Point of order.

Interjection.

I think I understand my friend’s objection to my remarks as not having a link to the government’s budget bill. What I’m attempting to establish, over the next 16 minutes, is that we as a Legislature—not just this government—have a responsibility to ensure adequate funding is put into our transit system to ensure people’s safety. I think it’s important that we’re all aware of the gravity of the matter. I apologize to the member if some of the issues that I’m talking about here, in all honesty, are hard to hear, but they are happening on our transit system, and I will endeavour over the next 15 minutes to make the link to the investments this place needs to make in our transit system to ensure people’s safety.

Speaker, I’ll continue.

On January 21, 2023, a 24-year-old TTC operator was shot with a BB gun while waiting for her shift to begin in Scarborough.

The next day, four teenagers were charged with swarming and violently beating two other TTC operators.

On March 4, 2023, Waterloo Regional Police Service was notified of a man following a woman off a public transit bus with the intent of sexual assault. Three similar incidents happened the following week.

On March 24, 2023, a 19-year-old in Barrie with no fixed address assaulted a bus operator. The operator, to this day, remains on disability leave. The assailant was released to the community without any supports.

On March 25, 2023—an incident many people in this House will know well—Gabriel Magalhaes, 16 years old, died in hospital after being stabbed by someone as he sat on a bench at the TTC’s Keele subway station.

On March 27, 2023—the incident I recounted, in our city of Ottawa, at the Rideau LRT station.

Then, most recently, on March 31, 2023, a man was robbed at knifepoint by two suspects at the TTC’s Coxwell station. He was not injured.

It bears repeating that hundred of thousands, millions of people—if you think about how many people used public transit in the province of Ontario over the last few months—have used public transit without experiencing violent, graphic incidents like these, have worked in the system, but I want to believe that our goal in our public transit system is zero injuries, zero accidents, zero assaults. That’s our goal. It’s the TTC’s stated goal. It’s OC Transpo’s stated goal. Most municipal transit authorities say the same thing.

People are alarmed, moms and dads are alarmed, neighbours are alarmed at what is happening in the transit safety system. Unfortunately, too often, people think that the answer to dealing with violence in our transit system is simply a criminal justice response; that this is matter of very violent people who need to be locked up and kept away from the public, and that will resolve our problems in public transit. Experts I’ve had occasion to speak to recently dispute that case.

It’s also not accurate to attribute all of the transit violence I named—and I did not name a complete list—to simply folks struggling with unmet mental health needs or folks who are homeless. Many of the incidents of violence in our public transit systems have happened with people who, for one reason or another, see transit riders and transit operators as easy targets of violence.

So what can we do? I want to make the case in the time I have this morning that what we absolutely must do is put money into the operational budgets of transit systems. Let me give you a very concrete example that comes to me by way of the great people who operate the TTC systems, who are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113.

Subway cars operating in the city of Toronto historically had two major positions per car. There was a driver, and then there was another position known as the guard. The guard would be that person—if you’re on the subway platform—who’s looking out the window, ensuring that the doors are safely closed, that there’s nothing wrong happening on the platform, but, also, the guard’s job is to monitor general well-being of the platform itself. If they see a problem, they have the capacity inside the subway car to immediately notify the TTC constables, who are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the two units work very well together. Unfortunately, given the fact that operational funding has dramatically reduced in the TTC system, that guard position has been cut by the Toronto Transit Commission. So transit operators, in some cases, are—the only source of support in a critical incident could be that one person who is operating that subway; the window opens temporarily. Yes, there are emergency buttons you can push, but the operators of the system tell me it’s not sufficient, and I trust them.

I also know that budget 2023 that the government just introduced allocated only $80 million—on a provincial budget offering of over $200 billion—for operational funding for our public transit systems. There is a link between that underinvestment and the inadequacy of funds available for the guard position on subway cars or other crisis response people who could be made available to help neighbours in crisis.

What could we do? There’s a lot we could do. The first thing we can do, as I’ve tried to do in recent weeks and months in my capacity of transit critic, is talk to the folks who know what’s going on. Foremost for me are the workers who fix, operate and maintain all of our transit infrastructure. They have been telling me since the fall of last year that we are at risk of multiple critical incidents in public transit in Ontario. Sadly, incident after incident has taken place, and we have not been able, yet, at least, to convince the government to prioritize money into operational funding for public transit—but money, also, that would not just be for reinstating positions like the guard position that I was talking about; money that would work hand in hand in a city like Toronto with crisis response that is appropriate to the situation.

Let’s talk about what happened to Gabriel Magalhaes, the 16-year-old who lost his life after being stabbed at Keele station. Gabriel’s mom, who I’m sure many of you have seen, has had the bravery to speak publicly about her grief and about what should be done. I want to read into the record words that she expressed to the CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault in a poignant, candid interview. Andrea is a nurse, and this is what she said:

“We need to start talking about violence, the root causes of violence. I know it comes down to the social determinants of health. It’s not an easy solution. We’re not talking about adding more police force” or “locking people up.” We need to ask the question, “What are the root causes? Why is this happening? Why is a person homeless? Why is a person not able to access care, access supports? ...

“I came from ... a very violent country, Brazil. Why did I move away? I wanted a better life. I see the violence escalating. I read about horrible things ... on the TTC. I feel deeply when I hear those things, but you never think it’s going to happen to you.... I would like people to try to put themselves in my shoes, in my husband’s shoes ... a beautiful ... shy boy, but he had dreams. He had goals....

“I’m a nurse. I had a clinical placement in mental health hospitals. As a society ... we love to blame one person ... ‘You picked up the knife.’ But could this have been prevented ... from the beginning?”

Then, she went on in responding to a question from Adrienne Arsenault about folks in our profession, Speaker, who are elected officials offering our thoughts and prayers. To that, she said:

“I’m going through” stages of grief, “but that makes me angry—so angry. Because when they want votes, they promise everything, but how about action? How about what really needs to be done? Empty words make me mad....

“Don’t live with fear.” We need to use public transit. “But can’t we please ... make effective change, so we can all be able to go outside and be able to breathe and feel safe? I feel like this is still an amazing city; we can do better.”

I agree, wholeheartedly, with every single word.

I think that’s why the Premier, as I understand it, called Andrea personally.

But as she implores us to realize that we have to go beyond empathy—although empathy is the important first step. If we’re hearing from transit authorities, workers, riders, administrators who run the system that we urgently need more operational funding, right now, to deal with this situation in a multi-faceted way, we have to revise what we propose in budget 2023 and unleash a lot more revenue.

I know the government has an unallocated contingency fund of $4 billion. I hope I persuasively made the case this morning that some of that money needs to go, right now, into our operational funding for public transit, so nobody’s loved one faces the kinds of consequences I talked about in the speech I made this morning.

I had occasion at committee to see the Minister of Infrastructure present on Bill 69—and I think this is a related point. The minister made the point in her presentation of saying it’s a priority of the government to utilize surplus government-owned buildings in the province of Ontario, and that that was one of the motivations for Bill 69. I was shocked to learn, as I prepared for that committee, that the Auditor General put out a report in 2017 noting, believe it or not, that there were at that point 812 unused, vacant government of Ontario buildings that we heat, that we electrify. The minister named that as a major problem the government wants to address.

I want to submit, for the purpose of the budget bill, that were the government to say today, after hearing what I had to say and listening to experts in the transit sector, “All right, we’ve missed something; we do need to allocated money into operational funding for transit,” I guarantee you the first thing that crisis workers will say—the great Streets to Homes program the city of Toronto has, that was often the first group of folks who will show up to help TTC constables, to help TTC staff. If someone in a mental health crisis is in a subway station, or on a bus, streetcar or train, the Streets to Homes program will greet that person in crisis, sit them down, put their arm on their shoulder and say, “Are you having a tough time? How’s it going?” They’ll talk it over with coffee. They are skilled de-escalators. But do you know what those crisis response workers don’t have? They don’t have access to shelter space or transitional housing to refer people to. So guess what happens? You de-escalate somebody in one moment, but then an incident goes on to happen later.

We’re in a province where, as of five years ago, there are 812 vacant public buildings that, I want to believe, experts in crisis response and transitional housing—because I’m going to guess a lot of those buildings are in this city. We can repurpose and reutilize those spaces so you can find some temporary homes for people, wrap some supports around it, with their consent, and get them started on making a better life.

One of my gateways into politics, when I was a graduate student in this city in the 1990s, was helping the great Jack Layton when he was a city councillor fight for programs just like this. What motivated Jack to act was the gaudy spectacle of homeless folks freezing to death near his home. He felt compelled to act, as a city councillor, and he knew there was money in the country, in the city and in the province to address it. To his credit, the then mayor, Mel Lastman, initiated a program that, as I understand it, eventually grew into the Streets to Homes outreach program that the city has.

But now everything old is new again. Now we’re in a situation where, yes, the city of Toronto and other cities can demand that homeless encampments be taken down. But people don’t disappear. The housing and homelessness crisis that we have in this city doesn’t go away.

If, in polar climates, which our country has—January and February; we’re both from Ottawa, Speaker—you push people out of an encampment, where are they going to go in a large city like Toronto or Ottawa or London or Windsor? They might go on a bus. They might go in a subway station. They might be living with unmet needs. And that’s when accidents happen.

I want to believe, as I believed then, that an ounce of prevention is better than whatever one would think a pound of cure is. Locking people up and having a very harsh criminal justice response to situations like the ones I’ve talked about this morning is not going to get the outcomes we need.

Speaker, I just want to be clear: I am not saying that people shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions—absolutely not. There is no justifiable case for violence. But as Andrea Magalhaes said in honour of her son, if our goal is actual community safety, then we can achieve community safety. But it requires the right smart investments. It requires an awareness, as she said, as a nurse, of the social determinants of health—and it requires us prudently using the money given to this place.

The government has proposed a budget of over $200 billion, $80 million of which was allocate to transit authorities for operational funding. If we can get to what advocates told me they needed for this upcoming year, $500 million—and I know the government was made aware of this; I know the finance minister was made aware of this; I know the Minister of Transportation was made aware of this. If those investments could go directly into partnerships with community agencies who work directly with folks at risk, either at risk of reoffending—they’ve offended before, or if there is a recidivistic risk, or if there is a behavioural risk due to traumas that person grew up with—that is money well spent. That is us, as Andrea said in her comments, moving beyond thoughts and prayers.

I don’t think any of the families of folks who suffer violence that I’ve named in my speech this morning want to hear thoughts and prayers anymore, as important as that empathy is. They want this place to act.

The good news is, we have the resources to act, we have the expertise to act, and we can act, but we have to do it.

That’s how budget 2023 can be improved.

I apologize to the member. I do have to address a point of order from the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook.

Thank you very much to my colleague from Ottawa Centre for his very thoughtful remarks this morning, which I hope the government will take to heart.

I have some concerns about the government’s larger approach to the issue of violence in society, particularly as it affects the youngest members of society, who are seeing a very concerning increase in violence in our schools. We’re seeing the same tactics from the government of empty words that aren’t being matched by action. Parents, educators, education workers are all calling for an increase in mental health funding for our students, yet the government is giving less than a quarter per child per day, after a three-year pandemic.

Last week, when the member for London North Centre asked the Minister of Education why he’s not responding to these requests for increased funding, the minister responded by speaking about bail reform, when we are talking about young kids who are experiencing violence in their schools, who just need supports with their mental health.

Does the member from Ottawa Centre not agree that it would be much wiser to address the root causes of violence in our schools with increased funding for mental health and more supports and workers around our kids?

In 2012 and 2013, the NDP, with a Liberal minority government in this House, supported two budgets that made no new investments and resulted in effective cuts to social services.

Why, then, is the NDP not supporting this budget which will increase core allowances to ODSP, invest an additional $202 million in homeless prevention and Indigenous supportive housing, and temporarily double the Guaranteed Annual Income System and expand the number of seniors into the system as much as 100,000, in this age of high inflation? Why not?

My question is to the member for Ottawa Centre.

Thank you so much for your comments about what’s happening in transit today. It concerns me, as well.

When I look at this budget, I see an increase in the amount of funding that’s going to independent health facilities, which means this government is doubling down on the delivery of for-profit surgery; in my opinion, at the expense of public health care.

Can you explain what’s happening at Ottawa Hospital right now? What is our future if they continue down this path?

Madam Speaker, for the past 20 minutes, the member from Ottawa Centre has talked about how unsafe it is on transit—particularly in Toronto, but across Ontario. The number one ask of transit riders, transit workers and most Ontarians is a heightened police presence. And yet, the member opposite is part of a party that consistently attacks police in Ontario.

Let me just reference a quote by the newly elected member from Hamilton Centre: “Police in Ontario have a record of arbitrarily killing babies, Black, Indigenous, racialized, disabled civilians ... & those who are in crisis.”

My question to the member from Ottawa Centre: Will you ask the member from Hamilton Centre to apologize to the men and women who put their lives on the line each and every day to not only protect transit workers and transit riders, but all people across Ontario? And will you ask your party to stand up and support the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect Ontarians?

Throughout the evening, I had an opportunity to work with police who really do care about the homeless residents in the city of Hamilton.

This same young man is the person the member from Hamilton Centre accused of killing babies.

My question to the member from Ottawa Centre is, will you ask the member from Hamilton Centre to apologize to the members of the Hamilton police force for what she said about them?

We’re going to move to questions and answers.

Next question.

Thank you. That’s time.

We’re going to move to further debate.

Good morning, everyone. I’m always happy to be here in this chamber representing beautiful Beaches–East Yorkers and to speak on the budget.

I guess my theme today will be “Invest Now,” because as we know in our own personal finances and in our own lives, when we invest now and we get proactive and preventive, we’re not saddled with a colossal price tag later—it’s basically pay now or pay later. A little investment now goes a long way later. That could just be the theme of this whole budget, because—I’m sure you’re hearing from your residents what I’m hearing from my residents: that this budget does not go far enough, unfortunately.

We’ll start with the autism community—strong advocates there. They’ve been out there marching, protesting on our lawns. They’ve been writing to us. They’ve been calling us about more investment.

We need more investment in mental health programs. We’re seeing more and more people on the street, more and more people struggling.

We are here, we’re in a position where we can make a difference, and we need to make a difference.

Paid sick days—we’ve learned that with the pandemic; we don’t want people coming to work when they’re ill. When they even have a sniffle of a cold, we don’t want them coming to work. We want them at home, taking care of themselves, not spreading their illness. It’s just so antiquated to not have paid sick days. It makes no sense. If you look all over the world, people stay home, and they get paid to stay home when they’re ill—we do, so why not have that for Ontarians?

Again, invest now and not have the colossal price tag later.

Bill 124—we’ve been around in circles; it’s a broken record with that. We need to pay people properly. We need to respect people. I think we’ve all learned, in this pandemic, how we wholeheartedly underestimated how valuable our health care workers are. Boy, we can talk one way, but then when we’re ill, when we’re in the hospital, when our loved ones are struggling, it’s a whole other eye-opener for us, and we learned that. We learned the trials and tribulations of front-line workers, how they struggle, how they work endless hours, how they’re overwhelmed, how there aren’t enough of them to do the job properly. They’re leaving their profession. It’s tragic. They’ve gone into a life of service like us, public service, and yet—that’s their passion and their love, and they have to leave it because they’re not being paid well enough or treated well enough. They don’t have the sick days they need.

There are other investments—ODSP, the Ontario Child Benefit. Again, we just need to invest now.

What is the problem with just a little bit now—and then reap the rewards later? We won’t have the colossal nightmare of dealing with a situation that costs a fortune and puts our Ontarians at risk later.

The Landlord and Tenant Board: I’m hearing so much from my residents about this.

I’m hearing from my residents about all these issues—the backlogs on everything. Wait times and backlogs—that’s all we hear about. And what can we do about it? I can’t do a whole heck of a lot over here, but I can share the voices of my community. I can stand up for them and I can let you know what my residents are saying and what I’m sure your residents are saying.

Health care: That’s a whole kettle of fish in itself. My colleague the member from Don Valley East does a phenomenal job in fighting—truth to power—from his lived experience as a medical doctor, sharing first-hand his knowledge of how we need to invest our money and where we need to invest our money and why.

Long-term care: We’ve seen the nightmare of that—the lack of investment and the lack of attention over the years. I lived in Japan 33 years ago, and, boy, does that country know how to treat their seniors well. We can learn from them. We can learn a lot from other countries. Intergenerational living—we could get creative with our housing, which I will get to in a little bit. We just need to take a breath, take a pause and not be shy about creating a budget for everyone and leaving no one behind and paying a little bit more.

Housing—it’s the lofty goal of 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years, which is great, depending on your definition of “homes.” I think we all have different definitions of that. For me and for many Ontarians, it’s not a colossal monstrosity McMansion out on a wetland; it’s all types of different styles of homes, including rental. I still feel that somehow in this House people have a stigma around rental, when the world rents. Montrealers rent. Europeans rent. Torontonians rent. New Yorkers rent. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s actually kind of smart, where—carpe diem—you’re spending your money on seizing the day, although rents are terribly expensive now. But we’re looking at co-ops and intergenerational living. There’s a great model of a school in north Toronto, where the developer built condominiums above a school. That kind of intergenerational, creative style of housing—we should be thinking about that, not just the standard meat-and-potatoes single-family home with the white picket fence. That’s so dinosaur-age thinking.

I worked for an innovative tech company in my former life, and we had all kinds of creative, innovative housing ideas—a housing trust and the shared equity model that they have in the UK, where you buy what you can afford. So if you have a 465-square-foot unit and you can only afford 300 square feet of that, you buy that, and you rent the rest. You might rent to own, or you might always have that model of owning part of it and not all of it. And who cares? That’s your home, and it works, and you have skin in the game.

New York has a housing trust idea where they slap 1% on the resale of market-rate condominiums, and then that goes into a housing trust for affordable home ownership.

So all kinds of things we can be doing—and we don’t have to create it all ourselves. There are smart cookies out there who are passionate. They are in the housing sector.

That’s the other thing: We think we’re the sharpest knives in the drawer; sorry, we’re not. We’re talented in certain ways, but we’re not the experts in every field. That’s why we should be listening to stakeholders and heeding their advice.

Now we will get to my favourite topic of all: environment. I will say—I’m going to throw a bone—the emergency preparedness aspect of this budget is pretty good. Of course, it doesn’t go far enough, but I think it’s pretty good overall. Had my private member’s bill, Bill 56, been passed last week, that would have been extra helpful for that. It was a piece of paper going out to your residents to educate them on basement flooding mitigation. It costs nothing for us, but somehow it didn’t pass—so I’m not sure about that.

We’re investing in EVs. That’s great. That’s not the full answer for creating a sustainable world, environment and Ontario.

Where are the investment incentives encouraging homeowners to do deep green retrofits? We know a huge chunk of greenhouse gases come from buildings. We can incentivize and educate homeowners on doing the right thing; they want to. I have a great group called Green East that is keen to do something for their homes and their neighbourhood.

There’s a great group called the Pocket Change Project, and they’re in the Toronto–Danforth riding, that beautiful riding next to me. They’re doing great work. They’re trying to educate people on heat pumps, get them off gas, get them electrifying their homes. They’re taking it one community at a time. They’ve done such huge, phenomenal work in their neighbourhood, and they want to bring it further east to Beaches–East York—they want to take it everywhere. Residents are taking it into their own hands because the government is not.

We’re here to lead, and we’re here to be role models, and we’re here to provide the education and the funding for Ontarians, but I don’t see that in this budget. We’re not investing enough now, so we’re going to be hit with a colossal price tag later on. We’ve been told by the Auditor General and the Financial Accountability Officer of Ontario about the high cost of inaction.

I’m not sure about that time, but I’ll just keep going.

That’s the deep green retrofits for our homes—

Of course, I’m here to help make the world a better place for all Ontarians, as we all are, and so it’s great to invest, for sure.

One thing we all heard at the door—at least, I heard it in my community. I was surprised when I was door-knocking; I thought people would be most worried about the climate emergency—but it was affordability. It doesn’t matter the demographic, the age, the background—everyone is worried about affordability. Seniors, kids—everyone is struggling. Just adding crumbs here and there is not enough. We need to really continue investing now rather than later.

We know that price tag for BC was $9 billion; for Alberta, it was $5 billion. We had $1.5 billion total insured catastrophic loss in Ontario in 2022.

For every dollar invested in the climate emergency, in climate action, it’s a $3-to-$8 cost-avoidance savings. It’s not rocket science.

My private member’s bill—it was a big surprise to me, because I had spoken to 122—and I’m the 123rd—almost every member in this chamber. I’ve heard from people who had basement flooding. They were very supportive, and they wanted to save their residents, Ontarians, $43,000 for a basement flood, that could be avoided by a simple infographic going out in the mail. If we can’t even send out a flyer, I’m pretty worried about what we can do for the climate emergency.

What I would say to one of my favourite members asking me the question, who was super keen on hearing my speech—that was lovely—is that my time started on June 2, 2022, and I’m forward-thinking. So I was here on June 2, and I’m optimistic, and I want to work together. I tried to work together on my private member’s bill, but that didn’t happen. I’m here, moving forward, looking to collaborate if I can—but I haven’t seen that yet, and I’m not looking backwards.

Thank you to my friend from Beaches–East York for her comments. She mentioned her private member’s bill, which of course we all supported. It was a very common-sense, positive bill. I’m not sure what happened there. She might want to comment further on that.

This government has been really bad for the environment, and flooding and mitigating the risk of flooding is something that—the situation has just gotten worse, not better.

I’m wondering if the member would like to comment on what could have been in the budget to help with flood mitigation and the huge cost that’s going to be for consumers and the government of Ontario in the future if that problem is not addressed.

I want to thank the member, but you’ve used up all your time.

We’ll need to move to questions and answers.

I know the member for Beaches–East York is very concerned about the climate and the climate crisis.

I also know we’re debating a budget document right now which sets the priorities for this government—where they want Ontario to go, who they care about, who or what they care about less.

What do you see in this budget that charts a course towards a sustainable climate response for Ontario?

I appreciated the speech from the member from Beaches–East York. She did speak about long-term care. It made me think, because in the eight years before 2018, the previous government built 78 long-term-care beds in my community, averaging less than 10 per year, and in the last four years, we are now building 840 new and redeveloped beds in Brantford–Brant. So I was wondering if she was willing to stand on the record of her party in the previous government or if she’s supportive of the fact that my residents are now getting 840 new long-term-care beds, after a poor record before by her party.

I listened very thoughtfully to the member opposite, and I, too, share your concern about the most vulnerable.

To that end, our government is doubling the Guaranteed Annual Income System payment for recipients for 12 months.

Will the member opposite commit to fixing things and supporting expansion of the GAINS to help about 100,000 additional eligible seniors?

It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today to share some great news once again from London, Ontario.

Yesterday, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced the team of four astronauts who have been selected to orbit the moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission. One of these individuals is astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who hails from London, Ontario. Jeremy and his team will be the first astronauts to journey to the moon since the end of the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. A colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces, Jeremy Hansen is a highly accomplished Canadian. At the age of 47, Jeremy will become the first non-American to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. They will be travelling 1,000 times farther than the International Space Station and will set the stage for deep space exploration.

I wish Jeremy and his colleagues great success on the Artemis II mission, which will launch in November 2024.

I think I’ve mentioned this in the House—my friend’s Irish mom saying, “Start as you mean to go on,”

We started with the throne speech, without having the words “climate change” in it once—“environment” was in it, but it was “business environment,” so it wasn’t talking about sustainability.

And it’s the same with this budget—we have “emergency preparedness.” That’s great; I will throw a bone there. EVs are great too, but they’re not the be-all and end-all; neither is clean steel.

We’re hearing from stakeholders and communities and builders and developers. They want deep green retrofits. They want green infrastructure. They want renewable energy. The rest of the world is going ahead, doing this. Continually, Ontario is lagging behind. We used to be a leader, but we’re not going to solve it—

I put forth an idea to create an all-party climate change committee. How easy is that? Everyone gets to be on it. I was speaking to the House leader about that umpteen times, including making it reflect the House, where the government had more seats and more say on the committee than anyone else. How generous is that? How fair is that? But it got shot down—the same as my private member’s bill last week, which would have helped your residents.

After the next flood, I want you to look your residents in the eye when they call you, upset, devastated, distraught, with raw sewage in their basements, all their prized—

Toronto needs a fast, reliable, safe and affordable TTC, where riders can get to their TTC stop and quickly board that bus or streetcar or train that transports them to where they want to go, at an affordable fare. Getting a seat would be a nice thing, on occasion. It needs to be safe, as well, because no one wants to go from A to B and risk being assaulted just because they’re trying to get to work or go to the doctor or go to school.

I wish the TTC was that fast, safe and affordable transit system, but it is not.

Yesterday, on April 3, transit riders got a fare hike.

A week ago, the TTC started rolling out big service cuts. In my riding, we saw service cuts on Queen Street, on the Dufferin line, as well as line 2, the subway line.

I fear that next month there will be more service cuts, which is deeply concerning, and that is because the federal government and the provincial government have not stepped in to fund transit at the levels that it should be funded. When we fail to fund transit, we create a death spiral. When we cut service, riders leave, they take their fare revenue with them, and then there are more service cuts as a result. We’ve seen this before on the TTC. We do not want to go there again.

I am calling on this government to properly fund transit systems, including the TTC, so that everyone in Toronto can get from A to B safely at an affordable price.