I, too, want to give a very warm welcome to University of Toronto NDP and a special shout-out to Parkdale–High Park’s star campaigner and volunteer, Emma Hartviksen.

I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 9(h), the Clerk has received written notice from the government House leader indicating that a temporary change in the weekly meeting schedule of the House is required. Therefore, the House shall commence at 9 a.m. on Monday, March 27, 2023, for the proceedings of orders of the day.

I would love to welcome to our House the delegation from the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Grace Bishop Mitrofan from the Serbian Orthodox Church Canada and Father Jovan from the Serbian Orthodox Church. Thank you for coming today.

It’s my great pleasure to welcome to the House the University of Toronto New Democrats: Jake Barton, Emma Hartviksen, Samuel Leach Jarrett, Chaitri Shah, Nicole Ling and Sarah Pittimen. Let’s give them a round of applause.

She’s not going to like this, but I’m extremely proud to introduce and welcome to Queen’s Park today my daughter, Addison, who was up at the crack of dawn to go to the mutual insurance prayer breakfast with me. Addison is in her fourth year of university at Mac and will someday be one of Ontario’s front-line health care heroes.

What this member is hiding from Ontarians is the fact that her party stands shoulder to shoulder—

They are standing in favour of fees and charges that represent, in some municipalities, $150,000 on the price of a new home. If you don’t think that that’s a factor, listen to CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.: “Government charges can represent more than 20% of the cost of building a home in major Canadian cities.”

We believe that affordable housing, attainable housing and non-profit housing should be incented, and that’s exactly what Bill 23 does.

It must be bring your daughter to work day, because I am also proud to introduce my daughter Mira Pasma-Helleman, who is missing out on a day of school today to join Mom for a day of civic education instead.

Speaker, I am very proud to say thank you for watching question period today to my absolute favourite friend from Nova Scotia, Pat Roscoe. Happy birthday. This is my wife’s mom. It’s great you’re watching, Pat.

Thank you to the member opposite. I’ll tell you, we as a government are so excited today. Today is budget day. It’s a big day in the province of Ontario. And while we can’t get into the specifics of the budget—we’ll be announcing that at 4 o’clock—what I can tell you is that we are going to continue to move ahead in this province with investments in hospitals, with investments in infrastructure, with investments in public transit, with investments in highways to get people to and from home quicker and safer.

I will also add that, with respect to the underspend question that you mentioned, the member opposite is a member of public accounts. Take a look at the public accounts numbers. Those are the actual facts as to what we spend every single year. You’ll see that we are spending more than any government in the history of Ontario on the investments you just touched on.

My question is to the Premier. The lack of transparency in the finances of this province are becoming increasingly concerning. Fortunately, we have the FAO, who tracks actual spending against government announcements. The FAO has said, “Ontario’s Conservative government is not being transparent about how it plans to spend money over the next several years.

“The government’s current spending plan contains $40 billion in program funding shortfalls over six years, though it also contains $44 billion in unallocated contingency funds.

“The contingencies could be used to address those shortfalls but it is an unusual way of budgeting,” he said. He also points out, “What we haven’t seen is this level of shortfall, but we haven’t seen this size of the contingency fund before.”

Speaker, this budgeting practice is irresponsible when there are such pressing issues in this province on health care, on education, on housing. Will budget 2023 actually focus on the real priorities of Ontario?

In fact, this is what the AMO president said: “In 125 years, it’s the biggest affront to Ontario’s municipalities that I’ve ever seen.” You are clearly not very respectful of our municipal partners.

Will budget 2023 make municipalities whole, as the minister has promised, so that they can address the homelessness crisis that this government won’t even acknowledge exists?

There are encampments in Greater Sudbury, in Waterloo region and in Peterborough, among other communities. Ontario spends $2,000 less per person on services and programs than the average province across Canada. AMO has said that Bill 23 is “undermining the financial capacity of municipalities to support growth.”

The simple question is, will budget 2023 reverse the damage you’ve done to municipalities? Will it assist municipalities with water, sewage, transit, parks, electricity and waste infrastructure costs, which those development charges pay for, so that housing can actually be built in the province of Ontario?

I, too, would like to welcome a dear friend of mine, Jay Aspin, the former Nipissing MP, the long-time member of the Near North District School Board and former chair of that board as well and current Ontario Health board member.

I appreciate the honourable member’s question. Of course, we’re always in a position to work with communities. I know the chief personally and I’m well aware of the positions that they take, particularly with respect to traplines. We’ll ensure that we make an appropriate follow-up with Chief Donny Morris and try to understand better moving forward what kinds of opportunities he sees to make sure that his community and the quality of life of those members is realized.

I realize that there are ongoing challenges and issues, but we’re going up there to experience on behalf of another one of my ministerial counterparts, the historical opportunity for KI, and I look forward to talking about a host of other opportunities, staying positive and moving forward on opportunities for Indigenous communities in our Far North.

The one thing that we’ve learned this week in the House is that New Democrats stand shoulder to shoulder with taxing affordable housing, with making sure that housing is out of reach for too many Ontarians.

Our government will always stand with young families, with new Canadians, with people who want to realize the dream of home ownership. I believe that all three levels of government have a responsibility, not just the province of Ontario.

Firstly, thank you to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London for the integral role he played in landing Volkswagen into his riding in St. Thomas.

And the member is correct. We landed an historic investment from Europe’s largest automaker and it’s making headlines around the world: the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and, overseas, the Financial Times—all positive stories about Ontario’s skilled workforce, clean energy, our EV ecosystem, critical minerals, all the things we wrote in our Driving Prosperity plan when we began this monumental turnaround of our auto sector and our move to lead the EV revolution.

Speaker, the auto world now knows what Volkswagen saw, that Ontario has everything a company needs to be part of the EV future.

The parliamentary assistant.

My question is to the Premier. We’re facing some extremely challenging times for the people of this province. Today’s budget is an opportunity to address these challenges and provide the support Ontarians need.

My question is very simple, Speaker: Will this government take this opportunity that the budget provides and chart a new, hopeful course, one where the needs of everybody in this province—every single person—are met?

Speaker, budgets are about priorities. Time and time again, this government has shown that it doesn’t share the priorities of folks who aren’t the insider friends of this government. A recent FAO report found that the Premier’s plan for health care falls $21.3 billion short of the funding needed for hospitals, home care and long-term care. We have seen underinvestment in social services, education and infrastructure.

My question is, will budget 2023 reverse course and make up for the shortfalls this government has manufactured?

Groceries, gas and rent are through the roof. The people of this province deserve better. They deserve a government they can trust to follow through with their actual funding commitments. So this time my question is, will this government actually invest the money that they budget for in 2023?

Thank you to the member opposite. Listen, we’re excited by the budget today. We’re excited that Minister Bethlenfalvy is going to announce, at 4 o’clock, what initiatives this government is going to undertake.

What I can tell you is in the past—that will give you a sense as to what our direction is going forward—what we’ve done is put the right critical investments in place to support those in need, whether it’s those on ODSP or low-income seniors with GAINS support or the low-income tax credit, which was the largest tax credit in the history of Ontario for low-income families. More importantly, we need workers to work. We’re going make the right investments and create the right environment for business to flourish.

We had an announcement just in this past week. The Minister of Economic Development was down in London with the largest investment in Canadian history in electric vehicle manufacturing. This is the beginning of a manufacturing renaissance in Ontario, and we’re going to continue on that path.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin. Good morning. My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. Last month, Chief Donny Morris of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug wrote a letter to the minister about the ongoing historical trauma of his people due to the enforcement of provincial laws and policies on KI members. This includes the desecration of graves and the interference to our ways of life, such as confiscation of fishing nets and disturbing traplines.

Simple question: Has the minister responded to the chief’s letter?

Speaker, will the minister visit Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug to start addressing Ontario’s historical harm to the people of KI?

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. When our government was elected in 2018, Ontario was in no position to build the cars of the future. Jobs were fleeing the province to go south of the border. And in just a few short years, we’ve used all the tools in our tool box to rebuild our auto sector and establish a best-in-class auto and EV ecosystem.

Last week’s announcement of Volkswagen’s historic—and I would add generational—investment in my riding of Elgin–Middlesex–London reaffirms that our efforts have indeed paid off, which is why it’s no surprise that this announcement has been celebrated far and wide.

Speaker, will the minister please share an overview of the reception and feedback our government has received over the last 10 days?