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?

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.

Further debate?

I’d like to join in the debate of Bill 85, Building a Strong Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2023, in support of our government and the Minister of Finance.

Speaker, our budget plan is a strategic and targeted plan that aims to support both individuals, families and businesses, amidst the backdrop of ongoing global instability and uncertainty. We are focused on building a resilient economy that can weather any storm by laying a robust fiscal foundation that will benefit future generations. And thanks to careful planning and a balanced approach, we’ve developed a clear path forward to balance the budget while still delivering on our plan.

We are providing increased supports for employers and investing in skilled workers. We are committed to strengthening the health care system, and we are investing in infrastructure such as roads, highways, transit and broadband networks across the province. Our vision also includes investing in the critical minerals sector in the north. But the work doesn’t end with extraction of these rich mineral deposits. Our plan will integrate the critical minerals in the north with Ontario’s manufacturing powerhouse in the south, ensuring Ontario takes its rightful place in the global supply chain for the economy of the future.

Our objective is to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario by keeping taxes low, cutting the gas and fuel tax last year and extending it to the end of 2023, reducing electricity costs, cutting red tape for small business and entrepreneurs, removing double fares for GO Transit and local transit. It was just last week that I joined the Premier, the finance minister and the economic development minister in Oakville as they announced plans for a new Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit. This tax credit, if passed, would provide a 10% refundable corporate income tax credit, helping local manufacturers lower their costs, invest and expand, creating good-paying jobs and helping rebuild the economy, giving Ontario-based manufacturers another reason to invest in homegrown, Ontario-made innovation and expanding operations.

Over the last two and a half years, Ontario has attracted $17 billion in investments from global automakers and suppliers of electric vehicle batteries and $3 billion in investments from global life-sciences companies.

With some of my time today, I would like to highlight how this budget will improve the lives of the most vulnerable of our citizens. With some of my time, I think it’s important, because when you look closely at what our budget is all about, it really is focused on people: the people of Ontario. Our government is focused on the economic and healthy recovery of Ontarians post-pandemic. As a result, we are investing an additional $15.3 billion over three years in the health sector: 50 new hospital projects, 3,000 new hospital beds over the next 10 years.

Our government is acutely aware of the devastating impact COVID had on the mental health of hard-working people in our province. This budget addresses this pressing issue through a historic investment of $425 million over three years for mental health and addictions, including a 5% increase in the base funding of community-based mental health and addiction service providers.

This $425 million investment will directly impact mental health and addictions services across the province that are easy to access and there when needed; children and youth, by providing access to mental health and addictions services, primary care and social and community supports; children and youth suffering from eating disorders. It will also maintain supportive housing and services for people living with mental health and addictions challenges as they transition from hospital to the community.

In my community of Oakville North–Burlington, CMHA Halton CEO Rashaad Vahed stated, “This funding increase is a historic boost to community-based mental health services to continue to deliver supports by stabilizing what we provide and helping to retain qualified staff as operating costs continue to rise.

“Most of all, it will help our friends and neighbours in Halton get care when, where and how they need it to improve their health and wellness.”

We are committed to assist the most at-risk individuals in society. If the focus of this budget is building a strong Ontario, we must first build strong Ontarians. By investing in mental health supports for the more vulnerable citizens, we are investing in Ontario.

As a former parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Long-Term Care, I’m pleased to see our government’s further investments for older adults with complex health needs. The government plans to invest $5.5 million for new behavioural specialized units in long-term-care homes, adding about 70 specialized beds for individuals with complex needs. This is in addition to the historic $6.4 billion since 2019 to build modern, safe and comfortable long-term-care homes for residents. This investment will result in over 31,000 new and 28,000 upgraded beds across the province by 2028. Every older adult wants to age with dignity, and these investments will ensure high-quality and compassionate care for those seniors most in need of care.

We know that older adults prefer to remain in their homes as long as they’re able to do so, with some supports. Last year, the government announced a historic $1 billion to improve home and community care. In this budget, we are accelerating $565 million to stabilize the services seniors are receiving.

While we’re on the topic of caring for seniors, I also want to mention the Guaranteed Annual Income System program, GAINS. It proposes changes that would expand the eligibility of GAINS starting in July 2024, which will see about a 100,000 more low-income seniors receive payments. This represents a 50% increase in the number of recipients.

At the same time, to continue to put more money in the pocket of eligible seniors, for the first time, the government will be indexing the benefit annually to inflation, providing even more financial support to low-income seniors.

Let us not forget seniors built this province. They worked hard to create a better future for all of us. We owe them our respect and support.

We’ve also increased Ontario Disability Support Program income rates by 5% and adjusted annually to inflation, and invested an additional $202 million each year for supportive housing programs to help people at risk of being homeless.

Today some of my colleagues have touched on the initiatives our government is implementing to ensure the safety of our communities. Given the recent tragic events, it is vital to highlight them. Our government is actively tackling crime and working to ensure we have safe streets and communities for law-abiding citizens. To combat gun and gang-related offences, Ontario is investing $13.4 million in the fiscal year 2023-24, building upon the accomplishments of the Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy. This additional funding will continue to support effective gang prevention and intervention strategies that have already proven successful. All Ontarians should be able to live free from fear or intimidation.

Now, the lingering effects of the pandemic, Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine, China’s economic resurgence, the ongoing energy transition and the global trade impacts of policies such as the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act have presented challenges. As a result, more and more global trading partners are turning inward, leading to disrupted and strained supply chains.

The post-pandemic environment has resulted in elevated inflation, putting a financial strain on families and businesses, making it increasingly challenging to afford basic necessities like housing, groceries and household goods. In response to these challenges, the Ontario government has introduced this budget to serve as our blueprint for building a strong province and to provide families, workers, businesses and individuals with certainty: the right plan to not just get through these challenges but emerge as a strong Ontario.

A vote in favour of the Building a Strong Ontario Act is a vote in favour of the people of Ontario, a vote for the future generations of Ontario. Speaker, I ask members to vote with the government and to pass this bill.

Thank you very much for your question. Actually, this question is—the opposition keeps bringing back again about privatization of health care. I don’t see any privatization in this. I see that as a public-private partnership. Small hospitals who have the medical capacity to offer operations and do cataract surgeries or eye surgeries—why don’t I as a government make use of that infrastructure? Why don’t I expand the hubs doing those surgeries from two hospitals to 20 centres and clear the backlog? Again, I don’t see that as privatization, because at the end of the day, the patient is getting the same service using the same card, their OHIP card. I don’t know where this “privatization” word came from, and I—

I want to thank my colleague and my seatmate, the great member from Mississauga–Erin Mills, who’s a great seatmate and doing a great job representing his riding. Also, I really, really admire his wonderful commitment to promoting the Coptic community in our province—what a wonderful commitment.

We’re excited about this budget in Essex county because of the health care investments it makes, and I want to know what this budget is going to do for his riding and his people in Mississauga–Erin Mills.

My question is to the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills. I noticed in the budget that there is an increase in the amount of funding that is going to be earmarked to for-profit health facilities. I am concerned about this because I am seeing what’s happening in Ottawa, and I’m seeing planned cancer blitzes, cancer surgeries for people who are in life-threatening conditions—many of them are—being cancelled because there’s not enough nursing staff available because they’re working for the for-profit clinic that operates on the weekend and can pay nurses more.

What commitments is this government going to make to ensure that Ontarians get the absolutely life-saving surgery that they need and that it is not threatened by the arrival and expansion of for-profit health clinics?

I’d like to thank the honourable member for the question. I do appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree with the premise.

When we got elected in 2018, we inherited an already-broken health care system, regrettably, because the key investments had not been made by the previous government. As an example, when my colleague from Mississauga–Erin Mills was speaking, in all of the province in the eight-year period prior to us being elected, there were only 611 long-term-care beds built throughout the whole province.

So those investments have been made now. We’re making key investments not only in long-term care, but in hospitals. We’re making them across the board, in order to ensure that we have the hospitals there to take care of particularly what I call the urgent surgeries, and then we’re allowing for community clinics to be able to deal with some of those procedures that can be dealt with in clinic settings. We’re also investing in health-care workers, and ensuring that they’re funded to be able to attend courses that will actually accelerate their graduation from those courses.

The province, in the last few years since 2019, has invested in building 30,000 new long-term-care beds and 28,000 redeveloped beds. This is critical in order to ensure that our seniors have the quality and compassionate care they need. In addition, we’ve put money into being able to hire 27,000 personal support workers and nurses for long-term care in the coming years, and also have committed into law four hours of direct care for each resident in long-term care. Thank you for that wonderful question.

Through you, Speaker: You know that we’ve made significant investments into ODSP. The government increased the support rates and the maximum monthly amount by 5% in 2022. And starting in July 2023, ODSP rates are also going to be adjusted annually to inflation. This is the first time ODSP rates have in fact been adjusted to inflation. We’re making the necessary investments to be able to help our most vulnerable people in our community.

I’ll ask my question to the member from Oakville North–Burlington. Thank you for your remarks today. On this side of the House, we are deeply, deeply concerned about the privatization of our health care services. We know that private, for-profit care costs more. A knee surgery in a public, not-for-profit hospital costs about $10,000. It’s somewhere between $20,000 and $28,000 in a private, for-profit clinic. The Auditor General reports that we’ve got excess surgical spaces in our public, not-for-profit hospitals. Why isn’t your government using those? Why don’t you repeal Bill 124 so that we get more nurses and health care workers on the job? Why is your government creating a crisis in our public health care system, only to turn it over to private for-profit, where we’ll be paying much, much more?

Question?

The member from Essex.

My question will be for the member from Oakville North–Burlington. The previous Liberal government failed our seniors with only building 611 long-term-care beds through the province of Ontario. As I’m aware, we are building over 30,000 new long-term-care beds and 28,000 rebuilt beds in the province of Ontario, a total of 58,000 beds. In my riding alone we’re building 1,152 beds, with two twin towers at one location with 632 beds, more than the Liberals built in their whole entire mandate. Can the member please elaborate more on the long-term care that we are building in this province of Ontario?

My question is to the member for Oakville North–Burlington. Last week, we had food banks from across the province gathered here at Queen’s Park to call on the government to make those fundamental public policy changes that would address the root causes of food insecurity in this province.

Food banks told us that they are seeing huge spikes in first-time users. They are seeing dramatic declines in donations because of the affordability pressures that people are facing in this province. We need to see a doubling of ODSP and Ontario Works rates. We need to see rent control in order to lift people out of poverty. Why are those measures not included in the 2023 budget?