Thank you for the question.

I think the member has nailed it on the head here when he says that people are on their own.

Again, that money is basically being stored away for a rainy day and potential risks that the government talks about. Well, again, those risks are here. As you’ve mentioned, children are suffering from the pandemic. Their mental health is suffering, and they’re being told, “Here’s a couple of hundred dollars to go get some tutoring help.” That will not advance their learning. Seniors are being told, “Wait for your eye care appointments.” People are being told to keep waiting for their surgeries.

That money could be invested in our economy, invested in our health care system, invested in helping the homeless, whom we know are struggling, and that’s affecting all of us more broadly in our economy.

The member is quite accurate in saying that that money could be better spent under many different programs, instead of squirrelling it away for a rainy day.

Certainly, investing in new immigrants to Ontario and to Canada is important.

I know the government likes to point out that if we vote against the budget, we’re voting against the whole thing. I certainly don’t think that’s the case.

I think the focus really needs to be on keeping the workers we do have. The government is focused on finding new workers. That’s because they’re driving away workers. They’ve driven away workers in the health care sector. They’ve driven away education workers. And they’re driving away daycare workers, so that’s actually preventing us from achieving the full potential we can around the federal government’s program for daycare.

While I support supporting new immigrants to Ontario, we need to also make sure that we’re fighting for the workers we have today.

It was really heartbreaking to hear the interview with the mother of the 16-year-old boy who died. She was very brave and spoke up about the need not only for investment in our transit systems but for investments in the people who are vulnerable—the homeless man who allegedly killed her son.

So I think that, on two fronts, this budget lets us down. It is not investing in our transit systems. There are broken promises related to new lines that the previous budgets have laid out that are not here.

We know that the TTC is having to cut service, and that only leads to more unsafe conditions on our transit systems, because with fewer people around and longer wait times, we know that that can lead to more issues.

Absolutely, the member is correct that we should be investing in public transit and the surrounding supports to make sure the homeless are supported.

We need to be making sure that if we build transit, we actually can run it. We can’t run it without sufficient operating budgets. We know that the TTC is one of the most underfunded transit systems in North America, and I expect that’s probably the case for others, like in Ottawa.

Again, having government support for that transit system will provide safety, but we also need to talk about how many people are homeless, what kind of supports they need, what kind of housing they need. Let’s look at things like small homes that can be affordable, that can be done quickly, to put a roof over their heads so that they can then get the help that they need.

It’s an honour to rise tonight to speak to the budget measures act for fiscal year 2023-24.

As we know, budgets are important because they tell us and they tell the people of Ontario, the people we represent, what our government’s priorities are. Now, when it comes to this budget, what we can tell, both from the budget itself and from the minister’s speech, is that the government’s priority is everywhere other than Ottawa.

During the speech, you will all remember, the minister took us on this little travelling trip across the province. It was an impressive tour of the province, stopping off in this community and that community. They talked about all the things they’re planning to do. But the minister, on this little fictional trip that he took us all through, didn’t come to Ottawa. In fact, the furthest east the minister got on his little fantasy trip, I think, was Oshawa. He completely ignored all of eastern Ontario and the second-largest city in the province.

The minister did not tell us how his government is going to support the city of Ottawa or Hydro Ottawa recover from the tens of millions of dollars spent on disaster relief from violent windstorms last spring. What’s even more surprising is that the government recently announced a small amount of funding for weather-related disaster relief and left Ottawa completely out of the list of cities to get support.

Residents in the rural communities of Navan and Sarsfield in the riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell and in the community of Carlsbad Springs and Orléans and other parts of Ottawa are still being left out in the cold by this government—literally left in the cold, Madam Speaker, as their farms and their barns still have holes in the walls or holes in the roof from the violent windstorm, the derecho last spring, as a result of not receiving supports from their government.

We’ve heard a lot from this government about how they recognize the importance and the value of our Franco-Ontarian communities.

C’est certainement très important pour les résidents d’Orléans et les résidents d’Ottawa et de toutes les autres communautés francophones en Ontario. Et le gouvernement parle beaucoup de leur respect pour la communauté franco-ontarienne, mais on ne le voit pas dans le budget. Dans le budget, il y a une réduction pour le ministre des services francophones, madame la Présidente.

On sait que le Mouvement d’implication francophone d’Orléans est un centre communautaire essentiel pour les résidents d’Ottawa et pour tous les francophones et francophiles de l’Ontario. Construit par la communauté, le MIFO est un endroit où les francophones et les francophiles peuvent se rassembler pour participer aux arts, à des activités physiques, et à leur programmation pour les enfants. Et c’est clair que le MIFO a besoin d’une expansion de leur centre communautaire pour offrir plus de services pour une communauté franco-ontarienne qui a grandi à Orléans et tout partout en Ontario et à Ottawa.

Et ils ont demandé plusieurs fois pour une subvention de ce gouvernement, en participation avec le gouvernement fédéral et la ville d’Ottawa, pour les fonds nécessaires pour construire ce nouveau centre, et cette subvention n’est pas dans le budget. Le gouvernement parle beaucoup de leur affection pour tous les bons programmes que le MIFO offre, mais il n’offre pas l’argent pour accommoder l’expansion du MIFO.

As I said, Madam Speaker, a budget is an opportunity to see what the government’s priorities are. It’s time for all of us, as leaders, to demonstrate to the people that we’re putting their money where the government’s mouths are.

The government claims that the budget is about a path to balance. But for middle-class families, for families in the suburbs who are facing higher grocery bills, higher hydro rates, higher housing costs, for these families, I don’t think that they would say that they’re feeling the balance. For middle-class families, all of their costs are going up. None of their costs are going down.

For Ontario’s families, simply getting by has gotten harder and harder. They’re facing skyrocketing cost-of-living increases, unaffordable housing and a health care system that is in crisis. And yet, this budget offers nothing in terms of relief for these families who are feeling the pinch every day when they go to buy groceries, these families that feel the pinch every day when they go to pay for their basic expenses.

As my colleague from Ottawa South mentioned, there are no immediate supports in the budget that will help Ontarians get by. There is nothing in the budget to make life just a little bit easier. Where are the targeted tax credits? Where are the fee reductions? Sometimes, it’s not always about reducing costs. I know lots of people who are willing to pay a little bit more to get a little bit more. So where are the service enhancements? None of that exists in this budget.

When Ontarians are feeling the pinch, they should know that their government has their back. But in this budget, that’s non-existent. There’s nothing in the budget that will help the bidding wars that are going through the rental market. We need this government to bring back the rent control on new builds that they cancelled when they were first elected. That would provide immediate relief to tens of thousands of people who are just trying to put a roof over their heads. With the skyrocketing housing prices right across the province, that would make life just a little bit easier for all those families and those individuals that are struggling to make ends meet.

Now, Madam Speaker, I truly believe that a budget is one of the most important ways that a government demonstrates to the people that it’s aware of what’s going on, it’s aware of the pressures that people are facing. And it’s an opportunity for the government to present their priorities to the people. We get to see their actions, their spending, their priorities; we get to see that those things match their rhetoric, match the things that they’re saying, match the things that they’re trying to convince Ontarians they believe in. But what we’ve seen with this budget is that the government’s rhetoric is writing cheques that their treasury just isn’t willing to cash. Ontario families deserve better.