I thank the member for the question. You have to remember, the government says that you’re spending this much money, but the FAO says that $900 million didn’t get spent in the last year. That’s almost a billion dollars. It’s a lot of money that didn’t get into the system. What we have consistently said to the government is that this money should be there. And then you also have Bill 124, where hospitals are spending two, three times the amount on nursing. That’s fiscally irresponsible. Bill 124 has to go. Reparations have to be made, and confidence back in that system has to be rebuilt, because this government has stubbornly been attached to Bill 124.

The interesting thing about the gas tax—and we would have included this amendment had we been able to—is that this is another financial hit to municipalities. So not only is this government, through Bill 23, hurting them by lost development charges fees—and we’re quantifying that right now—but there are so many other things that this government could be doing to really acknowledge the pain that people in this province are experiencing. That includes addressing price gouging in grocery stores, for instance. That’s why we’re seeing food bank usage up 30%.

I think what’s really happening at CHEO right now with the Canadian Red Cross coming in—the Canadian Red Cross usually comes in when there is a disaster. They are an emergency option. So it goes back to the disconnect, with the parliamentary assistant saying, “Oh, this isn’t a crisis,” and not really acknowledging what’s happening in our system.

I think what could have been in this fall economic statement is, the government could have recognized that their vaccination strategy was so poorly rolled out, based on what the Auditor General said in her report—because only 7% of children in the province aged 5 to 6 years received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. So the smart money is on prevention. But this government seems really happy with thinking outside the box, by calling in a national health institute to try to pick up the pieces.

People do not want to enter the skilled trades because they don’t think it’s safe. The coroner’s report that just came out yesterday indicates that our workplaces—well, 41 construction workers have died this year in Ontario. Speaker, 41—some trades, but it doesn’t matter that it’s not just construction; it matters that 41 people went to work and they didn’t come back home again.

If you want to inspire people to enter the skilled trades and not just use your words in this place, then you actually have to put some resources to keep those workplaces safe. That’s the missing piece with this government.