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.

I want to thank the member from Don Valley East.

First of all, I want to acknowledge my niece, my brother Rob’s daughter, up there, from Michael Power. It’s good to see you, honey. I love you. One day you’ll be sitting down here.

Talking about affordability, the member from Don Valley East voted against a 10-cent cut of the gas tax. They voted against getting rid of the tolls on the 412 and 418. They voted against increasing the ODSP by 5%. You voted against increasing the minimum wage—the highest minimum wage in the entire country.

Our province is on fire. We created another 21,000 jobs last month; that’s six consecutive months in a row. Some 640,000 more people are working today than when they had the regime for 15 years and destroyed this province from top to bottom.

Interjections.

We believe in giving back to the people. Speaker, 1.1 million low-income workers have received a tax cut. We made sure that we increased minimum wage, as I said. We extended 10% off tuition for those great students up there—they’re going to university, and they’re paying 10% less; under the Liberals, all they did is jack up the costs.

On health care: We’ve hired 60,000 new nurses registered in Ontario—8,000 new doctors registered. You destroyed health care in this province. There was hallway health care. We’ve never seen a worse system. We’re fixing that system.

We’re making Ontario prosperous, and people are going to thrive and prosper in Ontario.