Speaker, I don’t think I’m going to range as widely as the last speaker on this bill, but I still have a fair amount of material to work with.

As you’re well aware, environmental assessments are one of the few tools that people in this province have to protect themselves against arbitrary or dangerous decisions on the part of governments.

We in the NDP are very concerned that amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act could lead to further degradation of public consultation, to further destruction of the environment.

Part of the problem here with the “waiver of the 30-day period for consideration after public comment has been made” is that this is a government that has shown time and time again that it can’t be trusted when it comes to protecting our environment or doing land deals in the public interest. As you’re well aware, they’re currently involved in carving up the greenbelt through shady deals with their well-connected insiders. They’ve abused ministerial zoning orders to ram developer deals through, despite local community opposition. And they’re spending $650 million of public money to give away a massive chunk of Ontario Place to a for-profit company based out of Austria.

The particular issue I’m going to speak to, or part of the bill I’m going to focus on, is the change to the Environmental Assessment Act which allows the environment minister to “waive the 30-day waiting period currently required after public consultation has been engaged in.” The purpose of those 30 days is to give the minister time to consider what has been brought forward and respond to it, because there may be very substantial things that come up; there may be a request for a bump-up to a full environmental assessment. I would say that although this is not the biggest thing ever in the Environmental Assessment Act, it’s of consequence, and the deletion of public right for those 30 days is indicative of the general approach of this government to public input.

The way the new law is written is that “subject to any prescribed limitations, the minister may, by order, provide that subsection (5) ceases to apply”—the 30-day waiting period. What’s problematic here—there are a lot of problems, but one problem is that the prescribed limitations are not set out. Effectively, the government is giving itself a blank cheque to put in limitations or put in no limitations at all when it comes to any future ignoring or waiving of the 30-day period. Given their history, I would say that it’s fair to expect that the 30-day period will be eliminated. If it is, in fact, occasionally waived for some reason that the public in general would accept, I suspect that will be fairly limited. I think that this government will take every opportunity it has to make sure that the public’s voice is not heard and certainly has no impact on what the government wants to do. The failure to put conditions in the act itself—conditions that would limit the ability of the minister to waive that 30-day period—just leaves us, the people of Ontario, to the tender mercies of this particular government when it comes to looking after the environment.

Speaker, I’m sure you’re familiar with the film classic, Bambi Meets Godzilla. In that very short film—and a brilliant piece of cinematography—you have Bambi at the beginning with flute music and butterflies, just sniffing the air and being young and a deer in the spring. And then Godzilla’s foot comes down and squishes Bambi. Well, Bambi, in this case, plays the environment, and Godzilla is played by this government. This act, this change, is just another part of that huge foot coming down and crushing the environment.

This is a government that has shown repeated contempt of public consultation, particularly with respect to the environment. This change will make it even easier for the government to ignore public opinion, public consultation.

Ontario courts have twice found that the Ford government violated the Environmental Bill of Rights, which guarantees not only the public’s right to get notification but the public’s right to be consulted. From the CBC report on one of these: “In a split decision, an Ontario court says Doug Ford’s government broke the law”—law is not a big constraint on these folks; often, they refer to them as “guidelines”—“when it scrapped the cap-and-trade system, but the court won’t force Queen’s Park to reinstate the program,” which is unfortunate.

“Greenpeace had challenged the cancellation on grounds the government did not hold public consultations before making the decision, a process required by Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights....”

So here is a government asking for even more discretion, when it has a history of breaking the law, ignoring the law, when it comes to the environment.

In another case, the media reported: “An Ontario court has found the provincial government broke the law by failing to adhere to the Environmental Bill of Rights.

“Several environmental groups brought forth applications for judicial reviews over the province’s alleged failure to consult with the public before enacting the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act.

“Late last year, the province opened up consultations to the public months after the passage of Bill 197....

“The Superior Court of Justice says the Minister of Municipal Affairs acted ‘unreasonably and unlawfully’ by consulting with” people after the act had been put through.

To some extent, if you had a government that was consistently acting to protect the environment, consistently cautious, consistently respectful of public input, you’d say, “Here’s a government that is going to ask for a waiver to actually expedite things and do the right thing.” But that isn’t the history of this government.

Again, I’ll repeat: This government breaks the law openly, and only when it has been found in court to have broken the law is there any admission, “Maybe we did something wrong. These laws, these revised statutes of Ontario—maybe they’re of consequence.”

In 2020, the Ford government severely weakened the Environmental Assessment Act with amendments slipped into Bill 197, an omnibus bill purporting to be about recovering from COVID-19. The bill was jammed through the Legislature, and they bypassed committee, denied the public any opportunity to provide comments.

There’s a consistent theme here. You weaken environmental protection laws, and you do your best to make sure the public has nothing to say about it. And even if they have something to say, you make sure that what happens is, they’re not heard.

What this change signifies is, “Sure, you can make any comment you want. You can point out fundamental flaws. You can find bedrock problems with what’s being put forward. But when the time is up, we’re not going to spend time thinking about it. It’s out the window. It’s gone. We’ve forgotten about it already.”

There are a number of things that people should be aware of when it comes to considering how this government has acted. Look at its policies, look at its track record since 2018. We’ve got a government that is quite willing to break the law when it comes to environmental consultation. This is a government that axed the Environmental Commissioner’s office in 2019—an office that had been in place, frankly, through the Mike Harris government, when we had a very strong Environmental Commissioner who was critical of the government. He was a Tory. He had been a Tory candidate in Timmins, but he was a guy who was fundamentally committed to protecting the environment. Even Mike Harris didn’t axe the Environmental Commissioner, but this government did.

This is a government that consistently fails to uphold expert opinion on environmental issues, and it’s one that the Auditor General has found is consistently bad news when it comes to environmental policy and when it comes to public consultations.

This is a government that cancelled the cap-and-trade legislation and, in doing that, eliminated billions of dollars of investment in energy efficiency and making sure that buildings and infrastructure were climate-resilient. It cancelled an act, which, by the way, had a lower carbon price than the federal carbon price. So, in fact, this is a government that increased the carbon price in Ontario and, in the course of it, did less for the environment. That’s the kind of commitment we’re talking about.

We’re talking about a government that will not only act contrary to its own language—no surprise there—but will also make sure that the ability to actually come to grips with the climate crisis is undermined. That’s who we’re talking about. Why would you trust them?

As I referred to earlier, this is a government that’s attacking the greenbelt. The member who spoke earlier talked about protecting farmers. Is that why the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is being taken out of the greenbelt and that farmland is going to be converted into subdivisions for multi-million dollar homes? Is that protecting farmers? Is that protecting the land in Ontario that we need to grow food?

The member asked, “Are you guys in touch with normal people?” Well, I knock on doors in my riding every week, and I’ve been knocking on doors the last few weeks talking to people about what’s going on, talking about the greenbelt, and one of the things that comes up time and time again is people saying, “Where are we going to get our food when you pave over all the farmland?” Because that’s their intention. They’re starting with one of the most sensitive agricultural areas in Ontario, preserved at great cost decades ago—important in terms of food, important in terms of wetlands. They’re going to pave that over. So any complaints about higher groceries, it’s on—

I want to thank the member from Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas for her speech this morning.

You talked about the science centre and the potential for development on that site and the risks that one faces. Could you enlarge on that, given this government’s record of not paying attention to environmental constraints?

I have to say, I’m surprised the government isn’t standing up defending this substantial bill before us, but they aren’t, so here I am.

There are a few things I want to say about the bill before I go into detail. One is that environmental assessments are one of the few tools that people have to protect their interests and to protect the larger interests of Ontarians around environmental issues. When you propose changes that don’t, in fact, enhance protection of the environment or the population, one has to be very suspicious about what those changes really will deliver on.

We believe that the environment, those of us who depend on the environment—so all living humans—should be protected, and we have grave concern about this proposal to reduce the period for consideration of commentary by people on environmental initiatives.

I have to say, Speaker, you’ve sat through question period on a regular basis. You, for your sins, have sat in that chair when we’ve debated bills. You have heard what goes on or does not go on in committees. And as you’re well aware, interest in commentary or public input is extraordinarily low. This government, in its behaviour towards environmental matters, has a very consistent record, and that is one of ignoring environmental concerns. This is a government that’s involved right now in carving up the greenbelt, involved in deals that are generally seen as shady, smelly, smoky—take your pick.

When you have a government that is undermining its own credibility by not trying to appear above reproach, you have to ask substantial questions about what actually is going to happen when even the smaller changes to environmental protection are undermined.

We’ve seen in the past the abuse of ministerial zoning orders to ram through developer deals despite the opposition of local communities, except, of course, when a minister’s interests are involved, as a minister in northern Toronto was upset about some low-income housing—that being put on the back burner.

And as my colleague from Spadina-Fort York can attest in great detail, this is a government spending about $650 million of public money which is going to enable the giveaway of a massive chunk of Ontario Place to a for-profit company based out of Austria. Ontario Place is a lakefront park meant for all Ontarians, not to be sold off. Any other park that you start selling off chunks of, in this city or anywhere else in the province, raises substantial questions. This government is just acting as if this is normal, and to be fair, for them, it is normal.

So let’s look at what’s in the bill. Schedule 1, the Environmental Assessment Act: It’s an amazingly small bill, so I’ll just give it the quick treatment. The changes to the Environmental Assessment Act allow the environment minister to waive the 30-day waiting period currently required following the end of a class EA comment before granting an approval to proceed with an undertaking.

Speaker, the reason you have a waiting period is the assumption that the minister will actually think about what came in. It will provide a period when those who have participated in any consultation process will have an opportunity informally to go to the minister and say, “An awful lot of people have concerns here. You have the power to address those concerns. We ask you, Minister, to address them.”

The other part of this bill, Ministry of Infrastructure Act, allows the ministry to assume control of real estate interests of prescribed entities that currently manage their own real estate interests. Now, this is fascinating: The real estate services for these entities will presumably move to Infrastructure Ontario, which oversees real estate services for most government properties.

What’s interesting here is that apparently the government claims that this change—giving more power to Infrastructure Ontario—is a response to the Auditor General’s 2017 report on real estate. I went and looked at the Auditor General’s report. She was pretty tough on what was going on, on what was being done by Infrastructure Ontario, and I don’t see anything in this bill, nor have I heard any public statement from the government, that they’re actually going to deal with the problems at Infrastructure Ontario. Manifests that were called out, pointed out in 2017—I’ll just note a few. In 2017, the Auditor General found that “Almost $19 million was spent in” one year “on operating and maintaining 812 vacant buildings.”

That’s a lot of buildings, if you’re just pouring money out and you’re not using places—money that could be used for housing, could be used for upgrading other buildings. Possibly the vacant buildings could be used to relocate government services so that we aren’t paying rent to someone else. That doesn’t strike me as a very well-managed portfolio.

She noted, “Capital repair funds” were being “used to fund operating costs for managing government properties.”

I used to be a property manager in the co-op housing sector. I didn’t use capital funds for operating. And I’ll be honest; I mean, I picked it up as I went along. I went to a few workshops. I talked to others, talked to property managers, and they were all pretty clear: You don’t mix the two streams, not if you’re running an above-board shop. So that is a real concern.

The Auditor General also noted, “Office space per person exceeds the Ministry standard.” So we were spending more overall on real estate than we needed to. That’s the agency that the government wants to move more real estate control into.

I haven’t heard—and maybe I will be surprised. Maybe I will be shocked, Speaker, and go home tonight and say, “I had no idea.” Maybe the government has dramatically reformed Infrastructure Ontario so that none of these things would be repeated. However, I have my doubts.

I also want to say a bit more about the environmental assessment end. As I said before, the reason for the 30 days is to give people an opportunity—sorry, bureaucracy and political decision-makers—some time to think about what’s at hand. One would hope that having explored, having investigated, having listened to the people, that a thoughtful bureaucrat, a thoughtful minister would take corrective action where necessary or conclude that the information given has validated the initial assumptions. One of the questions that came up earlier to one of my colleagues was about the need for efficiency and deregulation. I don’t know about you, but I was around when the Walkerton water crisis happened. Deregulation—voluntary rules instead of actual regulation—were central to that crisis, that catastrophe, that loss of life. An initiative to peel away regulations that protect life and health make no sense to me. That is not efficiency; that is irresponsibility.

I’ll give you another example of deregulation on a larger scale that didn’t involve tainted water but did involve tainted finances. You were here, I think, Speaker, in 2008, during the international financial crisis. We grilled the government of the day about their behaviour. They actually bought into it. They had hundreds of millions of dollars of—what can I say?—paper assets that were of no consequence anymore, and we went after them on that. People should understand that that crisis at heart was a failure of the regulatory system, that the companies that packaged and sold those junk financial products were unregulated.

So when a government pursues a deregulation strategy, I see both tainted water and financial chaos. And in both cases, in the aftermath—at least with the water, some steps were taken substantially to protect people’s health. I think with regard to the financial crisis, not as many steps were taken. That remains a work in progress—well, a work unfinished and untouched.

Speaker, I don’t support this bill, and I don’t have confidence that the government will protect either our real estate holdings or the environment.

I appreciate the opportunity to pose a question to my colleague from University–Rosedale. In the course of reviewing this bill, you, like I, have felt a great deal of concern about whether or not the government is acting on a good-faith basis when it is trying to reduce environmental protections. Could you cite one or two of the main experiences you’ve had or seen that would give rise to a person feeling they can’t trust this government on environmental issues?

My question is to the Minister of the Environment.

This House hasn’t heard much from the Minister of the Environment lately, and no wonder; his government’s record on the environment and climate change has sunk to new lows. This government is gutting conservation authorities. It’s going to allow development on flood plains during a climate crisis. It’s ramping up greenhouse gas emissions from our electricity system. It’s doubling down on unnecessary highways that will make congestion and emissions worse. And it’s destroying the greenbelt on behalf of a few powerful landowners and PC donors.

What wisdom can the environment minister share at the climate conference in Egypt when he’s enabling some of the worst attacks on the environment I’ve ever seen here in Ontario?

After the minister returns from Egypt and is back on the job, will anyone in Ontario even notice?