I recognize the member for Oakville.

It’s a pleasure to be able to speak in the House today on Bill 146. It’s a real honour to share my time with the Minister of Finance and the member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound.

Second, I want to congratulate the minister and his staff at the Ministry of Finance for their incredible hard work and dedication in putting together a strong economic plan to build a strong Ontario. I’m proud to be part of such a great team.

It is my pleasure now to rise and speak in support of the bill before us today, Building a Strong Ontario Together Act, 2023. This bill and its measures support our plan, our responsible, targeted approach that provides the flexibility Ontario needs to help address ongoing economic uncertainty—a plan that will help build critical infrastructure in growing Ontario communities, while laying a strong fiscal foundation for future generations.

As the minister had already mentioned, our government’s work has structured key themes that help drive our strategy. “Better Services for You” is one of those themes. As we have shown time and time again, our government is improving public services and making it convenient and faster for the people of Ontario to access them. For example, we have made it faster, easier, and more convenient for people and businesses to access driver’s licences, health cards, birth certificates and many other services.

When it comes to health care in Ontario, our government is connecting people to convenient care, closer to home, through their OHIP card, and never through their credit card. Thanks to our government’s plan, the wait-list for surgeries has been reduced by more than 25,000 from the peak in March 2022. Pharmacists can now prescribe treatment for 19 common ailments. We are tirelessly building on that plan.

Our government announced a plan to invest $1 billion over three years to get more people connected to care in the comfort of their own home and community through the 2022 budget. Fast-forward to today, and we are now accelerating investments to bring home care funding in 2023-24 up to $569 million. This includes more than $370 million to support home and community care workers through rate increases and investments to hire more care workers. This funding will also expand home care services and improve the quality of care. This is just the beginning.

Just a few weeks ago, our Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, and alongside our great Minister of Finance, announced that we are expanding access to breast cancer screening for women aged 40 to 49. Beginning in fall 2024, this historic expansion will help more women detect and treat breast cancer sooner. We know early detection and increased access to care saves lives. By expanding access to the Ontario Breast Cancer Screening Program, we will connect more than 305,000 additional people to the services they need to ensure timely diagnosis and access to treatment as early as possible.

This isn’t all we are doing—far from it.

As we have seen with the Ontario Breast Screening Program, we are making it easier and faster to connect people to care.

We are also providing an additional $425 million over three years for mental health and addictions services. This includes a 5% increase in the base funding of community-based mental health and addiction services provided by the Ministry of Health.

I can confidently add that expanding the scope of practice of pharmacists to prescribe over-the-counter medication for common ailments has been an incredible success.

Speaker, as we make health care more convenient, we are also investing in growing and retaining the health care workforce. While over 60,000 new nurses and nearly 8,000 new physicians have begun to work in Ontario since 2018, we know it is still not enough. That is why our government is providing an additional $80 million over three years to further expand nursing program enrolment. This year, we are investing $200 million to address immediate health care personnel shortages and to expand the workforce for years to come.

It’s challenging for Ontario medical students to find residency spots right here at home. We understand that. That is why, to support these graduates, beginning in 2024 and going forward, we are adding 154 postgraduate medical training seats to prioritize Ontario residents trained at home and abroad. We are adding 100 medical undergraduate seats, and we’ll continue to prioritize Ontario students for these spots.

Speaker, we know that today many people in our province struggle to afford a place to call home. This includes some of the most at-risk people in our communities. That is why Ontario is investing an additional $202 million each year in supportive housing and homelessness programs. With this investment, we will help those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, those escaping intimate partner violence, and support the valuable community organizations that deliver housing.

Ontario’s most vulnerable continue to need support from our government—at a higher risk of being trafficked or experiencing homelessness, or our youth leaving the child welfare system. It is with this population in mind that our government is providing $170 million over three years to the Youth Leaving Care program to ensure youth leaving provincial care are set up for success. Notably, we are also expanding program eligibility to include those up to 23 years old, as currently, support ends at 21 years of age.

Speaker, as noted in the fall economic statement released by the minister earlier this month, our government is continuing to do its utmost to build Ontario and work for the people of Ontario. Our efforts to build Ontario and work for you are supported and moved forward by the statutory changes contained in this bill today.

I’d like to take a few minutes to shine the spotlight on some of the more notable efforts by this government to support our plan.

We are protecting communities and unlocking new housing opportunities with $200 million over three years in a new Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund. This funding is for the repair, rehabilitation and expansion of a variety of municipal water infrastructure projects.

We are providing an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund, for a total of $500 million, which will enable Invest Ontario to help attract more leading companies to this great province, further support businesses already here, and create good-paying jobs in communities right across the province. Invest Ontario is the government’s investment attraction agency.

We also announced, in our March budget, the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit. This credit will help Ontario’s manufacturers lower their costs, innovate and become more competitive—offers an estimated $780 million in income tax support over three years.

That’s not all. We are strengthening Ontario’s position as a global leader across the electric vehicle, or EV, supply chain. We have done this by attracting over $26 billion in the last three years in transformative automotive and EV battery-related investments from global automakers, parts suppliers and EV battery and materials manufacturers.

We are taking steps to strengthen Ontario’s position as a global leader in mining as well. With this bill before the House, we are proposing to enhance the Ontario Focused Flow-Through Share Tax Credit eligibility to help stimulate the critical mineral exploration and improve access to capital for small exploration companies. If passed, the change would start with the 2023 tax year and add $12 million per year in tax credit support to Ontario’s critical minerals mining industry.

Touching on what the minister spoke of, we are building on Ontario’s clean energy advantage and meeting growing electricity demand today and into the future. We are doing this by supporting the refurbishments of Darlington and Bruce nuclear generating stations and the extension of the Pickering nuclear plant to 2026, and also by supporting the building of North America’s first grid-scale small modular reactor, starting pre-development work for a large-scale nuclear station, planning strategic new transmission lines and procuring long-duration storage projects. We are doing this by committing a historic $185 billion over 10 years, including $20.7 billion in 2023-24 toward Ontario’s Plan to Build.

This bill under discussion today includes a measure that, if approved, will help move forward our plan. Here, I refer to the proposed amendments to the Construction Act. These proposals would allow for lower minimum bonding requirements for projects that do not involve private financing to help attract more contractors to bid on capital projects, fostering and diversifying market competition.

You see, we are investing and building. This includes investing more than $48 billion over 10 years in health infrastructure, supporting more than 50 hospital projects that would add 3,000 new beds over 10 years to improve access to reliable quality care. Totalling a historic $6.4 billion since 2019 is our planned investment to build 30,000 new long-term-care beds and upgrade more than 28,000 existing beds across the province by 2028.

To build new schools, add child care spaces and modernize school infrastructure, we are investing $22 billion over 10 years. This school year alone, 21 new schools and additions have opened, creating 7,000 new student spaces, including six French-language school projects. We are making progress toward creating 86,000 new, high-quality, affordable child care spaces by 2026. By the end of 2023, now only weeks away, over 23,000 new spaces will be created, including over 1,500 new licensed child care spaces in schools.

As the minister touched upon, we are working to put money back in people’s pockets—among the most significant is how we are proposing to extend the current gas and fuel tax rate cuts through to June 30, 2024. This proposed change, along with gas and fuel tax cuts already in place, would save households $260, on average, since the cuts were first implemented in July 2022.

Another step in our government’s plan to help the people of Ontario find and afford a place to live is how we are encouraging builders to construct more rental units. We are encouraging construction of new, purpose-built rental housing by taking steps to remove the full 8% provincial portion of the HST on qualifying projects. Together with federal actions, this would remove the full 13% HST on qualifying new purpose-built rental housing.

We are also supporting people who are on the go. We are eliminating double fares for most local transit when using GO Transit services and increasing Presto discounts for youth and post-secondary students, all while providing riders with more options and convenient ways to pay.

Another way we are helping people is by increasing the general minimum wage to $16.55 per hour—a 6.8% pay raise to help workers and their families keep up with the rising costs.

This year, we are putting $550, on average, back in the pockets of more than 200,000 low-to-moderate-income senior families with eligible medical expenses. This includes expenses that support aging at home through the Ontario Seniors Care at Home Tax Credit.

We are also building—building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031. We are building these homes through targeted incentives to municipalities, including the Building Faster Fund, strong-mayor powers and the Streamline Development Approval Fund.

We are a government focused on building Ontario together. To facilitate this building, we are supporting skills development and training with more than $1 billion invested over three years in Ontario’s Skilled Trades Strategy, as well as investing $860 million in the training stream and $224 million in the capital stream of the Skills Development Fund.

Speaker, as we continue to grow our job market, we are welcoming more skilled immigrants to Ontario, investing $25 million over three years in the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program and expanding the Ontario Bridge Training Program with a $3-million investment in the 2023-24 tax year, helping skilled newcomers start working in their trained fields and faster.

We are also removing Canadian work experience requirements for certain regulated professions. Why? To make it easier for newcomers to work in the professions they trained for.

Speaker, in closing today, let me say the following: Our government is very confident in our vision—that despite the geopolitical and economic uncertainties in the world today, the Ontario economy and our communities continue to demonstrate resiliency.

We are putting in place the infrastructure to support the growth of the economy and communities, through the infrastructure—in roads, bridges, highways, schools, and health facilities.

We are also building up the skilled workforce for the jobs of tomorrow.

We are helping those who need it the most during these uncertain times.

We are connecting the people and families of Ontario with the health care and the child care they need, when they need it.

I encourage all members to vote in favour of Bill 146, Building a Strong Ontario Together Act, 2023.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill this afternoon. I certainly thank the minister for his remarks, and the member from Oakville for his comments this afternoon. It’s a terrific team, and I’m happy to be part of that.

Today, I rise to speak in support of the second reading of the fall bill, Building a Strong Ontario Together Act (Budget Measures), 2023. As part of my support for the second reading, I’d like to take a few minutes to speak to some of the specific statutory aspects of the bill and how they support and/or fit with our government’s plan.

A number of measures in this bill are related to taxation, while many others are non-tax initiatives. I’d like to begin by discussing the non-tax measures. Many of them relate to the financial services sector—the securities marketplace, in particular. You see, the province is looking to modernize capital markets to better protect investors, foster economic growth and increase investment in Ontario.

Ontario’s economy and capital market trends are constantly evolving and changing. The pandemic, ongoing economic uncertainty and technological developments such as digital assets have reinforced the importance of capital formation and of enhancing Ontario’s economic competitiveness.

If approved, the proposed legislative and regulatory changes in the bill would support economic growth, encourage market innovation and enable greater retail investor access to investment opportunities here in Ontario.

The financial sector in our province is very large—and in particular, in the city of Toronto—and it impacts positively in so many different ways. Direct jobs in the industry are very substantial, and that generates a huge, broad economic base, and its financial sector operates as a catalyst for investment. These measures will support the industry but also regulate it and provide that ongoing scrutiny.

As the minister and the member said, economic development is a very high priority for our government—$16 billion of investments, 700,000 jobs. These are very important measures. If the measures are approved, the government will continue to work with the capital markets sector, the Ontario Securities Commission—or OSC—and other key stakeholders to ensure the new legislative framework protects investors and consumers and supports Ontario businesses.

To the bill items: We are proposing amendments to the Securities Act—well-known, seasoned issuers item. These proposed amendments are to allow the OSC to make rules streamlining the prospectus-filing requirements for those large public companies that have an established record of appropriate financial disclosure in Ontario. These companies are known in the industry as well-known, seasoned issuers, and these measures will streamline the access to capital for these important companies.

It’s really an important measure because, like our red tape reduction initiatives, it helps keep these companies’ costs down. That affects the OSC as well. Each time a company is spending time and money, staff at the OSC are as well. So these changes are better for issuers, better for the OSC and, in the long run, better for economic development in the province.

We’re also proposing amendments to the Securities Act and Commodity Futures Act to address automatic and streamlined reciprocal orders. These proposed amendments are to provide that orders and settlements made by Canadian regulators outside of Ontario apply automatically in Ontario, as if made by the OSC.

The amendments would also establish a streamlined process for the recognition of orders and settlements made by courts outside Ontario, regulatory authorities outside Canada, and certain recognized self-regulatory organizations and exchanges within Canada. These would serve to protect Ontario investors in a timelier manner and make it easier for consumers here in Ontario.

I’d also like to highlight the new changes to the Securities Act and the Commodity Futures Act as they pertain to whistle-blowers. With these proposed amendments, we are protecting those who would come forward to do the right thing. These changes would amend the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to ensure that whistle-blower confidentiality provisions prevail over freedom-of-information disclosure requirements, and amend the Securities Act to extend statutory protection to whistle-blowers and to expand anti-reprisal protections.

The OSC Whistleblower Program and other whistle-blower programs encourage and rely on individuals in various positions in the capital markets sector to disclose information of misconduct and wrongdoings that might otherwise go undetected and cause harms. These changes are expected to increase the number of individuals who report misconduct and wrongdoings to the OSC and other organizations, which will strengthen enforcement and provide further investor protection. These are very good measures, because when the market knows these provisions are out there, they will ensure they’re behaving better, and the awareness will be an important factor in their operations. So these are good measures.

The improved accountability and transparency is not only good for the capital markets; it helps foster economic growth across the board by boosting confidence and the reputation that Ontario has as being a good place to conduct business.

Next, the Securities Act, Commodity Futures Act, and Securities Commission Act, distribution of disgorged amounts: Proposed here are amendments to prescribe a statutory framework to support the timely and efficient distribution of disgorged money to investors who have suffered financial losses as a result of a Securities Act contravention. Currently, the Securities Act and Commodity Futures Act do not prescribe a specific framework or process for the distribution of disgorged funds to harmed investors in cases where funds have been collected. This results in slower and less efficient investor compensation following a finding of securities market misconduct.

A statutory framework for the distribution of disgorged funds would be prescribed via legislative amendments to the Securities Act, Commodity Futures Act and the Securities Commission Act, along with accompanying rules developed by the OSC. Establishing a clear and transparent distribution process would support more timely and efficient compensation of investors who have suffered direct financial losses as a result of security contraventions. It would also create more effective and predictable operational processes in this area for the OSC.

Madam Speaker, I’ll now turn to the management of investments; specifically, a measure in the bill focused on the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario Act and municipal investment boards.

This proposed amendment is to allow municipal funds, which are maintained under the authority of an investment board or joint investment board, to be invested with the Investment Management Corp. of Ontario, or IMCO. This change would provide clarity and address the current discrepancy for municipalities that wish to invest with IMCO. The proposed amendment would enable though not require investment boards and joint investment boards established under the Municipal Act and investment boards established under the City of Toronto Act to become members of IMCO. This would allow municipal funds under the authority of such boards to be invested with IMCO.

As background, and as you may know, IMCO is an independent investment management organization designed to serve public sector clients in Ontario. With over $73 billion in assets under management, IMCO is one of the largest institutional investment managers in Canada. In fact, Ontario and Canada have a great number of similar types of investment organizations. So this change that we are proposing makes great sense. You may have heard of some of these institutional investors—OMERS pension plan; the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan; Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, or HOOPP. Many of these organizations—for example, OMERS—were established in the 1960s. Why? So that municipalities could have their pension assets managed centrally and together. OMERS today has over $100 billion in assets. It makes so much sense, rather than have each individual municipality manage and administer their pension plan, to have it centrally done through OMERS. I use OMERS as an example—it’s similar to what happens with IMCO.

The minister has mentioned our commitment to infrastructure. There are two pages in my—am I allowed to make reference? Okay, well, if I were allowed to make reference, I would suggest page 18, which outlines the amazing long-term commitment we have to infrastructure as a government, whether it’s $70 billion over 10 years for transit, $28 billion for highways, $48 billion for health care, or $22 billion for education. These are long-term investments, and this is a long-term perspective that our government has, and this change to IMCO is exactly consistent with that change.

Madam Speaker, I now move on to the Ministry of Revenue Act child support services program. This is a proposed technical amendment in support of the expansion of enforcement of Ontario’s child support orders in international jurisdictions. The Ministry of Finance operates the online child support calculation services. The Ministry of Finance operates the online child support calculation on behalf of the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Family Responsibility Office, or FRO. The program determines the child support obligations of parents who have settled amicably outside of the court process and issues a notice of calculation/recalculation to the parents and FRO.

Another measure in the bill would provide the government with the spending authority it requires to carry on operations. A new interim appropriation act is normally introduced each fall. A new supplementary interim appropriation act is normally introduced in years in which the amounts in the interim appropriation act for the year were insufficient to cover expected expenditures.

Now I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss tax initiatives. As has been noted by the minister and the member for Oakville, our government is seeking to extend the cuts to the gasoline tax rate and the fuel tax rate for an additional six months—to June 30, 2024—as we continue to make life more affordable for Ontarians. As noted by the other speakers, this is the number one priority that we are certainly hearing from our constituents at this time—the affordability challenge they’re all facing. That’s why this government continues to take action to support these efforts. These rate cuts took effect on July 1, 2022, and would otherwise have ended on December 31, 2023. This change is proposed in the continuation of our government’s priority of keeping costs down for the people of Ontario.

Madam Speaker, our government is unlocking the economic potential of critical minerals and finally building all-season roads to the Ring of Fire, in partnership with Indigenous communities. Critical minerals are the key to positioning Ontario as a global economic powerhouse—ready to seize the electric vehicle revolution and energy transition and be a serious player amidst geopolitical change. As has been noted by the other speakers, the investment commitments that have been made to Ontario are so exciting—$26 billion in these industries, which is going to be a generational investment for jobs and economic development in our province.

We are continuing to support critical mineral exploration with the Ontario Focused Flow-Through Share Tax Credit. Through this bill, we are proposing technical amendments to extend this tax credit to exploration expenses related to minerals considered “critical minerals” under the federal Income Tax Act. Enhancing the Ontario Focused Flow-Through Share Tax Credit is aimed at helping stimulate critical mineral exploration in Ontario and improving access to capital for small mining exploration companies.

As the minister stated, we are seeking to strengthen critical mineral exploration in Ontario through this change that would amount to a proposed additional $12 million per year in tax credit support to the critical minerals mining industry. If approved, the government would expand eligibility of the Ontario Focused Flow-Through Share Tax Credit to include critical mineral exploration expenses that qualify for the federal Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit, starting in the 2023 tax year.

Now I will provide a quick overview of the items in the bill related to additional ministries.

First, the Ministry of the Attorney General, legislative amendments to strengthen opioid cost-recovery litigation: The opioid crisis has cost the people of Ontario enormously. This is why Ontario is actively participating in national litigation to hold pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers and their marketing consultants accountable for damages caused by the opioid crisis.

Amendments proposed to the Opioid Damages and Health Costs Recovery Act would strengthen Ontario’s participation in two ongoing British Columbia-based national class action lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, wholesalers and their consultants. These proposed legislative changes would help hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for damages caused by the opioid crisis and the impact on our health care system.

Interjections.

I recognize the member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound.

Thank you to the member from Thornhill—a very good question. The federal government, as you are aware, has reduced the carbon tax in Atlantic Canada for heating oil. Well, that was politically motivated, with a caucus revolt from Atlantic Canada.

What our government is trying to do is help all the people of Ontario by reducing costs where possible. We’ve obviously lobbied the federal government to eliminate the carbon tax, which is a very punitive tax on all the hard-working people across this province and across this great country, but we’ve been taking other steps to make life more affordable. The minister mentioned in his remarks today that we will be extending the gas tax cut until June 30, 2024. That is an enormous tax savings to all the people of Ontario who heat their homes or drive their cars, take their kids to soccer practice, go to work every day—as many of us do here—in cars. That’s a big savings to all the people of Ontario.

There are many other programs we’ve put in place as well to help the people, but that’s certainly a good start. I hope that the opposition will support us and support this fall economic statement.

I want to thank the parliamentary assistants and the minister for presenting. I’m quite pleased to hear that there will be a surplus estimated in the 2025-26 year of half a billion dollars. These are positive steps.

But we’re also aware that the federal government has decided to pause the carbon tax on one type of home heating used mainly in Atlantic Canada and increase the tax on other types of home heating like lower-emitting natural gas here in Ontario. This is concerning as a taxpayer in Ontario. Perhaps the member from Oakville can advise what sense this brings or what the federal government should be doing and what our government is doing to reduce the costs for hard-working taxpayers in Ontario.

Thank you to my colleagues for their debate on this.

My question is to the Minister of Finance. There is $5.4 billion in the contingency fund, and a lot of people are calling it a “slush fund” or a “rainy day fund.” There are a lot of organizations that haven’t had funding increases for more than a decade. I want to read one of them: “Sexual assault centres in Ontario, like Amelia Rising, have not had a core funding increase since the mid 1990s.

“When people take the brave step to call our centre for help, they face a five-month wait-list for services. Staff positions have decreased year” after “year while demands for services increase exponentially.

“Amelia Rising will potentially close and continue to reduce services unless this is addressed. What will the community look like without this essential service?

“Financial control is a commonly used tool used by perpetrators to silence and control their victims—this is exactly the tactic the government has used to silence a centre like ours, an irony not lost on us.”

My question, Speaker, is, when will the government admit that it is raining on publicly funded institutions like Amelia Rising and provide the funding they need instead of putting it in a rainy day fund?

Hear, hear. Good change.

It’s an important change, and one that is so relevant. We’ve all seen, in our communities, the impact that opioids are having on the most vulnerable, and so our government continues to take action, and with this proposal, would continue that work. Any proceeds would be invested into front-line mental health and addictions services. This is another important step in providing further protections for the people of Ontario.

I’d like to further highlight the changes to the Construction Act. Supporting the great work done by my colleagues in the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of the Attorney General, the amendments are aimed at authorizing the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make regulations allowing the minimum surety bonding requirements for large, non-P3 public infrastructure projects to be adjusted, as appropriate. These Construction Act proposals would allow for lower minimum bonding requirements for projects that do not involve private financing. If passed, this would help attract more contractors to bid on capital projects, fostering and diversifying market competition.

Madam Speaker, a number of initiatives that I have spoken about in this proposed legislation are so important. And as I step back and look at all of them together, whether it’s the gas tax cut extension to June 30 of next year, or something that hasn’t been mentioned—removing the HST on rental properties, which has been so well received by the construction industry and will be so helpful in spurring the construction of rental properties for Ontarians.

I’ve mentioned the flow-through shares initiative—such an important one for expanding access to capital, as the minister knows so well, to expand our access to the Ring of Fire.

Target benefit pension plans, also included as measures in this proposed legislation, would enhance the benefits potentially available to construction workers, for building a pension that they don’t currently have.

And so much of our spending on an ongoing basis—if I were allowed to reference the book, which I know I am not, if you were to look at page 7, the ongoing commitments in health care spending of over $81 billion this year; education, $34.7 billion this year; post-secondary education, $12.1 billion; children, community and social services, $19.4 billion. On and on the list would go, if only I were able to access that document. It’s so important that it underlines our government’s commitment to spending, and more importantly, to serving the needs of Ontarians who need it the most.

And as well, the Ontario Infrastructure Bank has been mentioned as being an important new investment partner for the outstanding current investment pension funds and others. It will be so important in—as the minister noted, whether it’s in long-term care or energy or other sectors—making sure there is capital available for the good projects that need to be developed.

Madam Speaker, our plan is working. We are building Ontario and working for the people of this great province. Whether it’s $26 billion of economic development, 700,000 jobs and on and on, the results are out there. Let me close by encouraging all members of the Legislature to vote in support of the fall bill, Building a Strong Ontario Together Act (Budget Measures), 2023.

But the real answer is back to the spending that has been outlined by our government, whether it’s health care or education or any other social programs. That’s the real response that we have to these programs.

Thank you. And just as a reminder, for the rules for members, you’re allowed to read from a document. You can’t just use it as a prop—just for clarification to the members. Thank you.

We’ll move to questions.

The minister talked about child care in his budget. But the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, the Association of Early Childhood Educators and other experts and workers have been warning this Conservative government that the $10-a-day child care program is under threat because of low pay and the working conditions.

The average ECE stays in that position just three years. The education minister consulted with these experts. Overwhelmingly, they said that the results were that they should pay ECEs more. Ontario is only one of four provinces that hasn’t implemented a salary scale or a wage grid.

So I’d like to ask the Minister: Where in Bill 146 is there an establishment of a salary scale of at least $30 per hour for registered ECEs and $25 for non-RECEs to get this program back on track?

Next question?

Of course, it is a pleasure, always, to join the debate on legislation that is before this House. I will tell you that I may be bringing a little reality back into the debate today. But before I start, I do want to just pass along condolences to the finance minister on the passing of his mother. I’m sure she was very proud of him.

I want to also say that this morning I was quite impressed with our new LG, Edith Dumont. She particularly got my attention when she talked about her family and friends and how they keep her grounded, with a sense of belonging, when we love and care for each other, and also her words around the common good, which should be a unifying call to action, I think, for all legislators in Ontario.

Congratulations on her, and I look forward to—with her focus on seniors, perhaps she and I may be able to find some alliance with regard to ensuring that seniors are not cruelly separated in our long-term-care system when they are married or they are partners. It’s actually one year today since our Till Death Do Us Part act passed second reading in this House, and if anybody thinks I’m going to give up on this, you have another thing coming. I took great comfort in her voice this morning.

We have the fall economic statement before us. The minister gave a speech, and I gave a speech, and this is six months into the budget year in the province of Ontario. I wish I could say there was firm ground here for this document, but I will say that in difficult times a government can be tested, and they could show how strong they are by reprioritizing their focus, past their political agenda, past the partisanship, but refocusing on the people we’re elected to serve.

I do not believe, as the finance critic and the Treasury Board critic for the province of Ontario, that the mini-budget that was presented to us saw what was actually happening in the province of Ontario on the health care front, on the mental health care front, on housing and on justice. So I’m hoping that this is a piece of legislation—I’ll say at the beginning—that gets to committee so we can actually review some of the priorities that were mentioned in the document itself. However, they’re not necessarily reflected in Bill 146, which is the technical portion of the fall economic statement. So I’m going to start with that, and I’m also just going to raise some context, really, for where we are in Ontario with this mini-budget.

Six months in, as I mentioned, we are dealing with a government that is truly lurching from scandal to scandal to scandal and very much in reversing-the-bus mode. We have before us quite unprecedented circumstances, where the RCMP is not reviewing the government; the RCMP is investigating this government on several fronts—I would say on the criminal front.

Now, some of my colleagues whom I’ve served with now for 11 years in this place will remember—this is unsettling for a government, as it should be, I would say. When the OPP investigated the Liberals, it was actually one of the only times that I saw the former Premier rattled—and for good reason, as it turned out. I think in total they may have had four OPP investigations. I will be honest; we lost track of that after a while. However, in that instance a senior official did go to jail—served time—for destroying government records and emails and not following what is the law for the Ontario public service in maintaining records.

We are in an unprecedented time. Urban boundaries have been destabilized, municipalities have been undermined, MZOs have become this political tool which is very much connected to fundraising and who you know and which consultant has your ear. And the fact that some guy named Mr. X is really shopping this new concept called “MZOs are us” is really quite embarrassing, I would say.

We’re in this world and sometimes we don’t see what other people see. But when they’re looking at us and this is how a government is conducting their business, it doesn’t instill confidence. And I think confidence is going to be very, very important—as is trust—as we move into some difficult economic times, particularly by Q3 and Q4 in the province of Ontario.

The greenbelt housing affordability discussion, if you will, has been fully rejected by the people of this province. They see very clearly that the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force was very clear that there was enough land within municipal boundaries that was already serviced by infrastructure and by those infrastructure dollars that had been already invested into the communities to build those $1.5-million homes—sorry, those 1.5 million homes. It was the $1.5-million homes that were actually on the greenbelt. Nobody can afford them, except for friends of this Premier.

Moving forward, though, this is the ground that we are on in Ontario. It’s very shaky. It’s very destabilized. Thank goodness for those small businesses across this province that are incredibly resilient. They have been through the ringer. They keep pivoting—remember when that was the word of the day around here? And thank goodness that they are being as innovative as they can within this context and as interest rates continue to go up.

I’m going to start off just giving the financial environment that we’re currently in here in Ontario. I do reference the work from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives quite a bit in this House. Sheila Block and Randy Robinson have been keeping their eye on the numbers here at Queen’s Park and they have been doing a very diligent job at that. They try to see the government of the day as trustworthy and that the investments are being done strategically, where the return on those investments serve the people of the province, who we—just in case anybody has forgotten—are elected to serve.

They say, “By now most Ontario budget-watchers have learned to take provincial budget projections with a handful of salt. The deficit forecast, for starters, is pure accounting fiction.”

Then they go on: “The current government typically spends less than what it earmarks in its budgets and finance Minister ... Bethlenfalvy loves to pad his budgets with large ‘contingency funds’ that aren’t earmarked for anything in particular.”

Don’t take Sheila’s and Randy’s advice on this entirely; the Financial Accountability Officer, an independent officer of this Legislature, has confirmed this pattern.

This is a government that puts numbers in a budget and that budget line does not get spent, does not find its way to the community. I can think of several organizations. One of them is the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, which is still waiting for their 2021 allocation of $5 million. So this money gets funnelled back into the contingency fund and does not get into the community.

Home care is another example. In 2021-22, of the home care dollars that were sent out to Ontario health teams, $70.8 million came back to this place. We all know how smart it is to invest in home care. People do not want to go to long-term-care institutions; they want to stay in their homes. The pandemic was frightening for so many seniors because this government did not see them, and it was deadly for over 5,000 seniors—that we know of; that number is a moving target, because keeping those stats has been proven to be very difficult, for some reason, for the Ministry of Health.

So when we look at this budget cycle, six months in, the 2023-24 budget included $4 billion in contingency funds. Now, just for those at home, contingency funds are different than the $1-billion surplus, which is prudent to set aside for an emergency—a rainy day, if you will. But two thirds of the way through the fiscal year, the province had only spent $336 million of that contingency fund, so they just took a little withdrawal from this unallocated fund, meaning that the contingency fund remained at $3.7 billion.

But then, in this fall economic statement, halfway through a budget year, they drop another $2.5 billion into this fund. Now, if you were paying attention in the province of Ontario, you would be hearing about code reds, about backups at emergency rooms. You would be hearing about emergency closures. You would be hearing about the 14,000 children who are waiting for surgery in Ontario. You would be hearing about the backlog in special education services in our schools. You may even be hearing about the children who are still waiting for autism therapy services in Ontario.

So it’s not like there isn’t an immediate need. It’s not like the finance minister had to go digging around to say, “Oh, do you know what? Everything is okay. Let’s just sock this money away—$2.5 billion—in this fund.” Some would say “fiscally prudent;” we would say “fiscally irresponsible,” because there is a cost to these wait-lists. There is a cost, both in human suffering—we’ve seen people come to this Legislature; I remember the dad whose daughter had spina bifida and had been waiting in pain for almost three years. You should not have to drag your family to Queen’s Park to get the health care system that you need and that you deserve.

So here we are. The minister added this $2.5 billion—and the biggest thing, also, about the contingency: (1) It’s fiscally irresponsible, but (2) it removes the oversight that we have as legislators. Now, why does that matter? Because it means that the Minister of Finance and the cabinet can do whatever they want with it.

Let me be really clear with you, Madam Speaker: Nobody trusts this government.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member opposite. The member opposite is probably aware that we’ve not only had one increase where we did have the 5% increase in the ODSP some time ago, but we also increased it by 6.5% in July. If you add the two together, that’s an 11.5% increase. That’s the largest increase in the province’s history, full stop, okay? That is an enormous increase.

Secondly, we also increased the threshold for our workers to be able to go out there and work, collect ODSP and not be taxed. A lot of employees in the past would not be able to continue working past a certain number of hours because they were taxed. We’ve increased that threshold so they can go out there and work. The government of Ontario has the backs of the people on ODSP.

I’m pleased that I had the opportunity to be able to listen to the members opposite talk about the economic statement.

Something that definitely caught my attention, as I’m sure you would understand, was when they talked about ODSP and being the best government in decades to be raising those rates. I can tell you, the Liberals didn’t do much better, but we have people who are literally starving in our communities due to the ODSP and Ontario Works rates, and people who are not able to pay the rent. Our rents are much higher than the income that they’re earning for a person who is disabled in this province.

So can one of the members who spoke to the fall economic statement please tell me where the humanity lens was put when it came to this fall economic statement to ensure that we don’t have people dying of hunger and freezing on our streets this coming winter?

I thank the member for the question. We all know how important child care services are in our constituencies and how important they are to working families these days. Having that access to have your kids looked after with the quality of care that they deserve and you deserve is so important. That’s why our government reached out and made a deal with the federal government for $13 billion in child care support for the province. It’s so important, the direct economic benefits to the families of working parents from this program.

I acknowledge the member’s point. This is a difficult and challenging current economic circumstance, and we’ll continue to look at the compensation levels across the board for these areas and understand that. But our government’s focus on affordability and supporting Ontarians through so many different measures is a key factor to consider.

She’s absolutely right that the federal government’s carbon tax—and the member outlined some of the key issues that are involved there. It goes into the price of everything that’s made in Ontario, whether it’s your food—farmers have no ability to find other options for them, so they’re forced to pay this tax. It makes the cost of everything higher. Imagine the gas pumps at 14 cents a litre. They’re finally—it would be in the 20s if that were removed now.

What we’re doing: We have consistently taken a view to remove the provincial taxes off fuel for the time being. That’s what we’ve done—specific measures in addition to many others to support Ontarians in this challenging time.

Congratulations to my colleague the Minister of Finance, as well as his two parliamentary secretaries.

I want to pick up on something that my colleague from Thornhill was talking about, which is the carbon tax. I think what we saw in Atlantic Canada—yes, I am an original Atlantic Canadian—was that this tax is not about fixing the environment. He has proven—he being the Prime Minister of Canada—that that tax is nothing but a political tax on everything. I want to know how this budget, this fall economic statement, is going to support Ontario families who are right now struggling with high interest rates, who are right now worried about losing their jobs, and who right now are concerned about the high prices not only of gas but also the groceries at our grocery store. How are we helping them as the Trudeau Liberals continue to shove more taxes down our throats?

You should clap for that. Get on it.

This means that we actually have, for some reason, a $5.6-billion deficit by 2023, but the CCPA makes the point that this really is accounting fiction. It’s also clear that the deficit, the debt-to-GDP ratios and the percentage of revenue going to interest payments right now are at an all-time 10-year low. So in the face of seeing the people of this province be evicted or delayed in health care services, the government has made an intentional choice to not invest in making their lives better.

Some people would take great umbrage at that. Some people would say that it’s an unethical decision and that it goes counter to the oath that we take as legislators to serve the people of this province.

I do want to say that this is actually after five years. I have unfortunately been the finance critic for five years, and this started back in 2018. There’s a very clear pattern in how the current government, through three finance ministers now, views spending on public services and income supports. It’s really clear that programming spending in Ontario over the past five years by major sectors, if you take in the changes for inflation and population growth, show real per-capita spending, how much the government is spending per person in Ontario in constant dollars—the results are quite something.

I just want to say, there were Conservatives at one point in the history of this province who recognized that inflationary cost pressures were real and that you needed to adjust expenditures to address those cost pressures.

Listen to this: Real per capita spending on post-secondary education has dropped by 11% since 2018; in children’s and social services, it’s down 12%; in education, it is down 11%; and in the justice sector, it is down by over 2%. There is a minor increase in health, but I’m going to get to that—because where that 2.9% increase is going is right into the pockets of private investors; it’s not going into the health care system. So that’s the reality check for this government. If you’ve been in an emergency department or if you’re lucky enough to find an emergency room that’s open in Ontario when you need it, you will know that that 2.9% misses the mark, just like this fall economic statement misses the moment.

In health and all sectors, the slow suffocation of public services has gone on too long.

This is a direct quote from Sheila and Randy: “It is time for the government’s spending to catch up with the needs of Ontarians—spending that invests in the public services that all of us rely on. Indeed”—and this is a very good quote—“this government seems intent to hide behind dire fiscal projections rather than face the music on badly needed public service improvements.” That is the sorry state of affairs for the province of Ontario, I can tell you.

If I move over now to one of the shiny objects that was in the fall economic statement, this is the infrastructure bank—actually, before I move on to that: the context for how this government is doing business. I should set the groundwork for this, because the infrastructure bank is dependent on having some kind of trust. Well, you talk about not reading the room—because the fact that this government really had the gall to introduce a brand new arm’s length organization that’s going to have its own board of directors and is going to do its own business over here and is going to be as transparent as mud, I get. But if you look at even what’s in the news today—“Senior Ford Government Cabinet Ministers Barely Using Work Phones, Docs Show.”

Just to go full circle: We know that when the OPP investigated the former Liberal government, they were able to access personal and work phones, and for good reason. When you are in cabinet, when you are serving at that level, everything that you do on your personal phone and your work phone should be FOI-able. But some people are moving through their phones pretty quickly. Think of those phones that cycle through. I think the Premier has given out six or seven different numbers over the last five years. I think people think that it’s kind of endearing that this happens, but the fact of the matter is that he’s still compelled by the law. The law still matters in Ontario, even when the “business as usual” mode is a sticker business here. But transparency and respect for the electorate is key to here.

Today’s article, which is actually published by Isaac Callan and Colin D’Mello—I know the Premier is very fond of Colin D’Mello. On a regular basis—

Interjection.

Excuse me. I have a point of order to respond to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I am talking about money, and money is in the budget. I’m going to keep going back to the money—

Interjection: Not all of it.

Just going back to the trust issue and connecting it to the infrastructure bank, which obviously is highlighted in the fall economic statement: This is all happening as the government lawyers who—I just want to say the lawyers are doing very well in Ontario. This government has given them lots of business.

“As the government lawyers attempt to shield” the Ontario Premier’s “personal cellphone records from being publicly released, new documents show several prominent ministers in his cabinet also have large stretches of inactivity on their official devices when critical government decisions were being made.

“Freedom-of-information requests submitted by Global News”—actually, this is how we have to get most of our information these days, which is not ideal—"show that then-ministers of education, finance, health, housing and transportation made either no phone calls or used very few minutes on their government-issued devices during crucial moments in their ministries.” This is problematic, obviously, on a number of levels, and one is that this was all within the context of the government starting their own bank.

“The phone records requested by Global News covered a one-month period for each minister....

“One minister made zero phone calls on their government-issued device during that one-month period”—which is very strange, because when we’re here, everybody’s on their phones; they’re on somebody’s phone; they’re texting their family, maybe looking at their dog videos. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that everybody has their phones. This is an acceptable way to do our jobs. We have legislative-issued phones that we use to do our jobs.

So it is surprising that the Minister of Health, who also serves as the Deputy Premier, “had the least activity on her phone, according to the government records. During January 2023”—and why is this significant? I’m totally going to pull it back. The minister did not make a single call from her government cellphone. At the time, though, this was when they were making sweeping changes to how health care is delivered in Ontario and tapped private, for-profit clinics to take on an expanded role.

This is a problem, because if we don’t have a clear idea of how a minister of the crown, whose level of accountability and transparency—that bar is very high for these individuals. And when you are talking about a $70.1-billion item in the budget, that’s a lot of money, and when the money is not getting to where it’s supposed to go, like paramedics and emergency room doctors and nurses—we just read out a petition on behalf of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario. The out-migration of nurses in Ontario is real, and Bill 124 has a lot to do with that. So if the Minister of Health is, as you know, during these crucial times not recognizing the health human resources crisis that the province of Ontario is in—you can build all the beds. Building beds is one thing; staffing beds is a complete other thing.

Also, it’s worth noting that the education minister had less than 20 minutes on his phone during November 2022—I think that was around Bill 28, wasn’t it?

And the cellphone bill shows that there was just a total of one minute in phone calls. I don’t know what to say about this exactly. I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it, but it is a disturbing pattern.

All of this is happening as the Premier and the finance minister decide to start a bank—the infrastructure bank of Ontario. There are more questions than there is any information on this, although I’ve been told that the minister did extensive consultation, but it’s not on his phone—but just not on the phone. There were no phone calls made. Also, it’s not contained in Bill 146, the actual budget measures act, which is the technical bill which operationalizes the fall economic statement, which leads me only to conclude that somewhere on a napkin this idea came up—this shiny little prize called an infrastructure bank. I feel that it should just stay on the napkin, Madam Speaker, and I’m going to tell you why.

This is one article from Thomas Marois from McMaster University: “Whose Interests Will New Ontario Infrastructure Bank Serve? Not the Public’s, It Seems.

“With the launch of the Ontario Infrastructure Bank, the province has just become home to the world’s newest public bank. As part of the provincial budget”—they’re going to invest $3 billion of public, taxpayer dollars into this bank. Why? Because the government says that it doesn’t necessarily have the money to invest in long-term-care homes, energy infrastructure, affordable housing, municipal and community infrastructure and transportation. But the question is, will the OIB—the Ontario Infrastructure Bank—serve the public or the private interest?

So far, what we know about this infrastructure bank is that it’s very much modelled under the federal infrastructure bank. You can see where I’m going with this, obviously.

Just recently, a press release came out from the federal Conservatives—our distant, distant, distant cousins. This is the press release around the infrastructure bank. This is what your federal cousins think about the infrastructure bank at the federal level, which your provincial infrastructure bank is modelled under. The Conservative shadow Minister of Infrastructure and Communities released the following statement after it was discovered that a $1.7-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank project had failed: “Trudeau’s bank invested $655 million in a $1.7-billion project to build an underwater electricity cable that is now dead in the water due to financial volatility and inflation. The Lake Erie Connector Project is yet another failure for the Canada Infrastructure Bank,” which is “a $35-billion taxpayer-funded bank that has not completed one project in almost six years.”

It makes no sense whatsoever. We should learn from other jurisdictions not to follow down that path. Ontario, and this government in particular—you have enough issues, I think, on your plate. If one could get lost and sort of lose track of the scandals, one could be forgiven for doing so, because they are so prevalent.

It goes on to say, “At a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, this government keeps wasting taxpayer dollars. $655 million was promised to a multi-billion dollar company for an electricity project that ironically seems to have failed due to inflation....

“One and a half years ago, the Liberals were gushing about their new partnership with Fortis Inc., a private company that rakes in billions in revenue every year, promising tons of low-carbon energy, billions in GDP and hundreds of Canadian jobs.” It almost sounds too good to be true. Conservatives warned from the beginning—because they’re very good at that—that this was risky, although they do a fair number of risky things themselves.

It was “an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.” This is your federal cousins telling you that this infrastructure bank is an “inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.” They were ignored by the federal Liberals. It’s a very sad story.

“What’s worse is that there has been no transparency.” Transparency—I should get the dictionary out for this one. Transparency matters in government, in public service. “Only when Conservatives demanded answers last week in Parliament did the government or the bank provide any update on a massive project that was quietly cancelled back in July. We also still don’t know the details of the Fortis agreement or where the cost overruns were. That’s unacceptable for a taxpayer-funded bank.

“Conservatives will continue to call on this government to respect the only recommendation from the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities—that this $35-billion boondoggle be abolished. It has failed to attract the promised private investment, it lacks transparency and it can’t get a project built.”

But where does this government go? This government is going down this road. Why? Why are you doing this? It’s really concerning.

There are a number of issues here that lead us to be very concerned. One is that the finance minister and the Premier are pitching this as a silver bullet for funding the province’s infrastructure needs. I know that this government, just like the Liberals, is very fond of these arm’s-length organizations. You try holding Metrolinx to account. We do know that this is going to be an arm’s-length organization. It’s going to take up to a year to create—as if we can wait for affordable housing for another year—and it’s going to have a board of directors anywhere between three and 11, so we expect to see that list and track these people back to various weddings and birthday parties. The strategy is cut and pasted from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank’s initial promise to leverage private funds many times over, but it is important for my colleagues to know that this never happened. It’s built on this cascade model in finance. The approach is: “To maximize the impact of scarce public resources, the cascade first seeks to mobilize commercial finance, enabled by upstream reforms where necessary....” However, this government, the PC government of Ontario, has chosen to step away from that model. There are public banks around the world that are quite successful, but they have a different structure than what is being proposed by this government.

Further, the government sees the OIB as a way to attract trusted Canadian institutional investors to help build essential infrastructure.

“Trust is indeed important,” says this article. “How are we to trust and hold accountable this new public institution with control over allocating $3 billion in public money?” I hope some of my colleagues on that side of the House are asking this kind of question.

These checks and balances that need to serve—that need to be put in place to serve the public, not foreign investors.

According to the website, the infrastructure bank’s affairs will be composed of at least three or at most 11 board members, who are going to be chosen by the Minister of Finance and will need to have significant financial and infrastructure-related project expertise.

“These policies need advancing with government and society, not through opaque nominations and appointments.” We could not agree more. We have seen the appointments process in this House. It’s like a who’s who of PC donors. It’s very problematic for trust.

So if you don’t have trust and you have a track record right now which is incredibly problematic, why in the world would you introduce a brand new little bauble of a bank? This shiny little thing over here is not necessary for this government to build infrastructure, to build SMRs, to build energy projects, to build affordable housing. Ontario has never really had a problem with financing of the projects. It certainly has had an issue with public-private partnerships and getting those jobs done on time. Just look at the Eglinton Crosstown. Are we at $1 billion per kilometre—

Interjections.

I was really excited to hear about the debate over the budget and what we’re going to be doing for the province of Ontario, to build up Ontario for the budget, but I currently do not hear that conversation being had. So through you, Speaker, I just wanted to see if we could talk about the budget today.