I know the member from Newmarket–Aurora—I thank her for her presentation—focused a lot on health care. She is parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health. I wanted to ask her: Bill 60 is improving access to care with proposing community surgical and diagnostic clinics, so if passed, that will improve access. But I wanted to ask about the funding in the budget for community surgical clinics and if the member could comment on the importance of that.

Yes, 10 minutes goes by very fast.

We have lots of Learn and Stay for nurses. All of the colleges in the north got the Learn and Stay except the French college, except Collège Boréal. Do you really think that French people in northern Ontario do not need access to more nurses? Why is it that every single—North Bay, Timmins, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie all got the Learn and Stay nursing program, but the one French college that we have that supplies all of the French nurses we have in northern Ontario didn’t get it. I don’t like that, Speaker. Lots of my constituents feel way better receiving health care services in French. If there are no French nurses being trained, how is the service ever going to be provided in French? You have to change this. You have to include them. Oh, my. I could go on and on.

There’s a mention of the Northlander. I was really not happy when the Liberal government cancelled the Northlander. It is coming back in 10 years. Really? Why does it take 10 years to put a train on a set of rails that already exists? I don’t get this. Every year, you get us all excited about how the Northlander is coming back to the north, and I can’t wait for people in the north to be able to get on a train to come to Toronto for their hospital appointments, rather than in a bus or in a car—a train is way more comfortable—but this won’t happen for 10 years. That 10 years, Speaker, is a long time. Do you know how many people will die on Highway 69 in the next 10 years because we don’t have a train? I don’t want to know that number, but I know that it will be way too high.

I could go on, but I only have 10 minutes.

We know one of the strategies to change this is to increase the number of seats at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University. They have two campuses, one in Sudbury and one in Thunder Bay. I can tell you that 95% of the graduates of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University that do their internship in northern Ontario stay and work in northern Ontario. They stay and provide care to First Nations in remote communities in part of the Sioux Lookout group. But we won’t see an increase for another two years. We could make things way better, way faster.

Meegwetch to the member from Nickel Belt. I know that in northern Ontario and northwestern Ontario, in the riding of Kiiwetinoong, physician services are very important. I know that if you’re a fly-in First Nation that has less than 1,000 people, you’re entitled to five days of physician services per month. That’s 60 days of physician services. Out of those five days are two travel days, so you’ve actually got three physician days.

There’s a group called Sioux Lookout Regional Physicians’ Services Inc. They provide physician services in the whole north, including the hospital. I know you spoke about the medical school seats that haven’t opened up, and I see at the same level how a few years ago, they were funded to have 54 FTEs for physicians. At that time, they only had 18 full-time. How can we better the physician services in northwestern Ontario?

Time for questions.

I always appreciate the member from Nickel Belt. She brings such heart and passion not just for her community in Nickel Belt, but indeed for everything in the north and, indeed, everything across the province of Ontario.

I was very thrilled to hear that her only complaint about the budget is that it’s not enough, and so she’s supportive of every measure that we’re making in the budget, just not enough: more roads, more care, more budget for mental health, more education, all those pieces. In many ways, I can agree, but this is what we are doing now. I heard no negatives from her about what we are doing with the budget measures.

While I appreciate her advocating for more, I was wondering if the member from Nickel Belt will be supporting the budget, because she agrees with everything that we’re doing with it.

I thank the member for her comments today. Boy, there was a lot to unpack there. I have to start with—now we’re going to start dictating to international companies where they’re going to establish their facilities here in the province of Ontario. That’s a surefire way to make sure that new plants are built in Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee and not in Ontario.

But I do want to ask the member—because she talked about cost-of-living issues, and she talked about new homes in her riding and hoping people can afford them. Well, one of the biggest drivers of inflation and increases in costs in construction and everything else these days is the carbon tax. Your party was in favour of the largest increase in carbon tax ever in history.

I’m asking you, will you join us today in asking the federal government to not proceed with an increase in federal carbon tax on April 1?

It’s my pleasure to rise today to participate in this debate on the 2023 Ontario budget. I have to say, Speaker, I was really struck by the editorial in the Toronto Star that described this as “An Ontario Budget Without Vision.” The Toronto Star editorial writers said, “If this budget were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks. Not entirely useless. But an exercise in going through the motions.”

Speaker, the leader of the official opposition has very clearly described this budget as a document that fails to meet the moment. It fails to acknowledge the reality of the hardships that people in Ontario are facing. For me, as the representative for London West, it certainly fails to address the homelessness crisis that we are seeing in our community, the lack of access to affordable housing, the crisis in access to health care services.

I want to focus my remarks on housing and homelessness.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a proud moment in our city. Indwell, a non-profit supportive housing provider, opened up a new 72-unit supportive housing building in London. That came at a cost of just over $21 million for 72 units of supportive housing. Of that $21 million, the province contributed the absolute bare minimum that was necessary for Indwell to be able to access federal dollars.

It’s encouraging, finally, after years of avoiding any involvement in providing supportive housing, to see this budget make an allocation for supportive housing. But $202 million across the province is going to do nothing to address the breadth of the need that communities are experiencing. The 72 supportive housing units in London came at a cost of $21 million. This government is allocating $202 million for supportive housing for 444 municipalities across Ontario.

In London, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who are homeless on our streets. We currently have more than 2,000 people who we know are experiencing homelessness on a daily basis. That doesn’t take into account the number of people who are precariously housed, who are couch-surfing, who are not counted in the by-name list. We have more than 6,000 applications for social housing in our community. That represents 11,000 parents and their children who are trying to get access to housing they can afford.

Our community came together and acknowledged the health and homelessness crisis as a major priority—as the number one priority—for the city of London to move forward on in a collaborative. So 60 social service providers and 200 individuals came together with funding from a very generous anonymous donor family who provided a gift of $25 million to jump-start an innovative, never-seen-before plan to develop a whole-of-community response to deal with health and homelessness in the city of London.

That plan alone calls for 600 net new supportive housing units that will be necessary just in London alone, and that is just what’s needed in the next three years. So you can see, Speaker, how the $202 million that’s allocated to meet homelessness needs across the province is nowhere near enough to address the concerns of other municipalities outside London.

Now the city of London’s pre-budget submission had actually called on the province for a significant investment of $15 million in capital funding to support the construction of these net new supportive housing buildings, as well as an additional $4 million in annual operating funding for the supportive housing programming. So that is the mention of London that we would have expected to see in this budget. We saw one reference to London—one reference to a school that’s being built. We need new schools, there’s no doubt about it, but this was an announcement that had already been made by this government, and that’s the only reference to the city of London in the entire budget.

London is looking at a $97-million deficit caused by the measures that this government brought forward in Bill 23 that were supposed to tackle the housing crisis that we see in Ontario. Instead, this budget actually confirms that not only did the measures that the government set out in Bill 23 fail to move Ontario forward to meet that 1.5 million homes goal, but we’re actually falling further behind. The numbers that are reported in this budget show that Ontario is lagging in the pace that it will need to meet if we are going to achieve that 1.5 million home target.

When I talk about Bill 23, there’s the financial impact on municipalities with the revenue hole that it’s going to create in municipal budgets, but there is also, associated with Bill 23, the attack on the greenbelt. This budget would have been an opportunity to actually take some serious measures, some bold and strong measures, to deal with climate change mitigation and resilience. We saw none of that in this budget, and that has people in my community very concerned.

The other thing that is of huge concern to people in London is the money that this government is allocating to expand for-profit private health care facilities. Instead of investing in excellent stand-alone facilities like the Nazem Kadri ambulatory surgical care centre that is run under the oversight of a hospital, this government decided not to invest in those kinds of services and hospitals but instead to funnel yet more money to investor-led private for-profit health care facilities. They’ve increased the budget from $18 million last year to $72 million this year, and that has a lot of people concerned.

We’ve heard not just from the Auditor General but from patients of private health care facilities who talk about the aggressive upselling that they have experienced at these facilities. As much as the government would like to say, “Oh, no, you won’t pay at a private health care facility,” the experience of patients in this province has been very different. They have had to pay. They’ve been told they need surgeries that, when they’ve gotten a second opinion, they find out that that surgery was unnecessary. They’ve been told they have to pay for the ability to stay longer than they would otherwise have been asked to stay. So there are huge concerns about funnelling public dollars into private health care facilities.

But, Speaker, just to get back to what I said initially, this is a budget that falls flat. It really ignores the pressures that Ontario families are facing, the affordability pressures that Ontario families are facing, as daily, we get calls from people who tells us about the huge spike in their Enbridge gas bills. The price of food in grocery stores, the price of Internet services, the price of insurance—everything is increasing, and this budget includes no measures to help people deal with those realities.

In particular, for those who are the most vulnerable, the most disadvantaged, those living on social assistance, this government provided a measly 5% increase when we know what’s needed is a doubling of social assistance rates.

Thank you to the member for Nickel Belt for her comments. I was so pleased to hear, as the member from Brantford–Brant has already pointed out, how many things the member from Nickel Belt agrees with that are in the budget, especially a lot of the health care things that we’re doing. I know that she wants things to be done faster. We’d all like things to be done faster. But the northern Ontario medical school, for example, was something that the Conservative government came up with when Tony Clement was Minister of Health, based on the Australian model, and I’m pleased that she’s delighted with that. We’ve certainly added physician positions.

It does take time to make a new physician. What I’d like to ask the member is, if she cares about having more physician positions and is in a hurry, why did her government eliminate positions for training physicians when they were in power?

I’d like to thank the member from Nickel Belt for her excellent comments. She’s always been a strong advocate for nurse practitioner-led clinics.

The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs heard across the province that there needs to be additional roles for nurse practitioners within communities and what a great value they provide to our health system. But, also, in this budget, there’s only been the allocation of 150 nurse practitioner seats, and those won’t graduate until 2028.

I wonder if the member could talk about the quality of care, the innovative model that NPLCs provide, and also why this government is stopping allowing them to practise within Ontario.

Well, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine saw the light of day in 2007. In 2007, when they took their first students, it was a Liberal government that was in power, and since then, since 2018, we’ve had a Conservative government. I would very much like to be able to tell you I’m proud that we got elected a New Democratic government in 2007, but we didn’t.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine is very important. It’s something that the people of the north had been advocating for for a long time. It is a success. It’s something that we are proud of, but it is something that is ready to expand. They could do way more than what they are doing now to help keep people in northern Ontario healthy, to give them equitable access to health care services. What they need is financial commitment from this government to do so, not just nice talk. But the money won’t start to flow for way too long.

The model is excellent. Many other communities would like to have a nurse practitioner-led clinic. Coniston, in my riding, would like one. Capreol would like an extra nurse. Southwestern Ontario needs an extra nurse because there are physicians retiring and they’re ready to help them. None of that is in the—

We are being gouged. The government could stop this right now by making sure that we regulate the price of gas, like they do in many other provinces. This will make sure that the people who I represent—

I don’t think the member actually listened intently to my remarks. I gave the example of a 72-unit supportive housing building that had been constructed in London with a significant investment from the city of London, at a cost of $21 million. For one 72-unit supportive housing building—how on earth is the $202 million that’s allocated in this budget to meet the needs for supportive housing across the province going to address the serious crisis that we are seeing in communities across Ontario in homelessness? London deserves a piece of that $202 million, but so do so many other communities in this province.

Meegwetch. I know you spoke about the cost of living and how the cost of living has increased so much. Sometimes different areas of Ontario will talk about the cost of fuel, cost of gas, but I do remember this: I think everybody would complain if you were paying $3.50 per litre for gas. There’s no way Toronto would accept that and there’s no way that Toronto would accept paying $20 to $30 for four litres of milk. A flight from Big Trout Lake to Thunder Bay one way is $1,000. Is that acceptable? Is that the cost of living and what do you say to people that are investing in the north?

Thank you to my colleague for her comments. I listened intently.

I’d like to read a quote and I’ll obviously lead into my question. From the mayor of London, who tweeted this on budget day:

“Lots of positive news for #LdnOnt in today’s Ontario budget, especially significant investments in mental health and addictions, supportive housing and homelessness prevention.

“This is exactly what’s needed in #LdnOnt, especially as we build out our whole of community Health and Homelessness system....

“I thank them, along with Health Minister @SylviaJonesMPP, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions @MichaelTibollo,” the labour minister and “MPP @RobFlackPC, for not only listening but prioritizing these types of investments.”

Question to the member from London West: Does she support her mayor?

Questions?

I think here in the province of Ontario we’re very fortunate to have a Financial Accountability Officer as an independent watchdog officer of this Legislature who does the analysis of budgets, like the ones that we have seen brought forward by this government time and again. We know from the Financial Accountability Officer that so much of the budgeting that comes out of this government is smoke and mirrors. It’s a shell game. There are huge contingency funds—money socked away in contingency funds. There are revenues that are underestimated to come up with the numbers they want. There are billions of dollars of funding that is underspent year after year.

Thank goodness for the Financial Accountability Officer for telling us the truth about the budget.

We need to see a permanent increase in financial support for seniors, but we also need to see some real action taken to address the affordability challenges that people and seniors are facing with housing, with groceries, with utilities.

Further questions?

I’m pleased to rise today and talk about the budget. Maybe I’m getting old and maudlin, but I can remember looking back at what drove me to make the decision to run for office in this House. It was in 2017 where people approached me and said, “We need someone like you in Toronto.” I think that was true for so many of us in the class of 2018. You’ll remember the same thing, Speaker, that drove you to run here. Our class especially—I think so many of us left very good positions and took a step back in order to serve the people of Ontario in this place, because we knew what 15 years of waste and mismanagement, to use that old quote, had done to the province of Ontario.

I still think about that a lot. It seemed like it was just yesterday, and yet it seems like such a lifetime ago. I’ve been thinking about that especially during budget time because of the changes we have made, and I think sometimes of how different it would have been if the government had turned out differently than it did.

I can remember that 350,000 jobs were chased out of the province of Ontario, and I think, listening sometimes to the Liberal members, that if they could pack a few more people into their van, they would still be driving those jobs out of Ontario right now, if they had the opportunity. But we’re in a position now where we have a deficit of workers in the province of Ontario of, I think, 350,000. That makes me wonder how much change we have done in just four short years for the benefit of the people of Ontario.

When I think of a budget that has the largest spending in every single sector that’s ever happened before, I think it’s $200 billion or something like that—I’m not that kind of a numbers guy; I think more in the terms of prescriptions and eyeglasses than in those kinds of numbers—what a difference. We haven’t sacrificed anything to the most vulnerable in the province of Ontario, and yet we are on a path to balance, and that’s after having been through a global pandemic—it’s now endemic—that screwed up the lives of so many, that cost us 50,000 lives in the province of Ontario, and yet we can say with confidence that we are on a path to balance in this province.

I think of that conversation that I had that seems like a lifetime ago, conversations that many of us have had with people who said, “You know what? We need someone like you to stand for the people of Ontario, not just for the riding, but for the sake of the people of Ontario, so that we can turn things around.”

Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in the last four years, and especially in working with the Indigenous people in my riding, the nations that I represent here, it’s that we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, but we are all connected with those who have gone before and with those who will come after. One of the tag lines that I’ve adopted through my work here is that we have to leave things better than we found them. It’s so incredible to be part of a government that is committed to leaving things better than we found them.

Again, when I contemplate the fact that we’re looking at a budget that, if passed, will spend more than ever before—I apologize for those fiscal hawks who may be watching, but we are investing more into infrastructure, into roads, into bridges, into making good things happen for Ontario than ever before.

The member opposite stated—and I just want to remind you that we’re all facing uncertain economic times here and that Ontario is already growing because for the past two years we’ve all been working so hard. You hear about all the investors coming in, which is why we continue building Ontario, making it stronger. However, we have not left the vulnerable aside, especially seniors. Do you agree and support us when we do special support for seniors with GAINS and 100,000 more seniors will receive more support with this budget that we have proposed? Will you support that?

Thank you to the member for her address today. The NDP, I think they really wanted us to write their budget, but the only way that happens is if there’s an election and they get elected. But you know what? We’re building on last year’s budget in this year’s budget, and we took that budget to the people and the people gave it a resounding yes. The people gave it a resounding yes. I shudder to think what the cost, and when we might ever balance a budget, if the NDP actually got their way.

What I’m saying to the NDP: We did it last year, just about 10 months ago. I know that people on this side of the House and our colleagues on the other side would be more than willing to take this budget to the people right now if it was necessitated.

I ask the member of the NDP: Can you tell us what your budget proposals would cost and would you actually be willing to take that to the people?