Well, to respond to my friend there, I would just say that working diligently, to me, implies actually talking to somebody and sharing a collaborative project. It’s not diligent to put down a piece of legislation that you never told another person about and to say you’re working fast.

Straight talk, Speaker: I’ve heard this record from the government for a long time. “Fifteen years—terrible. Everything is awful. We’re going to solve things.” I’m going to urge us, in this debate, this back-and-forth and throughout the session, to climb out of that communication silo, if we can—those notes we’re given in this place. Let’s actually talk about real issues.

How are we actually going to help people like Candyrose who are living in poverty right now? How are we going to make our transit system work? Who are the people we’re going to empower at a local level so this bill could actually work, and why not open it up to real consultation? That’s what I’m asking my friend to consider.

I don’t know the answer to that question. I hope it comes up in the debate on this bill. I’ve yet to see it.

What I’ve seen my friends in government do as they prepare for debate is basically state the gravity of the problems—and on that there can be some agreement. People need housing. People need opportunities.

As I said before, I don’t disagree with the urgency thing either, the need to move quickly, to move beyond analysis paralysis. I can find some agreement on that too. But why take a piece of legislation through three readings as quickly as we’ve seen here in this House and do it to the detriment? Why I mentioned the LRT story is because that’s what we did with the LRT and now we’re fixing a mess. Do we really want to create more messes?

Let me just say, by way of humour, there are plenty of albatrosses for all of us that will hang around our necks in this place. We’ll deal with that over the next four years.

Call me naive, Speaker, but I actually have worked with members of this government on things in the past. We’ll fight 90% of the time, but we might agree on 10%. On issues like housing, income, jobs and climate change, my socialist heart wants to believe that things can be collaborative; this bill is not. Yes, we need the province to act, but it needs to be done collaboratively with the city. We can’t force-feed change.

If I was in their position, I might be thinking, “I’m tired of obstacle after obstacle, a person saying ‘I can’t do things.’ I’m going to defy the public service advice I’m getting and the opposition advice I’m getting, and I’m just going to do it.” The danger of that, as I’ve tried to explain with the LRT situation, is that you can make a bigger mess than you started off with. Nobody wants to use the money given to us by the people of Ontario to waste it, regardless of our political perspectives.

Again, last call through you, Speaker: Work with me. Take this to the city of Ottawa. Take it across Ontario. Let’s make this law work.

As members of this House may know, myself and four other colleagues embarked on what we call the “social assistance diet” for the next two weeks. I want to say from the top of my remarks this morning to this House that it is not about us; it is an expression of frustration from me and my colleagues, from watching our neighbours suffer for four years. There hasn’t been a day in this place, I’m told, when someone hasn’t stood up and talked about how people are suffering in our communities before our very eyes.

When I heard the Premier say this week that a 5% increase is fantastic and unprecedented and adequate—I ask any one of us to follow what we’re doing, to join us in what we’re doing, and ask if $57 extra a month is actually going to help someone living in legislated poverty.

I’m going to ask us also to consider, as we do this two-week journey together, that there are countries in this world that actually say there’s a minimum level of income, and those countries that have basic income in their communities have healthier communities. They spend less on health care and correctional and police services. People have a dignified opportunity to live and be their fullest self.

That’s what we’re asking for in this place. We’re asking for an awareness that compassion is not only an ethical consideration; it’s an economic consideration, it’s a respect consideration.

I will not go into this House for one more day without making at least an attempt to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. I welcome the Premier and the minister responsible to do it with us.

A petition to raise social assistance rates:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and woefully inadequate to cover the basic costs of food and rent;

“Whereas individuals on the Ontario Works program receive just $733 per month and individuals on the Ontario Disability Support Program receive just $1,169 per month, only 41% and 65% of the poverty line;

“Whereas the Ontario government has not increased social assistance rates since 2018, and Canada’s inflation rate in January 2022 was 5.1%, the highest rate in 30 years;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized through the CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to increase social assistance rates to a base of $2,000 per month for those on Ontario Works, and to increase other programs accordingly.”

I wholeheartedly support this petition, thank the folks who are continuing to sign them and send them in to me, and give it to page Arushi to bring to the Clerk.