The friendly initiative

Posted on by July 18, 2017

Consensus-building in the Midwest

The newspapers, and the various party membership blurbs, make a lot of the initiatives by the Prime Minister and the various provincial Premiers to outreach to the U.S. governors and Congress, and reinforce the growing and continuing mutual value of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Less well-known, because the newspapers don’t consider it eye-popping copy, is the next level of outreach: among the U.S. states and Canadian provinces and among U.S. Members of their Legislative Assemblies, U.S. state Senates, and Canadian Provincial elected members. It’s also where the cross-border relationships are really cemented.

As an Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament, I have had the opportunity to participate in a number of such conferences and meetings during my time representing the good people of Lisgar, Meadowvale and Streetsville.

I normally stick to the essential local and Ontario business in my local communications. In this time of cynicism and skepticism about the very institutions and agreements that have put Ontario on the path to being the Great Lakes Basin’s first trillion-dollar economy, perhaps we should peek into the ways our neighbouring states and provinces work together, and share the prosperity we jointly attract by doing what we each do best.

Ontario: the Great Lakes Basin giant

Ontario is by far the largest – by land area, population, and economic activity – province or state in North America’s Great Lakes and Midwest regions: those portions of the United States with which we share a border. And like any good partnership, Ontario’s relations with states such as New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and the other states and provinces in our regional ‘neighbourhood’ transcends such metrics as I-win-and-you-lose, or I-take-and-you-give. The reality is that we equally share a much larger pie whose benefits we would not have any other way than by partnership.

The automotive trade is Ontario’s biggest sharable industry. In a modern vehicle assembly plant, such as we have in Ontario at Windsor (Chrysler); Oakville (Ford); Oshawa (General Motors); Alliston (Honda); Cambridge or Woodstock (Toyota), a completed vehicle rolls off the assembly line at the rate of about one per minute. Most of those vehicles cross a provincial or national border to be sold, just as many of those vehicles we buy in Ontario are themselves made elsewhere. During manufacture, whether in Canada and the USA, parts and sub-assemblies welded, bolted or incorporated into those vehicles arrive on precise schedules from locations all over North America, which of course includes Mexico.

It would be hard to say where a car or truck is actually made, based on the origin of the parts that comprise it. Indeed, many of the Rules of Origin documentation show clearly how thoroughly integrated the manufacturing economies of Canada (mostly Ontario), the USA and Mexico are. A motor vehicle can cross the border more than half a dozen times before it is finished. Much the same applies in most other facets of the manufacturing economy on both sides of the border, and to the agricultural and commodity markets.

Most importantly about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to Canada and the USA is that it is balanced. Each country benefits about equally. It is also lifting Mexico’s economy, and providing hope for the people of the world’s largest-population Spanish-speaking country.

Team Ontario in the Midwest

That’s what makes it important not only for U.S. and Canadian legislators to get together and understand one another’s strengths and needs, it also underlines how vital it is that elected representatives share what they learn with the people who depend on them.

One of those Canada-U.S. forums is the Council of State Governments, an entity in which Canadian provinces participate as equals, taking our turns hosting meetings as well. This year’s Midwest Legislative Conference was in Des Moines, Iowa in July. It’s an American Midwest state I had not visited before. With Ontario’s Speaker unable to attend this year, I was Ontario’s official representative, joined by MPPs Toby Barrett (PC, Haldimand-Norfolk) and Wayne Gates (NDP, Niagara Falls). Toby is an authority on agricultural issues, and Wayne brings his labour background to the conversation. And we are friends as well.

The U.S. Midwest States are the heartland for the 63 million American voters whose ballots elected the current U.S. federal administration. Most state houses are Republican, as are Midwest Senates, and most state governors. One might have expected a portion of the talk to be about the actions and events in Washington. None of it was.

Wind power in the Midwest

The U.S. states have focused on the business of moving forward with their local and regional priorities. In Iowa, some of its key manufacturers left in recent years for cheaper-labour locations. Iowa, like Ontario, saw some of its industrial renewal in a move toward clean energy. Iowa helped convert a former appliance factory into a facility to build wind turbine towers. A short distance away lies a facility that makes wind turbine blades. Wind is a key element in Iowa’s power grid and industrial strategy. More than a third of Iowa’s electricity today is generated from wind turbines. They even have a wind turbine on the Iowa drivers’ licenses.

The U.S. Midwest has some of North America’s most dependable winds. Occupations relating to renewable energy are among the fastest-growing in the USA. The median wage in Iowa for a wind turbine technician is about $60,000 US. Roughly 4,000 wind turbine technicians are currently working in the USA. Wind in the United States now surpasses hydro as America’s number one source of renewable electricity, with 84,000 megawatts of installed capacity. We have 12,000 megawatts installed in Canada, mostly in Ontario.

Said one of my state colleagues to me in July, “When a farmer leases land for wind, about 95 percent of that land is still available for cultivation. Our farmers look at wind turbines as a drought-resistant cash crop. In fact, wind serves as an effective farmland preservation strategy. If you are from a rural region in the wind belt, and you are not developing wind, you are missing the boat.” In America, 71 percent of installed wind turbines are in low-income rural areas. Wind will drive 248,000 U.S. jobs by 2020, with some 33,000 of those jobs in manufacturing.

Ontario has led Canada into the 21st century’s renewable electricity reality. Our province built a renewable energy manufacturing and service sector from nothing to more than 30,000 jobs since 2009. Delegates from Saskatchewan and Alberta, two heavily coal-dependent provinces also in the prairie wind belt, paid close attention to renewable energy’s economic potential in Iowa. Quebec is building wind turbines all along the south shore of the St. Lawrence, where the North Atlantic wind blows.

The states and provinces discussed and adopted a joint resolution in support of energy trade, and North American energy security. The NAFTA agreement was discussed in a number of sessions and in different ways. The Midwest in Canada and the U.S. gets it. NAFTA is synonymous with ongoing progress and prosperity. A joint resolution in support of NAFTA expressed the consensus.

Fresh perspective on issues

  • Pulitzer Prize winner and National Humanities Medal, Isabel Wilkerson is the author of the best-selling book The Warmth of Other Suns. She talked about the post-war migration of some six million African Americans from the deep south to the northern states;
  • Author Denise Kiernan talked about the women whose work at Oak Ridge Tennessee was pivotal to the development of the atomic bomb in World War II;
  • In a nod to mythology and history, legislators took a short drive to an Iowa attraction called Living History Farms. There, along with a recreation of a 19th century prairie town, much like Upper Canada Village, was a cleared Iowa field, where re-enactors (who were all ball players) in 1919-era White Sox uniforms played baseball with attendees in a modern-day Field of Dreams. I very much enjoyed playing some pitch-and-catch;
  • Iowa hosted a full-scale State Dinner at the stunningly beautiful Legislative Building in Des Moines to wind up the conference, with Canadians and Americans joining together to sing both national anthems;
  • And the next time the Midwest states and provinces meet will be in Winnipeg in the summer of 2018.

If our current times offer one ray of hope, it has been that the men and women at the state and provincial levels have ensured that we do not take the world’s largest, most successful and most productive trading relationship, and allow it to be guided by the wind of rhetoric, but rather steered for the benefit of the people it now effectively serves.

Labour Changes

Posted on by July 25, 2017

Rewarding the ‘good actors’

Workplace changes

Bill 148 proposes changes in workplace rules to make the playing field level, reward the ‘good actors,’ and raise Ontario’s minimum wage.

Ontario has introduced legislation called the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017. At the Ontario Legislature, it is called Bill 148. It is the first time in a generation that substantive changes have been made to update Ontario labour and employment laws. At its core, Bill 148 proposes an overdue cleanup of employment and labour-related legislation to close loopholes, reduce ambiguity, reflect the changing work and employment environment, and ‘raise the bar’ on how employees in a workplace may be compensated and treated.

Local employers have primarily asked me about two things: the two-step rise in the minimum wage, and whether proposed changes in how a union may organize a workplace might affect them. These two points were also my own primary concern. I received four separate briefings on the bill, two of which were one-on-one detailed conversations with a trusted friend, Labour Minister Kevin Flynn.

The proposed reforms and changes in Bill 148 will do no harm to reputable businesses operating in a fair and legal way.

Card-based union certification will, in the bill’s proposals, be extended in a very small way: to workplaces in which the workforce is mobile. Examples might include cleaners and security guards. If your employees work from a fixed location, this proposal does not apply to you. For example, most franchisors and franchisees are not affected by this proposal.

Similarly, the proposal to move Ontario’s minimum wage from its current $11.40 per hour to $14.00 per hour at the start of 2018, and to $15.00 per hour at the start of 2019 also affects few of western Mississauga’s employers and work forces, most of which pay (and are paid) more than the minimum wage. Ontario-wide, however, the proportion of the work force paid just the minimum wage has grown in the past decade. Moreover, outside Ontario, competing jurisdictions have caught up with, or are close to, Ontario’s minimum wage.

Getting at the ‘bad actors’

In practical terms, the proposals in Bill 148 level the proverbial playing field. Local businesses that operate in a lawful, ethical and transparent way, and pay their people fairly will feel little, if any, impact from Bill 148. Such businesses rightfully complain about competitors who pay workers cash under the table; compensate workers at the minimum wage and no more; cut corners on safety; misuse unpaid internships to get value for nothing; farm out workers through temp agencies to avoid benefits and similar practices. It is this latter group of ‘bad actor’ employers who will feel the impact of the proposals in Bill 148.

Businesses operating within the law, treating their people well, and paying a fair and living wage will find their competitive position improved within Ontario, and unchanged outside Ontario.

In recent weeks, business groups and economists have confirmed research clearly and repeatedly showing a rising minimum wage puts capital into the economy, and creates jobs.

Bill 148 proposals in a nutshell

  • Raise Ontario’s general minimum wage to $14 per hour on January 1, 2018, and then to $15 on January 1, 2019, followed by annual increases at the rate of inflation;
  • Mandate equal pay for part-time, temporary, casual and seasonal employees doing the same job as full-time employees; and equal pay for temporary help agency employees doing the same job as permanent employees at the agencies’ client companies;
  • Expand personal emergency leave to include an across-the-board minimum of at least two paid days per year for all workers;
  • Bring Ontario’s vacation time into line with the national average by ensuring at least three weeks’ vacation after five years with the same employer;
  • Make employee scheduling fairer, including requiring employees to be paid for three hours of work if their shift is cancelled within 48 hours of its scheduled start time.

More information about Bill 148

Bill 148 Committee Hearings

Individuals and businesses made more than 90 presentations to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs at the Legislature during July.

Canada Day 2017

Posted on by July 24, 2017

Celebrating Canada with a friend

Whatever the challenges and opportunities of the days before, and those that follow, Canada Day is a time to smile, wave the flag, listen to music, enjoy the young summer, and celebrate the country. Whether it is the country we and our families had been born in, or the land that we or our family came to, Canada Day is about the country every other nation tries to be.

Yes, it was time to make a few speeches. At every level, our elected officials kept those remarks mercifully brief. Canada’s 150th birthday belonged to the people who gathered together in back yards, neighbourhood barbecues, town squares (like Streetsville), or by the tens or hundreds of thousands in all our city centres.

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On Canada Day, I took a friend with a proven ability to help people smile, our cat, Merlin, and we went out to meet people and celebrate. Merlin makes everyone smile. Everybody wants to pat Merlin, hold Merlin, and cuddle Merlin. The children of many families who have recently come to Canada often regard cats as feral animals. Just a moment with Merlin, as with his predecessor, the late Obi-Wan, dispels any apprehension anyone may ever have had about what a joyful animal a cat is.

Merlin and I met the Sikh seniors in Erindale Park. We saw the neighbours in Churchill Meadows, and ducked for shelter during a sudden downpour in mid-afternoon. In the evening, Andrea and I brought Merlin to Streetsville Square to meet the neighbours. Merlin even met his dog-friend, Joey, who belongs to Emily Cathcart. Joey and Merlin appear to genuinely like one another. On his walks in the neighbourhood, Merlin has a few other regular dog encounters, and appears to like a few little dogs his size.

Canada at 150 years young was an occasion to enjoy with friends and family. Andrea, Merlin and I helped people do exactly that. Have a wonderful summer, and celebrate our country’s Sesquicentennial right through New Year’s Eve.

Graduation Remarks 2017

Posted on by June 29, 2017

Through history, and into the future

Parents and students ask me each year for a copy of my graduation remarks. With minor variations, this is the core of my 2017 graduation addresses to our schools during spring 2017 graduation ceremonies. Feel free to share this post on your favourite social medium, or to print copies. See the buttons below the post.
Bob speaking at graduation.

Thank you to the nine elementary and secondary schools who invited me to join them for spring graduation ceremonies in 2017. This photo was taken at the St. Joseph Secondary School graduation at the International Centre on June 28, 2017.

Graduation addresses normally focus on the next steps in the lives and academic careers of our graduates. In 2017, at Canada’s 150th anniversary as a nation, I would like to offer you a perspective on the last century and a half, and the balance of this century, your role in all that, and see if I can do it in about two minutes.

Canada was home to about 3 million people in 1867. Ontario then contained about as many citizens as Mississauga and Brampton do today. Ontario in the early 19th century had adopted a policy that education was not merely a right, but an obligation. We were the first place in the world, in the history of the world, to do that.

That meant folks in 1867 were having an informed discussion about a union between Upper and Lower Canada, now Ontario and Quebec, along with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Folks in 1867 were concerned that the victorious Union Army in the United States, at the end of the American Civil War, an army then marching westward across the North American plains might just keep coming north into Canada.

The British didn’t seem concerned one way or the other. Canadians needed to make a decision, and made one. We became an independent nation, all three million of us.
It worked. Manitoba became part of Canada in 1870, British Columbia in 1871 with the promise of a transcontinental railway. Prince Edward Island joined in 1873, and Saskatchewan and Alberta were formed in 1905. In the end, the American stayed on their side of the border.

Fifty years later, in World War One, British officers had never heard soldiers and junior officers speak as Canadians did to their superiors. Nonetheless, the dialogue worked then too. The Canadians emerged as the conflict’s elite force. Nearly all 600,000 soldiers who wore the uniform of the Canadian Corps served as volunteers. No opposing unit that ever fought the Canadians wanted to do so again. Canada’s population was 8 million during the Great War.

Canada was 20 million strong in 1967, Canada’s Centennial Year, as normal global migration pattern resumed following more than half a century of conflict, recession and conflict again.

Canada celebrated being a society without social classes, a nation that had learned to provide for ourselves in a fair and compassionate manner, as we embraced global languages and cultures in a way not seen anywhere in the world, before or since.

There are 36 million Canadians today, in Canada’s Sesquicentennial Year. Now it’s your turn. There are some challenges ahead. None of those challenges are to be feared. You are equal to all of them, as those who came before you were in their day. You are the pride and the flower of the future of our families, our communities, our institutions, our Provinces and our country of Canada.

Most of today’s graduates will be around to celebrate Canada’s 200th birthday, our bicentennial, in 2067. Many of you will see the entire 21st century through, and be alive and vibrant to breathe the air of the 22nd century.

Going forward is about being bold and daring, just like the generations before you, and the generations you will raise to follow you. Have fun. Take Canada to new heights of excellence during your lifetime.

The Province of Ontario is proud of you. Congratulations on your graduation. Thank you very much.

Traffic Advice

Posted on by June 29, 2017

New red light cameras in Peel Region

Hey good buddy! Got your ears on? Here’s the location of some new electronic ‘county mounties’ in our neighbourhoods. We’re talking red light cameras here.

A number of years ago, I was thinking of what new year’s resolution I could make, and work on to ensure I kept it. I settled on trying to change some behaviour on getting through yellow lights. Overwhelmingly, during the past several years, I have opted for prudence rather than expediency, and not tried to run yellow lights.

This brings us to an advisory from the Region of Peel on new locations for red light cameras in and around Lisgar, Meadowvale and Streetsville.

The Province has nothing to do with red light cameras. However, this post is a tip to help you avoid a traffic ticket that is foreseeable and preventable.

Lisgar:

  • No new locations.

Meadowvale:

  • Derry Road and Winston Churchill;
  • Derry Road and Copenhagen.

Streetsville:

  • Britannia Road between Terry Fox and Mavis.

Erin Mills Parkway:

  • Erin Mills Parkway and Eglinton;
  • Erin Mills Parkway and Credit Valley Road;
  • Erin Mills Parkway and Folkway Drive.

Clarkson:

  • Winston Churchill Drive and Bromsgrove.

What to look for

Red light camera sign

Intersections at which a red light camera is used must be marked with this sign.

Red light camera locations need to marked with a sign advising motorists that a red light camera is in use at that location. If you run a red light at such an intersection, the cameras mounted on poles at that intersection photograph the offending vehicle, and the owner is then sent a traffic ticket.

These traffic tickets can be pricey. And worse, your insurance rates take a big jump for the next three years. In fact, you end up paying more, much more, in increased insurance premiums than you do in the traffic ticket fine. That insurance premium practice is something with which I disagree vehemently, but that is a different topic.

School Capital Funding

Posted on by June 22, 2017

Funding for Catholic school upgrades

Catholic funding announcement

Announcing capital funding for four western Mississauga Catholic schools affected by the East Credit Pupil Accommodation Review in 2016 at the Dufferin-Peel Board offices. With me, from left: trustees Bruno Iannicca; Sharon Hobin; Anna da Silva; Bob; Luz Del Rosario and Mario Pascucci.

Four Catholic elementary schools in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board received Ontario capital funding for school infrastructure to more effectively use elementary school space as the Board consolidates school enrollment. The announcement happened at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board offices on June 13. The total value of the contracts at all four schools will exceed $3 million.

  • At St. Valentine School, retrofitting, renewal, site preparation, and four new portables will enable the consolidation of St. Gertrude School. Two regular classrooms will be retrofitted to create two new full-day kindergarten classrooms. The full-day kindergarten playground will be expanded, and other upgrades will include sidewalks, asphalt repairs and lighting;
  • At St. Gregory School, one new portable, site preparation and such renewal work as new windows, new asphalt, painting and sidewalk repairs will accommodate the consolidation of St. Gertrude at that school;
  • At St. Bernadette and at St. Herbert Schools, renewal work such as painting, new asphalt, sidewalk repairs and flooring; as well as windows and air conditioning (at St. Bernadette) will enable both schools to accommodate the consolidation of St. Dunstan School.

Work at these four schools are among 120 such school infrastructure projects across Ontario. School buildings are more than bricks and mortar. They are where the future is born in the minds of the children who will see Ontario through the 21st century.

Canada Day 2017

Posted on by June 20, 2017

Happy Sesquicentennial Canada Day

Saturday July 1 is the day Canada turns 150 years young. Ontario was one of the ‘original four’ provinces of Canada, along with Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Prince Edward Island was very close to joining Canada in 1867, but wanted more time to talk about it. Prince Edward Islanders valued dialogue and discussion as much then as Canadians do now. PEI finally joined Canada in 1873. Manitoba had joined Canada in 1870.

British Columbia joined Canada with the promise of a railway to link the east with the Pacific coast. With the Canadian Pacific Railway in service, and settlers populating the prairies (then called “Rupert’s Land”). Saskatchewan and Alberta completed the Atlantic to Pacific provincial lineup in 1905.

Happy Canada Day, Lisgar, Meadowvale and Streetsville!

Electrical Upgrade

Posted on by June 20, 2017

Electrical upgrades at Streetsville GO

Here is a construction alert from Metrolinx about . Electricity was cut off from time to time at the Streetsville GO Station during the daytime on Monday June 19, 2017. For most commuters, this work was completed after the morning rush hour traffic has left the station, and before the bulk of us returned to Streetsville after work. Metrolinx was performing electrical upgrades to the station.

Ongoing news from GO

Cadet Address 2017

Posted on by June 20, 2017

Mississauga Sesquicentennial cadet reviews

Among an MPP’s most pleasant invitations are those to attend the annual reviews of our army, navy and air cadets. Each year, some parents ask for a copy of my remarks. Here is the essence of what I said, on behalf of the Province of Ontario, to our cadet reviews in Canada’s 150th year of Confederation. Click here for my pre-recorded address to the Navy League Cadets.

In 2017, Canada celebrates 150 years of confederation. Our nation stands as a beacon of hope, and a symbol of progress, of what honest people can do together. As Canadians, we speak every language on earth, embrace every culture, worship in every religion.

Before us stand our future, and in our stands, a reflection of the best of our country. Despite the turmoil in the world around Canada 50 years ago, during our Centennial Year, Canada was then a symbol of the best of what humanity could do.

Fifty years before that, during World War One, the volunteer Canadian Corps established itself as an elite force on land, in the air and at sea. And 150 years ago, Canada came into being at confederation in a way unlike most other countries.

Canada did not fight or resist its way out of colonial status. Canada achieved nationhood and independence through dialogue and cooperation.

Today, in a world that sometimes seems to call honesty, integrity, commitment and hard work into question, how do we understand the values instilled by the training and teamwork of the cadet corps?

The discipline to learn what is important, and stay focused on it until we have mastered it remains a measure of maturity. Cadets learn that.

The confidence to believe in yourself, and to see through experience that no one of us is as strong as all of us together defines organization. Cadets embody that.

The leadership and management skills that empower talent, and turn it into success, are qualities that the world has always cried out for. Cadets have that.

That is why, as our nation, its provinces and communities celebrate our very best at 150 years young, we are proud to celebrate the skills in our cadet corps. The future of our families, our workplaces, our institutions, our cities, provinces and country are safe and secure in good hands, your hands.

You have learned well. You are the best of our best. Continue to make us proud today and every day for the rest of your lives.

On behalf of the Province of Ontario, congratulations to our cadet corps, and thank you to your friends and families, as well as to your officers and instructors for helping make you the role models you demonstrated so magnificently today, and every day.

Thank you.

CVH Phase Three

Posted on by May 18, 2017

Commitment made, commitment kept!

Visiting with our residents in Lisgar, Meadowvale and Streetsville in 2007, after speaking with our doctors, who made a strong case for what we then called an ambulatory surgery centre, I asked for a fresh mandate from our residents to get precisely such a medical facility added to Credit Valley Hospital. The project was announced in 2011. Construction has been under way for about two years, and is now approaching completion.

Credit Valley Hospital is now a part of the three-hospital Trillium Health Partners. The merger was proposed by the boards of the three hospitals at Credit Valley, Queensway and Sherway Gardens, and approved by the Province. The scope of the project expanded between approval and when the project went to tender. It is now known as Phase Three at Credit Valley Hospital. I toured it recently, as it rapidly approaches completion.

The Emergency Department is Phase Three’s most prominent change. It will be more than double its current size, and once again be state-of-the-art. There will also be a new, much larger, and completely enclosed ambulance bay, allowing for patient transfer in an indoor, heated environment during our long, Canadian cold periods. Among other additions and upgrades:

  • A new, 24-bed recovery room, with increased privacy;
  • Diagnostic imaging is expanded, with some existing equipment upgraded or replaced;
  • Co-locating the CT scan and angiography areas for easier access;
  • Ten new private rooms (for a total of 29), allowing for better privacy and infection control.

See more at the Trillium Health Partners web site. Phase Three is a local community commitment heard, made and delivered. In full, and on-time. Again.