When it comes to innovation and delivery and getting it done, the people of this province and, I can tell you, the people in the hamlets in my riding who have not had that Internet access—they don’t care how it’s delivered, as long as it’s fair, reasonable, and the government has an ability to have oversight and to keep costs down. That’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’re committed to. The kind of question that is raised here results in the kind of dithering that doesn’t get it done. The people in my riding in those hamlets have been waiting a long time, and we’re going to get it done for them. Promises made, promises kept.

Less red tape means a stronger Ontario; a stronger Ontario means building Ontario; building Ontario means tens of thousands of more jobs; more jobs means that we have productivity, growth and prosperity for all and the ability to fund the core public services that all Ontarians rely upon.

Ontario is stronger when we have less red tape, and we have growth because we have less red tape and regulatory burden. That is what this bill, as part of a series, is all about.

Speaker, it’s an honour to rise in the House to share the stories and the voices of the people of Toronto Centre—people who are seeing their lives get harder and harder while they’re being shortchanged by this government’s budget.

I shop locally, and I talk to my neighbours in the grocery aisle, and we lament the costs of a $5 loaf of bread, a $10 stick of butter or a $6 carton of eggs. For goodness’ sake, Speaker, if you can find baby formula, you will see that you’re paying $60.

Prior to the pandemic, the GTA’s 128 food banks saw about 65,000 clients a month—today, that number has quadrupled to 270,000 people, the highest number in its 40-year history.

Speaker, Ontarians have learned that Galen Weston’s wage increased by over $1 million last year.

But this budget does nothing to stop grocery chains from price gouging hard-working Ontarians.

The Daily Bread Food Bank has reached a breaking point, and they are spending an unsustainable $1.8 million a month to buy food to feed hungry Ontarians. Its CEO is calling on the province to step up and help to fight the high cost of groceries.

The budget doesn’t even deliver the help that food banks are asking for.

It’s time for real leadership in Ontario. Make the minimum wage a living wage, double ODSP, and crack down on the “greedflation” forcing Ontarians to use food banks.

Ceux de nous ici, de ce côté de la Chambre, nous le savons très bien que ce gouvernement se présente comme grands admirateurs des consultants—grands admirateurs. Les conservateurs devraient donc certainement être favorables à plus de transparence et de responsabilité en ce qui concerne leurs contrats. Particulièrement puisque ce gouvernement envisage de privatiser encore plus de services publics, comme la santé.

Alors, monsieur le Président, revenons au premier ministre : est-ce que son gouvernement prévoit à mettre en place une liste « sunshine » pour ces consultants surpayés?

Back to the Premier: Does the Premier think that there should be a lesser standard for his own government?

Speaker, I’m here for answers for the people of Ontario, and we’re not getting any on that question, so let’s just try something else here.

To the Premier: Will the government stop stonewalling the release of this document so Ontarians can finally get some answers?

Here’s another fact for you—

Interjections.

Speaker, before last year’s election, the Premier promised up and down that he would not touch the greenbelt. But on November 4, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing broke the Premier’s promise. It’s hard to believe that the minister would betray such a big promise without the Premier’s permission.

Back to the Premier: Did the Premier or anyone acting on his behalf direct or authorize any ministry officials to remove lands from the greenbelt prior to last November 4?

This government is having a lot of trouble following along, so I’m going to make it very, very simple for them: Will the Premier rule out any further removals of land from the greenbelt? Yes or no?

Thank you to the member opposite.

Merci beaucoup pour cette question très importante pour nous dans cette Chambre ici. Comme le leader a dit, nous avons un plan pour le peuple de l’Ontario, sans doute—un plan pour bâtir l’Ontario. En ce qui concerne la « sunshine list » et tout ça, c’est très important que nous, ensemble, travaillions pour bâtir un Ontario propre, un Ontario fort.

Et comme le leader de cette Chambre a dit : We’ve balanced the budget three years earlier, not just for some Ontarians, but for all Ontarians, so that we can build Ontario today and deliver a better Ontario to future generations.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. Our province, like the rest of the world, is experiencing the effects of global economic uncertainty, high interest rates and inflation. In responding to the challenges and pressures facing people and businesses, our government recently introduced a budget that laid out a solid plan to invest in the priorities that matter most to the people of Ontario, as we build for a stronger future.

However, individuals, families and workers in my community of Brantford–Brant are looking to all governments for help.

The federal government also recently introduced their 2023 budget.

The people of Ontario expect their provincial leaders to work with the federal government to make life better for everyone.

Can the minister please explain how the most recent federal budget will help address the needs of Ontarians?

Our entire province reaps the benefits and is more prosperous when people are working and our manufacturing sector is strong.

However, for the people in my riding and in communities across Ontario, local and regional economic uncertainty still remains a major concern.

The people of Ontario need to be confident that our government understands what is happening at the federal level in Ottawa and is working on behalf of Ontarians to tackle problems that are important to our province.

Can the minister please elaborate on what priorities our government wanted to see reflected in the federal budget?

My question is to the Premier.

Life is becoming more and more unaffordable. Even for Ontarians in the first few months of life, the lack of affordability is affecting their lives.

Deb’s grandson was placed on Enfamil A+ formula at three months of age. She wrote to me about the price gouging her family is struggling with while they search for baby formula. She said, “My daughter and son-in-law are always scrambling to locate a store that has it on the shelf. When they do find it, the price has doubled.”

Children in Ontario are going hungry while this government makes excuses.

When is this government going to stop gouging and make sure every family who needs it has access to affordable baby formula?

Deb wrote, “At first it was about $37 for a box, my daughter just found some at Shoppers Drug Mart ... priced $67 a box. On Amazon? $77 a box.” This concerned grandmother asks, “How are these companies allowed to claim shortages and then price gouge young parents? This makes me so disgusted.”

I will ask you her question. Deb would like to know, “How are single parents making minimum wage supposed to feed their child?”

Thank you very much for the question.

I’d certainly be happy to look into this case, if you want to talk to me about it afterwards.

Nothing is more important to all of us than protecting the health and well-being of Ontarians, and especially our children.

We’re working with pediatric hospitals to ramp up their capacity wherever possible, and that means making permanent investments to increase the number of critical care beds at CHEO, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario; McMaster Children’s Hospital; London Health Sciences Centre Children’s Hospital; Hospital for Sick Children; and the Kingston Health Sciences Centre.

This government has invested almost $1 billion in the surgical recovery funding. We will continue to make the investments necessary and spare no expense to make sure that the people of this province, and especially our children, continue to have access to the quality care that they know and expect.

My question is for the Premier.

The alarm bells have been ringing for a while now. The cost of living continues to rise astronomically. Grocery stores are raising food prices. Landlords are raising rents. People are falling behind, and they’re now turning to food banks in record numbers.

In Toronto, for example, the number of people relying on food banks has quadrupled over the last three years. At the Daily Bread Food Bank, there were nearly 270,000 visits in March alone—a record. One third of visitors actually have full-time employment, but they cannot make ends meet. For the first time in 25 years, under this government, the number of children using food banks is going up. One in four visitors at the Daily Bread Food Bank is a child.

Ontario is experiencing a crisis of food insecurity.

We’re talking about hard-working people who can no longer keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living.

Why is this government failing so spectacularly at protecting Ontarians from falling victim to food insecurity?

When the level of food insecurity has reached the epic proportions we are seeing now, it is a clear sign of this government’s failures. We are literally talking about parents and children struggling to eat—even parents who have full-time jobs, making more than minimum wage.

We need to adequately address the historic levels of inflation Ontarians are experiencing with proactive financial relief.

The rising costs of things like food and housing have vastly outpaced this government’s half-hearted measures as they pay lip service to the struggles of Ontarians. For a government with $44 billion in contingency funds, $12.5 billion in excess funds over the next three years, and a well-documented underspending habit, you would think they could find some room in their budget to address the most essential needs.

Something isn’t right.

How can this government run a province, let alone an economy, if hard-working families with full-time jobs can’t even afford to feed their children?

Thank you again to the member opposite for the question.

Obviously, this government has pulled out all the stops and is in the midst of the largest health human resources recruitment and training-retention initiative in Ontario’s history. We’ve made record investments, as the Premier noted earlier—60,000 new nurses here in Ontario, and 8,000 new doctors, including 1,800 family physicians. We are going to continue to make those investments. That’s part of the reason we brought forward Bill 60.

We’re also, in our Your Health plan, expanding family health teams. We’ve got a $30-million investment in that.

We’re doing everything we can to make sure that Ontarians get the kind of care that they know and deserve.

It’s always a great honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Hamilton, and today to speak to Bill 91.

Before I begin to address this bill that the government is calling the red tape reduction bill, I think we need to look at this bill in context of what is happening in Ontario. We hear daily in the House the struggles of people in Ontario to pay the rent, to pay their hydro bill, to feed their children, and there is nothing in this huge bill that will address that—absolutely nothing.

You can take my word for it, if you like: The people are not concerned about red tape. It’s not the thing that’s foremost on their mind. Or you can look at this Angus Reid Institute poll that just came out very recently. It gives the people of Ontario an opportunity to say what is on their mind. It also is an opportunity for the government to listen. They’re in an echo chamber. They don’t seem to listen, so take this poll seriously when, overwhelmingly, the vast majority of the people of Ontario say the cost of living, health care and housing affordability are the top three concerns for the people of the province of Ontario. There is absolutely nothing in this—what do we call it—doorstop of a red tape bill that is going to immediately address and relieve the concerns that people have.

In fact, the same poll shows that even among Conservative voters—people who voted Conservative—69% believe the government has done a bad job on the cost of living; 65% think you’ve done a bad job on health care and 70% think you have done a bad job on housing affordability. Those are your own voters who say you need to do better when it comes to the things that are most urgent for the people of Ontario.

We know, despite the bluster of the municipal affairs and housing minister, that housing stats in this province are going down, not up. We have heard time and time again from the minister that we need to build on the greenbelt, that we need to expand urban boundaries and that we need to build on agricultural land. But the government’s own task force said we have enough land within existing boundaries to build homes that people can afford.

Recently, the Ontario planners council—planners from across the province—have said absolutely, we can meet the housing targets set by this government within existing land. So the million-dollar question is why did the government open up the greenbelt? Who were they listening to and who is this going to benefit? Because it’s quite clear it’s not going to benefit people who are struggling to find a place to live in this province.

When it comes to health care, where do we start with the state of health care in the province of Ontario? I know that we have heard about the countless emergency rooms that have closed permanently or been closed for a significant period of time. This is the primary place people go when they have a crisis, an emergency, and they’re often being turned away. It’s just unthinkable that in this province you could go to emergency and find the doors closed when you have a critical, perhaps life-threatening, emergency.

I know that I have brought a bill forward to stop code zeroes. I know that in municipalities across the province people are experiencing what are called code zeroes or code black, level zeroes. Essentially, what this means is there are times—sometimes an extended period of time—when you can call for an ambulance—perhaps you’re calling for an ambulance because your ER is closed—and there is not one available to take you to an ER. It’s shocking.

I talked to an ambulance communication officer when I put forward my bill that the government supported—we’re still waiting to see some action on it—and a woman that worked as an ambulance communication officer explained the plight that she is in during a code zero event. She had a mother call who had a choking baby on the line. She had another call that came in. She had to put the mother with the choking baby on hold to deal with a cardiac situation. She had to deliver what is called—I didn’t know this is what it is called—operator-assisted CPR.

These are the dire choices Ontarians face. This professional had to choose between a baby that was choking and someone having a cardiac arrest. No one should have to make these choices.

The time that we’re spending in this House should address these concerns, but they’re not in this bill. This bill is six times larger than the budget and it is quite possible it helps even fewer people than the budget did, which, as we said, failed to meet the moment and was described in an editorial that said if it “were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks.” I think that speaks to this government’s being so out of touch, so tone-deaf to what people are feeling in this province right now.

I just want to say, when it comes to the concerns in Hamilton, it’s really shocking to me that I have to read this in the House, but the city of Hamilton has declared three separate states of emergency to get the province’s attention on what is urgent for them. A councillor moved forward three separate states of emergency, one for homelessness, one for mental health and the other for opioid addiction, because municipalities are struggling to address this crisis and this government seems to completely have earmuffs on, not seeming to understand what’s happening in the real world.

I can imagine you’re getting these calls to your constituency office; we are. I don’t know whether you live in a magical part of Ontario where you’re not getting these calls, or maybe you think the magic of red tape will resolve some of these problems, but I can tell you it’s not working.

The Niagara region council also declared a state of emergency for the same reason, trying to get the province to understand the concerns and the dire state of emergency that we’re in.

And you know, I would just say, when it comes to homelessness, which is absolutely a crisis not just in Toronto, not in Hamilton but in every community in Ontario—in rural communities. I have never heard of this. This is a problem. We walk down Bay Street here in Toronto and people are sleeping in sleeping bags on the street. It’s shocking to me, in Hamilton, to see people in tents, in parks, with no place else to go. and the way that they’re treated and the way that they are criminalized is something that should be a top priority for this government, but it doesn’t seem to be.

I just will say it’s not just me, again, because I imagine that you don’t want to hear it from me, but I have a letter here that was written to the Premier. It says, “Dear Premier Ford,

“Homelessness is a crisis in every part of Ontario. The homelessness crisis is harming people and families and communities. It is undermining the social fabric and economic prospects of our province. It imposes unnecessary costs on our health care and justice systems, and on our institutions, community agencies and government. It limits opportunity for economic participation. It reveals a lack of progress on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. It is putting Ontario’s broader prosperity at risk.”

And I will just let you know that this is signed by, among other people, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs. These are the first responders that are seeing this crisis and took it upon themselves to write what I would call a pretty extraordinary letter directly to the Premier, saying we are in crisis in this province.

In the city of Hamilton, we have 1,500 homeless people, as best as we can count—1,500 people who have no place to live—but we have 500 shelter beds. If these numbers are correct, when it comes to how many homeless people there are, and it may be greater than that, we already only have one third of these people who can be housed. This is something that just seems to be acceptable or seems to be, “turn the page.” We seem to be not addressing this crisis, which really is a humanitarian crisis. There is no other way to describe allowing people to live and die on the streets of our communities and not making it the top priority—the top priority—in this budget. Pardon me, in this bill. It didn’t make it in the budget either, by the way, but certainly in this bill.

Municipalities have been left holding the empty bag that you have delivered them. They will be left holding the hole in their revenue when it comes to all of the development charges that you’ve waived in the province. This magical thinking, that you can give developers—waive fees, waive the kinds of charges that build our communities, that build municipalities, and that money is going to be made up from where, a trickle-down theory? I don’t know if that’s what you are referring to. But the fact is that municipalities are saying, all across Ontario, that there’s going to be something like $5 billion that municipalities will no longer have to provide these front-line services that are needed: front-line services to keep our paramedics on the street, to keep homeless shelters open, to keep mental health crisis centres open.

I cannot believe that I’m looking at this giant bill, Bill 91, with quite a few schedules, and none of it addresses the critical emergencies in the province of Ontario.

It’s an honour to rise in the House today to speak on behalf of the constituents from Toronto Centre.

The bill that we’re debating is entitled Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act. It’s an omnibus bill. It has got hundreds of pages and 37 schedules, and was just recently dropped in the House. We’re all scrambling to read it, understand it and offer some hopefully meaningful reflections on how this bill can—perhaps right now it does not—support the needs of all Ontarians.

I want to offer you a few reflections. The government is really fantastic at creating bills that are very lengthy in nature—sometimes they’re truncated—but the titles are always very fascinating, because if you don’t read the rest of the body of the bill or any of the schedules, you actually think it’s doing some really outstanding things. But, unfortunately, the title reaches much higher than the content of the bill, as we have seen in the past.

I have some mixed feelings about the bill, largely because the title is very ambitious, but the content, the substance, the meat of it, is fairly weak. So yes, there are some housecleaning matters which have to be done, and some of it is about streamlining the application around paper transfer and moving it to the digital side, which I think is absolutely fantastic. We should be doing it. There’s no reason why we should not pursue that. However, that’s not what I would call groundbreaking, and it certainly doesn’t meet the needs of what Ontarians are asking for today.

And so, the bill does feel like it’s out of touch. It feels like, once again, it’s not meeting the moment and the needs of Ontarians, and Ontarians are very clear about what they’re looking for. They’re looking for some financial relief from the punishing financial environment that they’re under right now: stagnated wages, much higher costs of just about everything with respect to the cost of living.

I did raise, in earlier questions—I shared some information from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They have been specifically concerned about making sure that all parliamentarians at this House—and every other order of government—understand what their small business owners are struggling with. They are being ground into the pavement with astronomical debt, and the simple mathematical formula is that they had a lot fewer customers coming in, and at the same time, the cost of service delivery was getting higher. And yes, there are supply chain issues, but right now they are dealing with grappling debt and the soaring interest rates that are just beating them down every single day, and they’re not getting help from this government.

Now, omnibus bills can hide things, and there are a few things that I believe this bill has sort of put aside, hoping that we can gloss over it, but I’m not going to, and I will bring that up in a few minutes.

But I wanted to speak, Madam Speaker, about my community in Toronto Centre. I happen to represent the Church-Wellesley Village. It is a very dynamic business environment. We also happen to be the largest lesbian and gay community in Canada, and one of the biggest ones in North America. There’s really nothing in this bill that helps that community meet the needs that they need to have addressed today with respect to soaring commercial rates and the challenges that we’re seeing on our streets. Oftentimes what we’re seeing is a lack of safety for our community.

Now, red tape can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but for my community, we need to be free from hatred and bigotry. We need to know that our businesses can open their doors without a group of protestors trying to shut them down and intimidate them. Right now, we’re seeing this happen in so many businesses across Ontario, as I noted yesterday. I want to share with you that cutting red tape for the trans and queer community means that they are going to be able to open their businesses and operate freely. In particular, the drag artists that are under attack right now in Ontario, the audiences that support them and the businesses, the venues that host those events are under attack.

Speaker, I have received a deluge of hate these past few days, specifically because I dared stand up for our communities—and your communities, because it’s happening right across Ontario. I dared to stand up to intimidation, to hateful speech, to death threats and harassment, all because I want to defend the rights of LGBT people in Ontario.

I have a message for those who are trying to shut us down, to try to push us back into the closet: We’re only going to get louder. We’re only going to get prouder. We’re only going to get more visible. We’re only going to get more fabulous. We’re only going to throw out a lot more glitter. We’re only going to get queerer.

Thank you, Speaker. This is specifically why I’m bringing this up, because my community is not getting the support that it needs in order for them to safely operate their business and to carry out their craft.

We’re not going back into the closet. We’re not going anywhere. As a matter of fact, we’re going to continue to stand and fight for the rights of our business owners and our cultural entrepreneurs and workers to make sure that they can actually freely, freely deliver their service. We’re all going to be richer for it, because love will always trump hate.

This bill does not meet the moment, as I have expressed. It’s so important for us to recognize that low-income Ontarians are not helped at all. Not one cent—no, one nickel; pennies are gone. They’re not helped one nickel in this bill. ODSP and Ontario Works recipients are facing some of the biggest deterrents in accessing employment, and what we hear from the government is that they should go get a job. Unfortunately, some individuals cannot get a job. There’s nothing in this bill that actually builds back stronger and better for that group of people, and I think that we need to be able to address that, because ODSP recipients oftentimes receive a marginal rate increase of up to 75%, which is not enough at all, and we need to be able to address that.

We have heard now this morning about the astronomical line-up and demand on food banks. One in four children in Ontario is using a food bank. Children aren’t poor; their parents are poor, and oftentimes their single-parent-led households are poor. Food banks in the GTHA have seen their usage quadruple from 65,000 users a month to 270,000 users a month. They can’t find baby formula anywhere. And how is this bill going to support them?

So yes, absolutely, cut the red tape that you need. We should all embrace that. But does this bill build back a stronger Ontario, a stronger economy for all? It certainly does not.

There are other things about this bill, Speaker, that I want to be able to highlight, and I mentioned it before. This bill specifically talks in schedule 11 about the repealing of the Auditor General’s oversight of the Children’s Lawyer. It’s not clear who asked for this. As far as I can tell, the Auditor General actually is a top-notch accountability officer. Their job is to make sure that the people’s money is going to be well spent and that services are going to be delivered properly. Why was this oversight repealed? Nobody can explain it to me; I haven’t heard it in any speeches. It wasn’t explained in any of the presentations I’ve heard so far. And why doesn’t the Children’s Lawyer—the Children’s Lawyer, who defends the rights of children in Ontario—have the right to have an accountability officer review the spending of that office? And what mechanisms are in place to ensure that transparency? That’s not clear in the bill as well.

What we also have, Speaker, is a bill that speaks specifically to the Private Career Colleges Act. Now this is actually a really interesting piece, Speaker, because if you blink, you’ll miss it. The word “private career college”—the amendment is suggesting that we’re going to delete the word “private,” because it may stigmatize the college itself, and that may be the reason why this word is being removed. Well, I’m very sorry, Speaker; that’s not good enough. Just because someone doesn’t like the fact that it’s calling on the act to reflect who is affected, which, in this case, is private colleges—I see no reason why that word is to be removed.

The other thing, Speaker, is schedule 30, Protecting Farmers from Non-Payment Act. It takes up one third of the bill—one third. What we know is that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture didn’t receive any updates about this bill, nor were they consulted. So who is this government speaking to and who specifically are those changes for?

Thank you very much to my colleague across the aisle for her presentation to the House. You particularly made mention about the 2SLGBTQI+ community here in Ontario and how this doesn’t support them. Madam Speaker, I’d like to submit to the member opposite that this is our 10th red tape reduction bill, and new job numbers are out today where Ontario is leading the country in job growth and economic growth. I would ask that in those particularly 21,000 job numbers, do you not see how that does help our 2SLGBTQI+ community and racialized Ontarians?

Thank you so much to the member from Waterloo for her question. That’s a really important issue that you raise. There are so many different areas where Ontarians are facing regulatory burdens, including the ODSP recipients. We know that social assistance recipients really need to see that basic rate increased—doubled, I would argue—and then index it to the rate of inflation.

I would argue that the ODSP and Ontario Works recipients are unduly punished with regulation. They are unduly punished every single month to just resubmit and requalify for what is a basic Ontario service that they do deserve and that they already have qualified once to meet, but they have to go back every month to do it. If you want to reduce red tape, reduce the red tape for them.

There are Ontarians right now who are trying desperately to hold on to the employment contracts and the contracts that they have with different venues because they can’t get to work safely or they’re being stalked or being doxxed. That is something that is specifically affecting the LGBT community, plus the audiences, plus the businesses that are hosting them. They are not even specifically LGBT, all of them. Some of them are Kelseys and Boston Pizzas. They would like to book the drag performers. They can’t do it because there isn’t any protection for them in Ontario right now.

This is probably going to be a first time for me here, but I want to take a moment to actually thank the government for finally listening to one part of this bill that I agree with, which is recognizing international professionals, internationally trained health care workers.

We’re not all there yet with this bill, and I know there are other portions, other bills that have been brought forward, but I remember coming to this House in 2018, for the first time, and bringing this up and then bringing my private member’s bill. To finally see the government take on pieces that I have recommended, pieces that the Ontario NDP has recommended be put in legislation, makes a lot of difference to a lot of Ontarians who are internationally trained who can contribute to our health care system.

So I want to thank the government for doing that, but I think we have a long way to go to make sure that we’re recruiting them properly and retaining them, because that process has been undermined and this bill does not do justice to that. I hope that the government will listen and actually allow for that to happen as well. I’d be happy to hear from any of the members.