My question is to the Premier.

Speaker, this side of the House has spent months trying to get to the bottom of just how widespread the alleged corruption which the RCMP is investigating goes. Public accounts revealed that the Premier’s former principal secretary, Amin Massoudi, after leaving the Premier’s office, was paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars to do the same job, only this time through his private company, Atlas. Yet this government has refused to answer questions on just exactly when that contract started.

My question is to the Premier. When did the contract with Atlas Strategic Advisors start with the Conservative caucus?

The Premier’s office told the Toronto Star that this government paid Mr. Massoudi’s firm at least $237,300 from about July 1, 2022, through to March 31 of this year.

Back to the Premier: Can he confirm that the contract with Atlas Strategic Advisors started in July 2022?

Did the Premier’s friend double-bill the taxpayers for speech-writing services because he was, indeed, a close friend of the Premier?

This question is also for the Premier.

While our public services, like health care and schools, are crumbling across this province and housing is getting more and more out of reach, somehow this government brags about spending more than ever.

To the Premier: People who are stuck in longer and longer waits in the emergency room or being treated in hospital hallways want to know, where is the money going?

Speaker, I’ll help the Premier. Do you know where the money is going? It’s going directly out of the public coffers and into their friends’ private pockets. That’s where it’s going.

This is a government that continues to spend more for less. New data shows that the private surgical clinics this government was so keen on expanding are charging OHIP 138% more for the same surgery. It’s also making wait times longer, all while public operating rooms sit with the lights off.

Back to the Premier: When will this government admit that their private, for-profit surgery scheme is increasing the cost to taxpayers and worsening wait times?

Public operating rooms sitting empty, emergency rooms closing, affordable housing wait-lists decades-long, more people with full-time jobs going to food banks than ever before—all while this government has been so preoccupied with their shady, backroom deals, spending more for less in health care, $650 million on a private luxury spa, hoarding billions in their rainy day fund; all while Ontarians are struggling.

Back to the Premier: Five years in, people are worse off now than before. The rainy day is here. When will this government finally invest to make life easier for Ontarians?

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier.

The crisis in our post-secondary system provides yet another example of a public service that is crumbling under this government’s erratic and irresponsible fiscal approach. Last week’s blue-ribbon panel found that Ontario’s funding for post-secondary education is just half that of the rest of Canada. Eight Ontario universities have run deficits for two years in a row.

Speaker, what is the Premier’s plan to address the fragile and financially unsustainable situation of Ontario’s colleges and universities?

Will the Premier commit today to ensuring that colleges and universities in Ontario will get the increased funding that they, and more importantly, students need to keep the sector afloat?

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier.

Last week, we learned the Conservative government is paying private, for-profit clinics two to four times more than they pay public hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries.

Also, the former Minister of Health is now lobbying for Clearpoint Health, the biggest chain of private surgical clinics in the country. This comes as a recent report noted that expanding private surgery will not reduce wait times; in fact, it will increase wait times for patients, while worsening our staffing crisis in the province of Ontario.

Why is the Premier choosing to put profits for private clinics before care for patients in the province of Ontario?

Back to the Premier: This isn’t the first time a Conservative government in Ontario privatized public care; the Mike Harris Conservatives did it with long-term care. They closed 26 hospitals and laid off 6,000 nurses.

Six thousand people died in long-term care during the pandemic—78% were in private, for-profit clinics. The military was called in for some of those homes. Some residents were dying of dehydration. The Premier then gifted those homes with legal protection so families couldn’t sue them for neglect, and he gave some homes multi-decades-long licence renewals. It’s absolutely shameful.

Why won’t the Premier acknowledge the mistakes of the previous Conservative government, repeal Bill 60, and invest in our publicly funded, publicly delivered, not-for-profit health care instead of the profits of private shareholders and CEOs?

This question is to the Premier.

Yesterday was the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. I was honoured to attend the Toronto ceremony led by Jessica Spieker, who joins us in the members’ gallery today, from Friends and Families for Safe Streets, who walked us through an Etobicoke neighbourhood, documenting hundreds of collisions that have caused serious injury or death to pedestrians and cyclists by reckless drivers. We can and we must act for change.

After question period, we can vote for Bill 40, the Moving Ontarians Safely Act. This legislation has been debated in this House for 10 years by different caucuses. It is not a partisan issue. Can the Premier confirm to the House today that the government will be supporting Bill 40 at second reading?

On a point of order, I would like to wish the 26th Premier of Ontario a very happy birthday.

Applause.