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?

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.

I received a letter from a grade 4 student at St. Jude Catholic School in my riding. He had some questions that I didn’t know how to answer, so I want to share those questions with the member for Parkdale–High Park and see what she thinks.

He says that the solution to housing is not building on the greenbelt. He asked, “Does the Ontario government know that they will ruin that piece of protected land? Can the Ontario government stop the greenbelt construction and find another piece of land? Why didn’t the Ontario government ask what the citizens of Ontario wanted before allowing developers to buy the land? Because obviously, no one wants protected land demolished.”

I think these are very thoughtful questions that need answers. I wondered if the member for Parkdale–High Park knows how to respond.

Before I respond, I just want to clarify for the record that the member from Essex was using a prop, and the House leader simply referred to that because, as per the standing orders, you’re not allowed to use a prop. It has nothing to do with being embarrassed about the document.

In fact, on this side of the House we have repeatedly said that in order to address violence, we need to get to the root of the violence. If the member listened to me, I spoke about Gabriel’s mother, Andrea, who just lost her son to a violent attack, a stabbing. What is she calling for? More mental health supports, more investment in housing. She is calling on all of us to address the social determinants of health.

My response to the member is that we all want to address violence. Let’s get to the root of it.

If we had more supportive housing, greater investments in community-based mental health care—the mental health associations are asking for an 8% increase to their baseline funding. They only received 5%. Mind you, Speaker, they have not had an increase in 11 years—

But again, there is so much more that needs to happen, and that’s what I was trying to get at with my budget presentation—that it failed to meet the moment. This is the largest budget ever in Ontario’s history, and yet it is a budget without vision.

Speaker, again, I want to go back to what I said during my presentation. Report after report is pointing out that the government does not need to develop on the greenbelt land. In fact, the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force has said that in order to meet the goal of 1.5 million homes, you don’t need to develop beyond the existing boundaries of urban boundaries that we have.

Simply, the government is not listening to expert advice. The government is not doing the logical thing. The government is basically putting in place a policy, implementing an action that is benefitting a handful of developers at the cost of the future of this province.

Speaker, I have met with the leadership at St. Joe’s. Aside from the redevelopment, one of the greatest pressures that St. Joe’s is experiencing is human resources. They need the staff. They need the nurses to be able to provide services to the people in the west end of Toronto. So I ask this member to please urge his side, his caucus and his government to repeal Bill 124, which would address the staffing pressures.

Oh. Excuse me. May I read from it?

Through you, Madam Speaker: I listened thoughtfully to the member opposite’s statement. Improving the long-term outcome for youth leaving the child welfare system by investing $170 million over the next three years through the Ready, Set, Go program will help youth achieve financial independence, life skills and development. This is a particularly important issue for me, because I actually used to work within that system. I’ve seen the impact and I know what this can do for children.

Will the member opposite please consider this measure to improve the outcomes for children and youth leaving the child welfare system by investing this money?

I listened intently to the member’s speech, and I think I would like just to ask her opinion. We very much support the police, for them to do their job, but we also believe that we need community support to help the community improve, so that there is less pressure on the police. Could you elaborate on that?

I want to thank the member for Parkdale–High Park for her question. Every week, when I come in to Queen’s Park, I pass by her riding. I go by St. Joseph’s hospital. I understand that a significant redevelopment is happening at St. Joseph’s. I know back home, Hôtel-Dieu Grace and Windsor Regional, both CEOs have given me very supportive statements about this budget, indicating how much they appreciate the support being given to those particular hospitals as part of this budget.

My question for the member is, for St. Joseph’s, is there good news that this government has provided for that redevelopment? If you can share with the assembly what that might be.

Member from Essex, that is a prop.

The member from Thornhill.

Further debate?

I will split my time today with my colleague from Oakville North–Burlington.

Madam Speaker, I am very delighted to stand today to support the new budget, of 2023. There are many aspects we can talk about this budget. My colleague beside me focused on one point; I will speak generally about, actually, two points: what this budget gives towards Mississauga, my city, and, as well, the health side of this budget.

Talking about Mississauga, we are getting close—more funding for the LRT, the Hazel McCallion Line, which is huge spending in transit and covered in this budget, and we all know how that will help Mississauga’s growth.

Also, in my riding, we got funding for a community centre, South Common Community Centre, and there is more spending in the city when it comes to festivities and all kinds of spending in this budget still covered here, in multiple government agencies like Trillium funding, which, again, helps Mississauga to be a vibrant city.

Also, the Mississauga hospital, Trillium Health Partners, which is going to be the biggest hospital in Canadian history, the biggest emergency room in Canada: It is a state-of-the-art hospital, which Mississauga is in bad need of. I can say that. Since I immigrated to Canada, we had two hospitals, and in 23 years, Mississauga has grown from maybe—I don’t know—200,000 to almost more than a million now. Again, we have to expect, with this kind of growth, the health care system having issues. That should not be the case if proper planning was done, if the government which was at the time responsible for that did their job in projecting the growth and making this ready. Now, the hospital might take seven years to get done, but at least we are getting shovels in the ground, we’re getting things started and working, and we hope that we can see that coming to life very soon.

Another aspect of health care which my colleague the independent from the other side touched base on is, where is the medical staff? Where in the budget is medical staff? Again, I will speak about that, because as a person who lived that dilemma—my wife was an international medical graduate. We had a challenge for her to get into the system with all the challenges there, which caused her to have to be in the province for seven years to get her licence in Ontario. That’s another discussion; I’m not going to get into it. But I promised her at the time that we would work hard to change that, to make things different. Thanks to this government, who worked very hard in Working for Workers 1 and Working for Workers 2 and even Working for Workers 3, which is currently debated—today, in the morning, we were continuing debating on that. I was honoured to be speaking about that bill and standing to support it, because I gave a promise 21 years ago that this would change, to myself and to my family and to my wife, and it took me 21 years, but when this bill passed, I said we maybe spent two, three, four, six hours debating something, but that’s going to impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of new immigrants coming to this country who will benefit from the change. On the day we were debating that bill, I said it’s a promise made, promise kept, and I still support that because I see that budget is doing exactly that.

We are expanding medical workers. We added two more medical schools, one in Scarborough and one in Brampton. We added more seats for medical graduates. The IMG program—at the time my wife was doing the exam, for the whole country there were 24 spots. So all the IMG doctors, coming from anywhere in the world, were fighting for 24 spots. Maybe in five years with all the meetings we did with the Minister of Health at the time, they expand it to 75.

Today, the announcement—and I thank Premier Doug Ford for that. Today, he announced that for 2023 projected, we are adding 100 spots for undergrad and 124 postgrad. Today, he announced that we’re expanding that, so there will be 295 spots for postgrads. This is the biggest investment in getting our health care force expanded to cover the shortage in doctors and family doctors, as my colleague said: 295 this year. I’m saying 24 spots across the country to 295 spots for Ontario. This is the kind of change this government is doing.

If we look into hospitals, we are adding a hospital in Windsor. We are adding a hospital at Oak Valley in Uxbridge, a state-of-the-art acute care hospital in Windsor, Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus, Runnymede Healthcare for first responder wellness and rehabilitation and, of course, the Mississauga hospital. There is huge spending in health care infrastructure. For this budget, it’s $48 billion over the next 10 years to build up our health care hospitals, as well as our medical staff.

Adding nurses: We added 6,000 new nurses, thanks to Minister Monte. He sponsored a program to help nurses to study. We are getting more nurses graduated in-home here in Ontario to be able to match the shortage. We are changing the working conditions for PSWs, personal support workers. We made the conditions of their work better. We added more to the hourly rate to make sure we can retain those. We are expanding into this. There are many colleges now offering training—very short training. I think it’s a year’s training or two semesters, and we are getting more PSWs to add to the force to support the need.

Adding long-term care: This is the first government—30,000 long-term-care beds since 2019. We approved more than 30,000 long-term-care beds. In seven years of the previous government, they added 640 beds for the whole of Ontario.

I’m very proud with my colleagues from Mississauga, the six MPPs from Mississauga. We managed to get for Mississauga 1,128 beds—just in Mississauga. I just want to compare the numbers: 1,128 beds in Mississauga versus 640 beds in seven years in the whole of Ontario.

Do you see the comparison? This is the amount of spending we are doing. It’s all major projects: transit projects, highways, hospitals. This is infrastructure that’s needed for Ontario to be ready to welcome 500,000 newcomers every year. It’s going to be coming in the next few years for every year—500,000. They need housing. They need hospitals. They need highways. They need jobs. I’m very, very proud of this government for that budget which I see as unheard of.