I want to congratulate my colleague and talk about school bus drivers. Very few people talk about school bus drivers and how important that job is, as they, quite frankly, take our children’s lives in their hands every single day, particularly in the north, I would think, with the highways and roads they have in the north. But I want to be clear: It’s not just a north problem. It happens in my riding. I get lots of calls about school bus drivers and the fact that they can’t find drivers, they’re cancelling bus routes, they’re low-paid.

My question is pretty simple: What do you think we need to do to attract more school bus drivers—

This bill states right in the title that it wants to achieve better outcomes for students.

Right now, in Niagara, 16 schools can’t operate their nutrition program—and they can’t even operate it because of the funding. The kids are going hungry because this government hasn’t increased funding as food prices skyrocket.

Does this member and the Conservative Party think that hungry children perform well at school?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of” public health, “making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I support this. I’ll give this to our page and sign it.

I asked this question this morning to the Conservative side, so I think it’s fair and reasonable to ask it to the NDP side: This bill states right in the title that it wants to achieve better outcomes for students. Right now in Niagara, 16 schools can’t operate their nutrition program. The program and the kids are going hungry because this government hasn’t increased funding as food prices skyrocket like in every other province in Canada.

Does the member think that hungry children perform well at school?

The government should take the advice of the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force, which said, “A shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem.” We don’t need to sacrifice farmland—of which we’re getting rid of 319 acres a day, prime farmland—or the greenbelt to build housing. We need to focus on building new homes within existing urban boundaries instead of paving over more farmlands, wetlands, natural heritage with unsustainable urban sprawl that makes land speculators rich, but drives up housing costs and taxes in municipalities.

My question is very easy: Do you agree with Premier Ford that we should be building million-dollar homes on the greenbelt?

I want to be clear, from the NDP side, we agree that we need to build 1.5 million homes. As a matter of fact, there’s enough land in the province of Ontario that we could actually build two million homes. Your own task force—not mine, not my colleagues’, but your own task force—was very clear that you could reach that goal without touching the greenbelt. Yet you continually stand up there for the last couple of hours that I’ve been here, defending your government on attacking the greenbelt.

You continue to talk about farmers and building homes on farmers’ land, but right now, today, right across the province of Ontario, guess what? We’re losing 319 acres a day of prime farmland. If you become a country or a province that can’t feed yourselves, you’re going to be in trouble. Take a look what happened with COVID when we had no PPE because it was all made offshore. Do you remember what happened? People died.

I’m currently standing up to a developer that wants to touch a heritage location in my riding so he can build homes.

So my question is very clear to you guys: Do you agree with Premier Ford that we should be building million-dollar homes on the greenbelt?