I’m proud to be standing up today to speak to the budget bill. It was released last week. Quite frankly, this budget doesn’t meet the moment.

Ontarians are struggling with affordability. When I think about my riding, I think about the food bank line I have to pass on the way to work, on College Street at Spadina, for the Fort York Food Bank. Every time I go by, week after week, it’s astonishing how many people are waiting for food because they can’t make things work anymore.

I think about the people I meet who cannot afford to pay the astronomical amount that they’re paying for rent. Even when they have good-paying jobs, earning $80,000 and up a year, they’re astonished that they still cannot find a place that works for them and their family in my riding that’s affordable, especially with rent upwards of $2,500 a month if you’re looking for a new one-bedroom apartment in our riding.

I also think about the hospitals in my riding as well: Toronto Western, Toronto General, SickKids. When I look at the emergency room wait-lists in my riding and in hospitals across Ontario, I hear that it takes 22 hours. The average wait is 22 hours when you go to the emergency room right now.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this budget does enough to help people. Those examples that I gave explain how people in my riding are not going to be adequately met by this budget.

There was a Toronto Star editorial, “An Ontario Budget Without Vision.” There is a sentence in here that I think really summarizes nicely what this budget is about, and I’m going to read it: “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.” That’s not a round of applause there, folks.

Especially at a time when we have record inflation of 6.8% and we have a budget that, overall, increases spending by 1%, what we are going to see is cuts in services. On a real level, we’re going to see cuts in services. I want to spend my time going through some of the ministries and some of the sectors to look at the specifics.

The first one that I want to touch on is health care. Health care funding is essentially the same as last year. There’s some COVID money that you’ve stored on to and you’ve put onto the budget for this year, but essentially funding is the same as last year. That is especially concerning given that emergency rooms across Ontario are closing on weekends—that’s unheard of; I’ve never heard of that before—and when we’re seeing that wait time in emergency rooms, and we’re also seeing, according to the Financial Accountability Officer, thousands of people waiting for necessary surgery.

I’ve had a lot of parents reach out to me in my riding, because I have SickKids. I’ve spoken to the CEO of SickKids and their staff there to get an understanding of what kind of time period people are waiting there. We have 12,000 kids who are waiting for necessary surgery, and what is also concerning is that many of these children are waiting for surgery so long that they’re beyond the point where they can get best outcomes. I can’t imagine the stress that a parent would be going through to know that their child has moved beyond the window, where they’re not getting their surgery in a time frame where their child can reach their full potential and fully recover. That’s extremely concerning.

What’s also concerning in the budget is that there is a decision to direct more money to for-profit health clinics. I’m deeply disturbed by that. The main reason why I’m disturbed by that is because I have seen what happens when you bring in a two-tiered system, a public health care system and a for-profit health care system that healthier and wealthier people can access. I saw it in Australia, and it is not something to replicate.

We’re also seeing the impact of a two-tier health care system already in the situation that’s happening in the Ottawa Hospital, where operating rooms are being rented out on the weekend to a consortium of doctors for orthopedic surgeries. We are hearing from nurses that the decision to rent out those rooms is resulting in an exodus of nursing staff time going to staff those operating rooms on the weekend, and it has led to a reduction in the number of cancer surgeries that can be done during regular times at the Ottawa Hospital on weekdays, because the private surgery clinic can pay nurses a lot more, and they’re walking with their feet. I’m very concerned about that model because it does seem like there are some unintended consequences with this decision to create two-tiered health care. I encourage the Conservatives to look into that, investigate and make up your own mind on that, because it is deeply concerning. What are the guardrails that are going to be set up to ensure that the kind of issue we’re already seeing does not expand and continue?

When it comes to mental health, I do see that there is $425 million dedicated to community mental health care and addictions. Personally, I see that as a good sign. I would like more, but that is a good sign. The reason why I see it as a good sign in my riding is because we have a horrible opioid crisis in our riding; we have people dying and overdosing in washrooms, Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, and it is extremely concerning. These people need help. It is a step in the right direction. It’s not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction that there is an acknowledgement that funding for mental health needs to increase.

Then there’s transit. When it comes to operations and maintenance, I am very worried about the provincial government’s decision to not continue to fund operating funding in this budget. There was a decision by the federal government and the Ontario government to provide emergency operating funding during COVID, and that was a very good decision, because when operating funding and maintenance funding is provided, it provides this additional revenue when ridership is down, and it ensures that our buses run frequently and our trains run frequently. Now that that money is no longer there, what we are going to see is an increase in the cuts that we’re already starting to see in Toronto. In my riding, we are going to see less service on line 2, which many of you might take to get to work. We’re also going to see cuts to Queen Street and Dufferin Street.

When you look at the cuts that are happening with the TTC, what’s most disturbing is that the worst cuts are happening in the marginalized areas, the lower-income areas, the racialized areas—it’s bus service. That’s a shame, because the lines this government is looking at funding—the Ontario Line, the Yonge line extension—are not going to be in service for upwards of 10 years. What’s going to happen in the meantime? How are we going to build the city that we need, where people can get from A to B at a cheap price and quickly, if we’re not funding operations and maintenance? It’s the lifeblood of our city, and I’m very disappointed by that decision there.

Then there’s the issue of housing. I’m hearing the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing talk on and on and on about how there is an additional $202 million each year for two years for homelessness prevention and Indigenous supportive housing, but do not think for a second that this is new money. When you look at the budget and you go to how much money the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was allocated in 2022-23, and you compare that to how much they were allocated in 2023-24, you see a $124-million cut. For all practical purposes, municipalities are going to be seeing less funding for supportive housing, affordable housing and shelter services than they did in the previous year, and that is at a time when homelessness is on the rise. You know it. You see it. I’m sure some of you are living in towns where you are seeing the first encampment you have seen in decades, because people can’t afford housing anymore. So it is deeply concerning that there is a cut there.

This is also happening at a time when the Conservatives are moving ahead with Bill 23, which is hampering and curbing municipalities’ ability to require developers to pay their fair share for the partial cost of infrastructure, to pay for what is necessary for the new people who are coming in. Affordable housing, co-op housing—you like to say all this is about that. The vast majority of the cuts in development fee revenue will not be coming from co-operative housing and non-market housing, because most of that housing already gets a massive development fee discount. The city of Toronto has an Open Door program where if a developer is going to be building truly affordable housing, they already get their development fee waived.

The bulk of the cut is going to be taking place with the new market housing that is being built, especially on park services and on the thousand-dollar development charge that’s allocated to housing services and shelter services. I’m urging this government to look at that, because infrastructure is necessary for Ontario to grow, and you are curbing municipalities’ ability to build the infrastructure that is necessary to house new people and make our cities function well.

The final piece I want to talk about is about education. The Conservatives, with this budget, like to say that there has been a historic investment in education. That is not true. The funding increase that has been allocated to the education budget is overwhelmingly a result of the $2.3 billion in federal money that is earmarked to child care, which you have merged into the education budget, then claiming it’s your money and it’s all about education JK to SK. It is not true. It is federal money, and it is going to child care.

We know the full extent of the cuts when we look at what school boards are saying are going to be the cuts. School boards across Ontario are developing their budgets right now, and what we are already seeing with the school boards that have developed their budgets and are projecting into 2023-24 is that they are experiencing cuts. The Toronto District School Board is estimating a $61-million shortfall, with a loss of 522 staffing positions. The Toronto Catholic District School Board is also estimating a shortfall, and the Ottawa-Carleton school board is also estimating a shortfall.

I am very concerned that if this government does not address and increase the Grants for Student Needs funding, then our kids are not going to get the support they need in the classroom that will allow them to reach their full potential.

These are the comments that I have to make about the budget today. I’m looking forward to your questions.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 28, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 85, An Act to implement Budget measures and to amend various statutes / Projet de loi 85, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à modifier diverses lois.

Thank you to the minister from Kenora–Rainy River. I listened intently to his presentation.

My question is with regard to this budget: It’s a budget that has failed to meet the moment because across Ontario, students have struggled as a result of the closure of schools, the COVID pandemic, and school violence is something that is not addressed. It’s not even mentioned within the budget, yet we know the numbers are staggering and the numbers are on the rise.

My question to the member is, why is this government sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to the safety of students in our schools?

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.

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.

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 commend my colleague the member for London North Centre on his remarks. We come from a community where there are currently at least 2,000 homeless people who are on the by-name list. There are many other people who are precariously housed. We have 6,000 applications for social housing, representing 11,000 parents and children in our community.

London has identified a need for a minimum of 600 net new supportive housing units. We know from a recent supportive housing complex, Embassy Commons, which has only 72 units, that the cost is significant. That was $22 million for one 72-unit building.

Will this budget enable London or any other municipality to meet the need for supportive housing?

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%.

I would like to thank the member from London North Centre for his in-depth debate on the budget.

In Hamilton, we definitely have a huge homeless problem. We’ve seen, in the last half of last year, 22 people die while homeless; the average age, I believe, was 43, and men highly grouped—a lot of criminal activity, drug abuse, mental health issues.

We’ve definitely seen this budget miss the mark when it comes to our vulnerable population.

Can the member talk a little bit more about what he sees in his community when it comes to homelessness and whether the $202 million will even touch the mark when addressing supportive housing in our communities?

Thank you to the member opposite for that question.

I don’t know—you look at the budget. Look at the numbers. I’m a numbers guy. The increase in the budget to $204.7 billion includes a $6-billion increase to health care spending next year. That’s an 8.1% increase. That’s an increase. I don’t know.

Secondly, education, which includes child care funding, it includes funding for catch-up, it includes funding for mental health, it includes funding for literacy and a whole range of things—more funding per pupil, as the Minister of Education highlighted. It’s going up $2.3 billion; that’s 7.1%. I’m looking at numbers.

Maybe their world looks at numbers very differently, but I’m looking at the facts.

In fact, you mentioned homelessness. Thank you for raising that very important point.

What did we do last week? We increased funding for homelessness by $202 million—a record increase for people who need a hand up.

We’re not going to let down the people coming to this province, nor are we going to let down the people in this province.

Speaker, all you have to do is look at their expenses from this year and compare them to what’s actually in the budget. It’s not just a difference in reporting; it is a shell game. This government is hiding cuts that are going to eliminate services at a time when people really need them, and that’s not right. They’re cutting funds to the Attorney General, to infrastructure, to transportation, to seniors and accessibility, and to the Solicitor General.

Back to the Premier: What is that going to mean for Ontarians who are waiting for health care, who are at the Landlord and Tenant Board, who are looking for legal aid or seniors’ home care programs?

My question is for the Premier.

We have seen a scary trend in Hamilton of not-for-profit service providers closing their doors due to budget constraints.

The Hamilton branch of the Elizabeth Fry Society is the latest organization to announce their closure. One volunteer said, “This is very distressing and sad news. The services provided by EFry are so amazing and it is sad to think of all of these women who now have no support as they go through court systems and try to get back on their feet.”

What’s happening in Hamilton is a clear example of the direct consequences of this budget, and it’s obvious who is getting left behind.

Can the Premier explain, where are the supports in this budget for programs like Elizabeth Fry in Hamilton?

My question is to the Minister of Education. Following the most difficult three years in recent memory, last Thursday’s budget was an opportunity to address a wide range of issues that our students, teachers and parents have been facing for years. Instead, this government introduced record $204.7-billion budget spending and somehow managed to come up well short when it comes to supporting our students. Now that the FAO is predicting a $6-billion shortfall in education over the next few years, and with our schools facing a $16.8-billion repair backlog, education has been left out in the cold. Ontario students are dealing with the impacts of the pandemic made worse by the underfunding and underspending.

Why is this government shortchanging education again, at a time when student needs are at an all-time high?

Let’s focus on our students with autism, students with exceptionalities, and students with special needs. We need to ensure that our school boards have enough resources so that these students who require additional supports have it when they need it.

Mr. Speaker, we know that strengthening Ontario’s public education system is a key driver of success in Ontario—and it must be available to all students.

Why is this government shortchanging school boards at a time when they need it?

I was saying earlier, we have committed more than $200 million to connect children and youth to care at hospitals and close to home in their communities, including new funding for surgical and diagnostic wait times, pediatric hospitals and rehabilitation programs, as well as mental health and other community-based supports.

Home and community care is especially important for people to be able to age in place in the comfort of their own community. I am happy to say that we are increasing funding for the 2023-24 fiscal year of up to $569 million. This includes nearly $300 million to support contract rate increases to stabilize the home care workforce. This funding will also expand home care services and improve the quality of care, making it easier and faster for people to connect to care.

Speaker, the budget touches on so many critical areas, from helping our vulnerable residents to creating an environment where our Ontario-made manufacturing businesses can further thrive.

Thank you to the Minister of Finance for his work on this budget and how he has taken so much of our community members’ feedback into consideration, all the while being respectful of the taxpayer’s dollar.

Ontario is preparing our students for the jobs of the future. This is critical because we believe in better connecting learning in the classroom with meaningful careers. This is why the government is creating more hands-on learning opportunities, which will allow our students to earn college credits and take apprenticeship training, all while still in high school. This is important because it’s going to build our pipeline of job-ready graduates.

Building on the success of the micro-credentials challenge fund round 1, Ontario is investing $5 million in 2023-24 to launch a second round of the program. This will increase micro-credential learning opportunities between post-secondary institutions and industry.

Speaker, we are providing an additional $3.3 million over the next three years, beginning 2023-24, and this will expand access—

Our government knows this economic time has been extremely challenging for so many people in our communities across this great province and right in my community of Newmarket–Aurora as well.

What I would like to note is that we have adjusted core allowances under the ODSP to inflation annually and increased the monthly earnings exemption for persons with disabilities. I’d also like to highlight the additional investment of $202 million each year in the Homelessness Prevention Program and Indigenous supportive housing. This has great impact in my community. On average, service managers are going to be seeing over a 40% increase in this supportive housing—

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to question the member from the government on the budget bill and to talk about housing, as it affects all of our communities. Hamilton has said that they need approximately $60 million to be able to address the homeless issue in our city. We just had a report that said in the last six months of last year, 22 men died who were homeless—average age of 43. Some 53% of the homeless population in Hamilton are women. We’re watching overdoses, we’re watching violence. The government put in a measly $202 million to help 444 municipalities. CMHA asked for 8% of a budget increase; the government gave them a 5% increase.

How do you think that this budget is actually going to help the people in our communities?

Thank you to the member from Newmarket–Aurora for her remarks.

Last week, the Minister of Finance told this House that the 2023 budget strikes the right balance in terms of the government’s spending plan in this period of economic uncertainty.

Why is it important to invest in our health care and education systems?

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 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.

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.

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?