The province is signatory to Treaty 9. Unfortunately, in this budget, we haven’t seen very much help for First Nations. Even though we have spoken about the water crisis, the housing crisis, communities being landlocked in their own reserves—and yet, silence; we haven’t seen anything helping them. We’ve seen First Nations come here and tell this government that they’re bringing this government to court because of the lack of help, of exchanging and trying to find solutions.

I ask this government: We are a signatory to Treaty 9—we all are. So why not fix the water crisis? Why not fix the home crisis and also the landlock that Attawapiskat is facing? Why not do this when we’ve brought this over and over and over again?

I’d just like to welcome our guests from the Ireland Canada Business Association and our guests from the Republic of Ireland who have joined us here today.

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.

We just have a point of order: the government House leader.

I apologize to the member. The member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas has the floor.

Through you, Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for their submissions. She touched on a few issues that are very strong in my heart. So in a previous life, literally a year ago, I dealt with matters under the child protection act. It was important work. It was necessary work, and I valued that work because I knew I was making a difference. One of the things that really spoke to me in the budget was proposed measures to improve outcomes for the youth leaving the child welfare system by investing over $170 million over three years to set them up on a path of independence, which is so important when you’re talking about children.

Will the member opposite support these strong initiatives that will help our children?

Thank you and good afternoon, Madam Speaker, and I want to correct what I believe is information that isn’t necessarily accurate when it comes to—

We’re going to move to questions, and I’ll recognize the member for Flamborough–Glanbrook.

I’m going to move to the next question. Member for Thornhill.

I want to thank my colleague for her remarks. Last week, we had a constituency week and I took the opportunity to visit a number of community service agencies in the London area. I visited staff at Community Living London, Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services, L’Arche, Meals on Wheels etc. One of the things I heard repeatedly was that there has been no increase at all in base funding for many of these vital community support agencies for a decade or more. They are already dealing with wages in that sector that are far below the wages that are paid to similar workers in the institutional sector.

I wondered if the member would like to comment on whether there was any funding in this budget to help stabilize and ensure the sustainability of that vital community support sector.

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.

For 31 years I was the mayor of my community, 10 years of which I sat on the district social services administration board. Through 15 years of the previous government, we lobbied for increases in funding to help those most vulnerable and at risk of homelessness. We never received anything.

I’ve sat here and I’ve listened to the members opposite talk about how there’s nothing in the budget for the most vulnerable. Do you not think a 40% increase for homelessness prevention programming, nearly $202 million more, bringing the total to $700 million for homelessness prevention programming—that represents a tripling of funding in Thunder Bay for the Thunder Bay DSSAB. How can you sit there and say there aren’t supports in this budget for those most vulnerable in our community? Do you not think that an increase of 40% for homelessness prevention programming is a benefit?

I want to clarify what I believe is incorrect information regarding development charges in the province of Ontario. Madam Speaker, the member opposite was talking about affordable housing and not-for-profit housing. Our government is giving organizations, not-for-profits like End Well—one of the best not-for-profit organizations in Ontario. They’re waiving development charges so that they can build more units. They’re waiving development charges so that people can build more rental units, purpose-built rental units.

The opposition says we need more units for people across Ontario. We’re incentivizing builders to build more of these rental units. They are freezing—not taking away, but freezing DCs, development charges, on new builds so that young families can finally realize the dream of home ownership.

My question to the member opposite: Why are you against giving not-for-profits, people who want to rent and young families a break in getting into the housing market?

It’s an honour to rise to participate in the third reading debate on Bill 85, the budget bill. You know, Speaker, you can oftentimes talk about your values, but you really have the opportunity to show your values when you put a budget forward because it really shows the priorities that a government has. Right now, when you look around Ontario, there seems to be a crisis kind of everywhere: the health and education systems; the housing affordability and cost-of-living crisis; the climate crisis; the crisis of poverty that so many people are feeling in our communities. I want to talk about what could be in this budget to address those crises but are not.

I’ll start with health care, mental health and education. According to Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer, over the next five years, looking at how this budget lays things out, the province of Ontario is going to underspend on health care, long-term care and community care by $21.8 billion, when you take into account population growth, inflation and what the government has said they want to accomplish. That is going to continue a crisis in our health care system, a crisis that’s going to have profound additional costs to our communities: emergency room closures; surgical and wait time backlogs; the continuing loss of front-line staff in our health care system, who are overworked, underpaid and undervalued.

We just saw a report yesterday coming out in our education system on the rising levels of violence. I just met with Catholic educators a few hours ago in my office, talking about this issue. So much of it stems from the fact that we don’t have sufficient resources for educational assistants and other staff to support students in our classrooms, especially students with special needs. That’s why it’s so distressing when the FAO projects—again, looking at inflation and population growth—that the government will underspend what our education system needs by $6 billion.

Speaker, the values of the Ontario I want to live in are values that are centred in building caring communities and investing in the future. That’s why it distresses me to see this budget underfund education and health care and, finally, mental health services.

Mental health service organizations in this province said they needed a minimum 8% increase just to maintain existing services. The government will talk about the 5% increase that’s in this budget for mental health, and that is welcome—there’s no doubt about it—but it’s insufficient to actually maintain existing service levels, which to me is unacceptable when we have 28,000 young people on a wait-list to access mental health services that can be as long as two and a half years.

Think about young people on suicide watch. Think about young people with complex eating disorders and other complex mental health crises having to wait 18 months to two and a half years to access services. To me, that’s not the Ontario I want to live in.

Let’s talk about the housing affordability crisis. This government’s solution to the housing affordability crisis is “pave at all costs”: pave over the farmland that feeds us; pave over the wetlands and green space that protect us, clean our drinking water. It’s especially troubling when you think about the climate crisis that we’re experiencing right now. Look at the hazy skies you see outside this building right now from the forest fires in Alberta. Think of the people experiencing flooding in the Ottawa River valley—once again, a 100-year flood; it seems like we have one every couple of years. Yet this government wants to pave over the wetlands and green space that protect us at a cost that is fiscally irresponsible.

Think about this: It costs 2.5 times more money to service a sprawl household versus a home built within an existing urban boundary. The city of Ottawa did a study determining that it cost them $465 per person every year—that’s property taxpayers—to service a home through sprawl. They make $600 a year—they bring in more tax revenue—for one built within the existing urban boundary. That’s $1,000 per taxpayer per household per year if we decide to build homes in communities that people can afford, in the communities they want to live in, instead of sprawling out and paving over our greenbelt.

This budget wants to expand highway construction. We already owe $52 billion in unfunded infrastructure costs because of the sprawl developments of the past. Then on top of that, according to the Financial Accountability Officer, we’re going to pay an extra $26.2 billion this decade alone for infrastructure costs due to the climate crisis.

At some point, we have to ask ourselves, when are we going to start building communities we can actually afford, with houses where people want to live in close to where they work, not imposing the costs of sprawl on them and protecting them from the climate crisis?

Speaker, I want to close, and I only have a couple of minutes left. Poverty costs this province $33 billion a year, and yet this budget maintains legislated poverty for people on ODSP and Ontario Works. That’s not the Ontario I want to live in.

Next question?

Thank you very much for the presentation from the member from Hamilton West, Dundas and Ancaster—not necessarily in that order.

You spoke about motherhood wage penalty, the gap between women’s wages and the average man’s wage doing equivalent work. I wonder if you could talk about a disability penalty. When I think of the social assistance rates that are available for people with disabilities and really how all of that money is always spent locally, and yet it’s not nearly enough for people to live on—if you would address that, I’d appreciate it.

It’s a special honour to be able to rise here today to speak in support of Bill 85, the Building a Strong Ontario Act, introduced by the Minister of Finance, because as parliamentary assistant at the Treasury Board, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the minister and with our colleagues to help develop the 2023 budget. I want to thank the minister and his staff, and also the President of the Treasury Board and our team at TBS, for all their work over the past few months.

Speaker, before I begin, I’d like to note I will be sharing my time with my friend the member from Kitchener–Conestoga.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to travel around the province for a pre-budget consultation with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. In Mississauga, the minister and our team visited the Hazel McCallion Campus at Sheridan College to listen to stakeholders, including many from Mississauga–Lakeshore. The 2023 budget reflects their concerns and their priorities.

In this budget speech, the minister got into his electric vehicle and took us on a trip around the province. This afternoon, I’d like to take us on another trip around Mississauga–Lakeshore, and I will start at the Mississauga Hospital, where I was born and my sons were born, and my mother worked in the kitchen as a first-generation immigrant. The hospital opened in 1958, and Mississauga needed a new hospital 15 years ago, but the former Liberal government never approved the funding.

Our 2023 budget includes a historic multi-billion-dollar investment to support a complete reconstruction of the hospital, and work is already under way, with an eight-storey parking structure with spaces for 1,500 vehicles. The new hospital will be almost triple the size, 24 storeys and three million square feet, with a thousand beds and 80% in private rooms. Speaker, this will be the largest and most advanced hospital in the history of Canada.

In total, the 2023 budget includes over $48 billion in hospital infrastructure. That is an increase from $40 billion last year and $30 billion in 2021. Speaker, that is an increase of 60% in the last two years.

In March, Trillium Health Partners and Infrastructure Ontario signed an agreement with EllisDon and PCL Healthcare Partners to deliver the new Mississauga Hospital with a progressive P3 approach. There are projects like this under way right across the province. Soon we’ll be able to drive just over to Etobicoke Creek to visit the Queensway Health Centre, where they’re building a new nine-storey, 600,000-square-foot tower with over 350 new hospital beds in a modern centre of complete care. As the minister said, in 2023-24, the health budget is $81 billion, an increase of over $6 billion over last year. That is an 8% increase.

Back in Mississauga–Lakeshore, we’ll be able to walk outside our new hospital and take the new 18-kilometre Hazel McCallion LRT line on Hurontario, which is on budget and on schedule to open in the fall next year. We’ll be able to take the LRT down to Port Credit GO station, with 15-minute service or better, and to our new BRT line along Lakeshore. We’re building a modern, reliable interregional transit network across the GTA. In total, the 2023 budget includes $71 billion in transit infrastructure, up from $62 billion last year. That’s an increase of 15% just in the last year alone.

Along Lakeshore, we might find a new home in Brightwater or the new Lakeview Village, which will add almost 20,000 new homes along the waterfront thanks to an MZO announcement on Friday by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. And again, I want to thank him and his team for all their work on this file. The 2023 budget also recognizes the need to build on previous investments, like the Lakeshore Lofts, Indwell’s first affordable and supportive housing development in Mississauga, which just celebrated its first anniversary.

I was proud to join the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in Mississauga, where we announced more details about our investment of $700 million each year through the Homelessness Prevention Program, including a $202-million increase over last year and over $42 million for Peel region, a 38% increase.

I want to thank Jannies Le, the executive director at Armagh House, for joining us at our consultation at Sheridan College in Mississauga. Armagh is the only transitional health facility in Peel for victims of domestic violence. They’re working on doubling their capacity, and the 2023 budget will help them finish their project. As Jannies said, “The additional investment into the Homelessness Prevention Program is hopeful for the women and children living in shelters in the region of Peel. Armagh’s current expansion to build 10 additional apartment units is nearing completion, and with the support of the HPP funds, we will be able to serve those families.”

Speaking of families, we can stop next at Alpha Discovery Kids Preschool in Sheridan Park, and I want to thank the Minister of Education for joining us at the grand opening for 93 new child care spaces, which is part of our commitment to add 86,000 new high-quality child care spaces by 2026. In total, the 2023-24 education budget is $35 billion. That is an increase of over 7% since last year.

Then we can walk over to Wellbrook Place, a new state-of-the-art long-term-care home on Speakman Drive that will open later this year with 632 new residents. This will be the largest long-term-care home in Ontario. As I said earlier today, I had the opportunity to visit the construction site with the Minister of Long-Term Care, and I want to thank Tess Romain and her team at Partners Community Health for all their work on this project. It is part of the historic investment of $6.4 billion in the largest long-term-care building program in Canadian history, adding 31,000 new beds and upgrading 28,000 beds, and that includes 1,100 new and upgraded beds in Mississauga–Lakeshore alone, more than any other riding in the province of Ontario.

My constituents are excited about this investment in health care, education, transportation and long-term care. It’s worth taking a moment to ask how we have been able to do all this. Well, we’ve been able to do this because the Premier and the Minister of Finance have made Ontario open for business once again. We are cutting taxes and energy costs. We are building a world-class skilled workforce, and we’re reducing the burden of red tape. The Minister of Red Tape Reduction is continuing to work on Bill 91. These policies have produced an economic recovery that leads the country, and it’s given us the resources we need to make these investments.

For our final stop today, we can drive our electric vehicle to the Ford assembly plant in Oakville where I worked for 31 years. When we were elected in 2018, companies were leaving Ontario. Ontario had lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs, including many in the auto sector. Sergio Marchionne at Fiat Chrysler told us that Ontario was the most expensive place in the world to do business, and the former Minister of Finance from Mississauga–Lakeshore said assembly line manufacturing was a thing of the past. My friends at Unifor 707 in Oakville watched as Ontario lost automotive sector jobs in St. Thomas, Oshawa and Windsor to Michigan, Mexico and overseas.

Now, since 2018, Ontario has added over 600,000 new jobs in the last two and a half years. We have attracted over $25 billion of investment from global automotive manufacturers. That includes $1.8 billion to transform Ford’s Oakville assembly plant into a global hub to manufacture electric vehicles beginning next year.

The 2023 budget includes a new Ontario-made manufacturing tax credit to attract even more investment in new equipment and machinery. Speaker, on Saturday Unifor 707 celebrated their 70th anniversary with a new confidence and optimism that we didn’t have five years ago, and in large part, that’s because of this Premier and our Minister of Finance and budgetary policies of this government. So I look forward to voting for this motion, and I urge all members to join me.

Now, as I said, I will share my time with the member for Kitchener–Conestoga.

We’re going to move to questions.

I thank the member for his very passionate speech outlining what we should be focusing on. I heard a government member, during their line of questioning, proudly proclaim that this government was looking to increase ODSP by 5%. In the midst of an affordability crisis, do you believe that this is enough money—below inflation—for some of the most vulnerable among us?

I always appreciate questions from the member from Kitchener–Conestoga. We’re neighbours. We may not always agree, but we always figure out ways to work together, so I appreciate that.

When it comes to building highway connections between the two cities, multiple governments have talked about this. I’m not opposed to building the highway, but I think there are ways that we can address gridlock more immediately and that are a higher priority.

First of all, why don’t we have an all-day direct bus connection between Guelph and KW? We finally got an announcement for a limited connection from Metrolinx just in the last few weeks, but let’s actually start building direct transit.

Secondly, and this is something I know the two of us agree on and have been working on: Let’s actually finally deliver all-day, two-way GO between KW, Guelph, Brampton, Toronto. I think we can go a long way towards addressing gridlock in a very affordable, environmentally responsible way by prioritizing transit links between our two great cities.

No, it’s not. How can we expect people to live on $1,200 a month when the average rates in a city like Toronto is—rent for a one-bedroom apartment has hit $2,000 a month. I was distressed; I want to read this out: The Daily Bread Food Bank just recently had a news conference, and in March of 2023, there were 270,000 client visits to the food bank in Toronto alone.

We’re facing a serious crisis here that is having a direct impact on people’s lives, not to mention the fact that it’s costing our province $33 billion a year. That’s the highest number ever recorded in the history of a food bank.

They support doubling ODSP rates, but I want to put it on record today that they asked for at least a $100 top-up for individuals and $200 per month, just to get us—

While I may disagree philosophically with a lot of what I heard from the member from Guelph, the one thing we do agree on is better connection between Waterloo region and particularly Kitchener and Guelph. There is a long-standing tradition of governments talking about building a new Highway 7, and it’s something that has moved very slowly, but we have seen the most progress under this government.

I’m very curious to know whether or not the member from Guelph supports building a new Highway 7 and whether or not he sees it as a way to reduce gridlock, reduce congestion, reducing idling and make it safer for people to get back and forth between our two great cities.

Again, I’m wondering, in the spirit of collaboration that both you and I have, how do you feel about the federal government really actually trying to keep up to their end of the bargain, and should this all just rely on the province?