“Good Riddance to Those Three Men in a Hot Tub.”

Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report April 16, 2019

Quotation of the day

“Good riddance to those three men in a hot tub.”

Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy invokes the late NDP MPP and inimitable orator Peter Kormos when touting the trillium logo makeover.

Today at Queen’s Park

On the schedule The House convenes at 9 a.m. The government could put forward either of the following pieces of business for morning and afternoon debate:

● The budget motion; or ● Bill 74, People’s Health Care Act. (The bill is at the third-reading stage and the government could call a third-reading vote this week.)

Monday’s debates and proceedings The budget motion was debated in the afternoon.

NDP finance critic Sandy Shaw filed a notice of motion for a reasoned amendment on Bill 100, the budget implementation bill, so it cannot be called for second reading today or tomorrow.

In the park Hospice Palliative Care Ontario is scheduled to host a breakfast reception; McMaster University and Solstice Public Affairs are slated to host evening receptions.

‘It would unbalance the federation’: Ontario fights carbon levy in court As it wages a court challenge against it, Ontario says the federal carbon backstop is so far-reaching it could allow Ottawa to reach its tentacles into “all human activity.”

“They could regulate where you live” or “how often you drive your car” and “would unbalance the federation,” Ontario’s lawyer Josh Hunter argued in appeals court on day one of the reference case challenge.

Hunter said the reference case isn’t about determining whether climate change is real (“It is”) or whether action needs to be taken to address it. “Ontario has taken action,” he said. “It is still taking action.”

At issue, he argued, is what level of government should have the power to set policy and legislation to deal with climate change. Which legislature should decide those measures is what the four-day hearing will determine, Hunter told the panel of judges.

Ontario’s arguments echo that of Saskatchewan’s, in its own provincial court challenge in February, where Ontario was an intervener. The provinces have asked the courts to weigh in on the constitutionality of the carbon backstop; the case is expected to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Hunter touted Ontario’s track record on curbing greenhouse gas emissions such as shutting down coal-fired gas plants (under the previous Liberal rulers), but said that has not counted towards determining whether Ontario has a “stringent” plan. The federal government is imposing carbon pricing on Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick, which do not have adequate plans on their own.

Ottawa will make its rebuttal today and 14 interveners will also have a chance to weigh in, including Saskatchewan on Ontario’s side and B.C. on the federal government’s, as well as Indigenous and environmental groups.

Today’s events

April 16 at 7:15 a.m. – Toronto Finance Minister Vic Fedeli will talk about the 2019 budget at a Canadian Club breakfast event.

April 16 at 9:30 a.m. – Toronto Outgoing French Language Services Commissioner François Boileau will release his annual report and hold a news conference in the Queen’s Park media studio.

April 16 at 12:30 p.m. – Toronto Advocates will be in the media studio to share thousands of public submissions to the health-care transformation bill.

April 16 at 10 a.m. – Markham Premier Doug Ford and Economic Development Minister Todd Smith will make an announcement at electronics manufacturer Veoneer Canada. Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti and local MPP Logan Kanapathi will be in tow.

Topics of conversation

● Ontario driver’s licences will get a fresh look this fall with the new (old) trillium logo. The PCs also announced passenger licence plates emblazoned with the new “A Place to Grow” slogan and commercial plates with “Open for Business” will be available starting February 1, 2020, once current plates run out. ○ Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek said the licence makeover will help combat identity theft but wouldn’t divulge the new features, which he said are years overdue, for safety reasons. “We don’t want counterfeiters and identity thieves to know what we’ve changed in the product,” Yurek said.

● Leadership candidates are traditionally allowed to continue fundraising post-race in order to wipe out personal debt they may have incurred, but NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says a loophole in Ontario’s election law is allowing politicians to skirt political contribution limits by raising money for leadership campaigns that are debt-free. According to the Globe and Mail, the practice allowed Premier Doug Ford to continue to raise money through his leadership campaign, despite already wiping out his debt, and to have that cash transferred to party coffers. ○ The Globe found Premier Ford’s leadership campaign has raised upwards of $500,000 since last May, including $205,860 in 2019. Of those who donated to Ford’s coffers this year, more than two-thirds also donated to the Ontario PC Party.

● The Ontario NDP says it’s making provincial history with the first official Black caucus in a political party. “Black community members should see themselves represented and respected when they look at their government. Black Canadian leaders must be at the table when every decision is made,” Leader Andrea Horwath said in a release. ○ NDP anti-racism critic Laura Mae Lindo will serve as chair. MPPs Faisal Hassan, Jill Andrew, Kevin Yarde and Rima Berns-McGown make up the rest of the caucus. ○ Lindo said their mandate “is to ensure that Black perspectives are meaningfully incorporated into the work that New Democrats do on every file — from finance, to health care, education, housing, the Arts and beyond.” Lindo said the caucus will work “actively and collaboratively with Black communities to address systemic anti-Black racism by proposing policy solutions that will help build a future of equity, justice, respect and safety.”

● Government and Consumer Services Minister Bill Walker explained why the PCs are scrapping part of the Ticket Sales Act that would have capped ticket resale prices at 50 per cent above the initial cost. “It was unenforceable,” Walker said of the Liberal-era law in an interview with the Canadian Press.

● A car chauffeuring PC MPP Lindsey Park around the finance minister’s post-budget event in Ajax Friday bumped into a crowd of protesters, prompting police to intervene,

according to a report from DurhamRegion.com. Durham police say no charges were laid at the scene.

Question period NDP leads off on education in the budget ● The 2019 budget dominated Monday’s question period. Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath led with a question about education funding, which she said amounts to a cut since the budget increases below the rate of inflation. Horwath also asked about the school board in the education minister’s own riding, which reportedly said it will lose as many as 50 secondary school teachers and struggle to provide the core curriculum under the PC’s bigger class size proposal. ○ Horwath also held a town hall event on changes to the education file at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate in North York Monday evening.

● Premier Doug Ford defended the budget as “reasonable” and “thoughtful” and pointed out the government is investing an additional $700 million for education in 2019-20.

Public health units ● Horwath asked about slashing the number of public health units from 35 to 10 and reducing public health sector funding by $200 million, amid a growing opioid overdose crisis. ○ Toronto’s board of health also held a special meeting Monday and voted to ask the province to reverse its decision, calling the cuts “deeply disturbing.”

● Finance Minister Vic Fedeli reiterated the province is looking to better coordinate access to services and to reduce the “bloated” health-care bureaucracy.

‘Rip-off rebate’ for child care ● Ford pivoted to the newly announced child-care tax credit, which Horwath called a “rip-off rebate,” as families would see an average $1,250 benefit. “So, for a family that’s got expenses of $20,000 for child-care, it’s not going to make a hill of beans of difference,” she said.

● The response fell to Fedeli, who said Ontarians should be “absolutely insulted by that last comment,” and boasted the child-care rebate as “one of the most flexible” programs in provincial history.

Special Services at Home ● The NDP also asked about the fate of the Special Services at Home support program for children with disabilities, which City News previously reported was frozen since last January.

● While it wasn’t explicit in the budget, Children and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod confirmed the program is “going to continue to be funded. People are getting their letters and their allocation is happening now.”

Anti-federal-carbon-tax sticker scofflaws ● NDP MPP Taras Natyshak wanted to know how the government “arrived at a $10,000-a-day fine as an appropriate punishment for failing to post campaign advertisements for [federal Conservative Leader] Andrew Scheer?”

● The energy minister said the stickers were dreamed up because Ontarians have “the right to know” about the impact of the federal carbon backstop. That said, the Tories aren’t saying how exactly they will enforce the government-mandated sticker policy.

PC friendly questions The Tories’ softball questions focused on the spring budget and federal carbon tax resistance.

News releases — non-governmental Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ● The OSPCA and Humane Society are seeking public feedback on a new animal welfare legislation, which the provincial government is revamping. It comes after a judge decided in January Ontario’s 100-year-old animal cruelty laws gave the OSPCA (a private charity that also receives taxpayer funding) unconsitutional enforcement powers and ordered the province redraft the law within a year. Meanwhile, the agency launched an online survey for a new system, which advocates have previously said should be publicly run. ○ The OSPCA has agreed to enforce the law until the end of June, despite the province’s request to carry on those duties until a new law is introduced; the PC government is appealing the court’s decision.

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

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