I want to thank the community members who have reached out and signed this petition. It is entitled “Protect the Greenbelt.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bill 23 is the Ford government’s latest attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing developers to bulldoze and pave over 7,000 acres of farmland in the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ontario is already losing 319.6 acres of farmland and green space daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ford’s repeated moves to tear up farmland and bulldoze wetlands have never been about housing, but are about making the rich richer;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats and prevent flooding;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately amend Bill 23, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province by passing the NDP’s Protecting Agricultural Land Act.”

Speaker, I fully support this petition, will affix my signature to it and give it to page Serena.

I’m going to remind members to please read the petition without additional political commentary.

This is a petition called “Develop an Ontario Dementia Strategy.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas it currently takes on average 18 months for people in Ontario to get an official dementia diagnosis, with some patients often waiting years to complete diagnostic testing;

“Whereas more than half of patients suspected of having dementia in Ontario never get a full diagnosis; research confirms that early diagnosis saves lives and reduces care-partner stress;

“Whereas a PET scan test approved in Ontario in 2017 which can be key to detecting Alzheimer’s early, is still not covered under OHIP in 2022; ...

“Whereas the Alzheimer Society projects that one million Canadians will be caregivers for people with dementia, with families providing approximately 1.4 billion hours of care per year by 2050; ...

“Whereas the government must follow through with its commitment to ensure Ontario’s health care system has the capacity to meet the current and future needs of people living with dementia and their care partners;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, call on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to develop, commit and fund a comprehensive Ontario dementia strategy.”

I’m giving this to page Yusuf.

I’m rising on behalf of our wonderful community from Toronto–St. Paul’s. A special shout-out to Liza Butcher and other St. Paul’s community members who are living with EDS, and also the ILC Foundation and thousands of others across Ontario who have reached out to our office.

This petition is to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

“Whereas the Canada Health Act requires provinces to fund medically necessary treatment for Canadians; and

“Whereas a growing number of people in Ontario suffering from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) have to seek out-of-country treatment at their own expense because doctors in Ontario don’t have the knowledge or skills to understand EDS symptoms and perform the required delicate and complicated surgeries; and

“Whereas those EDS victims who can’t afford the expensive treatment outside of Ontario are forced to suffer a deteriorating existence and risk irreversible tissue and nerve damage; and

“Whereas EDS victims suffer severe dislocations, chronic pain, blackouts, nausea, migraines, lost vision, tremors, bowel and bladder issues, heart problems, mobility issues, digestive disorders, severe fatigue and many others resulting in little or very poor quality of life; and

“Whereas despite Ontario Ministry of Health claims that there are neurosurgeon doctors in Ontario who can perform surgeries on EDS patients when surgery is recommended, the Ontario referring physicians fail to identify any Ontario neurosurgeon willing or able to see and treat the patient;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Require the Minister of Health to provide funding to hire” at least “one neurosurgeon who can and will perform neurosurgeries on EDS patients with equivalent or identical skills to the international EDS neurosurgeon specialists, including funding for a state-of-the-art operating room with diagnostic equipment for treatments for EDS patients; and meet the Canada Health Act’s requirement to afford equal access to medical treatment for patients, regardless of their ability to pay for out-of-country services.”

Speaker, I support this petition, and I affix my signature.

I know this is an issue that has actually impacted former PC MPPs’ own family members. So I hope they’ll get it right this time.

I’m going to hand it over to Havana for tabling.

I want to recognize the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Mines for working together on trying to find a date in the near future for an apology.

“For an Official Statement of Apology on Behalf of the Government of Ontario to the McIntyre Powder Project Miners.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas over 25,000 Ontario mine workers were subjected by their employers to mandatory, non-consensual inhalation of finely ground aluminum dust known as ‘McIntyre Powder’ between 1943 and 1979, as a scientifically unproven industrial medical treatment for the lung disease silicosis; and

“Whereas the government of Ontario” of the day “supported and sanctioned the McIntyre Powder aluminum prophylaxis program despite the availability of safe and proven alternatives to effective silicosis prevention measures such as improved dust control and ventilation, and also despite expert evidence from the international scientific and medical community as early as 1946 that recommended against the use of McIntyre Powder treatments; and

“Whereas the miners who were forced to inhale McIntyre Powder experienced distress, immediate and long-term health effects from their experiences and exposures associated with aluminum inhalation treatments, as documented through their participation in the McIntyre Powder Project;

“We, the undersigned, petition the government of Ontario to provide an official statement of apology to the McIntyre Powder Project miners.”

I am proud to support this petition. I’ll affix my signature and provide it to page Mabel.

I would like to thank Pierrette Forget from Val Caron in my riding and thousands of other people who signed this petition.

“Stop Privatization....

“Whereas Ontarians get health care based on their needs, not their ability to pay;

“Whereas the Ford government wants to privatize our health care system;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals and will download costs to patients;”

They petition the Legislative Assembly “to immediately stop all plans to privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 to help recruit, retain, return and respect health care workers with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario;

“—incentivizing health care professionals to choose to live and work in northern Ontario.”

I fully support these petitions. I will affix my name to it and ask my good page Nicholas to bring it to the Clerk.

« Alors que lorsque nous sommes confrontés à une urgence nous savons tous d’appeler le 911 pour de l’aide; et

« Alors que l’accès aux services d’urgence par le biais du 911 n’est pas disponible dans toutes les régions de l’Ontario, mais la plupart des gens croient qu’ils le sont; et

« Alors que plusieurs personnes ont découvert que le 911 n’était pas disponible alors qu’elles faisaient face à une urgence; et

« Alors que tous les Ontariens » et Ontariennes « s’attendent et méritent d’avoir accès au service 911 partout dans la province; »

Elles pétitionnent « l’Assemblée législative de l’Ontario : de fournir une intervention d’urgence 911 partout en Ontario par des lignes téléphoniques ou cellulaires. »

Je suis d’accord avec cette pétition. Je vais la signer et je la remets à Kennedy pour l’amener à la table des greffiers.

I would like to thank Leonne Alberton from Chelmsford in my riding for this petition.

“Make Highway 144 at Marina Road Safe....

“Whereas residents of Levack, Onaping and Cartier, as well as individuals who travel Highway 144, are concerned about the safety of a stretch of Highway 144 in the vicinity of Marina Road and would like to prevent further accidents and fatalities; and”

Whereas more than three accidents happened in the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2022, “resulting in severe injuries, diesel fuel spilling into the waterways, the closure of Highway 144 for several hours delaying traffic and stranding residents” as well as killing multiple people; and

“Whereas the Ministry of Transportation has completed a review of this stretch of Highway 144, has made some improvements and has committed to re-evaluate and ensure the highway is safe;”

They petition the Legislative Assembly as follows: “that the Ministry of Transportation review Highway 144 at Marina Road immediately and commit to making it safe, as soon as possible, and no later than December” 2022.

I support this petition. I will affix my name to it and give it to page Joel to bring to the Clerk.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 15, 2022, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 36, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 36, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

Petitions?

Can I have a point of order?

Was the word “autism” in—

No, but I would have asked about it if I’d had a chance.

The mental health piece would have also been a key part. I would have questioned the government on why, given what we know—the latest data—particularly on child mental health and how the pandemic and how isolation affected our youngest citizens, some additional funding would not be allocated to the mental health file.

I do want to thank the minister who’s responsible for mental health.

I know that the member for Toronto–St. Paul’s has also met with the minister to talk about eating disorders and all that that entails, which is very complex.

I recently met, on behalf of Kaitlyn Roth and her family, with the Associate Minister of Mental Health, and we talked openly and honestly about where the money is going and where the money is not going.

I want to advocate for those additional community-based teams in Waterloo region, because we are historically underfunded—nothing like what the member from Kiiwetinoong is facing, but significant nonetheless.

What I want to say about that is that the autism file, in and of itself, is pretty much a perfect example of a government that is not in touch with what’s really happening in Ontario. For some reason, autism rates in Waterloo region are very high, and the fact that we’re losing time, that urgency, that sense of a critical time for a child’s development—to miss that window, to have so many children waiting, and to definitely not see it reflected even as a priority in this piece of legislation is beyond disappointing.

The overall piece, though, that I think is the most shocking for most Ontarians is on the health care file—because you actually have to actively be trying not to pay attention to what’s happening in our hospitals. Maybe you don’t watch the news. Maybe you don’t read the newspaper. Maybe you don’t talk to your family and friends about what’s happening in our hospitals. When you compare the fall economic statement to the Financial Accountability Office’s economic and budget report from October 27, the government will be short approximately $6.2 billion in health, $1 billion in education, and $360 million in colleges and universities through 2024-25, and the health care spending and planned increases fall far short of what is needed to address this crisis.

I’ll just go back to the FAO discussion. The goal of having a Financial Accountability Officer is to help the government—but I guess, in some respects, the government would need to want to be helped or would need to be receptive to looking at some additional information that is not in their own bubble or in their own fairy tale.

The Ford government also stated in this document that they have added 11,700 health care workers since 2020, but we know that 47,000 new health care workers are needed to be hired per year for the next three years to maintain current service levels. And they are stubbornly—there are a few other words to use—attached to Bill 124. This is another example—you are going to lose this in court as well, I might add, because overriding collective bargaining rights is an enshrined right for workers. The impact of Bill 124 on the health care worker population cannot be denied.

Last night, I hosted a town hall in Waterloo on the privatization of health care. We watched a couple of movies around what has happened in Alberta and what has happened in Saskatchewan, and we learned a lot about the formula for increasing privatization; we instinctively know it. One of the classic measures that was embraced by Ralph Klein and then Jason Kenney and that other guy, Moe, is that you essentially starve the system so badly that you revert and you create this narrative that the only way to save health care is by providing private services and outsourcing and contracting out the work that health care workers do. The ground has been set for this exact thing, and doubled down on in the fall economic statement, the mini budget. Bill 124 is wage suppression legislation. It has a demoralizing, disrespectful impact on the people who are working in our health care system, all the way down from the PSWs, all the way up to the medical professionals and analysts and diagnostics. Nurses, in particular, are leaving this province for other jurisdictions where they will be treated with respect.

You cannot open a new hospital that you’re building or opening up a new bed that you have been talking about for some time without the human resources, without the personnel.

This has been a consistent theme by this government—they do not acknowledge the value and importance of the people who are delivering public services. They say they do, but then they introduce legislation like Bill 28, like Bill 124. The fact that you have not repealed this legislation yet is—aside from being stubborn—incredibly irresponsible. I know that you have nurses in your ridings. I know that you have people who have told you first-hand that they will be leaving the system because that 1% wage cap—when inflation is at 6.9% but was as high as 8% earlier this year—is essentially a cut. So you can’t call them heroes; you can’t say you value these people, who are, right now, down the street, at SickKids Hospital. We heard today from one of the doctors that they’re resuscitating three, four children every single day. We heard that from CHEO as well. Imagine the stress of that work, and then imagine having a government that says you’re only worth 1%. The disconnect there is so evident to us.

No Conservative MPP has ever given me a good reason or a good rationale as to why Bill 124 is needed.

I will point out that the evidence on paying people respectfully is very clear. In fact, David Card, a Canadian-American economist who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics in recognition of his achievements and contributions to the field of labour economics—he and his colleague Alan Krueger refuted the conventional notion in labour economics that increases in minimum wage led to lower rates of employment in low-paying industries. This has been part of the Conservative narrative for years. I can also say that it was part of the Liberal narrative for years.

You’re going to hear some of the members tout that they’re increasing the minimum wage. But I just want to go down memory lane for a little bit on the minimum wage, because when you look at how past governments have behaved and then you look at how this current government is behaving on the minimum wage, it tells a very different story than the sound bites that we hear.

In Ontario, the minimum wage has bounced between being frozen and corrected. From 1997 to 2003, the minimum wage was at $6.85. Up to 2010, it increased from $6.85 to $10.25. From 2010 to 2014, it was frozen at $10.25—four years, frozen; that was compliments of the Liberals. Then, from 2014 to 2017, it increased moderately, from $11 to $11.60; they really went wild for that three-year period. Premier Wynne announced overnight that it was going to go from $11.60 to $14 in 2018—and then this was followed by a $15 minimum wage, if re-elected, in 2019. Well, that did not happen, obviously.

One of the first things that the Ford government did when they got elected was, they cancelled the $15 increase—and the wage remained at $14 until 2020, when it jumped slightly to $14.25, and then $14.35 in 2021; and finally, $15 on January 1, 2022. So when they tell you how generous they’ve been, it warrants a little history lesson here. One of the first things that they did was cancel the $15 increase, in 2018. It’s true. Some of you weren’t here; some of us were, and it was painful to watch, for certain.

On the education front, I think the government has set up this very tension-filled, acrimonious relationship with the entire education sector. I don’t know if you saw some of the feedback following the repealing of Bill 28, but the players, the characters who are trying to negotiate a fair deal for the lowest-paid education workers in the education sector—I don’t know if you were out with folks the first Friday after we rose, when those CUPE workers walked out. I know that they visited some of the Conservative offices, and they came to my office as well. We called it a supportive rally, and it was really good to talk to some of the caretakers, some of the educational assistants, some of the ECEs. Most of them were women. Most of them had two or three jobs; they were paid that low. It was so good to see parents out there on that line supporting them. Once parents found out how little educational assistants are making in our system, they were shocked, because as you could imagine, these conversations don’t come up at a parent-teacher night. One EA told me that what she was making 12 years ago is less than what she’s making today due to inflation, so she has a second job. She was out there and really trying to—they didn’t even know what was going to happen. It was complete chaos. It completely destabilized this entire sector.

I think that the members who stood in their place on Bill 28 and supported it—I feel like those words are going to come back to haunt some of these members, because there had to be an admission at some point that—and the labour board was very set to rule on this—it was completely out of order for the government to use the “notwithstanding” clause during collective bargaining. It would have been good, when our member from Davenport asked the Premier if he would ever use that again—and of course, we got no answer from him. He said that he actually doesn’t regret it—creating all that chaos, all that pain, and yet he has no regrets. I don’t know what that says about the Premier. I just know that he’s really adamant about not wearing masks for some reason, even though he says that the medical officer of health is advising that everyone wear one in indoor settings. Our caucus has them. I have my mask. It’s not a big deal to wear a mask. It’s not a lot to ask, really, at the end of the day.

The education sector has responded to yesterday’s announcement, and I’m connecting this to the fall economic statement because it’s the same figure—$32.4 billion base, the same as the summer budget, so no recognition that there are increasing health care system needs and drivers within that system. This government and this minister seem very happy to dole out $200, at an overall budget cost of $389 million, but not invest that money into more educational assistants, into more child and youth workers in our system.

This is what we’re hearing—and this is from CTV Kitchener, just from yesterday. They said that the region of Waterloo public health officials are echoing the province’s messaging around masking, but some local teachers—the people who are actually in the classrooms, in the schools—say the directive doesn’t go far enough. They said, “The number of absences that we’re seeing right now is astronomical, and we don’t have enough teachers to cover those absences.” So the failure to fill in our systems right now is outrageous.

If you go back to what the Financial Accountability Officer said—we cannot have a major economic shock in Ontario; otherwise, that razor’s edge that we are on will in fact push us over into a recession. Knowing this and knowing all the lessons that we learned during the pandemic, or that we thought we learned, around the importance of paid sick days so that people don’t have to go to work sick, around the importance of ventilation, around the importance of public health hygiene measures—all of this knowledge you have at your fingertips, because we lived it.

And yet, here we have a piece of legislation that adds not one new penny to health care. The entire health care sector was shocked at this, I have to say. They’re in crisis right now, so they can’t come to the front lawn of Queen’s Park and rally and kick the building, as many protesters have done in the past. They can’t do that, because they are done, and they can’t afford the time or the energy to fight a government that’s so adamant about holding them down to that 1% and around not consulting them.

I go back to process on this. If the fall economic statement had a fair and open process around consultation, around listening to the people who were elected to serve—if that had happened, then this budget would have additional resources for nurses and for doctors and for hospitals, and you could envelope it for sure. It would have money for mental health, and it would have money for autism, because it makes sense to invest in the people you serve. It makes sense to adopt an early intervention process. These are the basic principles of the social determinants of health. And we called on the government to double the ODSP rates.

I did say in my original comments that there was something good in this fall economic statement. I do try to find some of the goodness in some of the initiatives. The one encouraging part was the improvement to ODSP; notably, tying future increases to inflation. So you understand that inflationary costs matter. Why won’t you acknowledge that with the education workers, with the educational assistants, with the ECEs? You’ve said that you’re going to tie future increases to inflation and you’re going to increase allowable earnings from $200 a month to $1,000 a month. However, it does fall very short of doubling ODSP rates and Ontario Works. To their credit, yesterday the media asked the finance minister—they said, “Literally, these are the most vulnerable people in Ontario.”

The money is there. The government says they’re going to run a $12.9-billion deficit, but the Financial Accountability Officer says that they’re running a $100-million surplus at the end of this year, and that’s without the tax revenue changes from the first-quarter finances, which is $5.8 billion. So money is going to come into this place.

You’ve made a decision to put that money down towards debt and not to the pressing issues that are facing our most vulnerable.

The Minister of Finance can’t answer that question—I will answer that question. I could not live on the rates of ODSP that are offered in this province—not when the average rent in Waterloo is $2,200, which is also not rent-controlled.

The media pushed back and said, “How come you’re not addressing the needs of Ontarians in the fall economic statement? Why is this mini budget leaving some of the most vulnerable people out—like not even part of the equation?”

Really, you’ve just said that for those people who are on ODSP who can work—they can actually keep more money.

And it did, actually, especially last year, when the government had given $210 million to businesses that weren’t even in Ontario—do you remember that? Speaker, $210 million is still a lot of money—it doesn’t have a B at the end of it, but it’s still a lot of money. I asked the finance minister at the time: “How come you can go after someone on ODSP, who maybe generates $225—you claw back that $25, but you’re not willing to go after $210 million that went to people who didn’t deserve that small business grant?” The answer was kind of disappointing and shocking. They said, “Well, businesses have been through enough.”

Do you know who goes through a lot every single day? An individual who lives on ODSP in Ontario. Life is not easy for these folks.

I have one person in my riding who has really—this may not change her mind, but she has said that she is seriously considering medically assisted dying because the quality of her life is that poor. You would have heard this before. There are many people in this province whose day-to-day existence is hellish.

The government has the money to acknowledge that those on ODSP are deserving of additional funding. You’re actually acknowledging it, in many respects, because you’re saying, “Well, you can work more.” But there are so many people on ODSP who can’t work; it’s not an option, and also because discrimination out there is quite real against folks who are on ODSP.

I will say something else that’s good: The government is addressing the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income System for one year. This is the GAINS program, and they’re providing financial support for low-income seniors, who would see their rates increase to $160 per month or $332 per couple. Listen, I’ve already said and I’m on the record as saying that seniors using food banks is up to a shocking percentage in Ontario right now. I do hear from them, because seniors have certain needs, they like to cook certain meals, and you can’t find those meals at the food bank. And they’re mostly women—I do want to say that as well: mostly women.

Finally, the projections for the education spending remain the same from the 2022 budget, despite what you’ve heard. However, the spending gap between the FAO’s projection and the province’s outlook is $400 million in 2022-23, and this increases to $2 billion. I go back to the original funding formula for education in Ontario, which has truly never been, I guess, modernized. It’s never acknowledged. Some of the programs that this ministry has thrown out at the education system, like destreaming—destreaming, in theory, is a great idea, but you have to resource it. You have to fund it so that everybody can be successful.

I don’t know if the Minister of Education spends a lot of time in the public education system, but in my husband’s class, there are 38 students, and the learning levels and the learning gaps that have happened over the last two and a half or three years are profound. There are sometimes three, four levels in one classroom. So you can say that everybody’s equal, but you actually have to say, “But we’re going to give you an equal chance of being successful.”

It’s interesting listening to the remarks and how they are full of a lack of understanding of responsible budgeting, but I want to thank the member opposite for pointing out that our government is handling the finances differently in this province, and thank goodness for that. Ontarians couldn’t afford the continued financial mismanagement of the members opposite. We have made record investments in the province—showing return on those investments that support Ontarians, the programs that are important to us, in creating sustainable communities.

Speaker, why won’t this opposition support these measures to keep costs down and build the labour force this province needs, and all with a responsible and flexible plan?

That’s equity.

That’s equity; that’s right. So to see the education dollars be the same, really, as the summer budget was pretty disappointing.

I want to end on the housing piece, because a lot has been said about the importance of housing. I think that we actually all agree that the value and the importance and the key factor of shelter in an economy cannot be underestimated. But to see the housing starts really costed out and downgraded already, Madam Speaker, is—I mean, I go back to process. Those 444 municipalities that got really shut out of the consultation process—I don’t think that that can be ignored.

Just to go back: Where we are right now is the FAO is forecasting a $100-million surplus this year. That surplus is expected to grow to $8.5 billion in 2027-28. He’s actually projecting surpluses for the foreseeable future.

The formula that the Financial Accountability Officer uses and the finance minister uses—they both consult with various economists, but those formulas are not that different. You look at job creation, you look at revenue through personal tax and corporate tax, and then you look at the expenditures that you’ve already allocated.

And then you have this little thing called the COVID fund, which actually is interesting because it was tucked away in the Ministry of Finance, and then it was sort of scattered out—which I had questions about, where it was being scattered out to. But remember that that COVID funding, originally, the goal of it was to help the province stabilize. Stability is having a very strong health care system with guaranteed resources which acknowledges the importance of paying people a fair wage so that you can actually retain them. And this seems to be the piece that the government is not willing to acknowledge, the importance of retention.

Retention is important not only because going through a hiring process and going through another recruitment process is costly and takes time away from patients, from clients, but you actually lose the expertise. Then what does the government do? The government looks at agency nurses, and those agency nurses don’t have a connection with the unit. They are dropped into a work environment where they don’t have connections, where relationships are not there. All I know is that they’re making sometimes double what our nurses who are on the regular roster in hospitals are making. What is that doing to the entire staffing human resources issue in our health care system? It’s drawing people out to work in the private sector, which the government is also funding at twice the rate.

Imagine if we had a government in Ontario that was truly committed to public health care. Imagine if when they used the word “innovation,” then people would say, “When they’re talking about innovation, they’re actually talking about investing in health care and ensuring that the people in our system are respected, and that the resources are there for children and for seniors in long-term care.” Imagine if innovation meant that for this government. It would be incredibly refreshing.

The government, as I mentioned, for the first time in 14 years—in the last quarter, so much money came into this place through high inflationary costs and through tax revenue that we saw, for the first time in 14 years, a surplus—first time, right? You remember what was going to happen, and that is that the former government had tied ending the operational deficit to our compensation. Of course, that should not be any priority for any of us here in this place, especially given what’s happening in Ontario, but that’s part of the piece of the legislation as well, that MPPs won’t be seeing any raise or any increase or even a third-party independent review of remuneration.

But that didn’t stop the government from—88% of them became parliamentary assistants, which comes sometimes with between a $13,000 and $16,000 increase. That didn’t stop the government from ensuring that their caucus was well cared for. That seems to be the trend. They like to take care of their people, and we try to remind them that we’re elected to take care of Ontarians. Ontario is not Ford Nation; Ontario is Ontario. We’re elected to treat those citizens with respect.

The reason why the fall economic statement, in our opinion, is so irresponsible is that it’s another missed opportunity for this government to acknowledge what’s actually happening outside of this Pink Palace to people in the health care system, in the education system. The move from an environmental perspective around the greenbelt has really galvanized many people in many rural ridings, because nobody is buying this narrative that, because of immigration, we have to build these mansions out on the greenbelt. That’s a misnomer.

Process matters. Denying us the opportunity as the official opposition to do our due diligence through the estimates process is truly something that actually hasn’t happened in this place. You’re in new, unchartered territory. Given Bill 28, you’re obviously comfortable creating chaos, but we are very determined to ensure that we bring the voices of Ontarians to this place each and every day, and to ensure that your budget and your investments actually match the needs of Ontarians.

Don’t take the risk. Don’t gamble with people’s health in Ontario. We can’t afford another economic downturn. If you paid attention to what the Financial Accountability Officer had said, it’s not worth the risk. Let’s make sure that we avoid another economic shock. Let’s try to stabilize.

I’m not sure if we’re even going to get a chance to try to make this piece of legislation better, but we’re certainly going to try. Thank you for your time and your attention today.

We’ll move to questions and answers.

Thank you for the member from Waterloo’s presentation.

Speaker, we know that inflation is at a 40-year record high in Canada. This government understands that families, workers and seniors—especially low-income workers and those on fixed incomes—are feeling the pressure on their household budget, and we also recognize the impact that inflation is having on families. That is why our government proposed to extend the gas tax cut for an additional year to help Ontarians to overcome this challenging time.

Speaker, my question is simple: Why won’t the member opposite support the government’s proposed measures to extend the gas tax cut and keep costs down for the people of Ontario?

Thank you to the member for Waterloo for an excellent breakdown—what a breakdown the fall economic statement is, by this Conservative government.

I’d like to ask a question with regard to children being triaged into adult care, hospitals having to turn away sick kids because there’s simply no staff or there’s a staff shortage and they cannot give them the treatment they deserve. How does this fall economic statement address this? I mean, I look at the document and I see that the health expenditures are the same now in the fall as they were in the summer, even though we know the crisis has worsened. Why is this government not paying attention to the calls from panicked parents who are seeing their children turned away from the health care they need at a time when some of these very parents in St. Paul’s don’t have paid sick days or are the very front-line health care workers who are being pushed out of nursing because of Bill 124?

I want to thank the member from the other side. I was happy to hear that she agreed with the ODSP element, and she talked about the cost of living and seniors.

Another member talked about the dire need. This legislation, if passed, would cut costs for people across this province and support those on ODSP and fixed incomes, and work to help more Ontario students get into the good-paying skilled trade careers that this province needs. By increasing the monthly earning exemptions on ODSP from $200 to $1,000 per month, we are making significant changes. Why won’t the member from across support the legislation?

Next question?