TORONTO – There are many issues to be resolved  by the Ontario government and by Prime Minister Doug Ford (in the photo, from his Twitter X page – @fordnation): Queen’s Park resumes this week with a flurry of activity, as the repeal of the unconstitutional wage cap law, and the formalization of an about-face on the decision to dissolve the Region of Peel, and the introduction of omnibus legislation, and many others. 

Colleges and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop will announce at the start of the session the government’s plan to address the financial difficulties of the province’s post-secondary institutions, which have been struggling for years with low levels of operational funding and cuts to school fees of 10% and their “freeze” announced by the Ford government in 2019.

One of the first orders of business for the government upon returning from the break of more than ten weeks in the legislature will be to introduce “omnibus” legislation, entitled the Get It Done Act, inspired by Ford’s 2022 election campaign. Here some of the measures foreseen in the legislation: first of all, it will introduce the obligation for any future government to submit a possible new provincial “carbon tax” system to a referendum; then, the new law will prohibit new tolls on provincial highways (the Ford government has already abolished tolls on highways 412 and 418, while those on highway 407 East, which is earning the Province several tens of millions of dollars a year, will remain) . The “omnibus” bill also plans to allow automatic renewal of license plates, extend the driving tax freeze through legislation rather than regulation and “streamline approvals for major infrastructure and housing projects”.

As we were saying, the Ford government also promised to repeal Bill 124, that is, the 2019 law that limited wage increases for public sector workers to 1% per year for three years. A law declared unconstitutional and therefore to be withdrawn. The government will then reverse the dissolution of the Region of Peel, as announced in December, and is preparing to do so through a section of the Get It Done Act to amend the Peel dissolution law passed by the legislature in June 2023.

Further housing-related legislation is also expected to arrive before the June session as the Province tries to find a way to get on track to meet its goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031. A goal made more difficult by the RCMP investigation into the Greenbelt land swap scandal, which saw the Ford government remove land from the protected area for housing development and then return it after heavy criticism of the selection process over which, precisely , the RCMP is investigating for alleged “favoritism” to “friendly” builders.

Among the other issues to be resolved, there is also the one relating to the replacement of the minister for Bureaucratic Rreduction, Parm Gill, who resigned last month (also from his seat in Milton) to run at federal level with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. Doug Ford will also have to call a byelection for that district, even though he has six months to do so. And Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has not ruled out seeking a seat in the legislature in that constituency, which is close to Mississauga, a city where Crombie herself was mayor.

And Crombie has already gone on the attack. “While desperate Doug spends all his time distracting Ontarians from his failures, flip-flops, scandals and home affairs, the Ontario Liberals will remain totally focused on fighting for better healthcare and education, more housing and a growing economy that lifts every family in Ontario” the provincial Liberal leader said.

NDP leader Marit Stiles is on the same wavelength: her party’s priorities for the new session that is opening include managing staff shortages in hospitals and speeding up housing. “People are waiting for hours to get basic healthcare, they’re stuck with skyrocketing housing costs and their bills aren’t going down” she said. “We need real solutions, but this government is too caught up in its never-ending scandals to find them”. Greens leader Mike Schreiner has also said he will focus on proposing bold housing solutions, protecting public services and investing in renewable energy.

Finally, a by-election is also scheduled for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, the district of former Labor Minister Monte McNaughton. For Prime Minister Ford, therefore, a further test.