that public sector projects which previously had been automatically subject to an environmental assessment would now only need one if the government decided that it was necessary. That bill also eliminated the mechanism that citizens had available to them to call on the Minister of the Environment to conduct a full assessment on projects that would otherwise be exempt. Under that legislation, which this government passed, prior to the 30-day period that was required by the Environmental Bill of Rights, there is no longer that ability to conduct an environmental assessment on projects that are exempt.

Frankly, as I mentioned, we are in a period in our history when we are facing a dire climate emergency.

I want to give a shout out-to the people of London, to the city councillors in my community of London. London was one of the first communities in Ontario to actually issue a formal declaration of climate emergency. That was back in April 2019. Londoners take the responsibility to act on the climate emergency very seriously. There has been an extensive period of public consultation since that declaration of climate emergency was issued in London. And just last year, a climate emergency action plan was released that outlines more than 200 specific strategies and actions to deal with the impact of climate emergency, to deal with those extreme weather events that are causing catastrophic flooding, freezing rain, extreme temperatures and heat waves that are creating so much pressure on our health and food security in this province.

Also, we heard this morning about Windsor—you can’t even get insurance anymore in Windsor. The cost has just skyrocketed because of the impact of the severe flooding that community has experienced, which has caused billions of dollars in property damage.

We have an obligation to take our responsibility to deal with the climate emergency seriously. And what does this bill do? It further waters down Ontario’s environmental assessment process. That is one of the reasons why the official opposition is so concerned about this bill.

The other schedule of Bill 69, as I said, deals with certain real estate holdings of a number of arm’s-length corporations of the Ontario government.

It’s interesting that the government claims that this bill was drafted in order to address some of the specific recommendations that the Auditor General had made in a 2017 report. I have that report in front of me, and I was curious to know what those recommendations were that the Auditor General had made dealing with Infrastructure Ontario real estate services. What the Auditor General pointed out in that report were numerous problems, a litany of problems, related to Infrastructure Ontario’s oversight of its real estate holdings, and most of those problems that are outlined in the Auditor General’s report concern the policies and processes set in place by Infrastructure Ontario. Yet this government’s response, apparently, to that report is to bring in 14 of the 34 agencies that currently manage government-owned property under the auspices of Infrastructure Ontario, the very agency that was highlighted by the Auditor General as having completely inadequate controls on its management of real estate services.

What were some of the things that the Auditor General highlighted in her report? She highlighted that the design of the RFP approach by Infrastructure Ontario—