On November 23, Kartik Saini, a 20-year-old international student, was struck, dragged and killed in my community at Yonge and St. Clair by a Ford F-250 pickup truck.

Kartik was a cyclist. He was riding his bike home that day. He deserved to get home safely. All road users, including vulnerable road users, deserve to get home safely. They do not have two tonnes of steel protecting them.

On November 30, a ghost bike memorial ride was organized with hundreds from the cycling community and allies in attendance to honour Kartik.

Speaker, we must have tougher road safety rules to save lives. We must implement a Vision Zero provincial road safety strategy, to reduce deaths and injuries on Ontario’s roads to zero. Make the Fairness for Road Users Act and the Protecting Vulnerable Road Users Act law today to help families and communities find justice and some comfort, if that is ever possible. These laws will make our roads safer for all.

I want to thank Cycle Toronto; Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists; the bicycle mayor of Toronto; Bells on Yonge; Centre for Active Transportation; Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition; the Bike Brigade; Darnel Harris, ED of Our Greenway; Robin Richardson of Yonge4All, and so many others who are leaders advocating for safe roads for vulnerable users and overall low-carbon modes of transportation, like walking, biking and taking transit.

Yonge4All has been appealing for our midtown Toronto Yonge complete street pilot to be permanent. Complete streets are safer streets that take into account the needs of all users. I support their work because everyone deserves to get home safely.

My question is to the Premier. Last week, the Auditor General reported that the P3 contracts used to build Ottawa’s LRT resulted in more problems and less accountability. The same companies contracted in Ottawa through these shady P3s are responsible for the expensive Eglinton Crosstown P3 mess that has frustrated my community in St. Paul’s for over a decade. My community needs accountability from this government more than ever. They need assurance that the Ottawa LRT fiasco won’t repeat itself on Eglinton.

My question is to the Premier: Why are the Premier, the minister and Metrolinx choosing to conceal, instead of answer to the public—the people paying for the actual project—how long this latest Eglinton LRT delay really is going to be?

The Ontario Line is 75% over budget. That’s why we said no.

Accountability isn’t all we need. For 10 years, small businesses in midtown and Little Jamaica have been devastated by the LRT’s construction, with more businesses shutting down for good than I can count. Small businesses are a community. The latest LRT delay, pushing the open date to late 2023 at the earliest, will be the last straw.

While many of our small businesses didn’t get help during the pandemic, this Premier gave nearly $1 billion—$1 billion—to corporations and businesses that didn’t need it or didn’t qualify. Some of them weren’t even in Ontario, Speaker.

My question is back to the Premier. Will you be providing substantial financial support for our small businesses so that they can weather this storm that this government has created?

I met with OMA recently and learned of the devastating family doctor shortages that we’re seeing across the province. In my community, in midtown, at 1366 Yonge Street, we have a wonderful medical centre that offers many services across the spectrum. There’s a pharmacy at the bottom. It helps many of our seniors have ready, accessible, community-based medical services. This is, of course, being torn down to build what we suspect will be, once again, luxury condos that no one can afford.

I’m wondering if the member could share if the fall economic statement says anything, really, about building real affordable housing and if it says anything about dealing with the crisis we have in front-line health care workers, like our doctors, like our nurses, like the very people at 1366 Yonge Street, who need their medical centre to stay alive and well.

I want to reiterate that the Ontario Line is 75% beyond its budget—above budget. That is a huge, huge, huge deal of money and a huge deal of wasted time with delays that this government is not taking account for.

I understand that the $8 billion that it will take to finish, hopefully, this Ontario Line project, could have paid for—what is it—seven brand new hospitals. I’m really wondering how much does this government actually care about health care and the human beings that help keep our loved ones safe and well when we have ERs that are bursting at their seams and they’re not getting the funding they need for health care? What is happening? What does this government have to say?