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.

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.

Lawyers R Us.

Oh, the Ontario Line. The Ontario Line is $1 billion per kilometre.

Oh, those public-private partnerships are just working so well.

This, again, is from Thomas Marois: “There is nothing inherently good or bad about public banks. They are only ever as good or as bad as society makes them. Good ones contribute to the public good by advancing prosperous, inclusive and increasingly sustainable societies. Whether Ontario will craft the new OIB in that vein remains to be seen.”

This is something to watch very carefully. I would prefer that they just take that $3 billion and create a funding mechanism in partnership with municipalities, much like the federal accelerator fund. We have seen municipalities meet those targets very quickly—I’m thinking of Vaughan; I’m thinking of Kitchener-Waterloo. When municipalities know that there is money on the table, they can advance, they can streamline those projects, and so far, I have to say, this seems to be very effective.

Now, who doesn’t like this? Well, the Premier. The Premier doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like the fact that the federal government is bypassing the province and actually getting money into communities. Do you know why he doesn’t like it? Because he doesn’t get invited to the ribbon cuttings or the infrastructure project announcements—

Interjection: You don’t pass them up.

I don’t get invited to them. I just got heckled that I don’t pass them up; I don’t get invited to them. I used to show up and crash the party. It was really fun, I have to tell you. But no, we don’t get invited to them, because this government thinks that that money is their money. So sometimes councillors or a community leader will say, “Oh, by the way, the member from Kitchener–Conestoga is going to this place, and you might want to show up.” And sometimes you do; sometimes you don’t. Anyway, in the end it doesn’t—

Interjection.

Interjection.

So this one final piece on the infrastructure bank—but, goodness, you gave me a lot of material to work with with this fall economic statement.

Why is the Premier’s government creating a bank to finance public projects? “Questions swirl” around this whole idea. I think that the general point is that here we have a government that’s on the ropes, that’s quite worried about the narrative that’s actually happening about what is driving your decisions around the budget, especially six months in, when you drop $2.5 billion in an unallocated contingency fund when you know—if your eyes are open, if you are paying attention, if you’re spending time in your community, you know the needs are there.

We even saw a reduction in Meals on Wheels. That’s eyes on seniors addressing the issue of isolation and loneliness—which, actually, the LG mentioned this morning—and we know after the pandemic that loneliness kills. We know that we have a minister responsible for seniors who says we have to do more. Well, you can do more by actually resourcing those amazing not-for-profits in the communities. You show up for the photo ops with them, and sometimes you go on a ride-along with Meals on Wheels. But when they see a 30% cut, they’re making very hard decisions about who they can see and who they can deliver food to. That is a big thing. It’s a big thing for a government to say, “I see you. I see you, and I’m going to work towards”—imagine having the money, which they do, that you have the legal authority because you have a majority government. Imagine making the choice to not help, to not invest and to sock away, or squirrel away, $5.4 billion in an unallocated contingency fund. It really defies a lot of common sense.

The last point on the infrastructure bank, because I’m just fascinated with the fact that it’s not really contained in Bill 146 but it’s in the fall economic statement, is that when the minister was questioned about this—CBC News had asked “if establishing the bank opens the door to big investors profiting off public infrastructure projects.” It’s a very good question for the minister. He went back, and he said, “I don’t think profiting is the right way to think about it. Think about it in terms of revenue streams.” But who are the revenue streams for, Madam Speaker? Because if it’s interrupting and if the investor becomes the primary person of concern, organization of concern, how dedicated really is the government of the day to the infrastructure project?

We’ve seen this carving out of responsibility, really an abdication of public responsibility by this government. Even this weekend, I’m sure my colleagues must have seen that Shoppers Drug Mart, which is also a favourite of the Premier—for some reason, they have the distribution contract for vaccinations. So these small mom-and-pop pharmacies across the province, they’re supposed to get 200 flu shots or they’re supposed to get 200 COVID vaccinations, and they’re getting 20 and 50. When we see 2.1 million people in Ontario not have a family doctor, they become very reliant on pharmacies. Pharmacies and pharmacists perform a very crucial role in the health care system, and for them not to be able to get access to basic and, I would say, essential health care resources because you have, essentially, a monopoly with a private distributor—and this was the best part. The news article that I read—I don’t have it here—said that the Ministry of Health is going to meet with Shoppers to see if they can do their job. Can you imagine? This is 2023. Have we learned no lessons on the privatization and outsourcing of basic health care needs? Apparently, we have not.

So that’s how we feel about the infrastructure bank. And this is something that has rarely happened in this House: I’m just going to quote the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. This is Jay Goldberg. He says the Canadian Infrastructure Bank was “‘a complete failure,’ and says it’s concerning that the province would follow suit.” Just one for the Hansard: We definitely agree with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Moving on, though, especially as it relates to where the money in this last fall economic statement is not going. One of the issues, and I want to get this on the record because this is certainly a disturbing trend, particularly on the justice file—we’ve seen it’s down over 2%, funding in justice. And if you’ve ever actually had to deal with a case in your riding of someone who is navigating the court system, you will see how completely broken the court system is in Ontario.

One story that caught my attention this week—and this will appeal, I think, this story, to the strong law-and-order group of Conservatives who often are complaining to the federal government about bail reform and about appropriate justice resources. Well, in Ontario, on November 7, an alleged rapist was released from custody because the court system took so long, Madam Speaker. And this is an important part, that—this is a CTV article, and this was done by Abby O’Brien and it’s very comprehensive.

I’m not going to read all of the disturbing details in it because it could be triggering for a lot of people: “In hindsight,” it says, “Emily recalled doing everything she’d been taught to do in the wake of an attack—she reported it to the police, took herself to the hospital, gave an interview to a detective, and, months later, testified in court.”

But on November 7, “a sexual assault charge laid by the Toronto police against the man Emily reported raped her in January 2022 was stayed and the case against him thrown out, court documents show.”

This is what she said: “It took so much to even do that first step”—right? This takes so much courage. It’s one of the worst kinds of violence you can ever experience, sexual assault. And then a year and a half later, she gets to face the alleged rapist in court, and it was a very—it takes a lot of courage to do this.

The court system is not kind to sexual assault victims. It’s a very harsh place. We need a better system, and we’re going to be working on a better system for sure, Madam Speaker. But it goes on to say that “Emily’s experience is no anomaly. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, anyone charged with an offence has the right to a trial within a reasonable time frame.” In Ontario, “barring exceptional circumstances, that time frame is 18 months in the provincial courts of Ontario”—18 months, a year and a half. Our court system is so underfunded and understaffed that we can’t get a victim and a perpetrator in the same court in 18 months in Ontario.

I think it adds insult to injury, given that this is the newest court, making my point that you can have a good building, you can build a bed, you can build a classroom, but boy, if you don’t have the human resources, you don’t have the people to help navigate that space, then you really are failing—failing. I have to say, if we had the opportunity, having a $5.4-billion contingency fund that is just sitting there, that you squirrelled away by not investing in certain areas—I would say that we could find some alignment here, with your “tough on crime” and more cops and more resources. We want more people. We want more people in the court system to make sure that people have access to justice, and that is what Emily deserved in the province of Ontario.

So in the end, Emily said a crown attorney told her that they believed she had been sexually assaulted, but that the charge had been stayed, and that they suggested that she move on with her life and try to put the event behind her. And she said, “What about my rights? Why are the rights of this man held with more importance?”

And then the judge of this particular court said, “This case should serve as a chilling reminder that this inexcusable state of affairs must never be allowed to happen again.

“The emotional trauma associated with never knowing the outcome of a case on the merits will often be long-lasting and severe for both victims and accused persons.”

“The judge identified the staffing shortages as the reason for the delays in the trial.”

So we have over a 2% cut in justice. We have a $5.4-billion contingency fund. If the minister responsible brought forward a motion to this House and said, “I need more money to staff these courtrooms,” you would have no objection from the NDP.

He goes on to say, “There is no reason this case could not have been completed....

“What happened in this case was entirely predictable, and avoidable. Yet it was allowed to occur, despite all the warning signs....”

He said this case serves “as yet one more example of how the government’s failure to ensure this courthouse could function at full capacity [has] produced tragic results.”

When charges are stayed, both parties in the case are failed by the system.

“That will now never occur. That alone is regrettable,” adding that the people of Ontario “deserve a justice system they can be proud of.”

Trust in the system is long gone, and Emily said, “I’ve lost faith in our province’s ability to keep me, us, safe.”

And I can tell you, Madam Speaker—I don’t know Emily; I’m just completely impressed by her courage. But this is an issue for everyone, and it should be a non-partisan issue. We should care about justice. We should care about timely justice, because we often hear in this House that justice delayed is justice denied and, certainly, that happened in that courtroom.

I want to move on to education, because education has seen a year-over-year reduction. I think our critic has done an amazing job on this file and pointing out inflationary cost pressures on the system as a whole. As I said before, this used to be a government—Conservatives used to acknowledge inflationary cost pressures as real, and plan for those cost pressures.

This, again, is from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’s Ricardo Tranjan, who is an excellent researcher and very well-spoken on these issues. But they have been tracking the pattern of this government and how they view public services. In this, Ricardo actually goes all the way back to the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, which was recently tabled, as the “clearest display to date of the Ford government’s ideological agenda against public education. The writing was on the wall from the start.”

It goes back to 2019, when there was a plan to eliminate 10,054 teaching positions by 2024 through increased class sizes and mandatory online learning. There was, obviously, a disruption around that plan by parents and organizations who fought back. Education is always worth fighting for. It’s one of the reasons why I’m standing in this House today.

But I do want to say, in tracking of the funding and this trust issue that I’ve referenced before, we have to remember that most of the COVID funding that came into the education system came from Ottawa or school board reserves, Madam Speaker. This is why it’s so ironic, really, that the Premier is bemoaning the fact that the federal government isn’t giving him the housing money so that he can then in turn pass it along to municipalities. I think the federal government learned their lesson in that regard and don’t trust the middle man here in the province of Ontario.

Also, after that, the government began sending money directly to parents, instead of into classrooms. We all remember this. It also expanded the scope of online education, justifying cuts to brick-and-mortar schools, and last year, when funding became available for tutoring, it had to be partially spent on third-party providers. This is directly, intentionally, with purpose moving education dollars out of the education system.

Now, I’m sure that the government of the day and the minister, perhaps, has his own rationale for doing this, but at the end of the day, when you factor in inflationary costs, in this year students are seeing $1,200 less per student around the GSN funding, so $1,200 less per student in the 2023-24 school year than they received in 2018-19. That has a real impact. If you’re going to invest in the future economy, in the health and communities that we’re all elected to serve, education is one of those key places, as is child care.

Toronto last week just saw 12 infant spaces close down because they can’t find staff. You know why they can’t find staff? They can’t find staff because this government does not respect early childhood educators. They deserve a fair wage. You cannot roll out a $10-a-day child care strategy in Ontario without child care workers, right?

This has an impact on the economy. If you’re not going to do it for the right reason, if you’re not going to say, “I value those first five years of a child’s life, one to five”—the impact that an educator, in collaboration with a parent, has can be life-changing. We’ve seen some real success stories across Ontario, and the research is sound. For every $1 invested in child care, you have a $7 return on that investment—$7. That’s actually 2019 numbers. I’m sure today it must be higher.

Also, there’s a new funding line that the government has in education. It’s on unallocated amounts. This appeared in the GSN for the first time with amounts between $30 million and $40 million. In this year’s document, that line was replaced with “planning provision,” which has $317 million sitting inside it, which is 10 times as much as was originally said. A footnote explains that the money is for possible in-year funding changes, and more unallocated funding has been included with the totals of specific grants.

This government is actively shuffling money away from the classroom. The amount is similar to the cost of the direct payments to parents, which is $365 million. Some parents really appreciate those two tutorial lessons that they get for their child with the money that they are allocated, but at the end of the day, $365 million invested specifically in special education resources in a classroom benefits the entire classroom. It benefits the entire school. It benefits the entire community.

Finally, Ricardo goes on to say, “Stashing cash away and using it to pay for populist measures—like cash transfers and tax cuts—has become a common practice of this government,” which they have been monitoring.

This is another trend of this government—shuffling the money around. I look forward to the new FAO’s analysis of where the funding is going. I was proud to be on the hiring committee. Jeffrey Novak is going to be the new FAO. He was the Acting FAO prior to that. I think that this government has given him a lot of material to work with as well—including the whole staff there at the FAO office.

We are down in justice, down in education, and then you have health care.

Madam Speaker, I just have to say: When I am reading these investigations—and thank goodness for the media, because they really are tracking the pattern of governance of this government, and I think that’s an important distinction to be made, because it’s not just about where this government is not investing or where they are investing; it’s about who gets control over that money.

Last year, as I mentioned, when the Minister of Health was not using her government-issued phone to talk to stakeholders, a major change was happening in Ontario. The government was creating another parallel system to alleviate the pressure on the public system, but they were very intentionally underfunding the public system, which is why we have had now over 5,672 hours of emergency closures in Ontario.

The damaging impact of Bill 124—I’m sure somebody somewhere is reviewing it and exploring it, but, boy, you absolutely were running health care workers right out of the province, and it’s going to take us years to rebuild. I will say this is one of the issues that keeps me up at night, because we have an aging demographic, so the health care needs of Ontarians are only growing, expanding and becoming—quite honestly, because of COVID and post-COVID impact—even more complex.

So when I read this morning that the Ford government is paying for-profit clinics more than hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries, this is what we always suspected was happening, but thankfully CBC filed another FOI—it’s the theme. We should just have an FOI banner outside of the Legislature: “If you want information, FOI it”. They’ve never made it public—the rates it pays private clinics to perform thousands of outpatient day surgeries each year. So this is why I posted it this morning. Ontario, quite honestly, cannot afford Doug Ford, because he is paying these surgeons in these private clinics exorbitant rates, which, again, is so insulting to the surgeons, doctors and nurses who are just down the way on University Avenue performing life-saving surgeries, who are answering the call.

Just before I forget to get this into the record, because I see that time has gone very quickly, the Ontario Medical Association—when they came here earlier in the fall, we had an amazing conversation with them, because they were proposing solutions. We even heard from a doctor last year in Windsor who proposed solutions. This is what’s happening to family doctors: They are spending 19.1 hours every week on paperwork. So they have proposed to the government—you have a doctor shortage; 2.1 million Ontarians don’t have a doctor. In two years, it’s going to be three million Ontarians with no family doctor. Unless you’re going to completely privatize the entire system, family doctors are the gateway to diagnostic tests and to really accessing acute care.

The Ontario Medical Association has said, “Having family doctors spend 19.1 hours a week doing paperwork is not a good use of our resources. If you funded a scribe, if you funded these family practices so that a nurse practitioner or a professional person who has medical knowledge could do the paperwork, at the end of the day you would have the equivalent of 2,000 more doctors available for patients.” That’s a good solution. Is that money here in the fall economic statement? No, it’s not.

This is another thing I don’t understand. Imagine having the privilege—and it is a privilege, I think, to be a minister of the crown. It’s a duty. It’s a responsibility. But if you have that power within the scope of practice, you should absolutely be using that power for good and making these decisions that actually make a difference.

This article very clearly outlines how much more these private clinics are costing. This money is absolutely coming at the expense of the Ontario Hospital Association, and this discrepancy, it goes on to say, “raises questions about the government’s imminent plans to expand the volume and scope of surgeries performed outside of hospitals, including the potentially lucrative field of hip and knee replacements.”

I just want to remind my colleagues on the other side of the House that when something goes wrong in these private clinics—you know where those patients end up? They end up in a publicly funded hospital. So, you’re throwing good money after bad. It is so short-sighted.

So the fall economic statement, for us—and none of these measures, for some reason, are contained within the technical bill which operationalizes the fall economic statement, including this new bank. I really feel somebody in cabinet should have said, “Let’s read the room here. We have a serious trust issue. Why are we creating a new fancy bauble of a bank when we should just do what we’re elected to do—invest in public services, support the people of this province and actually do our job.”

I want to thank the member for Waterloo for her thoughts on the government’s financial plan.

I’m looking at transit across this province, and what I’m seeing is upsetting. In the city where we’re from, we just heard that OC Transpo is cutting 74,000 service hours because of cuts from the province. We have a transit strike going into its fifth day in the city of Hamilton, and the city is telling this government there’s not enough funding coming from the province to pay those operators and mechanics. We have a transit strike potentially forthcoming in Peterborough on the 17th of this month.

I don’t see anything in the government’s fiscal plan to deal with the $500-million hole that we have in operating transit in this province, when we have jurisdictions like Brampton operating at 130% of its capacity.

Does the member from Waterloo believe this government has to get serious about funding transit so we can get people on the bus, on the train, on the streetcar, in the subway, and not throw our municipalities under the bus?

Affordability is the number one issue right now that we are all facing in Ontario. There’s no doubt about it. I think the one good thing that I did say earlier about the fall economic statement—perhaps it was last Thursday—was the removal of the HST for the purpose-built rentals.

That said, the government of the day understands that you’re not in the business of building affordable housing. The housing that is being built right now across this province is unaffordable housing. So we have proposed a program to build non-market housing. The government of the day must get back into the business of funding truly attainable and affordable—and I know you don’t want to do it, but there’s no way that the developers out there on the greenbelt are going to do it for you.

I’m going to move to questions. I recognize the member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound.

I thank the member for her remarks on the fall economic statement. It’s much appreciated.

The member was talking a lot about affordability throughout, and I just wanted to offer three points to have her and her party consider:

(1) We’re extending the removal of the gas tax to mid-June to keep the cost for Ontarians low. That’s an affordability measure.

(2) We’re removing the HST from rental construction projects, which will enhance the affordability of rental properties throughout Ontario.

(3) Overall program spending is $193 billion expected versus $173 billion, which is an increase of 11% over the year—well in excess of inflation.

Does that not cause the member to consider supporting this bill?

Thank you to the member opposite.

The current state of Ontario today: We have some great news, with a lot of newcomers coming to the province—500,000 people. The reason they’re coming to Ontario is the strong economic growth, the manufacturing sector that’s growing again.

The unfortunate news is affordability. The Bank of Canada has increased interest rates, which is making affordability very difficult for the people of Canada, particularly here in Ontario. Adding to that, of course, is the carbon tax, which the federal government put into place.

Part of this particular bill, the fall economic statement, is reducing the gas tax that people pay at the pumps until June 30, 2024.

Will you, as the official opposition, support reducing the gas tax to help the people of Ontario?

On the housing front, we’ve taken the initiative in this bill—along with the federal government, I might add, of a different political persuasion—to eliminate the GST and HST on purpose-built rental housing in order to stimulate more rental housing, which we need. Does the member opposite support this component of the fall economic statement?