Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers / Prières.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 1, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 142, An Act to enact the Consumer Protection Act, 2023, to amend the Consumer Reporting Act and to amend or repeal various other Acts / Projet de loi 142, Loi visant à édicter la Loi de 2023 sur la protection du consommateur, à modifier la Loi sur les renseignements concernant le consommateur et à modifier ou abroger diverses autres lois.

Next, we have questions to the member for Sudbury related to his remarks on this matter. Any questions?

Further debate?

Mr. McCarthy has moved second reading of Bill 142, An Act to enact the Consumer Protection Act, 2023, to amend the Consumer Reporting Act and to amend or repeal various other Acts.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.” All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the next instance of deferred votes.

Second reading vote deferred.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 1, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 136, An Act to amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 and certain other Acts, to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023, to repeal an Act and to revoke various regulations / Projet de loi 136, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2005 sur la ceinture de verdure et d’autres lois, édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la Réserve agricole de Duffins-Rouge et abrogeant une loi et divers règlements.

That has been the best speech of the entire session.

Let me just get out my notes.

We’re speaking about Bill 142, Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act. I was fortunate to be on House duty—

Interjection.

The best speeches are the short ones, Speaker.

Interjections.

I think this is an important law. This is the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, and this is touchy for a lot of people in the province. Earlier in debate, it was mentioned that this is a bill that protects the Conservative government from the Conservative government.

I listened to a lot of debate from opposition and government members talking about this bill. There is a different tone and a different lens. I tend to think that the lens that the New Democrats see this through seems to be the one that the people of Ontario see it through. Aside from the developers who were going to benefit a lot from this change, to the tune of $8.3 billion—and that’s based on some pretty old estimates of what the land was worth, I think, five or six years ago—most of Ontario did not want to see the greenbelt carved up, and they were very vocal about it. No matter where I went in the province while this was being discussed, people had lawn signs saying, “Hands off the greenbelt.” People were very vocally opposed to this.

For my southern members, as you go from riding to riding, outside of the rural ones, sometimes you’re just going through the street light to a new riding, but Sudbury is like an island. You are in Sudbury, and then there is nothing for several kilometres, 15 or 20 kilometres, and then you’re in Nickel Belt. When you leave Nickel Belt, you can drive for an hour or more before you hit another city. Farther north, it’s even more remote than that. When we think of green space, there is a lot of green space where we are.

So touching the greenbelt itself maybe wouldn’t resonate as much in the north as it would in the south, but the idea of people having a hard time making ends meet; people struggling to pay their rent; kids like my own kids saying, “I’m never going to be able to afford a house”—or my son who is graduating next year, I’m not sure if he’s going to move out of the house because the only way he will be able to do that is if he has several roommates. When I was his age, wherever you wanted to live in Sudbury, for a decent apartment, an apartment you would be proud to bring your mom or dad to—maybe not super fancy, but a nice, decent starter apartment—it was a difference of 50 bucks or 100 bucks. You more or less chose based on where you wanted to live. Did you want to be near the college? Did you want to be near the university? Did you want to be near downtown or did you want to be near the beach? But you’re talking about 50 bucks. It was all affordable. I had a part-time job when I had my own apartment. That reality is gone.

I know through the debate, the Conservative government is saying, “We’re really focused on housing. We have to fix this, get kids out of their parents’ basements” and stuff, but this greenbelt grab had nothing to do with that. It didn’t. There is a weird alternate reality they’re living in.

I worked in construction. I did it for a decade, maybe a little bit longer than that. It would take a long time to develop these lands. This had nothing to do with that, and the people of Ontario know that. They are a lot smarter than the government is giving them credit for, the people of Ontario—a lot smarter.

What’s interesting though is we’re bringing forward a bill to protect the greenbelt land—there are some areas that are quite caught up in it. This is a bill that in the Conservative government’s speeches, when they talk about it, they talk about how great the greenbelt is and how it needs protection. But the Premier himself was caught three times. In 2018, before the 2018 election, he promised people he was going to carve up the greenbelt, and then he was all, “Oh, I’ll never do that. I’ll never do that.” Then he was caught again, and he was like, “Ah, I’ll never do it. I will never do it.” Then the third time he was caught, he didn’t apologize immediately, the way that it’s being portrayed in question period and the way it’s being portrayed in the Conservative debate. He didn’t apologize immediately. He ignored the people of Ontario. He ignored them. Then he ignored some more.

As people got riled up and they were having rallies, saying “Don’t touch this” and “Hands off the greenbelt,” he ignored them some more. He basically hid. Then, when it seemed like the pressure cooker was really on and people were really upset about this, he blamed the chief of staff. The chief of staff, or whoever had worked for the Minister of Housing, eventually resigned, but I saw that a lot like pushing the guy down the stairs.

When I was 16, I worked at Baskin-Robbins. I couldn’t have sold that store without the manager knowing. I just don’t see it that way. I don’t know all the intricacies of how the ministry works, but I cannot see the development of the greenbelt land happening by just one person behind the backs of the minister and the Premier and them being out of the loop. It doesn’t hold water with me.

The chief of staff resigns. The minister, the Premier and the Conservative Party ignore it some more. People are having louder rallies. People are talking to the Premier when he’s going to FordFest, and saying, “Stop this. We don’t want this to happen.” They dragged their feet and ignored it some more. Then, the minister resigns. What the people of Ontario are looking for is some accountability. I think the minister resigning is a good step forward to show, “Hey, we made a mistake.” But he resigned in the middle of Labour Day. It was almost like, “We don’t really want any news coverage of this.” What people wanted was a heartfelt apology: “We made a mistake; we’re turning it around.” Sneaking out the back door on Labour Day wasn’t that.

Then, the Premier ignored it some more, and then he apologized. The reason I’m pointing that out and I’m explaining that in detail and refreshing everyone’s memory is because there’s this ideology that wants to be expressed within Conservative government that, “We wanted to build housing, and so we went into the greenbelt to build housing. And as we marched along that path, the people of Ontario said, ‘No, don’t do that.’ And we said, ‘Oh, we’re sorry,’ and we stepped back.” But that’s not what happened.

The people of Ontario shouldn’t be up in arms, yelling and screaming and lighting torches to stop the government from doing something that they promised twice already they wouldn’t do. They shouldn’t be angry and frustrated. They shouldn’t be saying, “Don’t do this,” and waiting months for them to finally say they’re not going to do it and waiting for two more months for them to bring in legislation saying, “We’re going to bring in a law to protect us from ourselves.” We should have never been here.

The ironic thing, or maybe the harmful thing, is that we know the need for housing is strong, but this was not about housing. Their own experts said you don’t need to develop there to provide housing. Experts explained that to us. So when the Premier says, “I’m sorry,” it’s not unreasonable for the people of Ontario to think, “For what?”

What are you sorry for? Because if you’re sorry for trying to carve up the greenbelt, if you’re sorry for the greenbelt scandal, if you’re sorry about the sense of corruption that this brought to the Conservative government, it doesn’t feel that way.

I’ve apologized for things before. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all made apologies. I try to ensure it’s heartfelt. I don’t wait. I don’t ignore the people I’ve hurt. I don’t delay. I certainly don’t let other people fall in front of me and take the fall for me and try to take the heat off of me. So when the Premier says he’s sorry, I think that a lot of people think he’s sorry he got caught, because he got caught already in 2018, he got caught again, and now he got caught a third time. It has gotten really ugly, and the popularity is starting to fall, and all of these documents start to surface.

This is a weird story. It feels like a Coen brothers’ movie. You have the Premier having a stag and doe and developers buying pretty expensive tickets—$1,000 I think was the price. I can’t remember the exact number, but pretty expensive. I’ve gone to stag and does; it’s usually like 40 bucks. I’ve never seen one for this much, but I don’t live in those neighbourhoods. Maybe that’s a normal thing.

Then, developers show up at the stag and doe, but as you go along, the Premier doesn’t know any of these developers even though they’re there. Then, he does know them, and he can’t remember he knows them. It’s a really twisted story where you’re tripping up on things that you said and didn’t say.

Then, some of the developers started buying up land. From what I have heard about this, they’re buying up land basically with interest rates that are similar to what you would pay through credit card rates, like 20%—really high interest rates. You’re basically buying land that cannot be developed. So it’s great that you own it, it’s great that you have it, but I think, and I think most of the people in Ontario think, maybe there is a reason they’re willing to risk a 20% or, whatever it was, a double-digit interest rate for this land. Then, coincidentally—and there are a lot of coincidences in here—that land is now able to be developed in just a magical way by a stroke of luck. I know there’s all kinds of strokes of luck. We all buy lottery tickets from time to time, hoping that we’re just going to strike our number, but this just feels a little fishy.

Then, we find out afterwards that some of the developers got to go to the wedding, and the Premier didn’t know any of these developers—didn’t know any of them. They just happened to come, because they’re friends or casual acquaintances. What’s the big deal if people you kind of know come to your daughter’s wedding—and there is no big deal. I’m looking forward to my daughter and my sons getting married one day, having people come and support them. But I think when there is a photo of you and the developers that eventually got wealthy from the greenbelt deal, when there are photos of you at the head table with them, maybe you’re friends, maybe you’re a little closer, and maybe there are promises that were made. That’s, I think, what got the people of Ontario angry.

Then, there’s the Vegas trip. Now, if someone told me that their friend went to Vegas twice, I believe, and paid cash for everything, I would want to hear that story. Like, there is a reason The Hangover was a really high-rated movie, right? There are some cool stories that happen in Vegas. Now, when somebody says, “It was a minister and a developer,” you start to think, “Well, this is like a Johnny Carson joke.” You know, a minister and a developer head to Vegas, paying in cash—you are waiting for a punchline, but the punchline is that the joke is on the people of Ontario who have entrusted their faith in the government. I’m telling a story here and it doesn’t look good for the Conservative government, but the reality is that that splashes on all of us as MPPs.

The people of Ontario—the people around the world, really—are losing faith in government to do the right thing. When scandals like this happen, it affects all of us in elected positions who put in a ton of hours, who work really hard to serve the public. It’s not fun to do this, but this is the reality. If there isn’t accountability, then we don’t get to explain to the people of Ontario what went wrong and how important it is that we address this. So it’s very improper. I would say, as an MPP, and especially as a minister, as any elected official, to take a trip to Vegas that you paid all in cash, but you can’t remember what the day was—he can’t remember the details. It’s fishy.

As the Leader of the Opposition—the leader of the NDP—Marit Stiles has said several times during question period, “I didn’t even know you can pay all cash for a plane ticket. I had no idea.” I went through this weird situation. It’s hard to explain, but in order to pay my son’s tuition, I had to physically move cash from one bank into another bank. I couldn’t just e-transfer it. I couldn’t move it across. I had to withdraw it all. It was not as much as you would need for a trip to Vegas and a luxury hotel. It was extremely complicated to get all the money out.

I don’t believe people have stacks of cash sitting around, like in a rap music video, that they’re just going to hand over to an airport. I can only imagine all the machinations that had to happen so that the minister could pay cash for a plane ticket to Vegas and a plane ticket back from Vegas, a luxury hotel, and, then, a visit to a spa. That’s the part that fascinates me. I’ve just never been to a spa. Maybe it would help with the callouses; I don’t know. But I think if I’m going for a meeting with a developer to talk about something—one, I wouldn’t go to Vegas to do it. I think I would do it in my office because that seems more proper. I definitely wouldn’t get a massage with them.

You have to put this in the context of the people of Ontario. The people of Ontario are struggling to pay bills, and we know this. More and more people in the province of Ontario are using food banks, and we know this. The demographic of people using food banks has changed significantly. It used to be that the majority were unemployed single men. Now it’s moving—more and more families are coming, more and more mothers are coming, more and more children are coming. Traditionally, it’s mothers first, because mothers will go without food so their kids can eat, but now children are going as well. Now high schools are opening food banks to take care of kids who don’t have anything to eat, and those kids sometimes take food home to their families.

More and more full-time working people are using food banks. I think we can all agree that if you’re working full-time, you should be able to put a roof over your head; you should be able to buy food and pay for your hydro and maybe have a little left over. But people are working full-time and using food banks, not able to make ends meet.

In the backdrop of all this, looking to the Conservative government for hope and help, they find out that the priority for the Conservative government and the Premier is to help developers make $8.3 billion; their priority is to fly to Vegas, paying in cash and staying in a luxury hotel and getting a massage with a developer. Their priority, quite frankly, is wrong and insulting, so when the people of Ontario are outraged, they have every right to be.

Every one of us have constituency offices. I cannot believe that in any riding in this province, people haven’t phoned you to say that they’re suffering. What’s interesting for me is that in the last year and a half, people have been phoning me and telling me, “I’m doing okay. I make a decent wage. But I just did groceries, and I don’t know how my neighbours can do it. I just don’t see it.”

We need hope and help, but we’re not getting it. The priority seems to always be wealthy, well-connected individuals.

You have the greenbelt scandal that is not going to lead to building houses; it’s going to lead to making people land speculators. A minimum of $8.3 billion—the Auditor General had that number, but she had to use outdated numbers; it’s probably higher than that. You have ministers flying to Vegas, paying in cash, not able to account for where the money came from. You have the Premier using—it has been nicknamed a burner phone—a private phone for government calls; his government phone apparently has no calls on it, so all his phones, I guess, are there, and there’s no freedom of information with that.

People are feeling isolated and left out through all of this. The whole thing is feeling ugly, feeling corrupt. So people being upset about this makes sense.

The outcome of this, the cherry on the top—and it’s an insult for all of us, as elected officials—is that the RCMP is performing a criminal investigation. They have a special investigator, and I didn’t even know that existed; it makes sense that it does. But it is not good for any of us when there’s a criminal investigation on an elected public official, someone the public puts their faith and their trust in. I’d be worried. I’ve done police ride-alongs as an elected official, and I think it’s a lot calmer and a lot more comfortable in the front seat than it is in the back. I’d be worried, as a Conservative member—if you’re connected to this, if you had donations from these developers, I’d be worried about what happens when you get the phone call. I’m not an expert in law, but it just makes me worried. What makes me worried, and I keep going back to it, is the anger of the people of Ontario, because they want justice, and what happened here doesn’t feel just.

A lot of people in Ontario, when they heard the RCMP was having a criminal investigation, got really happy because they want to get to the bottom of this. This isn’t going to go away because of this bill. This isn’t going to be put to bed because we put this bill forward. It’s going to get worse, and it’s going to get ugly, and the truth is going to come out. When we rise, the press gallery that visits us every day are going to have nothing to do but dig through the 7,000 pages, and they are really good at their jobs. More and more information will come out and that will be shared with the RCMP.

It is now time for questions. Questions? Questions?

Further debate?

Good morning, everyone. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, who is coming to the chamber.

Well, Speaker, here we are, almost a year to the day that the government announced it would be carving into our precious greenbelt. November 4, 2022: This Saturday will mark one year. What a great anniversary. Now we must debate this, their backtrack cover-up, basically, their we-are-sorry bill.

What I’m saying is that the government has wasted one year, one full year, of taxpayers’ dollars paying for their mistake, and we’ve wasted the time in this House. More importantly, we’ve wasted the time of Ontarians. How disrespectful is that? This is not “for the people.”

And now they will continue to do so while the RCMP conducts a criminal investigation of the Premier’s $8.3-billion backroom deal. It should be deeply disturbing to the people of Ontario that there are grounds to launch a criminal investigation into the Premier’s actions, and the ministers’. There’s not a lot of faith in a government when things like this happen.

The Auditor General and Integrity Commissioner both found that the process in which land sites were selected was not transparent, it was not fair, nor was it objective or fully informed. There are procedures and practices that government should follow. It was not done here. It was not done, because two ministers resigned because of the greenbelt scandal—two ministers. One of these ministers vacationed with a developer who directly benefited from this deal. Schedule 3 of the bill provides protection from personal liability to those directly involved in this mess.

Let’s be clear about this we’re-not-sorry bill. The government shot down my motion at the standing committee of heritage, infrastructure and culture to have members of the government testify in front of our legislative committee on this debacle. They shot it down. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? Nothing like transparency and integrity.

I am baffled that the government can stand up and debate this bill as if it weren’t their fault that we are here in the first place. We don’t have to be here. We shouldn’t be here. We have other important things to do. We are in an affordability crisis, a housing crisis, a health care crisis and an education crisis, yet we are playing games with the greenbelt.

It’s as if it wasn’t their fault for this $8.3-billion scandal. And what are they calling it? They’re just calling it a mistake. I think we all need to get out our dictionaries and look up that word. I could use much harsher language, Madam Speaker—after all, I am Irish and I have a colourful lexicon—but it would be seen as unparliamentary, so I’ll save that.

Beautiful Beaches-East Yorkers and I have been fighting the government on this decision since day one. I want to take the time to thank residents of my riding and all Ontarians.

They’ve stood up against the destruction of the greenbelt tirelessly. Every day a new newspaper article comes out—a big headline with the greenbelt, yet another scandal—and they wake up, they pick themselves up, they dust themselves off and they get back in the fight and they get back out to protest and they get back out to rally. You are all my heroes, and it just shows that people power works. Always, always, people power wins. We may do the governing in here, but we are representing you out there.

And the things we did—I hosted a greenbelt rally in November last year at East Lynn Park in Beaches–East York. We had more than 300 people come out: the media came out, babies came out, children came out, teenagers, seniors—everyone came out. And they spoke. The youth spoke passionately. Environmental groups spoke passionately. They have done the lion’s share of the work, rallying the troops to get out there and preserve what is so sacred to Ontarians: the greenbelt.

We had local politicians, Environmental Defence and many other groups. Even our own Green East group in Beaches–East York has been working tirelessly, writing letters, writing opinion pieces in the newspapers, speaking to their neighbours. People were exasperated. People were frustrated. People completely lost faith in this government.

Then we were distributing lawn signs all over. Basically, it was busier than election campaigns. We couldn’t keep enough “save the greenbelt” lawn signs in stock. We were scrambling to bike around to deliver them, to walk around, to drive around to deliver them. People wanted to have their voices heard and have that statement on their lawns, how much it matters to them.

I did member’s statements, multiple questions, debates on Bills 23 and 39, amendments, more rallies with ROMA at Queen’s Park—it was endless. It was such a colossal amount of work. It was a full-time job, preserving the greenbelt, but we did it. But we didn’t have to. We didn’t have to. We should have been working on important things that matter to Ontarians, not distractions.

Speaker, the Premier has broken the public trust, and it’s clear that those close to him were able to benefit and were given the opportunity to make billions of dollars. It’s time that there’s clarity and a real criminal investigation. The Ford government should not spend one dime of taxpayers’ dollars on lawyers for anyone implicated in this scandal—for staff or elected officials. And do you know what? We can stop hiding under the guise that the greenbelt was about the housing crisis, because it was not. You can stop with the distractions, the debauchery and the dynamics and get the bloody shovels in the ground and actually build housing.

We’re sharing our time.

Questions?

Questions? Questions? Further debate?

It’s always a pleasure to stand up in the House and speak to the greenbelt bill, one that is very interesting to me. We have a bill before us that Conservatives put forward to protect themselves from the greenbelt—because we all know what happened here.

I’m going to talk about the Premier quickly. The Premier, prior to the last election, met with a bunch of developers, which we all know about, and he told them that he would develop on the greenbelt. But what he didn’t know was somebody was taping it. Then it got out into the community, it got out to Ontarians, and then the public outcry started. And I can tell you, it was led by Niagara. Niagara led that public outcry. Do you know why, Madam Speaker? Because of what we have in Niagara and how important the environment is to our communities, whether that be in Niagara-on-the-Lake, whether that be in Fort Erie or whether it be in Niagara Falls. But quite frankly, the member from Niagara West, who belongs to that party, has a very, very important part of the greenbelt in his own riding. He has 50 small and medium-sized wineries yet he never once stood up and said, “What you are doing is wrong.”

So what happened is, people across the province, a few months before the election, went after the Premier and said, “You are not going to develop on the greenbelt.” So what did the Premier do? He went in front of the TV cameras, very clearly, and said, “I’m not going to be like those Liberals that were there for 15 years and misled Ontarians for 15 years. I’m going to be up front with the residents and everybody in the province of Ontario.” You know what he said? “I’m not touching the greenbelt. I’m listening to people. I’m different.”

And people believed him. That’s obvious, because they got a majority government. And that was one of the biggest issues in the election, bar none. Yes, we’ve got issues with affordability and all those other things—rents and all those things that go with it—but the number one issue people cared about was the environment, because if we can’t have clean drinking water and we can’t breathe the air, we are not going to be on this planet very long.

The environment became a big issue, and the Premier saw that. So every one of those MPPs over there and the Premier said, “I’m not touching the greenbelt.” They knocked on doors, and Mrs. Gates would answer that door—that happened to be my wife; they came to my house, knocking on my door, thinking they could sway my wife’s vote, but it didn’t work. They said it to her: “We’re not touching the greenbelt.” When I came home from my office, my wife said, “Oh, the PCs came by today”—the candidate who was running against me. I said, “Oh yes, what happened?” She said, “They’re not touching the greenbelt.” I said, “Well, that’s good. I’m glad they’re not.” We left it at that.

Then guess what happened after they won the election? We found out they were having secret meetings. We found that through those documents. I think I’ve got 700 pages of documents, now that they’re being charged by the RCMP. And guess what? They were already planning to touch our greenbelt. That was wrong.

It went on for months—actually, it went on for a year—and they hid behind the fact that they said they wanted to build housing. I want to be clear, because every one of my colleagues who is here today and all the ones who aren’t here today all said one thing: We support building 1.5 million homes. We want homes for our kids and our grandkids. We want to make sure they’ve got a future. We want to make sure that they don’t have to live in our basements for the next 20 years. There are a lot of reasons around that but one was they deserve to have a home, they deserve to have family, they deserve to raise their family in our communities.

But what happened? The Premier said, “I’m going to develop on the greenbelt because we need to build homes.” Then his own task force—his own task force—said, “We can build 1.5 million homes without touching the greenbelt.” What did they do? “Oh, no, we need to build those homes on the greenbelt.”

We all know that wasn’t accurate because their own task force told them and made 17 recommendations—that they now think are good recommendations, but which we said they should have followed in the first place—that they didn’t have to develop on the greenbelt. But they were going down the greenbelt. They were going to take over our greenbelt.

Then they went a step further with MZOs. I’ll talk real quick about long-term care. They put an MZO so they could build long-term care, even though that council in Pickering said, “No, Orchard Villa has a terrible record. They had over 40 people die in their long-term-care facility. We do not want this company to continue to have a contract here and take care of our seniors.” This government said, “Well, that’s too bad, because we’ve got to build and we’re going to do it, no matter what.”

And that was wrong. You’re wrong on MZOs when you go against elected officials in the community that they represent.

We’re getting back to the Premier. He got off the greenbelt. He stood up here and he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. We made a bad decision.” But guess what happened? They lost two ministers and two, kind of, chief of staffs because of what happened, but the big issue is—and you can’t say it in here. For people that are listening at home or people that are here listening, you can’t say that they lied. You can’t say that in the House because then the Speaker will stand up and tell me I have to retract. I think that’s wrong, by the way. I’ve said that to not only you as a Speaker but to all of our Speakers. I believe if somebody stands up in this House and doesn’t tell us the truth and they know it’s not the truth, I should be able to stand up here and say, “You know you lied to the residents of the province of Ontario.” I think we should be able to do that. If I stand up and do that, then that member over here should call me out and say, “Gates, you’re not being truthful here.” But I can’t do that here. I can do it in Ottawa. Think about that. You can do it in Ottawa; you can’t do it here.

I can’t say the Premier lied. I can’t say that. But follow the balls. He said he was going to develop on the greenbelt. And then, because of all the public outcry, because the environment is really so important—I know my member right here from Toronto would tell you that—he said, “I’m listening to Ontarians. I’m not going to be like the Liberals. I’m going to listen. We’re not touching the greenbelt.” The minute they get elected, guess what happens? They’re touching the greenbelt.

Follow the balls. First, he says to the developers, “I’m going to develop on the greenbelt.” Then, the second step is, he says to the residents, so he can get some votes, so he can come to my door and say, “I’m not touching the greenbelt.” The minute they get a majority, what do they do? They hide behind building 1.5 million homes, even though his own task force—this is important during this discussion, for the amount of time that I have—made 17 recommendations, and guess what they said? “We have lots of land. We can build those homes, all different types of homes, all the homes that people and young families need in our communities. You don’t have to touch the greenbelt.”

Guess what happened? They made a deal with developers that were going to get $8.2 billion in profit the minute that they’re allowed to develop on the greenbelt. That’s what it was about. It was about taking care of 10 or 12—whatever the number of developers is. That will come out, obviously, in the RCMP investigation. That’s all going to come out. Guess what happened? They got caught. Then, the Premier, even though he knew exactly what he was doing, because the balls were very clear: “I’m going to develop.” “I’m not going to develop.” “I’m going to develop.” “I’m sorry. I’m not going to develop.” Now, they bring a bill forward to protect themselves from the greenbelt.

It really upsets me that this is what we’re standing up here talking about when I know, because I watched the news last night—we saw our new Canadians sleeping outside in Toronto. We saw young families going to food banks in record numbers. That’s what we should be discussing, finding those types of solutions. Instead, we have all of this corruption around us. I hope the RCMP gets to the bottom of it. If they did what everybody thinks they’ve done, they deserve to have the RCMP probably charge them.

I want to talk quickly about Niagara, because I don’t think I can do my whole time. I’m not sure how it works on the timing part of this. In my area—let me get back to Niagara. It is by far one of the most important areas in all of the province of Ontario. We have some of the best area in Ontario by far: our tender fruit, where we grow our apples and our peaches. Why would we ever want to destroy that? Why would we want to take away our food source? I’m having struggles right now, today, with our grapes that are rotting on the grapevines because we have laws in place and policies in place by your government that are not protecting the grape industry and are allowing, if you can imagine, other countries to ship their grapes into Ontario as our grapes that are freshly on the vines and that could be used in our wine are going to end up rotting on the vines. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s what we should be discussing today.

Interjection.

Okay, I’m just getting directions here, sorry. I’m looking right at the Speaker, so I’m kind of looking over John’s head. When you’re only five foot nothing like I am, it’s tough to see over people’s heads.

Anyway, it’s so important to me, in Niagara—the wine industry, the tender fruit industry. What are we doing? Why would we ever want to destroy that? Why would we ever want to destroy our food source? We thought we should have learned something.

I know during this time some people don’t listen, and I understand that they’re playing on whatever they’re doing, but this is important. It’s important that we understand that we learn from our mistakes.

And what was our mistake? Our mistake was that we were relying on other countries to provide our PPE when COVID hit; when people started dying, started getting sick, started being in our hospitals, and we didn’t have any PPE, we didn’t have any masks, we didn’t have any aprons, we didn’t have any gloves. Guess where they were being made? In China, and some in the southern states. And what did they say to us? “No, we need those for ourselves. We need those to take care of our own residents. We’re not sending them to you”—including the United States of America. And then what did we have to do? We scrambled. We had to have companies start to make gloves and masks and change their whole companies over to try to provide it.

But what will happen—

Interjections.

At the end of the day, what should we have learned? We should have learned that we can’t rely on other countries to provide important things to us. And what’s more important to us than our food and our water and our environment?

If you think that we can continue today, Madam Speaker—because I know you always listen; I appreciate that. We’re losing 319 acres of prime farmland every single day in the province of Ontario. And what I’m saying to my colleagues is, why would we do that? Why would we destroy our food source? In Niagara—I’ve given you examples of our grapes, our peaches, all the things. Our local farmers’ markets are incredible, and there are lots of them. If you go down a little ways, there are some on this corner. They’re everywhere. Why would we want to destroy that? That makes no sense to me. I’m trying to say to this government, why would we ever try to do that? We need to protect our farmers. We need to protect our food source.

What they were trying to do with the greenbelt was awful. I can use different words than that, but you’d have to stand up and call me out. It was one of the worst decisions ever made by a government, and I said, just like I said to Premier Wynne when she fell in the same footsteps as the Conservative government under Mike Harris, when they privatized Hydro and when they sold off Hydro One—I went right to the Premier then, and I said, “This the biggest mistake you’ve ever made, and if you don’t back down on that mistake”—and my good friend Jim Bradley, who I still go to hockey games and Blue Jays games with. He’s still a good friend of mine. He’s a Liberal, and I know some people think you don’t talk to the opposite side, but Jim is a good friend of mine. I said to Jim, “You’re going to lose your election if you can’t convince Premier Wynne to back down on hydro.” I know that he went to their caucus meeting—we all have caucus meetings—and he went to his cabinet, and he tried to convince her not to do it.

Guess what happened to Premier Wynne? Not only did she lose, but what have they got? They’ve got a van and a quarter there—and there’s nothing wrong with a minivan, by the way. They’re made in Windsor by good auto workers, so that’s not the issue. But it’s a good thing we make those vans, so they can take themselves around. And why did that happen? It happened because she decided to sell off Hydro One. That was the number one issue as we watched our bills go from $50 to $300, and people said that was wrong and they didn’t vote for her.

I’m telling you, the greenbelt will have the same effect on this government—that if they continued to go down the path of the greenbelt, they were all going to be defeated; they would have been the new minivan party, because people care with passion about the environment and they care about our heritage.

And there’s no bigger place in my riding—and quite frankly, I’m being honest with the member from Niagara West. His riding is the same as ours. A little bit in the Welland riding, as well, with my member; not as much in St. Catharines, but they also have it—but the Niagara area. I can ask my colleagues—they probably won’t put their hands up—how many have been to Niagara? Everyone goes to Niagara-on-the-Lake, I think, at some point in time. As a matter of fact, if I’m not mistaken—it just hit me—I think the entire PC caucus was in my riding when the Premier stood right beside the casino in Niagara Falls and apologized and said they’re not going to touch the greenbelt.

Now, we’ve still got lots of problems with it, obviously, because the RCMP investigation and all that is going to go on; it’s going to go on for a while. They’re going to interview people. That’s going to continue to happen.

So that’s how I know that the entire PC Party loves my riding. They were down there, and I was a little surprised—I’ll say this: Usually, when you come into somebody’s riding, you at least say that you’re there. Nobody called me up to go for dinner or go out and show the riding, maybe drive them around. I was so shocked at that; I couldn’t believe it. I’m thinking to myself, “They’ve got to be calling,” you know? I checked my cellphone to see if it was still working. Actually, I thought maybe the House leader for the other team might have called me and said, “Hey, do you want to go and watch the Niagara IceDogs play some hockey?” Nothing. You guys didn’t call me at all.

But the important part of that is that you have backed down on the greenbelt. That’s the important part. How you got there, other people than me, that are a lot smarter than me, are going to do that investigation. You’ve already lost a couple of your ministers. You’ve already lost a couple of your chiefs of staff. My concern is who’s next. Who’s next? Who’s the next one that’s going to end up under the bus on this issue?

The bigger issue for me, I’m going to say as I finish up, the most important part of all this for me is protecting our food source, protecting our environment, protecting our water. I want to be clear—because I know they stand up every day and say, “Well, that’s the party over there that’s hook, line and sinker with the Liberals, that didn’t want to build housing.” I want to be very clear: I have stood up in this House many, many times—you can check Hansard all you want—and said how important it is to build housing in the province of Ontario, the 1.5 million. Your task force said it was doable without touching the greenbelt. I’m going to continue to say, on behalf of my colleagues—because I know every one of these colleagues that are here today and knows that we’ll be here for question period have said the same thing—we want to build homes.

I want to be very clear. I know you’re all sitting out there thinking that, you know, I’m probably 35, 37 years old. Well, I’m a little older than that. I have three daughters and I have five grandchildren. My oldest grandchild is 19. You think about it. I want a future for my three daughters. I want to make sure that they can afford a house. My youngest daughter just bought a house a year ago; she’s struggling a bit with the cost of it, with interest rates, but she has had the opportunity to buy—guess what it was—a little starter home, something like a wartime house, but at least she got into the market. I want that for my kids. I want that for my three daughters. I want that for my grandkids. So when you stand up and say that we don’t want to build homes for our kids, that’s absolutely not accurate.

We love our kids just like the Conservatives love their kids, just like the Liberals and the Greens love their kids, and we want the best for them. You know what’s best for them? That we make sure that we have an environment so they have clean air, they have clean drinking water, and make sure they can afford to buy a house, that they have a good-paying job.

As a lot of you should know, I came out of the labour movement. I was a union president; I’ve done all that. I joined a union. I was lucky; I got paid fair wages. I made a good, fair wage. I got benefits. I have a pension. And guess what? I was able to raise those three daughters. I was able to provide for them, to play some baseball; I coached baseball for close to 20 years. They figure-skated. They got an education. They went to university. One’s a teacher, one works in special needs today, and the other one is in public health. How could I do that? Because I had a good-paying job. I had a house that I bought.

I want the same thing for my kids. So please don’t stand up here and say I don’t want to build 1.5 million houses, that I don’t really care about young people having a place to live, that I don’t care about students, that I don’t care about this—

Please refer the bill to the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure And Cultural Policy.

I appreciate very much and thank the member for his remarks on this important piece of legislation. I know the member talks a lot about his labour background, and I admire that. Earlier in my life, I was a rebar bender and a crane operator, so I have worked in a labour environment for a little while. And obviously, the member had a great success, because he talks a lot about his Maple Leafs tickets—and I don’t know whether they’re gold tickets or platinum tickets, but obviously, he did very well. I saw him going to a Leafs game once.

But my real question is, aside from the fact that—the most important thing, in my view, that this bill is doing, is any changes to the greenbelt in the future require a legislative change. That’s a very significant change and a much more open process. Isn’t that something that the member can support, this important change to the process in the future?

Thank you very much for your heartfelt and eloquent and passionate speech, to the member from Niagara.

My question is, do you think that there are other important things that the government, all of us, should be addressing and dealing with besides playing games with the greenbelt?

The Ministry of Transportation has given the green light to start early planning work for the Sheppard subway extension, which will examine connecting the current terminus of Line 4 at Don Mills station with the future Scarborough subway extension.

As part of this work, Metrolinx has also been tasked with investigating a possible western extension from Sheppard-Yonge station to Sheppard West station at Allen Road. Accordingly, Metrolinx is launching three community consultation meetings this November to seek the input of the community to extend the TTC’s current Line 4 along Sheppard Avenue. Input and feedback received from community members during the consultation is an important component of the initial business case recommendation.

Finally, after years of failed promises, endless debates and redundant votes, the Sheppard extension is one step closer to realization. Commuters in Scarborough deserve the same access to reliable public transit as people living in downtown Toronto. Delivering safer, faster and more convenient travel options to our commuters is my ultimate goal.

It is my honour and privilege to serve the residents of Scarborough–Agincourt.

Promise made, promise kept.

It’s now time for questions and answers. Questions?

Mr. Calandra has moved second reading of Bill 136, An Act to amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 and certain other Acts, to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023, to repeal an Act and to revoke various regulations. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? The motion has carried.

Second reading agreed to.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy government House leader.

The House recessed from 1002 to 1015.

Film production in Ontario contributes over $3 billion in economic activity and supports over 45,000 jobs. Film production and festivals support and provide cultural bridges, connecting diverse communities and fostering dialogue and understanding.

With Mississauga–Malton serving as a central hub for several of its major activities, the International Film Festival of South Asia, IFFSA, celebrated their 12th film festival as a shining beacon of cultural celebration, artistic exploration and economic vitality for Ontario. IFFSA Toronto made a significant economic impact. By attracting local and international participation, it enhanced Ontario’s reputation as a global cultural hub. IFFSA is actively working to strengthen the South Asian film production and distribution industry in Ontario by promoting the various credits and supports provided by the government of Ontario and fostering wider international connections.

Through the IFFSA Talent Fund, the festival fosters homegrown talent and extends its impact throughout the year with a comprehensive learning series and various year-round activities.

My best wishes for IFFSA Toronto to continue being a cultural and economic catalyst in Ontario as it evolves and expands as a symbol of Ontario’s commitment to cultural diversity and creativity.

We all know why we’re here. This government is trying to make their loss look like a win because the RCMP has a criminal investigation against them. They’re trying to distract from that.

Now, they’re proposing to return lands that were just taken out by themselves. They’re going to add in a few more lands that are, frankly, already protected. And though they’re codifying the boundaries of the greenbelt, in this majority government situation, they can still shuffle lands in and out of the greenbelt before the next election, the same way they shuffle ministers in and out of cabinet.

So my question to the member from Niagara Falls is, do you think, despite all of this, that your constituents will still forgive the government?

Yesterday, on November 1, an unprecedented 12 Waterloo region ambulances were on off-load delay for up to 15 hours; St. Mary’s Hospital—same day—10 ambulances waiting to off-load. Paramedics say that they are facing a crisis that can no longer be ignored. This is dangerous. It’s happening across Ontario, with no cure offered by the Ford government.

Off-load delays occur when paramedics cannot transfer the care of the patient over to the hospital due to a lack of space or staffing, so they are stuck waiting, instead of responding to calls, usually waiting in a hall in a hospital or a parking lot.

When people call 911, it’s because they need an ambulance, they need a paramedic, they need medical assistance. It’s not one of the calls that you make and you’re saying, “Well, I can stay on hold for an hour.”

Code reds occur when there are no ambulances available to respond to calls. In Waterloo region, there were 87 code reds over the first nine months of 2022, a major jump from 21 in the past year. John Riches, chief of paramedics, calls this deeply concerning. Paramedic services is currently losing the equivalent of three 12-hour ambulance shifts per day to off-load delay.

Waterloo is resilient. They have brought in their own local solutions, but let’s be honest: The province needs to acknowledge that this is a real issue affecting Ontarians. Code reds should not be the new normal in the province of Ontario.

That’s a really good question, because I know that, for four terms, they have tried to beat me, so they haven’t been very successful. I know what they do appreciate is that you want to be honest; you want to tell them the truth. And the truth is that we don’t need—we never needed—to develop on the greenbelt. That’s really, really the truth. So I’m a firm believer that if you’re honest with your constituents, if you’re out front of your constituents and telling them what you think, they will always support you.

Will they forgive the Conservatives going forward? I’m going to leave that up to the voters. Am I going to forgive them? The answer is no, because I always want to be told the truth, and we weren’t told the truth on this particular greenbelt fiasco that we’ve gone through.

I appreciate the question. Thank you.

As far as other things, yes. I don’t know if you were here when I started my speech and I talked about the fact that it’s heartbreaking to watch, in one of the richest provinces in the country, where we have people sleeping on the streets last night in Toronto—new Canadians. That’s the first thing they’re seeing from Ontario, that they’re sleeping with their suitcase and their little kids on the streets of Toronto. So we should be making sure that people have a place to live. We should be making sure they can afford to buy their groceries. We should make sure that builds after, I think, 2018 have rent controls on those so that they can get housing.

So there are lots of issues. Affordability is probably the biggest issue in this province. I knock on the doors almost every weekend. Affordability: “I can’t afford my rent.” “I can’t afford my mortgage.” “I can’t buy food.” “I can’t buy the gas.” So what we should be discussing is affordability when we—

But I’ll be honest with you, your shot about me going to sporting events and how I might be in the golds—let me tell you, I pay for every one of my tickets that I go to a ballgame with, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve worked hard, that I can afford to buy a ticket. But when I go to Blue Jays game, I sit in the 500 level; I don’t sit in the box. When I go to a Leafs game, I sit up in the end blues and I buy my tickets off Jim Bradley.

I don’t think that was a very good shot. There is nothing wrong with people buying sporting tickets so they have entertainment, so they can get away. And a lot of times, I take my grandkids to the baseball game. I take my grandkids over to the Bisons games or to a Sabres game. I’ve worked very hard to be able to afford tickets up in the red, in section 5 for ball games. I’ve worked very hard to sit in the end blues in the Toronto Maple Leaf games. I don’t think I have to apologize for being able to afford to go to a sporting event in the province of Ontario because of the—

I want to pay tribute this morning to the many non-profit organizations that operate on inadequate budgets while providing essential services to our communities. Non-profits provide supports in times of crisis, and they are also the cultural and recreational lifeblood of our communities. Demand for non-profit services is through the roof, yet the sector is running on fumes.

In Thunder Bay, we have lost the important Street Outreach Service, known as SOS, and we have also lost the sexual assault clinic in Victoriaville mall. These losses are devastating for my community.

The Ontario Nonprofit Network is warning that many more vital services will collapse without significant changes in how the government supports this sector. Organizations struggle to attract and keep staff because one-off, project-based funding means that all jobs are short-term and precarious. Organizations need stable and long-term funding that reflects the true cost of delivering services and programs. Without a significant change in how governments deal with the non-profit sector, it will disappear, and with it, our social cohesion.

Government members need to look carefully at the recommendations of the Ontario Nonprofit Network and do what is necessary to support the critical work of these vital community organizations.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month. As noted by the member from Simcoe–Grey, this year marks 100 years since Dr. Banting and Dr. Macleod received their Nobel Prize for their discovery of insulin to help people with diabetes. Before that discovery, people with diabetes were people dying of diabetes—and now they are people living with diabetes.

Speaker, did you know that 30% of Ontarians live with diabetes but only 11% are actually diagnosed?

Living with diabetes can be a full-time job. Those with diabetes need to be pharmacists, dietitians, doctors and mathematicians in their everyday lives. This is why our government continues to support Ontarians living with diabetes. In March 2022, we added the life-saving, real-time glucose monitoring systems to the ADP program, leading to better self-management, leading to healthier lives. And then in April of this year, our government passed a motion made by the amazing MPP for Eglinton–Lawrence for the Ministry of Health to develop a framework on chronic diseases, including diabetes.

What started as Banting’s research project to save the life of a 13-year-old boy on the brink of death has now become an entire life-saving medical sector.

Mr. Speaker, I’m very proud to be part of a government that continues to work towards improving the lives of Ontarians living with diabetes.