All right, I'm going to give you a short talk on a subject that I'm interested in called column technology. And the idea behind column technology is that a lot of these big tech conferences say that we'll have many devices in the future. And what I like to ask when I see these quotes is that do we really need more devices? If the original promise of technology was to give us more time and the more tech we keep adding on, the less time we seem to have, then what is the right way to add technology to our lives? Is it necessarily good to have more and more and more tech? Are we even going to have the right amount of natural resources to get to 50 billion or a trillion devices? Not to mention that you have to mine cobalt and all of these rare minerals to make some of these technologies. So I ask, does this sound good? Let's consider the original goal of technology to give us more time. The Greeks had two concepts of time. One is Kairos time and one is Kronos time. Kronos time is the kind of industrial time where we're sitting there doing the same meeting from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. with a specific idea of what we need to be doing. Kairos time is like the time of falling in love or watching a child's first steps or having lunch with somebody or dinner with somebody, losing track of time, watching a sunset. When we have time getting interrupted by this kind of punctuated sociality of our phones, mostly robotic alerts. We get out of that human Kairos time and we go into structured Kronos time. And if we have lives that put us on pause and have us act more robotic, we lose the creativity and the purpose of life. So if we consider already some of the technologies that are out there, there's the kind of smart watch that replicates what's on our phones, which may or may not be good. We have the smart fridge, which tells us when the bananas have gone bad, which is not necessary because bananas change color when they go bad. When you put it all together, you get what I like to call the dystopian kitchen in the future. Everything is screaming at you in a different programming language. It's not necessarily supported or maintained. It goes away. It gets hacked. It takes more bandwidth than streaming Game of Thrones on Netflix. So we have this era of interruptive technology. Battery life can fail. Connectivity can fail. We need a kind of calm technology. And calm technology was something that came out in the 80s and 90s at Xerox Park. Mark Weiser and John Sealy Brown, along with a lot of other people, including anthropologists and artists, decided that they would have this art and anthropology to counter the one dimensionality that technology can bring to the world. And because of that, they said, at some point, we will have devices that outnumber humans. Many devices will share each of us instead of us sharing, many of us sharing one device. And at that point, the scarce resource won't be technology. It will be our attention. And how technology makes or breaks our attention, works with or doesn't work with our attention, will make or break that technology. They were really ahead of their time. Mark Weiser died. I learned that he died. I got upset. I made a website called Comtech.com. I found a bunch of their early research papers, which talk about the technology's social responsibilities in a connected age. All of the things that we're dealing with right now have been written about in the 80s and 90s. And it's still true today. They're written in a totally accessible format. And they had some tips on designing calm technology, because we don't have lots of time. I'll go through it fairly quickly. But the idea is that technology shouldn't be requiring all of our attention, just some of it, and only when necessary. We shouldn't be distracted constantly by it. The whole point is that we work alongside it, not it doing something for us. A tea kettle tells you when it's ready. You don't have to stare at it. You don't have to Bluetooth into it. It just uses your peripheral attention. Empowering your peripheral attention means that you can be attuned to more things, but you don't have to take your primary attention away. You can have a haptic buzz. You can have a sound. You can have a light. And if you don't know whether somebody has a sensory need or difference, allowing someone to change the notification style is super crucial. I had an employee that had an insulin pump and it beeped, but he couldn't hear it at loud concerts and he would miss filling the insulin pump. The insulin pump company would not allow him to change the notification style. And he had to set his own alarm on his phone with a buzzer to refill the insulin pump. We are no longer making technology for the world of desktop computers. We're making technology that is in our lives every day. And if we do it poorly and we're close enough to it, it's a matter of life or death. So how it integrates with us, how it works alongside us, is really the future of design. This is a silly sensor it buzzes you when you're slouching. Technology should inform and calm. This is a light that my old co-founder and I made. It just changes color based on the weather that's going to happen for the day. So this particular morning it was bright and sunny, so the light bulb was yellow. This is, the idea is that you don't have the kind of Microsoft idea of the perfect person in the condo with the San Francisco accent that's understood for the first time and the only time they have to say something to the AI, because it's been programmed in the native language that the San Francisco, there's a specific accent that's been programmed into these voice recognition systems. And so if you have any slight accent at all, you end up repeating yourself a lot. Instead, this just gives you information.  How do we amplify the best of what tech can do and the best of what humanity can do? Humanity is good at curation, empathy, understanding. Also, humanity is mean, but there's a whole range to this humanity. Technology is very good at going through lots and lots of data and presenting that to us. So with Google, it's not, I'm feeling lucky and it's the exact result. It's getting you there so that you can choose what result you want. We have a lot of technology that likes to speak in a human voice. And when technology speaks in a human voice, we think that we can speak back to it at that same resolution. But if you look at how these things are programmed and how they actually are understanding things, they're very bizarre looking and they don't make a lot of sense. What I really like is the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. When it's done, it goes dun-dun-dun-dun, and when it's stuck, it goes dun-dun. It's universal, it's emotional, it's tonal. But it also has a backup light so that even if you can't hear, you can see. This is using multiple senses to get the point across. And I really appreciate this kind of design. Also, the vacuum isn't very good. It doesn't get corners at all. But people love it so much that they're cats right around on it in YouTube videos. It's based on a trilobite prehistoric filter feeding creature. This is great design borrowing from nature. There's this idea that R2-D2 and C-3PO, C-3PO knows two million languages. He's fluent, two million languages. But he's annoying in every single one of those languages. R2-D2 might know one BP language and light language, but he's adorable in that one language. If you're building something, make it adorable in one universal language like Pixar films. If you need speech, maybe you're doing something wrong. The right amount of tech is the minimum to solve the problem. If you're doing something and overbuilding it, every single feature you do needs to be supported, maintained, updated, decommissioned, you need to hire and fire people for whatever obscure language that you decided to build something in because that period of time for six months was the coolest language. I really like COBOL. How many things run on COBOL today? A lot of things run on COBOL today. It's an ancient programming language, but it was made to be fault-tolerant so that we could run it with airlines and ATMs. The problem with COBOL is that it's so good that people have been hired back after 40 years to fix some of the COBOL code. And they're finding code that they program when they were 21. And they're finding the same comments that they left their future self. Tech should work even when it fails. When an escalator breaks, it turns into stairs. What on your phone can work without a network? Can you stream music while you're on airplane mode? Can you get driving directions or not? The question is, we're not in a perfect Wi-Fi zone. And when we're in a reality that's disrupted, how do we gracefully degrade that technology so that it still works with our lives instead of against our lives? Not that many people live in a perfect world. And the thing is, there is no such thing as a perfect world. Utopia means non-place. It's an ironic look at a future that doesn't exist. If our lights were as bad as our Wi-Fi connection, we would be very upset. Everything would be going out. Yet the beginning of electricity with General Electric and all these electrical companies was to get electricity to be so stable that these big electric companies could sell the first killer apps, which were actual physical appliances. There was this effort to electrify everybody from upper class to lower class. And now, there's a class-based issue for whether you have good Wi-Fi or not. It's even hard to have Wi-Fi in here. Why don't we have technology that is as calm as a light switch? We always have you can basically tap the wall if it's dark and you can turn on the light. And I think it's really important to think how do we make stuff that resilient? Light switches have been around for a long time. They'll continue to be around. What tech are we using today, other than a nice comb or a pair of shoes or any of these things or glasses? Is anything that you have on you right now going to exist in 40 years? Stephanie has a spoon. That will probably, yeah, that's good. Can you hold it up? Yeah, it's a foldable spoon. Did you know that people used to bring their own silverware plates and cups to parties? And that was what you did. Everybody just had their own stuff. Not anymore. So if good design allows you to accomplish your goals in the least amount of moves, then calm technology allows you to do things with the least amount of mental cost. Because, as Markweiser and others believed a person's primary task, unless you want to be computing all the time and you enjoy programming, but a person's primary task shouldn't be computing. It should be being human. And the scarcest resource is not going to be technology. It will be our attention. I wrote a book on this because I was upset that nobody remembered. And I think it was Sheldon Renon in the front row who told me about calm tech to begin with. And then I realized that sound is another part of the equation. And often it's undesigned. So I wrote a book on design with sound to make sound work better in your life. So it's no more of these microwave beeps at horrible frequencies and going into hospitals and hearing 10,000 alerts. There's a bunch of principles on Comtech.com. And I'm out of time. So thank you very much.


El Campadre and Sunset in Echo Park. Cheers. So the first El Campadre opened in 1975 in Hollywood, the second one opened in Echo Park in 2004, and in 2014 they opened one across the street from Staples in downtown LA. And I'm at the one in Echo Park because it's the closest one to my house. So I've been here before, I've actually been here a handful of times, and I love it. The food is wonderful, the drinks are great, the place is beautiful, but we're here for one reason only. Can I just get a house margarita on the rocks, please? Sure. Excited because I know what's coming. Man, this place is so classy. I love it. Before I forget, these are great. Thanks, man. Cheers. Holy s***. Look at this thing. I mean, look at it. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. That is a tasty margarita. Probably sour mix. Oh yeah. A pair of this with some tasty food. Home run. If you liked it, hit like. If you have a place you think I should go, let me know in the comments. Consider subscribing. You're going to be drinking every margarita in LA or guy trying. Drink yours too. Just pose alright.


Therefore, it is time for Question Period, the leader of Her Majesty's Royal Opposition. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transportation. The government hired a company to build a bridge over the 401. One catch, the company had never built a bridge. The result? The company installed the bridge upside down, at a cost of millions of dollars for the government to fix shoddy work. How did the liberals react? They rewarded the company another $39 million in government projects. You know, I wouldn't be shocked if this is the norm for this government. Mr. Speaker, how many other bridges have been built upside down? Mr. Speaker, it's ridiculous that I even have to ask that question. But yesterday's AG report is ridiculous in terms of what we're hearing that your government has done. It is completely unacceptable. How many other bridges, how many other projects like this have happened? Mr. Speaker, you see the place? Thank you. Minister of Transportation. Well, thanks very much, Speaker. I want to begin, of course, as I said yesterday. I want to begin, as I said yesterday, by thanking the auditor general for her report and for the recommendations contained in her report, Speaker. The member of the leader of the opposition is raising a project, obviously, managed and completed by Metrolinx. I would say, here today in the house, as I said in the media studio yesterday, over the last five years, Metrolinx has completed 275 construction projects, Speaker. The majority of those projects has been completed on time and on budget, Speaker. I do thank, again, the auditor for her recommendations. I know that Metrolinx will continue to work hard. A couple of things to keep in mind, Speaker. In March of this year, about eight months ago, I provided the chair of their board with a letter of direction. We've received the report back. We now have a tighter opportunity to provide oversight with the agency. The agency is also applying a new vendor performance management system. Thank you. Supplementary. Mr. Speaker, since I can't get an answer on the upside down bridge and the minister is trying to say that there's more oversight. Let's read the headlines. The headline today, infrastructure incompetence. And the bridge, I'll quote one description, the most spectacular item in the reports, a cavalcade of nonsense but not by much. That's because the auditor general highlighted the ministry's sheer ineptitude. They're incompetence when it comes to paving our highways. Ashfalt should be laid for 15 years. But in Ontario it cracks after one or two years. Not surprisingly, no one is held accountable. The minister says everything is fine, even after one section of the 403 cost $12 million to prematurely repair. Mr. Speaker, can the minister explain why the Liberals allow our highways to crack and crumble? Does it have anything to do in the $100,000 in donations from these companies to the Ontario Liberal Party? Well, thanks very much, Speaker. I want to reiterate that I thank the auditor for her recommendations, not just as it relates to Metrolinx but as it relates to MTO and the management of our construction project. I think it's important to make sure that the accurate facts are on the record over the last seven years, which is the period of time during which the auditor was referencing some of MTO's construction contracts. Over those seven years, Speaker, what we've seen using the same objective criteria from seven years ago versus today is that provincial bridges and provincial roads are dramatically improved in terms of their quality, Speaker. And that's because our government, Speaker, that's because our government, Speaker has understood how critical it is to make sure that we are investing in transportation infrastructure in every corner of this province because of years of chronic underinvestment when that party was in power, Speaker. We're going to keep working hard to make sure that we get it right. Thanks very much. Mr. Speaker, again to the Minister, no answer on the upside down bridge, no answer on the $100,000 in donations. I know it's their talking point to say, I thank the auditor general. The auditor general called your government incompetent and inept. So let's speak very specifically. Again on highway 403, paved in 2006, redone in 2008, redone again. Stop the clock. Okay, I did try to make an effort to allow you to kind of find your spot and you're not finding it. I am also going to remind members that even during the heckling I'm not impressed with hearing names other than the titles or their writings.  I may have to move to warnings right away. And you can give me any kind of face you want and if it continues you'll be leaving. Finish please. Mr. Speaker, highway 403 paved in 2006, again in 2008, again in 2011 and it will need to be paved again in the near future at an added cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers. That doesn't include the 686,000 bonus to the company received for not doing the job properly. That's their style of government. Mr. Speaker, how many other companies did the minister reward bonuses for not doing their job? Is that the order of the day in your ministry? Thanks very much, Speaker. You know, Speaker, I got to say there's been a lot of allegations that have been tossed around in the leader of the opposition's questions this morning, Speaker. I'm going to say right off the top, I'm pretty sure those sleazy tactics worked for 10 years in Ottawa when he was a Harper Crony. They don't work here in the province of Ontario. Speaker, let's remember something fundamental about that leader and that party, Speaker. In my time here as an MPP, here's a short list of the projects that they voted against, Speaker. Go Regional Express Rail, LRTs in Toronto, Peel, Hamilton, BRTs in York Region, Durham Region, New Street Cars in Toronto, Union Station Revitalization, Four Laning of Highway 69, the Morrison BiPAC, let's go on. Minister of Agriculture is not helping. Wrap up, please. Seekers, I was saying that leader in that party, the 410 Leiden, the 407 Phase 1 and Phase 2, 417 Upgrades in Ottawa, that party's transportation policy amounts to killing the Eglinton subway and selling our 407. Two questions. The leader is the opposition. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Premier. Since I can't get an answer on the upside down bridge that the minister supported, I'm going to try something else. First it was the environmental commissioner who raised concerns about cap and trade. Then it was the financial accountability officer who raised concerns and now it's the auditor general. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the auditor confirmed what we've been saying all along. Less than 20% of Ontario's emission reductions will actually occur here in Ontario. The Liberal scheme will barely make a dent in pollution in Ontario and at the same time, this is unbelievable, we're going to send 466 million to Quebec and California by 2020 and all that money is going to leave Ontario. Mr. Speaker, why do the Liberals want to subsidize companies and businesses in California? Maybe the... Mr. Speaker, maybe the leader of the opposition should talk to his critic who's briefed up on this because clearly he has not been briefed up on this. The cap and trade system and the 3.8... Remember from Simcoe Gray, come to order please. Finish please. Mr. Speaker, the 3.8 megatons comes from the cap and trade system and additional 9.8 megatons comes from the results of the action plan reviewed by economists. If you do the math, that's the vast majority of reductions being secured over the next five years. That was the work done by David Sawyer. The 3.8 is the groundwork for the Calculate the Action Plan, Mr. Speaker. But then he's the member who wants to put $157 a ton price on carbon, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again to the minister, clearly the minister has not read the AG's report. So let me share with you what the Auditor General said. Small reductions in emissions in Ontario come at significant cost to business and households. Quote, the Climate Action Plan contains unrealistic, unsubstantiated assumptions. Quote, and here's another assessment by the AG. Ontario's cap does not actually control the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in Ontario. That's a stinging indictment, Mr. Speaker. The Liberal cap and trade scheme has fatal flaws this government is ignoring. And the worst part, without a new agreement with this new agreement with the USA and Canada, not a single one of the credits purchased from California will count towards our emission credits. So Mr. Speaker, this is unbelievable. Why do the Liberals want to force Ontario businesses to subsidize businesses in California and Beverly Hills on a rodeo drive and do nothing to fight pollution in Ontario? The member from beaches east York is warned. And if you don't get the idea, I'm in warnings. Minister. Thank you very much. I'll try one more time. It's not that hard. Two numbers. 3.8 megatons achieved by the market. We understand that? That's not me. The member from Renfrew Nipissing, Pam Brooke, is warned. The member from Nipissing is warned. Anyone else?  Very clearly stated. David Sawyer is reviewed by everyone. All the nine large emitting industry associations chose cap and trade. Support that. 9.8 billion, 9.8 megatons. The result of $8 billion of reinvestment in Ontario's industry achieves them. And this is the difference between our plan. Yours is revenue neutral. You have no money to reinvest in St. Mary's Cemetery, Nova Corporation. Thank you. Again to the minister. I asked a simple question to the minister that he's not answering. I asked why is the minister setting up and committing Ontario to a plan that sends $466 million to Quebec and Ontario by 2020? The Auditor General, sorry, Quebec and California, the Auditor General has pointed out this will grow to over 4 billion by 2030. The ministers will become the best minister of economic development that California has ever seen. This isn't the opposition saying this. This is the Auditor General. This is the independent oversight saying that your plan is flawed. It does not curb, hear me, this does not curb pollution in Ontario. This does not fight climate change in Ontario. All it does is make businesses less competitive and it doesn't meet our mission targets. So hearing what the Auditor General has said. Will the minister do the right thing? Take a pause, fix this because it's clearly broken. Do the right thing for Ontario. It's not too late. Can you stand up please? Thank you, minister. Mr. Speaker, since I can't seem to get him to understand some two simple numbers, let me try another approach. Every year, $42 billion in imported fossil fuels is purchased by Ontario's family and businesses. The Environmental Commissioner says if we did not have cap and trade, those costs just for the families alone would go up $300 million a year. We will be dramatically reducing that $41 billion in annual expenditures, which is why all of the industry associations do that because they are all fuel-switching to local Ontario-generated clean energy creating jobs in Ontario. Now, I know the member doesn't understand that because I watched him for 10 years as a Member of Parliament destroying every provincial initiative to do submissions, Mr. Speaker. Question to the Leader of the Third Party. Thank you very much. I have questions to the Acting Premier. On Tuesday, I met with Jean Bastien, mine manager and a number of miners at Richmont Mines near Dubraville. These are hard-working women and man-speaker who have a love for what they do and a love for where they live. And the company is hoping to actually hire more employees, Speaker, but the skyrocketing electricity costs are a big problem for them. They're hampering the company's efforts to expand and create more jobs. The sell-off of Hydro-1 is going to make things even worse. Speaker, not better. Will the Acting Premier do the right thing for jobs in the North and stop any further sell-off of Hydro-1? Thank you. Mr. Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the question. We all are concerned about ensuring that the people of Ontario, everywhere throughout Ontario, have good, paying, high-value jobs. And certainly the mining sector is critical as one of the many sectors of Ontario's diverse economy. And that enables us, frankly, to weather economic storms, including when commodity prices hit the global markets. It happens so in Ontario as well, but because of our diversified economy, we're able to balance out and continue to prosper and still exceed Canada, the G7, and the United States in the last quarter. But more importantly, the member makes the accusation, however, that by broadening the ownership of Hydro-1 and somehow making it a much better-run company to be more efficient and to ensure that we deliver better results and reinvest them to build more infrastructure, including, frankly, greater investments and stimulus in the mining sector. I just don't believe the premise of her question, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, supplementary. Speaker, I also met with the mayor of White River as we visited the White River Sawmill. Like all companies in the forestry industry, Hydro is a huge part of their cost. And although they're trying to expand and breathe life into the economy in these northern towns, they're worried about their ability to do so because of the cost of their electricity bills, because those bills continue to soar, Speaker. We should be building on successes and supporting job creators, not stopping them. Will the Acting Premier do the right thing for White River and for the White River Mill and start getting Hydro rates under control and stop the sell-off of Hydro-1? Minister? Mr. Speaker, in order to make some of our industries more competitive in the marketplace, it's essential for us to provide some of those supports. And that's exactly what we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker. The reference to Hydro-1 and the assumption, the presumption that somehow making Hydro-1 a more effective company which is one of 72 different distribution centers in the province of Ontario would negatively impact an industry is not the case. What is important though is the programs that we do have in place. Working with New Europe and working with some of our northern programs to provide some of those supports and enable those companies to foster and return on their investment as we provide for more predictability on those rates. That's what's happening, Mr. Speaker. We're working with a number of sectors to do just that. Thank you. Thank you. Final supplementary. Well, Speaker, it's not just businesses who rely on Hydro that are worried. I also met with Sharon Hill, a retired nurse that's almost 80 years old. We sat at her kitchen table in the Sioux Speaker. Her Hydro bills have hit $300 a month. She's living on old-age security because she doesn't have a company pension. She doesn't know how she's going to be able to afford her Hydro bills for the rest of the winter. After a long, full life, Speaker, people shouldn't have to worry about something as basic as being able to pay their Hydro bills.  Will this acting premier will this Liberal government do the right thing for Sharon and people like her and get their Hydro bills under control and stop making it worse for selling off Hydro bills? Can you see it, please? Minister. Mr. Speaker, we agree that families, especially those most vulnerable, need more support. That's why we are on this side of the House. We're working and putting programs in place to foster and support that. We've done so also with the number of industries in the North. In fact, when you consider a low-income family in the North or in rural Ontario, we've taken the following steps. We recently announced the 8% HSC rebate. We expanded the rural and remote rate protection program. That combines up to 20% improvement. We provided the Ontario Energy Support Program for low-income families at $600 a year in savings. We have the Northern Ontario Energy Credit for $224 in savings to provide some more support for Northern consumers. Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit can save an additional $1,000 a year. I hope the member opposite when she makes these discussions and has the ongoing discussions with these families that she provides them with support and mechanisms that's available to them that we put forward to enable those families to have better support. We know we need to do more. Thank you. My next question is for the acting Premier. People want to believe in the future of Ontario. But yesterday's Auditor General's report shows that the government is making decisions that are not about people. Hospitals are overcrowded. People are waiting nearly 40 hours for acute care that they should be receiving in 8 hours. They're waiting longer to see a family doctor. And the Auditor General said information about wait times for surgery is misleading. How did the Liberal government get things so wrong, Speaker? So messed up. Thank you, Deputy Premier. The Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said yesterday, I welcome the Auditor General's report and I accept her recommendations as they pertain to our healthcare system. I welcome her report each year, Mr. Speaker. Just like I did last year, her two reports that referenced our home and community care program and it provided me with important guidance on how to move forward. I welcome her comments and recommendations with regards to how we can continue to improve our hospital operations so that they better serve our patients. But it is important to acknowledge the progress that is being made, Mr. Speaker. And I'm happy in the supplementary to reference some of the third party data that we have that was made available and some of it in fact referenced by the Auditor General that shows the improvements that have been made over the past number of years, four wait times in ERs, four hospitalization in the outcomes that we're looking for. Well, Speaker, having a good future here in Ontario means having a good job to go to every day. But the Auditor General said that the government's job programs are a mess. Auditor and apprenticeship aren't finishing and the Second Career and Employment Services programs are helping less than 40% of the people who are trying to build a better life with a better job. This government is letting people down. The Auditor General's report is clear. They are letting people down on many, many front speaker when will this government start focusing on people who are trying to get a better job. Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm going to continue to talk about the progress that we've made in our emergency rooms, for example, where we had a report that just came out in the last number of weeks from HQO Health Quality Ontario that shows that despite an aging population, despite an increasing population and seeing more individuals in our ERs, we've seen significant improvements in the shortening of the wait time in our ERs right across this province. So in the Auditor General report, we referenced yesterday that nine out of every Ontarians are seen and discharged from our emergencies in the province within the target, the provincial targeted time, and that was validated by the work that HQO did earlier as well. And on other aspects of short time, just in the past year, and this is information that was just made available by the Fraser Institute, so perhaps it wasn't referenced in the AG's report, but wait times have gone down by 36% just in the last year, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Final supplementary. Speaker, while people are finding it harder to get a job and waiting longer for the health care they need, the Auditor General said in the meantime the government spending more on misleading partisan advertising. The Liberal government needs to explain to the people of this province why people who need health care and people who are looking for work are at the bottom of the pile, Speaker, at the bottom of the list for attention from their government. And if the Liberal re-election campaign needs another 20 million dollars for partisan advertising they seem to be able to find the money in the public purse, Speaker. Can the acting Premier explain to a person who has spent hours in an emergency ward waiting for a bed or trying really, really hard to find a new job, why the government is more interested in their own re-election campaign and helping those folks get what they need. So, Mr. Speaker, I take the analysis of the Auditor General very, very seriously. I take her recommendations very, very seriously. There's no question that there is much, much more work to be done within our health care sector, right across the board, including in our hospitals. But it is important to acknowledge that when we've invested upwards of a billion dollars specifically to reduce wait times in our health care system over the past roughly one decade we have made significant progress where the Fraser Institute describes us as being the best or among the best in terms of shortest wait times for selected surgical procedures. Mr. Speaker, the wait time alliance has given us straight A's as well on their report card in terms of having the lowest or near the lowest wait times in all of Canada. We have the shortest wait times in the whole country in that important period from their family doctor or nurse practitioner to getting to see the specialist. We have the shortest wait times in the whole country, Mr. Speaker. We have the shortest wait times in the whole country for CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds. So, we need, there is more work to be done. There's no question, Mr. Speaker, but we made significant progress. Thank you. Question to the members from DIPACI. Thank you and good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Deputy Premier. Rather than address their own incompetence the Liberal government continues to attack the economy of our independent experts. The Auditor General says their numbers can't be trusted. The Deputy Premier says, quote, we take issue with the auditor's accounting practices. The Auditor General questions why millions and bonuses were awarded to underperforming contractors. The Minister of Transportation doesn't think her perspective is, quote, representative of what reality is. Well, the Minister needs a reality check. The people of Ontario trust our independent, non-partisan auditor, not a Liberal government that has mired in waste, mismanagement and scandal. Speaker, will the government stop attacking the credibility of our Auditor General and look into their own incompetence? Thank you. The President of the Treasury Board. Yes, thank you very much, Speaker. I thank the Auditor General for her report and obviously we do need to work with Auditor General and continue to continue to work with her on our public accounts. But I think it's important to remind the member opposite that the Auditor General actually agreed with our analysis of our public accounts for the year just past. In fact, we use the numbers that the Auditor General prescribed to us. There is no disagreement over the numbers and the auditor agreed with the accounting that we used in the public accounts in the past year. So to suggest that somehow we're undermining her work is just simply not true. We used her numbers. Thank you. Back to the committee, Premier. The Auditor General and the Financial Accountability Officer have revealed the government has subjected Ontario taxpayers to record tax increases, endless cuts to frontline services and years of waste, mismanagement and scandals. Yet the Auditor General says the government somehow managed to spend $50 million on shameless self-promoting advertisements. Advertisements the auditor called quote misleading quote. While this government can you cannot you cannot say indirectly what you cannot say directly you will withdraw. Speaker, I'm quoting from the Auditor General here. Please be seated. The member from Leeds Grenville is close to a warning. I do not want that challenge to occur. Carry on. While this government continues to make life unaffordable for Ontario families, they're advertising on the taxpayers' dime. Will the government end their tax increases, cuts to frontline service and end their shameless self-promotion? Yes, thank you very much. I would like to remind the member opposite that Ontario is the only Canada, one of the few in the world that in fact has a government advertising that we have banned partisan public government advertising. We're the people that did that and you're the people that voted against that. Let's just look at your record. Look at your record. Between 1995 and 2002 the conservative government of Mike Harris spent over 400 million dollars a day speakers with those horrible, horrible ads. Stop the clock. Start the clock. New question. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. My question is to the acting premier. The government is spending even more money on partisan government ads. The auditor general calls these ads misleading and points out that these advertisements are and I quote Stop the clock. I'm trying to explain that you cannot say indirectly what you can say you cannot say directly even quoting somebody else using that language is not acceptable in this house the member will withdraw. Draw. Carry on. These advertisements are spending tax dollars to reinforce the partisan messaging of the Ontario Liberal Party Unquote. Can the acting premier explain why she thinks government ads should be presenting their own messages whose only purpose is to help the Liberal Party. Thank you. President of the Treasury Board Thank you very much I remind the member opposite that our legislation which is the strictest in Canada by far actually ban partisan government advertising it provides a clear definition of partisan advertising where you cannot use the name of any member of this house government opposition you cannot criticize or support any member of this house there you cannot use any partisan partisan logo Subtle reminder we are in warnings and I will continue to use them and what comes after warnings are naming. Finish please. So we have a very strict advertising regime but what we do do is share information with the public so we have shared information with the public about vaccination The member from Hamilton and Estonia Creek is warned Finish please. She is away from being named Finish please. Yes we have shared information about changes in the rules for childcare and to help educate parents on how to distinguish between what is licensed childcare what is not licensed and how do you respond if you think there is a problem in childcare. Those are all things that we have spent money on advertising. Thank you. Supplementary. Mr. Speaker, everyone in this house knows that that government watered down the advertising rules in this province well and she has called you out for it and everybody knows about it. The practice of using government funded ads to bankroll the Liberal Party's injury for the people of Ontario Parents sitting in hospital rooms with sick kids have to watch commercials claiming this government has reduced emergency room wait times Meanwhile, raising for emergency room residents to address the wait times instead of looking out for Ontarians who are waiting for healthcare this Premier has been solely focused on getting herself re-elected and using government money to hold on to power. Speaker will the Liberal Party pay back what they have spent on partisan advertising in this province? Thank you, President. I understand that the member opposite wasn't actually a member of this legislature when we brought in the original government advertising bill in 2004. The one that she claims that her party is so strongly supportive of. But in fact if you go back and check the voting record member from Leeds Grandville has warned you're close. Check the voting record in 2004 the NDP voted against the legislation that they say they want to defend and one of the members of the NDP caucus at the time is the current leader of the third party. Now the member who's asking the question may not remember that. We remember it and the public record of Ontario remembers that the NDP voted against the legislation that they are defending. You're close to remember some more somebody came to us. Well thank you Speaker. My question is the Attorney General this used his family members of the LGBTQ2 plus community across this province were inspired and moved by the historic passing of all families are equal act. I understand that before the passing of this bill many families who use assisted reproduction faced unnecessary barriers. The LGBTQ2 plus parents were forced to spend time and money to be legally recognized as their children's parents. I have heard that this experience can be painful and humiliating for families. That's not fair and it's not right. The Attorney General would most likely agree that having a child would be a wonderful time. Not a time filled with uncertainty and anxiety. Can the Attorney General please tell us how all families are equal act all families are equal act will help families across this province. Attorney General. Thank you very much Speaker. I want to thank the member from Northumberland for asking this very important question. Speaker people in Ontario value diversity and equality all parents and their kids need to be treated equally under the law and I'm pleased that the all families are equal and have the best pass in this legislation. This bill updates our law so that all kids are treated equally by recognizing the legal status of their parents no matter if their parents are LGBTQ2 plus or straight and no matter if they were conceived with or without the help of assistance. Speaker this legislation will update Ontario's parentage laws to make the law as inclusive as possible. It is really that simple. We're doing this because parents should not have to go to court to be recognized as their child's mother or father. And Speaker let's make this absolutely clear. We are not removing mother and father with this legislation. We are broadening this legislation to ensure equality for all families in Ontario. Thank you. Speaker I'd like to thank the Attorney General for his response. I'm pleased to hear their governments committed to ensuring all children are treated equally by recognizing the legal status of their parents no matter if their parents are LGBTQ2 plus or straight. Many in this House will recall that the law governing legal status of child's parents and birth has not been substantially changed in nearly 40 years. A lot has changed since then. In the year 2016 there was no one way to start and raise a family. Family just like this great province we call home are more diverse than they were so many years ago. This bill represents an historic movement in our province. Can the Attorney General tell us more about the families and communities that helped shape this important situation? Thank you very much and the member is right this is a very historic moment for our province. This legislative assembly stood on the side of equality by voting for this bill and showing the support for the LGBTQ2 plus community and the values of diversity that are so important to Ontario. This issue was raised by families who are raising their children with love and respect and dignity. Something that we all wish and hope for in our families across the province. I personally found it very disappointing that some members of this House voted for all the legislation a horrible legislation when the legislation is all about making sure that kids have certainty as to who their parents are that it's all about ensuring that there's equality for all parents regardless of who they are that's what this legislation does is make sure that our children are loved all the time and I'm glad that members of this House voted in support of this historic legislation. Thank you. The PC caucus has consistently raised examples in this legislature of how the liberal government's rationing of health care dollars is negatively affecting patients. The other generals report yesterday confirmed that wait times for surgeries have increased and the health of those waiting for life saving treatment has been jeopardized. Due to chronic underfunding, elective and emergency surgeries 25% of patients with critical or life-threatening conditions must wait double the expected time for surgery. Only 33% of neurosurgery were completed within the ministry's target time. Will the minister admit his government's policies are failing Ontarians and explain to them why they should trust this government's plan? Thank you Mr. Speaker and as I mentioned earlier I appreciate the analysis and the narrative provided by the minister general. Her very sound recommendations as they pertain to all elements of our health care system including hospitalization and there is work to be done and that is part of the reason why we're investing a quarter of a billion new dollars this year in home and community care so we can pull out some of those patients that are occupying beds in hospitals that don't need to be there so that those wait times will be reduced even further. We're investing a billion dollars this year specifically for hospital operations this fiscal year to allow us to address some of those capacity and wait time issues including for important surgical operations like hip and knee in the southwest linen in London for example Mr. Speaker but we are making significant progress and by any objective measure Mr. Speaker we have solid evidence that the investments that we've made do have a born fruit Mr. Speaker Supplementary. Thank you Mr. Speaker the other general evidence is showing this government is failing Ontarians but it's not just the surgeries whose wait times are out of control the auditor general notes that the government is also failing Ontarians on accessing hospital beds when they need to be admitted patients must wait in the emergency room for more than 37 hours to get a bed often in the hallways or other unsafe areas where funding in four years of frozen hospital budgets are hurting patients the rationing of healthcare has patients waiting hours for life saving surgeries operating rooms are going unused and patients are stuck in hospital beds when they should be elsewhere Ontarians deserve better from their government than having to wait for basic care Ontarians the PC caucus have had enough of this government's excuses, waste and mismanagement of our healthcare system when will the minister acknowledge his failing and end the rationing of healthcare Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if they had succeeded with their campaign pledge to cut 100,000 jobs in education in healthcare Mr. Speaker but speaking of wait times in Ontario I know that the member from Kitchener Conestoga asked yesterday about the emergency department at Grand River hospital and I'm happy to update him they're concerned about wait times in the ER and I'm happy to update them that in fact the Waterloo Wellington Linn is number one in all of Ontario but the the specific hospital Grand River has the shortest wait times for high acutely patients in their ER of anywhere in Ontario in fact they're beating the provincial average by more than three hours Mr. Speaker they have for complex patients but they're also beating targets for minor that it needs and that Waterloo Wellington Linn is number one in the entire province has the best results ever recorded in Ontario history for each Thank you Minister of Agriculture for Rural Affairs and Food is warned New question the member from Nicobel Thank you Mr. Speaker Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker under this premier it is getting harder to access the health care that our families need after years of cuts and lay often in our hospital people are waiting up to 37 hours in the emergency room after years of bed closure the auditor saw people on stretchers and hallways because our hospital are dangerously overcrowded after years of budget cuts to our hospital the auditor found long wait time for surgery that are putting people's life at risk how can this liberal government keep failing the patients of Ontario by forcing people to wait longer and longer for the care that they need now Thank you Minister of Health long-term care Thank you Mr. Speaker and that's why I remain so troubled by the fact that that party had a budget that had $345 million of new investments in our hospitals in operating costs to help them deal with capacity issues but the member needs to at least acknowledge when we have third party experts, third party entities that tell us that we actually 9 out of 10 individuals that go to our emergency departments are discharged from those emergency departments within the provincial targets within the national targets Mr. Speaker and that was validated in her report yesterday by the auditor general and in fact despite increasing population, despite increased volumes seen in our emergency departments, we've seen just in the last 5 or 6 years significant progress and further reducing that so where that figure for both low acuity and high acuity 9 out of 10 patients are seen within the provincial target of time Thank you The auditor's report is really an indictment of this premier's record on healthcare The liberal government closed mental health bed leaving people in distress waiting without help for months on end The liberal government had squeezed hospital budget to the point that the auditor says 60% of hospitals are deferring surgery to balance their budget and while the liberal government claims to publish wait time for surgery the auditor general found that the real-world time are months longer than what the government claimed She says that the information is misleading for patients Why is this liberal government Stop the clock I don't have to explain myself again You will withdraw I withdraw Finish please I is this liberal government cutting healthcare, closing hospital bed and publishing wait times Well Mr. Speaker I know that their minister of cuts that they were proposing was going to save $600 million out of the healthcare and education budgets and when they were in power they closed 24% of the acute hospital beds in this province When they were in power they closed 13% of our mental health beds in the entire province But when we look at third party independent analysis of our wait times we have the shortest wait times from GP to specialist in the entire country we have the second shortest wait times from specialist to treatment including surgical procedures 20% shorter than the national average we have the shortest we have the shortest wait times for CT scans for MRIs for ultrasounds just in the last year Mr. Speaker our wait time for elective cardiovascular surgery for medical oncology down by 39% Mr. Speaker Thank you My question is for the president of the treasury board In 2013 our premier set out a bold vision to be the most open government in this country and to that end Ontario has released over 550 data sets and created an inventory of almost 1300 actively maintained data sets and those numbers do continue to grow most of the mandate letters for each minister online and we passed the public sector and NPP Accountability and Transparency Act as a result of this important work Ontario was selected as one of 15 sub-national governments to join the open government partnership but we know that transparency means more than just posting information it means giving the public opportunities to weigh in on government decision making Speaker could the minister please tell us how the president of the treasury board is engaging with Ontario Thank you Speaker Thank you to the member from Kitchener center for this question and welcome to her constituents Our government has been actively engaging Ontarians in an effort to create better policy deliver better services and improve outcomes Last year we posted our open data directive as a google doc edit and comment on the directive we've opened up our procurement directive for consultations to find out how we can make it easier for small and medium size businesses to do business with the government most recently our government announced that we will spend up to 3 million dollars in the 2007 budget to bring to life ideas suggested and voted on by the Ontarians an initiative of the minister So through open government we're making the policy creation process more accessible to Ontarians and our engaging society to help us co-create solutions Thank you It's very encouraging to see that the president of the treasury board has been reaching out to Ontarians and is helping them to engage with Queen's park through this kind of policy Each week one of the ways that I share information with my constituents is by recording a one minute video blog goings on at the legislature this past week I encouraged my constituents to get involved and submit ideas for the 2017 budget building pathways for Ontarians to engage as half the challenge but as elected representatives we also need to play a role in informing our constituents of how they can make a difference Now that we've taken stock of what Ontario is currently doing please tell us what's next for open government and how the treasury board plans to continue engaging with Ontarians Thank you As the member previously mentioned Ontario was selected as one of 15 sub-national governments to join the open government partnership The only sub-national jurisdiction invited in Canada and one of three in North America As part of the open government partnership Ontario has been co-developing initiatives to further enhance transparency with Ontarians We asked Ontarians to submit their ideas online then we asked them to vote on the ideas that had been submitted and then we sent the top 15 in the vote the top 15 ideas to public workshop sessions in Toronto, Ottawa and to make sure we caught everybody online in an effort to publicly refine and discuss these ideas and next week I will be announcing new co-created commitments to further accountability at the open government partnership Global Summit Question The member from Dufferin College My question is to the Minister for Children and Youth In yesterday's auditor general's annual report she highlighted many concerns about the minister's lack of oversight for children and youth One of the concerns raised by the auditor general is quote after audits in 2003 and 2008 the Ministry of Children and Youth Services has yet to make changes to ensure that agencies deliver mental health services to children and youth appropriately, cost effectively and on a timely basis After 13 years will the minister finally act on the recommendations made in 2003 2008 and this year's annual report Thank you Well thank you Mr. Speaker and I want to thank the member for the question We know the majority of mental health here in the province of Ontario and addiction issues begin at childhood for adolescents and that's why it's so important to make sure that children and youth have timely access to supports when they need it the most I'd like to thank the auditor general for her report and efforts in developing some advice that are insightful and will ensure that we continue to prioritize the challenging needs of children and youth and families here in the province of Ontario Mr. Speaker we know when it comes to mental health it's something that's always changing the pressures in the systems constantly change but we've taken the auditor general's advice and we're moving ahead to implement a new funding model for children and youth and children and youth mental health services we're going to enhance oversight to hold service providers accountable and expand their use of data to access agencies performance and improve quality Thank you Mr. Speaker After 13 years and three reports the auditor general found that the minister is still not monitoring the delivery of services to ensure children are receiving adequate treatment it's no wonder there has been a 50% increase in hospitalization of children and youth suffering with mental health illnesses the lack of action on mental health has reached a crisis these children have nowhere to turn they need help and they need it now use the 26 recommendations in the all party select committee on mental health and addictions use the 11 recommendations in the auditor general's report after 13 years when will the minister act Thank you Mr. Speaker and again I want to thank the member for the question in 13 years there's a lot that's changed in mental health if we look at the province of Ontario 20-30 years ago and today we know that the stigma around mental health has drastically changed and people are talking about this issue more we know 13 years ago and today even the pressures in the system has changed so we've invested $100 million into new funding over the last five years and we're seeing a huge difference today's children and youth mental health agencies serve more than 100,000 young people annually more than 4,000 indigenous children and youth access culturally appropriate services in their communities and more than 3,200 specialized consultations for children and youth in remote rural areas through tele-mental health services Mr. Speaker, again things are changing in mental health and we're leading that change Thank you Mr. Speaker according to the Auditor General's report released yesterday only 47% of people who began an apprenticeship program in Ontario actually finished it and the number of apprentices at risk of non-completion increased after the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development implemented a monitoring strategy to overcome this very problem there is a shortage of skilled trades people in Ontario we need young people wishing to start the trades to be successful so that they can stay here and build a future here in Ontario when will the Liberal government stop setting up these young people for failure Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question I thank the Auditor General for her remarks and I can tell you we are not setting anyone out for failure in fact choosing an apprenticeship is a very smart choice Speaker and we encourage more young people to think about apprentices when they're considering what to do after high school what I can tell you Speaker is that prior to 2014 we were very focused on enrolling more people into apprenticeships we were successful in doing that but what we have to do now Speaker is focus on the completion rate we are moving forward with the modernization of the apprenticeship system Speaker where we need to better support students to finish and to support employers in a way that supports the completion of those apprenticeships. Thank you Speaker aspiring apprentices were not the only ones left behind by the poor performance of the government's employment and training services only 14% of Ontarians participating in the provinces employment services program found full-time employment in their field of study upon completing the program the government spent $1.3 billion a year alone on employment and training strategies with very little to show for it how are the good people of Ontario who rely on these services supposed to get ahead when will the government stop making these things worse for Ontarians and invest properly in the services that they need to build a prosperous future here in Ontario. Thank you Speaker I find it astounding that the member opposite calls training programs a waste of money Speaker these really important programs do we need to do a better job measuring the impact Speaker absolutely yes we do and that's why Treasury Board now actually has a centre for evidence-based decision making because we need to do a lot better job not just in this sector but across government in actually defining the outcomes we're working to achieve identifying those programs that are successful investing more where we're getting the outcomes and last where we're not getting the outcomes we need to bring that kind of rigor to all of our program Speaker including those in employment supports but I'm very confident that the organizations we have delivering these services in our communities are really committing to doing what's best for young people or older people who are getting employment support Speaker Thank you Speaker My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry Speaker the opposition often accuses our government of not paying enough attention to rural communities and has made claims in the past that we are mismanaging our forestry industry all too often we hear accusations from across the floor that we are making lives harder for the people in Ontario Speaker surely they are mistaken I know that our government has been investing in infrastructure such as roads and hospitals and communities including rural communities but the human infrastructure is also important I know that your staff in MNRF act as tireless advocates for our land and resources all across this province can the minister tell us what our government is doing to make sure that the everyday life of the people rural communities working in Ontario's forestry sector are in fact easier Thank you very much and I'd like to thank the hard working member from Barrie for her question making sure we are making life better for people living in rural and northern communities is a major priority for our government our government understands how important a strong forest sector is to Ontario's economy and the key role that it plays in over 260 communities across Ontario I encourage Ontarians to look for the leaf on Ontario wood products and cut your own tree when shopping this holiday season but it's why we've created the forestry growth fund which will provide up to $10 million annually for forest operations in our province Earlier this week we were pleased to announce that we're investing over $4 million into a sawmill in Eganville which has consequently created and maintained over 100 jobs in the forestry sector improving their everyday lives in the riding of Ontario and through Nibsing, Canberra So I encourage everybody to get out on December 6th Thank you supplementary Speaker I'd like to thank the minister for her answer I'm very pleased to hear that we are creating new jobs in both rural communities and the forest industry My father Jim Torpey worked in forestry with the then ministry of natural resources for over 40 years and I'm proud of the contribution he made and that your ministry continues to make to Ontario It's comforting to know that our government is taking steps to ensure that the everyday lives of people in rural communities are better thanks to actions taken by this government something of which I know the member from Renfrew Nibsing, Pembroke would be proud I'm also proud of the steps that our government is taking to ensure the forest injury on Ontario is sustainable Speaker could the minister please go into more detail about the forestry industry and why it is so important to Ontario Minister Thank you speaker I'd like to thank the member from Berry for her supplementary question and I'm pleased to report that the forestry industry on Ontario generates 11 billion dollars of economic activity and provides well paying job for over 170,000 people in over 260 communities in Ontario After announcements like the one in the sawmill we're ensuring these numbers continue to grow something we're very happy and proud of on this side of the house Our exports of forest products have increased each year since 2012 with a total value of wood exports topping $6 billion in 2015 So last year alone our manufactured forest product sales increased by over $1 billion over the year before I'm pleased to see that these numbers continue to grow I'm pleased to see that every day we're putting more Ontario wood to work Ontario's forest sector will continue to grow thanks to the work our government's doing tomorrow and came to the Minister of Agriculture and I are cutting Thank you and a question from the member from here on Bruce The question is for the minister of the environment Speaker yesterday the auditor general confirmed what we have known all along the Liberals have no real plan that this government's own analysis of their so called action plan only forecast a third of the pollution reductions they're promising instead this government will be sending $2.2 billion to Quebec and California California excuse me and guess where the emissions will be reduced Speaker unfortunately it won't be Ontario the emissions will be reduced in California and Quebec yet this government still plans to take $8 billion from people and businesses in Ontario it's unacceptable it's time for this government to be honest will the minister finally admit that it's not about the environment but instead a clever way to get into Ontario's pockets Mr. Speaker I'm not enamored whatsoever for those kinds of heckles and it's going to stop Minister Thank you First I do want to thank the auditor general she made 15 recommendations on cap and trade we have either implemented I think we've now implemented the majority of them and the balance of them will be implemented in the next year she has been very constructive and helpful on the numbers I want to be very clear the action plan and the work of David Sawyer and economists and experts not my work Mr. Speaker shows 9.8 megatons of reductions as a result of the expenditure of $8 billion you may notice Mr. Speaker that all of the large emitting industries refining and chemistry to cement to the auto sector supported cap and trade and are working on designing it we have great confidence businesses of Ontario to meet those targets and that $8 billion will be going back into the lives and pockets of Ontarians when you buy an electric car you get $14,000 off Thank you Mr. Speaker I believe you'll find we have unanimous consent to observe a moment of silence in recognition of Roger Perrant Mr. Perrant was a Saskatchewan MLA who tragically lost his battle with cancer the member from Simcoe Gray is seeking unanimous consent for a moment of silence do we agree? I would ask all members to please rise in a moment of silence and respect from Mr. Perrant Thank you we have a deferred vote on the motion of second reading of bill 70 an act to implement budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes calling the members this will be a five minute bill All members please take your seats on November 22nd, 2016 as McGarry moved the second reading of bill 70 and an act to implement budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes All those in favor please rise one at a time to be recognized by the clerk Mr. Sousa Mr. Bratley Mr. Sandoz Mr. Hoss Mr. Shirelli Mr. McCarles Mr. Cole Mr. Delaney Mr. Dillon Mr. Murray Mr. Quoteau Mr. Flann Mr. Codrie Mr. Dixon Mr. Crack Mr. Dommerle Mr. McGarry Mr. Zimmer Mr. Albanese Mr. Baller Mr. Wong Mr. Frazer Mr. Baker Mr. Hoga Mr. Martin Mr. Milch Mr. Pots Mr. Rinaldi All those in favor please rise one at a time to be recognized very quickly Mr. Bredelli Mr. Arnott Mr. Wilson Mr. Jones Mr. Brown Mr. Clark Mr. Yacobusky Mr. Hillyard Mr. Thompson Mr. Barrett Mr. Bailie Mr. Osterhoff Mr. Walker Mr. Smith Mr. Harris Mr. Nickle Mr. Coe Mr. Choe Mr. Seng Mr. Horvath Mr. Vantoff Mr. DeNovo Mr. Tad Mr. Miller Hamilton East Stony Creek Mr. Miller Hamilton East Stony Creek Mr. Natascha Mr. Armstrong Mr. Hatfield Mr. Gretzky Mr. Gaines Mr. French Mr. DuVal The Ayes being 49 and the Nays being 44 declare the motion carried on November 30th, 2016 the bill is ordered to refer to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs we have a deferred vote on the motion of third reading of bill 2 an act to amend and repeal various acts with respect to housing and planning calling the members this will be a 5 minute bill on November 30th, 2016 Mr. Knack we move third reading of bill 2 an act to amend and repeal various acts with respect to housing and planning all those in favor please rise one at a time be recognized by the clerk Mr. Dillard Mr. Dillard Mr. Dillard Mr. Murray Mr. Chan Mr. Morridi Mr. Morridi Mr. Koto Mr. Hunter Mr. Leo Mr. Flynn Mr. Coddley Mr. Dixon Mr. Crack Mr. Romerloss Mr. McGarry Mr. Zimmer Mr. Albanese Mr. McMahon Mr. Ballas Mr. Andersen Mr. Baker Mr. Hogan Mr. Koala Mr. Miltjen Mr. Pot Mr. Rinaldo Mr. Rinaldo Mr. Hardim Mr. McLeod Mr. Wilson Mr. Brown Mr. Clark Mr. Clark Mr. Fidelli Mr. Fidelli Mr. Yakubeski Mr. Miller-Parison Mr. McDonnell Mr. McDonnell Mr. Scott Mr. Thompson Mr. Ko Mr. Choe Mr. Sain Mr. Vantop Mr. Novo Mr. Tabet Mr. Miller Hamilton Mr. Natashak Mr. Armstrong Mr. Hattfield Mr. Gretzky Mr. Gaines Mr. French Mr. Tussaud Mr. Sney Mr.


Hello, everyone. My name is Stefan Prodan. I'm a software engineer at WeWorks. And I'm very happy today to talk to you about Flagger and progressive delivery. We started Flagger two years ago as a way to decouple deployment from release and enable automated rollbacks and make the release process safer to optimize. Let's see what transformations you need to do to your CACD pipelines in order to move from a classical way of deploying things to something that enables progressive delivery and how we can apply these techniques. So, I draw a diagram here how CACD looks like in general. You have your app repo where your source code is. In there, you also have a docker file, Kubernetes manifest, scripts that or channels that define how your CACD process goes. So, you push a change to your app repo that creates a container image. Then your script will place the new image tag inside the Kubernetes manifest and apply those manifest on the cluster. This is how you release a new version of the app. There are a couple of challenges with this approach. If you have multiple apps that share some infrastructure like let's say an ingress controller or the same namespace and so on, where do you place those shared items?  They'll be undoing each other's changes. Another challenge is around rollback. If you want to restore your app to a previous version, you have to rerun the whole pipeline. That means creating a new container registry, deploying that on production. That's not actually a rollback because you create a new artifact and whatever is in there could be different. I've listed here more things around CACD as a monolith. One aspect is around configuration drift. If all these manifests are all over the place in all your app repos, how do you ensure that your production system can be versioned? How do you detect when your production system changed somehow? Let's say someone added something directly on the cluster. How do you make sure that those changes are being ported back to Git? What happens to them when you run a new pipeline? Some of them could be overwritten and so on. In order to make the production release is more stable, more traceable, we can break CI from CD.  If everything goes okay, you can also validate your Kubernetes manifest with something like OPA Conf test. In the end, you will be creating an immutable container image and you push that to the registry and that's where your CI platform role ends. It doesn't know about your production clusters. It doesn't connect to Kubernetes that way. Now, for the continuous delivery part, the proposal is you will be using GitOps. What GitOps means is you will have this repository where you define your whole fleet state. The continuous delivery controllers will not be running outside the cluster. They will be running on each cluster. This is how the clusters themselves will reconcile their own state. They will connect to your fleet repository. They will take, let's say, a customized overlay made for that particular cluster or that particular group of clusters, let's say, have a staging group and a production group and so on. They will be continuously reconciling their own state with what's defining Git. That means you can version your infrastructure along with your app deployments and if you want to roll back to a particular point in time, you will have matching definitions for all these things. What challenges are with this continuous delivery approach with GitOps? One of the issues is what are you going to do if an app misbehaves after you deploy it? If the app crashes, let's say, during deployment, the Kubernetes running update will hold. You can add health checks to your CD system and you can know about it. But what if your app rolls out nicely? Then when production traffic ends up on the new version, your version starts to error out with 500 errors or maybe the code changes add a lot of latency so people get timeouts or the app will be very hard to interact with. Also, there are things like can you run multiple versions at the same time and do tests between them and so on. In order to make such things easier to describe, we can break deployment from the release process. We use the continuous delivery tool to create deployments inside the cluster but instead of letting Kubernetes roll out that deployment to everyone, we have a new thing that sits at the end of the pipeline and drives the release process differently from what Kubernetes is usually doing. Here is where Flagger comes into place.  Custom resource definition that Flagger understands where you define the policy of how you want the release process to happen inside the cluster. So when you change something in your cluster state, let's say you bump the version of an application, Flux or another GitOps operator that are many out there will apply that change but instead of letting that change end up directly in your node balancer so your users end up on the new version, Flagger will take over from there and will route traffic, small portion of your traffic towards the new version will keep increasing that traffic weight. It will measure metrics from Prometheus, Datadog, CloudWatch and others and based on those metrics, it will take the decision is the new version fit to serve production traffic or not. So as I said, Flagger is a Kubernetes operator. You deploy it on your cluster. It has this declarative model through a custom resource definition so it can create policies inside your Git repo how you want the release to happen and Flagger uses a traffic management solution to route traffic between versions. Flagger works with a couple of service mesh implementations, Istio, LinkrB, UpMesh and because Flagger works nicely with the service mesh interface, things like open service mesh or HashiCorp, ConsulConnect could be working with Flagger in the future. Now, maybe you are not ready to use the service mesh or you just want to do progressive delivery with ingress controllers. For that, Flagger works with Contour, with Glue, with EngineX and Skipper and you can combine, for example, LinkrD doesn't come with an ingress solution so you can combine one of those ingress controllers with LinkrD and do both canary releases for your front-end apps and back-end apps as well. Now, in terms of deployment strategies, Flagger implements a couple of different things. The first one, canary release with progressive traffic shifting works great for apps that expose HTTP or GRPC APIs, stateful apps, microservices, etc. Now, for front-end apps that have, let's say, an API but also a static content like JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and so on, when you are doing the canary release, you want to ping users to a particular version and how can you do that with session affinity and Flagger lets you segment your users based on HTTP headers or cookies. So they can say all the users that have this particular cookie, only those will be used to test the new version. Other strategies are Blue-Green with traffic mirroring. This works with Istio. Well, this kind of strategy works great with idempotent APIs. So if your API is doing any kind of change, writes to a database or does changes some state, traffic mirroring is not the way to do it because you will be duplicating all these actions. But if you have, let's say, machine learning workloads or caching system or things that are building reports or any kind of get query, traffic mirroring works great for that. And finally, Blue-Green, the classical Blue-Green where Flagger will run your end-to-end tests, load tests, looks at the metrics, and based on that result, it does the switch from one version to another in a single go. And I have here some graphical representation of how everything works. The idea is Flagger monitors the deployment that gets applied on the cluster. When it detects a new change, it scales out the deployment, starts to route traffic towards it with metrics. And at the end, if everything goes okay, let's Kubernetes to the full rollout inside the cluster. And for A.B. testing, it uses, instead of gradually shifting traffic, it uses a certain segment based on headers. And for Blue-Green, it runs tests, then it does the final switch. Okay, demo time. So I'm going to use Flux version 2 to set up my cluster. I'm going to use Flagger for progressive delivery, and I'm going to use contour for doing A.B. testing for front-end apps, and LinkerD for doing cannery releases inside the cluster for back-end apps. Okay, so I have an empty cluster here. Okay, I have a Git repo on GitHub, where I'm defining the state of my cluster. We have the infrastructure items, like LinkerD, Flagger, Contour. And I'm also defining two workloads, front-end and back-end app. So first I'm going to install Flux. So Flux version 2 is composed of several controllers. We have a controller that deals with sources, like Git repo stories or Helm repo stories or S3 buckets. And we also have specialized recon sellers, like Helm controller that knows how to install a Helm release, run the tests, upgrade, rollback, and so on. And we have CustomizeController, which applies customized overlays on your cluster and so on. Okay, so I have Flux installed. Now I want to add this repo to my cluster. So what I've told Flux now is connect to the GitHub repo story, pull all the manifests from there and make them available inside the cluster. Now I'm going to tell Flux how to reconcile the infrastructure items. So first time, defining the LinkerD customization. Inside the infrastructure LinkerD directory, there is a Helm repo story and a Helm release. The Helm repo story points to the official LinkerD repo, where their charts are, and the Helm release configures how I want LinkerD to be installed on my cluster. And here I'm also telling Flux, after you apply all things, make sure that the LinkerD proxy injector is up and running. And I'm going to use this information to define how the cluster conciliation should work. So LinkerD, as a service smash, needs to inject a proxy site card in each pod. So I need to make sure that when I'm reconciling anything else inside my cluster, LinkerD injector is up and running, so I get a valid state of my workloads. Okay, I installed LinkerD. Now I'm going to configure Flagger and I'm telling Flux, hey, Flagger depends on LinkerD. And finally I'm going to tell Flux to reconcile contour as well. So before this is okay, let me run contour here and I'm going to show you here in the infrastructure how I've configured contour. So I want contour to be part of my service mesh. And in order to do that, I define a customized patch for contour. So I'm pulling the contour manifest from the contour repo. But then I'm telling Flux, hey, take all this configuration and apply this customized patch to it. Contour comes with the demon set for the Envoy's reverse proxy. And I'm adding here an annotation to tell LinkerD inject from the project contour main space inject your sidecar only in the Envoy pods. Okay, so I have everything running now. If I'm going to look now at Flagger logs, seeing that Flagger has started, it has connected to the LinkerD Prometheus. And what I'm going to do now, I'm going tell Flux to deploy the workloads I have provisioned in my repo. I'm applying the workloads and Flagger will start monitoring the deployments because in my workload definition, I also have canary custom resources. And based on that custom resource, Flagger will bootstrap both application for us. So if we look at what's happening in the front end main space, I see there are things happening. So this is my deployment that I have defined in my repo, pod info, in the front end main space. But I also have a canary definition for pod info that tells Flagger how to configure the whole thing. What Flagger does, it says, okay, I have this deployment running. I'm going to take over the reconciliation for it, and I'm going to create a clone out of that deployment. And the clone is named minus primary. After the clone is up and running, Flagger will scale to zero the deployment that Flux applied. All your production traffic from this moment on goes to pod info primary. So now if I'm looking again at the pods, again at the pods, seeing that whatever was in it, it's gone, it's scaled to zero, and these primary pods are running. Flagger also creates Kubernetes services and contour ingress objects. And for Kubernetes services creates three services. One is the Apex service, canary and the primary, and these services will be used for traffic switching. So in your Git repo, you are only defining your deployment and an horizontal pod autoscaler, and Flagger will create all the other objects for you. Now I'm going to forward forward to the Envoy ingress controller and see if my app is running. Yeah. So I have version 500 bootstrap deployed in my cluster. Now let's say I want to do a release, and how I'm going to do that, I'm going into the repo, and I'm going to bump the version number. So workloads, frontend, and I have here the definition of where pod info deployments and horizontal pod autoscaler comes from the app repo itself. And I've told Flux to pick a particular tag. Now I can tell Flux to monitor the container registry and do the patching on its own and bump the version every time I'm pushing something to the registry or I can do it manually. So I'm going in here and saying, hey, I want to deploy 501. I'm going to commit this change, and if I'm doing watch, Flux get customizations, what is going to happen is source controller, part of Flux will detect there is a new change in the repo. We'll pull that change inside the cluster, then the specialized controllers like customized controllers say, hey, I have a new revision. I'm going to apply that inside. Okay. The new revision has been detected, and now Flux applies that change in the order that I have specified. So it takes into account dependencies. First, it applies linker D, then it applies my workloads. And the workload has been applied. It has moved to the new revision. And if we look at what Flagger is doing, Flagger is saying, hey, I have detected a new version. So I need to test it out, according to the policy that I have in my data repo. And if we look here, we see that we end up on 501. And this is Firefox. Let's see what happens if I'm going to visit the same URL using Chrome. On Chrome, I'm on 500. Why is that? In my release definition, here, I have, so this is a canary definition for Flagger, and where I told Flagger, hey, test the new version only on users that have a header that contains Firefox in the user agent. So I'm segmenting my user based on something from the user agent header. And I'm using those users to test my new version. So here, I'm still on 00. And this is where the test is running right now. What Flagger does, every 10 seconds, it reads metrics, checks that my SLOs, my conditions are fine. I've made conditions like 99% of all requests must succeed. The latency of my new app has to be under 500 milliseconds and so on. So it checks all these SLOs that I've defined. And once the iterations are over, I've set up 10 iterations, it should fully promote the new version to all users. And how it does that, the moment the analysis is over, it tells Kubernetes, hey, now do the rolling upgrade of the primary deployment with what's declared in it. And it's doing that right now. Flagger also waits for horizontal pot auto-scaler to scale up or down the workload. So it pauses the analysis while HPA is running. It waits for the old pods to terminate and then it will finalize the release. So if I'm going back here to my Chrome, I see that now both variant of users are on the same version. And this is how I've done a Navy test. Now let's see how progressive traffic shifting happens. So I have here in workloads, the backend definition, it's still coding for the same app. But in the Canary definition, I've changed things a little. There is no longer a header matching condition. Now I'm configuring Flagger to shift traffic weight from one version to another. I'm telling Flagger to start with 5%, go up to 50% while measuring metrics and so on. And if everything goes according to plan, then do the final rollout. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to tell Flux to update the backend app. And instead of specifying here a fixed version, a fixed git tag, I'm going to tell Flux to take into account a same word expression, find the latest release for that same word expression and deploy that in my cluster. So I'm doing here same word, the expression is greater than 50. Commit this change. Now if I'm looking at my backend, seeing that Flagger has detected the new version and it will start to roll out traffic towards it. Let's pour forward to the linker D dashboard. We don't need this anymore. Okay, let's look at linker D. So linker D can show how traffic splitting is happening inside the cluster. So if I look here with the info, I see that linker D is reporting that the primary now is on 95% and the canary is on 5%. Now let's say there is something going wrong with the canary. How can I simulate errors? I'm going to exact into a pod. I'm going to generate 500 errors for my canary workload. Now what Flagger is doing, it keeps increasing the weight and measures latency and error rate. Now, while I'm generating errors, Flagger has detected that okay, the success rate should be 99% and it now got to 97%. And the success rate keeps dropping. What is going to happen, I've set a threshold for Flagger. It fails more than three times, roll it back. And what Flagger is doing right now, it has determined that the release conditions are not met. It routes all the traffic back to the primary deployment and scales down the experiment, the canary. So if we look back here, we see that the primary pods are still running the same as those one. And my experiment has failed and it's gone. If I'm doing get pod, this one, looking at the image, I see there is still on 500. So this is how you can set service level objectives with Flagger based on the metrics that the service measure and ingress controllers offer. Now, maybe you want to do more than that. I mean, it's okay to look at errors and latency, but in your release process, you may want to include custom metrics like whatever, how many connections are open to a database, how many people are clicking on a button in an A-B test and so on. How you can do that, you can instrument your apps with, let's say, Prometheus or you push the metrics to Datadog, CloudWatch, New Relic and so on. And Flagger allows you to declare service level objectives targeting these metric providers. So Flagger will run a queries on Datadog, let's say, take those metrics from there and you can set a threshold for each one. This was a demo going back to the presentation. So if you are interested in how Flagger works, there is a docs website with details on how you can configure it, work with any kind of service measure and ingress controller, how you can, ingress controllers, how you can define metric providers, how you can configure Flagger to issue Kubernetes events for everything that's happening or post to Slack, Microsoft, Teams, Rocket and other chat platforms so you know when Flagger did the rollback, when it starts and so on. Flagger also has capabilities like manual gating. For example, you can configure Flagger before it starts a kernel release to ask permission. So it will call on the web hook and say, hey, I want to start this kernel release. Am I allowed to do that? And you can also have manual gates for the final promotion. So it does the analysis but it doesn't do the final release until someone tells it, do it and so on. Please check out the repos here. So it's a demo repo with link at the end contour what I demoed today and there is also one for Istio and uses both Flagger and Flux to drive the whole thing from a GitOS perspective. Now, everything that I've shown is with GitOS and is using Flux but you can use Flagger with any kind of continuous delivery tool even if you do the whole thing from CI because Flagger can be configured and controlled through custom resources. If you apply that from Jenkins or whatever you are using, it will still do the same thing. Thank you very much and please try out Flagger. Let me know how it goes. Have a nice day.


So I'm interested, so how, because it was in 2001, I think that the, that your stat published their economy wide MFA. And this was, of course, partly done thanks to your work and the work of your team. So I'm wondering what was the discussion, how did you manage to convince you to use that to have a, because they already had, I guess, a state of the environment reports and environmental reporting but having a systemic accounting. So how, how, what were the discussions back in the day about this. It was very similar like in Austria I mean they were also suffering from these thousands of efflents and emissions and and waste. Yeah, and they could not come to grips with it it was a miserable statistics every country did it differently. So the discussions were not clear the amounts the measure that even the measurement units were not it was terrible. Yeah, so they were very happy to, to see sort of light at the horizon that maybe there could be a quantification that is more consistent and logical and can build on economic statistics and on, on what's there. Yeah, and not invent a completely new system of of recordings. So it was quite easy for the economy stay understood that this was something that I mean they're of course only wanted it money and not in towns. Yeah, or in June. Yeah, never mind, but it was, it was something that communicated well between the disciplines. And with the, and with the officers who had to deal with the, with the existing statistics and suffered from them. Yeah. So you, you kind of went to them or your team or your colleagues propose that to them and they, because they didn't take a lot of time to put this into practice and kind of curious how, you know, a scientific discipline can really get in in policy and really influence it. It's, it's a lot by chance. I mean, the, the World Resources Institute picked up the idea, did that big report, the Austrian Ministry of Environment was very proud of this new report or this new approach, and they went to the EU and told them what interesting things they had. The Austrian environmental agency was not so happy because it liked its thousands of indicators, but, but still they saw that they could find a way of aggregating their stuff in a reasonable form. So it, it was not against much resistance. It was, some didn't understand it or, or yeah, but it, it went smoothly, as far as I remember. I mean, it took about, I mean, we did these big international conferences with the Wuppertal Institute and Leiden and and then Statistics Sweden, and then the Japanese came in who had this very early program on reduced reuse recycle. So this was already a pretty strong international bundle of both scientists and also some policymakers. Yeah, it went smoothly. So that, that was the con accounts conferences in the 90s. The con accounts conferences, right. Yeah. Okay. And then the Japanese invited me. And yeah, so this spread from there it spread. Yeah, the only who, the only country who did not jump on that train was interestingly US. Yeah. Yeah, the US is the only country and also although the World Resources Institute strongly supported this and also other institutions in the US on the, on the science reporting level, but in policy. No, I think the US sinks in money and nothing. No other unit has a chance. Yeah, although their input output analysis tables are major compared to some European countries so I think they're they're very good in accounting but they are in money. Yeah, all in money. Yeah. And now also the multi regional input output tables that are in mass or in energy units. Yeah. Americans don't really participate in this. They don't understand the value of it. But it's like with the with the quality of life. I mean, in the my first OECD experience.


Welcome to All Hands Update. Here's what's happening around your Navy. The opportunity to become a Warren Officer in Naval Oceanography returns in 2018, according to NavAdmin07916. In late March, Navy personnel command released the NavAdmin, re-establishing the program, and disestablishing the Oceanography Limited Duty Officer. For more information on the Oceanography Warren Officer, check out the NavAdmin. Navy Special Warfare Special Operations teams and recruiters made their presence known at the last X Games in Austin, The attendees at the Games got the chance to view a mine-resistant ambush vehicle, don an EOD suit, operate EOD robots, and participate in the Warrior Challenge Pull-up Competition to win a custom skateboard. Seven-time medalist Morgan Wade stopped by the Navy booth to sign autographs and show support. You can read more about what's happening around your Navy at Navy.mil.


Hi guys, I'm Q and Riley, a BMX freestyle athlete, and these are my top three tips for athletes. Tip one would be be consistent, small steps every day out of massively. I mean, trying to do 100 things at once seems very difficult, but if you do a thing a day, you've done a lot before you realize. Tip two would be expect to be unmotivated some days. No one's motivated all the time, and in sport, when you're doing what you do is frequently, as you have to, you will have days where you wake up, you might not want to do it that day. That comes with sport, that comes with being tired, that comes with being fatigued, and you just take those days in stride and be ready for them. It makes a massive difference than if it comes unexpectedly, so just try and have that little bit of discipline. You know why you're doing it, you know why you love the sport, so keep on the work and even on those off days. And tip number three would be set goals. Having goals set for me makes a massive difference. I mean, having something to work towards. Maybe if you aren't competing super frequently and you need something a little bit closer to work towards, set that, I mean, especially when we had nothing going on in COVID. For me, setting goals of tricks or of what I want it to be at this certain stage, yeah, how ready I want it to be, made a massive difference mentally to keep me going and keep me moving.