September 21, 2020

Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report September 21, 2020

Quotation of the day

“If this is a high-ranking guy and he's clearly telling me don't run, what am I going to do?”

A prospective Liberal candidate for Toronto Centre, who is Black, alleges riding association president Milton Chan discouraged them from running for the nomination.

Today at Queen’s Park

Written by Sabrina Nanji

On the schedule The house reconvenes at 10:15 a.m. The government could call any of the following items for debate:

● Bill 202, Soldiers Aid Commission Act; ● Bill 204, Helping Tenants and Small Businesses Act; ● The motion blocking repeal of as-yet unproclaimed sections of the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act; ● The motion shaking up the standing orders; and ● Any of the commemorative private members' bills that were fast-tracked for third reading.

Committees this week Standing committees are back in full swing this week.

On Tuesday, the government agencies committee will vet incoming appointees Joseph Tascona, former PC MPP, who is up for a role on the Human Rights Tribunal, and Paul Stopciati, a business owner and former city council candidate in Sudbury, who is headed to the Fire Safety Commission.

The Select Committee on Emergency Management Oversight meets tomorrow afternoon to hear from the premier or a minister of his choosing about the justification for extending emergency orders.

The estimates committee will also begin scrutinizing the 2020-21 supplementary estimates for ministry spending.

On Wednesday, the public accounts committee convenes to determine what sections of the auditor general's annual report it will review this session. The finance committee picks its sub-committee roster on Thursday.

Premier watch Premiers Doug Ford, François Legault, Jason Kenney and Brian Pallister were in Ottawa Friday to lay out their asks for this week's speech from the throne: a $28-billion top-up for health-care costs, covering 35 per cent of provincial spending, up from 22 per cent.

Ontario Liberal Party not living up to its candidate diversity mandate, nomination hopefuls allege Multiple would-be POC nomination candidates allege they were discouraged from seeking the Ontario Liberal nod in Toronto Centre.

The Ontario Liberal Party says it's taking greater steps to recruit candidates from underrepresented groups ahead of the next scheduled election in June 2022, and riding associations must show they made an effort to search out BIPOC and LGBTQ nomination contestants.

But on the ground, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Of the minimum seven prospective contestants hoping to fly the Grit banner in Toronto Centre, at least three — who are Black and POC — said they either felt discouraged by the riding association’s president, Milton Chan, or thought the process was designed to shoehorn in the party's preferred candidate David Morris.

Not only is Chan the riding president, he also is senior legal counsel for the party and is responsible for enforcing its new equity outreach policy for nomination contests provincewide.

Queen's Park Today relied upon 11 sources for this story and agreed to grant the participants anonymity because they fear reprisals. The party also has a gag clause in its nomination rulebook prohibiting hopefuls from speaking out about internal activity unless something illegal occured.

One would-be contestant described a conversation with Chan that left them feeling dissuaded.

"All I knew is that I wanted to run," they told Queen's Park Today. "I had talked to quite a few people in the party and I had heard his name, people were saying: 'You know who you should chat with? Milton — he's very high-ranking.’"

"He was professional, he wasn't rude to me. But he was extremely dismissive."

They recall Chan saying Toronto Centre would be super competitive for the OLP in 2022, and there were other ways they could contribute to the party besides running, like volunteering behind the scenes. That was a blow to their confidence, and they decided not to make a bid.

"I felt very let down, I felt very disappointed, I felt like, OK, maybe I shouldn't do this. Not because he told me I shouldn't, but because I was thinking, whoa, if this is a high-ranking guy and he's clearly telling me don't run, what am I going to do?"

Chan says accusations he discouraged candidates are 'categorically false' When asked about the conversations, Chan said he only had "one or two logistical communications with the contestants who expressed interest in running."

In an emailed statement, Chan vehemently denied discriminating against any potential contestant based on the colour of their skin, and said it would be “impossible” to suggest he discouraged anyone from running “given the limited communications.”

However, documents authenticated by Queen's Park Today show that Chan had more in-depth correspondence with prospective candidates.

Chan added that while the timeline for the Toronto Centre race was "rapid," it was "not unusual," and it "diligently followed all the procedural steps within the rules outlined by the Ontario Liberal Party."

OLP president Brian Johns maintained Morris was the only candidate to submit nomination papers and specified that Leader Steve Del Duca “strongly” endorsed him. The party is “committed to forming the most inclusive team of candidates in Ontario history,” Johns said in a statement.

Chan's 2016 comments that sparked review by Wynne's office raise fresh concerns Several Liberals voiced renewed concerns about Chan's past comments, which some perceived as anti-Black, because he currently oversees the party's equity and harassment policies.

In 2016, when he was chief of staff to then-Indigenous affairs minister David Zimmer and helping to lead Ontario's new Anti-Racism Directorate, Chan was investigated by former Premier Kathleen Wynne's office for a controversial Facebook post he made about Black Lives Matter opposing police officers marching in Toronto’s Pride parade. Wynne's office received

complaints from several Black Liberals who said Chan’s post stereotyped the Black community as homophobic.

"It is impossible to have an effective anti-discrimination policty overseen by someone with a history of [alleged] discrimination themselves," charged one senior Liberal organizer.

Another senior Black Liberal told Queen’s Park Today that a person facing allegations of racism “shouldn’t be anywhere near nominations.”

Chan said it was an "emotional" and "heated" topic within the queer community. "As a queer racialized individual, this was a deeply personal and emotional issue, and I acted out imprudently with sarcasm," he said of the Facebook post.

"The matter was reviewed by the Premier's Office at the time and no further action was deemed necessary," Chan said.

More Covid rollbacks Social gathering caps have been scaled back across the province thanks to an upswing in Covid cases.

As was already the case with hot-spots Toronto, Peel and Ottawa, social gatherings provincewide are capped at 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors for the next 28 days at least. A handful of mayors including Markham's Frank Scarpitti had implored the PCs to apply the restrictions provincewide out of fear they could become the next hot zones.

Premier Doug Ford delivered the news in a rare Saturday press conference, saying the province needs to take "decisive action" to head off a second wave.

Meanwhile, health officials cannot confirm or rule out whether Ontario is well into the dreaded second wave yet, citing modelling for a number of potential scenarios, including a worst case where the next wave is three to four times what Ontario experienced in the spring.

NDP deputy leader Sara Singh accused the PCs of “chasing crisis after crisis instead of being ready” for the fall.

Ontario recorded 365 new cases Sunday and more than 400 each on Friday and Saturday.

Today’s events

September 21 at 1 p.m. – Toronto Premier Doug Ford is expected to hold his daily press conference at Queen's Park.

September 21 at 1 p.m. – Online The Ontario Real Estate Association and Nanos Research will release a report detailing how housing could play a role in the province’s economic recovery. Stan Cho, the PC’s parliamentary assistant for finance, and OREA president Tim Hudak will discuss.

Topics of conversation

● The number of long-term care staff in the province is lower now than it was when the pandemic began in March. Ontario Long-Term Care Association CEO Donna Duncan told the Globe and Mail she asked the PCs in June to provide funding to retrain unemployed hospitality workers for LTC jobs, but hasn’t heard back yet. ○ Unlike other provinces, like B.C. and Quebec, Ontario has yet to make an effort to staff up homes before fall. According to the Globe, many personal support workers quit their jobs last month when the pandemic pay top-up ended. ○ As of Sunday, there were 23 Covid outbreaks in LTC homes, up from 19 the day prior, and there are 71 active cases among staff.

● Meanwhile, doctors contracted to work in long-term care homes did not enter some homes that were struggling with outbreaks during the spring. The Toronto Star has the details.

● New data from pollster Angus Reid shows Premier Doug Ford’s pandemic-era popularity bump is solid even among Ontarians who voted for other parties during the last election. A whopping 59 per cent of Liberal voters approve of his performance, as do 43 per cent of those who voted NDP. ○ If an election were held today, 45 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the PCs — giving the governing party a 17-point lead on the Opposition New Democrats and a 23-point lead over the Ontario Liberal Party. ○ Angus Reid polled 1,026 Ontarians between August 26 and September 1, 2020.

● The College of Nurses of Ontario was hit by a ransomware cyberattack in which personal info may have been compromised, the Canadian Press reports.

● Nineteen Ontario firefighting personnel have been deployed to Oregon to help battle wildfires. "In the spirit of cooperation, we want to do what we can to help our neighbours to the south during this difficult time," reads a joint statement from Premier Doug Ford and Forestry Minister John Yakabuski.

● Labour Minister Monte McNaughton and his family tested negative for Covid. The minister began isolating last week after dining with CPC Leader Erin O’Toole, who has since tested positive.

● Tandem federal byelections in Toronto Centre and York Centre are set for October 26.

Appointments and employments

Infrastructure Ontario ● Michael Lindsay has been tapped as the next CEO of Infrastructure Ontario; he will take over from outgoing CEO Ehren Cory effective November 1. Lindsay currently works as IO's president of project delivery and previously held private sector gigs at engineering firm Hatch and at McKinsey & Company's Canadian public sector practice. ○ Cory was initially supposed to hang up his hat in February but stayed on to help steer the agency through the early days of the pandemic.

Premier's Office ● Travis Kann is officially joining Premier Doug Ford's office, replacing Kayla Iafelice as executive director of communications. Kann was previously Health Minister Christine Elliott's communications director; Iafelice is now at Wellington Advocacy.

Funding announcements ● To help seniors combat social isolation during the pandemic, the government is putting up $467,500 for the Older Adult Centres' Association of Ontario to run telephone-based social and educational programs.

Queen's Park Today is written by Sabrina Nanji, reporting from the Queen's Park press gallery.

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