Thank you very much for that question. The message very clearly is universal in this budget: Ontarians are simply on their own. The services that they need, that have been underfunded in the last quarter, as per the Financial Accountability Office—they’re not there. They weren’t there before; they’re not here in this budget; they’re not going to be there in the future.

We as legislators and parliamentarians have an obligation to look out for the little guy, or the little gal. We need to have compassion, integrity. To respond to the member across, we have to collaborate with each other—with other levels of government but with each other right here in the room. Let’s have a conversation, talk about the issues that actually matter to Ontarians. Affordable housing is inaccessible. There are over 62,000 people that cannot get access to autism services. What we’re looking for, and what is entirely absent in this budget, is a government that has compassion for people who need help the most.

Interjections.

To exactly the point that I made: There is no plan for the retention of health care workers.

As we continue to see mass attrition and a mass exodus of health care workers across multiple professions—physicians, nurses, PSWs and all of the amazing health care workers who work at the front lines and behind the front lines—this budget does not have a solution to the empty hospitals that this government is proposing and hoping to build.

We need staffed hospitals, not empty ones.

My comments were intended to highlight the fact that there may be some investments here that are intended to look at addressing that crumbling infrastructure. But in this budget, it is to the exclusion of the people who are essential to enable our education system to thrive. So thank you for allowing me to clarify that comment. I don’t think that we disagree on this.

My question is to the member from Don Valley East. In his remarks, when he was talking about education funding, he talked about how this government is not investing enough in the supports that are needed in our schools and for our students, but also mentioned that the government was instead—I believe the word he used was “instead”—investing in infrastructure.

I believe that we need to invest both in infrastructure and in supports. As you know, the school repair backlog is at over $16 billion; under the Liberals, it was at $15 billion.

I’d like to ask the member if he could clarify his comments, and also if he believes that we should be investing in addressing the repair backlog.

Questions?

A quick response.

Thank you to the member for the question. Certainly, those are big numbers, but I don’t find them inspiring. It’s more of the same. The numbers are very similar to those that were in past budgets. I talked about some of the ideas around investing in things like our semiconductor strategy, digitization and technology. Manufacturing jobs are good, but we need to invest in other sectors as well to make sure we’re firing on all cylinders.

This afternoon, I’m addressing the motion on the budget. I’ll be sharing my time with the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, whom I’ve had the opportunity to meet during this session of the Legislature and who is a fine member serving his constituency well, and probably the most calm and serene individual in this chamber.

Other members before me have observed that this budget is a very big document; it’s over 200 pages long. I think that every member has now had an opportunity to read all that and digest it so that they could make their comments in the chamber. I suppose I could talk about a lot of things in this budget. I’ve already talked about the hospital commitment that’s been made to Essex county and Windsor–Tecumseh. I’m excited about that. My citizens are excited about that in Essex. My colleague from Windsor–Tecumseh is excited about that, and the citizens of Windsor–Tecumseh are excited about it as well.

But I’m not going to go through the entire 200 pages of the budget and speak about every topic. I have a very particular concern, and I’m going to focus on that one concern. That appears in this budget at page 100. So, if you got halfway through the budget, you arrived at it and you know exactly what I’m talking about: It’s the $13.4 million in this budget that is committed to continuing the strategy against illegal guns, gangs and violence.

That was a strategy that was introduced by this government. It’s a wide-ranging strategy. It has several aspects to it. One of those aspects is to continue funding the strategy; that’s very important. One of the aspects of that strategy is to train officers in the particular skills needed to go after these very serious crimes, and one of the aspects of that strategy is to form a special unit that is specifically engaged with going after illegal guns and gang crime. Those are different aspects of the strategy, so it’s not all about money. It’s also about training: for example, training people who work in our correctional institutions in having the skills and knowledge that they need to recognize the trafficking of contraband—that’s a skill.

Madame la Présidente, nous sommes fiers que nous ayons un programme qui vise spécifiquement des armes à feu illégales, les bandes criminalisées et la violence. Nous voulons que tout le monde en Ontario puisse vivre dans une communauté sans violence et sans la crainte d’être violé par les bandes criminalisées. C’est pour ça que nous avons cette stratégie, qui s’appelle la Stratégie de lutte contre les bandes criminalisées, les armes à feu et la violence.

Notre stratégie comprend des programmes de financement provincial. La stratégie comprend aussi la création d’une unité provinciale de soutien parce que tout le monde sait que les forces de police locales ont besoin de soutien. Nous savons que nos officiers dans les instituts correctionnels ont besoin de bonnes formations pour lutter contre les problèmes qui sont spécifiques à ces instituts, comme le trafic de contrebande.

I know that there are several members of the PC caucus who took a look at this specific strategy and are very, very glad it’s in there and continues to be funded, for $13.4 million.

Now, your everyday beat cop might not have all of the training and skills necessary to do the very challenging job of fighting gang violence and illegal guns. That’s one of the reasons why we need this very specialized program. And to be absolutely clear, we have the support even of law-abiding firearms owners, who know that the ownership of a firearm is very important and ought to be treated with the most seriousness and safeness—and they are legal firearms owners, as compared to the illegal gun acquisition, which is happening through the border between Canada and the United States. That is a very important distinction to make.

What happens after these illegal guns sneak into Canada? Well, they get into the hands of gangs. The illegal guns get into the hands of gangs, and the gangs use those guns to go after some of the most vulnerable people in our society. That’s why I’m very proud to support this program. I think the PC caucus is proud as well. I think the PC caucus is going to vote in favour of the budget because they know how important it is to continue a program which fights against illegal guns, gangs and the violence that those engender.

But we know that not everybody in this assembly feels the way we feel. We know that’s not the case. In fact, we know that there are several members of this assembly who are very strongly opposed to what we stand for. We know that there are several members of this assembly who have been quite vocal about not wanting to fund police forces and not wanting to fight the fight that we want. They’ve even campaigned on it. They’ve been very vocal about it. They want to defund the police. Their position is entirely opposite of the PC position: Whereas we want to fund police forces, they want to defund police forces.

But it’s not just a few individuals—no, it is not. In fact, the NDP have actually completed an entire policy document, which they’ve entitled, “an Ontario NDP Commitment to Action.” Now, I would characterize it as a commitment to inaction, because the entire policy document is all about defunding the police, and I think defunding the police is a very bad idea. But apparently, among the NDP caucus, they’ve committed an entire written policy document committed to defunding the police.

I have taken the trouble to read the policy document, and it’s very clear as to what it wants to do: The NDP want to defund the police. That’s what they want to do. Well, I want to make my position very clear: I don’t agree with that policy document. I think it’s a very bad policy document. I think that we should be funding our police forces. These are the people who work every day to protect you and me and our families. As I said before in my previous comments, these are specialized forces, some of them very specialized, who work specifically against illegal guns, who work specifically against gangs, who prey specifically on some of the most vulnerable populations in our province.

I’m very, very happy to see that in this budget 2023, the Minister of Finance has committed—and the PC Party, I believe, will commit when we vote on this budget—to continuing the financing of $13.4 million to continue funding the police. I’m committed to that. I want to thank the Minister of Finance for recognizing the importance of funding our police forces properly, and I want to thank the Solicitor General for having a strategy that’s going to deal with illegal guns, that’s going to deal with gangs, that deals with the violence they create here in the province of Ontario against some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

When it comes to a vote, I’m going to be voting for funding the police. I’m going to be voting for assisting the police officers who go out there and put their lives on the line to make it possible for me and my family to sleep well at night. And so, Madam Speaker, I will be voting in favour of this motion and in favour of properly funding our police forces.

The member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston.

I don’t know if we would call it underspending, but we’re all aware of COVID and the impact it had on programs and services. Whether it’s in education or in health care, there’s money that has been earmarked that wasn’t able to go out the door because the service providers weren’t able to deliver that particular service. That’s one fundamental reason why there is money that didn’t go out the door. It’s not the government holding back or tying the strings. This government is investing and spending on the things, and they’re spending it smart, not just spending it.

One of the things is for youth leaving the child welfare system. The transition is always a major issue for people’s mental health, going from the child system into the adult system, and in this case, moving out of the welfare system as well. So transition of care is one of those focuses that will help us with mental health occurrences.

Hiding behind a 2019 bill that only has a three-year life is not what we’re doing. We’re looking forward: What can we do to increase? And we know that other provinces across Canada are dealing with the same challenges; other countries are dealing with the same challenges. So to hide behind an old bill is not the answer. To move forward with new innovative ideas to increase our workforce: That’s the answer.

We’ve had two outstanding presentations from outstanding members.

I want to direct my question to the member for Essex, who talked about page 100 in the budget, and frankly, it’s one of my favourite pages. I’ve earmarked it and whatnot. You really outlined the power of the $13.4-million investment, the Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy. I wonder if you can—and you did in your remarks, but I’m not a law enforcement officer. Certainly, we have some in the House. But you’ve got great experience here and understand specifically what’s coming from this strategy. I wondered if you could remind us of those specific benefits of this important investment.

This is from OPSEU and JP Hornick, the president: “Privatization Makes Wait Times Worse, Not Better.” That’s for the member from Kingston. “Our health care system is in crisis, and it’s clear that privatization is not the solution. Putting private profits over people won’t fix wait times or solve the recruitment or retention crisis, which is causing staff to burn out and leave their jobs.

“This government has manufactured a crisis....”

My question to you: Can you tell me how many of the people from Niagara that you listed died in their homes that are owned by ConMed during COVID?

Questions?

My question is to the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston. He spoke eloquently about the supports in this budget proposed for seniors and other vulnerable sectors of our population.

Specifically, my question regards our Roadmap to Wellness: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions System. We’ve known, over the past few years with the pandemic, that there has been a general decline in overall mental health across the province, and particularly those that face challenges in terms of food security and housing security. This program has a historic investment of about $3.8 billion over 10 years. We’re increasing that base funding by 5% to $425 million annually. I’m wondering if the member could please speak about the benefits that program will have for our residents.

I thank the member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound for that question, and thank him in particular for coming to my riding and speaking to the wine growers in my riding about what they wanted to talk about. I thank him for that.

Now, turning to his question, I have a particular interest in this matter, because I had some past experience in prosecuting on behalf of the federal government as an agent. What happens with guns that are illegally smuggled over the border is that they get into the hands of gangs, and then the gangs go out and intimidate the most vulnerable people in our society. I want to specifically say that this PC member of this provincial Parliament is 100% committed to funding our police departments and helping them go after gangs; whereas in comparison, the NDP caucus has a written policy to defund the police. It is a bad policy. It should be rejected. I reject it. I’m in favour of assisting the people who keep me and my family safe and keep the people in the riding of Essex safe from gangs and illegal guns.

I listened to both of the members speak about the budget, and my question is to the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston because he spoke specifically about the investments that the government is making and how proud he is.

One of the things that took place last night was the TDSB board meeting, and they made some really difficult decisions. They made a lot of difficult decisions which will really show the cumulative cuts over the last 20 years and the impact of that to our students and their learning.

So I want to ask the member, why has the government underspent, specifically, $47 million in your previous budget, and now, while projecting for the education funding—and seeing the amount of violence and need for learning within our schools, why isn’t your government spending more on education than before?

My question is to the member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston. Over the last couple of weeks, I have raised some issues in question period based on what I’m hearing from residents of London West. I talked about two young nurses who are leaving London, moving to other provinces, moving to the US, because of the way that they are treated here, because of the way they feel disrespected and demoralized and exhausted because of this government’s policies.

The health care programs that the member talked about all depend on having a health care workforce in place. My question is, why is the government not dropping its appeal of the unconstitutional Bill 124 and moving forward so we can actually have the health care workers we need in order to deliver the health care services that Ontarians deserve?

It’s always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Parkdale–High Park to speak in this House, and today I speak to the 2023-24 budget motion that is before this House. This budget has failed to meet the needs of Ontarians and to address the current problems that the people of Ontario face. This budget has failed to meet the moment, and it is our duty as legislators, as elected officials, to stand up and fight for the needs of our people.

Speaker, don’t take it from me; take it from the Toronto Star editorial that was written last week. The title is, “An Ontario Budget without Vision.” That’s the title, and there is a quote in that editorial that says, “If this budget were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks. Not entirely useless. But an exercise in going through the motions.” This is the feedback from people across the province, that this budget has failed to meet the moment. There’s so much more we could do, that this government could do, but did not in this budget.

This is the biggest budget ever, at $204.7 billion. There’s so much we could do, particularly to help Ontarians who are struggling. Conservatives want Ontarians to think that this is the new normal, that this is as good as it gets, but things are not normal in Ontario right now. People are struggling to find an affordable place to live. They’re being forced to go to work sick just to put food on the table. Cancer patients are waiting months for treatment. They’re showing up at emergency rooms with a sick child, only to find it closed. In fact, in Ontario, more than any other province at any other point in history, we have had more emergency room closures than ever. The Ford government promised to deliver on these issues, but once again, with this budget they have failed to do so.

The NDP has a vision of an Ontario with more opportunity and prosperity, not just for the well-connected, but for everybody, for the everyday Ontarian. People are feeling squeezed with the rising cost of living, and this government is doing nothing meaningful to offer relief to everyday Ontarians. In fact, it’s going to cost Ontarians more.

The Ford government is diverting public money into private health care facilities. What does that mean for Ontarians? Longer wait times, more ER closures, more nurses being driven out of our health care sector. They’re shortchanging municipalities through massive cuts, meaning families will pay higher property taxes for poorer services. It also means that Ontarians who are going to work using transit will be waiting longer for the bus, and that it is going to be even harder to find an affordable place to live.

This budget shows that the province is moving in the wrong direction on housing. They’re dismantling the greenbelt, and even that isn’t delivering on what they’re promising. This budget predicts fewer housing starts next year than this year, and they are nowhere near on track to meet the stated goal of 1.5 million homes in 10 years.

We in the Ontario NDP will fight to make sure we’re investing in strong and caring communities that will attract workers, that will attract new businesses to our province and keep them here. We want to see communities with excellent health care, mental health supports, education workers who are able to help our children learn and work in safe spaces, more affordable places to live that have reliable public transit.

Speaking of public transit, I want to take a moment to say that on behalf of the leader of the official opposition and our entire NDP caucus, our hearts go out to Gabriel Magalhaes’s family, friends and community members. Gabriel is the 16-year-old who died just last week from a stabbing attack at Keele station, which is located in my riding. Only a few months ago, there was another knife attack on two people at the adjacent High Park station, and another constituent, Vanessa Kurpiewska, passed away from that attack.

Gabriel attended Keele Street Public School. His classmates will be hosting a community candlelight vigil this evening, starting at 8 p.m. from the High Park gates and ending at Keele station. I will be joining alongside my colleagues from the ATU—transit workers who are also ringing the alarm bells in terms of not just public transit, but the increase of violence that we’re seeing.

Speaker, I want to take a moment here, because Gabriel’s mom, Andrea, has demonstrated incredible courage and grace and has been shining a light on the issue, on the struggles that people are facing. I’m going to quote her directly. This is what she said: “We need more social services. We need more investment into physical and mental health. We need more support for housing. I feel like if things keep going the way they are going right now, so many people are going to be suffering the horrible pain that I’m going through right now.”

Speaker, as a mom of two little kids, I can’t imagine the pain, and so it is incumbent on all of us to address the root causes of violence—as Andrea herself has said—to address the social determinants of health. We have a choice as legislators. The budget is that choice. The investments we choose to make or not make are reflected in the budget, and this budget is not delivering. It’s not delivering on mental health supports that are needed. It’s not delivering on the housing that is needed. It’s not delivering on the homelessness crisis that municipalities across the province are experiencing.

It’s very important that we not only express our condolences, but that we take action. With this budget, again, this Conservative government is choosing to benefit a select few at the expense of everybody else. This budget is a failure of leadership. True leaders meet the moment. This one is out of touch with reality and out of touch with the experiences of people.

There’s obviously a lot to cover in a budget, so I will only have time to go over a few key problems with this budget. I want to touch on housing first. It is getting increasingly unaffordable. In my riding of Parkdale–High Park, almost 60% of residents are tenants, and rents in this city are out of control—absolutely out of control.

Earlier this week, I joined tenants from 55 High Park and 58 Quebec Avenue in delivering a letter to Great West Life Realty Advisors asking for the dramatic increases to their rents to be stopped. These are buildings that are not covered under the Rent Control Act, and so their rents can increase by whatever amount the company decides. Even though it’s a new building, there are no major repairs. There are no new services or anything like that; it’s simply increasing because it’s not illegal, but just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s right. We know that tenants are suffering.

As well, with this budget, the government talks about creating a supply of housing. Yes, we need to increase the supply of housing—the official opposition agrees with that—but we also need to ensure that it is (1) affordable and (2) that the government follow through on the recommendations of their own housing task force and build within existing boundaries. Report after report is showing that there is absolutely no need to build on the greenbelt.

Speaker, the government passed Bill 23 and that is hurting municipalities a lot—municipalities like the city of Toronto, who are already with a $1-billion shortfall. This government promised that they would make municipalities whole because Bill 23 cut development charges, and development charges are very important for municipalities. It is through development charges that the city is actually able to invest in the infrastructure that the people who are going to be living in these new homes are going to receive, infrastructure like green spaces, parks, child care. We can’t just live in homes; we have to live in communities. We have to be able to access all of the services and we want to be able to do that. But if development charges are going to be cut, if the government is going to prevent the city of Toronto from collecting development charges, and if the government is not going to make any investments to replace that loss of revenue, then the city’s services that we rely on are not going to be there. And cities need these services to function.

I don’t have too much time, so I want to go over very quickly and touch a little bit on education. Earlier this week, again, I asked the government if they would repay the TDSB the pandemic costs because the TDSB was forced to tap into their reserves during the pandemic in order to meet the direction that was set by this government and by public health. They wanted to make sure that the health and safety needs of students, teachers and all education workers, everybody in the school community, were met and that they continued to provide academic excellence and supports during the pandemic.

Speaker, what I find particularly troubling is that the Financial Accountability Office has repeatedly come out with reports showing that this government is underspending. There is money that is being allocated to education, to health and to different areas, but that allocated funding is not being spent. And that’s the same for education. While this government was underspending on education, they were forcing the TDSB to tap into reserves, and the TDSB has now reached a point where there are no more reserves. So for the upcoming school budget year, the board will be forced to make support staff layoffs, will be forced to cut programs, and we’re already seeing that. Through a school newsletter at Humberside, parents and students were informed that their math drop-in program was going to be discontinued. In fact, it’s going to be discontinued as of today.

At a time when the needs of students are still very high, at a time when we need more caring adults in our schools, when violence is up in not just high schools but in elementary as well, we cannot afford to lose any more staff. We cannot afford to lose programs in our schools.

Speaker, as I mentioned, budgets are about choices, and I want to let the government members know that we can choose to invest in strong and caring communities. We can choose to have excellent public health care, mental health supports and invest in education workers. One of the things that increasingly I’m hearing about from my constituents is that it’s no longer low- to middle-income families who are struggling. Most people are feeling the pinch. Not only are rents up, mortgages are up; the cost of buying a home is up. The dream of being able to have your own home, especially for young families, is feeling like it’s slipping. It’s further and further away—to the point, in fact, that people have to make very, very hard decisions about where the money goes, because wages are not increasing at the same rate as costs are going up. This is impacting people in a very deep way.

And I think about, particularly, the front-line health care workers. I think about public sector workers. Speaker. For them, not only are costs increasing, but this government, through legislation, Bill 124, is keeping their wages low. Inflation is through the roof, but public sector worker wages cannot increase more than the 1%. The court decision was that this bill, Bill 124, was unconstitutional. And instead of repealing Bill 124, instead of giving cost-of-living increases to public sector workers, particularly to our front-line health care workers, what is this government doing? Spending more public dollars in appealing this decision.

Speaker, we cannot have a great health care system without health care staff, and we cannot have enough health care staff—we are not able to recruit and retain the health care staff—if we’re not paying decent wages, if we’re not ensuring that every worker—including health care workers; many health care workers don’t have paid sick days. With this budget, the government is bringing an end to the paid-sick days program. Paid sick days are good for the economy, because when workers are sick and they stay at home to take care of themselves or their child or their family member—perhaps a parent or a grandparent—it stops the spread. They won’t be infecting and spreading the virus or the illness to their co-workers. Paid sick days are good and sound economic policy.

Speaking of workplaces, one of the other things that I’m also hearing increasingly is from our small businesses, through our BIAs, who are saying that one of the top priorities for the small businesses is actually greater mental health supports, because they are increasingly interacting with people who are struggling. That’s making it hard for them to feel safe themselves, but also to make sure that the clients are safe, that the community spaces are safe. And so they really want to see greater mental health supports as a policy to support small businesses, Speaker.

In the last minute that I have, I just want to conclude by saying, again, this budget is a failure of the leadership. It’s a failure on the part of this government because it fails to prioritize the needs of Ontarians and to invest in a better future for our province. Speaker, we don’t have to accept this as the new normal. We can choose a different path, one that puts people first, one that creates a brighter future for all of us. Unfortunately, once again, the Conservatives have failed.

I listened to the remarks of the member from Parkdale–High Park. I know that, from time to time, members of the NDP caucus have been concerned about violence and gang activity. And so my question with regard to this particular budget, which contains $13.4 million to continue the fight against illegal guns, gang violence—

Questions?

Point of order.