The Progressive Conservative government is sharply curtailing parliamentary debate and public hearings on its controversial bike lane removal legislation and its new "integrated energy plan" that will set the direction of how Ontario will obtain new electricity generating capacity for the next 25 years.
On Tuesday, the PCs prompted debate on a surprise time-allocation motion to cancel the remainder of the second reading debates on Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, Bill 214, the Affordable Energy Act, and Bill 216, which implements last week's fall economic statement.
Parliamentary committees often hold up to three days of public hearings on important or contentious bills to give stakeholders and members of the public the opportunity to speak directly to lawmakers about them. The time-allocation motion would limit those hearings to just one day each and set the deadline for applying to speak about the bill — including the bike lane changes and the cancellation of the environmental assessment for Highway 413 — in Bill 212 to Friday, Nov. 8.
Once committees return the bills to the house, MPPs will only get to debate them for one hour — instead of the usual minimum 6.5 hours of debate — before they get a third reading vote and become law.
Last week, the province passed an identical time-allocation motion for Bill 197, the Safer Roads and Communities Act, and Bill 194, the Strengthening Cyber Security and Building Trust in the Public Sector Act.
Government house leader Steve Clark argued on Tuesday that cutting short debate and public hearings on the government's legislation is necessary because MPPs are only sitting for four-and-a-half more weeks before they are scheduled to adjourn for the winter break, from Dec. 12 until Feb. 18.
"My job as government house leader is to get legislation moving. I have a very short legislative session ... and I've got to get priority bills passed," he told reporters, without mentioning that the province is expected to call an early election in the spring.
The fall session is short because the PC government chose to take an extended 19-week summer break. Instead of reconvening on Sept. 9 as originally planned, the PCs passed a motion in June pushing back the start of the fall session to Oct. 21.
Asked if, in retrospect, this was a mistake, Clark noted the decision to add six weeks to the summer recess was made under his predecessor Paul Calandra.
"I'm not going to go back to what would have happened if I had been the government house leader the week before (the legislature adjourned). I accept what I inherited, which was a very limited time," Clark told reporters when asked if he would keep the original sitting schedule.
"I've been an MPP for 14 years. This is the shortest session that I can remember in recent memory, and the government's got a busy agenda."
The PCs also rebuffed calls by the NDP and other opposition parties to recall the legislature early so it could address issues such as health care and housing.
Official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles said Ontarians want "a government that works as hard as they do" and the PCs are not living up to that standard.
"This whole government was willing to break for a record-long summer vacation when people in Ontario needed them focused on the priorities that they have," Stiles told reporters at Queen's Park.
The Liberals predicted the PCs won't keep the legislature in session for all of the remaining four-and-a-half weeks, suggesting the time-allocation motion is really an attempt by the PCs to speed through their agenda so they can start the winter recess early to avoid scrutiny on issues such as the family doctor shortage before their early election.
"They just want to get out of here, because they don't want to talk about what the election is going to be all about; and that's about health care, access to family doctors, wait times, home care, long-term care," said Liberal parliamentary leader John Fraser.
"I would not be surprised if we finished in the first week of December."
Fraser noted that although debates on government bills must be at least 6.5 hours long, the government house leader can allow debates to continue beyond that. So far, he said, Clark has cut off every debate at the first opportunity, often with nothing else on the schedule for that day.
"They don't have a legislative agenda. They're just tinkering around the edges. They're not talking about the serious stuff," he said.
The Trillium asked Clark if he is cutting down debate to avoid days of media headlines about stakeholders criticizing their bike lane changes. He responded by pointing out that there will still be "some limited committee time," but also maintained that the government minister "has been very clear" about its position on bike lanes.
"The premier has been clear. The (transportation) minister has been clear. I want to be clear: we're moving forward, and we want to get people moving in the in the City of Toronto," said Clark.
Nonetheless, the Ministry of Transportation is conducting public consultations on the removal of bike lanes until Nov. 20. When asked what value that consultation will have when the decision has already been made, Clark said the Ministry of Transportation chose to "still want to have those conversations."
