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.

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?

Good morning, everyone. It’s beautiful to see you all again. I’m here to introduce some amazing residents from beautiful Beaches–East York: Carolina Reis and son, Adam, here to support page Clara.