I want to thank the members for their presentation.

Budget 2023 is one of the biggest budgets that we’ve seen in decades; I agree with the members on that. However, it is still one of the cruelest budgets, that fails to reach individuals, people, families or communities. In fact, we heard from so many people who came to present and talk about how this budget will actually increase suffering for so many people. One of those groups includes those who live on reserves.

My question to the members is, why is this government failing to spend or put any money, any investment, on infrastructure on reserves for services like clean drinking water?

It’s a pleasure to join all of you on this beautiful Monday afternoon to discuss Bill 85. I was trying to think of a different angle today, just for my own amusement, mostly. But I wanted to address the revenue that’s coming into the province—so I’m going to save at least 10 or 15 minutes, on where the revenue is coming from and where it’s not coming from and what’s happening with it.

You will know from our first hour on this speech that we found this budget to be an opportunity that was missed by the government. And it is so astounding to me, still, even after 11 years here, how we see the province so differently—perhaps it’s the people we’re listening to; perhaps it’s our communities and what kind of engagement we have with the people in those communities. Certainly, you could tell by the cross-section of questions that we asked today in question period that we have serious concerns around where health care is going, how this province is planning and overriding the planning of our municipal partners.

For us in Kitchener-Waterloo, it’s not necessarily a new issue, but certainly a growing concern is the lack of resources for those who’ve experienced sexual assault and sexual violence. To have a wait-list at the Sexual Assault Support Centre in Kitchener-Waterloo of 240 people, primarily young women, is devastating.

There is an impact from picking and choosing where you’re going to be investing, or who has your ear, or who’s in that backroom or who’s coming to your events, and who you actually, as government members, are listening to.

I can tell you that we share some of the concerns that were raised by the Toronto Star editorial board when they described this budget, Bill 85, as a “complacent mishmash. But if it was uninspired and unimaginative, it was also largely unmemorable.” I think the tone of the editorial here is that it indicated that this government is being safe, that you are parking money in places where—I’m going to actually address—the money is not getting there, which is a transparency and accountability issue which we share with the Financial Accountability Officer.

Also, this is a government that—you have three full years ahead of you. There was a time and a place to be bold. Cost-of-living pressures are being experienced by everybody we serve, from the not-for-profit sector to the education sector to the health care sector, and we heard this loud and clear through our deputations. This finance committee travelled—we spent a lot of time together—and we heard the same thing, but what we heard wasn’t translated into action in this budget.

I think it’s also important to recognize that when the government says, “We are going to balance the budget in two or three years”—that that’s even foreseeable is because of inflation; it’s because goods and services are costing Ontarians so much money, because we’re not doing anything as a province to address the price gouging that is happening, particularly in the food and grocery sector. Those revenues are coming into this place, and there is a moral, ethical responsibility to pass on some of those savings to the people we serve, to acknowledge that they’re hurting. That is the approach that we would take. It is very, very different from the approach of this government. We see those upstream investments saving money for the province—being more compassionate to the people we serve and, actually, assisting in the long term of people finding their potential, which is what we should all want for every Ontarian in this service.

The Star article went on to say that our leader of His Majesty’s official opposition said that this budget fails to meet the moment, and we definitely feel that.

I do want to say, though, that we did try to make it a better budget at committee. Myself and my colleagues introduced several amendments to make this budget more reflective of what we actually heard when we were travelling around the province, and I’m going to get to some of those in a second. The quote that obviously sticks with us—and several of my colleagues have also raised it: “If this budget were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks. Not entirely useless. But an exercise in going through the motions.” So I hope that this is not setting the tone for the remainder of this term.

The editorial went on to say, “Overall, there was clanging dissonance between the budget’s palpable self-satisfaction and the economic anxiety, rising interest rates, soaring prices, health care concerns that have hit Ontario residents hard.”

That’s exactly what we heard.

I just want to confirm: We heard from the not-for-profit sector that they’re having a very difficult time keeping staff because of inflationary costs, because their budgets have flatlined and you can’t stretch those dollars any more. We heard from health care professionals, both front-line nurses and doctors, that recruiting into this broken system is difficult.

So, yes, absolutely, focus on attracting new people into the health care sector, but also retain the people who are experienced and went through the storm of this pandemic. We all call them heroes. Why not actually respect them? Thoughts and prayers do not pay the bills.

When the Ontario Medical Association came before us—and the Ontario college of physicians—they said, “We want to spend more time with our patients. These are the solutions. These solutions cost a little bit of money, but they save the system down the line.” So there were opportunities, wide-open doors—the barn door was fully open—on this budget really being more than a pack of three tube socks. This could have been a turning point for so many people in this province.

If you believe that budgets are moral documents, that they speak to the priorities of the government, then the government is intentionally, knowingly leaving so many people behind.

What I said to the finance minister when he came to the committee was, “I don’t understand. You have the money.” The money is there. There’s actually an unallocated surplus now in the province of Ontario of $2.9 billion. The funds are there to do the work, but the choice was made somewhere along the lines not to do that work.

We now have a planned contingency fund of $4 billion, separate from a surplus, and the reason why the contingency fund is concerning—and I believe very strongly that in a Westminster democracy, budgets are supposed to be approved by the Legislature in full. But with the government’s habit of hoarding cash in massive contingency funds and making radical in-year changes to the spending plan, we increasingly, as lawmakers, cannot trust that the budget presented will be what the government actually spends, and the lack of transparency is bad for our democracy.

I have seen from this Premier a complete disregard and even disdain for our democracy. I’ve never seen this before. There are rules that this Premier randomly reveals in press conferences. Friday’s press conference felt like a bit of an SCTV act, actually. There was policy flying all over the place, laws being run over—really just a very disconcerting randomness to the answers that the Premier was giving. Regardless of the constitutional responsibilities that we have as legislators, the Premier is not concerned with the Constitution. He’s not concerned with the charter. He’s not concerned with these human rights. He’s not concerned with the law of the land. And this does not inspire confidence in our democracy—but also confidence in our economy and how these deals are being negotiated, how they’re being met, how they’re paying for them. There are some contractual agreements around here that are a little dicey, I have to say.

If you have nothing to hide, then please reveal the mandate letters that you’ve been fighting in court for your five full years. It has gone to court now four times, and the government has lost four times. These mandate letters need to be revealed to the people of this province because—and I’ll get into where the money is going—there is a creeping privatization into the government of Ontario, and the money is not going to where it should be. And one only has to look at the gambling file in Ontario to actually use that as a full example. I will get into that.

The FAO had some words to say to the finance minister. We were on The Agenda, the Steve Paikin show, and he said we have this expenditure monitor, so we can actually track where the funding is going and where the funding is not going, and it’s there for all of us to use. I will say, in his last report—and it really was his last report, because the FAO, Peter Weltman, is no longer in office. His last day of work was not last Friday but the Friday before. Apparently, based on the interview that he did with Colin D’Mello, there was very little notice from the government; there was not a “Here’s your hat; there’s the door.” He didn’t even get that.

So this government really is a little shy around the transparency and accountability piece. They don’t like to be called out when the expenditure monitor from the office of the FAO actually documents where the money is going and where the money is not going.

Certainly, we were very concerned last quarter when $6.4 billion didn’t get to where it was supposed to go. This does call into question the legitimacy of the budget. The government can announce that they’re going to release $1.1 billion to community services, as they did around nine months ago to huge fanfare, really. Speaker, $1.1 billion is a good chunk of change, and we all have community agencies in our ridings that require that funding. But when we learned through the expenditure monitor that only $300 million got out the door into our communities, this, obviously, is concerning, and it should be concerning for everybody, especially people who are fiscally conservative. This was a moniker of the government: “We want to make sure that the money is being spent appropriately and going to the right places.” Well, we now have a growing body of evidence that that is not happening. So you can’t call us out for questioning this practice, because where the money is going, where the investments are going absolutely matters.

COVID-19—this was an additional part of the budget that I think is really concerning. I do want to thank our health critic for raising the issue of long COVID. COVID is serious. It’s still here. People are still suffering. And the hospitals that have been cobbling together some kind of a support system, gathering research, gathering best practices, have notified the government and this Minister of Health that they don’t have the funds to string these dollars along to provide that support. So if you know somebody who has long COVID, if you’ve seen how unproductive and debilitating long COVID can be, have a plan for it; have a strategy; have the Minister of Health stand in her place and say, “This is what we are going to do for long COVID.” That has not happened. Apparently, everything is fine on that side of the House.

The other lack of transparency which is really concerning to us—because health care and housing definitely dominated in this whole process. Even when the government says, “We’re going to make municipalities whole after Bill 23,” the Minister of Municipal Affairs stood in his place, after really taking these municipalities by surprise by overriding many of their growth plans—years and years of planning and consultation around environmentally responsible housing, intensification within those boundaries—and this minister decided, “You know what? We’re going to overrule, and we’re going to reduce the development charges that municipalities can access through developers.” Because this has been a long-standing relationship between municipalities and those who build houses—because it’s all primarily private sector—that those development charges help with the infrastructure costs. Those infrastructure costs matter, because they actually provide the opportunity to build the houses: the stormwater, the wastewater, the green space, the schools, the libraries, the roads. I mean, it’s kind of important.

So when the Minister of Municipal Affairs said, “You know what? Don’t worry, don’t worry. We still value you and we’ll make you whole”—in the budget, many municipalities, AMO in particular, were looking at making up for that funding gap. And for good reason, because their only other recourse is to raise taxes. So this amounted to downloading this responsibility to municipalities, who need the money. We actually did see a major jump in taxation—property taxes—across this province. Some municipalities were able to hold it to three or four, but in Waterloo region, it was at 8.9, because we’re a growing area and we need that infrastructure.

But when you follow the money, even more importantly, I would have to say—through estimates, our critic found this out—there’s actually a 25% Streamline Development Approval Fund for municipalities and there is a 70% Municipal Modernization Program, which is a reduction, which is a cut. So the Minister of Municipal Affairs says that he values municipalities, but when you follow where the money is going, he’s actually cutting the resources, one, to prove that the assets exist, because there’s a very patriarchal relationship in this House, with the Premier and with the minister and how they view municipalities—which is surprising, given the fact that they were both municipal councillors. And what the Premier said last week is that they just like to spend and spend and spend. Municipalities have the most accountability at any level, more so than federal, provincial. Local municipalities are held to a totally different level of account. So this discourse that the minister has and the Premier has with municipalities is not helpful to building new housing or even renovating new housing. So that’s where we are with that. There is a genuine growing distrust, and when you have that lack of trust, this undermines even good initiatives that the government may have.

When I was pressed to say what is good in this budget, I had to go through it a few times. The $202 million for affordable housing is a good investment. It’s a good step in the right direction. But when you look where that money is going, who’s getting the money and how little it actually adds to the value of housing initiatives in local organizations—I’m thinking of the city of Ottawa, whose top-up, based on this $202 million, is only $845,000. Our members from the Ottawa area said, “Listen, two houses”—this is not bold or ambitious housing development, not at all. There are some great inconsistencies, huge inconsistencies, between the language that the government is using about how great this budget is, and then the actual reality of what is happening in Ontario, the lived experience of Ontarians.

Thank goodness we have the Auditor General’s office as well. Who knows what’s going to happen with the FAO. This is a valuable part of our democracy. I’m hoping that this government will follow through and make sure that we go through the hiring process, but the Auditor General is also up for review, and I want to thank Bonnie Lysyk for the work that she’s done, particularly in the last report that came out. Her work on public-private relationships has been groundbreaking for Ontario and, really, Canada.

This is what she said around the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. and the entire gambling sector. She was particularly critical of the process that was used to select private casino operators for eight gaming regions within Ontario, resulting in 20-year contracts for the winning bidders. But among the criticisms were the facts that contracts were rewarded based on unrealistic financial projections, that the amount of capital investment included in the bid wasn’t included in the evaluation criteria, and that the capital investment which was included in the bids wasn’t included as a commitment in the final contract even when it was used to support revenue projections.

This is the important part: These contracts—because contract law used to be actually a thing in Ontario. These errors in the process have resulted in three of the eight regions needing to renegotiate what was supposed to be guaranteed revenue commitments and other missed opportunities for economic development, with direct losses to the province projected at billions of dollars over the length of the contracts.

So to say that the gambling file in Ontario is going well would be a huge stretch; it is messy right now, even with the regulator for gambling in Ontario going into the gambling business with iGaming. It’s unheard of.

She goes on to say, “Based on updated revenue projections for the eight gaming regions”—and this was as of March 2022—“total casino gaming revenue projections for the first 10 years of operations were reduced by $9.1 billion....”

Now, I’m not a gambler. I’m too Scottish, perhaps, to be gambling. I work very hard, and I don’t like losing money, and I have some charities that I’m very dedicated to, so I’m not a gambler, but gambling is here. The province of Ontario used to have this philosophy that if gambling is here, if people are going to gamble, then let’s make sure it is done in a safe manner, it is regulated, and that the funding that comes into the province goes to our schools, it goes to our hospitals, it goes to agencies that are actually doing really good work and protecting people—sometimes against themselves, because gambling is also very addictive.

The OLG’s share of these projected revenues was reduced by $3.3 billion—I’m sure the Minister of Education could use that money for education—reducing the projected net profit to the province by $320 million annually on average for 2024. So we are losing money. The government is gambling and the government is losing, and it seems intentional because this is actually by design, Madam Speaker. I’d like to know who got the contract to design such a terrible system.

But you know who else it’s hurting? It’s hurting Indigenous communities and nations. This is actually a growing theme here at Queen’s Park, when the government doesn’t take into account their responsibilities to negotiate in good faith with First Nations. This is from a recent article: “A First Nation community says they plan to challenge the Ford government’s decision to move ahead with online gambling, claiming it violates a constitutional right to consultation with Indigenous leaders.

“The Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation ... calls the Ontario government’s iGaming plans ‘deeply flawed’ and a move that will financially devastate their economy while setting back decades of community development efforts.”

It goes on to say that “most internet gambling by Ontarians currently takes place on websites not managed by the province, the new legal market will ensure integrity, fairness and player protections.” This is actually kind of comical right now.

“Kelly LaRocca, chief of MSIFN, called the announcement a ‘slap in the face of First Nations, and reduces their promises of reconciliation to a joke.’

“The First Nation says the provincial government has ignored section 35 of Canada’s Constitution, claiming the Ford government utterly failed to hold formal consultations with Indigenous governments—a violation of its duty to consult and accommodate impacted Indigenous groups.”

This is another quote from the chief: “‘The Ford government has recklessly ignored our concerns and has not offered any strategies to address the impact that their inadequate plan will have on our First Nation, our culture and our ability to provide services to our community.... We intend to challenge the province’s iGaming scheme in court.’”

And that seems like this is now the practice of this government, right? You know what the law is—the Premier, I assume, knows what the laws are. He may not have a respectful relationship, or even an understanding, that these dealings should be nation to nation. They should happen prior to announcements; they should happen prior to plans being rolled out to economies being interfered with. But he also seems very content to go to court. I’ve said this before in this House: The lawyers are doing very well in Ontario. This government has kept them very, very busy. I’ve even had to file an FOI to try to find out how many court cases this government has already engaged in. It’s easy to keep track of the ones you’ve lost because it’s actually almost all of them.

This is everything from stickers on gas tanks to—what’s another one? There are so many of them it’s hard to choose.

Question?

Further debate?

Thank you to both of my colleagues for your comments this afternoon.

To the member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound: I know you talked about some particular pages of the budget that you really enjoyed—obviously, for me, I have a certain section with the investments in training, specifically in the health care area.

You also mentioned Learn and Stay—we’re going to be together with the Minister of Health tomorrow; tomorrow is the actual kickoff day to Learn and Stay. Can you tell me what you’re hearing from students in your area, or even from the hospitals and long-term-care homes, about what it’s going to mean for the Owen Sound area?

I thank the member for the question. I very much agree with her about this program, ODSP, and how important it is and, more particularly, the changes that we have made to make it a much more effective program, particularly three: number one, having increased the overall amount, which hadn’t been increased in a decade or so; number two, pegging it to inflation, starting next year—that is a fundamental change to the program; instead of year-by-year arbitrary changes, we’re pegging it to inflation, so when CPI is rising, that program matches; and number three, a fundamental change to the income test, raising that threshold from $200 to $1,000 a month—it’s such an important structural change to the program; we’ve heard first-hand from employers what a big change that makes.

So there are many, many important and fundamental changes to make this program better.

You’re right; we did hear from committee members across as we were doing our travelling in the lovely months of the winter. One thing that struck me—I think there are two points in response to your question. Again, I get back to the structural change to raise the income threshold from $200 to $1,000. No, that doesn’t affect everybody, but for those who are impacted, it was a fundamental change. But more importantly, on the broader program, ODSP is not the only program, typically, that applies, and we have made so many other changes to the tax system for low-income seniors, for a working tax credit—on and on and on—so that these programs work together.

On the household income point, I take the member’s point. That may be an area we want to look at and see whether we can adjust the program going forward.

I look forward to being in Owen Sound tomorrow and talking about the importance of Georgian College and the role it’s having in the community.

So many of the educational measures begin on page 93 in the budget, and for the health care—it’s too many pages to mention.

What is great, I’d say, and what struck me most when the Georgian College program opened—I mentioned this in my remarks in passing—is the fact that it is attracting local students. One of the biggest challenges we’ve had in rural Ontario for many, many years is that people had to go away to get their education and often they didn’t come back. It was then a hunt to track down these doctors, nurses and PSWs. What’s great about this is that we have local students who will get educated in our community and stay in our community. It’s very, very exciting.

I’ll start with the overall comprehensiveness of the infrastructure spending. As I mentioned in my remarks, sector by sector, it’s a major, major investment, and not only in the near term but in the long term, because this kind of commitment anchors a government’s thinking for many budgets to come. And that’s the perspective I very much like.

I acknowledge the point that the member is making about investments on-reserve.

I think the other thing that I like about how this funding is designed is that we will be listening to communities in the future and sectors in the future to identify their priorities and look forward to dealing with them. So, hopefully, that addresses the member’s comment at some point in time.

The programs and the impact we’re seeing in the community is absolutely extraordinary. Bruce Power management made the—

Oh, gosh. Bill 124, again.

Bill 124: so Bill 124—this is exciting. I think there are 34 more days until this government loses in court again on Bill 124. I will want to say, the fact that you already lost Bill 124 and then you’re using more tax dollars to fight it is really—you know, there are some truly Progressive Conservative people who are not very happy with this. In fact, a lot of them do live in K-W and they have very strong opinions on it. But when you lose in court again on Bill 124, you will have to make up for lost time, for lost wages and the impact this has had on workers. Certainly, this is what we heard going community to community across this province.

But just to finish off with OLG, because I’m really just starting on OLG: The Internet gaming revenue grew by $139 million and $511 million in 2021-22. That’s a growth of 70% per quarter. There are so many people gambling in Ontario today, including when those hockey stars or those football stars start saying, “Get out there and gamble”—it really is such a dangerous precedent. We would never have these professional sports stars advocating for smoking or more drinking—actually, the drinking does happen, but the smoking doesn’t happen anymore. But the gambling in this province right now is certainly out of control, and the government has even undermined its own initial goal of generating some revenue around addictions and around supports for those who are addicted to gambling.

Meanwhile, private competitors saw growth of 65%, so introducing private competitors has cannibalized the OLG’s growth. What kind of smart business person creates a competitiveness, a competitor, to compete against themselves to generate revenue? It has gone according to plan. I’m totally in agreement with Chief LaRocca: If you had consulted with First Nations, who have a lot of experience in this sector, you would have found that there are many barriers, many loopholes and certainly a lot of risk that the province has taken on, and you didn’t have to. You didn’t have to do this. But for us, it has also encouraged less responsible practices, providing a far smaller share of its revenue for the province. That’s less money for schools, less money for hospitals, less money for child care—the things that we should be actually investing in.

I do want to say that it does appear that colonialism is alive and well in 2023, with the government saying, “Do you know what? We know best,” and the House leader and the minister responsible for mining saying, “Get out of the way if you’re not with us.” The only place that this government is going on these constitutional challenges is court. The law still matters in Ontario, as does the Constitution and as does the charter. Ironically, especially—we saw a real lack of respect, I think, this morning on the mining question—really disappointing.

However, what the government does not acknowledge and what our critic has made very clear is that we should have learned from the past. Some of us remember Ipper-wash. Some of us listen when Indigenous leaders and nations say to us, “This is our land. By law, you need our permission, our informed consent, to come onto this land,” and it is not helpful when this Premier says, “I’m going to get on my bulldozer and just go up there, and it’s going to happen regardless.” It’s irresponsible.

Actually, this is one of the major findings from the Ipperwash review, that it could have completely been avoided if there was respect—even a little bit of respect, Madam Speaker. So the Ring of Fire will be a ring of smoke, because this government is going to be in court. If you really care about mining, if you care about northern jobs, if you care about northern infrastructure, then don’t spend your time in court.

And so it does feel a little bit like déjà vu. Certainly in one of my first elections, we talked a lot about Dudley George over the course of that election, and I’m genuinely sad about this: We are going to be talking about these conflicts when the conflicts were completely avoidable if respect was on the table and if the law was followed. That would be a win-win-win for northern communities, for mining and for Indigenous communities, as well. This budget certainly reflects poorly on that.

The other thing that I did get to ask the finance minister in committee was about Ontario Place. Ontario Place also feels a bit like déjà vu in many respects. It does feel like the 407. The people of this province are in a 99-year lease for the 407. We paid for it, we built it, and we keep paying and paying over and over again. I will say that this 95-year lease for Ontario Place feels very similar to that.

The finance minister is a successful businessman, by all accounts, but I asked him some basic questions about this lease, because smart business people don’t sign 95-year leases. They also don’t sign 99-year leases. They also don’t sell off good portions of—because this is a de facto sale. A 95-year lease is a de facto sale, right? We’re not going to see what happens in 95 years, but it is about legacy, because we should be setting the tone from an environmental perspective, from an inclusion perspective, from an accessibility perspective for Ontario Place.

The entire narrative that the Minister of Infrastructure has created is that Ontario Place is not used and it’s falling apart and it’s a write-off. That is not true of Ontario Place. For those of us who go there and use it and spend time there, it’s a treasure.

Just to recap here, we did hear in 2021 that the government announced their friends at Therme were building an elite luxury spa on public parkland. I just want to tell you, there’s no huge call to our offices for huge public spas. People want food prices to be controlled. They don’t want to get evicted. They’re looking for child care. Their special-needs children—they want them included and accommodated in the public education system. These are what people are asking for. No one is calling MPPs and saying, “We want a spa.” It is just not happening.

You cut to March of this year; a city report shows a long list of problems with this plan. The spa is too big. The $450-million taxpayer-funded parking garage—or $350 million; it goes back and forth—violates even this government’s own policies.

The Minister of Infrastructure pressed on, and they told us that they signed a standard commercial lease for the spa that just happened to be for 95 years but—not so standard—that it must be kept secret. There’s no business case for a 95-year lease. Let’s be really clear about that. That is the seed of distrust. There’s no reason for this government to sign on to a 95-year lease—none at all. Ontarians already feel cheated on the 407, and this was the last time you signed a 99-year lease. So to draw parallels is very natural for so many of us. The lease is obviously not a standard commercial lease because if it was, then they could share it with us.

And then there are a number of issues around the transparency of this lease that I really do want to get onto the record. First of all, what we don’t know about this 95-year secret lease: Is the Therme parent company or a locally incorporated, ring-fence subsidiary—who’s financing this? Who has designed this lease? Is the guarantor Therme Austria, Therme’s bank or Republic of Austria? These are good questions. People want to know. Is there a break-free clause? Could we get out of this? Because that was the point I was pressuring the finance minister on in committee.

The improvement for the site—and this is interesting: the $350 million for 65,000 square feet. Now you do the math on this. It’s $5,400 per square foot for this parking garage versus, as a comparator, $1,000 per square foot for medical buildings and $1,200 for theatres.

What is the actual goal here? Is this a spa or a water park?

The parking garage: Is this even practical to build 2,000 spaces under Lake Ontario? Is that going to last? Is that doable? Is that a good investment to build all these parking spots close to or under the water?

The rental payments: They’re level for 95 years or they’re adjusted, either by CPI or predetermined adjustments. Is this tied to inflation? Is this a fixed amount?

These are damn good questions, I have to say. I would ask these questions when I was in business. I would look at a lease very carefully. I would say, “What is the intent here?”

I think the biggest question that people have about Ontario Place these days is, “What is the intended purpose?” What is the real goal here? Because if you don’t have trust, then you have incredible questions like, “Will this end up as a casino or a nightclub?” Because I don’t think the average life term of a spa is 95 years, and if it is, I don’t want to go to it. So these are some of the questions.

I put these questions to the finance minister, and he said “Well, call the Minister of Infrastructure to committee.” And so I moved a motion in public, and I said, “Listen, I do want to invite the Minister of Infrastructure.” She seems very keen on the plan. She’s very enthusiastic. If she’s really that proud of it, come to committee and show us the money, show us the numbers for sure, because there are lots of outstanding questions.

And if you look at the value of what this province has lost even with the 407, if you’re doing a comparator, okay: The government has signed the secret lease for 95 years with Therme. We don’t know who has written it, who is financing it—the financing of this is going to be very interesting—but we do know from past experience that in 1999 the Conservative government handed over a 99-year lease for Highway 407 for $3.1 billion. That’s about $4.4 billion in today’s dollars. What is the 407 worth today? Really, it is worth $40 billion, nearly a 1,200% increase in just 24 years. Do you think that the previous Conservative government sold off this highway in our best interest? Absolutely not. Was that ever the intent? Absolutely not. As I recall, this was to try to clear the way to get rid of the operational deficit. And what are we doing? We are paying so much money. If anybody was paying attention to what people are experiencing in Ontario, it is a true cost-of-living crisis. There’s so much pressure on people in this province. So we called on the government to release the lease. They’ve not yet chosen to do that.

Okay. For some reason, it’s going really fast.

I want to talk about autism, because autism was not mentioned in this budget. And this also led, I believe, to the minister resigning. I’m happy to hear that she is healthy and that she has moved on, but I have to say that it was a very sudden resignation. Merrilee Fullerton took a lot of heat on the long-term-care file. I do believe one of the stories that was shared about this particular minister, when she was with long-term care: that she did go to cabinet and she asked for money. And I do believe that looking at this budget on budget day and not seeing autism mentioned once would be a tipping point—not to speculate too much. I’m glad that she’s healthy and spending more time with her family, but I’m really, really concerned about the autism file.

In addition to introducing these amendments to try to make the bill stronger, which is our responsibility to do—we take that duty and responsibility very seriously. The autism file—to say it’s a mess doesn’t even do it justice, really. Given the increasing wait-list to access core clinical services, providing interim funding to everyone on the wait-list would be a way to provide immediate relief and support to families. We’ve made some recommendations in consultation with our critic on this file. We want the government to make interim funding available to everyone on the wait-list. That should happen right now, because the wait-list is huge.

We want the government to address the structural administrative model of the OAP. This is something that the government can do. I like the minister who is responsible for this file. I wish him well. I wish this minister strength and courage. When he first got the file, I said, “This ministry and these responsibilities have left more experienced ministers looking for the door.”

The third thing is to re-evaluate the determination-of-needs process. This letter that I sent to Minister Parsa back on May 9 was really a reach across the aisle: “Let’s figure this out.” But the fact that the budget did not address this backlog—this obviously was an intentional decision that the government made. I can’t see why you thought that was the ethical or responsible model.

This is what Bruce McIntosh, who came to committee, said to us—and this is exactly from Hansard: “The calls that the parents get—and I see this daily ... make them think that something is actually happening.” Actually, this is validated by our critic, because she explained this to the minister before the minister moved on.

This is what parents do: “They open up an account on a server to get correspondence back and forth with the new program, and then they wait for that invitation to services. That wait ... is years long. The government stopped publishing the number of registered children in December. At that point, it was 60,411” children. “Four months later, I suspect it’s approaching 65,000 and they missed their target at the end of the year to bring kids into the program. You know, the kids that they do bring into the program are faced with more waiting and the kids that they fail to bring into the program to meet their targets are—you guessed it—faced with more waiting.

“This program needs to be made more efficient. The bureaucrats have to get out of the way of the clinicians. The red tape and delay in reconciling a group of—we had a mom whose entire submission of invoices was rejected because she uses a post office box for correspondence and as a billing address”—can you imagine how broken the system is, that because a mom uses a post office box, she was denied the funding? This is all in Hansard—“and the people at the ministry took issue with the fact that she was apparently presenting herself as living at the post office”—well, there is a housing crisis, but I want to say that people do not live at the post office; it’s ridiculous—“seriously. They sent it back to her. It added another three weeks to getting a new block of funding. This is just one in 100,000 of these sorts of incidents.

“This government has a minister for red tape reduction”—this is his recommendation, and I actually love it—“for heaven’s sake, what is that fellow doing?” That would be a wonderful amendment. So we’re going to introduce an amendment, because there’s a common sense solution: Let’s put the minister of red tape in charge of the autism file, and make sure that those bureaucrats actually are streamlining those services.

I’ll support that.

Questions?

Thank you to my colleague from Waterloo for her remarks on the budget. I know she spoke a lot about housing. I find it kind of perplexing. As the minister mentioned this morning in question period: over 27,000 new housing starts in 2023 and a 16% increase from last year, which was a historic year, as well, Speaker, so it looks really promising for 2023 so far. And she mentioned the Homelessness Prevention Program allocations. Our government made some changes around that. It was a new funding allocation model which was based on the Auditor General’s report from 2021, the value-for-money audit. The member for Waterloo mentioned the Auditor General many times.

Does the member for Waterloo support the Auditor General and her recommendations around that funding formula?

You know, it’s always interesting to hear the government get up. The housing starts are approved housing that has not yet been built, so it’s a clear distinction. Also, this government also never talks about what is affordable and obtainable. If the government is so committed to building more expensive housing, then you’re not addressing the problem. This is why the government does need to invest directly and partner with the not-for-profit sector, which we heard loud and clear at finance committee.

The housing crisis is not going to get any better. It’s going to accelerate, because the housing options are unattainable and unaffordable and there are no supports for renters who are facing record evictions in Ontario right now. So I’m not confused that he’s confused; I’m confused that this government continues to follow down the same path and fail people in this province.

Thank you, Speaker, and to the member opposite, thank you for your presentation today. As the finance critic, I think you probably share your concerns about the province’s financial situation, and the budget, of course, is the blueprint to our financial situation. I wanted to share some news from the last week or two and quote Moody’s, which is a rating agency: “While the slowing economy and ever-growing demands on government spending will challenge the province’s ability to keep its budget balanced ... it now sees ‘a material probability’ that Ontario gets back to balance faster than it previously thought.

“This view is supported by the province’s revenue collection and ‘a building track record of controlling spending even when revenue exceeds prior expectations’....

“Balancing the budget sooner would allow the province to reduce its debt and keep its debt service costs under control, despite higher interest rates....”

So you may not agree with all the details in the budget, but is it fair to say you’re happy with this good news, as all Ontarians should be?

Questions?

To the member opposite: I had an occasion to sit on that side of the House with that member opposite for approximately one year. I seem to remember the disdain that she had for the Liberal government of the day. I also seem to remember her voting in favour of a Liberal budget. I’m not sure if I remember all of the times before that, because certainly I wasn’t here for the year prior, but the one thing that I find quite confusing is the disdain for the former Liberal government, the disdain for this government and all of the references to the people that you’re supportive of and all these individuals that you say are so upset.

But perhaps you can explain how it is, then, that this government was able to get an increase in some 20-plus odd number of seats and your particular party was able to only see a decrease in 10 seats, if what you say is accurate and everyone is so incredibly frustrated, as you claim them to be.

I appreciate the opportunity today to rise to speak to the budget. I am grateful to be able to speak in this place after hearing from both the Minister of Finance in earlier iterations of the debate, and also from the parliamentary assistants to the Minister of Finance: my seatmate, the excellent member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, and of course the member for Oakville.

I appreciated hearing from both of these members some of the important investments that are being made across this province. I appreciated hearing about the record expansion of health care that’s being provided through this legislation. I appreciated hearing about the ways that our government is committing to expanding access to skilled trades programs to ensure that more and more young people and those who are retraining and reskilling are able to access the education they need to have a good career within the skilled trades. And I appreciated hearing about the massive infrastructure projects that are being built in every corner of this province. I know that those members in their debate, in the participation that they had, spoke to some of the more broad provincial needs and the broad provincial investments that this government is taking.

This afternoon I have the great privilege of, first of all, sharing my time with the member for Markham–Unionville and the important voice that he brings from another part of the province, from the region in York, but I’m going to be speaking a little bit about some of the investments that this budget makes in the Niagara region. I have the great honour and privilege of being able to represent what I consider—and I’ve heard from many other members in this House that many consider—to be the most beautiful part of not just Niagara but of, frankly, the entire province: Niagara West, a unique gem sort of nestled between two Great Lakes, with a vibrant ecosystem of economic diversity, social diversity and, really, people who believe strongly in the value of hard work, of family, of communities that are working to build up a stronger future for them and their families.

And so, I’m going to speak about a couple of the changes that this budget makes and some of the investments that this budget makes. It’s going to build upon the response I had this morning to a question from the member for Carleton. When she asked me about the ways our government is making changes that will benefit the people of Niagara, I was struck by news that I read just a couple of weeks ago with regard to our unemployment rate. Ontario, of course, as a whole is booming. We’re restoring our leading edge as the economic engine of this great country. But in Niagara, we’re especially seeing what I termed this morning a renaissance, a revival of sorts, in our local economy, which for too long had been left behind, had been ignored, and, under this government, is now leading in so many ways. One of the ways that it’s leading is in record low unemployment.

Niagara, of course, has a long, proud history as an auto parts city, as an auto parts region, where manufacturing that services the auto sector was a crucial part of our economy. We saw for many years that the former Liberal government, propped up by the members of the New Democratic Party, failed to lend themselves to creating an environment that was supportive of that manufacturing sector. Now, under the leadership of this Premier and through the changes also in this budget—for example, introducing the new Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit, which will make Ontario manufacturers lower their costs, innovate and become more competitive—we’re seeing a growth in this sector after decades of abandonment by previous governments.

We’re also seeing investments in the infrastructure that is crucial to our agribusiness sector. Agriculture is a crucial sector of the Niagara economy. It contributes billions to our GDP, and it has a wide variety of characteristics. Niagara isn’t like some of the other regions who, of course, we all love throughout southwestern Ontario but who are perhaps really stuck to some of the more traditional commodity groups: corn, soybeans, wheat, perhaps some beef or dairy and some pork producing. We have those sectors, as well, but we also have a lot of value-added sectors. We have, of course, our famous wineries, but we also have new groups that are coming forward.

I think of the Ontario Hazelnut Association, who I met with recently, who are investing in the Niagara region because of our unique microclimate and also because of the changes that our government has brought forward to make the costs of doing business more predictable, by investing in access to natural gas and making sure that natural gas expansion across the Niagara region and across southwestern Ontario become a reality after many years of talk but no action by previous governments, by seeing meaningful efforts to reduce the red tape that the agricultural sector has to deal with when it comes to approving an expansion or to adding a new commodity group, to adding some of the unique viticultural gems that we also rely on in the Niagara region. So that has been a really, really important part of the puzzle, both expanding our competitiveness in manufacturing through tax reductions, through stable electricity supply, and also by ensuring that the agricultural sector is being supported.

But one of the areas I know many of the people who I grew up with and many of the people who I call friends and neighbours work in is construction. The investments that our government is making in world-class infrastructure projects, whether that’s the new West Lincoln Memorial Hospital or the new South Niagara hospital, or whether it’s the half a dozen new long-term-care homes that are going up across our region or simply the industrial and commercial expansion that’s happening—I just saw, even a couple of days ago, in Lincoln and their industrial park, a new job creator coming to town, building a new site and adding 75 jobs. I saw Welland is adding more jobs in manufacturing as well.

Each of these areas, of course, requires labour. It requires skilled trades and it requires people to be able to come forward and work hard in construction. Construction is becoming an increasingly important part of our local economy. It’s part of the reason that I believe our government is going to be able to achieve its goals of building 1.5 million homes to ensure that people are housed in a way that is safe and respectful. It’s about ensuring that people have that opportunity to go to work knowing they will be safe and supported by their government and that they’re able to build a province—a stronger Ontario, one that they can be proud of. So when I go back to my constituency and I meet with people from across not just West Niagara but from across the Niagara region and I speak with them about the future that Niagara has, there’s a palpable sense of excitement.

Unfortunately, for some years under the former Liberal government, we saw manufacturing leave. And I know, as someone who grew up in the agricultural sector, there was a real sense of alienation from the agricultural communities. There was a real sense that the work that they did wasn’t appreciated by the provincial government and they weren’t appreciative of the value that they added to the local economy. That has changed. So much of this budget, I believe, is about building on that culture of change. It’s about building on that culture of investment, yes, but also being responsive to the needs of the people of the province, whether that’s in the Niagara region or in other regions across this great province.

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to be in a couple of different meetings with representatives from various levels of government in the Niagara region who came here to meet with local cabinet ministers and to hear from those ministers what the vision for the province is from our government but also to share the work that’s happening at so many local municipalities to streamline services, to be able to provide the services that the taxpayers who pay provincial taxes, federal taxes and property taxes expect and deserve from their government.

One of the pieces that I see in this budget is a real reflection of the consultations that went into it. I’ve had the opportunity to host the member for Oakville, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance, in Vineland. We had stakeholders from across the region come forward and share their ideas. One of the pieces that we heard about the most was the need for, yes, housing—housing that’s affordable, housing that’s attainable—but also the need to make sure that the most vulnerable in our society are being taken care of. So I think the change to increase the ODSP to make more earnings available for those who are on ODSP was a great step and a response to the consultations that were held not just in Niagara but I know in various parts of this province.

But I think something that’s also historic is addressing the funding shortfall that Niagara region had experienced when it came to the homelessness prevention program. Going from $11 million to almost $21 million in annualized funding is tens of millions of dollars that will be taken off the backs of property tax payers, off the tax base in the Niagara region, and will be invested directly into new services, ensuring that our property taxes in Niagara are kept low but also ensuring that those who are the most vulnerable in our society are being looked after.

So I think recognizing the various parts of that equation—a strong economy with strong communities—is something that this budget aims and succeeds to do. Speaker, I know that I’m going to have to cede my time to the member from Markham–Unionville who will speak about his particular community, but I just wanted to add my support in debate of this budget. I will be supporting it because I believe it’s good news for the people of Ontario and the Niagara region.

Thank you to the member from Waterloo. During her speech, she talked about autism. I remember, prior to the 2018 election, that the Premier had promised that families with children with autism would never have to protest outside on the Queen’s Park lawn. There have been many protests since then. I believe the number back then on the wait-list was 28,000; I could be wrong about that. But I do know what was trending last year was #50KIsNotOk, meaning the wait-list was now at 50,000. The member from Hamilton Mountain recently brought up just, I think, today in question period that it’s now at 60,000.

To the member from Waterloo: What is going wrong with their strategy with autism where this number keeps ballooning, even though the Premier had promised that families would be taken care of and not have to protest?

I’d like to thank the member for Waterloo for her comments. Listening to her comments as a whole, they were insightful, they were incisive. But I would say that it’s doing this budget a kindness to call it as exciting as a three-pack of socks. It’s disturbing because we see a deliberate and calculated way that this has ignored the issues that are facing Ontarians after the many deputations we heard at the pre-budget consultations. We see that the gravy train of this Conservative government is going full steam ahead, whether it’s bad business decisions through the privatization of the 407, the Ontario Place lease, online gambling, the greenbelt, all of the legal losses, Bill 124. My question, though, to the member is, I wonder if they could speak about the agency nurses, yet another example of privatization that this government seems in favour of.

Thanks to my colleague for the question. He travelled with us for budget, and so we heard first-hand the damage the use of agency nurses is doing on the morale of nurses. But this is actually a quote: “‘It’s Going to Bankrupt Health Care’: Spending on Temp Agency Nurses Up More Than 550% Since Pre-Pandemic at One Toronto Hospital Network.

“As Ontario hospitals grapple with a staffing crisis, critics warn the rising reliance of temp agencies is not financially sustainable.” It is not financially sustainable. Having a hospital nurse make a certain amount of money and then having a temp agency nurse come and work right beside her at three times the cost is demoralizing. One nurse told us it’s humiliating. One nurse also says it is, from a health care practice, irresponsible. So this government should be capping the use of agency nurses in Ontario.

I just want to say, I think when Bruce McIntosh came to finance committee, he was really clear. He was like, “This is a program that has been designed for bureaucrats by bureaucrats.” He actually asked the government to ask the minister of red tape to investigate, because it is not a program that is designed to be successful.

Certainly, if you think about the cost of lost productivity and the cost to the education system, there’s a good case to be made in investing in and getting this program right, because right now, it is so very, very wrong.

The fact that we show up here each day and bring the real voices of the people of this province to the Legislature—we try to speak truth to power. We try to get the powers that be to listen. The fact that only 17.8% of the people voted in this province is a sign of how cynical people are about our democracy. I think the disdain that this Premier has for our democracy is also a very big part of that problem.

The member for Markham–Unionville.