SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
March 8, 2023 09:00AM
  • Mar/8/23 2:40:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 71 

First of all, I can appreciate the need for jobs in northern Ontario. One of the things that I would recommend doing is that if the government is working on a last-mile strategy for broadband—broadband is absolutely essential to northern and remote communities, and right now, the government’s standard for rolling out broadband is 50 gigs upload and 10 gigabytes download. That’s an old standard. The broadband that this government is rolling out is actually obsolete before you roll it out, and you’re going to be cutting job opportunities from future generations and from this generation of northerners.

I would highly recommend you go for one gig symmetrical for the broadband rollout. That would be one way that I would create jobs in northern Ontario and create opportunities for people in northern Ontario.

This Bill 124 wage-suppression bill that disproportionately targets women needs to be repealed. It’s actually already been declared by the courts to be unconstitutional, that it’s an infringement on the constitutional, fundamental freedoms of the health care workers, and yet this government is appealing that in court.

Our post-secondary education system: I would have to give them an F on that, but I’m out of time, so I’ll have to wait for a supplementary question to answer.

One of the things that drove me most crazy before I got into this House was that the Conservatives, when they were in power from 1995 to 2003, started to break up and sell off Ontario Hydro. Then the Liberals finished that off by selling off the majority share of hydro. Our hydro rates in Ontario used to be one of our biggest competitive advantages, at four cents a kilowatt hour. We’re now paying four times that, and we’re subsidizing a private, for-profit company that used to be Ontario Hydro: $6.9 billion a year.

We’ve got to maintain our competitive advantages—health care, education, post-secondary education—and somehow, we’ve got—

338 words
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  • Rabble!
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