Mrs. Joyce Savoline: I’m happy to join my colleague the member from Halton to speak to Bill 212, An Act to promote good government by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts.
As the title implies, this bill, if passed, amends or repeals a number of acts and enacts new acts. I believe the bill actually makes about 600 changes in total-600 changes. The McGuinty Liberals say that this bill is part of the government initiative to promote good government. Well, I want to point out that just because they have dubbed the bill the good-government bill doesn’t mean that it is.
I would hope that the McGuinty Liberals don’t think they can pull the wool over our eyes or the eyes of Ontarians by referring to this bill as “good government.” I know Ontarians are a whole lot smarter than that, and they will see right through what is trying to happen here with this bill. Clearly I do not agree with the title of the bill, and I would argue that it is a bad-government bill, not a good-government bill. It’s simply bad politics in the name of good government.
For starters, this bill was introduced in the Legislature last Tuesday. That’s a week ago. However, it was not posted or made available to Ontarians until later Thursday afternoon. That’s two days later. The first day of debate was then scheduled for yesterday, which left almost no time to prepare. That is really quite appalling, especially for a bill of this magnitude. I’m sure the intent was to overwhelm the opposition parties and Ontarians, and to push this bill through without giving us and the public proper time to review it, which I will say really does hinder the democratic process.
This government has had months to review this bill. They have had time to review it so that they fully understand it and have had time to consult with stakeholders about the implications of the bill. As my colleague has already mentioned, there was a great delay in getting this bill introduced. If this government wasn’t prepared to provide copies of this bill and make it public or get it up on the website for all the world to see, they should have delayed the introduction of the bill until they were prepared.
I would suspect that the answer has something to do with the McGuinty Liberals wanting to attract attention away from the long list of Liberal scandals and the record-breaking $24.7 billion in debt that was announced just a couple of weeks ago. I will elaborate on these points a little bit later.
I want to first talk about the democratic process that is supposed to be in place in this House and how discouraged I am that it isn’t. It would seem that the media had an inside scoop on this bill before opposition MPPs even knew about it. A case in point: On Wednesday morning, we were privileged enough to read about some of the implications that this bill would have through the press. I tried to pull up the bill on the website, and as I already mentioned, it was nowhere to be found.
I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised at this, coming from this government. There seems to be a trend here. Earlier this month, we learned about the findings of the Auditor General’s report regarding this government’s electronic health records system through the media-and days before the actual report was released. I’m sure this was quite disappointing to the Auditor General himself. I will say that as a courtesy, the Auditor General provides a copy of his report first to the minister and the ministry. In this case, it was the Ministry of Health and it was in advance of the report being released. This does, of course, come with strict instructions that the report not be decimated in any way or copied. This government should have more respect for these sorts of rules and for the people of Ontario, but instead, they seem to have this culture of entitlement and they often deviate from the rules.
Another example is the 2009 budget. There, we learned about what was in the budget days before it was actually tabled. The Premier himself deliberately breached the convention of budget secrecy when he announced the amount the government was promising to spend on infrastructure over the next two years prior to the budget being tabled. I greatly respect the traditions of this Legislature and the democratic process that should be taking place each and every day here in this House. I would hope that this government learns to respect that as well.
As I already mentioned, I am quite sure the intent of this bill was not housekeeping at all, as the McGuinty Liberals have indicated. It is to deviate from the long laundry list of Liberal scandals. It seems quite suspicious to me that this 322-page bill was dumped on us as this government tried to dodge the scandals that they have been plagued with. The McGuinty Liberals needed to provide a distraction from all the opposition research that was being done to expose this government’s continued long list of scandals. The fact that a majority of this government’s agencies are not even subject to freedom-of-information requests wasn’t doing the trick anymore; they needed another tactic, so they introduced this massive bill. I guess the hope here was that the McGuinty Liberals could buy themselves a little time in which to perhaps avoid a new scandal that might be revealed. As we all know, for weeks now, each time we pick up the morning paper, turn on the news or listen to the radio, there’s a new link to a Liberal scandal. The hope of this bill is to serve as a distraction to try to prevent all of that. However, there is no bill large enough to cover up this government’s secrets.
It is no coincidence that a couple of weeks after the PC caucus called for a public inquiry to resolve the many unanswered questions that remain about the serious abuse and misuse of taxpayers’ money that occurred within the McGuinty Liberal eHealth scandal, this government dumps a massive 322-page bill. The Premier has refused a public inquiry. The Liberals voted down our opposition day motion requesting a public inquiry and the Liberal-majority-held public accounts committee voted down bringing the former eHealth Ontario CEO, Sarah Kramer, and former board chair Alan Hudson before the committee to be questioned. They blocked off all roads to answers that Ontarians are asking for and deserve to know.
Haven’t the McGuinty Liberals learned that you cannot just make your problems go away by covering them up? They should, because this tactic has backfired on them before. Let me refresh their memory: Over the spring and summer of 2008, the PC caucus held this government to account on their neglect of the very serious C. difficile issue. This government knew about the severity of C. difficile dating back to 2003, when a serious outbreak killed over 20 patients. The ministry did a study-they actually did a study-into those deaths in 2004, yet this government did nothing. And as everyone remembers, hundreds of people lost their lives and got sick. Finally, on May 28, 2008, former health and long-term-care minister George Smitherman announced that mandatory reporting of C. difficile cases in hospitals would begin on September 30 of that year.
Fast-forward a few months. David Caplan takes over as Minister of Health and Long-Term Care and moves that date from September 30 to September 26. Well, guess what? September 26 is a Friday, a day when the Legislature does not sit for question period, so the opposition cannot immediately hold the government to account here in the House; a day when the ministers don’t walk out of the Legislature to stand in front of the media to answer the questions the media have; and a day when Ontarians are preoccupied with the upcoming events of the weekend. Aside from Friday, September 26, being the beginning of the mandatory reporting for C. difficile, it was also the same day that the government dissolved the Smart Systems for Health Agency and replaced it with eHealth Ontario. Now, here’s the irony: This is a so-called good-government bill that’s been introduced to cover up the disastrous scandal that ended up occurring at eHealth.
Another example is the release of the Cancer Care Ontario audit-this is shameful. The audit was quietly released the same day as the auditor’s report on electronic health records systems. The audit found that the agency had spent nearly $75 million on consultants over the last two years and did not consistently apply tendering rules for all of the contracts. The audit also found that one consulting firm received single-source contracts worth $18.7 million over a three-year period. None of these expenses billed by consultants were preapproved by the agency, and almost all of them weren’t backed up by receipts. So again we see the McGuinty Liberals follow this trend by releasing the Cancer Care Ontario audit on a day when MPPs, the media and Ontarians were preoccupied with the Auditor General’s report.
I would like to make one more point regarding this bad-government bill. I think there are really some significant changes in this bill, and the fact that they have been thrown into a 322-page document raises some very big red flags.
What is in this bill that the McGuinty Liberals are hoping we won’t find? Why are the large parts of this bill not stand-alone bills? My colleague has already spoken about the proposal to replace the Public Inquiries Act. Well, I think this is really interesting timing, since the PC caucus has called on the Premier to call a public inquiry into the eHealth scandal. I won’t pursue this today, but I can only wonder whether this is one of the changes the McGuinty Liberals were hoping to hide in these 322 pages of changes.
Regrettably, I again have to say that this is not the first time that we have seen this government play the game of “find the needle in the haystack.” They dumped binders full of OLG expenses on us; they dumped thousands of pages of Ministry of Health FOIs on us; and perhaps the most notable, they dumped six binders of information regarding the freedom-of-information request from eHealth Ontario. I would just like to remind the McGuinty Liberals that we went through those six binders. We went through them page for page, and I am sure that every member on the opposite side of this House knows what the result of that was. This bill will be no different. We will go through this bill page for page and pull out what the McGuinty Liberals hope to hide.
Let’s talk about what this bill does.
The bill makes some significant changes to the Municipal Elections Act. One change that would affect almost everyone is the change to section 5, which amends the voting day from the second Monday in November to the fourth Monday in October. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has said that a number of seniors’ groups, as well as female candidates, have asked for this change, and I can appreciate that. I think that a lot of people, particularly snowbirds leaving us as of November 1, wanted to have this date moved forward. This will allow more Ontarians the ability to vote.
I have spoken about the democratic process already, but I will just add that voting is certainly part of that democratic process. So if we can encourage a greater voter turnout, that is something I will strongly support.
The change in the election date, of course, changes the deadline for a candidate to file their nomination papers. As I see it, this bill would also amend the cut-off date for nomination papers. It would move the time from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the second Friday in September. Two o’clock seems a little odd to me; I don’t know why they picked 2 o’clock. I wonder why it’s not still 4 o’clock, which is closer to the end of the day and easier for most people to come in and file.
This bill also addresses the needs of candidates and electors with disabilities, another good thing in this bill. The bill includes a change that states, “Campaign expenses related to a candidate’s disability are excluded from the candidate’s spending limit.” So if a candidate needs a ramp built to their new campaign office, that can be done without actually charging it to the campaign expenses.
I’m happy to see the progress that we have made as a society over the years as to the accessibility issues, and I think this is a positive change.
This bill would also allow the Municipal Property Assessment Corp., MPAC, to enter into an agreement with the Registrar General to broaden the range of information available to MPAC to create a preliminary list of electors. As you know, the Registrar General is responsible for the province’s birth certificates, birth registrations, marriage certificates and name changes, as well as death certificates. This could prove to be helpful with respect to getting a more accurate voters’ list. I think we have all heard about outdated information on voters’ lists, and we all know it can be quite the nightmare. I just want to ensure that all the appropriate steps are taken to ensure that there are no privacy breaches here, and that we are mindful of the confidentiality of this personal information.
The accuracy of the voters’ list was of concern to me, and I did take the time to address that in my 15 hours at the estimates committee with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Specifically, I asked the minister a question regarding the MPAC enumeration process. In 2006, as you may remember, the enumeration process included a new code, and the new code was simply the letter “U.” It was to determine citizenship status. It created some concern in municipalities because many voters were classified with that “U,” which represented unconfirmed citizenship. This meant that those voters had to then fill out an amendment form so that their citizenship would be known and proof would be given, which is very important. I don’t disagree with that, but you can imagine the real problem at the polls when something like this occurs. Many, many backups happened. There were huge lineups in some municipalities.
MPAC has indicated that they’re working on this, and they hope to improve the accuracy of this enumeration process. My question to the minister was to provide some insight into the status of this and whether municipalities could look forward to a less cumbersome process for the 2010 municipal election. Actually, if I remember correctly, the minister pointed out that it was a very good question. In his response, the minister told me that he undertook this issue with the Minister of Finance, as MPAC falls under the Minister of Finance’s portfolio, and that, if they were to make changes to the Municipal Act, it would be one of the areas that would be addressed.
But you know what? I see in this bill that MPAC is given the ability to use data from the Registrar General regarding the registration of births, deaths and changes of name, but I don’t think that it will address the unconfirmed citizenship status issue. As far as I can see, this issue has not been addressed in this bill. And because of how quickly this bill has been thrown at us, I must say that I have not had the opportunity to take part in my technical briefing yet from the staff of the ministry. I am, though, looking forward to that later this week, and I will be asking that very specific question of the staff.
Another point that I want to make is with respect to the environment and land use planning cluster. I also addressed this in my 15 hours with the minister at the estimates committee. The cluster will combine the Assessment Review Board, the board of negotiation, the Environmental Review Tribunal and also the municipal board. Although these tribunals affect municipalities directly, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing would not respond to my questions and suggested that they be asked of the Attorney General. I see that the minister will not be speaking on this issue, on this so-called good-government bill, so again, he will be off the hook with respect to questions regarding this new cluster and the implications that it has for the municipal sector.
I’d also like to point out that the initial report that resulted in the proposal for the environment and land use planning cluster was prepared for the Minister of Government Services, even though the tribunals fall under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General. So I don’t really buy this whole thing of the “not my issue” response, and I will certainly be looking for further answers regarding the cluster when I speak with the ministry staff.
I want to touch on what I think has been missed in this bill. I think that since this bill opens up the Municipal Elections Act, there is an opportunity to talk about some other changes, changes that have been talked about over the last couple of years but have not been presented in this bill.
I would like to talk about voting locations. In the last general election, and even in my by-election in 2007, I received many e-mails and phone calls from concerned parents regarding their children’s schools being used as voting locations. I understand the logistics of using a school as a voting location because they’re really the centre point of a community. They also have facilities to allow for voting stations to be set up mainly in the school auditorium so it facilitates people coming in and going out. However, most recently, we have worried about the safety of our schools, and I think that schools have most doors locked, and strangers and visitors must check in with the office and that kind of procedure.
So I can appreciate the concern of parents that outsiders, even though they may be going through their democratic process of voting, are really outsiders to that school, and they’re coming into their children’s school while their children are there. I think that school security has really increased over the last years, and we have all heard some disturbing stories. We really need to ensure that we do everything in our power to protect the safety of our children.
It is for this reason that I’m suggesting that we try to coordinate a professional development day occurring on the same day as the municipal election. This would allow for municipalities to use the school as a voting location, and it would also put the many concerned parents at ease that their children are not put in any potentially dangerous situations. This bill allows for the opportunity for us to look at this now, because we’re opening the act. The Attorney General should work with the Minister of Education on this front and arrange that a PD day be coordinated with the municipal election. I know that as an opposition member, our recommendations are most usually not considered, let alone taken, but I feel that this one has very strong merit. I will, of course, be suggesting this as an amendment to this bill, and I guess I will just have to wait and see how it is perceived by the Liberal majority.
I will wrap up my time today by reiterating a comment I made earlier. This bill is truly bad politics in the name of good government. It has the potential to be a political diversion for the long list of Liberal scandals. It has diminished our democratic process by not providing all members of the Legislature with the bill in a timely way, by rushing a bill of this magnitude to debate before the hard copies have even arrived at our desks, and by leaking parts of this bill before members had a chance to even look at it. This is certainly my definition of bad government, not good government.
We have already seen far too much money and time wasted on the McGuinty Liberals’ photo ops. There is absolutely no more room for any waste, especially now with their record-breaking $24.7-billion debt. If the McGuinty Liberals are truly to their word on this being a good-government bill, they will act in that way and they will accept the recommendations from the opposition parties for amendments-from my colleagues as well as myself-because that is what good government does. As members of official opposition, it is our role to critique the actions of this government and present suggestions that will benefit all Ontarians. It is also the current government’s role to adopt some of these suggestions of changes that may previously have not been considered.
On that note, I look forward to the continued debates on this bill, and I look forward to following this bill to committee.
Second reading debate deemed adjourned.