Mr. Monte McNaughton: Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation. As you know, there are over 500,000 job-killing regulations currently on the books here in Ontario, and in October alone over 75,000 full-time jobs were lost. In fact, seven out of 10 jobs being lost across Canada are being lost right here in Ontario.

My riding of Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, and indeed most of southwestern Ontario, has been hard hit with ongoing plant closures and job losses. Please tell me, will your government continue to lay the blame at the feet of others, or will you take a look in the mirror, accept responsibility, and free job creators so that they can create jobs and grow our economy?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I welcome the member to this Legislature and I thank him for the question.

He does touch on what is a very important topic. In fact, in our throne speech earlier this week there’s no question that jobs and economic growth are our number one priority. Mr. Speaker, we have worked tirelessly to put the fundamentals in place to make Ontario one of the best places in the world to invest and one of the best places in the world to create jobs. But the party opposite has voted against just about everything we’ve done to put those strong fundamentals in place. They voted against our tax reform which made Ontario one of the best places to invest in the world. They voted against our efforts to improve our education system, our health care system, providing one of the most progressive, one of the most skilled, and one of the most educated workforces in the world.

I look forward to the member opposite thinking long and hard about these issues, and perhaps in the future, maybe in this minority Parliament, we’ll have a little bit more co-operation from the party opposite when it comes to building—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Monte McNaughton: Mr. Speaker, I may be new to this House but I’m quickly learning that answers from this government are hard to come by. So let me try again.

As you know, under the McGuinty government, small businesses face the worst regulatory burden in the country. I can tell you, coming from a small business background, that this is absolutely true.

During the recent election campaign, I told constituents that if I didn’t deliver on my election promises to reduce government red tape by 30%, my paycheque would be docked. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and offer to take a reduction in pay if you are unable to reduce the regulatory burden on Ontario businesses?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Mr. Speaker, again, I thank the member for his question and I really do appreciate his passion for supporting our Open for Business initiatives. We’ve reduced the regulatory burden on businesses by 17%. That represents 80,000 regulatory requirements that have been gone.

But we know and we plan to move further when it comes to moving our Open for Business to the next level. I’ll be working with my parliamentary assistant, the member for Etobicoke Centre. I strongly recommend to the member opposite, if he has constructive ideas about how we can reduce the burden on business, to bring them directly to myself or to my parliamentary assistant. We welcome their input. This is something we can do together, but those ideas must be constructive, realistic, and not contrary to the public interest, to the environment—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. New question.

via Legislative Assembly of Ontario | Debates & Proceedings | Debates (Hansard) | Official Records for 24 November 2011.