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.