I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my granddaughter Lena and her loving mom, Noël Clement.

It’s always an honour to speak in the House and have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the residents of Timiskaming−Cochrane, and thank you for the opportunity, Speaker. I have a little bit of time left on the clock, speaking on Bill 146.

I believe when we hit 6 o’clock last night, we were talking about the government’s new infrastructure bank and how it was a bit confusing because the federal Conservatives have very strongly criticized the federal infrastructure bank. Actually, the leader of the Conservative Party federally—I believe his name is Mr. Poilievre—basically panned it as a complete, total failure, and I don’t think the provincial Conservative government got the message. They must have heard him say that he thought it was a success because they copied it completely. It’s a totally failed federal Liberal idea, and they import it to the province.

Actually there are a few problems with the infrastructure bank. Just from my own personal experience, I actually used to be a director on a community foundation. They’re great. Community foundations are great for communities. They invest in things to help the community. They take donations and they invest them and they use the profit from those investments to further the community.

I was a member of the Timiskaming community foundation. I believe at this point they have invested over $4 million back into the community. They’re great. That’s actually where I learned about public-private partnerships. The investment company that was advising the community foundation basically told us that these are probably one of the best investments you can make, but you’re really not allowed to make them as a community foundation because they’re not—he didn’t use the word “ethical,” but we are just not allowed to use them.

The reason that they were so good to invest in is because they paid a higher rate than almost anything else. But why that’s not good for the public is, the public are the ones paying the higher rate, so actually it’s costing the public more money. The infrastructure bank is kind of the same deal. They want the private sector to start putting money into the infrastructure bank so they can use that funding to build public infrastructure. But the only way you’re going to entice the private sector to invest in the infrastructure bank is to pay higher rates than anyone else. As a result, the people of Ontario will be paying more money than anyone else for capital to build public infrastructure. That just doesn’t make sense from a public perspective. Now, it makes sense from a business perspective, if you’re the business investing in the infrastructure bank, but if you’re actually the public it doesn’t make sense at all.

You know what it’s kind of like? It’s kind of like the government’s big belief—and this is another good example—in agency nursing. Today we had the nurse practitioners come to talk to us. I was talking to one of the nurse practitioners. The member for Kiiwetinoong was with me. I asked her if her facility used agency nurses and she said, “Quite frankly, we can’t afford to,” because for an agency nurse, the discount rate was, I believe, $90 an hour. And she said the problem is that the nurses are going to the agencies because they’re paying more. Then the agency puts their profit margin on top and then that gets charged to the public sector—great for the agency. And it makes the nurse a little bit more money than the public sector is willing to pay or that the government is allowing the public sector to pay. If the government actually paid the nurses—and I’m using nurses as an example; it’s all through the public health care sector—what they were worth so they weren’t forced to go to the nursing agencies, it would actually save a whole lot of money.

The government says, “Oh, we’re spending more money in health care than ever before.” I’m not disputing that, but you’re also funnelling more money into the agencies, into the private sector, than ever, ever before. That’s what you’re going to do with the infrastructure bank and that’s what you keep doing. You are thinking of the province as your own business, and that’s not how the government should run.

The government should always work in the interest of the public. I think this government—the Ford government—has forgotten that. That’s why the RCMP is investigating the Ford government. I was trying to think of notes for this and I just couldn’t get the RCMP out of my mind. Think of it yourselves. Did you ever think that you would be part of a government that is going to be remembered for the RCMP investigation, for the special prosecutor? That’s what you’re going to go down as, and this is another example.

I thank the member for the question. I strongly disagree that this government is going to be remembered for standing up for the people of Ontario. It’s going to be remembered for homeless encampments. It’s going to be remembered for RCMP investigations. It’s going to be remembered for closed emergency rooms throughout rural Ontario. That’s what it’s going to be remembered for.

I talked about the tax—

Interjection.

Interjection.

Public infrastructure is fairly simple. The government—levels of government—can access money, credit, at a lower rate than almost anyone. So through good planning, which this government also lacks, you decide what you’re going to build, and then you look for the funding and you build it. But what this government is doing is—we create a separate infrastructure bank so we can funnel a little bit more money of that off for our friends.

Thank you to my colleague for that question—

Interjection.

A contingency fund—for some it would be known as a slush fund. Contingency funds under this government are bigger than ever—bigger than ever. While emergency rooms continue to close, while tent encampments continue to increase, the contingency fund grows. The level of accountability continues to decrease. They like to talk about accountability, but they don’t like it. My father told me, “Beware of people who talk about being honest, because they’re usually not the ones who are.”

They are going to say, “Oh, yes, but we wrote a letter to the federal government. It’s all their fault,” but they’ve been in power for over five years with—they won a pretty big majority. I agree with the member from Renfrew. They have a big majority. Are they going to get a third one? I highly doubt it if they keep on this path.

That’s the way government looks, but if government sees people that way—“Well, they don’t get a profit from people on ODSP, so we’ll just forget about them.” Unless they get a profit out of the health care system, they’re not happy; they don’t care if people don’t get service out of the health care system. A government should support the economy, but it shouldn’t run like a business. This government is running it like a private business, and it’s—