I want to thank my colleague from University–Rosedale for her comments. I have the pleasure of working with her on the municipal affairs and housing file.

This government has broken its word to municipalities, their promise to make them whole, with the cuts to development fees. And leaving aside the issue of whether or not those fees should be paid, what are the effects of this government breaking its word? What kind of money would they have to pay to make municipalities whole, and what are some of the effects that municipalities are going to suffer because of that decision to break their word?

I want to take an opportunity today to speak to the Building a Strong Ontario Act, Bill 85, as it’s enumerated.

I want to thank the Premier for his extraordinary leadership. Of course, our entire caucus colleagues go to extraordinary efforts to make sure that not only our voices are heard—but the opportunities in our various constituencies, and that they’re reflected year in and year out in the objectives of the budget and the resources that are attached to them.

Budget 2023, Ontario’s plan to build a responsible, targeted approach to help businesses and people today, is a reflection of a post-COVID world. Everyone agrees that there are still lingering challenges, both clinically and from a business perspective—an impact of COVID, as it was for a couple of years. I guess the question, and the opportunity moving forward, is really about how a government would respond, how we mobilize to ensure that we improve the lives, the perspective, the outcome, the opportunity for people and our communities that make this great province, our businesses, and the vibrancy of a dynamic economy that appears to be now and very much on the horizon for this province.

Still, there’s no question that there’s ongoing global uncertainty. At the same time, Ontario is trying to understand, moving forward, how we fit in as a sub-sovereign government to all of the challenges faced around the world. So with that as my pivot point, I’m going to take a northern perspective, obviously, and try to reflect on things in this budget that talk about the opportunity in Ontario, particularly in northern Ontario—folks from Capreol to Kenora want to know what’s relevant about this budget—but also, of course, in context, are the very serious crises around the world that Ontario could and should and, as a result of this budget, will see as an opportunity to bring solutions to some of those challenges.

That would start, obviously, with mining and forestry. Resource continues to drive local economies across our vast region and, of course, the financial support for the Ring of Fire is important—as I like to say, “critical,” with no pun intended. This is an opportunity that I’ve been working on now in two chapters of my political career, and it sure is nice to see that the resources attached to the Ring of Fire are focused on the opportunity for governments, the work that we should be doing. Things like building a corridor to prosperity, from the Trans-Canada Highway into the central part of the most northern part of northern Ontario, aren’t just about an opportunity to extract critical minerals. In fact, one might argue, having lived and worked in many of these isolated communities proximal, it’s an opportunity to develop important economic, social and health benefits for those isolated and remote communities.

Of course, other features like the junior exploration program take a look at a conversation we need to develop even more, and that is the critical mineral opportunities outside of the Ring of Fire, which are moving fairly quickly. We saw that yesterday with the celebration of Taykwa Tagamou Nation and their partnership with Canadian Nickel Co.

None of this can be done without a clear commitment from energy, keeping energy costs lower for people—things like the Northern Energy Advantage Program, something that I started some time ago to make sure that our industries are competitive. It’s not just about our resource sector; it’s about things like steel production. My friend at Sault Ste. Marie with—the Algoma electric arc furnace is going to transform the sector in partnership, down here in southern Ontario, with a similar operation, but also to create green steel. Having grown up in the steel belt in my younger days, that’s important. I think we’ve made a quantum leap there. These kinds of investments in energy competitiveness help to keep steel production in northern Ontario as good as or better than anywhere else in the world.

I want to take a little time to talk about roads. Our budgets operate in combination with some multi-year planning, so in previous budgets, as in this one, there are plans over the course of a number of years. This year, we highlighted an additional $5-million investment in the northern roads. This is an important road network for people all across northern Ontario to be connected, especially through the winter months. We acknowledge that the effects of climate change, as they are, and the uncertainty around weather make the length of those winter roads a moving target, if you will. Some innovations, drainage, bridges etc., are often realized in different locations where we previously hadn’t anticipated—or further fortifications, in an effort to keep those winter roads. They’re valuable. They’re important not just for people to move between the communities, but for us to get critical infrastructure into those places.

I want to talk a little bit about hospital infrastructure. Over the past couple of years, investments have been made in hospitals and health care facilities in Kenora–Rainy River riding; we are at the precipice of some more significant ones in the not-too-distant future. The commitment by the Premier, through this budget, to understand and recognize this opportunity will track very well for us in the coming years. The Lake of the Woods District Hospital, or the All Nations Hospital, as it’s called, represents an extraordinary opportunity, and upgrades to some other health care facilities in our region.

Training and the capacity to do work will always be at the forefront of northern Ontario’s community needs. I would just point to Greenstone right now—150 jobs available, 250 homes required to be built. Bricks-and-mortar training centres are required across the north. Whether it’s through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, where we’ve made another investment of $100 million, or through the larger ministry allocations, there is no question that when it comes to training dollars, we stand well-positioned to build out in our communities where mining and forestry are on the move.

Madam Speaker, I want to use the last minute and a half or so to talk about a couple of other important pieces.

Agriculture in northern Ontario is on the move. It represents the largest arable land potential for agriculture activities in our province. We were delighted to hear that Lakehead University will become the third school in this country to offer a veterinary medicine program. Big-animal veterinary services are a critical piece for our agriculture sector to grow. The Rainy River district is in fact the beginning of the Prairies proper that span across western Canada. And the Clay Belt region, in and around Thunder Bay, extending out to Dryden—they are long-standing agricultural districts.

Homelessness and mental health, addictions—they should be read together given how closely they are attached. With more than half a billion dollars dedicated, in combination, I think we’re going to be able to take a quantum leap forward to help people on our streets and with mental health and addiction. In Kenora, where I live, we have made a lot of great strides, but there’s more work to be done. We’re encouraged by some of the projects in the hopper now, in the government’s consideration, through this budget.

And of course, finally, for health human resources—this is something that affects us province-wide, and I’m delighted to see a plan for new doctors, new capacities in nurses’ training and ensuring that northern Ontario and northwestern Ontario have the tools they need to move forward in a vibrant, integrated economy.

The NDP want to sit here and talk about affordability, but I just don’t understand how that word can even be in their vocabulary sometimes. They have sat here time and time again and have voted against every single affordability measure that this Progressive Conservative government has put in place. They want the highest carbon tax in all of Canada.

How can you sit there and talk about affordability when everything that you stand for, the ideology that you perpetrate across Ontario, will literally take money out of people’s pockets, will take food off of people’s tables? We’re going to see the carbon tax increase in, what, a week, colleagues—I think, about 6%. And you guys sit here and say, “Oh, the PCs don’t want to put money back in your pocket,” and we’re going to ruin everything. What say you?

Thank you to the member for that question.

We are already seeing the impact of this. We did a look at the projected property tax increases for municipalities all across the GTHA, and they’re seeing an increase of upwards of 7%, 8% in property tax increases at the same time as we’re seeing service cuts and infrastructure cuts.

AMO estimates that, overall, municipalities will lose about $5 billion in infrastructure revenue over the next nine years because of Bill 23, and it’s already impacting housing development and housing starts. Waterloo has a development that they have had to delay because they don’t have the funding to provide the necessary infrastructure to hook that subdivision up to the broader community. So it’s affecting your own goals.

The biggest expense that people have today is housing. When I look at the cost of housing in Ontario, when I look at the cost of rent, the legacy of this government is, it has made it extremely difficult for people to get by. Over the last five years, housing prices have gone up, the price of a mortgage has gone up, the cost of rent has gone up, and that is exactly what is making it difficult for people to find a home, live a good life, pay the bills, raise their children. That legacy is on you.

The government’s response to addressing the housing crisis has been abysmal.

In order to address the housing affordability and housing supply crisis that we have, we certainly need to build 1.5 million new homes in areas zoned for development.

We need to end exclusionary zoning—so going further than the government went in Bill 23.

We need to stabilize rent prices, because 30% of Ontarians’ rent—and they’re paying more on average now, in some cities, than people are paying in a mortgage. They can’t save up enough money for a down payment because rent is so expensive.

We need to clamp down on investor-led speculation—so we build homes for people who intend to live in them.

And we need to establish a public builder to construct affordable housing on public land at cost.

We have long called for a public builder to construct affordable housing on public land at cost. When you look at—

Interjection.

Interjection.

That is a very different approach than what this government is doing, where they’re selling off land in secret contracts to for-profit builders to build luxury condos. That is not the—

I’d like to thank the member from University–Rosedale for her comments and for pointing out the $1-billion cut that AMO pointed out that this government has enacted through Bill 23, one that—they also promised that they would make municipalities whole and then failed to do so within the budget.

Right now, housing starts are stagnant—and I believe the member from University–Rosedale has called on the need for a public builder.

I want to ask the member, what kind of protections for renters would be responsive to the current moment that Ontarians face right now? What should have been done within this budget?

Further questions?

It’s now time for questions.

I want to thank the minister for his great, great speech on the budget. I’m aware he was at the food summit on Monday, a huge economic forum bringing people from all walks of life there.

I want to ask him if he could update this Legislature on some of the things that he presented in terms of the economic and food security issues in the north.

I just want to talk a little bit about transit, as the member mentioned that in his debate as well.

In southwestern Ontario—in London, specifically—our Via Rail service was cut tremendously. Greyhound, the bus line, has stopped running. The government did have a pilot project for GO Transit in London, but it’s just not adequate enough.

I looked through the budget, and there are so many infrastructure and transit projects here.

I want to ask the member why London was left out of the transit projects that need to happen so that the southwestern corridor is part of the economic hub that you’re trying to build.

That’s a significant departure from the truth in terms of what the budget reflects. As much respect as I have for that member, he might want to read the budget a little bit more carefully.

Of course, our investments in education involve supporting the construction and renewal of schools and child care spaces. This includes new schools in Atikokan, Ontario, in Iroquois Falls and North Bay, and school renewals and expansions in Chelmsford and Sudbury. I’m going to limit my discussion to northern Ontario; I’m sure there are myriad other examples. In fact, contrary to the previous government, where 600 schools were closed—many of them with the support of the NDP, in a minority situation—we’re moving ahead to ensure that we have better education infrastructure so that the safety and security of our students is paramount and reflected—

One of those key areas that I’ve been working on is food security and food sovereignty. Costs are high enough in northern Ontario by comparison. I don’t dispute that costs of things like food are already high here in southern Ontario—but the farther north you get, the more expensive; this couldn’t be more exemplified in our isolated communities. That’s why we’ve been paying particular attention, through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, to food security and food sovereignty. What we’re building here is an exciting capacity, born from the leadership of these Indigenous communities, from micro-farming to community gardening, to ensure that they have some carriage and control of their ability to grow fresh fruits and vegetables.

Further questions?

Of course, I think back to a couple of chapters in my political career when we turned issues into opportunities. The member might benefit from listening to the experience that I had.

When Greyhound pulled off the Trans-Canada Highway, a lot of people felt like that was terrible. The reality was that there were more and more people coming back and forth between Alberta and the east coast, and you couldn’t actually get on the Greyhound in Kenora to get to Thunder Bay, or in the opposite direction. That’s why our government invested, through the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, to ensure that bus service—and I’m talking about bus service here, to my member, to a vast region. No offence, but my riding is the size of a small European country. Now that bus goes all the way from Toronto to Winnipeg and every part in between, to many small communities across northern Ontario. Most—

Of course, it goes without saying that things like the Ring of Fire and critical mineral projects have to go ahead in order to live up to the opportunity of the single biggest environmental policy by a sub-sovereign government the world over, but also to ensure two things: one, that the activities we’re doing in the resource sector have the cleanest form of energy—we now have mines completely operating by electricity—but also to have a cost and a tax credit system that makes them—

I’m a guy who builds consensus. That is really what this is all about. If the member opposite is going to stand in her place and say that the consent of one specific community proximal to other Indigenous communities who want it is the way to go, she’s going to have a really hard time helping this province move forward on some of the most responsible, environmentally sound projects the province over. That is a substantive reality. It was echoed by none other than Jody Wilson-Raybould, a friend of mine who spoke in the House of Commons on these very kinds of matters.

I’m all for building consensus. I think it’s high time that Indigenous communities and municipalities in northern Ontario join together for—

It just reminds us that when we work with Indigenous leaderships, we’re not just talking about “the” relationship, which is often imbued with crown relationships, which are important, but “a” relationship—working effectively with them.

Having the now national chief sit down and say, “Let’s create a prosperity table. Let’s see what kind of ideas we can generate,” culminated and manifested itself in a $25-million announcement we made in the fall economic statement to move forward on Indigenous-led economic opportunities, mapping in the supply chain in key sectors. This has never been done before, and it’s pre-positioning these communities and Indigenous youth to have a better economic opportunity—

Thank you, Minister, for your speech. I like how you highlighted energy and the investments and being competitive. Those are critical things for our province.

I would like to ask the member if he could speak to the voluntary Clean Energy Credit Registry work. And what are the environmental and economic benefits of this registry?

I want to commend the minister for his years here, as well as his years on Parliament Hill. I had the privilege of serving in Her Majesty’s cabinet for four years with him, and I can say—and having seen him last night working with Indigenous leaders from throughout Ontario and, in particular, the north—that he has been able to bring in an engagement we have never seen in this place during my time here.

I’d like him to elaborate on some of the relationships he has worked on, particularly with our national chief, RoseAnne Archibald, as well as her brother, who were here talking about Indigenous rights and the responsibilities we all have.

There are over 80 First Nations members coming today, including five chiefs, and their message is very clear. They are sending a message to this government that they do not want mining on their land without full, free, prior and informed consent beforehand. Can you commit to that promise?

It’s an honour for me to rise today and provide the voices of the great people of London North Centre, as well as offer to debate many of the submissions to our pre-budget consultations that this government has chosen to ignore. I had the opportunity to travel the province with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, hearing many of the stories that affect Ontarians the most, and what we see, unfortunately, with this budget is a budget that has missed the moment. It’s a budget that could have been truly progressive. It could have been forward-thinking. It could have shown that this government has listened to stakeholders across the province. And yet, we see a budget that shows this government is only listening to certain groups.

People are feeling the crunch at this time, and the government has done scarce little to address the affordability crisis and the stresses on families, seniors, people living with disabilities and students.

We often hear words in this chamber such as “transparency” and “accountability,” yet this budget really seems to lack those aspects.

Transparency is a matter of being open. It’s a matter of being frank. It’s a matter of being clear and being less subject to interpretation. This government would like to use folksy, homespun language, and yet that does not mean their actions are transparent.

In terms of accountability—it should show that one can easily understand and explain what is happening within this budget. This government instead engages in pretense. They engage in a very complicated shell game in order to hide where they are cutting as opposed to where they’re pretending to invest.

Within municipal affairs and housing, they have cut $124 million, yet on the other hand, they talk about the money that they are investing in supportive housing. When we had the opportunity to travel to Kingston, the mayor of Kingston explained how the municipality had a very forward-thinking approach to the model of supportive housing that they provided within their city. That city spent $18 million in one year to provide that continuum, that wraparound model of supports. And yet, this government would pat themselves on the back for investing scarce little across the province in supportive housing.

I’d also like to turn my comments to education.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to question the Minister of Education about why this budget did not mention violence in schools. Curiously—with this lack of transparency and lack of accountability—my question was not addressed in a really logical or fulsome way. Instead, the minister decided to talk about federal responsibilities on bail reform. Again, even in his answer, he never mentioned school violence and never mentioned why it was absent from the budget.

In my area, the ETFO Thames Valley Teacher Local reported that in June 2022, there were 463 reported acts of violence; in September 2022, 687; in October 2022, 982; in November 2022, 693; in December 2022, 490; and in January 2023, 502. And this government has chosen to ignore it.

It’s shocking to think of the lack of investment that we have seen within schools. Again, with this very complicated shell game that this government would play, they’re claiming to invest in schools while they’re hiding the fact that what they are calling their investments is actually federal money in terms of child care.

I wanted to add the voices in the pre-budget submission of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. They recommended that there would be an update to the Grants for Student Needs, that there would be funding that reflects the specialized needs of students who receive special education services. We know that the funding model has been broken for a number of years. We know that it is a mathematical model based on enrolment, not based on student needs. The government had the opportunity to stand up for families, to stand up for students living with disabilities, and they chose not to. Instead, in terms of the funding model—as I said, it is a statistical model whereby the government provides an arbitrary amount of money to school boards with the hope that they spend it on students who need it, yet there are no guarantees within this. There is no guarantee that school boards will (1) spend the money on students who need it, and (2), even if they do spend it on students who need it, there’s no guarantee that it will be spent in a way that is developmentally appropriate or addresses their needs properly. They’ve chosen not to do it.

What we also see in this budget is an increasing focus on privatization. We see the funneling of public money for publicly delivered services into the hands of private, for-profit health care providers.

I wanted to add the voices of OPSEU, who recommended ending privatization: “Public services and privatization simply don’t mix. That’s because public services are based on the core principles of equality, accessibility, transparency, and fairness. These principles stand in stark contrast to the goals of privatization—namely the ability to reward shareholders with profits by selling services only to those who can pay. Not only are quality and accessibility harmed, privatization costs more—especially in terms of the greater cost of borrowing and corporate profits.”

And yet, this government has ideologically tied their star to the concept of privatization, and it is going to erode our services across the province.

No one was in support of this government’s wage-suppression, humiliating legislation, Bill 124, yet this government is still engaged in the costly appeal. They had the opportunity within the budget of 2023 to step back, to admit they were wrong, to follow the courts and admit that they are going to continue to lose. I think it’s up to 14 or 15 cases that this government has lost in court now, and yet they are blindly and blissfully spending public money to appeal their losing court case.

Within the budget, we also saw submissions from community support services, who indicate—they do wonderful work. They are to be understood as also separate from home and community care. They cite that in 2020, the province estimated that it would cost $103 per day to provide care for a long-term-care equivalent client at home with home and community care. This contrasts with $201 per day to provide comparable service in long-term care and $730 per day to support ALC patients in hospitals. I don’t see the investment.

We heard from folks from Meals on Wheels, from the Alzheimer’s Society, and from folks with hospices.

We don’t see any funding where it needs to be to keep people in their homes, where they’re happiest, where they’re healthiest, and where it is the best place for them to be. Instead, we see funneling into private, for-profit enterprises.

As well, we see this government which has really neglected and rejected seniors. We see that they are going to provide $1,000 more per year per senior, which is nowhere near enough. If you divide that out over 12 months, that is not nearly enough money that seniors need in order to address the cost-of-living escalation.

They’re also withdrawing money from the unhoused, claiming that they are no longer going to provide them with health care services and a funding program that the government says is no longer necessary. It’s as though the unhoused and their health care needs and people who are new to Canada only counted because of COVID, and now the government is prepared to simply ignore them.

What about seniors, who are going to have to wait 18 months in order to get an eye exam? It’s reprehensible.

This government talks a lot about respecting seniors, about respecting students—and yet this budget fails to do so.

I wanted to add the voice of professor emeritus of public management at the University of Toronto, Sandford Borins. Sandford was talking about the budget consultation survey that was available online. He wrote:

“What is Missing.

“What is most remarkable about the choices” within that public survey “is that they never include the following words or phrases: climate change, environment, renewable, sustainable, conservation, green, or greenbelt. The environment is not the only priority that isn’t mentioned. The word culture also doesn’t appear, not even in the question about making Ontario an attractive destination. Higher education appears only in that question, but not in questions about improving health care, filling labour shortages, or improving community services.”

Sandford went on to talk about plausible deniability. He said, “The Ford government has often been secretive, for example”—

I’d like to thank the member from Kitchener–Conestoga for his question. I also have a great deal of respect for that member.

I would like to remind the member that in my discussion, I was talking about the pre-budget consultations. In the pre-budget consultations, we heard from numerous delegations, all of whom were deeply, deeply disturbed by Bill 124. They cited the labour shortages that it created, how it was humiliating, and how it also caused a great deal of disparity in certain hospital departments. This government has thrown good money after bad. They are really disinvesting in our public system by allowing this focus on temp agency nurses. Within the same department, there will be a nurse who is paid twice as much as a nurse who has been there for many years.

We also had the opportunity within this budget to address wage parity between home care, long-term care and acute care, and it’s something that this government has ignored, because they don’t care about nurses.

We also know that, in London, one in four children live in poverty. With so many people waiting on an endless list for supportive housing, it is unconscionable. The government has it within their power to address this by making sure that there is a public builder, by actually creating these units and not leaving it up to private industry to create them themselves. There are many great people who are doing wonderful work within the space of providing those supports, but this government has chosen not to fund it properly.

We also heard from CMHA across the province, who are calling for an 8% increase to their services. This government blinked and gave them 5%.

While I do have a great deal of respect for the member opposite, when he talks about Bill 124 and people not supporting it, colleagues—I believe we brought Bill 124 in before the last election. On June 2 of last year, the people elected the Ontario PC government to a massive, 83-seat majority.

I propose a question to the member opposite: If people didn’t like Bill 124, as he claims, why did they return us to government and them, again, back to opposition?

Unfortunately, we have run out of time for debate, but we do have time for questions.