Queen's Park Today – Daily Report October 22

Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report October 22, 2018

Today at Queen’s Park ...... 1 Committees this week ...... 2 Today’s events ...... 3 Topics of conversation ...... 3 Funding announcements ...... 5

Quotation of the day

“These changes will clarify and simplify lines of accountability and allow our organization to be more nimble and outcome- focused.”

Health Minister Christine Elliott issues a statement on a major organizational shakeup at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care that includes the renaming of several divisions.

Today at Queen’s Park

On the schedule The House will convene at 10:30 a.m. The government could call any one of the following pieces of business during morning debate: • Bill 32, Access to Natural Gas Act; or • Bill 34, Green Energy Repeal Act.

After question period, the House will vote on a time allocation motion on the government’s motion amending the standing orders.

PC MPP Dave Smith is planning to introduce a private member’s bill this week in response to federal policy the PCs consider weak on terrorism. Smith’s forthcoming Terrorist Activity Sanctions Act aims to strip Ontarians convicted of terrorist acts abroad of certain provincial rights, such as having a driver’s licence and accessing OHIP, social assistance and WSIB coverage, the Toronto Sun first reported.

Premier’s Doug Ford tweeted his support for the backbencher’s legislation: “If you leave Canada to go fight for ISIS, you should not be welcomed back with open arms. Since Justin Trudeau doesn’t seem to take this seriously, MPP [Dave Smith] is taking action to send a message that there are consequences for leaving Ontario to commit 2 October 22, 2018 indefensible crimes.”

In the park The Consulting Engineers of Ontario are holding their lobby day at Queen’s Park, which includes an MPP breakfast in the morning and a reception in the evening.

Committees this week The Select Committee on Financial Transparency will continue digging into past government finances this week. In the hot seat Monday afternoon are the panel of commissioners who led the PC’s two-month long Financial Commission of Inquiry: former BC premier Gordon Campbell, and Dr. Al Rosen and Michael Horgan, a forensic accountant and a financial sector strategist, respectively.

On Tuesday the committee will hear from budget watchdog Peter Weltman and other analysts from the Financial Accountability Office.

The Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly will convene behind closed doors Wednesday for a briefing on e-petitions and the legislature’s television broadcasting system. Accepting petitions submitted on the internet, in addition to paper petitions, is something the committee began studying in 2015 and recommended be adopted in 2016. This led to further study by a subcommittee and the clerk’s office. In 2017 the clerk reported Ontario could pay to piggyback on the House of Commons system and have e-petitions up and running in as little as six months.

Bill 4, Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, is up for clause-by-clause consideration at the Standing Committee on General Government on Monday and Wednesday.

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts meets for a closed session Wednesday morning to discuss a section of the Auditor General’s report dealing with chronic disease prevention.

Ontario will approve, rebrand safe injection sites

Premier Doug Ford will accept Health Minister Christine Elliott’s recommendations and allow supervised injection sites, with some changes, according to multiple government sources familiar with the file that spoke to Queen’s Park Today.

The sites will be rebranded as consumption and treatment centres, said the sources, under condition of anonymity. An announcement is expected as early as this week.

The future of supervised injection and overdose consumption sites has been up in the air while the still-new PC government reviews whether the facilities “have merit” and whether the province should continue funding sites that were approved under the former Liberal administration.

During the campaign, Ford said he isn’t a fan of keeping such sites open. Last month Elliott told reporters the final decision lies with the premier, regardless of her recommendations.

A decision was expected at the end of September, but Community and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said at the time it would take an extra month to get the policy right.

Elliott successfully asked the federal government to extend its September 30 deadline to keep the sites operating while she finalized recommendations, saying she had “reviewed the latest data, evidence and current site models, visited various sites and held consultations.”

The premier and health minister’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Today’s events

October 22 at 9:30 a.m. – Toronto Health Minister Christine Elliott will make an announcement in the media studio.

October 22 at 10 a.m. – Provincewide It’s Election Day for all 444 Ontario municipalities.

Topics of conversation

• Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is in for a major shakeup. The ministry has “undergone an organizational realignment, as part of our government’s plan to tackle the ongoing hallway healthcare crisis in our health care system,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a cryptic news release last week. “Some divisions and branches will be merged to better serve patients. These changes will clarify and simplify lines of accountability and allow our organization to be more nimble and outcome-focused … [and] will streamline patient care.” o The news release came hours after Global News reported it had obtained a memo to health-care CEOs from Deputy Minister Helen Angus, in which she said the “structural changes” would allow the ministry to become “more nimble.” o Check out the new organizational chart here.

• Environment Rod Phillips launched an online consultation to glean public input on the Ministry of the Environment’s forthcoming “made-in-Ontario” plan to address climate change, which the minister has promised will be released later this fall. Phillips has faced public and opposition criticism for repealing the Liberal-established cap-and-trade program without offering a replacement. • Criticism has ramped up in recent weeks following the release of the provincial budget watchdog’s forecast that cancelling cap-and-trade will leave a $3-billion hole on the books over the next four years, and a UN report that said carbon pricing is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

o The Ontario consultation website lists four areas of focus: o “Creating an understanding of the effects that climate change is having on our households, businesses, communities and public infrastructure to better prepare and strengthen our resiliency; o Ensuring polluters are held accountable and creating dedicated measures that will efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions; o Improving Ontario’s business climate by unlocking the power of the private sector to finance and drive innovative climate solutions. This will include an emissions-reduction fund to invest in technology-based and other solutions to reduce emissions in Ontario; o Finding a balanced solution that puts people first, makes life more affordable for families, and takes Ontario’s role in fighting climate change seriously.” • The deadline for feedback is November 16.

• Premier Doug Ford’s so-called “largest consultation ever in Ontario’s history” on education, including of the repeal of the sex-ed curriculum and the elimination of “Discovery Math,” has not made the grade for some educators who told CTV the process lacks transparency. o On Friday, the education ministry opened up online consultations and also held a telephone town hall to let the public weigh in on a wide range of subjects until December.

• The Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres told the Globe and Mail it’s still waiting on a 33-per-cent bump in funding earmarked by the former Liberal government earlier this year. Under the former government’s gender-based violence strategy, rape crisis centres were scheduled to receive almost $15 million over three years to boost the capacity of current centres and to build new ones in communities without. o The PC government has paused numerous Liberal-branded initiatives while it conducts its line-by-line review of those programs. Last week, the Liberals’ roundtable on violence against women was also disbanded by the Tories.

• Finance Minister Vic Fedeli sent a letter to the federal government with concerns a Canada Post strike could delay legal cannabis home delivery, according to the Sun. Fedeli urged Canada’s Public Services and Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough to “do everything in [the federal government’s] power” to keep the union and Canada Post at the bargaining table and avoid rotating strikes, which could start Monday. o Fedeli also stayed on the Ford administration’s theme of needling Ottawa over cannabis legalization. “Your government further made the decision to legalize cannabis, but left much of the heavy lifting of implementation to the provinces. The Ontario government took a responsible approach by adopting a retail model that both protects our children and youth and combats the illegal market. The first phase of this measured approach relies on secure and reliable online delivery, which could now be delayed if the federal government does not intervene,” the finance minister wrote. o Fedeli previously said the Ontario Cannabis Store has a Plan B for pot delivery, but has not said what exactly that is. o Shortly after opening for business OCS told customers delivery could take up to five days, instead of three, due to a high volume of orders.

• Liberal campaign manager David Herle’s comment referring to Doug Ford as “a bit of a dick” during a live CP24 panel in April did not breach daytime broadcasting standards, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council decided last week.

• Steeltown native and Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath is “wholeheartedly” backing incumbent Fred Eisenberger for Hamilton mayor, something Horwath said she has never before done during her nine years as Ontario NDP captain. o “There is a lot on the line for Hamilton in Monday’s municipal election. Too much is at stake for Hamilton Centre families, and for the hometown I love, for me to stay on the sidelines,” Horwath said in a statement Friday. o Unlike his frontrunning opponent Vito Sgro, Eisenberger supports building the LRT, which Horwath said is “critical” to Hamilton. o A poll from Mainstreet Research shows former PC leader Patrick Brown is four points up from incumbent Mayor Linda Jeffrey going into Monday’s mayoral election in Brampton.

• Former Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian has reportedly resigned from her consulting role at Sidewalk Labs — Google’s sister company working to build a high-tech “smart city” community on Toronto’s waterfront — over concerns her recommended rubric to protect people’s personal privacy is being overlooked.

• The province’s youngest-ever MPP has put a ring on it. Tory MPP Sam Oosterhoff, first elected to Queen’s Park at age 19 in the 2016 Niagara byelection, tells Queen’s Park Today he and fiancé Keri Ludwig plan on getting married next July, after posting news of the engagement on Twitter this weekend. “We are very happy,” Oosterhoff said.

Funding announcements

• The federal government is earmarking up to $49.9 million to steel producer ArcelorMittal Canada Inc., which has operations in Ontario and Quebec. Ottawa says the investment will support up to 4,700 jobs in Hamilton and 1,700 jobs in Contrecoeur, Quebec. The steel company is in the midst of a $205-million project to “modernize its facilities, which will help enhance the company’s productivity and sustain its competitiveness,” a government news release said. o The cash comes as the Ford administration has been hammering Ottawa over compensation for the steel industry in the wake of the USMCA trade pact. U.S. President Donald Trump announced steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada during the rocky NAFTA renegotiations.