March 28, 2019
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Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report March 28, 2019 Quotation of the day “We’re going to build, build, build subways, subways, subways.” Premier Doug Ford trumpeted his controversial plans for Toronto’s transit system using phrasing reminiscent of his late brother Rob. Today at Queen’s Park On the schedule The House sits at 9 a.m. The government could call any of the following pieces of legislation for morning and afternoon debate: ● Bill 87, Fixing the Hydro Mess Act; ● Bill 66, Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act; or ● Bill 48, Safe and Supportive Classrooms Act. Two Tory backbench bills and an NDP motion are on the docket for the afternoon’s private members’ debates: ● PC MPP Goldie Ghamari’s Bill 78, Supporting Ontario’s Community, Rural and Agricultural Newspapers Act. The legislation proposes to expand the definition of “newspaper” so that cities and towns can post mandatory notices in publications that publish regularly during the month, as opposed to the week, as some local news outlets are publishing less in a struggling industry. ○ Ghamari will talk about her proposal in the media studio this afternoon. ● PC MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos’s Bill 77, Hellenic Heritage Month Act, which would proclaim March the official month of Greek history. ● NDP MPP Chris Glover’s motion calling on the government to convert all future OSAP loans into grants and to stop charging interest on existing student debt. Motions are non-binding, but Glover’s may be more of a long shot considering the PC’s recent changes to the tuition fee framework enabled what he is proposing to change. Wednesday’s debates and proceedings The government’s time allocation motion on Bill 74, People’s Health Care Act, was debated in the morning and passed (Ayes 70; Nays 44) after question period. It sets public hearings for April 1 and April 2, with the bill due back to the House for third-reading debate by April 10. The second opposition day of the year saw MPPs debate, then pass, Monique Taylor’s motion calling on the government to implement a needs-based autism therapy funding scheme. The PCs recently reworked their controversial program to include needs-based services after weeks of protests by upset parents and advocates. (The NDP did not debate their its opposition day motion of 2019, about boycotting General Motors over the planned closure of the Oshawa operation. Unifor also recently called off a public relations campaign, and according to the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington, the union expects some good news from the automaker next month.) The Opposition tabled two private member’s bills: ● NDP MPP Marit Stiles introduced Bill 89, Teach the Reach Act. The bill would amend the Highway Traffic Act so the Ministry of Transportation teaches and promotes the “Dutch reach” method of drivers’ door opening with an eye to improving cyclists’ safety on the road. ● NDP MPP Tom Rakocevic tabled Bill 90, Lower Automobile Insurance Rates Act. (PC MPP Parm Gill’s duelling auto-insurance backbench bill, Bill 42, to end so-called postal code discrimination, cleared second reading last week.) In the park OPSEU’s corrections division and the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants are scheduled to hold their lobby days at Queen’s Park, and breakfast and lunch receptions respectively. Sunshine List highlights The 2018 Sunshine List dropped Wednesday, revealing which public servants earned at least $100,000. Here are the highlights: For the third consecutive year Ontario Power Generation CEO Jeff Lyash topped the list, at over $1.7 million. Lyash, however, is leaving OPG later this week for the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-owned electricity supplier (where he’ll pull in a higher salary and replace the highest-paid U.S. federal employee). Three other OPG execs were among the ten highest compensated public servants, as were health-care executives at Sick Kids and Sunnybrook Hospitals, University of Toronto’s Asset Management Corp. president Daren Smith ($989,308), Ontario Public Service Pension Board president and CEO Mark Fuller ($803,552) and OLG president and CEO Stephen Rigby ($765,406). No women made the top ten. Ontario Securities Commission chair and CEO Maureen Jensen was the highest-earning female bureaucrat last year, placing 12th and earning $709,161. Premier Doug Ford earned $112,770 last year. His embattled chief of staff Dean French raked in $153,155. Official Opposition NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s 2018 salary came in at $171,037. The government pointed out that the highest-paid employees at agencies that would be rolled into the Ontario Health super-agency (such as the Local Health Integration Networks, Cancer Care Ontario and eHealth) have ballooned over the past 15 years under Grit government. Between 2003 and 2018, employees earning $100,000 or more spiked from 138 to 1,469. Ford has said health-care execs with plum salaries are on the chopping block, but Health Minister Christine Elliott has softened the language, saying they may get other gigs. Rueben Devlin, the premier’s special health-care adviser, pulled in $158,731 for his work in 2018. (His appointment came with a salary more than double that, at $348,000 annually.) Former premier Kathleen Wynne’s ex-chief of staff Andrew Bevan raked in $552,667 in the first half of last year (he was laid off in June post-election), far more than the $313,921 he made for 12 months of work in 2017. There were over 150,000 names on the 2018 list, a 14 per cent increase or 19,131 more employees than 2017. Some have argued the nearly quarter-century-old tradition of disclosing top public sector salaries does little to rein in the list and amounts to vilification of civil servants. The $100,000 threshold has remained stagnant since the list was created in 1996 — some say it should be indexed to keep up with inflation. (For instance, some health-care CEOs earning $100,000 in 2003 dollars may not have made the list in 2018 dollars, which is a difference of roughly $27,000.) Ontario climate policy ‘frightening’ and ‘inadequate’: Saxe Environmental Commissioner Dianne Saxe tabled her final report Wednesday, saying she finds the Ford government’s climate policy “very frightening” and “inadequate” as she prepares to leave her post. Saxe’s report blasts the Ford government for falling short when it comes to conserving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She pointed to the cancellation of cap-and-trade and conservation projects, as well as a growth plan she believes will spur urban sprawl and create more reliance on transportation fuels. Ontario is 75 per cent dependent on imported fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel and natural gas, the report notes. “This dependence is bad for our economy, for our climate, and for our health.” Becoming 10 per cent more efficient could save Ontario as much as $2 billion annually, she says in her final report. Saxe’s office is being folded into that of the auditor general’s by May 1, per the Tories Fall Economic Statement from November. Saxe says a dozen people, herself included, will be out of a job by Friday -— despite now-premier Doug Ford’s campaign pledge no public servants would lose their jobs if he took office. She told reporters she talked to AG Bonnie Lysyk about coming aboard, but found no “common ground” in light of her “very different expertise, experience and interests.” “This is a proud but sad day,” Saxe said, suggesting some of her environmental advocacy work may get lost in the AG’s value-for-money mandate. Today’s events March 28 at 9:30 a.m. – Toronto OPSEU president Warren “Smokey” Thomas will be in the Queen’s Park media studio to discuss the “crisis in correctional institutions.” March 28 at 12:50 p.m. – Toronto Finance Minister Vic Fedeli will tease the budget in a luncheon speech to the Empire Club at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Budget Day is April 11. Topics of conversation ● “We’re going to build, build, build subways, subways, subways,” Premier Doug Ford told the legislature in Wednesday’s question period, in defence of the province’s newly revealed plans to rip up transit plans in Toronto. The plans were revealed by the city the previous evening ahead of Wednesday’s council meeting. In letters to the city manager and TTC’s CEO, provincial adviser Michael Lindsay and deputy minister Shelley Tapp lay out major changes to Toronto’s transit system and claim the cost of the Scarborough subway extension and Downtown Relief Line have soared (which the city disputes). The letters also say any provincial financial support for big transit projects is conditional on Queen’s Park having a “leadership role” in the planning, design and delivery of such projects. ○ The plan has Opposition critics and transit advocates up in arms, while Toronto Mayor John Tory took a more deferential approach. “To get transit built, we must work together with the other governments,” Tory said. “We simply cannot build the transit alone.” ○ NDP transit critic Jessica Bell, who attended ATU Local 113 protests against the subway upload plans Wednesday, said Ford’s plans “seem to include wasting billions of dollars rewriting plans, delaying construction, issuing demands and privatizing transit lines.” ○ Former Toronto mayor David Miller tweeted the province’s “intent to massively interfere in the planning and building of transit” will be “disastrous,” pointing to a slew of delayed, costly past projects. ● Premier Ford is being sued for $5 million by Brad Blair, the former OPP deputy commissioner who was fired for sharing information in his complaint about possible political interference in the now-defunct appointment of Ron Taverner as commissioner.