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.