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.