Ontario Hansard - 14-December2006

MINISTRY SPENDING

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I rise today and hold a copy of an invitation to a bash held on December 11, hosted by the Minister of the Environment, here in this Legislature. The party was to pat herself on the back for her avoidance-of-responsibility legislation disguised as the Clean Water Act. Interestingly enough, neither the NDP critic for the environment nor myself were formally invited, although I do have in my hands this piece of partisan swag in the form of a baseball cap which the minister was handing out to attendees before they went to the bar and got their free drinks. The minister is not only a paper environmentalist; she's now fully engulfed in the business of partisan swag.

In light of the Auditor General's report and the obvious disregard of taxpayers' money by the members across the way, who paid for the open bar and these hats?

Next Tuesday, the purchase of the Green Lane landfill site will be completed. Is the minister going to make the taxpayers pay for yet another party? Minister Broten and her colleagues think it's open season on hard-working taxpayers.

The minister promised to meet all of Justice O'Connor's recommendations. Nowhere in these recommendations does it say to establish a separate piece of legislation that downloads responsibility to rural Ontario and nowhere in these recommendations does it say to use taxpayers' money and throw a partisan party with an open bar and baseball caps.

I would think the minister knows not to be using taxpayers' money for the back-slapping, open-bar party she probably hosted this past Monday, but I assure you the official opposition will be checking, just to make sure.