Today’s Auditor General report on the environment reminds us that this government scrapped wetland targets in 2018 but didn’t tell anyone for three years. The Auditor General herself only found out in 2021.

So we want to know: What other attacks on the environment is this government keeping a secret?

This government also passed laws that force conservation authorities, often under duress, to permit development on wetlands and flood plains, exposing people and property to flood risk.

Last week, the Premier claimed he won’t let developers build on ponds, wetlands and marshes. But why should anyone believe this government when the Premier has repeatedly let developers build on ponds, wetlands and marshes?

“Petition for Better Staffing, Better Wages and Better Care in Ontario’s Public Hospitals.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas registered nurses and health care professionals are the backbone of Ontario’s public health care system; and

“Whereas nurses and health care professionals are fighting for better staffing, better wages and better care in Ontario’s public hospitals; and

“Whereas the government has the power to direct the funding and priorities for the Ontario Hospital Association in this bargaining process;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Support nurses and health care professionals represented by the Ontario Nurses’ Association in their collective bargaining with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) by demanding the OHA reach a negotiated agreement with nurses that results in better staffing, better wages and better care in Ontario’s public hospitals.”

Thank you for this petition to the people of my riding. I’m going to add my name to it and give it to page Leonard to take to the table.

It’s my honour to rise today to speak to this budget bill on behalf of the good people of Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. You put me in this place, you trusted me, and I work every day to make sure that I continue to earn that trust and be an MPP you can be proud of. So you can be sure that what I’m about to say about this budget today reflects everything I have been hearing from you, all your hopes, your dreams and your disappointment in this government with this budget.

It really is like we’re talking about two Ontarios. In this province of Ontario, if you are, let’s just say, an international corporation like Therme getting a 95-year lease on our public lands, you’re doing pretty well. If you’re a for-profit corporation that is profiting from the privatization of our health care system, if you are profiting from seniors’ knees, their eyes, their hips, those operations, you’re doing pretty well in this province. If you’re a developer that now has got your hands on the greenbelt—the government was supposed to be a steward of these lands in perpetuity—you’re doing pretty well in this province.

But do you know what? We just heard it here: If you have a child with autism, you’re struggling in this province. If you are a middle-class taxpayer, you are having a hard time making ends meet. A small business owner, barely recovering from COVID: It’s going to be difficult for you. A working single mom in this province, trying to feed her kids, put clothes on their backs, keep a roof over their heads: This bill does not speak to you at all. It’s like this government doesn’t understand what’s going on in the real main streets of all of our ridings and all of our communities.

There’s an affordability crisis happening out there. People can’t pay their bills. People are struggling to buy groceries. The cost of bread is something that gets talked about in our communities. That’s what people are facing, and this government has set their priorities, and it’s not those people. You are not serving those people. There really are two Ontarios. The people who have the ear of this government, the corporations, the wealthy: You were reflected in this budget. But if you’re an average working Ontarian, this budget does not speak to you.

Recently, there was a survey done—very recently—by Angus Reid, a reputable pollster. They polled Ontarians to see what are their priorities, their number-one priorities: 79% of Ontarians selected health care as a top priority if they were over the age of 55. Cost of living and inflation: 62% of Ontarians were concerned with those, followed by health care and housing affordability. Those are the top priorities of the people of the province of Ontario, and this budget that this government put forward is exactly in opposition to what people are concerned about—absolutely in opposition to this.

When we talk about cost of living and inflation, the government talks about the cost of living, about inflation and inflation and inflationary pressures, but let’s be perfectly frank: This government has seen a windfall when it comes to inflation. While the people of the province of Ontario are struggling because of inflation, because of the high cost of everything—gas, energy bills, food, housing—this government is seeing a windfall. Your revenue when it comes to sales tax in the province of Ontario has gone through the roof. Why? Because people have to pay sales tax on hugely inflated grocery bills. That’s why.

In fact, this is a government that highly benefits from land transfer tax. Why is land transfer tax so high now? Why are people struggling to pay that? Because of the skyrocketing cost of housing in this province. This is a government that is benefiting from the struggles of the people of the province of Ontario. You’ve made money because people are struggling.

You would think, if this government actually was concerned with the people of the province of Ontario and the struggles they face, that they would share that windfall. That would be the decent thing to do, right? You’re the government. You took their money, their taxes, and now they’re struggling. Now would be the time for you to step up and help them, but in fact, that is not the case.

This is a government that currently has underspent their planned spending when it comes to health care. Even your promised spending is underspent, and the FAO has been very, very clear, particularly when it comes to the health care sector, that this shortfall of underspending in health care means that we will not be able to continue to support existing health care sector programs and announced commitments. So you’re already failing when it comes to health care and your spending in the province of Ontario, when people, as we know when it comes to health care, are really concerned and we are facing a crisis in health care.

This is not normal behaviour, really, for a government. It’s not normal for a government to profit off the misery of the people of the province of Ontario and not share that wealth. You would expect a government to say, “Do you know what? We did pretty well. People are struggling, so let’s give that back to the people who have paid this.” But instead, as I said, who do we see profiting in this province? Well-connected developers, huge multinational corporations that are getting their access to public domain lands and developers, not the people who we hear from every single day in this province here.

I’m not sure how this government measures success. They seem to measure success by talking about—

Interjections.

Yes, they seem to measure success by the number of—

Interjection.

What I was saying is that you would know, you would see that your members are struggling. People and businesses are struggling. People are finding it’s very, very difficult to pay their property tax, to pay their income tax, to afford their groceries and to afford everyday, basic necessities. But this is a government that is not sharing the windfall that they have seen from the increase in the sales tax revenue, the land transfer tax revenue, the gas tax revenue that this government gets. They’re not sharing that.

We would measure success by seeing that everyday Ontarians are doing better, but in fact, that’s not the case. People are doing much worse in this province. This government has been in power for five years and things have not gotten better; they’ve only gotten worse. Really, there’s no better example of that than people in this province not being able to afford baby formula. I mean, how is this in the province of Ontario, which has been described as the capital, the economic engine of Canada? How is it possible that families are unable to afford to pay for baby formula?

The MPP for Niagara Falls brought this up in the House, questioned the Premier about the increasing cost of baby formula. It needs to be said that the cost is rising by $5 to $10 per case, with cases that last mere days. That reaches about $75 a month for families trying to feed their babies. They’re trying to feed their babies. They’re struggling with the high cost of living, but there’s nothing more upsetting than to hear that people can’t afford to feed their babies. This budget does nothing to address the affordability crisis.

We’ve asked time and time again for this government to stand up to corporations that are price-gouging, corporations that are taking advantage of people who are desperate, but this government has done nothing. We ask you to stand up to corporate bullies. We measure our success by how we make life affordable for average people, for moms feeding their babies. That’s a measure of success that I would like to see this government stand up and talk about.

We have a number of reports coming from the FAO, which is an independent office of the Legislature that provides excellent information for us as legislators to do our job. I would say that the most recent report, which the FAO released today, about women in the labour force is really extremely disheartening, but it’s really not surprising. We see a report from the FAO that says that there continues to be a stalled gender wage gap in this province. Further to that, the FAO has said that while women have made progress, they still continue to earn, on average, about 84 cents to the dollar that men make. That’s a significant gap. That gap in wages would help women, mothers to be able to afford the rising cost of baby formula. What we see instead of a government that understands that women are major contributors to their household income is single moms who are raising a family. Women who have so many responsibilities inside the home and in the workplace are not in any way being protected by this government.

In fact, the FAO also finds that—what did he describe it as? A motherhood earnings penalty. This wage gap, this penalty that women face economically when they’re in the workforce, is only exacerbated when they do have children. Using this data, the FAO finds that after having a child, Ontario mothers’ earnings are cut in half and it can take up to four years to return to their pre-childbirth earnings level. This is unbelievable. This is the kind of stat that speaks to the poverty that we see in this province. It speaks to the fact that we have a child poverty rate in this province that we should all be ashamed of. It speaks to the fact that one of the highest users of food banks in this province are kids. It speaks to the fact that families and parents and teachers run—in schools, they have to run nutrition programs that aren’t funded by the government, that are funded by donors and are funded by fundraising to make up the shortfall for people’s ability in their household to feed their kids.

There is a wonderful program in Hamilton called Food4Kids. They also identify a gap. While there are nutrition programs or breakfast programs in schools, oftentimes kids go home on the weekend and they’re hungry. There isn’t food for them at home. This fantastic program makes sure that kids are sent home with backpacks with food so that while they’re not in school benefiting from nutrition programs, they do have food over the weekend. This is a program that is only run by donations, by people who step up and see the need, not by this government.

If this government were quite clear on the important role that women play in making sure that families are thriving and are able to meet the basic necessities, they wouldn’t actually have spent so much time attacking women-led working sectors. What we have seen from this government is a government that continues to attack health care workers and education workers. These are primarily women-led sectors.

First, we have a government that took midwives to court. I can’t think of a more women-led sector than midwives. This is a government that took them to court to fight their pay equity award. This is a government that, with Bill 124, has frozen the wages of public sector workers, including nurses and PSWs, primarily women-led industries. This is what this government has done.

This harmful legislation—not only legislation but attacking them in court—is something that this government needs to really acknowledge. You need to understand that you are hurting children. When women can’t earn a decent living in this province, when families go hungry, it’s the children who suffer the most. That’s how we would measure success. We would measure a successful budget that made sure that children were front and centre, that their well-being was the first thing that we ensured.

Interjections.

Thank you. The other priority that I read out for the people of the province of Ontario is housing affordability. We know that we have a housing crisis in this province. We’ve been saying it for quite a long time. We are talking about the entire spectrum of housing, from single-family homes to rental units to social housing. All of that needs to be addressed by this government.

This government’s idea that they can hand over the greenbelt to developers, that developers will build these large homes on wetlands and protected lands and that that will magically trickle down to allow there to be housing in other areas is magical thinking. It’s not borne out by economics, and it really is just another way that this government has a cover story for how they are making sure that their friends, their donors and their connected folks benefit without any protections, any assurances that what they’re doing will allow everyone to benefit.

We need look no further than the homelessness crisis that we’re facing in all of our communities and the costs, both the financial and the social cost that the homelessness crisis is causing in the province of Ontario. The government introduced Bill 23. The most significant thing about Bill 23, this housing bill that they put forward, is that it basically takes away revenue from municipalities and gives a break to developers. It is simply a taxpayer-funded gift to developers. This revenue hole at the municipal level is absolutely going to cost taxpayers.

The government also promised that when they took away the development charges, they would make municipalities whole. It’s not in the bill. I don’t see it in the bill. Municipalities are left holding the bag. You gave developers a gift, but you gave it with somebody else’s money. And you know what? The Association of Municipalities of Ontario was very, very, very clear on this—very clear that what you are doing would, in fact, cost municipalities.

But it’s not just municipalities. When I talk about municipalities, I’m talking about the things that municipalities provide. They build our roads. They provide the water and the waste water infrastructure. They collect our garbage and our recycling. They build roads, and they build schools. And municipalities are now in crisis, and they have to do one of two things. They have to raise property taxes—which they are doing all across the province of Ontario. This government has created a chaos in municipal budgets by dumping costs on them which they are unable to support, unless they cut services or raise taxes.

There’s only one taxpayers’ pocket, and this is a government that doesn’t care whose pocket it comes out of as long as the changes they make benefit their friends and benefit their insider developers. It’s such a narrow-minded, short-sighted approach to housing, with absolutely no guarantee that what you are doing will result in housing that people can afford or housing that will address not only just the homelessness crisis but the fact that tenants can’t pay their rent. Tenants are being renovicted with absolutely no protections by this government.

The municipalities have been begging you not to do this, to make them whole, but you’ve turned your backs on them, including turning your backs on taxpayers and people who live in municipalities. All 444 municipalities across the province of Ontario are going to struggle because of your actions and your lack of investments in this budget.

But don’t take it from me. Let’s return to the Angus Reid poll that said “the majority of those who voted for the Progressive Conservatives”—so your voters, people who voted for you in 2022—“believe the government has done a bad job ... on the cost of living.” Seventy per cent said you did a bad job on the cost of living, 65% are saying you’re doing a bad job on health care, and 70% said that you’re doing a bad job on housing affordability. These are your voters, and do you know what? For once, I agree with them. This is a budget that fails to meet the moment, and it is a budget that is a disgrace when people in this province are struggling.

I would say when it comes to crown wards, there’s a lot that this government could do. I would say that I work with a group that has worked with universities, including McMaster University in my riding, to make sure that anyone that was a crown ward at any point in their life, even if they’re now adults, is able to access free post-secondary education. So anything that we can do to improve the outcomes for crown wards is something that I would support.

Thank you very much to the member for the question. We stand up all the time and read a petition from Sally Palmer and the work she does to help us understand that the ODSP and OW rates in this province are legislated poverty. We need to understand that not everyone can work, and people go through very difficult periods of their lives. In fact, this motherhood earning penalty, as I described it, says that when women have babies, they plunge into poverty and it takes them many, many years to recover.

So looking at the social assistance rates and the ODSP rates that are punishing and that ensure people live in poverty—it’s something that this government should do. The first thing they did when they came to office was cut in half the increases to OW and ODSP. It’s my feeling that it would just be the humane thing to do to understand that families and children live in homes where they’re suffering under these rates.

In fact, the chief planner of the city of Hamilton, Steve Robichaud, told city councillors: “Will the purchaser or tenant actually benefit from that?” Speaking to the development charge waivers, he said, “The developer keeps those profits and prices stay the same.”

So in fact, the evidence, even from the chief planner from the city of Hamilton, is clear that waiving these development charges does not benefit young families that want a home. They benefit developers, and it costs taxpayers more money.

I just have to say, this is a government that has had the biggest spending budget in the history of Ontario. They still have the second-largest debt-to-GDP, but let’s just say this: They have the lowest per capita spending in all of Canada on the kinds of social services that we all rely on. And who’s picking up the slack? Those not-for-profit agencies that are seeing their doors bulging with people there looking for the help that they’re not getting from this government.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member for your presentation here. We need to understand that in this House, this is the crown, and you are a signatory to Treaty 9 and you have an obligation to make sure you are engaged in free, prior and informed consent in any lands that belong to Indigenous communities and First Nations governments.

In this House, we’ve heard how opposed they are to this. The member from Brantford–Brant brought Logan Staats to the House, and he stood in his place and said to this government, “We are opposed to you taking our land.” We had the Land Back movement with Skyler Williams in Caledonia. We do not want to see an Ipperwash, an Oka Crisis, another Caledonia here in the province of Ontario. You shouldn’t want it either.

So why is this government recklessly pursuing a divide-and-conquer colonial strategy when they know it will only lead to confrontation and you are not living up to your responsibilities as signatories to Treaty 9 and representatives of the crown?

I appreciate the member quoting John F. Kennedy—“a rising tide lifts all boats”—but we know that neoliberalism is a failed strategy. We know that it has shown to result in higher incidents of poverty and health care costs for the average person anywhere that notion was applied.

My question to you is, what do you say to the people that have no boats? What do you say to the people that, in fact, see this government supporting people with the big boats? Corporations, the for-profit health sector—to look at companies like Therme, who are getting a 95-year lease. They’re doing well. Their boats are being raised by this government. But people in the province, moms that have kids with autism, people that are using the food banks—this is an aphorism that is an insult to them when they themselves see that they are suffering and you are just saying that if we support the bigs, they will profit, when it’s not the case.