It is indeed a pleasure to be here in Ontario’s Legislature for this afternoon debate on the fall economic statement. I do want to say that it’s really interesting timing, personally, because this morning—I don’t think that the goal around the financing of the province’s expenditures has full transparency. The reason I say this is that earlier today, in SCOFEA, the finance committee, we were supposed to be addressing the estimates for the Ministry of Finance—we were also supposed to be looking at the Ministry of Economic Development; we were also supposed to be looking at the Treasury Board, which is very interesting numbers, and we had lots of good questions. Of course, Mr. Speaker, you’ll remember that this government has truncated, streamlined, maybe modernized the estimates process—but in the end, you’ve reduced our time to do our job by a significant amount. We had hoped to have at least, as in past years, 15 hours to explore the finances of this province. We have seen a fairly disturbing trend, I will say, of a lack of transparency about where the money is going.

On that point, this morning, which was in public session, the government called us to this meeting, called the deputy minister and some staff from the Ministry of Finance, knowing full well that the government was not going to present the Minister of Finance or the parliamentary assistant, and that the accountability piece was not going to be happening. I have to say, getting sidelined like that, as the finance critic and the Treasury Board critic, is disrespectful to our democracy. That sidelining has been a theme of this government. I don’t know who the one is behind the curtain pulling the strings and directing these measures—

Interruption.

I have to say, this morning’s process of that committee was incredibly disappointing, and we actually have no recourse—I think this is the most important part for those who are watching, which includes my parents right now—because the government tabled the estimates at the last minute, and then, essentially, we left this place for five weeks because of a municipal election, which prevented us from having that financial oversight and that accountability on the proposed expenditures for the province of Ontario. We normally would be able to question the minister: “Why is there so much money in the contingency fund? These contingency funds are very problematic. Why is there such a strong discrepancy between the Financial Accountability Officer’s numbers and projections around revenue and expenditures versus the government’s version of those finances?” This is n important part of our democracy. It’s actually a really important part around accountability for His Majesty’s official opposition. So I’m really disappointed about that.

The estimates will be deemed passed this Thursday. So we were supposed to be in committee all day today doing our work, and we were supposed to be in committee all day tomorrow doing our work, as was, I believe, social policy. How unfortunate it is that this government has denied us—not just us, because when you deny an MPP from doing their job or exercising their responsibilities, what you are doing is actually denying the people we represent their due course, their due diligence and their financial oversight.

So I had some strong words this morning in committee because I was completely unimpressed with the process. The government pushed this all the way down to the line to actually prevent us from being able to do this important work.

Just in case people were curious about some of the questions that were going to be posed to the Minister of Finance, I think that it’s worth mentioning a few of them. And one of them is really about the process.

What we have seen from this government—and the previous government was pretty bad at it as well—is that when they’re designing a budget—and in this instance, it would be the fall economic statement. When you’re going through that process, who are you talking to? What questions are you asking? Who’s at the table driving some of the decision-making? Who are you talking to and who are you not talking to? I want to say very clearly, based on the outcomes and this so-called prudent plan from the government, you weren’t talking to doctors, and you certainly weren’t talking to nurses. And we know how you feel about education workers. So they missed out in this fall economic statement, in a very big way. When your process is flawed, then the end product is flawed. So that’s what we have here.

We have a fall economic statement, in which I think the people of this province were expecting a call to action, a recognition, if you will, around cost pressures, around inflationary pressures, around health care pressures, the concern around climate and around connectivity and education—yes, education. It was so topical, of course, because of Bill 28, which the government had to repeal because they had to at least recognize, when private sector unions and public sector unions come together and say, “This will not do”—and quite honestly, I think the labour board, actually, on Bill 28, was going to side on the part of those who were seeking a fair collective bargaining process. This government has, to date, lost 14 court cases, so they are batting 100%—but I’m going to get back to that in just a second.

Really, process does matter—and if you have the responsibility, as the Minister of Finance, as the President of the Treasury Board, as ministers of the crown, who you talk to, who has your ear obviously influences who’s going to get the money. And there are some pretty interesting people who’ve benefited through this process.

It’s interesting, because even on Bill 23—building more houses faster—do you know who was not invited to that process? The Association of Municipalities Ontario. Imagine this: The provincial government, the minister who says that housing is a priority and it needs to be accelerated, even though, in the fall economic statement, housing starts have been downgraded—so you’ve already admitted that’s a false narrative. The housing starts are downgraded for 2022, 2023, 2024. So you’ve already failed on the housing front even before you actually got started. And I would propose to the government that excluding 444 municipalities from those conversations is part of the problem.

When the government finally took Bill 23 out in a very selective consultation process—our critic on this has, I believe, moved some amendments to get more dates so that more people could articulate how concerned they are about housing, where the government is proposing housing, why the government is proposing bulldozing over some of the greenbelt, why they’re using immigration as a scapegoat to move forward this piece of legislation, which will not accomplish what the title of the bill says.

I’m pretty sure this government has a dedicated staffer just to come up with names of bills that are very disconnected from the actual goal of the bill.

I think Working for Workers—that was not about workers, let me tell you.

This accelerated housing bill is not, by their own admission, in their own document, going to accomplish what the government has said it will.

And when you even look at keeping kids in school, when they brought forward Bill 28—such an egregious piece of legislation that overrode charter rights, which actually had in the explanatory note, “This legislation will pass despite human rights.” I’ve never seen that before. Actually, parliamentarians across this country read that piece of legislation and said this is unprecedented. That bill was called Keeping Students in Class—and what happened on the Friday? Students were out of the classroom.

So whoever is doing the titles for your legislation—I would highly recommend that they read the bill before they write the title. It’s just a first, small step—and obviously unsolicited advice.

The fact that you’ve excluded those 444 municipalities from the consultation on Bill 23 does not bode well at all.

If we’d had this opportunity at estimates this morning, I was going to draw attention to the two worlds that exist in this province.

I want to talk about the multi-year fiscal plan, which the Financial Accountability Officer and the Auditor General have also weighed in on.

We like the auditor. She gives us a good reflection, an accurate reflection—she checks the numbers. And we need that all the time in this place.

The Financial Accountability Officer and his projections—he actually has an expenditure monitor. Especially when we are denied, at estimates and finance committee, the ability to do our job, that monitor is our only way of saying, “The government said they’re going to spend $1.5 billion”—you heard $3.5 billion this morning; there’s a lot of billions that get mentioned in this place. Really, the only way that we can truly track the money in this place is through the Financial Accountability Officer. I just want to remind folks: We fought for that position. That budget officer position was part of a minority government—the only minority government I’ve ever served in, back in 2013. We insisted that that position come to this place because we knew that we needed another layer of financial accountability. At that time, there were gas plants that were being cancelled and contracts being cancelled and billions going out through the Ministry of Finance and the Treasury Board, and we really didn’t have a good idea of how those decisions were being made. However, the FAO has given us that, and so has the auditor.

It is funny—not in a ha ha kind of way—how people really like the Auditor General when they’re in opposition, but when they get into government they don’t like her so much, because she holds the government to account. She checks the numbers. She looks at the promises that were made in the budgets, and she evaluates where that money went or where it didn’t go.

On the health care file, we need the accountability measures to be increased drastically.

The auditor concluded that the 2022 Ontario budget, especially around the provincial revenue from corporate tax for each of the three years, as well as contingency funds recorded in other program expenses for the three-year period, appears to be overly cautious. So she has said to government—and this is part of the narrative: that we see the government say that you don’t have the money, because you’ve parked it in these contingency funds, which is a fairly new practice.

The Liberals were really good at losing money. These guys are pretty good at hiding money.

Right now, there’s $4.5 billion in contingency funds. The Financial Accountability Officer and the Auditor General have said that the common practice for a responsible government, for a fiscally prudent government, is that you have maybe $1 billion in the contingency fund.

What’s interesting is that the auditor believes that the following are underestimates—this is also part of this government’s track record: You say you’re going to spend the money, but then you don’t. This would have been part of the accountability piece today in estimates. She said, “For the year ending March 31, 2023, corporate tax revenue of $19.7 billion is understated by between $1.5 billion and $3.4 billion.” Well, this matches up with the FAO, who said that this province is going to be running surpluses in 2022, 2023, 2024, all the way up to 2027, to $8.5 billion.

So you have a government that has created a reason—because they’re predicting that they’re going to have $12.9 billion in deficit this year.

I’ll remind the members who are here in the House and the finance minister that the revenue that is coming into this place because of high inflationary costs, because of personal tax revenues, because of corporate tax revenues—in the last quarter, it wiped out our operational deficit for the first time in the province’s history. Because people are paying so much—because people are hurting in the province of Ontario, quite honestly—the revenues coming in to Ontario’s Legislature have drastically increased. In fact, last quarter, instead of having a $13.9-billion deficit, this province had a $2.1-billion surplus. It shocked everybody, to be fair. Nobody predicted it. But what did the government do? They tacked it down onto the debt.

Madam Speaker, when you have a surplus and you have a health care crisis and you’ve been through a pandemic where students in our education system lost the most classroom days out of any province across this country, and you say, “We’re not going to meet these needs. We’re going to put this money over here to the debt, because we’re going to pretend that that crisis doesn’t exist,” that is an abdication of responsibility—and it isn’t just about more money; it’s about strategic investment into health care, it’s about strategic investments into education. Instead of the shiny little baubles of $389 million with a $200 cheque—which will pay for maybe two hours of tutoring, if you can get it. We’ve all seen the advertisement from the Ministry of Education for private tutorial services. This does not wash. If you are looking at investments and if you look at a budget almost as a moral document that indicates your priorities as a government—that’s what a budget should do. It should tell the story of what you think is important.

This government, in the last quarter, with that $2.1-billion surplus, said, “The debt is more important than ICU capacity for children across the province at CHEO and SickKids”—and the story that I told this morning from Waterloo region of a child who was suffering from respiratory illness and was sent home because they didn’t have the resources at the hospital, even though the hospital said to them, “In normal times, we would keep your three-year-old son here to monitor him, because that’s in his best interests, but we don’t have beds.”

So what I say to the finance minister—obviously, we see the way that the finances in this province are being distributed very, very differently.

Had I been the finance minister, or if we had had a say in where that money would go, that money would have gone into education, it would have gone into hospitals, and it would have gone into health care. It would not have gone to the debt, when you have CHEO at 138% capacity. These are choices. And to question the Minister of Health this morning and to get the sound bites and the talking points that do not reflect the reality of what’s actually happening in this province is truly—well, I call it irresponsible; there are other unparliamentary words that I could choose, but I’m respectful of you, as a new Speaker.

When you look at what the Auditor General has said, the disconnect between the numbers that are projected here in the fall economic statement—and what she has said is that corporate tax revenue in 2023 could be between $1.5 billion and $3.4 billion; corporate tax revenue in 2024 could be between $1.9 billion and $3.9 billion; and, for the year ending March 2025, corporate tax revenue could be between $2.1 billion and $4.2 billion. The government is creating a narrative that this is a time of austerity when they have money.

Somebody sent me an email and they said that paying down the debt, the $2.1 billion, when you have a health care crisis and you have a crisis around child care and you have environmental degradation happening, when you have other choices, would be like you saying, “Oh, I’m going to pay down my mortgage, but I’m not going to feed my children or think about clothing or heating.” It’s a messed-up priority in these times, and especially with the cost of living. We have a 40-year-high inflationary rate of 6.9%.

The government clearly had not met with OCUFA or the faculty or students across this province—or maybe they just don’t care. OSAP funding in the fall economic statement, by your own admission, is underspent, which leads to a very good question. I have the University of Waterloo, I have Wilfrid Laurier, and I have Conestoga College—I hear from students all the time, and they’re trying to access financial aid. What’s going on that the government has allocated $990 million and that is underspent? What’s happening with that? That would be an opportunity, at estimates, to ask the Minister of Finance this question. And I want to point out that the interest on OSAP loans is prime plus one. Not only are students graduating into very precarious work and very precarious working conditions, but now they have this extra load of debt to carry with them.

Just on this last piece, around the multi-year fiscal plan, this is a direct quote from the auditor: “When revenues are underestimated, the perception can be that the government has less funds available for decision-making than can be reasonably expected.”

She demonstrated that the government underestimated corporate income tax revenue by $7.9 billion and $7.8 billion, respectively.

“The amount budgeted for contingencies appears overly cautious. Given the nature of contingency funds, it is challenging to assess their reasonableness.” This has also been said by the Financial Accountability Officer.

It is unprecedented, really, for a government to just have a pile of cash sitting over here and not have it allocated. If the rationale by the finance minister is that we’re waiting for a rainy day, well, I would like to inform the government that it is raining, it is storming, and people are hurting in this province. You’re benefiting from high inflationary costs, from a personal tax perspective, from a corporate tax perspective, so more revenue is coming into this place, and you are not passing on the savings.

We need proper rent control in the province of Ontario.

You’re not recognizing that heating bills continue to go up.

You’re not recognizing the potential of a strong conservation program for housing, which also creates jobs.

You’re not recognizing that food costs are going up and up and up. More seniors and more students right now are using food banks than they ever have in the history of the province. Seniors are going to food banks.

Has this government addressed the price gouging that’s happening from the large corporate grocers? It’s like it doesn’t even exist. It’s almost like what happens with the insurance: “We’re really going to ask the insurance industry to be kind to their drivers who aren’t getting into accidents.” It is lame, lame, lame.

Why would the government—they tabled this budget six months ago, prior to the election, and then when we came back, they tabled it again. They know that people are really struggling.

The Financial Accountability Officer said something really interesting. In his October 27 report, where he does say that in this year we’re projecting a $100-million surplus—that number obviously does not jibe with what the finance minister said: a $1.9-billion deficit. He was asked, “Why are you, as a budgetary officer, not saying that we’re going to be in a recession?” He said, “We’re on a razor’s edge in the province of Ontario.” There is obviously money there to address that—but he said it would take one more economic shock, like global lockdowns, lockdowns in Ontario; this would be the tipping point. The finance minister knows this. The President of the Treasury Board knows this. If you want to prevent an economic downturn, a recession—and the Financial Accountability Officer says we’re on a razor’s edge—we need to do everything to prevent a lockdown. Why wouldn’t you invest in health care? Why wouldn’t you invest in ventilation programs for our schools, for our classrooms? Those ventilation programs, those HVAC programs not only are good for students—because obviously its goal is to try to keep students healthy—but it creates very good local jobs. They can’t be outsourced to China. So there’s an accountability piece there around health and safety and revenue. When you create more jobs, the province generates more revenue. It’s a win-win-win solution. And does this government acknowledge it in the fall economic statement? Things have changed fairly drastically. To listen to the health minister this morning—of course, she said, “We knew this was all going to happen, and we had planned for it.”

We have absolute chaos. Sometimes it feels like that is the playbook. Why else would you bring in a piece of legislation like Bill 28, which was never about kids in classrooms? Of course, it was an epic failure. It was using the nuclear option of using the “notwithstanding” clause during collective bargaining. I don’t know who came up with that idea. I still haven’t figured out who the person is behind the curtain pulling the strings. Clearly, that was intended to start a fire, and I think at the end of the day the government was surprised that they got so burned by it. But it did bring people together, I would say.

In estimates, there would have obviously been good questions around the autism file. I think this latest—it’s 56,000 children waiting?