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?

This government likes to throw around big numbers, but when you actually look at the spending, this is a government that’s sitting on $3 billion of unallocated funding. If you look at the expenditure report from the Financial Accountability Officer, when it comes to health care, this government was going to have a net funding shortfall of $21.3 billion. That’s a shortfall that will mean that we don’t get the kinds of supports in our hospitals and all the health care supports that we need.

We’re already seeing evidence of your underfunding in health care. In Ontario, we had the lowest wages in Canada for nurses. The average length of stay in the emergency for patients has increased by 34%. In fact, in the first quarter of 2023, 1,300 people received care in hallways—not to mention all of the emergency wards that were closed in this province.

How can you justify these numbers when this is the evidence of what this budget is doing to the people of the province of Ontario—