The 27th. So, you’re going to think, “Oh, that’s a recent article,” except that it’s from September 25, 2009, and it’s entitled “Let’s Get GO-ing on Train Extension into Clarington.” This piece by the Oshawa This Week 14 years ago says, “The extension comes with a $500-million to $600-million price tag, but it’s a timely initiative that dovetails perfectly with increased Durham growth and the need to reduce congestion, smog and greenhouse gas emissions caused by commuting vehicle traffic.” It goes on to say that the then-Premier Dalton McGuinty—we remember him—was “ensuring construction starts as planned, by 2011.” So, this is a project that has been waiting to happen for a long time and it has not—well, it’s 2023 and we still don’t have it.

Another piece from June 2016: “The GO train is finally being extended to Bowmanville.” This is when then-Premier Wynne announces GO train extension to Bowmanville, and there’s a flashy picture here that says, “Future site of the Bowmanville GO train station,” and I remember when those billboards went up. It says, “The GO train is finally being extended to Bowmanville. Premier Kathleen Wynne made the announcement on Monday morning alongside Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca”—I’ve heard of him—“Durham MPP Granville Anderson, Clarington mayor Adrian Foster and Durham regional chair Roger Anderson.”

Mayor Foster said, “It has been an exceptionally long journey. There are newspaper articles that go back to the early 1900s about Bowmanville being excited about a train to Toronto. We’ve had public consultations on what stations might look like, we’ve known where the stations are going. It has been years and years and years of work.”

Again, that’s a piece from 2016. Speaker, I tell you that to tell you this: The folks in Durham region are looking forward to this train. And since I’ve been elected, which was now nine years ago, it has been right around the corner. As it has evolved and as the plans have evolved, it has taken more shape. In fact, I’ve got a pretty snazzy map here that shows the four proposed stations. Where the existing Oshawa GO station is, that won’t be one of the four, but it’s going to be Thornton’s Corners East station, Ritson Road station, Courtice station and Bowmanville station. And those four stations are pretty exciting and the people in this community are eager to have this happen. The business plan lays out peak and off-peak and all of that. We’re looking forward to this happening.

I’m not here to rain on that parade at all. But, as the opposition critic, I have been eagerly chasing the details, and I will say to you that it was a fascinating meeting that I had had with the Metrolinx folks just in June. When I talked to the folks from Metrolinx in June, I said—well, I’m paraphrasing—“In the budget, there’s money for the rail. The government has budgeted it; they’re going to build the train. We’re going to have rails.” And then at the meeting with Metrolinx, when I said, “Tell me more about these four stations,” they were like, “Everything is on the table.” And if I heard that once, I heard it half a dozen times. Because at that point in June—and I understand things can change—they could tell me that the four new stations would be delivered through transit-oriented communities programs; that they were going to be owned and operated by Metrolinx; that the station would reflect a GO station; the naming rights would be a separate program, but they were talking about investment from third parties.

And so at that point, I understood from them that these stations will be integrated into the community, into the neighbourhood, making sure that folks walking there or cycling or wanting to shop in the area—that all these things were factored in. Well, this sounds fine. This sounds good. But where would the money come from? And that was the question at the time. The station would function as a GO station, but as they had told me, everything was on the table in terms of what it could be and who was going to pay for it and all of that. So if there wasn’t a developer or if there wasn’t an investor eager to invest in that location—and, you know what? Those four spots along that line? Exciting and interesting spots. But if they didn’t have investors—and back in June, they didn’t have anything committed for those four stations; there wasn’t a magic unicorn investor who said, “I’m going to pay for these.” There still isn’t, is my understanding.

I was worried because the funding had not been secured for any of the stations. They’re looking for third-party investors; they said that the conversations were ongoing and that funding is separate for the line, that in the 2022 budget, Metrolinx had received stage 2 Treasury Board approval at that point. Okay.

So I went from that conversation into estimates. I see that the Minister of Infrastructure is here. She remembers estimates, when we were at the committee before the summer intersession, the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, and I had the distinct pleasure of being able to grill both ministers—well, I say “grill.” Some of it was grilling and some of it was conversational. But I was able to get questions on the record about the government’s numbers, both to the Minister of Infrastructure and the then Minister of Transportation. I’m going to just focus on that one section since we’re talking about the stations.

At estimates, I took the last 30 seconds that I had and I asked the then Minister of Transportation—and I’ll just read from Hansard here: “I had a conversation with Metrolinx about the Bowmanville GO extension, because there’s no money for stations whatsoever on that line, and they’re working with partners and hoping that they have the investment to build the stations. Will the province help us out if they can’t find that magical investor to build all the stations? Will the province put in a platform and a bridge or whatever would make it safe so folks can get off the train if there’s no station money?”

The then Minister of Transportation assured me, “Our Transit-Oriented Communities Program and our development program is a big part, but we will make sure that” they “can get on and off the train.”

I was relieved, Speaker. It’s unusual and so it seems a bit absurd, but governments, historically, when they’re building public-provincial infrastructure for folks, pay for it because they have a lot of revenue tools, and that’s what they do. They provide what is needed in communities.

When you have a train that has been promised, people assume stations come included, but there’s a little asterisk that’s like, “Buy the battery separately as well as the stations,” and that was not part of the original deal—so, surprise.

Anyway, what we have here is, the government has budgeted the train line. The stations come separately—assemble yourself. You could have communities—and I don’t know how it is in the Kitchener and Waterloo area, but I know you guys are excited about GO trains. If you have a small or developing community or a place that maybe you don’t have that excited investor yet, who builds the station? Well, here we have this bill. We have this bill that is, as we’ve heard from the government, giving tools to municipalities so that, basically, they can pay for the stations, but they can recover, I hope, all of it, and that means that the stations get built faster.

My question is, how come you’re not paying for it and building it? This seems like a pretty significant policy shift, right? You used to build provincial infrastructure; now it’s like, “Just kidding. Pay for it yourself.”

Plan A would be the government pays for our public infrastructure, and builds it. I mean, we pay for it, but they make sure that it gets built. They put the money in, build it. I guess plan B, where municipalities have a tool to ensure that the stations get built, is better than not having stations, but I’m going to stick to: The best solution would be if they didn’t have to pay for it. We know municipalities are strapped. I know that Durham region—I was at the annual business excellence awards for the Greater Oshawa Chamber of Commerce last night and was glad to see folks from the economic development part of the region, the regional chair. I know that Durham is relieved that they’re going to have their stations, that there is a mechanism for them to have stations—well, me too. We want stations. We don’t just want the rail to go all the way to Bowmanville and back, where people wave at where they want to get off and just jump.

This is something that I know the region is relieved that there is an opportunity for those stations to all happen at the same time, and for that, I am glad. I know that the government has been working with Durham region and hopefully with others who are excited about GO trains to ensure that these stations happen, but this is totally unusual. This is not how the province has historically gotten things done or built things. This is a whole new policy shift, and I’m wondering if it is a whole new policy shift and if you’re actually going to own up to that, that you’re not building infrastructure anymore.

Speaker, I can’t believe that I’m almost out of time, although really does it surprise any of us? Okay, I will wrap it up a little bit.

This bill is called the Transportation for the Future Act, and I think as many members are in this room, there would be that many thoughts and ideas about what transportation could look like in the future, what it might look like in the future, how we plan for that, how we’re excited about that, how we’re fearful of that—all of those things. But one of the things that I would highlight is that, today, Phil Verster, the CEO of Metrolinx, dropped a bomb on us again that, folks, there is no deadline for the Eglinton Crosstown. There’s no deadline for completion of the Eglinton Crosstown. Folks in that community are so fed up. It’s over three years late, over a billion dollars over budget, and Metrolinx—anybody I have talked to in the engineering world or the construction world are so fed up with dealing with some of the folks at Metrolinx.

The government, MTO and IO and all those folks: You should probably do a little in-house talking to those folks, because when the engineers don’t have access to Metrolinx, we all have a problem.

When you have a CEO whose salary went from $200,000 to $1 million a year, and he’s not delivering? I don’t know who he’s friends with and I don’t know, you know, whatever—all that stuff. I don’t know what measurables and what deliverables you are using to keep him.

I know that the NDP today, in the wake of that announcement, have called for the government to get rid of him. So look at why you would keep him. If you’re not willing to listen to us and you’re not willing to fire Mr. Verster, figure out why on earth you would keep him, and hold him to some kind of account.