Well, thank you for mansplaining budgetary processes to me. I had no idea.

We look at the independent officers, at the Auditor General, the Financial Accountability Officer, and we look at their numbers, because they’re not looking at these expenditures through a partisan lens. So we think when the auditor says, “We found that most of the $19.4 billion budgeted contingency funds included in other program expenses in the multi-year fiscal plan for” those three years were not “earmarked for specific purposes”—that is irresponsible budgeting.

Not having a plan for $19.4 billion, when you have a health care crisis, when you’ve acknowledged that the CUPE education workers are the lowest-paid workers and you’re actually driving people out of health care and education, that’s what I would call irresponsible.

This is right from the FAO: “Despite the economic slowdown, the FAO is predicting that ... the province is on course to record multiple budget surpluses.” That’s what the FAO has said. “However, the report said tens of billions in government spending was unallocated, while programs were facing funding gaps.”

Those funding gaps totalled $40 billion. I would call that gap in budgeting priorities as irresponsible and damaging to the people of this province.

“If we’ve learned anything about how the current Ontario government makes budgets, it’s this: Whatever they say the bottom line is initially, the actual number will be very different in the end.” This is very accurate.

“We’ve seen it many times: The government underestimates revenues. It underspends what it budgets. It socks away billions in contingency funds with no plan to spend them.

“Monday’s economic outlook ... from the Ministry of Finance continues that pattern....”

So you’ve done it again. It’s just like Groundhog Day around here. The government is predicting this $12.9-billion deficit. That’s a $15-billion deterioration in the province’s bottom line at a time when inflation is driving revenues sky high. It’s simply not a credible number, and this financial plan is not a credible plan.

I just want to say, when we had over 5,000 seniors die in long-term care—and people were outraged about it because seniors are vulnerable. Well, children are also vulnerable. The story I told this morning around when the hospital says, “We want to keep your son here to monitor his breathing, but we don’t have beds,” that’s terrifying. So we’re genuinely trying to appeal to this Minister of Health to at least acknowledge that there’s a problem, because you will never address a problem if you don’t acknowledge that it exists.

I just want to correct the member from Thornhill. It’s true that ending the clawback from $200 and then allowing people who can work on ODSP to earn $1,000 each month and not claw back—it was a cruel practice. We spent a lot of time advocating for this change. But you still are leaving those who are on ODSP, who cannot work, in legislated poverty. That’s another reason why we can’t support this legislation.

The other reason is the autism file, in and of itself. I know that there’s an active autism coalition in Thornhill. They’ve been advocating for a streamlined process to access those resources, and I spoke about this in my lead. There’s a lot to be said about early intervention. Missing that window for those who are on the autism spectrum is irresponsible and, one might actually say, cruel.