SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
November 2, 2023 09:00AM

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—

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