Thank you for the question.

I’m not sure if the member was here for the debate yesterday, but I think what was made very clear to me in the debate yesterday is that there is a unanimity of respect in this place for folks who work in first responder positions, whether they be police, firefighters, personal support workers, crisis workers. There is no disagreement about that.

I’d just invite the member to rethink the priority in the question. Is the priority to try to go after a single member in this place? Or should the priority be using the budget of this province to help people in crisis and people at risk? I know many officers back in Ottawa who do that every day. But right now, this government’s budget does not do that. People are being injured, and people are being hurt. I invite her to think and the government to think—let’s reallocate the money that we’re spending to make sure nobody else is hurt—

What I’d tell the member is, we don’t know what’s happening. This is a private contract with 23 orthopaedic surgeons at one of our public campuses of the Ottawa Hospital, the Riverside Campus.

At a minimum, I think it’s incumbent upon the government to at least tell the people of Ottawa and the people of Ontario—what is this arrangement? How are people being remunerated? Why weren’t these public employees simply offering these services within our public ORs? Why do we need to create a corporation that brings in its materials from Toronto every day by truck? What’s the business case for this? We haven’t heard a response yet.

We have 2,000 orthopaedic surgery folks waiting in acute. We can reutilize our public systems to do it better. I don’t know why there’s a need for secrecy.

I’m trying to make a serious effort this morning. My serious effort is to make the case for this government to invest massively in the operational funding of public transit, because officers like the gentlemen the member named, riders, workers—it is those lives that are at risk, and we should be spending more time allocating the budget of this province to help ensure their safety than taking potshots at each other.

If the member feels passionately about something a member of this House said, she should bring it up with that member directly.

The debate I wanted to have this morning is about whether a province that is rich, that has talent, that has expertise can help people in crisis and can ensure safety on public transit. That the debate I wanted to have this morning. And I hope the government is listening.

I will never forget a moment, in the recent election campaign, when I knocked on the door of somebody who works as an EA in our school system. I had knocked on this neighbour’s door before. When she came to the door, she had a tank top on, and there was a scratch going all the way from the top of her shoulder—it was very visible—right down to her wrist. I said, “Are you alright?” She said, “No, I had a really rough day at work.” And I said, “What happened at work?” She said, “Well, there’s a young guy I’m responsible for who has cleared the whole classroom three times last week. He grabbed me, and he had nails—I keep asking the family to make sure the nails are cut—and my arm was completely ripped up.” She talked about how the advice she got on one occasion when she reported this incident up the chain was to wear a Kevlar-reinforced sweater, issued by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. That’s where we’re at.

So the member is right; we need to make sure that we support kids with mental health needs and support the workers in the public school system.

Let me say this to the member, through you, Speaker: If we actually wanted to make a significant difference in the lives of low-income seniors and persons with disabilities, we would heed the advice of advocates in the sector and double social assistance rates immediately. It can be counterintuitive for people who think, “Well, we shouldn’t just be giving money to low-income people. They should have to earn it.” This notion of thrift and hard work—an important part of our society—is in this moment counterproductive, because what the research shows is that the cost of doubling ODSP and OW is around $9 billion, as I understand, but the cost of poverty, according to the experts in the sector, is $33 billion. So give people—

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?

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?

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—

I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly from the Elementary Teachers of Toronto.

“Petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from the Elementary Teachers of Toronto to Stop the Cuts and Invest in the Schools our Students Deserve.

“Whereas the Ford government cut funding to our schools by $800 per student during the pandemic period, and plans to cut an additional $6 billion to our schools over the next six years;

“Whereas these massive cuts have resulted in larger class sizes, reduced special education and mental health supports and resources for our students, and neglected and unsafe buildings;

“Whereas the Financial Accountability Office reported a $2.1-billion surplus in 2021-22, and surpluses growing to $8.5 billion in 2027-28, demonstrating there is more than enough money to fund a robust public education system;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

“—immediately reverse the cuts to our schools;

“—fix the inadequate education funding formula;

“—provide schools the funding to ensure the supports necessary to address the impacts of the pandemic on our students;

“—make the needed investments to provide smaller class sizes, increased levels of staffing to support our students’ special education, mental health, English language learner and wraparound supports needs, and safe and healthy buildings and classrooms.”

I fully support this petition. I’m going to sign it along with all of these constituents and give it to Mikaeel to take to the table.

“Support Gender-Affirming Health Care.

“Whereas two-spirit, transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse, and intersex communities face significant challenges to accessing health care services that are friendly, competent, and affirming in Ontario;

“Whereas everyone deserves access to health care, and they shouldn’t have to fight for it, shouldn’t have to wait for it, and should never receive less care or support because of who they are;

“Whereas gender-affirming care is life-saving care;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the reintroduction of a private member’s bill to create an inclusive and representative committee to advise the Ministry of Health on how to realize accessible and equitable access to and coverage for gender-affirming health care in Ontario.”

I am proud to put my name to this. I will give it to Claire to take to the table.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 4, 2023, on the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.