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First Day

November 18th

Hello! Today was my first day as a legislative page. It was an awesome first day and I look forward to the spending the next month here. I will do my best to keep you updated in what is happening in the chambers so without further a due, here is a quick summary of today including some of the main topics discussed.

Question Period (or Oral Questions) is a time where MPPs who are not ministers or house leaders may ask questions to the premier (although he rarely answers the questions, he usually directs them to the appropriate minister). It is by far the busiest time of the day for a page. During this time, almost all MPPs are present in the chamber. Because pages are so busy getting water and delivering packages/messages, we don’t really get many chances to tune into what the MPPs are saying. During today’s question period, the main topic that was discussed was education cuts, more specifically whether the cuts the PC party are making benefits the people. The PC party argued that the cuts they are making are what parents and students are asking for, and that there plan was keeping kids in school, while the opposition argues that no parent or student wants smaller class sizes.

In the afternoon, key documents are presented by MPPs. This includes reports by committee, introduction of bills, motions, and petitions. This afternoon, the main focus/topic was animal welfare. Today bill 163 was read for the second time:

BILL 163

Provincial Animal Welfare Services (PAWS)

Introduced by: Silvia Jones (Solicitor General)

This bill addresses issues in animal welfare across Ontario. It targets abusive and negligent owners. The PAWS bill raises fines and jail sentences for animal abuse and opens an emergency 24/7 animal welfare hotline that is toll free and can be reached at (1)833-9ANIMAL. With this bill, they plan on enforcing stricter regulations and preventing animal abuse incidents.

This is one of the few bills that all parties support. If this bill is passed (which is most likely will be), these regulations will take effect on January 1, 2020.

Along with bill 163, some other bills were introduced relating to animal welfare. One of which was to end specific breed legislation in Ontario . I was very pleased to hear that many parties agreed with these bills and recognized that it is not the breed that is the problem, it is the irresponsible owners. David Piccini said “We are focusing on the wrong end of the leash”.

By the time we are done with key documents, there were less than 20 MPPs in the chamber, the remaining time was spending discussing bill 136 and other issues in animal welfare. The session ended at 6 o’clock and will resume tomorrow.

Those were the key points of today. My first day as a page was super fun! I look forward to tomorrow. I will keep you updated!

Seventh Day

NOVEMBER 27th

Today, before lunch, we got to take a photo with Premier Ford and ask any questions we had. Then, I got to have lunch with the MPP from my riding. My riding is University-Rosedale so I got to have lunch with Jessica Bell. It was a great opportunity to ask any questions I had and get to know the MPP of my riding better.

Sixth Day

NOVEMBER 26th

It’s officially November, and with that brings the official beginning of Woman Abuse Prevention Month (WAPM). The purpose of WAPM is to bring about more public education on the topic of violence against women. Men and boys are encouraged to wear white ribbons as a symbol of their opposition to violence against women. It is also seen as a pledge to never commit or condone violence against women. They are particularly encouraged to wear these during White Ribbon week which starts on November the 25th which is the UN Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In support of this, many MPPs wore white ribbons today.

Today there were two MPP birthdays. Stephan Lecce (Minister of Education) who is now 33 and Jamie West (Sudbury).

During question period, Andrea Horwath (NDP Leader) addressed the Ontario hydro mess. She stated that the Ford government promised a 12% reduction in hydro bill costs yet statistics show that hydro bill costs have actually gone up by 7%.

Rod Phillips (Minister of Finance) announced that the government plans on reducing taxes for small businesses by 8.7%. He said that statistics show that small businesses make up 98% of all businesses in Ontario.

Kathleen Wynne expressed her concern about the increasing prevalence of e-cigarettes and vaping products among youth in Ontario. Recent studies from the University of Waterloo indicates that youth vaping is rising at an alarming rate in Canada. The TDSB is counting on the government to address this growing health crisis. Among there recommendations are a ban on e-cigarettes and vaping products until sufficient research can be conducted on the health effect, the removal of flavored e-cigarettes on the market, additional regulations on the selling and advertising of e-cigarettes, and the provision of funding for schools to install vape detectors.

In the afternoon, we had the honor of meeting the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Elizabeth Dowdeswell. Each of the ten Canadian provinces has a Lieutenant Governor. He or she is appointed by the Governor General, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, usually for a period of approximately five years.

Lieutenant Governors are the highest ranking officers of their province and represent Her Majesty The Queen in their jurisdictions.

The Lieutenant Governor’s constitutional duties include, among others:

Swearing in the provincial government’s Executive Council (Premier and Cabinet)
Opening each session of the provincial legislative assembly
Providing Royal Assent to provincial bills

The Lieutenant Governor’s ceremonial and community functions include, among others:

Representing The Queen in the province
Acting as the province’s official host
Supporting social causes
Recognizing outstanding citizens

We had the opportunity to talk with Ms. Dowdeswell and ask her questions, afterwards she gave each pins and invited us to an exclusive Christmas party at Queens Park that MPPs will also be attending on December 6th.

Fifth Day

NOVEMBER 25th

Today was National Eliminate Violence Against Women Day. All the MPPs wore purple scarfs to show there support.

Today a new bill was presented by Joel Harden. If passed this bill would declare October, dyslexia awareness month.

The main topic of the afternoon was Quebec’s Bill 21. If you are not familiar with Bill 21, it is intended to eradicate religious symbols in most of the public sector. it bans teachers, police officers, judges and many other professionals from wearing items like hijabs, turbans, kippas, and crucifixes in the course of their duties. Today, there was a long discussion about how we (as a province) were going to take action and speak up. By the end of the day, the party’s had come to a consensus. On December 2nd, when Premier Ford plans to meet and talk with the other premiers of Canada he will request that the bill be withdrawn because it is discriminatory and it is not what we as Canadians stand for.

Fourth Day

Today I was stationed in the west lobby. Throughout the month pages will be in the west lobby or east lobby at least once. My job was to deliver things to MPPs from the west lobby. There is a TV live streaming parliament but it is located in the members lounge. I couldn’t hear much of what was happening but I did hear one piece of very big news…

David Piccini bill to end specific breed legislation was brought up. Members voted on whether it would proceed to its third reading. The majority of the MPPs present voted for the bill to continue. the third reading should happen sometime soon. If you don’t know what a third reading is, it is one of the many steps on a bill becoming a law. The process looks like this:

IDEA –> All laws start off as ideas

FIRST READING –> The purpose of the bill is explained

SECOND READING –> Bill is debated in principle

REVIEW BY COMMITTEE –> Public hearings may be held and amendments considered

REPORT TO HOUSE –> Committee reports bills with any amendments

THIRD READING –> Bill is voted on for final approval

SENATE –> Bill goes through the senate

ROYAL ASSENT –> The lieutenant governor signs of on the bill and it becomes a law

Third Day

Today, the main topic discussed was how to ford government is tearing up clean energy projects and paying wind energy producers NOT to build renewable energy. they further discussed how this would cost the people of Ontario 231 million dollars and maybe more.

If you watch over the question period from today you will see question period stop for a moment of silence. Before every question period, the speaker does prayers and procession. This is a time where you may have a moment of silence on an important day (such as remembrance day). Today was National Trans Gender Remembrance Day but there was some miscommunication and there was no moment of silence which is why you will see the speaker stopped the clock while MPP, Paul Calandra informed them of the mistake. the speaker decided that they would continue with question period and than have the moment of silence at the end however Paul Calandra requested that it be done before the end of question period because members of the trans community had come out in the galleries and weren’t able to stay for all of question period. The speaker and house agreed and Andrea Horwath requested that she start from the beginning of her questions.

The topic that was discussed in the afternoon was Ontario’s affordable housing crisis. Mike Shriener (only green party MPP) talked about how housing isn’t accessible to all people and how a solution to this issue needs to be included in the fall economic statement.

PS. Something I forgot to mention is that on the first day I could barley recognize any of the MPPs because their photos are all vanity shots from the 90s!

Second Day

NOVEMBER 19th

We started off today in the chambers. MPPs finished up discussions about animals welfare from the previous day. Many shared stories about there own rescue pets or tragic examples of animal abuse in there riding.

With Bill 136, the government plans on hiring, funding, and training inspectors who will be in charge of investigating animal abuse or negligent cases and will also be answering the 24 hour animal welfare hotline.

If Bill 136 is passed, it will introduce the strongest penalties for animal abusers in Canada. This includes raising jail sentences and increasing fines to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Along with discussing the welfare of pets in Ontario, members also addressed wild and zoo animal welfare. MPP Kevin Yarde also mentions that the only piece of Ontario legislature that addresses exotic animals is the law against buying, selling, or breeding orcas and that more regulations need to be put in place.

Another bill that was talked about (but not yet introduced) is a bill against unnecessary procedures such as cat declawing. cutting off dogs tails or clipping ears etc… Recent studies have shown that these procedures are unnecessary, animals are at higher risks of getting infections, and these surgeries may cause chronic pain.

After this, members of the gallery were introduced, and then the new pages (us!) were introduced. Then, question period began. The main topic of question period was education cuts. Many key points were made by Marit Stiles (Davenport). She talked about the negative effect of classroom cuts including larger class sizes and fewer teachers. She mentioned the negative effect of less face to face classes and more online courses while Stephan Lecce claimed they were simply utilizing modern technology.

Later in the day some other issues were mentioned such as dangerous ice on highways and Veterans from the Korean war being treated like second class citizens.

In the afternoon, we had legislative process class and then group A headed to the chamber to continue till 6 while my group had math lessons and than were dismissed at 4:30

I look forward to another day here at Queens Park! Bye!

FUN FACT: You need to have at least 12 MPPs elected to be recognized as a party in the chamber. Because the Liberals only have 5 seats and the Green party has 1 they are not recognized as parties. This means there are certain privileges they don’t get (for example, they get less time allotted to speak and less funding).