Bill 79. That’s not there, but you talk about it.

This is another pattern of behaviour. I’m going to get to transparency. I remember—because the Conservatives were opposition for 15 years of Liberal rule, as well.

Certainly, we brought forward the presumptive coverage for firefighters through our past leader, Andrea Horwath. There were a lot of games played on that particular day. I happened to be here. I was job-shadowing Andrea at the time. I’ll never forget being in this place, sitting in the members’ gallery with fire chiefs from across the province. She had introduced her private member’s bill. It had lots of political support, lots of community support, but the Liberals were not going to give it to her—they weren’t, because that’s who they are, and we’ve actually seen a piece of legislation play itself out this week in a similar manner. So I was sitting there, and I had never seen this happen before—first reading, second reading, third reading all happened in the course of half an hour. I was sitting between two massive fire chiefs, and they were just crying, they were just bawling, because of course, they know people—actually, in all of our communities, we know firefighters who have contracted secondary and third cancers from exposure in the course of their job. So when the government says, “Why don’t you support this?”—we were already there 15 years ago. I have to say, Adam Overgaard, who is the firefighter union president in Waterloo, already knows where we are. Firefighters know New Democrats, and they know where their support is. Just because you introduce a little motion like that or a little regulatory change in a piece of legislation like that—they know where our hearts are and where our energy goes.

Actually, it was really good this morning—I started off my day by watching the speech from Peter Kormos. My colleague from Niagara Falls mentioned it earlier. It was one of those just-in-time moments, where you hear the right thing at the right time and it gives you some energy and some hope, because his message was the same to the Liberals at the time. We know who we are, the people who support us know who we are, and we know why we’re here and we know why we’re fighting.

That’s why this budget is so problematic for us—because regardless of the press releases, regardless of the communications strategy and the round tables and the outreach, what really matters is where the money is going.

This leads me to a very concerning pattern with this government around transparency.

Fortunately, in the province of Ontario, we do have the Financial Accountability Officer. This is a non-partisan position. The office itself is engaged in monitoring expenditures. That is what the FAO does—he does it, and his office does this in relatively real time. They report quarterly. You can go on the website. You can look at these numbers. You can track. If you have a particular ministry that you’re concerned about, you can see what the government promised to spend and what the government actually spent.

Increasingly, with this government, there’s a disconnect between the budgeted number and the number that actually gets out the door. Increasingly, that funding is going into what we now call a contingency fund, which very few governments have ever had, but it’s otherwise known as a slush fund. The reason why that slush fund is so important is that—in a democracy, especially in Westminster democracies, budgets are supposed to be approved by the Legislature. But with the government’s habit of hoarding the cash in massive contingency funds and making radical in-year changes to the spending plan, this Legislature increasingly cannot trust that the budget presented will be what the government actually spends. So we would argue, and I think Peter Kormos, if he was here, would argue that that lack of transparency is actually bad for democracy.

I know that this government is not particularly concerned with democracy, because we haven’t seen, for instance, your mandate letters for your cabinet members. Why does this matter? Because of the people we serve, the electorate, who voted in the last election—and who didn’t vote. Only 17.8% of the people of this province voted in the last election. It does not instill a lot of confidence, but it also speaks to a lack of trust and a level of cynicism in how people feel about government and how they feel about politicians, quite honestly.

That lack of transparency not only is bad for democracy, but it’s also very concerning around the reduction of trust in budgets. That’s so important. If the finance minister stands up and delivers a budget with great pomp and ceremony but then nobody really believes what actually is in that document, that isn’t good for anybody, I would argue.

When we follow the money, there is a pattern of this government not getting that money out the door. One of the examples that I often quote, because now it’s still in place, is the services for community and social services—this is those programs like Meals on Wheels, for instance. The government, a year ago, made a huge, huge announcement—a kind of a hopeful announcement, I would have to say—that they were going to invest $1 billion in these community agencies. We were saying, “That’s a lot of money, and that’s a long time coming, and good on you for doing it.” Unfortunately, only $130 million of that promised $1 billion got out. So when Meals on Wheels came to present, they said, “We’re going to be reducing our coverage and our services by 30%.” That’s 30% less seniors who are going to get a visit. That’s 30% less vulnerable people who are going to have eyes on them; who are going to say, “This person is obviously in distress.” Those programs are more than about nutrition; they’re about connection. And that is going in the wrong direction, because if you don’t have eyes on vulnerable people, if you’re not making those connections with community, if isolation is becoming a serious issue—we now know that loneliness kills and those folks end up in the hospital. They end up in one of the emergency rooms in our hospitals, unless it’s one of the 435 that were closed—435?

Interjection.

How many?

Code black.

Yes, 435 over the course of this year reduced hours or closed altogether. Never have we seen emergency room closures to this degree. An emergency room is supposed to be there for you when you’re in an emergency.

So what does this government do? Even when the paramedics have been sounding the alarm—code red, code white—

So what does the government do? Instead of addressing the core issue, which is having the appropriate resources for nurses and having the appropriate staff in hospitals, Bill 124 is compounding that problem, because you cannot recruit into a broken system. You can throw some money at some of those nurses—they’re not going to go back into that workplace because it is an unhealthy workplace and they’re very aware of how unhealthy it is. So what they will do is alleviate the wait-list for the ambulances—so they will give you a hallway nurse. Again, this was a program that the Liberals brought in. The only reason we found out about it at the time is because I was in a hospital with my husband and one of his former students was the hallway nurse. He said, “What are you doing here?” She said, “I’m the hallway nurse.” There’s a separate nursing category. It came out in committee, and the government said, “We didn’t create that position”—but actually, it was a funded line. At least I could track that money, as the finance critic. There are only two recognized parties in this place, and I take my job very seriously. Finding those lines and identifying where those resources are going or not going is obviously really important for us because it’s how we try to hold the government to account.

Anyway, now we’ve got more hallway nurses, but you still haven’t addressed the core issue of why the backlog is happening with the paramedics and the ambulances. But you’re quick to put a Band-Aid on it. It is a flashy little funding announcement—$500 million across the province to address this issue—but you haven’t addressed the issue. You’ve just bought yourself some time, and people are still hurting throughout that process.

In the last quarter, this government also failed to address the $570 million in cash that had been budgeted for health, education, and children’s and social services.

And the education funding in this particular budget is a bit of a shell game, I have to say, because the government has incorporated the federal dollars for the $10-a-day national child care plan. That $2.3 billion that the government says they are investing in schools is not going to elementary schools, it’s not going to secondary schools—it’s parked there because it looks good. Even that $2.3 billion that’s allocated for child care—because child care falls under the Ministry of Education—is not going to get out there too. Do you know why? Because people are not entering the early learning and care sector. They’re not entering that child care sector because it pays so poorly. When the government says, “We value you, but you’re only worth $19 an hour”—to take care of our children in those first five years, no less, when brain development is a key factor, when you’re dealing with two- and three-year-olds who were born into the pandemic and whose language acquisition was seriously compromised by masks, for instance.

I think this is the frustrating piece, overall. The government really has the right language, “biggest budget ever,” but when you follow where the money is going, the money is not getting to the most important places: those pressure points which (1) could make people’s lives better and, (2) could save money down the line—because what we heard at finance committee through the budget consultations is that housing is health care.

This government has—I guess you can call it a housing plan. It comes by way of Bill 23, which we did not support because it takes away the very tools that municipalities need to facilitate housing in Ontario. When AMO says to us, “The cumulative impact of proposed changes to municipal fees and charges is significant and contrary to the widely accepted concept that growth should pay for growth”—I just want to say that these are the 444 municipalities across Ontario, who voice their concerns through their provincial association, which is the Association of Municipalities Ontario. This is what they say: “While AMO would like to support the province’s housing objectives, it cannot support changes that largely place the burden of carrying the costs associated with development onto municipalities. AMO believes that the proposed changes may contradict the goal of building more housing in the long term as it merely shifts the financial burden of growth-related infrastructure onto existing taxpayers.”

So not only do we have a cost-of-living crisis in Ontario, but we have a government that is willing to download the cost of housing to municipalities, which, in turn, is going to increase the taxes of the people in communities. You’re throwing gasoline on the fire. Our critic on housing did such a good job of doing an analysis of the tax increases across the province. Every municipality, with a few exceptions, had to increase their taxes to just carry out their planning, the government’s own objective, of facilitating more housing in Ontario.

When you don’t listen to people, just like the doctor I started my conversation off with—just like doctors were not consulted about downloading of vaccine transfer costs to family physicians. They would have told you, “We only bill the province $3 to $5 for those vaccines. So there are two choices: one, we don’t deliver the vaccines; two, we pass the cost onto the person who is getting the vaccine. Those are the two choices.” However, the government doesn’t know that, because the government didn’t talk to the doctors about downloading of vaccine costs to family physicians—as they didn’t do for AMO, as well.

“Municipalities are attempting to make sense of the government’s response to the housing supply crisis brought about by the COVID-19 demand spike.

“AMO will continue to shine a light on what is wrong with legislative changes that are based on a false premise.”

This is a very painful battle of words between the municipalities, which largely manage municipal housing stock planning, and the government, which has removed rent control, so we have record evictions. They are dead set against building attainable, affordable housing.

We have said to the government that developers are in the business of building homes to make money, and some of those homes, now, are going to be built on the greenbelt. The greenbelt is not where new immigrants are going to be living, I have to tell you. The new immigrants who come into KW want to be close to public transit, grocery stores, schools. None of those things exist out on the greenbelt. Do you know why? Because the greenbelt is sacred. It is environmentally sensitive. It is key to the overall health and well-being of this province. It is something that the Ontario farming association has said, “Listen”—how many acres a day?

Some 319.6 acres a day in this province are bulldozed for development. This is another thing that doesn’t make any sense to us either. What we learned during the pandemic is that we need to be more self-sufficient. We need to have a stronger local economy. We need to take care of our food security systems, our worker systems. Yet the government is not taking a strong stance, I would say, at all against land degradation in Ontario.

With the greenbelt—to their credit, the Liberals had it brought in 15 years ago, and that correlated with good places to grow, which intensified planning in our city cores. Because the infrastructure was already there, it therefore reduced the cost of the housing, so that costs of the housing were not passed on to families who were looking to buy.

But right now, we even have a rental crisis in Ontario. Because this government has removed rent control, we have seniors, right now—I’m dealing with a lady in my riding who has lived in her apartment for 29 years. It is her home. She is being demovicted. It’s a six-storey building of the 1950s, 1960s era. It’s a beautiful building, but they want to knock it down, and they want to build condos. There is literally no place for her to go. It’s funny—because there are two or three other senior ladies who have reached out. We try to help them navigate a system that really is not designed to be navigated, especially when you don’t have the stock. I was telling one lady, “There’s a couple of other women who are of your age and who are in a similar situation, on a fixed income.” She said to me, “Well, maybe the three of us should live together,” which made me think of the Golden Girls. But that’s not a realistic option for women of that generation, who did not work, did not have a pension, and so they really are—there’s no extra money here. So when you increase the rent for some of these folks, they’re well past eating or paying the heating bill—they’re at a desperate place in their lives. I don’t believe that seniors in Ontario should ever get to that place or should have to worry about getting upsold on their cataract surgery, when they go for eye surgery at one of those for-profit, private clinics.

CBC did a really good story last Tuesday about this—I’ve shared it; our leader has shared it. It tells the story of why, when you pull public health resources and services out of the public system and you go to a for-profit, private clinic, upselling is the norm. That also, I want to say, with greatest respect, does not help with the cost-of-living challenge, especially for seniors who are on fixed incomes.

Just to go back to AMO and go back to housing—because I’m going to pass this along to my good colleague from Timiskaming–Cochrane.

This budget missed the moment. Removing funding for uninsured Ontarians who need health care is a very poor decision.

The Kingston mayor came to us at the committee. Kingston has spent $18 million trying to keep 120 vulnerable people out of the emergency room. They did so, and they were very successful, but this is not where municipal budgets are usually going—to do mental health services, to do crisis intervention.

We heard yesterday from the member from London. London has spent $22 million around supportive housing. They’ve dipped into their reserves, and they’ve allocated funding from their budgets.

So that’s two municipalities—Kingston and London—who last year dipped into their reserves, who were doing the supportive housing piece that the provincial government should be responsible for.

Housing is a provincial responsibility, but the government has $202 million allocated in this budget—and so that was part of my “good, bad, ugly” thing. It’s good that there’s finally money for supportive housing; what’s bad is that it’s so insufficient, based on the two municipalities that I’ve just given you an example of. And it’s going to get ugly because those municipalities are now going to be fighting for that money and trying to prove to this government that they’re worth that $202 million.

As I’ve already pointed out, municipalities who have challenged Bill 23 are not wrong. They’re not wrong to challenge this legislation at all.

With that, Madam Speaker, I am going to pass this along to my good friend and colleague—and I hope that you enjoyed budget 2023, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

Some 319.6.

As I was sitting listening to Minister Bethlenfalvy give his virtual road tour of southern Ontario, many of the places—actually, every town that he mentioned I’ve been to; my family comes from southern Ontario. Specifically, St. Thomas, regarding the proposed battery plant for Volkswagen—the NDP helped fast-track that bill through the Legislature. We care about jobs. We understand. As I was listening to the virtual tour—and I listened intently. I drove home the next day, thinking about the virtual road tour and thinking that there aren’t very many people, probably, who know my neck of the woods, my part of the province.

The first thing that I noticed driving home was that at the work yard for the contractor who takes care of Highway 11 in the Temagami area, the flags were flying at half-mast, in respect to the snowplow operator who had lost his life a few days before in northwestern Ontario. That’s not an uncommon occurrence for the people who take care of our roads. The last time I talked to our local contractor, I believe there were 260 or 270 major accidents with snow-cleaning equipment, not counting the ones since that meeting. That’s what happens on some of the roads in the province.

I listened very intently, and they were talking about the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire has got a few other problems, because the government doesn’t appear be asking for free, prior and informed consent from all the First Nations. But that’s an issue for another day.

We were talking to the road builders’ association. Something the government might not have thought about is our road infrastructure. The roads that we have now that you have to take to get to the Ring of Fire, 11 and 17, are not good enough to actually get the equipment to build the road to the Ring of Fire. That is a serious concern.

You may not believe this, Madam Speaker, but once you get to Barrie, Highways 11 and 400 split. Highway 11 is still a four-lane highway, and so is Highway 400, but at some point that stops; it stops for Highway 11 in North Bay. So you’re thinking everything is fine, and then you crest Thibeault Hill and the world changes—because it is two-lane; it’s basically a southern Ontario country road. It’s paved. It has narrow shoulders. That’s the Trans-Canada Highway. That’s the highway that you think is going to help you get to the Ring of Fire. That is the highway that, since January, to March 29, has had major closures 11 times, and not closures for five minutes, but hours and hours—and that’s actually not accurate, because it was closed again yesterday.

“Let’s all go to the Ring of Fire”—how? How are you going to get to the Ring of Fire when we don’t have the infrastructure to actually get transit, to get goods across the country now?

It is a shame in Ontario that the Trans-Canada Highway that goes through northern Ontario is a two-lane country highway. That’s what it is.

The government can say, “We have pushed very hard”—and they have moved the average for cleaning up, from 16 hours after a major snowstorm or after a snow event to 12. Give credit where credit is due. They moved a little bit, because we’ve been pushing them like crazy for years.

To Minister Mulroney’s credit, they’re going to institute a “2+1” pilot project, which is basically extended passing lanes and a barrier on the passing lanes so you can’t cut into the passing lane. It’s a pilot project on 14 or 15 kilometres. That highway is thousands of kilometres, and a pilot project of 14 or 15 kilometres is not going to get you to the Ring of Fire. You need to think about that right away.

Northern Ontario has—as does the rest of the province—lots of jobs. We have more jobs than we have people, and we have good jobs.

I was talking to one of our major employers in my riding. A mine mechanic in Kirkland Lake can make $300,000 a year. They have a hard time finding people. Why? Because we don’t have a lot of social services in northern Ontario. Things that the member from Waterloo was talking about, that they’re worried about losing, that they are losing in northern Ontario—we never had them, or we lost them already.

We have local hospitals, and they do what they can, but if you need to see a specialist, you need to come to the hospitals down here. We have the northern travel grant, and that travel subsidy hasn’t changed in years and years and years. So equal access in health care for northerners has been gone a long time ago, and this budget completely and totally ignores that.

This budget talked a lot about the riches of northern Ontario, about the Ring of Fire—and there are many other riches of northern Ontario. But government after government—and this one probably more than any—has ignored the social needs of what people in the north need to provide the riches to the rest of the province.

The biggest gold mine, I believe, in North America, Detour Gold, is in the district of Cochrane—right next to my riding, actually. The town of Cochrane is in my riding; the mine is in the next riding. It’s a very big producer of gold, and we are soon going to have a big producer of nickel in that area—Canada Nickel.

Timmins is a mining—the Minister of Mines will know how big mining is in Timmins.

There’s so much money coming out of the north.

Do you know something else about the district of Cochrane, where Timmins and Cochrane and Detour Gold—what they are? The rate of homelessness in the district of Cochrane—covered by the Cochrane social services board—per thousand people is the highest in the province. It’s minus 40 lots of times, where I live, and homelessness now is a tragic issue. I’m not discounting it anywhere else, but very few people think about how it’s the highest where it’s the coldest, and where the riches come from. But for some reason, the services don’t come back.

It’s great to take—and we have experienced that in the north for as long as we’ve been there. Cobalt, the first silver boom; Kirkland, the first gold boom; Timmins—the original stock exchange for Ontario, the first one, was in Cobalt. But all the money eventually came to Toronto, eventually came to the south.

Now we hear this government saying, “Trust us. You, especially Indigenous people, are going to benefit incredibly from the Ring of Fire.” It has never happened before. They have trusted before, when they signed treaties. It never happened. It’s not going to happen this time either. They know that—unless they stand up for themselves.

The finance committee travelled through northern Ontario. It stopped in Timmins. It stopped in Sudbury.

Primary health care, specifically, is a tough issue in northern Ontario.

I’d like to read a quote from someone who presented at the finance committee in Sudbury. She’s actually the president and CEO of West Nipissing General Hospital, Ms. Sue LeBeau. She was also, before that, the CEO and president of the Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital. She’s got a lot of experience in running hospitals in northern Ontario. I’m going to read directly from her statement. She talks about her experiences at the hospital: “But the most harrowing experience that I had and that our team had during my time there was the closure of our emergency department due to lack of staffing. It was a scary time, it was a short time, and it is something that we would not want to relive, and it is something that—my colleagues and myself in the north have struggled to maintain core services and to be able to manage to keep serving our communities.” She also identified one of the major problems that this government is perpetuating with Bill 124. Again, this is directly from her: “In terms of agency nursing, to paint the picture locally, our hospital, West Nipissing, has expended $1.5 million for agency nursing over the first three quarters of this fiscal year. That represents about 10% of our budget, for 10 nurses”—$150,000 per nurse, for three quarters of the year. “Those costs, of course, are not budgeted. Agency nursing has become a necessity in northern Ontario. However, it is not a long-term solution. Our loyal local nurses are impacted by these agency nurses....” They’re demoralized by this—and the government is not standing idly by while this is happening; they are perpetuating it with Bill 124. They’re forcing health care staff out of their chosen profession, or out of their profession, working for the public side, and they’re forcing them to work for the agencies—and the same nurses come back into that hospital for twice the cost.

The government and the Minister of Finance say, “Oh, we’re putting more money than ever into health care”—that could very well be, but a lot of that money is going to the private sector, who are running those agencies and siphoning money out for profit.

Why don’t you just pay the nurses what they’re worth and cut out the agencies? How can you pretend to be careful with the province’s finances when you don’t understand that basic principle—or actually, you do understand that basic principle and you’re perpetuating it.

It’s incredibly tough to sit here and stand here and see that there are solutions. We can’t provide solutions for everything, but there are solutions staring you in the face—and, yes, for some of them, you’re going to have to admit that you made mistakes.

Bill 124 seemed like an easy solution at the time—holding public servants to 1%, and you will save costs. You just didn’t realize that public servants, especially those in health care, are going to be able to move with their feet when you’re not paying them with respect. You talk about respect, but when you’re not paying them with respect, they’re going to move with their feet. And when you still need them, then you have to hire them back through private agencies, at more cost. It’s killing the system.

I’m going to go back a little bit to my road tour—because I want people to come to northern Ontario. We need people. It is a great place to live. We have our challenges, and that’s what we’re trying to bring to people’s attention, but it’s a great place to live. If you decide to come, I’m just going to give you a couple of pointers.

If you like stopping at ONroutes—because you can get whatever food you want, you know the market, and you know you can load up for the trip—past Barrie, there are none. Ontario stops at Barrie for ONroutes—nothing. Crest Thibeault Hill and your four-lanes stop. There are none.

We have a lot of transports on Highway 11—it’s the Trans-Canada Highway; it is where the goods cross from one end of Canada to the other. There are very few places for those transports to stop. There are very few parking spots for transports. That’s a big problem, because they have no place to rest, and we have lots of accidents with transports—and you wonder how it got there. With a transport, you just can’t pull off to the shoulder on Highway 11, because you’re not coming back on, because the shoulders are narrow and you’re stuck. So be prepared.

When the highway is closed, if you cross Thibeault Hill—at Thibeault Hill, there’s a big sign that says the highway might be closed. But if it’s closed right after you cross that sign, you might be on the highway for hours in a line, and there are no emergency services that are going to come find you—maybe volunteers; volunteers from Temagami do this a lot. So you better bring a blanket, you better bring chocolate bars, and you better have a full tank of gas when you cross Thibeault Hill.

That’s northern Ontario. I am not trying to disparage it. I love northern Ontario. I’m never going to live anywhere else.

My last point I’d like to make—I’d like to give a shout-out to a group. This government is talking a lot about agriculture in northern Ontario. I’m a farmer. I’ve farmed in northern Ontario my whole life, and northern Ontario is a great place to farm. If you want to know something about farming in northern Ontario—you’ve got an incredible chance to do it on April 13 and 14, at the Earlton Farm Show. The Earlton Farm Show is an exposition of agricultural services available in our area. You will talk to people who actually make a good living farming in our area. They’re very good farmers. In the Little Clay Belt around Timiskaming and farther north in the Great Clay Belt, there’s a lot of expertise there. If you’re thinking about farming in northern Ontario or seeing what farming is like in northern Ontario, please come to the farm show. The volunteers who put that together put a lot of effort into it. This is the first one in three years because of COVID. I’m going to be there. Everyone who has anything to do with agriculture in northern Ontario is going to be there. I have been warned that the Minister of Agriculture might even be there. We will welcome her with open arms.

But, please, we have our problems in northern Ontario. The government has to recognize them and address them so that we can truly fill our place in the province.

To talk about the Ring of Fire—when your connection to the Ring of Fire is Highways 11 and 17, two-lane roads, you’re dreaming. They can barely handle the traffic on them now. They can’t because their accident stats—people talk about Ontario having the best roads in North America; they’re certainly not 11 and 17, and those are the roads that connect southern Ontario to the Ring of Fire, and you need to pay as much attention to them as what you’re paying to the rest of the province.

I’d like to thank you for your time, Speaker.

The member for Timiskaming–Cochrane.

This year marks the 47th anniversary of the annual Festival of the Maples in Perth, Ontario. Since 1976, Perth has celebrated a legacy of liquid gold against a backdrop of magnificent heritage architecture on the banks of the Tay River.

Hosted by the Perth chamber of commerce, the Festival of the Maples embraces all that Lanark county has to offer, with artisans, vendors, musicians and award-winning maple syrup producers. For residents, guests, and tourists of every age, the day begins with steaming stacks of pancakes and unwinds with music, shopping, dining and classic entertainment, including the historic sap-tapping contest and the wood cookie crosscut saw competition.

Lanark county is the maple syrup capital of Ontario, and at this time of year visitors are hiking our sugar bush trails, touring award-winning multi-generational sugar camps, and heading home with some of the finest maple syrup in the world.

Throughout Lanark county, you’ll find maple syrup featured in restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops and distilleries, all eager to embrace the sweet taste of spring.

Last year’s festival featured 160 vendors and welcomed over 30,000 guests—and this is a town of 9,000—to this event.

Today, I extend a warm Lanark county welcome to one and all to experience the 47th Festival of the Maples, on Saturday, April 29, in beautiful heritage Perth. I hope to see you there.

Malheureusement, le gouvernement de M. Ford ne répond pas aux besoins des Franco-Ontariens. Le budget provincial de cette année est un exemple clair de cet échec. Par exemple, le seul collège qui ne reçoit pas le programme « learn and stay » est le seul collège pour les francophones. C’est vraiment incroyable.

Le gouvernement manque également une véritable vision pour les Franco-Ontariens. Nous avons besoin d’un gouvernement qui investit dans des communautés fortes et solidaires; qui offre des soins de santé publics de qualité, un soutien à la santé mentale, une éducation de qualité, des logements abordables et des transports publics fiables.

Encore une chose : il arrive souvent que les autoroutes 11 et 17 soient fermées à cause des accidents de poids lourd. D’abord, il faut embaucher les contrôleurs pour les stations d’inspection. Aussi, nous devons contrôler les permis de conduire des chauffeurs de poids lourd parce que, trop souvent, les chauffeurs nouveaux ne sont pas préparés à conduire dans les conditions du Nord.

Le gouvernement doit agir maintenant, avant qu’il ne soit trop tard. Les Franco-Ontariens méritent mieux que cela.

Further debate?

Debate deemed adjourned.

I rise today on behalf of London West families of children with autism.

After four and a half years on the wait-list, Sarah Farrants felt hopeful when her seven-year-old son Mason was invited to register for the OAP in October, but she has heard absolutely nothing since. While she waits, the one-time funding that paid for Mason’s speech therapy has run out, and so has Sarah’s hope for Mason’s future.

After a 10-month wait for an assessment for his three-year-old son Luke, Sean Menard was told he could wait years for OAP funding. Sean wants a plan from this government to clear the backlog and get Luke the critical early intervention he needs. Sean desperately wants Luke to speak one day. Sean said, “Without help from the government, he may never speak a single word to his mother or me.”

Even for families who have been approved, the autism program is broken. Virginia Ridley’s two teenage sons receive OAP funding, but Virginia struggles to find services geared to youth and faces constant delays getting reimbursed. At the end of February, she was out of pocket $9,000.

With no mention of autism in the 2023 budget, these families feel abandoned by the Ford government.

Where is the plan, where is the urgency to fix the OAP and get Mason and Luke and Virginia’s sons the services they need and deserve?

I’m going to be sharing my time with the member for Richmond Hill, and I will simply be mindful of the fact that I will begin my remarks now, conclude at 10:15, and continue this afternoon.

In that context, it is my pleasure to join the debate in this House with regard to the Building a Strong Ontario Act, our budget bill. This budget confirms our government’s commitment to invest in Ontario’s future and enhance our competitiveness within a global economy, with a responsible, targeted approach to help people and businesses.

The budget speech that was presented last week to this House by the Minister of Finance outlines this government’s priorities for building a strong economic foundation to provide Ontario’s growing population with highly skilled, well-paying jobs, while at the same time attracting global investments in manufacturing and research. We are exercising fiscal prudence by keeping Ontario’s finances in check as we make the necessary investments in health care, education, infrastructure and transit, while being on track to balance Ontario’s books with a $200-million surplus by 2024-25. This is what Ontarians asked for. This is what Ontarians expect. And we are delivering both on growth and fiscal responsibility. This is our duty. This is our pledge. We are getting it done.

Speaker, this budget is all about people. This budget is about investing in workers, in families and everyday Ontarians who have asked this government to live within its means while investing in the programs that workers and families desperately need to purchase a home, raise a family and save for the future. This government is a citizens’ government that reflects the will and the expectations of the people.

Because of the failed tax-and-spend policies of the previous Liberal government, Ontario lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs between 2004 and 2018. The previous Liberal government, which was propped up by the NDP for three years, thought they could spend their way to prosperity, and look where that left Ontario—higher debt, lost jobs, and a downgrade of Ontario’s credit rating.

As evidence that nothing has changed, the federal Liberal government, also propped up by the NDP, delivered a budget this past Tuesday which included record spending, tax increases, and zero investments in municipalities, business, or assistance for everyday Canadians.

First of all, I want to congratulate the new Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. This minister is very compassionate and hard-working. This minister is someone who talks from the heart. I’m very excited to work with him, as a parliamentary assistant.

I also want to thank and congratulate the new Associate Minister of Housing on her new role.

The 2023 budget is resonating in my riding of Markham–Thornhill; it was very well received.

My constituents at the Armadale seniors club, the Tamil seniors association, Box Grove seniors wellness club, and Greensborough and Middlefield seniors wellness clubs in Markham are all very happy with the budget and are commending the changes to expand the eligibility for the GAINS program—Guaranteed Annual Income System—for seniors.

The minister for seniors is right beside me. Thank you, Minister—the GAINS program for seniors is important news.

My constituents like Ms. Cho appreciate the increase in the ODSP benefits by our government.

Parents and students are also both very happy to know that, through the targeted math supports, an additional $12.6-million investment is provided. It will double the number of math coaches who will be responsible for implementing the early intervention strategy for better understanding math concepts.

On Tuesday, I was invited to a moms-and-tots tea party in the hamlet of Fairground, Norfolk county. This tea party, hosted by the Norfolk Community Help Centre, is part of a much larger picture, a bigger community initiative.

The help centre supports women in the community, largely from the Mennonite population, but also women from the Indigenous community, and, as of late, the Ukraine. The goal is often to work toward obtaining a grade 12 education while learning English as a second language.

Since the program began, 64 Low German-speaking women have graduated with their Ontario secondary school diploma.

The centre also has a partnership with Fanshawe College and the Grand Erie District School Board. Currently, 15 people of diverse backgrounds are learning QuickBooks accounting.

A moms-and-tots program allows these women to come together to improve social, emotional and general well-being. Many of the families served have between five and nine children. These vital community connections enhance independence and coping skills while raising awareness of nutrition, reproductive practices and physical activity. Other supports offered are in areas such as settlement, advocacy, prenatal and postnatal care, as well as Low German interpretation.

The supports being offered in the community continue to grow, all on a shoestring budget, all with the love of a few key people, and under the leadership of executive director Nancy Hildebrand.

Speaker, this is a small but very interesting area with many issues and needs. I look forward to working with Nancy and her team for more opportunities to assist and empower this community.

I beg to inform the House that the following document was tabled: the post-event report 2022 on Ontario’s 43rd general election from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario.

This coming Sunday, April 2, is world autism day. Many of us are aware of autism, and we recognize that autism brings with it its unique challenges and obstacles but also strengths, skills and perspectives that enrich our communities and contribute to our collective growth.

Now we must turn our attention away from awareness towards acceptance and inclusivity. I ask that all of us here in the chamber and all in our audience embrace the diverse spectrum of human experiences by creating environments for individuals with autism to feel valued, heard and supported. Let us take it upon ourselves to learn about autism, challenge misconceptions, and break down barriers. By cultivating a culture of acceptance, we nurture the growth of individuals on the spectrum and allow them to thrive in their own unique way.

Speaker, on world autism day, let us commit to a world where awareness leads to inclusion, where understanding leads to acceptance, and where every individual, regardless of their neurological makeup, has the opportunity to contribute their talents and reach their full potential.

Culture gives us a sense of belonging and helps us connect to serve and celebrate while bonding for life. That is why cultural organizations like the Rajasthan Association of North America do remarkable service to the world we live in.

Started in 2007, RANA Canada has grown into a vibrant association of entrepreneurs, health care providers, lawyers, educators, and financial and IT professionals.

For the last 15 years, RANA has been promoting cultural values through community events like Holi, Gangaur, Canada Day, India Day, and Diwali.

Mr. Speaker, tough times are the test times. During COVID-19, RANA members distributed meals to the homeless and supported hospitals and local food banks with financial contributions.

RANA also provided scholarships to deserving youth, supported students with extreme financial hardships, and provided platforms to mentor local and international students to help them to better integrate, succeed and contribute to Canada.

I am pleased to share that our Mississauga–Malton community office is joining hands with RANA to organize a blood donation drive in its efforts to keep working for the good of the entire community.

Thanks to RANA members for going above and beyond the call of duty and becoming an integral part of the beautiful mosaic of Canada. You are true representatives of Ontario spirit.

This is a brief statement about death and about gratitude.

About 17 years ago, when I was 19, I was driving to work and I was late, so I changed lanes to avoid a bus, and I rear-ended an old lady. As I said, that was 17 years ago. Most rear-endings doesn’t follow the story that we did, but what ended up happening was, we sort of adopted her into our family as a bit of a grandmother figure for me. Her name was Elta, and she was from the island country of Dominica. Over the years, my mother took care of her, and that care escalated.

Elta passed away recently, and in the course of her passing, I had the opportunity to experience both the palliative care team in our area—particularly Dr. Celine Sandor—and then ultimately the incredible benefit that we have in Waterloo region of Hospice Waterloo Region.

A week before her passing, Elta was moved to Lisaard hospice. We were very worried that it would be incredibly stressful for her, but on her first day there, I came into the room, and she held my mother’s hand and said, “I’m so happy.” I want to tell them how thankful I am for them taking care of Elta in her years—and how grateful I am that we have them in our riding.

Today I want to talk about my friend Marcel Charron.

Marce was a mill operator at Glencore back when it was called Falconbridge. He worked on the floor at a blue-collar job. He was the sort of guy who was friendly and quiet. He was definitely funny. He was proud to be blue-collar, but he wasn’t a stereotype. Marcel spoke openly about the horrors of femicide and the damage it does to community. His sister, Chantal, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend, and Marce shared his pain, hopeful that it would help, hopeful that it would lead to change.

Most people knew Marcel as someone who believed in workers. He spoke for workers. He stood for workers. He simply wanted a better world for everyone. His activism got him more involved with his union, and in 2013 he was elected as vice-president in Mine Mill Unifor Local 598, my dad’s union. Five years later, he was their president. Unfortunately, early in his term, Marce was diagnosed with cancer. The fight with cancer was hard over the past five years—but I witnessed a love story, and I’m a sucker for a love story, and few are as beautiful as how much Cathy loved Marcel and how much he loved her right back. It’s easy to be in love in the best of times, and it’s beautiful to see love fight through in the worst.

Last Friday, I visited Cathy and Marcel at the Maison McCulloch Hospice. Cath said he knew he had to come, but he was mad. Marcel winked at her and said, “I’ll get over it.” It was the last time I’ll ever see Marcel, a blue-collar worker, a vocal advocate against femicide, a worker activist, a union president, a loving father, and a loving husband.

I’ll miss you, brother.