I just want to pick up on a question that was asked by my colleague from University–Rosedale.

First of all, not-for-profits in Toronto already don’t pay development charges, so we really wish that the government members would stop repeating that talking point over and over again, because it’s not true.

Secondly, aside from the argument about whether or not development charges should be charged—

Setting aside the question about whether or not development charges are charged, this government promised that they would make municipalities whole for that money, and they haven’t done that in this budget.

So why did the government break its promise to municipalities?

Meegwetch, Speaker. It’s always an honour to be able to get up in this place, to speak on behalf of the people of Kiiwetinoong. You have to understand that the Kiiwetinoong riding is 294,000 square kilometres, and we are one of the richest ridings in Ontario—rich in resources such as water, such as the land, and also the lakes that we have, the animals and the fish that live in those waters.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin.

At this time, I will speak your language, which is English. You all know that Anishininiimowin, my language, is not allowed to be spoken in this place. I think we have to understand, as well, that this place, Queen’s Park, the Ontario Legislature, was never built for people like me—First Nations [Remarks in Anishininiimowin]. I always acknowledge that this is a place that is very colonial. English is my second language. I have to speak your language.

It’s an honour to be able to speak on this bill, Bill 85, Building a Strong Ontario Act. I speak on behalf of the people of Kiiwetinoong.

Yesterday, just down the road, I attended a gathering hosted by the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. This was their third National Gathering on Unmarked Burials. There may be a lot of you who do not know: The office of the special interlocutor works closely and collaboratively with Indigenous leaders, communities, nations, survivors, families and experts to identify needed measures to ensure the respectful and culturally appropriate treatment and protection of unmarked graves, but also the burial sites of children at former Indian residential schools. In Ontario, we are still looking for children who never came home from those—I don’t know if I should call them schools. They were not schools. I talk about that because it’s very important work that is being done at these gatherings, and it’s an honour to be there. I won’t be taking part in today’s sessions, question period, because I’m going to be with all the survivors who are here, just down the road, from across the country.

We honour the survivors, the Indigenous families and the communities across Turtle Island who are leading the work of recovering the unmarked burials and the missing children.

We also honour and acknowledge those who lead the search and recovery efforts, often reliving their trauma as they work to bring honour and dignity to the spirits, to the bodies, to honour the remains of our children who never came home.

I know we speak about prosperity and a vision forward, but there are things that are happening—like the fact that there are still unmarked graves, unmarked burials of children, on former Indian residential school sites and other associated sites across Canada due to the inaction and the decisions of Canadian governments, provincial governments, and especially the churches who administered these institutions.

We also cannot forget that our children were often sent to other places, like the federal Indian hospitals, sanatoriums, provincial hospitals and provincial reformatories.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified that further work is needed to be done to locate all the unmarked burials, including at associated sites, to locate the missing children.

Today, the survivors, the families of these survivors, Indigenous families and communities carry the burden of leading the search and recovery efforts. It is a burden that they should not have to carry. But that’s the reality. That’s a dark history.

That’s the real history that all Canadians, all Ontarians never knew, which brings me to the budget—$25.1 million in additional funds to identify remains at former residential school sites over 2023-24. Without this being itemized, it just appears to be an additional $5 million over $20 million over three years committed to date. When I see those numbers—how do you put a price on finding our children? How do you put a price on the children who never came home? This is what Ontario has decided—that it’s worth this much.

In relation to Indigenous people, this budget mainly talks about two things: (1) the searches for Indian residential schools and (2) the Ring of Fire.

It’s certainly interesting how important mining is to this province, to this government.

Before we even had treaties in Ontario, there were people coming into the territories of Indigenous people and mining without agreements. It was in the 1840s—a very important piece of history that took place in Mica Bay at Pointe aux Mines, north of Sault Ste. Marie. This was just before the creation of the Robinson Treaties.

A few years after the discovery of minerals on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior in 1841, the Canada West company generated $60,000 from mining leases and patents, and stood to earn $400,000 once the patents were paid in full. We have to understand that this was a lot of money at the time. Government officials of the day continued to ignore the concerns of local Indigenous leaders, whose homes and sources of food were now threatened by this activity. Also, the chiefs of the area were aware of the value of the minerals and questioned the legality of surveying unceded territory.

On November 1, 1849, a group of several hundred Anishinaabe and Métis warriors, led by Chiefs Oshawano, Shingwaukonse and Nebenaigoching, travelled to Mica Bay by boat. They took a small cannon from the lawn of the crown lands agent Joseph Wilson, and other weapons supplied by local merchants who supported their cause. At that time, they secured a lawyer, Allan Macdonell, who joined them with an artist. When they arrived at the mines, the chiefs met with management and gave them an ultimatum of shared profits or a complete shutdown of the operation. The company closed the mines, and his workers began to disperse with their equipment in the following days. Rumours began to spread that there had been an “Indian massacre” with hundreds of casualties. Other mine owners became uneasy after hearing the sensationalized reports, though there had been no deaths at Mica Bay, and pressured Canada West to act. The lawyer and the artist were arrested, alongside two Métis and two Anishinaabe chiefs. The group was sent to Toronto for trial, where they were eventually released and returned to help with the negotiations for the Robinson treaty.

Premiers like to make promises. The current one likes to talk about bulldozers a lot.

George Ross was the fifth Premier of Ontario, from 1899 to 1905, and he talked a lot about railroads. He needed a way to build the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, renamed Ontario Northland in 1946. The way he did it was through treaty. He sent survey parties to examine possible routes for a new railroad going as far as James Bay. The initial survey area was covered by the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty between the crown and the Anishinaabe people. By 1905, both Queen’s Park and Ottawa were pushing for Treaty 9 to be signed to ensure clear title for all the land up to Hudson Bay. The land would be needed for mining, timber and the railroad.

George Ross’s 1902 budget stated that resource development was the central government priority. Ross explained later to the House that a modern government “has to be the pioneer ... of manufacturing and commerce.” Sounds familiar, right?

Shiri Pasternak, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, recently wrote an article about critical minerals and settler colonialism. She said, “The transformation of industries like automotive manufacturing with the rise of electric vehicles, the energy sector with solar and wind infrastructure, and medical innovations in cancer treatment all rely on extracting ‘critical minerals’ in mostly traditional ways.”

But we have to ask ourselves: How is this new extraction different from the old practices of colonization? When we listen to the government talk about critical minerals, it gets framed as clean energy and responsibly sourced materials. The government says that they need critical minerals for national security and to be more important globally. But you have to think more about the land that these minerals come from. Those minerals lie under the treaty lands of the people who have cared for the lands and the waters since the Creator put us there.

What is the trade-off needed for a green economy? Whose lives will these companies be changing forever to make their shareholders richer? How much does it cost to change the ways of life for the people in Treaty 9 forever? And how is it fair to go in and push these projects through in First Nations that don’t even have access to clean drinking water, in these reserves? I don’t see a $1-billion commitment to that in the budget—just a road that will mostly make money for a company that can’t possibly understand the importance of the lands and the waters, that can’t possibly understand the ways of life of the people in Treaty 9. How can I believe that, when every day I look at the mace over here? There’s a diamond in there that came from Victor mine, that came from Attawapiskat. During its operation, the Victor mine yielded about 1.1 million carats of diamonds. It’s hard to imagine how much that is worth to an average person.

I was in Attawapiskat before, and they have to haul their water in jugs. Their community reserve line is so maxed up, they can’t build any more homes. It is important that we acknowledge that.

The government talks about prosperity. I was in the community about two months ago. This community is a signatory to one of the mines nearby. There is literally needless death and unnecessary suffering. I see children who are four years old suffering with skin conditions. The government talks about mines and prosperity to me, to First Nations. We’ve had that mine for 30-plus years, and there is no prosperity in there. I think it’s important to be able to try to acknowledge that.

I come from a different Ontario. I come from a different Canada.

Thank you for listening. Meegwetch.

This gives me a great opportunity to talk about some of the things that are in the budget that are going to help not just large businesses but small businesses.

I’ll start on the small business side. We have changed the employer health tax exemption now. It’s going from $490,000 to $1 million. How many of your small mom-and-pop shops have $1 million worth of payroll? Very few. This is putting money right back into their pockets so that they can reinvest that in people.

We have a small business tax cut, down to 3.2%. That is something that will help every single small business in this province.

But probably the greatest thing in this is how we are attracting industries to come back to Ontario. The Liberals pushed out 350,000 manufacturing jobs. If you want to know if our plan is actually working, all you have to do is look at St. Thomas and Elgin, with 2,000 new jobs coming in from VW, moving to Ontario—something that would never have happened under the previous Liberal government.

This is real results for the people of this province. This is real leadership by Premier Ford.

My question is for the member from Peterborough–Kawartha.

You spoke about the need to attract more jobs.

I recall, as a reporter, reporting on the number of jobs that fled Ontario under the previous Liberal government due to what I believe were some of the worst pieces of legislation ever introduced in the province of Ontario, including the Green Energy Act. For so many years, business owners—women and men who played by the rules, worked hard and simply wanted to take care of their families, and who created jobs for others to take care of families—felt like they were under attack. Every possible barrier that could be brought forward to stifle them from growing their business was introduced.

But our government has turned the corner, and we have done so much to create more jobs.

Could the member please expand on the initiatives in this budget that attract more jobs and encourage more people to get into the manufacturing sector in Ontario?

My question is to the member for Peterborough–Kawartha.

When I looked at the budget, one of the things I noticed is that when you look at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s budget, you see a $124-million cut. That’s on top of the $5-billion loss in infrastructure spending that is occurring across Ontario because of this government’s Bill 23.

What is this government’s plan to properly fund affordable housing projects so that they can actually get built?

Everything I’m seeing in this budget is looking like a cut.

I thank the member for his heartfelt comments on behalf of his riding and community. It’s very important that we listen and learn.

I want to ask, specific to the bill that we are debating, Bill 85, budget 2023: Will he and his colleagues in His Majesty’s official opposition support the increase in the investment in homelessness prevention and the Indigenous Supportive Housing Program, which is proposed to be over $200 million annually, to give more people a safe place to call home?

Meegwetch. Reserves were created to get us off the lands where the resources are. Where I grew up, it became a reserve in 1976, and they moved there in 1966. We never had welfare. We were never homeless. In the context of homelessness, I think you can talk about the four walls, but the land is our home. We’re not homeless. The land is our home, and people are going back to the lands. That’s where our home is. Meegwetch.

It’s always an honour to rise in this House after remarks from our friend from Kiiwetinoong.

In 2019, we saw the second hunger strike of the former Attiwapiskat chief, Theresa Spence. I had the honour of meeting her briefly during the Idle No More movement, when the chief came to our community and told us about the living conditions of her community versus the diamond mine that was being created, which had fresh water, which had food.

When you talk about the juxtaposition of the four-year-old children who have rashes on their skin, when you’re talking to the people in Neskantaga and other places, is this what you’re hearing from community members—that they fear this constant pattern of discrimination is going to be repeated? What’s talked about is prosperity, as you said, but what gets delivered to people in the communities is just a repeat of this continuing. I was wondering if you could elaborate for our benefit.

Tragically, we have lost an amazing young woman in our community, Melinda Moote. Friends and family described her as “the best humanity has to offer.”

Melinda suffered from a rare disorder which was in remission, but symptoms recurred and she went to emergency in medical distress. There were only three triage nurses working, with 34 people waiting in front of her. Despite her life-threatening condition, she waited for hours. Finally, a nurse found her vomiting blood in a garbage can and barely conscious. Everything that could go wrong did—the long wait; important blood tests and plasma treatments missed. The family left wondering if this could have saved her life.

Melinda used her last days to write about our health care crisis from her hospital bed. True to her kind nature, she began by thanking the overwhelmed nurses and strangers who came to her aid. But she warned that our health care system is a broken system. Melinda said, “I’m hoping to add my voice so people know how bad it is. People aren’t dying from mysterious illnesses, it’s from lack of accessible preventable care.” She herself died a few days later.

This government’s cuts are literally letting people die needlessly—good people, our loved ones.

So for anyone hearing our pleas or the pleas of Melinda’s family, if your loved one has struggled with the health care system, join us in demanding urgent action. It’s going to take all of us to speak up, just like Melinda did in her dying days.

First of all, thank you for the question.

As the first peoples of these lands, as a First Nations person from these lands, I know that’s one of the first things that happened—governments took our land, and they took our children.

When you ask about Neskantaga First Nation, a community of 300 people—they have had a boil-water advisory for over 28 years, starting on February 1, 1995. There is no way this would be allowed in any other place in Ontario, anyplace in Canada. But it happens. That’s how colonialism works. That’s how oppression works. That’s how racism works. That’s how discrimination works. We live it on a daily basis. It has become a way of life, and it has detrimental impacts on the wellness and the health of children who live in these communities. Meegwetch.

We are at a time when we are again talking about trying to find our children. I know that incremental funding and incremental change further perpetuate the oppression, the colonialism, the crisis in our communities. I think it would be better if you started looking at the 94 calls to action and started investing resources behind those calls to action. I have lived it. I have seen the incremental funding. I have seen the incremental help that governments do, but it perpetuates the crisis in our communities. We’ve got to do it, full stop, where we will provide the full resources. Yes, I welcome that $25.1 million, but what’s the number on finding our children on former Indian residential school sites?

We have to understand that in the numbered treaties from 1 to 11, Treaty 9, where I come from, is the only treaty with the province’s signature on it. That’s Ontario. We are your treaty partners, not your stakeholders. Meegwetch.

I do thank the member opposite for his very heartfelt remarks this morning. We heard them all.

I want to raise two things—first of all, a comment about the incremental support in this budget for the RAISE program, racialized and Indigenous supports for entrepreneurs, at $15 million. In particular, I want to comment and confirm the additional $25.1 million in the budget to support identification, investigation, protection and commemoration of residential school burial sites. I respectfully ask whether that additional investment is sufficient to allow the member to support the budget as tabled.

On April 2, we celebrate Education and Sharing Day to honour the work and teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Established in 1978, it pays tribute to his endless commitment for better education for the children of North America.

The seventh leader in the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty, Rabbi Schneerson was born in Ukraine in 1902 and moved to New York to escape the Holocaust.

If the Holocaust showed the world the evil of which human beings are capable, the Rebbe reminds us of what good people we can be.

He was devoted to teaching the infinite value of every human life and the practice of loving your neighbour. The Rebbe inspired millions, not only with his wise words, but with his actions.

He created a global network of Chabad emissaries in over 100 countries, offering social service programs and humanitarian aid all around the world.

A tireless advocate for youth, he promoted education as a cornerstone of humanity, and in an era when a woman’s education was not valued the same as a man’s, the Rebbe staunchly created more educational opportunities for girls. He was even known to write, “There must be a girl!” on educational materials that only depicted boys.

April 2 will mark the Rebbe’s 121st birthday. In Hebrew, we say, “Ad meah v’esrim,” which means “until 120.”

The Rebbe may not have reached 120, but his legacy certainly lives on.

Thank you very much to the member for Kiiwetinoong for those comments. I learn so much from your remarks in this House, and I really appreciate the reminder of how badly we are failing on two fronts: first, how long we have failed to meet our treaty obligations; and, second, having acknowledged that we did harm and committed to reconciliation, how we are failing to make good on that commitment because we are allowing this persistence of two Ontarios, two standards of living, and completely different expectations and treatment for Indigenous peoples in this province.

What measures would the member like to have seen in this budget that would have actually made a meaningful step toward meeting our treaty obligations and commitment to reconciliation?

Working closely with the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus administration, we are establishing the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health, the first-ever medical school in Scarborough.

Remarkably, the last time a medical school was built in Toronto was in 1843, almost two centuries ago.

The Scarborough medical school represents more than a symbol of progress; it’s a beacon of hope for our long-neglected community. By training health care professionals who understand the unique needs of Scarborough, we can deliver top-quality, comprehensive care.

Our government’s recent budget plan allocated an additional $100 million to expand and accelerate medical education across Ontario. Moreover, they have invested $33 million to create 100 postgraduate seats and 154 undergraduate seats in the next three years.

This initiative is a core component of our government’s plan to solidify and strengthen health care in Scarborough for generations to come.

Next question?

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

It’s an honour to rise today to share with the Ontario Legislature important news from Sarnia–Lambton. I’m extremely pleased to inform the members of this Legislature that Ontario’s Minister of Health recently appointed Dr. Karalyn Dueck as the new, permanent medical officer of health for the county of Lambton. Dr. Dueck previously served as the acting associate medical officer of health for the Middlesex-London health unit. She has also worked in public health roles in Peel and York region, and as a family physician in both Guelph and Bramalea.

Dr. Dueck’s appointment is key to helping the hard-working team at Lambton Public Health advance important public health programs and services that support the positive health and well-being of our community.

I’m extremely pleased to welcome Dr. Dueck into her new role. I look forward to working together with Dr. Dueck and the Lambton Public Health team in the coming weeks and months.

Congratulations, Dr. Dueck, and best wishes for a great future in your new role.

I rise today to recognize a great man who passed away on March 12, in his 99th year.

Arthur Boon was a skilled hockey and baseball player. He was invited to the Detroit Red Wings camp, and for many years he played senior A hockey in New Hamburg. He continued to play hockey every Sunday night until the age of 84. He was also a member of the Stratford Nationals in the Intercounty Baseball League, until a broken ankle ended his career. However, that did not stop him from playing slo-pitch until he was 71. He also coached minor baseball and was there to watch his sons, Art Jr. and Rick, play their games, and eventually his grandchildren.

Speaker, in addition to these sports accomplishments, and being a loving husband and father, he was also a World War II veteran. At the age of 15, Art signed up and eventually joined the 19th Canadian Army Field Regiment. His first action in the war was the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. He would fight in many battles up the coast of France, through Belgium, Holland and eventually Germany.

After returning home, Art proudly served with the Perth Regiment, eventually retiring as chief warrant officer.

Art was given the Order of Military Merit, the Order of St. John and the French Legion of Honour.

For over 75 years, Art organized and played a major role in the Remembrance Day service in Stratford.

We owe a great debt to Art, his family, and his fellow veterans. We will remember them.

Merci beaucoup.

Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to make the House aware of a very sad day in Timiskaming–Cochrane. Today at the Floyd Hembruff Civic Centre, people are about to pay their respects for the passing of Victor Lei. Victor was born in Timmins on August 24, 1994. He studied pharmacy at the University of Waterloo, gaining his doctor of pharmacy in 2018. He worked at the Guardian Pharmacy in Iroquois Falls. In northern Ontario, where we’re so short of primary health care, pharmacists are lifelines, and he was a true lifeline.

On Wednesday, March 22, while going home from work, at 28 years old, Victor lost his life on the Trans-Canada Highway. The accident is still under investigation. But we need to remember that the Trans-Canada Highway—for Victor, for us—is our main street.

I’d like to take the opportunity on behalf of everyone here in the House to pay our respects to Victor’s family, friends, his loved ones.

Thank you very much for your attention.