It’s a pleasure to join the debate today on the throne speech. I have limited time because we’ll go to question period, but for the time being I want to start off, of course, by thanking the very good people of Waterloo for returning me to Queen’s Park for the fourth election. It was a very interesting election, I must tell you, and I’m sure we will be debriefing on that.

I also want to thank the members for Durham and Ajax for your inaugural speeches and for getting the chance to learn more about you. I also share the sentiment from the member for Ajax around collaboration. That said, this morning I just found out that the government House leader shuffled us around at our committees, so I’m hoping that maybe she could speak to the government House leader around collaboration and around respecting the opposition, because I was really looking forward to serving on public accounts.

I also want to say thank you to my family and my friends and my campaign team. I’m supported—unbelievably, actually—in Waterloo by the community and by the election team that has brought me back to Queen’s Park. I hold that trust very closely in my heart. It is a huge responsibility. Actually, it is in the prayer that we start with every day here, where we are called upon to put the people who we serve first in this place. I hope that this is a very different Legislature session than it was last time. One can be optimistic at this stage; it is day 1, and we haven’t had question period yet.

With that, I also want to pass on my congratulations to the Speaker. I must tell you, that was a good day for us on this side of the House, for the opposition and the independent members, and I truly enjoyed dragging you to that chair.

I am going to be sharing my time with the member from Toronto–Danforth, who will continue on with the throne speech comments a little bit later on today.

I want to start off by saying it was very noticeable: The tone of the speech from the throne was very sombre, and it was a sharp contrast, actually, to the first throne speech that was given in this place in 2018. There are two notable increases to the budget—the budget that has never been passed and/or debated, because prior to the election the government dropped the budget and then went to an election. That is not, I think and we think on this side of the House, the best way to provide financial oversight and accountability.

Honestly, that budget did not meet the needs of the people of this province. It did not. And it did not address the inflationary pressures that we see in the province of Ontario: 8.1%. As the finance critic for the province of Ontario, I track the money very closely; there is a very disturbing pattern of the Ford government whereby you budget money for health care, for education, for some investments in infrastructure, but the money does not make it out the door, and that is why we actually have a $4.8-billion contingency fund that is unallocated.

We know that investing in the health and the well-being of Ontarians is good for the economy. We know that because this was a key lesson from the pandemic. When the health and well-being of Ontarians is compromised, we are in a position where the economy comes to a standstill. So I want to preface my comments by saying, Mr. Speaker, that there is a huge disconnect between what happens in this place and how that budget was designed, and the real lived experiences of Ontarians out there.

I’m going to start by saying that there are two additional expenditures that were not in the original budget, and one was around education. I also was a school board trustee for 10 years. I was the president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. Education brought me into politics because education is always worth fighting for, and if you get it right, many other factors fall into place. But in the throne speech yesterday, there was a promise of $225 million to help kids catch up. Now, one thing that we can agree on is that there were serious learning disruptions in our school system because of the pandemic, and that mental health in our system right now, both from a staffing perspective and from a student perspective, has been challenged, and mental health was already a crisis prior to the pandemic, with one in five children suffering from mental health challenges.

This $225 million—no details were given about it, except that it is called a “tutorial program.” If you do the math, this is approximately $90 per student. Now, $90 per student is one tutorial session. That is not a catch-up policy; that is not an earnest policy. That is a gimmick, and it will not work. Not only that, we were very clear yesterday: Our interim leader, when we were asked about this money—that $225 million would go so much further if it was invested in the public education system. All of us hear the same calls for action: We need more educational assistants; we need more child and youth workers; we need more mental health resources in our system. Some $225 million is not a lot of money. So let’s be clear about the intentions of this. And drawing that money out of public education also does not strengthen those values that we have around public education.

The other issue was ODSP: $245 million, a 5% increase to those who live on ODSP, and I have to tell you the finance minister was challenged yesterday by several reporters on this. He was asked a simple question: Can you live on $1,169 a month? The raise will only go to $1,227, which is approximately $50.

I’m going to answer the question for the finance minister right here and right now: This is legislated poverty. That is what it is, and there is a cost to poverty. I always try to make the investment case. When people live in poverty, their health care suffers. There are issues with justice, with police involvement. There is housing instability. There are mental health issues. By not investing in the health and well-being of Ontarians, you are actually working against your goals, the goals that were stated in the throne speech so beautifully delivered by the LG yesterday. The 5% is tied to inflation. So not only are you legislating poverty, knowing—because the poverty rate is $14,724. That’s what people on ODSP live on. That’s impossible. It is not doable, and we all know it.

When you talk about faith and hope and charity, let’s think about this from a moral perspective, because that’s what budgets are supposed to be. They are supposed to be moral documents that tell the people of the province who we are as a population. It should explain what our priorities are because everything else is just words on paper.

The other final issue that really was a missed opportunity—I mean, the government had an opportunity to course-correct with this budget, because the inflationary rate was not 8.1% back in May. The health care crisis: We’ve lost 5,400 health care workers in one year. Wage suppression is undermining our health care system. I cannot say this any more clearly. You have the numbers right before you.

Bill 124 is an insult to health care workers, education workers and the public service as a whole. In our health care system, you can plan all the beds you want, you can cut all the ribbons you want, but if you don’t have a nurse, that bed will not be opened. Bill 124 would have been one hopeful step for the people of this province. If the Premier went to the emergency room, as he’s been invited to go, as has the health minister, and said, “Listen, I see you, and I recognize that a 1% cap on your wages for three years is a cut”—it is a 7% cut when you have an inflationary rate of 8.1%.

At the end of the day, if you truly value health care and if you truly value education, then the return on that investment is worth it, and it certainly is worth fighting for. And I’ll return to that next time.

Debate deemed adjourned.

My question is to the Minister of Health. After spending weeks in hiding, avoiding accountability, the government is downplaying what Ontario Health is calling an unprecedented hospital staffing shortage. Grand River Hospital in Waterloo region was recently forced to close an operating room and postpone elective surgeries because 120 staff members were off with COVID-19. According to Health Quality Ontario, as of April, half of the hospitals whose average ER wait times top the provincial average were in Waterloo region. That average is over 19 hours waiting in an emergency room.

When will this government stop normalizing this grave position our health care system is in and start listening to health care professionals’ calls to action? Everything is not okay.

If this government was actually concerned about the urgency of what is happening in our health care system, they would listen to the ONA; they would listen to the RNAO and other groups of health care professionals and you would repeal Bill 124. Instead, the Minister of Health says repealing Bill 124 “is a conversation for another day.” That is a direct quote. Well, we think that day is right now. That day is today. Why is this government actively preventing nurses and other health care workers from being fairly compensated in our system?

As I said this morning, I’ll be sharing my time with the member from Toronto–Danforth.

Earlier this morning, I raised the two major issues that were contained within some of the language of the throne speech. One of those issues was the small, insulting increase to the ODSP levels, tied to inflation. This is a total of $245 million from the government. The other issue was this $225 million contained within the tutorial promise by this government, which, interestingly enough, will be money that is not being put—

Interjections.

As I was saying: The $225 million is this promise to offer cash for tutorial programming. It’s interesting, because when you do the math on this promise, it could come up to maybe $90, which is one tutorial session in the private sector, for instance. It could have been so much more of value to the people who are committed to public education in Ontario than one private session of tutorials. Quite honestly, Mr. Speaker, this is not a plan to help students recover from a very devastating interruption in their learning through the public education system and through the pandemic; this is simply a gimmick.

Yesterday at the press conference, I found it incredibly interesting when Colin D’Mello asked the finance minister a question around the deficit reduction. You’ll know, of course, that the deficit reduction is going to be $1.1 billion this year. There was an increase in some taxes. I beg the government to have another look at this $1.1 billion, because this is cold comfort to the people who are waiting over 19 hours in an emergency room. This is cold comfort to the 911 operator from Dundas who was, at one point, not able to send and dispatch an ambulance to a crisis. She was on the line with a woman whose baby was choking, and she was also on the same line trying to help a family deliver CPR over the phone. Those are the choices that are being made right now in our health care sector.

When we say that these are life-changing decisions, there’s truth to that. And I want the government members to hear this because both the Ontario Nurses’ Association, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, SEIU and the Ontario health sector helped put forward very good recommendations around investment. The $1.1 billion in an increase in tax revenues going down to a deficit when the health care system is in crisis is a choice that this government is making, and it is not centred on the people we serve. The 19.1 hours that folks are waiting in emergency rooms is an issue that is affecting all of our ridings across the entire province. No one is exempt from this kind of pain, Mr. Speaker.

The finance minister said that the entirety of the new net revenue would be put against the deficit and no new funding so far to overcome the ongoing hospital closure crisis. This is a quote from yesterday.

I also want to point out, because I am the finance critic, that the proposed increase around health care funding according to the Q1 quarter was 5.92%, when inflation is at 8.1%. That is a cut to the health care sector. So you cannot say to the people of the province, as the Premier did earlier today, that we are investing historical amounts of money into the health care sector when you proposed a budget that did not recognize the inflationary pressures, and at 5.92% when the inflationary level is at 8.1%, you are actually admitting that you are cutting health care.

This is why the morale and the energy in the health care sector is so challenged right now, and it’s so stressed. This goes from midwives to the paramedics—interestingly enough, paramedics, you’ve given them a greater scope of practice. You’ve said, “Oh, you can do more, paramedics.” Paramedics are waiting in emergency room drop-offs in the hospital bays waiting to drop off people they’ve gone to pick up, and there’s no nurse for the pass-off to go to.

In fact, when the Liberals had this problem which I do want to point out—when the Liberals froze hospital funding for five years, that was a cut, a cut, a cut, a cut, a cut, and those cuts were never addressed. But at the very least they actually created a new position in the health care system called the “hallway nurse.” You have created a position called “batching” where you can actually drop off multiple people with one person, which is completely unsafe. Paramedics across the province have said, “Yes, great. You want us to do wellness checks? We’re stuck in hospital drop-off bays because there are no nurses to be had.”

The children’s and social services sector is also seeing a 1.8% cut. When you look at the most vulnerable—and as I said this morning, that is why we are all here. We are here to fill that gap and to make sure that when we invest tax dollars in the health and well-being of the people of the province, the return on the investment is for the province as a whole. After this pandemic, all of us should have a clear understanding that the health and well-being of the people we serve is directly connected to the economy. If you think that a company is going to relocate to the province of Ontario when the health care system is in shambles, I have news for you: This is a direct disincentive for companies to come to Ontario.

The other point that I wanted to make is that—especially after question period this morning, Mr. Speaker, because the disconnect of what we are hearing from the government side of the House around what is actually happening in our health care system is truly alarming. As my colleague here has said, in order to address a problem, you have to admit that the problem exists. A GTA emergency physician is inviting the Premier and the health minister for a tour of her emergency department, so that they can witness first-hand the staffing shortages and crises facing the province’s health care system. I’d like to urge the Premier and the Minister of Health to actually take this extra step.

There has been some language used in the hallway right outside here where the Minister of Health has said that she takes exception or she rejects the premise that there is a crisis. We have so many examples from our ridings—so many examples—that indicate that the crisis is real. Perhaps you are using a different definition of “crisis,” but this doctor has said, “This is a true open invitation. I’m a professional, respectful person. There will be no hate, nothing but professional. I just want you to see what we are seeing.”

This is what they’re saying: “Emergency departments normally equipped with three doctors are sometimes down to two, and with nurses also in critically low supply, patients are not getting the attention or care they deserve.”

She goes on to say, “The waiting room is packed. There are people waiting on the floor. There’s blood on the floor from patients who are bleeding. There’s a long triage line, meaning there’s a lineup of people we don’t even know how serious their illness is.”

This is Dr. Nour Khatib. Dr. Khatib said that even after ER patients wait hours to be admitted to the hospital, she’ll watch them wait up to two or three days for a bed. I, and we on this side of the House, would describe this as a crisis.

And then, to add insult to injury, this is the truth around wage suppression: Your policy on wage suppression in the public sector is undermining the strength of our health care system, since, in the last year, 5,400 health care workers have left that profession. We cannot retain health care workers when the government has a bill on the books that limits those wages to 1%, especially when we have an inflationary rate of 8.1%. As Doris Grinspun from RNAO said yesterday, this is a 7% cut to nursing.

So those nurses are going elsewhere. Many are going across the border to the States. They’ll still live in Windsor, but they’ll go across the bridge and get a really good job in the United States. They’re getting incentives, they are getting perks and they are getting working conditions that provides them integrity and dignity, not only to those patients, but to their colleagues.

Interjection.

It’s interesting that a nurse on that side of the House is heckling me, because I believe you take an oath—

Interjections.

I do want to say one final thing on that, because until you actually acknowledge that this is the reality in our health care system, I worry. The mental health piece was mentioned in the throne speech yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and I just want to finish on this point. I started the first day of the election attending a visitation of a young woman who died by suicide. That was day one. She waited for two years for mental health supports. Her name was Kaitlyn Roth. She was a friend of my daughter’s.

The mental health funding that was in the budget that you tabled—and then you ran away to an election—is insufficient. It is insufficient, because this young woman came into contact with 27 police officers. Think of the cost to the Halton police services and the Waterloo police services, and the cost to her family, and the lost productivity, and the fact that she was stuck in a hospital that was not prepared for or equipped to deal with mental health.

So when I say that budgets are moral documents, I mean it. This budget and the throne speech and the language within that throne speech, which only addressed in a very insulting and demeaning way the ODSP rates, which are legislated poverty for the people of this province, and the fact that you are continuing to undermine public education—this does not instill confidence in us as legislators or in the finances of the province of Ontario. When you do that, you hurt our democracy and you hurt the people of this province. I would urge you to course-correct. You have time to do it, and we want to help you do it.