I come from a technology background and as such, whenever we design products, whenever we design solutions, the UX people always complain that we bring in them quite later in the game. So I think having people like Smita with us, thinking of design at a much earlier stage has brought a cultural shift in our whole process and we start doing this right upfront and part of the reason she motivated me to come here and talk, saying that though you are from the technology background, you fit in here because we are talking about product and product design. So one of the things that we are doing lately is about chatbots and I think it's pretty common. It's the way it's getting commoditized. Most of you have already used something by now. But I think the aspect that we want to focus and that's where UX comes into play is how to make it more easy to use and how to not talk about it only from a technology space and I think Smita will cover some of that because what happens is when we talk about chatbots and when technical folks design it, they always design it for themselves. So if you take it to users, they probably hardly cannot use it. How many of you have used a chatbot? Wow. That's cool. And what's your experience using it? Does it get it every time? Mostly it's bad, right? It just doesn't get it. You give it after five tries, two tries. Either it doesn't understand your accent or what you're typing. It doesn't get it. It's pre-programmed for doing something that only a certain way it does. So that's one of the challenges and how UX can help there. That's where we want to go with it. So before we start the talk, I think some things that we wanted to cover, I think all of you understand probably chatbots, but it's very important. What are the components in there? So some of the people who are hearing it for the first time, I think things like natural language processing, NLP, intent, entities, utterances, these are the important things that constitute a chatbot. So when you start interacting with a conversational or doing a conversational interface, talk to a chatbot, things that are important is you specify what you want to do. Like for example, I want to book a conference room, I want to do a certain thing. That particular language, it's very easy when you're talking to each other. However, when it comes to a machine, there are many things being said as a part of that. And it has to infer all of that and respond. So typically the way it happens is there is a natural processing engine inbuilt into these chatbots, which interpret all of those things. Because a machine is no longer a human. So it has to do, it has to classify an intent, which is the conference room booking. However, to satisfy that request, it needs more information, like entities, when, where, and what time. So those things are very important. So it needs to ask, and whenever you say something, it's not apparent that you have specified the whole information. So a machine cannot give you a response unless it figures out the missing pieces. So one of the biggest intelligence that is there in chatbots or conversational interface is to find out what is the exact piece of missing information and ask you for that. So that rest everything gets interpreted, only what's missing is what is asked. And that's where, that's what the beauty of the app or the interface is in terms of looking for that specific information, asking you for what time, and scheduling the meeting. So that's where, and then the loop goes back and forth again in terms of conversing with the bot. So your experience with bot will go up, I mean, improve if it's just asking you for that one piece of missing information. The rest of stuff, it's doing it on the fly. So having taken you through this, this is the only tech part in this whole thing. So I will now leave it to Smita to cover you how we went about with the whole UX aspect of it, how we got UX into it when it was all the technologies in the room trying to solve this puzzle. So over to you, Smita. Thank you, Srikanth. Thank you for helping the terminologies aspect of it. So now I guess like people are know of what is intent okay, and what are the utterances and entities. So moving ahead to begin with, first I would like to show few of the bad examples of bot who triggered, like those are the one which triggered me to think about, can we have some UX intervention in between so that we can build it better? So first bad example, you can see there, user is trying to ask about menu or options, and chat is giving response the same response again and again, okay. The next example is something where user is trying to talk and ask about whether on weekend, but the kind of response is chat giving is irrelevant, okay. Because chat, like bot is not able to understand the term which is used, which is weekend, which might not be programmed at the backend. And the last example where bot have given some option, and the last thing in that option is, you can see few more, but human tend to ignore few things. So maybe user ignored that and user wrote like, can I see more? But the response which bot is giving is, I will get back to you. So bot is not able to understand that particular stuff. So these are the kind of examples which shows how chatbot are not doing well right now. So let us understand why chatbot fails, okay. So it is basically because of the conversation. So take an example of conversation between two humans. So for example, if half an hour back, if I would have asked Shikant, would you like to have coffee Shikant? So Shikant might have said, no, I'm good. Or yeah, we can go and have coffee. But when it comes the same conversation with chatbot, okay, chatbot will ask me when, at what time. So all those detailed chatbot will ask. But why Shikant is not asking me? Because we human do a conversation which is known as a contextual conversation. Because we know context. Shikant understood the context, it is now, okay. And when it is now, he will not ask me when and what time. But in case of bot, they are not yet there, okay. So they are still learning. But we know, like we have learned language from our childhood. So for us, it is very easy. So unconsciously, we give all the answers. But for bot, we need to add that intelligence. And how to add that intelligence is we can do few things. So these are the five steps UX, okay. Which will help us to take bot to for the next step. I will not say super intelligent, okay. But at least where it is right now, we can take it to the next step. So very first step is normal as a UX process, requirement gathering. The second step is, as you have seen the diagram where intent is an important part in case of chatbot. So intent finalization is the place where we can definitely, we as a UX can definitely help. The third part is flow design or conversational flow design. There definitely we can help. The next one is identifying or defining IA, okay, and interface elements. And the last part is we can also help chatbot to become smart after analyzing the responses from the user and how the actually flow goes, okay. So these are the five step UX. And we have done, like we have done bot in house and there where we played all these five steps, okay. So as I told you, like first step is understanding requirement, okay. So Srikant, would you like to give a little focus on this because Srikant is a person who triggered it. As far as the business goals is concerned, of course the primary goal is of course the financial side, why you build bots, why you do things is it has to be, it's relevant in the market, how quickly you can make a lot of money. So that's primarily thing, but you cannot state it like that. So the way I stated it is firstly, we see this whole trend towards moving towards intelligent applications. So that's what we need to build and provide to our customers ability to convert their current applications to more intelligent apps. And one of the ways that we will do that is by using this conversational bots, which are AI and machine learning enabled. So that was the spec. And if you see in all my spec, there was nothing about UX or anything. So it was purely a group of tech people that I did, our product architects, our engineers and those were the people that focused. But very soon we realized that we needed to bring the UX aspect in it because most of the bad examples that you saw when I showed my first demos after people working, I did for two months was pretty much that it wouldn't do a single thing, right? And all the language used and responses were pretty much all techy stuff. So there was nothing that it really did correctly. But then we brought in Smitha at the right time and then she will tell you how the whole thinking changed from that perspective. So after Srikant told me all this focus, I understood it because end of the day UX need to understand business requirement and business focus as well. So I asked Srikant what kind of bot you want to build. So Srikant said let us take a few like simple example like conference room booking app because our focus was in HR tech domain. So we took two examples or two things like one is conference room booking app and another is time off bot, okay? So definitely my target audience will be employee so that's the reason I collected few things which are employee focus, okay? When I have like discussion with, when I had discussion with Srikant about it, okay? But then I cross question Srikant. We have already app in place. We have already website in place, okay? And the application is doing fantastic when it comes to time off. Then why do you need chatbot? So what we did is we brainstorm on few of the use cases where Srikant convinced me why bot is important, okay? So it's not like that Srikant told me and I just jumped and did. So I did my fair job of UX by questioning him about why exactly he's looking for bot. So one of the use case which I would like to tell you was very relevant. So for example, new joining comes, okay? And he wants to know about what all leave policies or leaves are available for him. Then if you consider mobile app, considering the real estate, that kind of information he might not get on the mobile app. If you consider web application which has a really big real estate, but then a kind of minute level information will be somewhere down the line in the third or fourth level of our information architecture, right? So definitely user will not get that information straight. So I got convinced by Srikant that definitely chatbot will help because here new joining just have to type one single sentence or speak it out a single sentence and then the information will be fetched and reach to him. So I got convinced. So this was the first step which we did. The second step was a very important one which is finalizing intent, okay? So here I will not go by all the bullet points in interest of time. So I will first tell you about why exactly we need to finalize intent, okay? So this is how tech guys or technical people or developers think about intent. So take an example of conference room booking. So developer will think that, okay, book conference room, that's the single intent, okay? But when it comes to real world, I'm sorry, when it comes to real world, okay, if I talk to 10, 20 people, they will have very different intents, right? But if I consider business requirement and feasibility, I might not be able to attend all those intent. So definitely what we have to do as a UX, we need to pick few which are important from both of the aspect, employee aspect and business aspect. So this is why I think intent finalization is very important, okay? But how we did it? We did it really quick. We designed, like I designed a research plan. We did a quick in-depth interview with 12 people. Then we, I'm seeing the time. So I want to skip this one because only five minutes are left. Okay, so we did in-depth interview, really quick one. We got few intents, okay? From, like, we got a list of intents which are near about 10. We validated it with stakeholders, okay? And whatever the output was, six intent, what we did is with that six intent, I did a survey, okay? And in that survey, we were able to finalize four intent, okay? So this is how we are able to reach two intent. I skip one slide, which was about persona. We, there was output from the research where we were able to get few insights about the users where we are able to get them categorized. So that categorization is something at the end I will connect, okay? That's the reason I just skipped that one. Okay. Then when we know that there are four intents for the conference room, the next step is we need to define a conversational flow for each of those intents. So as I told you, developer and tech people was thinking like booking conference room is a single intent, okay? But when we did in-depth interview, okay? We came across that is not the only intent. People want to book conference room based on their specific need, like I want the conference room in head office at second floor with 15 people capacity. That was not the intent which we will be able to achieve with simple straight forward way of booking conference room, okay? So we are able to find four more intents, okay? Like a specific conference room booking, then weaving the detail of the conference room booking, like who booked it and all. And the last one is requesting someone to cancel their booking so that I can use that, okay? So these are the intents, and I have also showed utterances there. So what is utterances is, intent can have, so intent will have many different ways to say the same thing that those are the utterances. You can click this and you can see the utterances. I will not go in detail in interest of time, but utterances is like based on the human, how they say same thing in different ways, okay? Then this part comes, which is important one, where actually we have to write a script how bot will talk and how human will talk, okay? So this is a happy part, a straight forward one, okay, to begin with. This is something we design, like we have written it for all four intents and we gave it to developers to begin with, okay? So these are the happy part, and when we done with the happy part flow, we started working on information architecture, okay? Information architecture is something like this. So first level is straight forward intent and their happy part. But there will be few scenarios. So let me clarify one thing, bot understand whatever context you set it at one level. So for example, if you set the context of booking conference room, so whatever steps or whatever flow it has, it will follow that only. It will not understand where and when it has to move to the next intent, okay? So what we have designed is connecting parts. So what are those things where if user is in one intent flow, which is like book conference room, what are the things when user ask bot should connect it to next intent? And the next intent is specific conference room. And the next intent is what are the things which will take it to the view details and the last one is request for cancel. So this was the next layer of information architecture. And we also helped bot with getting few terms which are like stop, I'm not getting it. It's not clear to me, please cancel it. So those kind of things, if it is coming from user, then bot has to clear everything because it is based on the context. So it has to go back to the happy part so that it can start fresh. And there are limitations which we all know, like for example, the four intent. So what if user wants to do something with the fifth one, which is not designed yet? So for that thing, we definitely help user to get a human support. So there should be few words which will help bot to understand now I have to give the contact of HR or things like that, okay? So this is the fourth step and then visual design starts. In visual design, again in the interest of time, we need to define bot personality, okay? The tone, the conversation tone, it should match with the way bot will, what all things bot will help with, okay? So then the next theme, yeah. So the end of the fourth step is defining the interface elements, okay? I'm just skipping this particular slide. Here we just have to keep one thing in our mind that if we are designing it for customized mode or customized platform, we designer have free hand to do it. If it is based on some, like we are using Microsoft platform and if we are using some channel like Facebook or Skype or Slack, then we have, there is restriction. So designer needs to understand that restriction as well. So this was it. I don't think we have time to show demo. We were having two demos, one for time off and another, if you are interested, I can show you later on. The last step was, the last step was where you can actually, so understanding the responses, studying those, there are analyzing tools. Based on that, we can, we can improvise the flow which we have already defined. So based on the responses, we can improvise the conversation flows which we have already given to, like we have already given to the development. So that was the analyzing part and future. Future what we can do is, that's where I said the persona stuff. So based on the responses, we can do a chatbot can converse differently based on what type of user he or she is. So that's our future. We are trying to solve this. So thank you very much.


What happens when Earth's saviour isn't always cracked up to be? What happens when Superman is the bad guy? Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Matt Rogers and today we're reviewing Brightburn. Now I don't usually weigh in on cinematic movies, but Superman and horror movies are my specialties, so I just couldn't resist. I'm going to try and keep spoilers to a minimum, but I will be touching on a few main plot points. Now Brightburn is the classic story of Superman, parents hoping for a child who are gifted with one from the heavens, who is himself gifted with powers which inevitably outcast him from the other kids. But that's where Brightburn departs the hero's tale and takes a dark turn. Instead of Clark Kent rising to defend the citizens of Earth, Brandon rises against them, and even kills them for fun. I actually loved the parallels director David Yorovsky drew to this and 2013's Man of Steel, which wasn't the best Superman movie, but I must admit I did get excited seeing the almost identical shots of the farm used in both films, even down to details like having the blue pickup truck. Producer James Gunn previously worked on Guardians of the Galaxy, so he obviously knows his way around a superhero movie, but I'm a massive horror fan and an even bigger Superman fan, so I can say my expectations were unreasonably high, but I can say it did not disappoint. The movie literally opens with Brandon's arrival to Earth, so it doesn't mess around with getting to the plot, which I had a problem with at first as we don't really know the first thing about these people. But you soon realise that unlike a superhero film, horror movies don't need as much of a backstory. This becomes apparent when the violence starts, and oh boy, this is where I got on board. So in the States, Brightburn got an R rating, another tick in my box. It definitely deserves it in the gore department. Without ruining what specifically happens, let's just say Brandon doesn't like being mindlessly inconvenienced. As what he inflicts on the residents of this far-flung town is ungodly.  I always hate when movies cut away at the grossest moments and leave it to your imagination, but there's none of that here. You see it all. These murderous acts all whilst Brandon wears this horrific mask, which in my opinion instantly became an iconic horror costume, and the red cape was a nice touch. The mask was actually designed by the director's wife Autumn Steed and James Gunn himself. All horror villains need a costume if you ask me, and they definitely deliver it on that. Returning to what I was saying before on backstories, I'm fine and obviously used to having little backstory and horrors, but the interesting thing about Brightburn and a couple of spoilers here is that they hinted this demonic species, hell-bent on world domination, with cool spaceships and Latin-esque ramblings, which they don't really touch on as much as I'd like. Now that I think about it, I'm open to a sci-fi prequel with a proper backstory to flesh out the lore a bit, which brings me to my only gripe with the film. It's a bit too predictable and linear. Now, a real spoiler alert for those that haven't seen it, but there's no real twist at any point. You know what you're in for, and although the premise is good, that's exactly what you get. Of course, he had his own kryptonite of materials from his home planet. I did like that it didn't kill him in the end though. I love a bad guy wins ending, but they really should have showed us more of the aftermath of his world domination, and more than just what we saw in the end credits. But these are just small issues and didn't really ruin the movie for me, and the acting, especially from Elizabeth Banks and Star Jackson Dunn, was top notch. In fact, in the good horror drought we've had this year, Brightburn was a bloodthirsty breath of fresh air. Seriously though, what is with the horror movie so far this year? Absolutely terrible. Anyway, if you love hero movies and love a good slasher, Brightburn is for you, but don't expect any surprises. But if you've seen it already, be sure to let me know what you thought in the comments. But until next time, this is Matt Rogers, and that is all.


The arts are making a $1 million impact in Hubbard County, that's according to a study that was just completed by Creative Minnesota. The study found that the total economic impact of the county's arts is $1.6 million. The study looked at the revenue generated from 15 different arts and cultural organizations as well as 170 different artists and creative workers from the area. The county hopes to use this data to draw even more artists to town to continue growing their creative scene. We were able to show that it was a significant amount of money that is is being spent and generated through the arts. My first love of the art says the arts are important just for themselves and really do not have to be justified, but in the times that we live in I think it is good to show that there is an economic impact and an economic advantage to have good arts in an area. The study also reports that close to 24,000 people are served at Hubbard County Arts and Cultural Events annually. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Good morning everybody. It's wonderful to have you here. Like you have already noticed Helsinki is a very beautiful light city. I heard from Marianne that you represent 130 countries. Well, being a bit cynical, I just wonder where are the missing 71s. But I was explained that they are on their way. I come from the field of politics that is not that much to start up. Unfortunately, nowadays it's rather trying to avoid the world closing down. In politics we are used to hear that a common enemy unites. Well, maybe that is true, but it surely doesn't unite that enemy. This brings to my mind a thought of common code. What about if common code would unite better everybody? And when we look around here, opportunities, innovations, creativity, making pieces together, that is creating common code. At the end it might be that we, the whole world, will be saved if we unite in the name of common code. That's a common interest. Surely startups are better to unite. Are better to avoid that closing down. With these words, ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a very pleasant day here in Helsinki and to keep in mind common code unites us. And that's good for us all. Thank you.


It is now time for question period. The member from Prince Edward Hastings. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question this morning is for the Premier Speaker. This government likes to say that hindsight is 2020 when they talk about the electricity crisis that they've created in the province. A couple of weeks ago, the leader of the official opposition and I were in Timmins and we welcome the folks from the Timmins area who are with us this morning. Let's go back to 2014 when the city of Timmins paid $3.7 million for electricity. Now Timmins pays $5.3 million for electricity, an increase of $1.6 million on the municipality's electricity budget. So, Speaker, how much more does the Premier think that she can squeeze out of the people of Timmins? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Please to rise and respond to the question relating to what this government has done to ensure that we're finding ways to lower rates for all Ontarians and for municipalities. As the Premier has said in the past, we've done some hard work, Mr. Speaker, the heavy lifting to ensure that we rebuild the system, that no longer is relying on coal and ensuring that we build a system where we have power in the north, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to ask my threesome over here to bring a bill. And if it doesn't, this will be the last time I'll try to be calm about it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And again, invested billions of dollars in making sure that we rebuilt our transmission system that was left in shambles when we took over, Mr. Speaker, back in 2003. And of course, that takes time and money. And what we've done, Mr. Speaker, is find ways of reducing those costs that we've had, and I'll make sure I answer more of that in the supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Back to the Premier. The government has lit the house on fire, and they're trying to use the garden hose to put out the flames. Speaker, let's go back to 2014. Quinney Healthcare, which operates four hospitals in my region, paid $2.1 million in electricity costs in 2014. It's up $600,000 since then. That's almost 30 percent. And if you go back to 2012, it's up almost $1 million for the hospitals in my region. If the Premier doesn't want to talk about dollars, let's talk about doctors. How many more doctors is your electricity crisis going to cost the patients in the Quinney region of Ontario? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's interesting to hear from that side of the house that they were actually going to close one of those hospitals, Mr. Speaker, and it was this government that actually kept those hospitals open and invested in healthcare to make sure that we have doctors in that part of our province, Mr. Speaker. So let's be clear, and let's look at the facts, Mr. Speaker. We've ensured that we've got programs in place to help hospitals. For example, Mr. Speaker, in my writing of Sudbury, the Health Sciences North saves about $200,000 a year after using the Save on Energy program, Mr. Speaker. They're actually then putting that money back into healthcare services. So Mr. Speaker, there are programs in place. There are systems in place to ensure that we keep the lights on, that we keep the operating rooms with the electricity that they need, and at the same time reducing costs. And we're going to continue to find ways to do more, Mr. Speaker. Final supplementary. It's time for this government to stop doing more because every time they do more it hurts more and more the people of Ontario. You know, Mr. Speaker, just before the end of the business day, yesterday, my office was made aware of a family in Chatham, Kent, down in southwestern Ontario. The same utility that controls both the electricity and the water for this family, Integris, on Friday when their electricity was turned back on, their water was turned off. And they were told that it would only be turned back on when they were no longer in arrears. Cities, hospitals, families, all hurting. That's your Ontario, Premier. That's your Ontario. Everybody is hurting. Speaker, what price is too high for this government? Thank you. You're working on it. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are many electricity companies around the province that actually look after both water and electricity. But when they look after the water component, Mr. Speaker, they're looking after that for their local municipality. So I would encourage them to actually contact their local municipality, Mr. Speaker. But we will find ways to continue to do more, Mr. Speaker. Because if we were actually to follow what that party did, we would have left our system in shambles. We would have relied on coal, Mr. Speaker, and we no longer want to rely on coal. We want to ensure that we have a clean system, that we have a reliable system. That's my line. So I would ask the member not to use his line. And it's not helpful when I'm hearing an answer from that side. That side is noisy as well. But it's not helpful when the person asking the question is yelling as well. I suspect he wants to listen. Finish, please. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, coming back to disconnections, Mr. Speaker, last week we had the bill passed this House unanimously, which was great news, Mr. Speaker. And I was pleased, very pleased, Mr. Speaker, to see that the OEB acted very quickly and decisively, Mr. Speaker. So on Thursday, they issued a decision to all local utilities to make sure that they have all of these reconnections connected as quickly as possible. A member from Leeds, Grenville, and a member from Renfrew, Nipissing, Pembroke come to order. New question. A member from Kitchener, Conestoga. Thanks, Speaker. My question is to the Premier. Speaker, one year ago, hundreds of patients who traveled here from across the province watched the Liberal government strike down a PC motion. Sufferers had counted on to create a select committee on rare disease treatment. They are here again today, Speaker. One year after the Liberal government announced its own rare disease working group that would quote, now begin ticking concrete action. Speaker, it's been a year. What concrete action has the government taken? Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I just want to say that we know that many Ontarians have family members who are struggling with a rare disease or disorder and our hearts go out to them, Mr. Speaker. But because these diseases are very rare, often they are misdiagnosed, Mr. Speaker, and I'm very pleased that we've been able to move ahead. Just yesterday, Minister Hoskins announced an expansion to clinics for those needing specialized care. There's also, as the member knows, there's a working group of experts that is in place who can explore how services for people with rare diseases can be improved in Ontario, Mr. Speaker. These are very challenging, very specific situations, Mr. Speaker. And we need to have experts who give us ongoing advice in the interim. The minister has announced an increase to support for clinics, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, supplementary. Thanks, Speaker. Speaker, while we were happy, of course, to see EDS sufferers who were forced to come to Queen's Park last year, get their clinic, the fact is that they had to travel to the legislature in failing health before the minister or your government would do anything. In fact, it seems this Liberal government only acts for Ontarians after they've been forced to come to Queen's Park to beg for life-saving support and the cameras are on. While it may have been politically expedient to finally support EDS once the cameras switched off, so did the hopes for hundreds of thousands of other sufferers with cystic fibrosis, Catalyst disease, PKU, AHS, or a host of other rare diseases. Speaker, it's Rare Disease Day. The cameras are back on. Will the Premier report where and what is the strategy to help Ontarians suffering from all rare diseases? Good question. Thank you, Premier. Thank you, Chair. Minister, I'll call it a long-term care. Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And as much as the member opposite might want to try to make this political or try to make it partisan, it's been the better part of two years, Mr. Speaker. In fact, this Premier led the charge nationally for the creation of a working group on rare diseases. Exactly. Long before the member opposite raised this in the Legislature. But importantly, Mr. Speaker, we did hear from patients with EDS, with Erdos-Danlos Syndrome, and thanks to their important advocacy and the advocacy of the group that often represents them, ILC Canada, we were able to create a task force which included patients and patient advocates on it, an expert task force and panel that actually led to the creation of the announcement I made yesterday, which was funding of a million dollars ongoing for a partnership between University Health Network and SIC Kids to actually provide specialized care specifically for children and adults with EDS, Mr. Speaker. I'm proud of that decision. That's right. I'll supplement it. Speaker, this minister has had the Ontario Citizens Council report on rare disease strategies since 2010 and has done nothing with it. He told us last spring we would have working group recommendations within three months. We're knee-deep in empty words. What we need is action. If he has the report, he should actually table it today. Speaker, when it comes down to governing, it's all about choices and priorities. Choices to strike down an all-party open, transparent, rare disease. Select committee in favour of a behind-the-doors working group. Prioritizing to spend what's left of our tax dollars on the matters that will best impact the lives of all Ontarians, unlike relocating gas plants. Speaker, will the Premier tell us why when it came to a choice between subsidizing a $140,000 Tesla owner with massive rebates versus spending to treat rare disease, she went with a new car on Tesla? Tesla. Thank you. Tesla. Minister. Well, Mr. Speaker, we decided instead of having politicians make these decisions in the form of a select committee, we knew from advocates, from patients, from scientists, from academics, from clinicians, we knew many of the steps that needed to be taken. So we created a working group, quite frankly, comprised of those experts, Mr. Speaker, a working group on rare diseases. I have not received the final report. I'm expecting to receive it in the coming several weeks. But a working group which is chaired by Dr. Ronald Cohn, a pediatrician in chief from the hospital for sick children, Scott McIntigart, who's the senior vice president of the University Health Network, Crystal Chen, a patient, Guida-Clausa, a patient caregiver, Dr. Richard Ward, a physician lead at UHN and blood disorders programs, Dr. Pranesh Chakrabort, director of newborn screening Ontario. The exact and precise people who should be providing that advice to the government, they're doing that. I'll be receiving it in the next several weeks, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, exactly. The question, the member from Brownlee, Gloria Malkin. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier. The Premier has said that she will look at fixing hydro. The Premier has had 14 years to look at solving this problem and four years as Premier. Now, four years as Premier and 14 years as a government to solve a crisis that they helped create. Ontario needs more than a Premier or an electricity minister to look at solutions to this crisis. They need someone who's going to act on solving this problem. Will, so here's a question. Here's a concrete thing that this government can act on.  Well, Mr. Speaker, there are many ideas that are coming forward and I appreciate the member opposite putting forward some thoughts, Mr. Speaker. The reality is that we have committed to bringing forward a plan before the budget comes out, Mr. Speaker. And that plan will be a plan to reduce electricity prices immediately, Mr. Speaker. We have already begun. The 8% reduction is already on people's bills, Mr. Speaker. That's already being taken off people's bills. The plan we bring forward will mean more immediate reductions, Mr. Speaker. Unlike, I would say, the plan that was brought forward yesterday by the NDP, the cornerstone of which is a pillar, the repurchasing of Hydro One World, which will not take and would not take one cent off one electricity bill, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, here's another idea. Ending time of use fees. Ending time of use fees isn't just a wild policy idea.  Take, for example, Anne Marie. Here's an example. Anne May. Start the clock. Finish, please. Take Anne May, for example. She's a senior living in Hamilton. Now, she's recently been told that she's got to start using an in-home oxygen-making machine and that's going to increase her bill by about $250, which will pretty much double her hydro bill. Now, if Anne May could opt out of time of use fees, she could actually be at home, use her machine during the day, instead of having to be up all night and worrying about how she's actually going to afford to use this machine. Now, the question is, this is how it should be. Hydro is a necessity, not a luxury. Will this government commit to ending this unfair mandatory time of use fee? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to time of use, Mr. Speaker, time of use actually provides an overall benefit to the entire province by conserving power during peak demand, Mr. Speaker. But we do understand, like the example that was used by the Honourable Member, that there are some people, Mr. Speaker, that do need to use power during peak times. And that's why, Mr. Speaker, we've already started the process with our system operator of looking at actually having some type of alternative plan, having time of use and having a flat rate plan. And we're so far into this, Mr. Speaker, that the OEB has already started a pilot project looking at that. But the important thing for us, Mr. Speaker, on this one case is the individual that needs to use a piece of medical equipment can actually apply for the Ontario Electricity Support Program and see their benefit double, Mr. Speaker. And I do hope that person gets access to that information. Final supplementary. Mr. Speaker, people in Ontario need to see real changes that will actually impact their life right now to make sure that the hydro system is actually working for them. The Premier says they're working on it, but they've had lots of time. They've been in power since before Facebook was a thing. They've been in power since Destiny's Child was better known than... Minister of Infrastructure come to order. This government took power when people were still renting VHS tapes from blockbusters. This government has had a lot of time, but we're not seeing any results. How much more time will it take so that people can see some justice with respect to their energy costs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been in power long enough, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that we've eliminated coal, Mr. Speaker. We've been in power long enough, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that our system is reliable. We're being in power long enough, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that people can actually use our system and not worry about it having a brownout. We actually invested in our system over the last 14 years, Mr. Speaker, to make it a better system than it was there before, to make it a cleaner system that was there before, and to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that people who have asthma can go outside and take a breath of fresh air and not worry about having a smog day, which that we haven't had in this province since 2014, Mr. Speaker. We need to be proud of that. Other states, other provinces, are looking to us, Mr. Speaker, because we've been leading the way in building a system that is clean and reliable, and we are taking it to the next level, Mr. Speaker, to make it as affordable as possible. Any questions? You see it, please? See it, please? New question. I'm from primarily Gormole. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question is again to the Premier. Yesterday, the Premier said that if stopping the sell-off of Hydro-1 is a priority, then investing in infrastructure would have to take a backseat. Now, just because the Premier says that Ontario can't have affordable public power and build infrastructure at the same time, doesn't mean it's true. In fact, if the Premier continues to repeat it, doesn't make it any more true. My question to the Premier is this. I'm pretty sure that Ontario has had public- Minister of Economic Development. Century. And I'm also sure that over that century that we've built infrastructure, we've invested in all the infrastructure. And transportation infrastructure. My question is why can't this Premier do the same thing? It's very interesting. The member opposite makes the assertion that there has been building of infrastructure in a rational way over decades. And Mr. Speaker, that's actually not true. The reality is that there were long periods, there were decades where infrastructure was not built, where investments were not made, Mr. Speaker. And we know that if there isn't a 5% investment in infrastructure year over year, and that can be a combination of federal, provincial, and municipal contribution, Mr. Speaker, then in fact, we're not even keeping up with, let alone building a new infrastructure that's needed. So we've actually tackled that, Mr. Speaker. And we've actually broken that cycle of neglect that had been in place for at least 20 years, Mr. Speaker. Answer. So we're going to continue to build infrastructure because that leads to economic growth, Mr. Speaker, and that leads to the well-being of people in this province. Thank you. Supplementary. Mr. Speaker, the Premier said that, quote, when she travels to other countries and talks to businesses about coming to Ontario, they want to know about infrastructure, end quote. I think that makes sense. And a part of that infrastructure is the cost of hydro. That's right. Now, does the Premier admit that sky-high hydro rates are hurting current businesses here in Ontario and discouraging other businesses from investing in our province? Actually, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that in all of the conversations that I have had in other countries, the number one, the number one issue that people raise with me is availability of talented, skilled people. That is the number one reason that businesses come to Ontario. If you talk to Thomson Reuters, Mr. Speaker, the reason that they are coming here explicitly is because of a terrific supply chain of well-educated, talented people. So, Mr. Speaker. You see it? Thank you. Final supplementary. This is the same sort of false logic. By talking about the rising price of hydro, I didn't in any way talk about the fact that we don't have a talented pool of people, but it shows this government's lack of logical rationale. They can address the issue. So, while talking on the topic of drawing businesses to Ontario, the Ontario government should also look at what the Ontario Chamber of Commerce has had to say about our current hydro system in this province. The 2017 Economic Report states, the experience that many households have with respect to rising electricity rates are amplified when it comes to businesses. The report goes on to note that the uncertainty with respect to these rates are discouraging businesses from investing here and on this province, and that means less jobs for the people of Ontario. So, here's the reality. We need to invest in infrastructure. We need to build not only affordable public hydro, but a public transit system and transportation infrastructure. But instead of selling a false choice that people don't believe, will the government actually start to do that? Premier. Mr. Speaker, it'd be nice if the NDP would stop talking down our economy. Our business community and the people of this province and the talented people the Premier talked about have worked very hard with this government to build this economy up. They've created 700,000 net new jobs, yet the party opposite keeps talking their efforts down. That's not fair. And then they say that... Minister. Speaker, they talk those efforts down by saying their part-time jobs wrong. 90% are full-time. They talk them down by saying they're not good-paying jobs wrong. 80% are above the average wage. They say that their public sector jobs wrong. 75% are private sector jobs. Mr. Speaker, my question is the Minister of Health and long-term care. Speaker, last week I questioned the Premier about a life-changing therapy for cerebral palsy patients in the province and the barriers created by this government to access the surgery. Later that day, the government decided to approve the surgery costs for Madison Ambrose and St. Louis. While we're happy for Madison, there are many other children waiting for support from this government on the already-approved treatment. Speaker, will the Minister cut the red tape in his ministry and approve the other children who are waiting surgery today? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary of Health and long-term care. Speaker, and this is a critically important issue. Access to the highest quality health care, in this case a specialized surgery for individuals generally cerebral palsy children that can benefit from the surgery. That's why it is an OHIP-insured procedure. We also rely on clinical expertise of specialists in this province to make that determination whether or not the individual will benefit from that particular procedure. That's what we've done. We've received thus far, I believe, 17 applications for out-of-country care. Of those four did not have the support of their attending specialist. I believe two are still under consideration. And 10, perhaps now 11 out of the 17 have been approved. And those individuals have gone for their surgery and in the process of preparing to go for their surgery in the United States. So this is a good example, Mr. Speaker. I believe where we have a system that is working effectively. I understand there do remain certain challenges and I'm working hard to ensure that our clinical experts are able to provide this care. Thank you, Speaker. Back to the Minister of Speaker. I have over 21 names here of children who are lost in the bureaucratic nightmare this government has created. And unfortunately with this government, the only way to get access to services is to raise it in the legislature. So Mr. Speaker, what is the government going to do for Benjamin, Alessandro, Maya, Athena, Lee, Griff, and JR, Nathan, Sonya, Davey, Ethan, Sophia, Taylor, Tegan, Lila, Bentley, Morgan, Brooklyn, Hayden, Chinoa, and Ben? Their names are on record now. Will the Speaker ask and do the right thing and get the surgery for these children? Thank you. Thank you. Can you see it, please? Can you see it, please? Thank you. Minister? Well, Mr. Speaker, it appears that the member opposite has recently obtained his medical degree. Mr. Speaker, we need to leave it to the clinical experts to make these determinations. Virtually 100 percent of the time where an application for out-of-country surgery is made to the province of Ontario with the support of the clinical expert, that application has been approved. 100 percent of the time, Mr. Speaker. We have two clinics in this province, one in Hamilton, one here at Toronto. We're also working with sick kids in Hall and Bloorview at the possibility of establishing the expertise to actually perform the surgery here in the province, Mr. Speaker, to provide that service not in another country, but here in Ontario. So we have a process, I know the member opposite is wondering how long that takes. It's important, Mr. Speaker, that it's an evidence-based decision. We work with our clinical experts, but 100 percent of the children who have come forward with the support of their families, with the support of their clinical experts have been given the opportunity for that surgery. Thank you. New question, the member from Oshawa. Thank you, Speaker, and my question is to the Premier. The Premier promised that winter hydro disconnections would stop. Well, Georgina lives in Oshawa. She pays her hydro bill to a private company that submeters her apartment building and not to the local utility. This private company is regulated by the OEB, but they are not being told to stop disconnection, so Georgina has had her power cut off. What is the Premier going to do to get Georgina's power back on? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned last week, we passed the legislation to give the Ontario Energy Board the power to end winter disconnections within our province, Mr. Speaker, and we were very pleased that the OEB acted quickly and decisively on Thursday of last week, Mr. Speaker. The OEB issued a decision to all utilities, and that would include these companies that banned all disconnects, Mr. Speaker, until April 30th, require currently disconnecting customers to be reconnected at no cost and ordered the removal of any load limiters being used to limit electricity use, Mr. Speaker. The OEB has announced a comprehensive hearing and review process for customer service rules, and I'd be happy to speak with the member afterwards to ensure that we can get all of the information to help that one individual, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It would seem that the minister is also disconnected, but I'm more concerned about Georgina right now. Speaker, it turns out that there is a loophole in the Premier's promise that people won't have their power cut off during the winter. The Premier surely must have been briefed about this loophole, but I guess she didn't choose to fix the problem. It looks like the Liberals are more interested again in scoring a political win than really fixing the problem of winter disconnections. Speaker, when did the Premier learn about this loophole, and what is she going to do to close it? Again, Mr. Speaker, the OEB has acted quickly on this and in making sure all local utilities will actually stop winter disconnects, Mr. Speaker. It happened last Thursday. We're making sure that everyone, Mr. Speaker, is going to be reconnected as soon as possible. The important thing, Mr. Speaker, is we acted on this. We started talking about this in June, and now, Mr. Speaker, we're very pleased to see this happening, and we're going to ensure, Mr. Speaker, that we continue to find ways to help all ratepayers right across the province, Mr. Speaker. We're going to come forward with the real action plan, Mr. Speaker, one that's not based off of ideology and not on ideas, Mr. Speaker. We have really good ideas that we're bringing forward, Mr. Speaker. Member from Prince Edward Hastings and the member from Bruce Gray Owen Sound come to order. One wrap-up sentence, please. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. New question. The member from Ottawa Sound. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was back in my hometown of Ottawa last night at a meeting organized by the City of Ottawa and councillors with regard to the FENT. With this as an important issue, maybe you could listen. The member from Nippian Carlton come to order. This is a serious issue which should concern us all. There have been three deaths in the City of Ottawa in the last two months that we know of due to Fentanyl and Chief Government Whip come to order. The member from Nippian Carlton, second time. Finish, please. Fentanyl and Opiate Overdose and those are the ones that we know about. There are a lot of very sad stories last night and one father, Mike, was telling a story of his son who's been addicted for five years and this is the message that he sent to all of us here. This is new. This is not... Question. Fentanyl is extremely dangerous. What I want to know from the Minister of Community and Correctional Services is what are we doing to get this off? Thank you. Thank you. Minister of Community Safety Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Order. Order. The member from Nippian Carlton is warned. And I don't need anyone else interjecting. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank the member for Otawa South. I'd also like to thank the member for Nippian Carlton for the work that they're doing on this case to raise it here in the House. One more. My colleague was telling me about some of the stories that he heard yesterday. So, and I think I would like us to not take this on a partisan approach because we know it's something that was, you know, in Ottawa yesterday. We also know that it's across all of our province and I will explain a little bit what we're doing and how I'm reaching out to our chief of police. Thank you very much. Supplementary. I thank the minister and I cannot stress the urgency with which that work needs to be done. What Mike said last night was this is a different drug.   The third pill destroys you. So, my follow-up question is what are we doing to make sure that we put nalaxalone in the hands of our first responders? Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker and thank you for the member again for his questions. We've recently made some changes to enable all paramedic to administer the naxalone onsite. And I want to say thank you to the great work they do but also the tremendous work our police services have been doing and getting opioids off the streets. And I know they need help, Mr. Speaker, to do better. And Ontario's chief of police have reached out to me to support from our government and I will work with them and their police services to address the opioid addiction crisis and I want to reach out to all the parents of Ontario today in the profound respect and we will not abandon them who will be there for them, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your question. The leader remapses his royal opposition. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier. We all know about the Minister of Energy's mea culpa and hindsight but the Auditor General found that Liberals ignored the advice of their own energy exports when handing out 20 year contracts to Liberal friends. If they had listened to the Auditor General it could have saved Ontario four billion dollars. We also know that the 30 big renewable companies donated 1.3 million dollars to the Ontario Liberal Party. So my question to the Premier is given this hindsight given this regret about these bad contracts will the Ontario Liberal Party return the 1.3 million dollars in donations? Thank you Mr. Speaker pleased to rise you know investing in eliminating coal and building transmission Mr. Speaker as the leader of the opposition talked about was the right thing to do Mr. Speaker because our foresight Mr. Speaker we have a clean reliable system that we can depend on Mr. Speaker but as I said in my speech yes hindsight is 2020 and it was the what was correct Mr. Speaker not the how but I know the leader of the opposition knows hindsight very well because when it came to the updated sex ed curriculum Mr. Speaker he actually used hindsight and changed his mind because they didn't support it and then they did support it and then he wrote a letter Mr. Speaker not supporting it and then he supported it again Mr. Speaker hindsight is something that they know very well Mr. Speaker we've recognized on this side that we actually have invested in a system that has built a system that is very strong Mr. Speaker and we will continue to find ways of lowering rates for it I remember from Chatham Ken Essex will come to order supplementary Mr. Speaker again to the Premier Mr. Speaker I asked a serious question about hydro the government has acknowledged that their Green Energy Act was a mistake they signed bad contracts the response I get from the Minister of Energy was a smear on an unrelated topic so I will try again Mr. Speaker directly to the Premier directly to the Premier how does the Premier reconcile the fact that we've overpaid massively for renewable energy that if we had listened to the auditor general we could have saved Ontario's four billion on their hydro bills and the Ontario Liberal Party received 1.3 million dollars in donations so a very clear question is given this acknowledgement given this maya culpa will the Premier ensure the Ontario Liberal Party returns the 1.3 million dollars to Ontario ratepayers because of these bad contracts Mr. Speaker Thank you Thank you Mr. Speaker again you know the Green Energy Act Mr. Speaker the what was the absolute right thing to do Mr. Speaker the how these contracts were negotiated we of course Mr. Speaker we could do better and that's what we're actually doing Mr. Speaker is we're finding ways of doing better for the people of Ontario and bringing forward a rate mitigation process Mr. Speaker that's going to help all families and all businesses across the province but when talking about savings for people Mr. Speaker we've already done that and we're going to continue to do that the renegotiated Samsung agreement 3.7 billion dollars in savings Mr. Speaker reduced fit prices 1.9 billion dollars in savings Mr. Speaker the LRP process saved 1.5 billion dollars to reduce fit costs Mr. Speaker that was 800 million dollars we've continued to do this Mr. Speaker while at the same time eliminating cold and rebuilding a system that they couldn't care for Mr. Speaker that they left in shambles Thank you Thank you Question number from London Thank you Speaker my question is to the Premier Chris and Robina Willis live in London West with their five children both have jobs but like too many working families they are struggling to keep the lights on any time they fall behind on their hydro bills they must pay hefty fees and a larger deposit leading to bills as high as 1,000 dollars and forcing them to cut back on necessities as hydro rates increase this vicious circle just gets worse Speaker why is the Premier ignoring the crisis face like families face buy families like Chris and Robina Willis and refusing to act now to keep hydro costs affordable We have already begun to take action and we are bringing forward a plan that will continue to take action in the immediate term Mr. Speaker what's interesting about the questions from the NDP is that the document that they brought out yesterday lays out a number of initiatives most of which wouldn't reduce electricity prices and none of which would reduce electricity prices in the immediate term Mr. Speaker it would take a very long time and some of them I have no idea how they would do it in terms of for example asking the federal government to take action and forego revenue so Mr. Speaker we're going to bring forward a workable plan we're going to bring forward a plan an initiative that builds on the actions that we've already taken a real plan that will reduce electricity prices immediately Mr. Speaker Thank you Speaker Speaker Chris and Robina Willis are doing everything they can to keep up they've had to use the food bank multiple times they have removed their children from extracurricular activities now they say they will no longer be able to organize birthday parties for their children Speaker does this government think it is fair to make children pay the price for their failure to take real action on hydro rates Minister of Energy Thank you Mr. Speaker and and I think everyone in this House would agree Mr. Speaker that that's unacceptable that any family would have to do that Mr. Speaker and and that's why we acted and we're continuing to act Mr. Speaker when we brought forward the eight percent reduction Mr. Speaker that's helping you know five million families across the province with small businesses and farms included in that Mr. Speaker but we know there that more needs to be done and so that's why we're continuing right now Mr. Speaker to work and continue to find ways to help families because we know Mr. Speaker that we had to rebuild that system it was paramount for us to eliminate coal Mr. Speaker to make sure that we can have the system that's clean and reliable but we will take it to the next level Mr. Speaker we will work hard to ensure that we make this as affordable as possible for every family for every business right across our province from Windsor to Ottawa to Benora and everything in between Mr. Speaker we're working for everyone in this province Thank you New question the member from Kingston in the other Thank you Mr. Speaker my question is for the Attorney General I know that many Ontarians are aware of what happened last summer with the tragically hip farewell tour a huge number of hip fans especially those in my riding of Kingston and the islands could not get tickets to see Canada's iconic band in a matter of seconds across the province tickets were sold out and they later appeared on the secondary market at very inflated rates this happens with concerts sporting events and all kinds of other cultural events where fans have trouble getting tickets no matter how hard they try this is why I introduced bill 22 the ticket speculation amendment act last fall I was delighted that my PMB was supported unanimously and I'm pleased to be working with the Attorney General to increase consumer protection measures for fans all across this province Question I know that our government agrees that we need to take action Can the Attorney General please tell us about our government Thank you Attorney General Thank you very much Speaker and I want to thank the the member from Kingston and the islands for her leadership on this important issue as she mentioned she bought a private member's bill to make sure that fans do get access to tickets that are affordable that are accessible and in a transparent way what we saw a speaker happen last summer with tragically hips farewell tour where people were not able to get tickets if tickets were available they were available in a much higher price I think bugged many Ontarians it really disturbed me speaker and that is why we have announced our intention to take concrete steps by bringing legislation this spring that will make sure that we are putting fans first in Ontario speaker that we are making sure that tickets are accessible and are affordable for fans speaker so we are working and building on members private members bill in terms of scalping bots and in supplementary I'll give you more information in that regards thank you Thank you Supplementary Thank you speaker I would like to thank the Attorney General for his response many constituents and fans across the province are pleased to hear that the government is committed to taking action on this issue by banning scalper bots our government is sending a clear message to fans that we believe they deserve a fair shot at buying tickets I'm excited to be co-hosting a ticket speculation fan round table at Ryerson digital media zone tomorrow at 7 o'clock to hear from fans I know that constituents from all across this province are very happy with the work already underway to give everyone a fair chance especially when the next big show comes to town I know the attorney general would agree that we need to increase transparency in the ticket selling industry while this is going to be a difficult task question Attorney General please tell us more about our government's plan to ban scalper bots and the work we will be doing in the next months Attorney General thank you very much Mr. Speaker again I want to thank thank the member from Kingston and the islands for her leadership and I very much look forward to joining her tomorrow at the Ryerson University digital media zone for our consultation with fans and we invite people to attend that event at 7 p.m. Speaker earlier today also Speaker we launched an online survey at Ontario.ca slash tickets we encourage Ontarians to please go online and give us advice in four key areas how can we make access to tickets more easy by giving everybody a fair shot at buying tickets how can we make them more affordable how can we make information about tickets more transparent and Speaker of course how can we make sure that these rules are fully enforced this is a challenging task Speaker there is no silver bullet answer we are working with other jurisdictions like New York State as well which have the same kind of challenges to see if we can develop strategies that could be mutually enforceable and I look working with members and Ontarians on this thank you Speaker Thank you New question to the member from Cinnacle Creek My question for the Minister the environment in October 2016 the Environmental Review Tribunal ruled the appellance of the WPD wind turbine project in Clearview Township had proven the turbines would cause harm to human health and irreversible harm to the natural environment in particular endangered bats that live in the area now WPD is requesting a remedy hearing in the hopes of reversing the tribunal's ruling that safeguards the people and wildlife of this province Mr. Speaker why is WPD Canada being given a remedy hearing and the fact of the matter is the government's freedom of information records show existing operational wind turbines in Ontario far exceed the approval limits for bat and bird kills Thank you Minister of the Environment and the end of private change Mr. Speaker I am happy to meet with the member opposite to within the authority I have review the matter the Minister has limits on our authority because we have an environmental review tribunal which I have a great deal of faith in you may remember you the member opposite Mr. Speaker repeatedly question me about the Collingwood airport issue and I said I cannot insert myself in that because I legally have no authority to do it and I would probably have to resign if I did that it's interesting it's interesting it's interesting Mr. Speaker that the that the hearing resulted in changes made by the ERT with no interference from the government or the ministry and I think somewhat to the satisfaction of the member opposite so let's have some faith in our independent tribunal process Thank you Minister it's your policy that tribunal is following it's your green energy act that tribunal is following so you are ultimately responsible for this issue it's been proven that when turbine turbines kill resident bats and also attract migratory bats and kill them as well local residents and governments are spending excessive amounts of their own money doing what the minister should be doing and that's enforcing the endangered species act by refusing to issue permits to high-risk wind turbine projects Speaker this government's green energy act is creating energy poverty at the high cost of electricity and it's now bringing about project poverty by forcing citizens to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose wind turbine projects and protect the environment Mr. Speaker is the minister committed to protecting Ontario's endangered species or to wind turbine projects take priority Minister thank you very much Mr. Speaker I would be very clear that we have with the Endangered Species Act of the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry very strong protections a matter of fact we have the strongest protections in North America on endangered species I would also point out Mr. Speaker that we and Quebec and Nova Scotia are the only jurisdictions in the Americas that have greenhouse gas reductions below 1990 levels or have met the Q and a protocol which his party took us out of our energy system now and our environmental strategies have left us as one of only three jurisdictions in the Americas that are below 1990 levels and tracking on that and given the leader of his party and his colleagues who have a track record of destroying international agreements undermining them and increasing pollution in this province and increasing greenhouse gas emissions which would do a lot more damage than just the bats Mr. Speaker New question from Windsor West Thank you Speaker my question is to the Premier for people living in Windsor like Mary even the most basic services are more and more out of reach I'm not talking about luxuries Mary doesn't have a pool a hot tub or even a dishwasher as she says it's just basic living and the price for basic living a $200 electricity bill double what she was paying last year will this liberal government listen to Mary finally admit that electricity is a necessity not a luxury and begin to treat it that way Thank you Mr. Speaker we continue to continue to find ways to help people like Mary and other family in person and business in this province Mr. Speaker we did start by starting on January 1st with the 8% reduction and for those R2 customers in the province 330,000 households Mr. Speaker they're seeing a $60 and 50 cent reduction Mr. Speaker and we know we can do more there are programs in place to help people like Mary I do hope that Mary is looking at some of those programs but we will find ways and we are working hard right now Mr. Speaker to continue to find ways reduce costs but we do recognize that the system that we built Mr. Speaker eliminating coal rebuilding the grid that cost billions of dollars Mr. Speaker and we know that cost actually came at the expense of many families Mr. Speaker and that's why we are now looking at ways of ensuring that we can continue to find some downward pressure on rates and bring immediate action and relief supplementary Thank you Speaker again to the premier not a day goes by in Windsor where I don't hear yet another hydro horror story parents can't buy school supplies for their children enroll them in sports or send them to summer camp all because of their skyrocketing hydro bill businesses can't afford to expand some have already closed I invite the premier to come to Windsor and actually listen to how difficult it's becoming to afford even the most basic needs like hydro food or medication for seniors I'll introduce her to my constituents I'll even buy her lunch people in Windsor need action not more liberal talking points they need more than five dollars off this month and maybe six dollars off the next will this liberal government end the sell-off of hydro one and offer real plan to lower electricity bills once again Mr Speaker as we said there are several programs in place that actually help these families significantly Mr Speaker in terms of dollars that they're saving every month when it comes to their electricity bill we're also making sure Mr Speaker as I said before that that eight percent reduction that started out of January 1st Mr Speaker and that's a significant reduction for many families and farms and businesses right across the province and that took effect as of January 1st and many of those families are now seeing the full benefit to that Mr Speaker now that we're at the end of February so Mr Speaker we recognize that you know what the investments that we made in this system making sure that we're off-call making sure that we have a clean system a reliable system and one that we can count on Mr Speaker that came with a cost and now Mr Speaker we're taking it to the next level we're working hard on finding other ways that we can reduce costs for not only this family as was mentioned Mr Speaker but all families and businesses right across our great province thank you new question the member from Brampton Springdale thank you Mr Speaker my question is to the minister of housing and minister responsible for the poverty reduction strategy Mr Speaker I'm proud that our government has committed to end chronic homelessness by 2025 we recognize that all of us have shared responsibility in the communities that we call home I'm pleased to see that our government has significantly increased the region of Peel's support from Ontario's Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative CHPI helps thousands of at-risk families and individuals retain and find secure housing and allow them to build healthy and stable lives this year Peel is receiving 15.3 million dollars from CHPI and by 2018-19 this investment in homelessness prevention in Peel will grow to 17.8 million dollars Mr Speaker this is great news can the minister please tell the this House how the CHPI increases will help ensure that all Ontarians are given the supports that they deserve thank you minister of housing well thank you Speaker and thank you to the hardworking member for Brampton Springdale for that great question I'm proud to say Speaker that Ontario is a leader in the fight against homelessness to reach our goal of ending chronic homelessness we're focusing on prevention I can report all areas of Ontario received an increase in community homeless prevention initiative we call it CHPI funding this year significantly increase funding in Durham York Peel Halton regions and other communities will help these service managers better support the needs right across their communities this funding will decrease the need for people to migrate to Toronto to seek service CHPI provides services people need to rebuild their lives like housing transportation assistance and life skills coaching Mr. Speaker we're investing more and more every year in all communities in Ontario to help them fight homelessness in their streets Thank you Mr. Speaker I'm glad to see that Ontario is taking strong action by empowering municipalities across the province in this fight against homelessness I want to take this time and recognize the many frontline staff who demonstrate the strength of our community in supporting our most vulnerable in my writing Brampton Springdale a community isn't a bunch of people living in the same place it's a shared sense of responsibility to one another and that both our successes and our struggles bind us together even still we know that more work needs to be done can the minister explain to this house what the government is doing to encourage the community leadership and ensure wraparound solutions to those who need our help the most Well thank you Mr. Speaker and again thank you to the member for the question and to our municipal partners across Ontario who are working hard to end homelessness speaker we began our work by striking an expert panel on homelessness and used their input to shape the path our path and the path forward we're focusing our efforts to prevent homelessness on those most at risk including the chronically homeless homeless youth indigenous people and individuals transitioning out of provincial institutions speaker we know chronic homelessness is a serious symptom of other obstacles like drug addiction mental health challenges and disabilities so in the coming weeks we're moving forward with an unprecedented investment in housing with supports to help eliminate the obstacles that keep people in a cycle of homelessness freeing them to rebuild their lives and maintain stable homes and I really look forward speaker to sharing the details sir thank you your question and member from leads Grendel my question is for the minister of environment I want to replay the facts speaker in February the minister of the environment announced the $14,000 Tesla luxury car rebate I have the press release right here to prove it it's supposedly a part of his action plan and around the same time the minister's former chief of staff started working at tesla but then the minister claims his office had nothing to do with the decision it was the minister of transportation so my question speaker is simple yes or no did the minister of environment's office participate in the luxury car rebate program thank you very much Mr. Speaker I think we've been very clear on this it was last spring that the decisions were made and they were made by the government that the ministry of transportation is the administrative unit they develop the program and number three Mr. Speaker the person involved the staffer did exactly what I would want and I think we'd want our staffers to do they immediately upon looking to leave government went to the inter-tegrity commissioner met with the Tegrity Commissioner I got a letter that was copied on that the integrity commissioner said that they followed all of the rules and I would hope that we would have respect for people who follow the rules Mr. Speaker which was the case here and that should end it Mr. Speaker thank you so thank you again I want to reiterate this press release from the government on this program change came from his ministry the ministry of environment and climate change it's time for this government to put their money where their mouth is maybe their emails where their mouth is I filed an ordered paper question I can go under freedom of information but I'm going to ask the minister this question will he release all of the emails that contain the word Tesla that were issued by his former chief of staff yes or no Mr. Speaker I will say it again this decision was made by the government last spring clearly made by the government the decision was made last spring the member from Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke is warned and the member from Nipissing will come to order finish please again when the when the political staffer involved decided to leave government he did what every political staffer should do went and met with the integrity commissioner did a full disclosure then got a letter back giving him complete clearance and rules to follow and he followed those rules Mr. Speaker again the thank you oh sorry thank you new question the member from Tomiskimi Cochrane thank you speaker my question is for the premier the horn granite curling club is a cornerstone in the community of Nilsker as are many curling clubs and ice rinks and tragically a few years ago it burned to the ground and through the dedication of its members and support for the community it was totally rebuilt it's totally modern it faced a huge challenge but now it faces an even greater challenge last year the membership fees for the horn granite curling club were forty two thousand dollars their hydro bill was forty six thousand dollars so you know where that's going how is it that we've come to this that our real way of life is being destroyed by your hydro policies Mr. Speaker it is great to talk about curling Mr. Speaker I know Sudbury has a great curling club as well and the Coppercliff curling club Mr. Speaker have come to me and talked to me about their electricity bill Mr. Speaker you know what I did is I put them in touch with their local utility their local utility that went in and worked with them on the save on energy program Mr. Speaker and the save on energy program Mr. Speaker is now saving that curling club thousands of dollars every month Mr. Speaker so I encourage that member to utilize the local utilities that are within your area use the programs that are in place Mr. Speaker because we rebuilt this system we've made sure it's clean and now we're making sure it's affordable for every single business and for every single person in this province Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker thank you some supplementary Minister with all due respect this example it's a brand new facility they've done everything that they could to save energy they have worked with every program available as have most people in this province I'm sure most the vast anyone comes in our office we make sure that we look for every program available and yet this club and many others like it are in danger of closing because they can't pay their hydro bills the real question is the real question is your ministry has analysts policy analysts experts long-term energy plans how did you not foresee this happening why did it have to come to crisis before you realize that oh the people in rural industry can't pay their hydro bills oh perhaps you have to do something how how did it come to this with your energy program minister thank you mr. Speaker it came to this mr. Speaker because for decades the opposition parties when they were in power never invested in the system and it was up to us to rebuild it mr. Speaker and that doesn't happen overnight mr. Speaker we've rebuilt the system we've made sure it's clean we've made sure it's green mr. Speaker and now we've made sure that we've got a system that we can rely on we're going to continue to work hard mr. Speaker for the folks that are in rural parts of our province we've started mr. Speaker with the $60 and 50 said triple rp reduction mr. Speaker we're going to continue to find ways of finding programs at mr. Speaker that will help these organizations just like we did in Sudbury just like we've done in Thunder Bay just like we've done right across our great province mr. Speaker and we'll continue to find ways to help not only in rural but in urban parts of our province mr. Speaker thank you we're still at the standing order 38a the member from Leeds Greenville has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer it was questioned given by the minister the environment climate change concerning the electric car rebate program this matter will be debated today at 6 p.m. there are no deferred votes this house stands recess until 3 p.m. this afternoon


The hunter's low. Where is he? Oh, he died to a mob, but what? Dude, there's so many there. Dude, the homies are still on someone, by the way. Who are they on? Are they on this priest? Dude, there's a lot of PVP here. Sheesh! Dude, this priest is buffed to high heavens. Look at this guy. Oh Man, I almost feel bad killing him. No, they're coming up. I don't feel bad anymore. This guy has a fatty shield on actually. Got a spare, some 10. Oh no. Oh no!


Okay, welcome back everyone, this is SiliconANGLE and Wikibon's theCUBE, our flagship program. We've got the advanced instructor from The Noise. I'm John Furrier, Joe with Dave Vellante here for just a conversation, Dave, about what's going on in Oracle Open World, day one of three days of live coverage here in San Francisco. What's your take, Dave? Well, first of all, John, I miss you. I had Furrier withdrawals here, so welcome back. First segment we've done together all day. I was out at Santa Barbara last night and checking out the scene down there, made it back. Not going to miss an Oracle Open World for the world. I love Oracle Open World because it's like Isla Vista in Santa Barbara, except it's tech people, going crazy over the technology. So, Moscone is draped in red, John. It's a little different than a few weeks ago at the M World. No, I mean, it's always great because Oracle has the muscle, Dave, as you know. We always talk about every year, Oracle's, transitioning from that telco role of extracting value from the ecosystem. Oracle's making moves. Larry Ellison really is a gamer. He wants to make his mark on the industry. He sees himself as the heir apparent to Steve Jobs in the historic Hall of Fame of tech industry. And he's here to win, it's a game to him. And I think you're seeing Oracle just in the past four years since we've been covering them. Being kind of a, this is a throwaway game for them to like really being in the game. They're making the announcements. They're heavy in cloud. They're making a faster, more relevant, timely announcements. Again, they're a monster. They're in there with huge accounts, huge dollars. And a rounding number on their sales spreadsheet would take a company public these days. So, you know, those startups are doing well. Oracle still has the muscle and they have huge clients. And it's fun to watch. And I think, you know, you asked me my take before, and we're hearing a consistent story from Oracle. It's software engineered with hardware. It's vertical integration. It's trying to develop best of breed. It's spending on R&D. Now they've basically co-opted the big data theme. We know, we hear a lot about their cloud. So, you know, it's fun to criticize Oracle, right? They charge a lot.  But here's the deal. They spend a lot of money on R&D. Allison's like a startup CEO. I mean, he's that engaged. I was just at the session talking to some executives in the infrastructure business. And they're telling me, Larry's calling me every week. Wants to know the update on the new product announcement. When it's coming, when it's ready, you know, Oracle's the same way. So these guys are intense focus on, as you said, winning. So it's all about winning. It's a zero-sum game to Oracle. I mean, it's a chessboard for Larry. And I think, you know, one of the things we're seeing some news here, we had our guys at the press conference, Mark, heard, made an announcement about the human capital management software. You know, it's classic Oracle, swiping at the competition. Workday has been booming of late. And, you know, they're under pressure, you know.  They're winning. They're doing well. And Oracle's not happy about it. So I mean, obviously they're going to be moving very, very aggressive against that. And then just in all fronts, the chessboard of conversion infrastructure, the sun acquisition, really the ultimate cherry on top for Oracle relative to their future positioning. They are betting the ranch on an Apple-like strategy where containing the hardware, focusing on the software, and bundling in the hardware to the software as a fully enclosed system, purpose-filled, hardening it out is ultimately their big bet, Dave. And I'm telling you, it will work for some companies and that lock-in is a small price to pay for the functionality if they can deliver. Well, and I think they, I think Oracle can deliver. You know, the question is, as we were talking about with Ray Wang, can they deliver both on the promise of integrated systems? I have no doubt Oracle can do that because they're spending a lot of money on it. They've got good technology people. They've got good technology. And so eventually they're going to make that integration play work and they already are making that work. The big question I have, John, is can they innovate and be best of breed at each layer of the stack? That's something that's really hard to do. Guys like EMC and Cisco and VMware have chosen to partner to do that. That's always been IBM's big challenge, right? I mean, what's IBM number one at? What product is IBM number one at? Besides mainframes? It's hard to come up with one. Okay, then same question for Oracle. What product is Oracle number one at besides database? That's Oracle's challenge, you know? Can they be best in storage? Can they be best in servers? Can they be best in applications? They would argue they're best in applications. But I think big data is a big challenge here. We heard inside theCUBE here day one that people don't want to pay licenses for data that's not being used. And there's a big issue around how data works and how people are using their computing environment. It's not a monolithic environment anymore relative to the database. There's new unstructured environments. Most of the data is not stored in relational databases. Why should I pay an Oracle license there? I got virtualization, I got scale out open source. These are new environments that are putting great pressure on Oracle. And if you look at Mark Hurd and how he reports to the street, all he talks about is our revenue licenses are up X percent relative to the market. Well, if the market's declining and you're up, what does that mean? Maybe it's shifting to another area. So Dave, this is a concern that I have about Oracle is their core business metrics might not be on the right numbers. Yes, software's growing relative to what? A declining market or a shifting market? Those are the open questions we will find out. This is Wicked Oracle. Well, I think that, well, here's something I want to share with you. So we did some research in Wikibon. 50% of the customers that we talked to in the Wikibon community said they're willing to risk lock-in to get integration and function. So, and only 15% said we're dogmatic about open source. Now, over time, that open source crowd, as you well know, is going to build up the capabilities. But 15% is the toehold for the startup crowd. Oracle's working on that fat middle. And that's really where they do well. Let's talk about the dogma. The dogma for IT enterprise is simply this, contract negotiations. All it's a posturing for contract negotiations. Almost every single CIO I talked to and we've talked to Dave have either told us publicly and privately, hey, at the end of the day, I care about the cost structure of the environment and two, if there's a hardened top on lock-in, it doesn't, it's irrelevant. And the example that we've always used on theCUBE is the Intel microprocessor. Do you really care about the proprietary software involved in an Intel processor? No, it just gets the job done and it enables other things. That's the key question that we're looking at right now in the computer industry, is where is that hardened environment where the encapsulation of the complexity has been taken away to the point where it's absolutely functional. That is ultimately going to be the key and I think that's going to have to enable the data fabric layer and then top of the stack with applications. I think that's a VMware strategy is a good one. I think Oracle can pull that off. They could be the Intel of this cloud era. Well, the other big battle is the organizational battle because Oracle obviously sells the DBAs and application heads and everybody else in the hardware business sells to infrastructure people. And let's face it, the DBAs and the application heads have all the juice in the marketplace. So those guys are driving the buying decisions. Now, as companies like VMware become more strategic, they can maybe get some access to those individuals, but still Oracle and SAP own that. All you do is go to SAP Sapphire, you come to Oracle Open World, a lot of suits, you go to EMC World and you're seeing a lot of infrastructure people. So that's a big battle that people are taking on. But if I'm a customer, I would absolutely have some alternative infrastructure around. I wouldn't go just all red stack. There might be some situations where I want to do that. I guess the point I'm making is a lot of the application heads don't care if they spend more on infrastructure. They don't care if they get locked in because they care about how fast the application runs, how easy it is to deploy, how agile it is, what their service experience is like. That's what they care about. I think ultimately it's going to come down an ability to be flexible and have the application support. So Oracle obviously will have the ability in most of their companies to do that. The question is, do they have the right product mix? And I think given the customer's choice that's what we've seen with OpenStack in particular. If you look at OpenStack, what that's done is given this choice to the enterprises to do whatever they want. Relative to having a private and public and hybrid cloud environment. And that's ultimately going to help with the kind of the choice option. So I mean that's kind of what we've heard here. Yeah, in Oracle's portfolio, Oracle's got one of everything. We heard you were in the car so you didn't hear Thomas Currian this morning, but I mean you would have thought they were invented big data. I mean it was Hadoop connectors in memory databases. You're talking about no sequel, key value stores. We got it all. And they do actually have a lot of that, right? So the portfolio is very robust. They can tick the boxes. They can play that functionality game with anybody. And the real advantages, they talk to the CIO. Now over here you've got the, I'll call it the Mark Endresing crowd, right? None of my startups buy Oracle, right? So it's those guys, it's the open source crowd that ultimately is going to get leverage in the marketplace. And John, you and I have talked about this in theCUBE a lot. Ultimately long-term open source wins. Gary Bloom was on theCUBE earlier, CEO of now CEO, President of MarkLogic. Dave, he's been at I think 17 years at Oracle and insane amount of years. He's been there from the beginning. He goes back to Veritas as well. You know, he had an interesting point. He said that in MarkLogic, they have a half a DBA for 10 DBAs that are on staff for Oracle. That's a nine and a half labor pool reduction in cost. And here granted, some of those guys might retire, kind of like mainframe guys in the old days, but like still, you don't know about a massive amount of reshifting of resources. I want to get your take on the data economy type role. I mean, the data economy, we're talking about new economics. What's your take on, I mean, that ratios is really the kind of magnitude we're seeing relative to big data. So here's my take on that, is I think that rightly so the startups are doing what Larry always does. He compares his state of the art to somebody else's N minus two. And that's what the startups are doing, right? There's a lot of legacy Oracle environments very easy to go in and say, okay, I can reduce your operating expense. Here's the challenge, Oracle knows this and they see that threat. So what Oracle's trying to do is cut that, to whatever degree it can cut that and close that gap and then have the CIOs bet on Oracle because they're quote unquote, less risky, right? Nobody ever get fired for bringing on IBM. So the game that they have to play, I heard Gary say, we have a five year lead on the competition. So it's like Fusion IO and EMC, right? EMC had a four year lead on EMC. We had Pat Gelsinger on theCUBE. He said, hey, we're behind. But we're going to catch up. How did they catch up? They went out and they bought a company. Now I haven't caught up yet. But they went out and bought a company. They started investing R&D, but they're closing that gap. And so that's the game that they play. Okay, we're here inside theCUBE. This is SiliconANGLE.com's coverage of theCUBE. Stay with us. We're going to be going to come back with Jeff Kelly. Dave, next we have any more guests coming in. We're done. This is a wrap for the day. Okay, we'll be back tomorrow on Tuesday. Stay here. SiliconANGLE, we're going to secure our flagship program. Day one wrap up here at Oracle Open World. Yes, so tomorrow, Mike Olson's coming on. We've got a bunch of guys coming on from EMC. EMC has 80,000 Oracle customers. Oracle itself says it has 40,000 hardware customers. So that's going to be an interesting- We want to have a special thanks out to QLogic for letting us stay in their booth again fourth consecutive year. The legacy, SiliconANGLE and CNBC are broadcasting live here at Oracle Open World. This is day one coverage. We'll be back tomorrow with the keynote in the middle of the afternoon. All day coverage starting at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning here in theCUBE. Stay with us and see you tomorrow.