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—

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”—

We all know that guns are being smuggled across the border from the United States into Canada, and that these illegal guns are getting into the hands of gangs, and the gangs are using these guns to go after some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

That’s why we have a strategy. It’s the anti-illegal guns, gangs and violence reduction strategy brought forward by this government and this Premier, and it’s funded through the budget. We know the NDP don’t support this. We know they want to defund the police. But because of the compassionate policies of this government, we actually fund these services—and in the 2023 budget, $13.4 million is continued to provide funding for these police services to go after the illegal guns and go after the gangs.

I want to thank the Minister of Finance for continuing to fund police services.

And I encourage the Solicitor General to please continue to go after the illegal guns and go after the gangs.

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.

Only NDP math could come to that conclusion.

The base programs have increased from $175 billion to $190 billion. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? Because we are investing in the people of Ontario. We are investing over $15 billion of new funding, new money over the next three years for health care.

Why don’t you go talk to the OMA? Go talk to the OHA. Go talk to the CMHA. Look it up. These are organizations that deliver acute care, mental health care, home and community care, long-term care. They all said thank you to the government.

We’re hitting the priorities that the people of Ontario need and want.

I want to thank the member for the question.

Let me be clear: There have been no changes to the funding for our community safety order programs. We continue to support women who are at risk of reoffending.

The John Howard Society is delivering those services in Hamilton, Niagara and the Brantford region.

Our ministry continues to work closely with community service providers across the province in the delivery of community service support and programs.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll be clear again: We support the women who are at risk of reoffending. This is a priority.

The services will be conducted in this region by the John Howard Society.

I said it in my first reply: There have been no changes to the funding for our community safety order programs.

The Elizabeth Fry Society was not the successful applicant to deliver the community services there; it was the John Howard Society.

And I want to say it again: We will continue to support women who are at risk of reoffending.

Things are bad in our jails and have gotten much worse at Vanier Centre for Women and Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre. Because the Solicitor General is not honouring the original contracts with the Elizabeth Fry Society, it has had devastating consequences. Instead of having program support when dealing with sexual assault or human trafficking, women and gender-diverse inmates are handed crossword puzzles to deal with their trauma because there’s nothing else—not even pencil crayons anymore. Women used to have support while incarcerated that followed them into the community, and now they get a crossword.

My question is, will you negotiate a contract with Elizabeth Fry, and will you stop your ugly attack on women and recommit programs’ funding?

Well, Mr. Speaker, I’m very proud to confirm that since the former Liberals were in power, our government has increased investment in public education by 27%—a massive increase of investment. The member opposite has systematically opposed every single increase of investment. They voted consecutively to oppose an increase of staff by 7,000 education workers. They opposed the hiring of 800 more teachers. They opposed the hiring of 200 more principals.

We just added $16 billion to renew and rebuild schools, after they crumbled after the cuts of the former Liberal government—the closure of 600 schools, which families today continue to pay the price of.

We have a plan focused on getting kids back on track through modern schools, a modern curriculum, an increase of investment. You can count on our Premier to continue to deliver that to the kids of this province.

We are committed to getting kids back on track. We just unveiled in the budget a $2.3-billion increase overall—$1.3 million in a baseline funding increase to help the very children in Scarborough and in communities across this province; a plan to strengthen literacy of $25 million, the only jurisdiction to screen every child from senior kindergarten to grade 2 in the nation; doubling math coaches by an additional $30 million, so we improve numeracy skills; and, in the Minister of Finance’s budget, a specific increased commitment to strengthen financial literacy in the classroom. This is going to leave a legacy and help kids get back on track.

I want to thank the wonderful and hard-working member from Oakville North–Burlington for the great question and the great work that she does for her riding.

Our government’s new Youth Leaving Care policy and program, Ready, Set, Go, is the most bold and innovative approach ever taken by any government to support youth leaving care. It is an evidence-informed investment in bright futures for youth. As heard on budget day, our government is investing $68 million with continuing funding. This investment will provide greater financial support so youth can find safe housing; a longer runway for youth until the age of 23; incentives for youth to participate in post-secondary, with an additional bursary of $500 a month; and future economic stability through employment savings of up to 40 hours per week without clawbacks.

Many of these youths have traumatic personal histories and disrupted family lives. That’s why they deserve a fair chance at adult life. And we’ll help them get there.

Through the Ready, Set, Go program, as early as age 13, we will prepare children by developing life skills, their unique cultures and identities, and relationships with peers and adults. By age 15, youth will be offered a conferencing option, including a mediator, if they choose, to plan for their futures. By 18, social workers will be accountable for ensuring youth have the basics, like identification, banking needs, professional supports, and communications technology. For example, ages 18 to 23, youth will be supported with pathways to post-secondary training, trades and employment. Now, to really ensure this program delivers on its promise to support these youth in building the lives they want and they deserve, we are also measuring its impact through its implementation. You can only change what you can measure.

Once again, we will not let these youth down.

My question is to the Premier.

The Toronto District School Board was forced to tap into their reserves during the pandemic. This was to fulfill actions identified by the province for the health and safety of school communities and the academic success of students.

In a letter to the minister last week, the chair and director of the TDSB wrote, “We have depleted any working reserves and used reserves put away for other purposes.”

The Financial Accountability Office reported that this Conservative government did not spend $432 million of allocated funding for education in this fiscal year. At the same time, the TDSB was being forced to tap into their reserves.

Will the Premier repay the pandemic costs, as requested by the TDSB?

We cannot afford to lose staff when violence in schools is up.

We cannot afford to lose programs when student needs are high.

Why is the government leaving our students and schools without the supports they need?

Mr. Speaker, we will increase funding for school boards this coming school year by $1.3 billion, as confirmed in the budget—an increase in our baseline funding this year, as we have done every year.

In TDSB, they have 16,000 fewer students enrolled in their schools. And even though, as you know, the funding for school boards is on a per pupil basis—even with fewer kids, their funding is still up, compared to the Liberals, by $38 million. There’s a 5% increase in EAs. There’s a 4% increase of custodians.

In Toronto Catholic, they have 6% more education workers, 9% more custodians, 4% more principals and vice-principals.

This doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because our government is investing in a responsible budget that lifts performance in reading, writing and math—gets back to the basics.

We’re going to continue to make the case that children will be able to get back on track if they stay in school right to June, without disruption.

We’re going to continue to stand up for children, ensure they stay in school, ensure they have the resources and staffing in place.

There are 7,000 more education workers, 800 more teachers, 200 principals. That happened because of, not in spite of, provincial investment, and that will continue under our Premier’s leadership.

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 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.

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.

I’ve heard from the government side an apparent interest in looking after human trafficking, about doing something about human trafficking. I was very shocked this morning to hear that the Elizabeth Fry Society of Hamilton lost its funding.

I’m going to create some context: When women are released from prison, they’re taken to a bus stop and they’re given a bus ticket, and that’s it. They’re immediately targets for human trafficking. The Elizabeth Fry Society provides programming to help women become ready to resume civilian life, and also to make sure that they get home safely and that they have safe places to live.

To see that cut is really horrifying to me. My question to the member from London West is, do you have concerns about how vulnerable women are being treated in this budget?