I’d just like to join everybody else in welcoming members of the Ontario Medical Association who are here today, but especially my friend and constituent Dr. Audrey Karlinsky, who is vice-chair of the OMA. I’m looking forward to our meetings this afternoon and to visiting with all of you at the reception.

I seek unanimous consent of the House for a moment of silence for the victims of the violence in Israel and Palestine.

Can the Premier confirm that his government is currently under criminal investigation by the RCMP?

This Premier told voters he was different. He said his party wouldn’t put insiders first, like the Liberals did. He promised to end cronyism, and that was the cronyism that brought that government down. Well, the Premier broke that promise. And five years later, this Premier and his government are under criminal investigation by the RCMP.

Speaker, to the Premier: How can the people of this province trust their government when it’s under active criminal investigation?

Interjections.

We won’t be taking any lessons from a government under criminal investigation. The special unit at the RCMP is called the sensitive and international investigations unit. That’s who is investigating this Premier and this government’s actions in relation to the greenbelt. They investigate elected officials on “allegations of fraud, financial crimes, corruption and breach of trust”—fraud, financial crimes, breach of trust, corruption.

Back to the Premier: How can the Premier maintain the confidence of the people when he and his government are being investigated by the RCMP for corruption?

So back to the Premier: This government used to say that it’s for the people. Well, they’ve lost the people’s trust. How do they carry on when they are under an RCMP criminal investigation?

Speaker, weeks ago, the Premier stood in front of the remaining members of his cabinet and claimed he was sorry for their greenbelt grab. But now, in the same breath, he and his minister deny anything untoward happened. This is a scheme—

Interjections.

This is a scheme—I’m going to remind the members opposite—that favoured land speculators and people with Conservative connections who got preferential treatment from this government. It’s a scheme that saw provincial land use policy being decided on the casino floor in Sin City.

Returning the land is not enough to repair the absolutely colossal damage to the people’s trust. When will the Premier confirm that his personal phone records—

Interjections.

Interjections.

I get that that this minister has a job to do—he has to protect his embattled Premier—but these responses show nothing but disdain for the people of this province who have serious questions.

Even after being found to have breached the Members’ Integrity Act, the government voted against an NDP bill to strengthen it; they have refused to produce documents; they voted down a NDP call for a Speaker’s warrant because it was going to protect their friends; and they even voted against NDP legislation, weeks ago, that would have returned land to the greenbelt.

Speaker, back, again, to the Premier: Is he truly sorry, or is he just sorry that he got caught?

Interjections.

Let’s just be clear: not sorry, just sorry they got caught.

This question is, again, for the Premier. Speaker, one of the reasons why this government is under RCMP investigation is because they put their friends and insiders ahead of the needs of everyone else. Since 2018, this government has given countless patronage appointments and even seven-figure contracts to their friends and donors.

Exhibit A: They tried to appoint the Premier’s friend—remember that?— Ron Taverner to head up the OPP.

Exhibit B: They appointed the Premier’s friend Mark Saunders as a special adviser to Ontario Place. Our FOI found no proof he did any work.

Exhibit C: Another friend and honoured wedding guest, Carmine Nigro, made LCBO chair and Ontario Place chair.

More to come, I’m sure.

Speaker, back, to the Premier: Why is the government stacking the deck with their unqualified insiders?

Interjections.

But it doesn’t stop there, because a majority of senior members on Ontario’s major tribunals have connections back to this Conservative Party. Massage tables, “boys’ trips” to Vegas, luxury spas—this government and their friends are living it up while people in this province suffer.

My question to the Premier is, how many times must your government get caught before there’s a moral reckoning in this province?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased for us to be able to debate the following motion:

Whereas Ontario Place is public property intended for the public benefit; and

Whereas there has been no meaningful public consultation on how Ontario Place should be developed; and

Whereas there is evidence to suggest that the bidding process gave an unfair advantage to specific companies and there was no fairness monitor in place to oversee the process; and

Whereas the government has refused to release details of the reported 95-year lease for a private spa; and

Whereas the government is spending at least $650 million of public money to provide private benefits for the spa; and

Whereas people are experiencing an affordability crisis and feeling the impacts of this government’s cuts to health care, education and housing;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to terminate the lease with Therme Canada and stop the transfer of public funds to private profits.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to tell this government how the people of Ontario are doing. They’re deeply struggling. The relentless rise in the cost of living, housing, rent, mortgages, groceries and gas is forcing Ontarians to make very tough choices. They’re making meal choices depending on what grocery items are on sale.

And while Ontarians are stressed about how they’re going to stretch their paycheque till the end of the month, or whether renoviction and potential homelessness is around the corner for them, in these tough financial times, what we have is a Premier and a government who are busy trying to get a luxury spa built on public land in downtown Toronto. I’m talking about the Premier’s illogical plan for Ontario Place and what he believes is—I want to quote him here—a “bold vision.” That’s the Premier’s own words, not mine—definitely not mine. Let me tell you, there is nothing bold about a plan that is handing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to a private company for a luxury spa that most people will not even be able to afford, because most people right now are struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. The only thing that’s bold about this plan is how arrogantly this government is steamrolling over a public park, ignoring the interests of Ontarians and blatantly disregarding taxpayers.

Speaker, just like with the greenbelt, the official opposition won’t stop asking questions until this government gives us and the people of this province some answers and until trust and transparency and accountability are returned to Queen’s Park. In this effort, the official opposition NDP has asked the provincial Auditor General to conduct a compliance investigation and value-for-money audit of the government’s plans. We also submitted a freedom-of-information request to Infrastructure Ontario to get answers for Ontarians—answers and transparency this government has been denying the people of this province.

Today, I can reveal that the Ontario NDP has obtained documents Infrastructure Ontario provided that contain mounting evidence of a rigged process for the Ontario Place redevelopment—a rigged process that ultimately saw this public parkland handed over to Therme. These documents, Speaker, include a parking study from Infrastructure Ontario from January 2021, and that mentions Therme and its half-billion-dollar parking garage nearly two years before the public even knew about it. It suggests that the Premier gifted a publicly funded, half-billion-dollar parking garage to Therme and hid it from the public for nearly two years and throughout an entire election. That’s half a billion dollars of Ontarians’ money spent on an elite luxury spa while people were pleading—pleading, Speaker—for investment in emergency rooms in this province and schools. The greenbelt smelled bad from the very beginning and so does this one.

Ontarians know a bad deal when they see one. That’s why we banded together to stop the greenbelt grab in its track. Now we are looking at a government that is under criminal investigation by the RCMP. Madam Speaker, if the Premier has nothing to hide, then why won’t they give us more details of the rushed and secretive deal that this government has cut with Therme, a private European company? The Ontario NDP is committed to making sure that this land is publicly accessible not just today, but in perpetuity.

We’ve learned through recent media reports—through the media, but not, by the way, through this government, despite many, many requests—that Minister Surma was informed by Carmine Nigro, chair of Ontario Place Corp.—and, by the way, I want to point out again, a major donor and a friend of the Premier’s and a donor to this party, but also somebody that not only is the chair of Ontario Place, but was made the chair of the LCBO because, you know, one’s not good enough. That site had 2.8 million visitors in 2022. That’s according to Carmine Nigro, the chair of Ontario Place Corp.: 2.8 million visitors in 2022. They turned a record profit.

You know what? I checked. That’s actually almost on par with the number of visitors to the Statue of Liberty in a year. That’s no small thing. So why is it that Minister Surma never shared these numbers with the public? Why did she instead choose to keep Ontarians in the dark and insist that Ontario Place is not enjoyed by not just Torontonians, but by Ontarians? The people of this province are being kept in the dark about what this deal is costing them. They’re being kept in the dark about the facts of who goes and how many visitors go to Ontario Place. And let me tell you that the number of what this deal is costing the people of this province keeps on growing.

Initial estimates put taxpayers on the hook for $650 million for the parking garage—a parking garage—but also, yes, I’ll grant you, for some site preparation. But we’re now seeing that that is a low estimate. It appears that taxpayers are also going to be on the hook for the upgraded water and sewer systems to fill this private luxury spa’s pools and to treat their sewage water.

Commercial property in downtown Toronto sells for approximately $200 per buildable square foot. With 700,000 square feet, that means the West Island at Ontario Place is worth about $1.4 billion. Not only is this government handing over this prime, valuable, public parkland to an Austrian corporation for free, they’re also giving this corporation hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. We, the official opposition, want this project and this sketchy deal cancelled.

My NDP colleague and our infrastructure critic, Jennifer French, has asked the minister and the Premier some really tough questions about their Therme project and the details, and their response has only been, “Just trust us.” I’m going to tell you, “Just trust us” isn’t going to cut it with Ontarians. Ontarians need to know how much of their hard-earned tax dollars are going to a private company to make this luxury spa so that rich people can get expensive massages. The Premier has asserted that there’s no taxpayer money on the line. Well, I really wish that were so—I really do—but it is not going to be the case.

I just want to point out, Speaker, while we’re on the topic, that we are seeing a troubling pattern of this government’s obsession with massages.

Interjection.

We know. But if they really want to see this spa built, then the city of Toronto mayor, Oliva Chow, has graciously proposed an alternative: the Better Living Centre, which would also, I think, perhaps be a better fit.

All the people of this province want to know is, how much is this really going to cost them? The official opposition NDP care as well about public accountability for their hard-earned tax dollars.

But Ontarians also want to know why, since 2018—that’s five years of this Premier’s government—an annual report for Ontario Place has not been published once, not once—all of a sudden, no published reports. They’ve kept secret how much revenue has been brought in from tenants like Live Nation or expenses that Ontario Place has incurred during this time. These reports are supposed to be published around the same time as public accounts every year. Ontario Place Corp.’s financial results are consolidated annually by the government of Ontario. Let me be clear what that means: This government knows. They know, but they aren’t going to tell us. Why? Why is this government so bent on hiding facts and the truth from the very people who pay their salaries, from the very people who will be paying for this absolutely nonsense deal? We see absolutely no transparency, no responsibility from this government, and I think the people of Ontario are asking, “What are they hiding?”

We’ve got them under investigation by the RCMP right now for a deal that was bad—a bad deal. I want to say, the people of this province have said enough is enough. They want to know what this Premier has signed them up for, why he won’t release the terms of the 95-year lease of our public lands, our waterfront, that he is gifting to a private foreign company. Why the secrecy?

The questions just keep coming. Who stands to benefit? Who stands to benefit from this backroom deal? Because it certainly isn’t the people of Ontario. This deal shows us that, once again, insiders are everywhere when it comes to this government. I’ll let you connect the dots, Speaker.

We have Mark Lawson, Therme Canada’s highest-profile executive, who worked in Premier Ford’s office and, guess what, before that, as chief of staff for the Minister of Finance. Then there’s Edward Birnbaum, a new hire announced about a week ago, who came from—also a friend of the Premier—Mayor John Tory’s staff. Finally, there’s Simon Bredin, a Therme spokesperson, who has worked formerly for Navigator, connected to the Conservative Party. Spacing magazine has noted that Therme’s top strategy consultant is John Perenack, another Conservative Party insider whose clients have included EllisDon, the general contractor for the Ontario Place site services replacement project.

Through freedom-of-information requests and questions before the legislative committee, the NDP has learned that there was no fairness monitor for the Ontario Place procurement. I want to remind the people of Ontario: This is standard practice for large procurements, because it’s there to ensure fairness and integrity. Why wasn’t there a fairness monitor?

The government has also been unable to show any scoring criteria used to assess the bids, or the scorecards for each bid. Without the scorecards, we don’t have any way of knowing whether the contract was awarded based on evidence or preferential treatment. Preferential treatment, Speaker: I suspect that’s going to be the real issue here.

Journalist John Lorinc—who, I think, actually is a resident of my riding, a constituent—was writing for Spacing magazine, and he found that the procurement process “lacked ... detail about project financing and public information on other proposals for the site.” I wanted to quote him here. He’s an award-winning journalist, and he writes, “What’s more—and this seems like a highly salient detail—the 38 other bidders were told, in the Call for Development document, that the site had adequate parking, and that they should fashion their proposals accordingly. It was only after the government (via Infrastructure Ontario) selected Therme that it announced the construction of a massive five-level parking garage—an unambiguous commercial benefit to Therme that was never made available to the other bidders.”

Speaker, none of this looks right. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t smell right. This government is tanking in trust and accountability—

The member from Waterloo is right: This is indefensible.

They now have a criminal investigation at their door. We can’t trust a word they say. They have to show us the papers. They need to open the books, because the people of this province deserve answers. So I ask: Why won’t the Minister of Infrastructure show us the business case that she says showed it was more expensive to renovate the Ontario Science Centre than build a new one at Ontario Place?

Interjection.

Will the Premier and his government leave Ontarians on the hook to pay for something for the next 100 years that they never wanted in the first place? Should the Therme spa fail, what happens then? Can this foreign company do what they want on our public lands? Is this another shady deal that’s tapping into the public coffers of this province to benefit private interests? I’ll tell you, it has all the makings of one.

Speaker, I want to end by saying that the last thing this government needs is another criminal investigation. That’s why we, in the official opposition NDP, are asking this government to just cancel this ridiculous deal; get realistic about revitalizing this important public land, this important waterfront; keep it public; and stop this pattern of handing out secret backroom deals to corporations over the public interest. Will they step out on the right side of governance today and pass our motion?