It is my distinct honour to rise today here, in my capacity as the President of the Treasury Board, to speak about the Supply Act.

I’d also like to note that I will be splitting my time with my parliamentary assistants who are here—I know I can’t say their names; my apologies—from the riding of Mississauga–Lakeshore and from the riding of Durham.

Madam Speaker, it’s fair to say that a lot of us may not know about what the Supply Act is, and that’s totally fine, but this, of course, does not diminish the value of what the Supply Act means and the value it holds. I believe this will give me an opportunity, actually, to take everyone through what it actually is—and a keen understanding of just how the Legislative Assembly authorizes the use of the public purse.

One of our most important functions as a government is to ensure that the people’s money is spent on the people’s priorities, and that in everything we do, Ontario’s taxpayer dollars are treated with the respect they deserve.

The government of Ontario prides itself on its steadfast belief in transparency and accountability. That is why this government has received five clean audit opinions, which is a stark contrast to the previous government.

Every single dollar spent by the government comes from the province’s hard-working taxpayers. As Ontario and the rest of the world face the ongoing challenges of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, it has never been more important for the government to be transparent and accountable when it comes to the public purse. We are all too familiar with these challenges—challenges that can seem abstract from afar but have real economic consequences every day. Geopolitical tensions continue to rise around the word, escalating while inflation and interest rates remain stubbornly high for Ontario families. There are also ongoing supply chain disruptions that continue to create economic challenges for businesses and consumers alike, and these challenges have touched all areas of life in this province and around the world. These are uneasy times for many of the hard-working people of our province.

However, there is one thing that will support this province in these perilous waters, and that is the resiliency of Ontario workers, businesses, families and people. The people of Ontario are our province’s greatest asset, and it is because of this that our government owes it to people to take careful account of every cent that is being spent in their name. I would like to take this opportunity, before I go much further into the mechanisms of the Supply Act, to acknowledge them.

Despite these challenges, our job creators still make tremendous sacrifices to create new opportunities for hard-working families, and Ontarians continue to seize those opportunities by training up and improving their skills and abilities.

Our resilience as a province and our ability to weather these storms is because of the dynamism and determination of our people.

Madam Speaker, in the face of economic conditions that I have touched upon, the business of government had to continue, and continue it did.

I would like to begin by providing a brief refresher on the government’s fiscal cycle.

The government tabled the 2022-23 expenditure estimates on September 8, 2022, and on December 5, 2022. The expenditure estimates provide details of the operating and capital spending needs of the ministries and the legislative offices for the fiscal year. This constitutes the government’s annual formal request to the Legislature to approve funding requirements and spending requirements. Should they pass, the estimates provide each ministry with the legal authority to spend their operating and capital budgets.

Once expenditure estimates are introduced, they are referred to the relevant standing committee for review. The standing committees then select ministries to appear and answer questions specific to their respective expenditure estimates. This was the first time that we used this new approach, and it resulted in a comprehensive review of almost all ministry estimates. This oversight is invaluable.

Should the Supply Act pass, it signifies the final approval by this House of expenditures proposed by the government in the expenditure estimates that have been tabled during this fiscal year.

It is important to note that our government is not proposing any new spending today. Rather, the government is simply looking to approve the spending outlined in the 2022-23 estimates.

The government introduces a Supply Act to provide the final statutory authority for the government’s and this assembly’s spending. I believe that it is an important enough process to merit a detailed description today.

Madam Speaker, we all recognize that health and education are two areas of utmost importance for the well-being and future of our province. That is why it is worth our time today to give a brief overview of the government’s spending in some of these really critical and crucial areas here today.

It makes sense to start with health because the health and well-being of the people of Ontario is the government’s number one priority.

The people of Ontario rely upon the government to build a strong health care workforce, and that is exactly what the government is doing. Our government is working every day to provide Ontario’s nurses, doctors, personal support workers and other health care professionals with the resources, support and guidance they need.

With this in mind, in August 2022, the Ontario government introduced its Plan to Stay Open: Health System Stability and Recovery. This five-point plan clearly lays out how to provide the best care possible to patients and residents. When fully implemented, this plan is expected to add up to 6,000 more health care workers—that means 6,000 more highly skilled and professional workers to help our loved ones when they need it the most. This is in addition to the more than 11,700 health care workers, including nurses and personal support workers, already added to the health system since 2020.

The government’s dedication to bolstering the ranks of our health care workers is undeniable.

Since January 2022, another significant historic fact is that our government has been able to register and license more than 800 internationally educated nurses in Ontario through government-funded programming. This is a big win for the people of this province.

It doesn’t stop there. The province anticipates that by next year at this time, more than 1,000 international nurses will gain the practice and language requirements necessary to apply their life-saving trade right here in Ontario.

Madam Speaker, let me step back here for a moment to share some information about the entirety of the government’s health spending.

The 2022 budget announced a suite of initiatives to bolster the province’s health care workforce, including $230 million in 2022-23 to enhance health care capacity in hospitals. This investment alone supports thousands of hospital staff, including over 4,500 externs and 2,300 nurses. It also provided more than 300,000 additional hours of physician coverage in rural, remote and in-need hospitals. This represents a much-needed investment to make sure that people in every corner of this province can easily access the very best medical care. An investment of this kind is illustrative of the importance that our government puts on the health and welfare of every person in this province.

The 2022 budget also introduced a permanent wage enhancement for personal support workers and direct support workers. That support was in the form of approximately $2.8 billion over three years. This investment supports more than 158,000 personal support workers and direct support workers who provide publicly funded services in hospitals, long-term-care homes, home and community care and social services.

As I just noted, out government’s investment in the people who make up our health care system is impressive. Of course, those dollars can only be as effective as their complementary investments in the facilities that make up the health care system itself, so I’m pleased to highlight a number of those investments as well, right now. This list, of course, isn’t exhaustive, but it will give the House a quick look at some of the exciting projects that are already under way in this province, under the leadership of this Premier.

It is fair to say that our government is implementing the most ambitious plan for hospital expansion in Ontario’s 155-year history. We are investing more than $40 billion over the next 10 years to improve and increase space in the hospitals and community health centres, and build new health care facilities. This $40-billion investment in Ontario’s health care future will support more than 50 major hospital projects that will add 3,000 new beds over the next 10 years. These projects will build a stronger health care system and at the same time create good, strong, high-paying jobs.

Madam Speaker, I’d also like to touch upon some of these projects and the impacts that they have on communities.

As part of this $40-billion investment into health care, communities like Brampton that were neglected for so long are getting a new hospital. We are building one of the largest new hospitals in Mississauga—and the member for Mississauga–Lakeshore, also my parliamentary assistant, has been a great champion for that program, making sure that we build new hospitals in communities that are growing at a very fast pace. My colleagues from Windsor are getting a new hospital—one of the largest health care investments in the history of this province, in Windsor. That is making sure that we take care of those cities that need it—places like Pickering in Durham region, where we are expanding health care access and building more facilities. The parliamentary assistant from Durham has been a strong champion for health care investments in his region—

This Conservative government talks frequently about how it’s working for the people of Ontario, yet in the last three quarters, the expenditure monitor report from the FAO indicates that the government is underspending on the people of Ontario: on their health by $1.25 billion, on their education by $844 million, on children’s and social services by $458 million and on post-secondary education by $175 million.

Speaker, the government is asking us to vote for its supply bill even after they have failed to spend what they said they would. And with a record-level contingency fund that they’ve made a cabinet secret, as I sit here today in opposition, it’s hard to think about voting for any of the good things that may be in this act. The government is refusing to adequately fund critical services that the people of Ontario rely on by refusing to pay nurses and other health care workers what they are worth. Refusing to spend to keep the people of Ontario healthy isn’t financial prudence; in fact, it’s the exact opposite.

While the government talks of record investments, they also have record contingency funds. And we may have record levels of taxpayer money being spent by this government to defend their losing battles around their unconstitutional laws in court. As the President of the Treasury Board accurately pointed out just this afternoon, every dollar they spend comes from the taxpayers of Ontario. But we don’t know if this spending is at record levels because this government has not been transparent about how much taxpayer money they have been spending to fight in court. We do know that they budgeted $30 million to fight the federal government on their carbon tax, only for the Supreme Court to uphold the federal climate policy. They made private businesses put up their political notices, and the court found that unconstitutional. Now they refuse to disclose how much they’re spending on two further appeals: hiding their ministry mandate letters, and on the continued, ill-conceived and damaging Bill 124.

Fighting to hide their mandate letters has been going on since 2018—five years of wasting Ontarians’ hard-earned tax dollars. I’ve spoken about Bill 124 many times and its damaging effects on our health care and education systems. But to add insult to injury, the government continues to waste taxpayer money—money they could be paying those health care workers—to keep fighting what the courts have called unconstitutional; to keep fighting market-interfering, wage-capping legislation that’s driven away health care workers, nurses and other public sector workers.

And while the government decides to limit health care workers and nurses’ wages to a 1% increase and decides to spend taxpayer money to fight that illegal law in court, it speaks to the priorities of the government that they decide to create a record number of parliamentary assistants, effectively giving many of their MPPs a 14% raise.

Let’s talk about transit, Speaker. This government talks about getting it done. Well, the Eglinton LRT, which goes through my riding of Don Valley West and was started under the previous Liberal government, under this government is over budget by millions of dollars. The tab is still being run up, and the government will not tell the people of Ontario when it will be completed or how much their errors have cost.

The previous Liberal government started to get the work done on the Hamilton LRT. This government spent money to cancel it, only to decide the previous Liberal government was on the right track and then decided to bring it back. Had they not cancelled the project, it would have been completed earlier and for less money.

Similarly, the Liberal government started the work on GO expansion, which would include electrifying trains, making them more energy efficient and faster. Unfortunately, this government delayed that project when they came into power, and now they boast about bringing it back. While building these transit projects is critically important, the government will not accomplish what these projects are intended to when the government does not spend the money needed to help cities operate their transit systems.

Because the member for Mississauga–Lakeshore raised it, let’s talk a little more about Highway 413, the Conservative government’s unnecessary project that they claim will save commuters 30 minutes. Data from the Ministry of Transportation, their own ministry, as reported by the Toronto Star, refutes this, and says that by using the existing 400, 401 and 407 highways, commuters could cross the GTA 16 minutes faster than they could using the proposed Highway 413 alone. Perhaps the government should tell the taxpayers of Ontario if it might be more prudent to buy back the 407 that a previous Conservative government sold off, rather than to build a new highway that does what the 407 is supposed to do.

We need a government that’s willing to provide the services that people need, that’s willing to invest in children’s education and to build an economy that works for all. The government announces long-term investments while at the same crippling our health care system in the here and now by not funding it, and this is hurting the people of Ontario and our economy.

A recent article from CBC said 50,000 young people are leaving Ontario because they see better opportunity elsewhere. Building new subdivisions in the greenbelt is not going to address the housing crisis. Paving over agricultural land will not help food affordability. Underpaying our educators and health care workers until they quit is not going to give those same 50,000 young people the education system they need so their children can have a brighter future.

Health care, education, transit, protecting the environment and helping build opportunity for a brighter future are indeed the business of government. Ontario needs a fiscally responsible government that is fully transparent about what it asks its ministries, that treats its health care workers with respect so they can do the work needed for the people of Ontario, a government that manages all parts of our economy, including implementing an affordable daycare system that works for families in Ontario. Ontario needs a government that is fully transparent about our finances instead of artificially inflating projected expenses by squirrelling away billions in contingency funds. That is why, sadly, I will be voting against this supply measure.