Latest news with #OntarioPolitics
National Post
3 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Ontario MPPs to get raises after 16-year freeze and access to new pension plan
Ontario members of provincial parliament are getting big raises and access to a pension plan, under legislation introduced by Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy and passed with the support of all parties at breakneck speed. Article content Article content Shortly after members sent the pay raise bill barrelling through the legislative process — it spent about 13 minutes from tabling to passage — representatives from all parties stood shoulder-to-shoulder outside the chamber in rare agreement. Article content 'When we're looking for other candidates, qualified people, to actually direct the future of this province, for most of them, they have to take a huge pay cut to come here and give up, in many cases, pensions,' said NDP Opposition house leader John Vanthof. Article content Article content 'We're not going to build the future of this province by excluding the people who have the qualifications and have the knowledge to move us forward. So we're fully in support and I'd like to thank Premier (Doug) Ford and his government for, quite frankly, having the guts to do this.' Article content The base pay for Ontario's elected officials has been frozen since 2009 at $116,550, and the changes would boost the salary to $157,350, which is 75 per cent of what federal MPs make. That will still be less than what city councillors in Toronto earn. Premier Doug Ford's salary would rise from about $209,000 to about $282,000 and cabinet ministers would see their pay increase from about $166,000 to about $224,000. Article content The bill would also resurrect a pension plan for the members of provincial parliament, 30 years after the previous one was abolished by former premier Mike Harris' government. Article content Article content The new plan would see members enrolled in the existing Public Service Pension Plan, and they would then be entitled to supplemental benefits for MPPs who serve at least six years. Article content Article content Representatives of the Liberals, Greens and the lone Independent member also said it was time for the pay freeze to end. 'I want to thank the premier,' said Bobbi Ann Brady, who represents Haldimand-Norfolk as an Independent. Article content 'I want to thank the minister and the government house leader for righting what I feel is almost a 16-year wrong,' she said. 'I continually talk about the spirit of co-operation amongst us all and I think today there is a nice spirit of co-operation here.' Bethlenfalvy said it is the right thing to do. Article content 'I know that many people across the province work tirelessly each day to put food on the table and pay the rent,' he said. 'It's fair and reasonable. It'll be at 75 per cent of the federal compensation. It's still less than a Toronto city councillor will be paid or a Mississauga city councillor and we're going to work tirelessly each and every day, sometimes in different ways, to help all Ontarians.' Article content
CBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Special economic zones: the secret weapon in Doug Ford's Bill 5
Premier Doug Ford's justification for his controversial Bill 5 is to protect Ontario's economy against the threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump by reducing red tape and speeding up approvals of major projects. Ford campaigned vociferously on that theme this winter and it carried his Progressive Conservative Party to its third straight majority. However, Ford never said a word during the 29-day election campaign about the single most powerful thing in Bill 5: granting cabinet the authority to create "special economic zones." The bill would enable cabinet to designate any location in Ontario as a special economic zone, and then to exempt any company or project in the zone from having to comply with whichever provincial laws, provincial regulations or municipal bylaws the government chooses. It opens the door for cabinet to declare that such things as Ontario's minimum wage rules, its environmental regulations, its tax laws or a city's noise restrictions don't apply in the designated zone. No other Canadian province has anything like this. Asked to name jurisdictions that do, Ford government officials offered a list that includes Singapore, South Korea, Poland and Panama. "Essentially, the cabinet could give corporations a free pass to circumvent all sorts of important protections," Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said in an interview. WATCH | Ontario NDP, Liberals successfully stall Bill 5 with midnight filibuster: Ontario NDP, Liberals successfully stall Bill 5 with midnight filibuster 16 hours ago Duration 3:36 Bussières McNicoll says the powers government would get to create special economic zones are akin to emergency powers to override laws, and should therefore be time-limited with checks and balances. 'Easier for companies to invest' Ford and his ministers haven't been quite as specific in explaining the purpose of special economic zones as they've been with other parts of Bill 5, such as shortening the timelines for mining approvals or replacing Ontario's endangered species legislation. "We need to get rid of unnecessary red tape, make it easier for companies to invest, to hire and to grow, and that's exactly what Bill 5 is going to do," said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Jobs and Trade, in question period Wednesday. Under the bill, Fedeli is the minister who gets the power to hand out the legal exemptions to companies of his choosing in the special economic zones. There's some indication the zones are meant to attract foreign investment. There's a line in the text of Bill 5 that talks of making Ontario "the best place in the G7 to invest, create jobs and do business." What's not in the bill are any criteria for deciding which locations, companies or projects would be eligible to be a special economic zone, nor any limits on which laws could be taken off the books in such zones. The only caveat in the Special Economic Zones Act section of Bill 5 was added by the government as an afterthought, more than a month after tabling it: a clause saying that its provisions will be consistent with existing Indigenous and treaty rights under the Constitution. Ring of Fire, 401 tunnel are candidates The government added that clause on Wednesday, six weeks after Ford first signalled that his top priority for a special economic zone is the Ring of Fire mineral deposit in the treaty lands of northern Ontario. The government now says it won't actually designate such a zone in the Ring of Fire without consulting with First Nations, but that hasn't satisfied First Nations leaders who feel the government shouldn't have plowed ahead with the bill without consulting first. The other project Ford has floated as a candidate for a special economic zone is his idea of building a tunnel under Highway 401 through Toronto. But there's nothing in the legislation stopping the government from giving any project or business in Ontario the special status. WATCH | First Nation leaders tell Ford government to kill Bill 5: First Nation leaders tell Ford government to kill Bill 5 3 days ago Duration 2:14 Critics of Doug Ford's Bill 5 say the proposed law would gut environmental protections for wildlife and infringe on treaty rights. As CBC's Mike Crawley reports, Ontario First Nations leaders are now warning of 'conflict on the ground' if it passes. For instance, it could declare the massive Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plant to be built in St. Thomas, Ont. — described as the largest auto industry deal in Canadian history — a special economic zone, and exempt the company from whichever laws cabinet chooses. "You can call them special economic zones, but what we know you are doing is opening up the floodgates for an abuse of power by government," NDP Leader Marit Stiles said. 'The power to override every law' "The government is giving themselves the power to override every law," Stiles said in question period on Wednesday. Ford has expressed disbelief at the opposition to Bill 5, insisting that his entire campaign focused on its measures and that the voters gave him a mandate to take action. "I was crystal clear about getting rid of the red tape, getting rid of the regulations, making sure that we attract investments," Ford said in question period Tuesday. It's true that Ford promised during the campaign to speed up mining approvals and to shrink bureaucracy, both central parts of Bill 5. However, the phrase "special economic zones" never publicly crossed his lips, nor does it appear in the PC platform. The closest the platform comes is a paragraph that promises to designate areas with multiple deposits of critical minerals as "regions of strategic importance" where select projects would get "automatic" approvals to proceed with early phases of work — nowhere near as sweeping as the blank cheque of special economic zones as laid out in Bill 5. Labour unions say Ford is using the Trump threat as a pretext to create the zones. "Under the cloak of an impending economic crisis and the guise of fighting tariffs, Doug Ford plans on delivering workers to the wild west of working conditions, all to the benefit of big business," said CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn in a statement. Greenbelt parallels It's not a stretch to see parallels between Ford's move to create special economic zones (as a response to the tariff threat) and his move a few months after the 2022 election to allow development on certain properties in the Greenbelt (as a response to the housing crisis.) Both measures involve giving select companies special exemptions from existing rules, neither measure was promised during the preceding campaign and it's unclear how effective either measure would be in achieving its stated economic goal. Ford ultimately reversed course on the Greenbelt.
CBC
4 days ago
- General
- CBC
Ontario NDP, Liberals successfully stall Bill 5 with midnight filibuster
The Ford government's controversial Bill 5 was successfully stalled in committee after the Ontario NDP and Liberal MPPs filibustered until midnight Thursday. CBC's Lorenda Reddekopp explains what this means moving forward.
CTV News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Windsor-Essex builders' association optimistic about latest housing effort from Queen's Park
PC MPP Rob Flack attends Question Period at Queen's Park in Toronto on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)
CTV News
12-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
After Ontario backtracks on landfill study, Liberals seek probe into donor links
The former Dresden landfill seen just north of Dresden, Ont. (Michelle Maluske/CTV News Windsor) TORONTO — The Ontario Liberals are asking the integrity commissioner to investigate the province's decision to backtrack on an environmental assessment of a massive landfill expansion project backed by Progressive Conservative donors. The Liberals want the integrity commissioner to look at whether Premier Doug Ford's government gave the project special treatment because its developers are lucrative donors to his party. The government is opting to cancel the assessment it had previously ordered for the project in Dresden, a rural farming community in southwestern Ontario, as part of a controversial omnibus bill making its way through the legislature. The government ordered the assessment last summer, citing the community's concerns about the proposed landfill expansion, just weeks before it called a byelection in the local riding where the PC candidate campaigned against the expansion. Environment Minister Todd McCarthy now says the province can't afford to keep shipping a large share of its waste to the United States, suggesting Ontario is facing a landfill capacity 'crisis.' The Liberals fired back by suggesting the government was leveraging the U.S. trade war to push through policies to benefit insiders at the expense of transparency and accountability to local residents. York1, the company behind the project, is seeking to revive a dormant landfill about a kilometre north of Dresden and expand it by more than 30-fold to service waste from across the province. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Details of the developers' donations and lobbying efforts were first reported by The Trillium, a Queen's Park-based news outlet, and were cited by the Liberals in their letter to the integrity commissioner. The Trillium reported executives at the companies and their family members had donated about $200,000 to the PCs since 2018. The Canadian Press has corroborated some of those political contributions recorded in a public Elections Ontario database. The integrity commissioner confirmed it was reviewing the Liberal request. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2025. Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press
