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.

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.