Yesterday, the Premier said there was no rhyme or reason to how lands were selected to be protected as part of the greenbelt. He said the greenbelt was formed by “a bunch of staffers in a room with crayons and highlighters and randomly just went on a map.”

If the Premier thinks the greenbelt wasn’t formed using a proper process, well, can he finally share his process for removing lands from the greenbelt?

Again to the Premier: How did the government decide which parcels of land would be removed from the greenbelt?

The Conservatives’ greenbelt grab is not about housing. If this government cared about investing in Ontario’s housing stock, we’d see investment in public housing and in building homes that everyday Ontarians could actually afford to live in; not luxury mansions, on sprawl. Ontarians are following the money. They know it’s not about housing. It’s about insiders with connections to the Conservatives buying up land super cheap and then selling it off, developing it, for incredible profit.

Once again to the Premier, one more chance: Who was holding the crayons when the government decided to sell off the greenbelt?

Interjections.

Yesterday, my colleague the member for Sudbury stood in this House and told us that a hospice in his riding is having to rely on a food bank and fundraisers in order to feed its residents. This government responded by bragging about generous individual donations. It’s almost as though this government wants Ontarians to think that it’s perfectly normal for a hospice, where people go for end-of-life care, to have to rely on a food bank so its residents don’t go hungry in their final days. Speaker, my question is to the Premier, and it’s a simple one: Does this government think that is acceptable?

I’ve been travelling around this province listening to ordinary Ontarians, and what I’ve been seeing is shocking—people working full-time jobs who can’t get by, people visiting food banks for the first time. One in 14 families in the Waterloo region—in Vaughan–Woodbridge, 36% of food bank visitors were children; in Kawartha Lakes, it’s 50%. In Mississauga, food bank use is up 400% over the last eight years.

Speaker, food banks have asked this government to tackle the root causes of food insecurity, yet the most recent budget provides almost nothing.

Will this government bring in measures like real rent control to make life more affordable for ordinary Ontarians?

Interjections.

I wish this government would spend less time in the backrooms and more time talking to real people in this province who are really struggling right now.

I was recently in Northumberland county, where a single person on Ontario Works has to spend as much as 50% of their very limited income on food, at a time when housing costs there and across this province are going through the roof.

Food banks were created as a temporary measure. They’re supposed to be a band-aid solution, and now we have way too many people relying on them just to be able to survive.

To the Premier: Will this government immediately double OW and ODSP rates to get people the relief they need, so people do not go hungry in the province of Ontario?

Interjections.

To the Premier: My constituent Janice complains that the surgical wait times are simply too long in Ontario. She shared with me a BC government website which publicly lists specialists as well as surgical wait times—a very convenient tool.

Since the Premier won’t keep his promise to eliminate surgical backlogs, five years after he was elected to do so, will he at least do the very minimum, which is to create a surgical wait time portal for Ontario patients, just like the one the BC government has created for their residents?

Let me just rephrase this: The BC NDP government has created a central system for faster referrals. Their residents can go online and see exactly what they need to see and get that information in a timely fashion.

This Conservative government scrapped the local health integration networks on the eve of a global health pandemic, and under this government there are now more private, for-profit companies charging for similar services. This is a disaster for Ontarians.

Why does this government insist on making health care worse and more expensive for Ontario residents?