SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
February 23, 2023 09:00AM
  • Feb/23/23 10:40:00 a.m.

Even in her own letter to the Integrity Commissioner, she ends it by saying, of course, “in my opinion”—in her opinion. No facts, no real evidence; just the member’s opinion.

Here is the opinion of the people of the province of Ontario. In June, they cast their ballot, and the opinion of the people of the province of Ontario was that the PC government was doing the right thing for the people of Ontario. They returned us in larger numbers for the first time in decades and reduced the opposition. So what we’re going to continue to do is focus on the priorities of the people of the province of Ontario.

Just this morning, I received a notice from a constituent of mine who was visibly upset at the fact that her $300 gas bill includes a carbon tax of $47. She said in her email, “How can I continue to afford to pay the cost of living when a $47 tax is added to my bill? What am I supposed to do? I can’t turn off my furnace. I can’t afford to put solar panels on my roof.” She said, “Continue to do what you’ve got to do to fight carbon taxes to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario.” And that’s what we’ll do.

We have real issues in the province of Ontario, not who went to a Ford family wedding. We have constituents paying $50 for a carbon tax and trying to decide whether they can heat their homes. I have a small business person, Daniella Pantallea in Stouffville, who is saying she sees that things are changing and she wants the government to continue to focus on building the economy. That’s what we’re going to do.

I have meetings with constituents on Friday who want to come and talk to me about the ability to buy their first home—some who have been looking for a very, very long time and are getting frustrated and want us to continue on the path. They’ve heard of our plan to build 1.5 million homes, and they are coming to talk to me about how they can participate in the dream, because they want, just like generations—

But at the same time, Speaker, I hope the Leader of the Opposition will think twice about the NDP’s previous lack of support for what we’re doing in health care—billions of dollars of health care investments. I know in Niagara, there’s a $3-billion commitment to building a new hospital in Niagara Falls. There will be more nurses in that hospital. There will be more doctors. There will be more PSWs. But the NDP do not support that. And 60,000 new long-term-care beds across the province of Ontario? The NDP does not support that. A new hospital in Brampton? They don’t support it. Two new medical universities? They don’t support it. Thousands of new nurses who will be brought online because of the hard work of the Minister of Colleges and Universities? They have not supported that.

In addition to paying our nurses and the negotiations that are happening, I hope that they will consider voting in favour of the billions of dollars in—

We have brought in incredible resources to build our health care system. We are investing in hospitals in every part of this province—north, south, east and west. We’re tackling the divide that used to exist between urban and rural medicine. We are balancing the budgets between our small and medium hospitals and the large hospitals. We are educating more nurses in the province of Ontario than has ever happened before. We’re bringing more doctors into the system. We’re building new hospitals in Brampton, Niagara; we’re building new hospitals in Ottawa, in Windsor—all over the province. Do you know why? Because nurses have told us they want to work in new facilities that respect the work they do.

That’s why we’re making those investments. What the Leader of the Opposition could do is vote in favour of any of them.

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