The Ontario NDP says it wants to keep focus on government controversy but may look to extend a collaborative hand as politicians return to Queen’s Park for the fall sitting after an extended summer break.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she wanted to use question period and a limited number of opposition days in the legislature to ask questions about topics that have bubbled through the summer and remind both voters and Ontario Premier Doug Ford that an RCMP investigation into the Greenbelt scandal continues.
“We’re going to be asking questions about some of the issues that all, to some extent, shadow what happened with the Greenbelt,” Stiles said in an interview with Focus Ontario.
“The expropriation of the farmland in Wilmot, the way that everybody’s been asked to sign NDAs, what is the government hiding there? The Ontario Science Centre move. This ridiculous plan to build a tunnel under the 401.”
Parliamentarians in Ontario will have their first question period session on Monday, marking the first time Stiles and Ford have met in the legislature since the house rose for the summer in June.
Stiles said she didn’t mind trying to get under the premier’s skin with her questions but had heard during a summer of campaigning that people want to see politicians attempt to work together to solve problems.
“What I hear from people out there in the communities is that they want us to do less of the arguing and more of actually working and discussing and moving things forward,” Stiles said.
While the questions asked during question periods may not dictate policy or reach far from the walls of Queen’s Park, former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne said that in her experience, opposition questions and debate were vital to keep the government focused on justifying its position and explaining why decisions were being made.
“It has to be very, very clear what your position is; your position has to be consistent,” Wynne said in an interview on Focus Ontario.
“I always felt, actually, that giving the opportunity, having the opportunity in the legislature to go more in-depth in terms of the position of the government, that actually helped. So, having an opposition motion that came forward on a subject that was a big issue of the day, that meant that I have to be held to account and we can have a substantive debate about that. Was it pleasant? Not always; often it was unpleasant, but very necessary in terms of the democratic process.”
The NDP has been relatively quiet on exactly what it plans to do with its legislative time. Stiles has promised to propose plans for rent control and provincially led housing construction, while NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa is planning to introduce a private member’s bill in his Indigenous language to make truth and reconciliation a provincial statutory holiday.
The government is also planning a packed agenda, beginning with the introduction of a transit law on Monday, the first day the house returns.
That proposed law will include changes to speed up the construction of Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, as well as make it significantly harder for towns and cities to build bike lanes. The government has also teased health-care legislation and the annual fall economic statement.
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, meanwhile, who does not hold a seat in the legislature, recently said she is still deciding where to run — and if she plans to seek a seat at Queen’s Park before the next election. Crombie said she plans to run in Mississauga but hasn’t decided which seat she plans to contest.