Ontario.

• Author: Short, William
• Position: Legislative Reports

On October 20, 2014, the fall sitting period of the 41st Parliament commenced. The Government largely devoted the sitting to dealing with a number of bills that had been introduced in the previous parliament, all of which died on the Order Paper when the Legislature was dissolved on May 2, 2014. Arguing that the bills had all received substantial debate only a few months earlier, the government committed itself to ensuring these bills would see their way through the legislative process by the end of the fall sitting. In order to achieve this calendar, each of the bills was time-allocated. The time allocation motions sent each bill to a Standing Committee for public hearings and clause-by-clause consideration. All seven bills received Royal Assent before the conclusion of the fall sitting period on December 11.

The bills were:

* Bill 15, Fighting Fraud and Reducing Automobile Insurance Rates Act, 2014.

The bill amended a number of statutes in order to, among other things, regulate consumer transactions involving tow and storage services; add administrative penalties in the area of regulation of commercial motor vehicles and tow trucks; and to change how disputes relating to statutory accident benefits will be resolved;

* Bill 18, Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act, 2014.

The bill amended five statutes relating to employment and labour relations. The Committee considered upwards of 400 amendments to the bill, before reporting it back to the House;

* Bill 10, Child Care Modernization Act, 2014.

The bill amended a number of statutes with the goal of strengthening oversight of the province's unlicensed child care sector while increasing access to licensed child care options for families;

* Bill 7, Better Business Climate Act, 2014.

The bill enacted two new statutes designed to reduce burdens of time, money or resources on businesses and to foster the development of business clusters;

* Bill 8, Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act, 2014.

This bill introduced new legislation to grant the Lieutenant Governor in Council authority to establish compensation frameworks governing the compensation of certain executives in the broader public sector; and amended about a dozen existing acts. A previous version of the bill was introduced in the 40th Parliament but had not been referred to a Committee. The Committee held two days of public hearings on the bill, which attracted the attention of several Officers of the...