Thank you very much, Speaker, and just so you know, you’re in for a double bill tonight, so this should be fun.

First of all, I want to thank everybody for being here: the table, the Chair, my colleague on the other side whom I have a great deal of respect for even though we don’t always agree.

I want to back up. We’re going to talk about the question about whether the legal fees and the criminal investigation of those legal fees, those fees for lawyers—whether we should pay for the lawyers of politicians, MPPs, ministers and the staff who are caught up in this criminal investigation that’s going to happen over the greenbelt.

But we have to back up a bit and see where we start. How did we get here? We had, of course, the Premier change direction very precipitously on the greenbelt after promising for years and years that he wasn’t going to touch it, under the guise of “We’ve got to do this. It’s an emergency, and I have no choice.”

We have an Auditor General’s report that says, well, in actual fact, what happened here, there’s all these pieces that we’re missing—we can talk about process—but at the end of the day, the actual uplift in value in that land, that land that was owned by a few well-connected insiders, people who were, by the Premier’s own admission, his friendraisers—fundraisers and friends—and friendraisers, too. We all know who they are because they own land in other parts of the province that we’ll talk about later on. She really identified what the problem was here, and that there was an $8.3-billion backroom deal. We all know that.

The government then reversed course on it after the Integrity Commissioner’s report. The Integrity Commissioner’s report was very detailed, and it’s important in this debate because it will help us understand why we’re talking about legal fees and fees for lawyers in this criminal investigation. The Integrity Commissioner said two things. He said that this whole investigation, what he saw was, it was marred by brown envelopes and deception—those are his words. So what was evident from the Integrity Commissioner’s report was that the Minister of Housing at the time, who I’m going to talk a bit more about later in the second half, was reprimanded and he stepped down, which was the right thing to do.

It was evident from the Integrity Commissioner’s report that a lot of people were lawyering up. Everybody had a lawyer, and probably with good reason. Those lawyers cost money.

I think it’s fair to say that in this instance where we have the kind of things that we saw go on, the questions that the Integrity Commissioner raised, the concerns that he raised and the evidence that he brought forward and the fact that we have the RCMP—the Mounties—conducting a criminal investigation into these dealings and that we had four senior members in the Premier’s office, who are no longer connected, or no longer connected to the government, who were caught up in this. We have the former principal secretary, former executive assistants, the director of housing; we have Ryan Amato who was appointed as Minister Clark’s chief of staff by the Premier’s office. So all roads lead to the Premier’s office when you look at this.

So my question was just simply—this isn’t civil litigation. This isn’t what we’re all protected from when we’re ministers and we’re working and we make a decision that affects people and they want to contest that decision. They can come and they can sue us—civil litigation; understandable. But we shouldn’t be paying for the lawyers of those that are implicated in a criminal investigation, and that’s what we have here. I think it’s unfair to Ontario taxpayers. I think it’s a cost that should be borne most appropriately by the Ontario PC Party. I think it’s evident that there is some connection that’s there. I think it would be the right thing to do. I think it would be the right thing to do for Ontario taxpayers.

I look forward to the response of my colleague, the government House leader.

Really, in fairness, should taxpayers be on the hook to pay for lawyers in a criminal investigation?

Now, we had a reversal on the urban boundaries. It’s not the greenbelt; that’s not the thing we’re talking about, but urban boundaries. A very precipitous reversal, hastily set up, which raises the question, why are we doing that? Is it because of the RCMP’s criminal investigation? Are there concerns with that?

We know in Ottawa, the Watters Road property sticks out like a sore thumb. The city didn’t request it. It’s prime agricultural land. It’s got a geological formation. It’s hard to service. It shouldn’t even be there. It was included, and the people who owned the land, their land tripled in value—tripled in value in one day. And they’ve got a history of donations of $50,000 to the party. That’s what I was talking about earlier.

We have Hamilton, where a farmer gets three offers for his land the day before the boundary expansion is announced. That sounds a bit like somebody’s got some insider information there. The connections between what we saw on the greenbelt and what happened with the urban boundaries, well, we kind of see the same thing happening there.

So why are we paying for the lawyers to cover people’s tracks? Why would we pay their legal fees? Why would the government of Ontario, why would the people of Ontario, why would taxpayers do that? That’s not right. The Ontario PC Party should pay for it. It looks like they were a beneficiary.

The other thing I want to mention is the former Minister of Housing, who I think did the right thing when he was reprimanded here in this assembly or—I’ll correct my record— reprimanded by the Integrity Commissioner. I know the member quite well. I sat with him for a long time. I have a lot of respect for him. I have a lot of respect that he did the right thing, and the objection that I have today is that with this urban boundary expansion and with all things around this RCMP investigation, the Minister of Housing is—they’re doubling down on it. He already threw himself under the bus. Now the Premier is backing up over him.

I mentioned earlier those people connected to the Premier’s office, that all roads lead to the Premier’s office on this one. I think it’s fair. Who are the people who are missing? They’re people who worked in the Premier office and the one who was appointed by the Premier’s office. All roads lead to the Premier’s office. So I don’t know why we should pay for lawyers in this criminal investigation, but even more, I don’t know why the former Minister of Housing is being backed over again. I find it objectionable. I think the Premier should take responsibility. It was his office. It was his direction. The member can’t effectively defend themselves. As a matter of fact, that former Minister of Housing won’t be able to benefit by what the government says it’s going to do to pay for the lawyers in this criminal investigation. He won’t be able to. He’s not attached to the minister; he’s a private member.

So let me figure this out: The person who admitted that he did a wrong thing, that did the right thing in here, who can’t defend himself or it’s going to cost himself money to do that, because they can’t do it here—they’re backing the bus over him again. That’s not right. I don’t care what side of the House that member is on; I don’t. I don’t care whether they sat here, whether they sat here, whether they sat there. I think any of us would objectively say that’s unfair. And when I saw that and I heard that, it upset me a great deal, because I have a lot of respect for that member.

I’ll just leave it at that, Speaker.