Good morning. What an honour it is to talk about the city of Toronto: the city that I call home, the city that my family calls home. It is a privilege to be here at second reading of the government’s proposed legislation the New Deal for Toronto Act, 2023. I first want to thank the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Infrastructure and the Premier for their work in delivering Bill 154, the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, and bringing about this new deal for Toronto.

Speaker, as a proud representative of Toronto I’d like to talk about the importance of the city of Toronto to Ontario’s economic prosperity. Our government knows what people across this province also know, that when Toronto succeeds, Ontario succeeds. Toronto is a vibrant economic and financial hub and driver of not just this province but also our whole country. People across the country would flock to Toronto to see the many amazing attractions it provides. As these visitors come to Toronto, they boost the economy and have fun while doing it. For example, my cousin, her husband and my cousin’s kids—one is my goddaughter—are here this weekend to see a play, and we’re going to have some brunch on Sunday and they’re going to do some Christmas shopping.

People come from everywhere just to come to Toronto to see the sites, maybe go see the Maple Leafs, the Marlies, maybe the Raptors, the Blue Jays, the Toronto Argonauts, the Rock or maybe even Toronto FC play. We have so much to offer.

When we talk about tourism, I also want to give a shout-out to an amazing organization in my riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore, and I hope that many of you have heard of it. It’s called Famous People Players. It’s run by a wonderful woman, Diane Dupuy, and her daughter. It’s a glow-in-the-dark dine-and-dream dinner theatre. It attracts people and their families from all around. I know as a small child, I remember watching a movie on TV with Liberace. It featured these puppets, and I could not believe that this little puppet theatre was actually located in my riding. So if you haven’t had the opportunity to visit Famous People Players in Etobicoke–Lakeshore, I highly recommend going, having an evening out and just enjoying the scenery and helping those who have different abilities who are learning how to cook, hang coats and how to serve. It’s just an amazing, awe-inspiring opportunity. I want to thank Diane for all her work over the years in making this truly a success in our province.

When people come to Toronto, they also visit the CN Tower. I know many of you here have visited the CN Tower and our major entertainment attractions. You may go to the theatre. You may try out our amazing restaurants and cafés—doesn’t matter your price point; you can get a high-end restaurant, a medium restaurant or you can just go and grab a hot dog on the street. Toronto has everything and something for everyone.

Do you know what? Whatever you desire is whatever you desire, and you never know who you’re going to see. I’ll tell you, you never know who you’re going to see on the street. Always, when I’m walking around, sometimes I’ll see someone and I’ll go, “I recognize that person.” It might have been somebody I grew up with back in Thunder Bay and they’re walking the streets shopping in our amazing city.

Having the opportunity and the privilege of serving in Toronto, I can confidently tell this House that Toronto is world-class in every way. But, you know, this also has some issues. They do need the support, and they do need a new deal for the province, because—let’s be honest—we can’t afford a property tax hike in our city.

For decades the city has serviced and facilitated vast networks of both domestic and international trade. The city boasts representation in every business sector. You name it; it’s here: financial services, tech, education, life sciences, digital media and gaming, fashion, design, food and beverage, the film and television industry—a lot of that actually takes place right in Etobicoke–Lakeshore. We are the home of major movie studios, which is an economic engine for the city of Toronto. I’m just a really big fan of the city.

Toronto is the financial capital of this country, a recognized financial hub in North America and top 10 among the global financial centres. It is an engine of economic growth. In fact, Toronto alone drives a significant portion of this country’s GDP growth, outpacing the national average. Unfortunately, we cannot let these facts mislead us. Not everything is perfect. Without our government’s support, that upward trajectory would be at risk.

Our government has the proven experience with righting the financial course of major jurisdictions. That’s why we ensured the work was undertaken by a new-deal working group to secure a historic deal between the province of Ontario and the city of Toronto, and out of this working group has become a deal that will help achieve long-term financial stability and sustainability for our city.

When Toronto came to our government asking for assistance and worried about the viability of their finances, not only did we listen, the government took action. It was clear that addressing the city’s deep financial troubles would require significant collaboration from all levels of government. The city’s deep financial challenges are no longer sustainable. The financial pressures are unique, decades in the making, and growing. Our government’s response was rapid and comprehensive. We worked with the city right away to create the new-deal working group.

I want to reinforce that federal assistance is essential for our city to achieve long-term financial stability. Along with our city, we continue to call on the federal government to step up as a full partner with funding in critical areas of need such as shelter support, funding in critical areas such as asylum claimants—you know, the weather is turning a little cooler these days, although today is actually quite a nice day, but we know it’s inevitable. Winter is going to be here.

We need more money for transit. We also need transit that is safe, dependable and reliable. I should note that the federal government eventually did come to the table—late and following our lead, but they came and offered their expertise, as well.

Our government is not a government to sit on our hands. We are a government that gets things done, and we will fix the problems.

The goals set out in the working group were ambitious. The working group was tasked with delivering recommendations before the end of November 2023. For the last two to three months, Ontario has been working closely and alongside the city of Toronto, through a new-deal working group, to find real solutions to help our city achieve long-term financial stability and sustainability.

The group focused on the government-shared goals, including supporting transit, infrastructure, shelters, housing, as well as getting Toronto’s finances back on a stable and sustainable path. As you have already heard, they put forward a set of concrete, actionable recommendations that would protect services, avoid new taxes—I’m going to repeat that, avoid new taxes—and put the city on a path forward for long-term financial stability and ensure it remains an economic engine for Canada—and once again, no new taxes.

But as a government, we know that funding alone cannot solve some of these structural problems. While the opposition may want us to spend recklessly with no concern for the future—and we know there are no taxes the Liberals don’t like—we want to ensure that Toronto remains an economic engine, and this must be met with a series of measures that, together, are a realistic, proportional and good response.

Speaker, there are those who might call me slightly biased as I believe that Toronto is unique among our nation’s cities. It sure is. And it’s uncapable in its long-standing and unparalleled contributions to Ontario’s shared success. It is, in many ways, unique in terms of the scope and scale of the challenges it faces. In addition to its fiscal obstacles, the city is facing a housing crisis—although you wouldn’t know that in Etobicoke because we are growing like crazy. We have cranes everywhere but, obviously, we are still in need of housing.

This is a challenge exasperated by the record numbers of new residents looking for affordable places to live. These new residents include record numbers of immigrants, refugees and asylum claimants, all drawn to the promise that Toronto offers. The nice thing about Toronto is that people come move here because it’s so culturally diverse. We have so many amazing communities, food, culture—it’s just all there right at your fingertips, so I understand why people want to move here to the city. I chose to move to the city from northern Ontario because it just had something different to offer.

Our city is also struggling with tremendous pressure on social supports that are being stretched to capacity. That’s why, with this new deal, we are providing new supports to improve transit across the city. This offer includes $300 million in one-time funding for subways and transit safety, recovery and sustainability. This includes commitments on the part of the city to establish a new transit rider safety commitment. This commitment must include increased police and/or safety officers present on and near transit vehicles and in station areas. It’s going to have continued expansion of cellular and data services for transit riders across the TTC network and enhanced emergency reporting options and response timelines for riders to signal incidents, threats or concerns to the attention of authorities.

You know, people need to feel safe on the TTC. I take the TTC. I take the GO train. Anytime I go to a concert or a soccer game or a football game or basketball game, I’ll hop on at the Mimico GO station and it takes me seven minutes to get downtown, and I just sit there and it’s at ease. But you have to feel safe. We do hear often from our constituents that maybe they haven’t been feeling safe lately so they haven’t been taking the TTC. They haven’t been jumping on the Bloor line or the Yonge line or whatever line they want to get on. We want to make sure that you do feel safe.

And we’ve been doing other things to make sure transit is actually easier to take, because if you want to take transit, please take transit because that takes one other car off the road, which helps with congestion. One thing I like is that one day I was taking transit—I think I was actually going to a volunteer event that Minister Ford’s office put on. I forgot my Presto card, but I was able to tap my Visa on the train and I was able to get on, and it was just seamless. We’ve done a lot of work to make sure that it’s easier to ride the TTC, so I just encourage people to go back on the TTC. It is a great way of getting downtown. You don’t have to park, you don’t have to drive and you can just sit back and relax. We’re going to make it safer for everybody.

This province and this government have always been guided by the goal of supporting Toronto on a path towards long-term financial stability and sustainability. The new-deal working group operated with a set of guiding principles. At the core of each is a deep love and pride for our great city. But while making this deal, we also laid out some serious and non-negotiable priorities. For Ontario to lend its support, the terms of the deal had to maintain investment and supports for critical services and programs that residents depend on. To put it plainly, there could be no deep cuts to front-line services or workers. And Speaker, did I mention that we would not entertain any new taxes on people or businesses in Toronto, who are already facing enough uncertainty?

Now, as our great Minister of Finance reported in the recent fall economic statement, we are a province that continues to face heightened economic and geopolitical uncertainties. Many times over the past year, he has said that Ontario is not immune to the risks of an economic slowdown, and that’s what he has highlighted in the 2023 fall economic statement. Our government has a prudent and responsible fiscal plan that shows we can deliver a path to balance as we also continue to deliver on priorities that the people and businesses of this province have come to expect and deserve.

I just want to highlight some of the items that the Minister of Finance mentioned in his fall economic statement. We have to look at affordability and what’s affordable in our communities, and one thing I would like to talk about—I actually had the privilege of attending this announcement with the Premier, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Transportation, and it was the cut to the gas tax. It’s the extension of that nine cents. Now, that makes a really big difference to families who have to drive.

I know that, if my councillor is listening, she likes the bike lanes on Bloor Street, but on Bloor Street is not the right place for bike lanes. There are other streets that you can put those bike lanes on, because not everyone can buy a barbecue and put it on the back of a bike. I’m sure our Speaker may have heard of that from some of her constituents, because it’s just maybe the wrong section of that. I am not against bike lanes, but just on that one section of our businesses, it’s really hurting. So, if Ms. Morley is listening, please, let’s look at those bike lanes on Bloor.

But when we talk about gas tax, people are driving their kids to hockey practice. It’s cold. It’s cold right now, so they’re driving their kids to hockey. They’re driving their kids to skating, once those skating rinks open. These are things you can’t usually take transit to; you have to usually drive, so that nine cents makes a difference.

Interestingly enough, my uncle Robert always likes to watch when I’m on TV. He lives in Thunder Bay, and he said, “Well, we didn’t get that discount of the nine cents,” and I said, “Yes, you did. You would be paying nine cents more.” So it is across the board. Everybody is getting that nine-cent reduction, but you have to think, if we didn’t cut it by the nine cents, you would be paying nine cents more. So, Uncle Robert, if you’re listening, you did get that cut.

Now, where was I? We were talking about gas tax. Oh, we were talking about the fall economic statement and some of the good things he said. Tomorrow, I’m actually touring two schools that are almost finished, so I thank the Minister of Education. We were able to get four new schools in the area of Etobicoke South, which is a growing community. Tomorrow, with our local trustee, Teresa Lubinski, I am going to be visiting St. Leo, which is in the middle of construction, and it’s great. It’s a growing school, a growing area, with lots of immigrants coming down there who are attending school there.

And we’re going to add some child care spaces, so that was an extra announcement. I want to thank the Minister of Education for adding that money, so we can have child care spaces right in the school, because it’s so important for parents to be able to have one stop: child care, and then school. It’s one drive versus hopping around and driving all around town, because we all know that it’s not the easiest to drive in Toronto.

The other school I’m visiting is Holy Angels, which is almost completed. I drive by it on my way to work. It looks fantastic. So, you know, we are building infrastructure, and it’s so exciting that we’re building more spaces for our students. We have two more schools on the books that have not put shovels in the ground yet, and that’s a high school, Bishop Allen, which is getting more spaces, and St. Elizabeth, which is not only getting a new school, they’re getting new child care spaces—once again, an important element to parents, families, people who want to make a one-stop drive and drop off your kids at child care and at school. It’s just convenience for parents, but we want to make sure that we get more women in the workforce, so they can have their child care at $10 a day, which is great—and again, to our Minister of Education, for the work he did to make sure that happened. We want to be there for our parents and our families.

What else are we doing? This is an important one, really near and dear to my heart: the breast screening for 40 years and older. I had a cousin; her name was Jan Lockwood. She passed away at 42 of breast cancer—42 years of age. I was a lot younger then, and at that point, I probably thought 42 years of age was old. Well, it certainly is not old. So I am really pleased to see this in our legislation and, to all those ladies out there: Please go and get your screening. Go get it done. It’s a little uncomfortable, but just do it. Book those appointments and make sure you get your screening done. I applaud the Minister of Health for making sure that our women can remain safe and healthy, because some things are curable, so let’s get that done and have a healthy population.

Now, back to the new deal for Toronto. I wanted to talk—I don’t have a lot of time, so I actually want to spend my last minutes talking about Ontario Place. On my way here, I actually drove down Lake Shore and took a look at Ontario Place. There are boards up, and the sun was shining and it shone on this derelict old amusement park area that’s falling down, that’s all full of vandalism. So I really applaud the Premier for his initiative and his sight to improve Ontario Place.

You know, I was here in the late 1970s. I grew up in northern Ontario and I used to come down here for allergy testing because I had allergies. I think I was allergic to absolutely everything. My dad took me down—I guess they probably felt bad that I was sick, so my dad took me to Ontario Place. It was the late 1970s. When we were there, we went in. I remember being really itchy because when you do allergy tests—well, that’s what it is: you find out what you’re allergic to. We went there and I remember there was this gigantic jungle gym and I just remember having fun. That stuff doesn’t exist there anymore.

It has such potential, and right now, I love going to the concerts there at night at the amphitheatre. It is one of my favourite venues for concerts. Any time in the summer, you see the parking lot jammed full of cars. You see the Ubers dropping off people. You see people on these little caravans making their way there. It is such a great venue, and I’m so looking forward to having a brand new Ontario Place for the future for children, adults and young adults.

You know, we have to always look forward. We’re here for this time but I believe long-term goals are really important. We have to look: What do people want to see in the future?

You’re going to come down and have an experience. You’re coming from other places. You might be coming from northern Ontario. You might be coming from western Ontario. You might be coming from eastern Ontario. Who knows where you’re coming from? You might not even be coming from Ontario. We want an Ontario Place for everybody and all through the season.

You might want to go to a water park. You might want to go to the beach. You might be a boater. You might have a friend who has a boat and you can raft up outside and swim onto the beach or go get a hamburger or a hot dog or a coffee. Right now you can’t do any of those things, so I am so excited about the future of Ontario Place.

And I love the idea that the science centre is going to be moved down there because it gives you something else to do. It gives an educational purpose for our kids. If it’s wintertime or if it’s raining—you’re not sitting on the beach—what are you going to do? This is your day outing. Well, you’ll go to the science centre and check out what it has to offer.

So I think this is a really important element. I just want to thank the minister, and I thank you for your time this morning.

Since I’m going to be spending a lot of time in Toronto in the next few years, one of my plans is to make a bucket list of all the things that I want to see and do while I have this opportunity.

So my question for the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore is, how do you think this new deal, this plan, will make Ontario Place sustainable? Because that’s one of the things on my list for sure, as well as the science centre.

Thank you for your presentation. The other day, the Premier said that this was a very one-sided deal but that he was willing to do it because he loves his city so much. I love my city. I think we all love the cities we’re from and that we represent. So I’m wondering, when is this government going to show some love to the city of Ottawa? Because it got no money to repair from the derecho. It got no money to support from the trucker convoy. There’s a bill before the House to upload Highway 174, which is similar to the Don Valley and the Gardiner in Toronto. So when is the government going to show Ottawa a little love?

It’s a pleasure to rise this morning and speak to this legislation before the House, the New Deal for Toronto Act.

I want to acknowledge some breakthroughs in this legislation, despite the fact that I have some lingering concerns. One of the breakthroughs, I think, about this legislation is beyond what’s actually in the bill. It’s a lesson for anybody that wants to get into politics. Let me explain what I mean by that, Speaker.

We began this morning with a prayer, with the directive, as we have often heard, to use power wisely and well, to create a society where freedom reigns and where justice rules. I love that prayer. It’s a terrific prayer. But often in the five years I’ve served in this building for the great people of Ottawa Centre, I’ve heard us collectively offer that prayer, and then the moment we tumble into debate, we start doing the opposite. We start saying and holding forth in a way that disrespects each other, that insults the integrity of this place and that puts Ontario on a bad footing, in my opinion.

I believe the Premier of this province did that when, on June 21, 2023, he called Mayor Olivia Chow an “unmitigated disaster.” Those were the words that tumbled out of the most powerful office-holder in this province. The Premier is entitled to his opinions. His speech, like all of our speech, is charter-protected. But I don’t think he set a very good example for people who are thinking about getting into politics in the way he characterized someone like Mayor Olivia Chow as, again, for the record, on June 21, 2023, an “unmitigated disaster.” The Premier was making the argument, I guess, that Mayor Chow—now Mayor Chow—would create too great a toll on the revenues of the city of Toronto and was too ambitious in her plans. Well, the people of Toronto thought differently. Thankfully for us, the Conservative-supported candidates in that mayoral race would appear to have been split at least three ways because they couldn’t get their act together.

So what Mayor Chow has done since then is not respond in kind with ritual denunciations to the Premier—that’s more his gambit. What she has done is take the higher road in speech after speech. Her choice was not to fire back at the Premier and call him a bunch of names. She certainly could have. Her choice was to say, “What do the people of Toronto deserve?” They deserve good transit. They deserve community safety. They deserve money for housing; money for community services; the after-school programs that so many children in this city rely upon; the city staff, who work hard every single day, whether it’s collecting the garbage or the recycling in this city or monitoring the safety of our streets, roads and enforcing the bylaws, or making sure the beautiful parks of this city are well-maintained. That was Mayor Olivia Chow’s priority—not responding in kind to ridiculous assertions from the Premier. There’s a lesson in here for how we do politics.

And do you know what also is informative for me, Speaker? What’s informative for me is: This week, as the Premier was promoting this particular bill in the House, I saw him describe Mayor Olivia Chow as the greatest NDP leader in history. Colleagues, did you see that too? So it’s an interesting leap of logic for a man to go from categorizing somebody as an unmitigated disaster to calling her the greatest NDP leader in history. What’s happened since? Well, I want to believe that what’s happened since is that one person showed humanity in politics and the other did not. One person showed how you lead in a moment, despite the arrows slung by your critics, and the other did not.

It reminds me, Speaker, of a quotation often used by the great Nelson Mandela, someone who had the pleasure to visit this particular building twice. I have a picture of one of those occasions proudly in my office. Mandela once said, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Who would know the lesson of that better than him? Someone imprisoned for 27 years by an apartheid regime that dehumanized him.

And I think about Mayor Olivia Chow and the roads she walked to the mayor’s office: losing a mayoralty race that many people predicted she was pledged to win, getting knocked down, dusting herself off and getting back up again to serve not yourself, but to serve the community that you live in.

I had great pleasure, Speaker, to knock on doors in the mayoral by-election. I came a day early one weekend. It’s always a negotiation, I’m sure, for all of us when we come to this city from out of the city a day early. I had to plead with my family: “Hey, let me go a day early to Toronto. I want to go knock on doors for Olivia in St. James Town, where she grew up.” And when I knocked on some of these apartment buildings, they are, in Ottawa-Centre terms, like twice or three times the size of apartment buildings back home—massive apartment buildings. But when I said the words “Olivia Chow,” faces brightened because those are the buildings Olivia grew up in. That was the community she proudly served as an immigrant kid coming to this country at the age of 14, with a family divided by violence and difficulty. She persevered to the office of school board trustee. She persevered to the office of city councillor. And now, St. James Town has a mayor—a mayor, in the seat of power, serving this great city. That’s not an unmitigated disaster, Speaker; it’s a Canadian success story. She withstood the arrows from this Premier. She clearly has turned him around.

And now, before the House, we have a piece of legislation that is proposing some significant investments that I want to talk about this morning. One of them is something that I have had occasion to talk about many times as the transit critic for this province: funding for operational transit. In this legislation is $300 million in a one-time transfer for subway and transit safety recovery and sustainable operations. Another is a $330-million investment over three years—that funding accumulates over three years—for operating support for new integrated provincial transit projects.

People have been rising in this House for years, encouraging this government, encouraging governments before it, to not come to the people of Ontario and say, “We have a wonderful transit plan. Billions of dollars of aspirational transit projects”—be it the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Finch West LRT, the Confederation LRT in my city. “Look at the wonderful products we have. Look at the consultants we’re hiring. Look at the beautiful ticker tape we’re going to cut at press announcements.”

This is what I call aspirational transit. That is what governments have been seized with in Ontario for years, but it hasn’t moved a single human being, and the only person who has been employed by aspirational transit are the consultants hired to come up with the dreams. Meanwhile, the women and men who woke up this morning early to move people around this great city have been struggling with a poorly funded transit system.

But again, what precedes this bill? What precedes this bill is a mayor of the city, Olivia Chow, who said on September 20 that as this government’s aspirational transit plans continue to fail, the Finch West LRT, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT—both over budget, both delayed, both being built by consultants who rake huge salaries from the taxpayers despite delivering nothing. Mayor Chow announced that she was going to reallocate, based on advice from staff, $10.3 million from these delayed aspirational transit projects to the TTC that actually exists. She said in that press conference that 160 more staff could be hired with that $10.3 million to make sure staff were visible on our trains, to make sure neighbours who are having mental health challenges, whatever they may be—feeling themselves unsafe, making other people feel unsafe—they would visibly be interacting with staff so transit could be safer.

While we’ve had a government for years that has gotten up in this building and talked about aspirational transit, here we had a mayor of this city who said, “Actually, I’m going to redirect money from your failing transit projects”—I’m adding the editorialism; Olivia is a bigger person than me—“I’m going to reallocate money to make sure that people are safe in our subways, because the aspirational transit systems of this government and governments before it are failing.” That’s leadership.

But what’s also leadership in this bill is the fact that we have finally convinced the Premier of this province to take an interest in operational transit. But as the member for Orléans just said, the transit needs in this province are much bigger than the city of Toronto. We need a new deal for transit all over this province. We need it for Sudbury; we need it for Niagara Falls; we need it for Windsor; we need it for Thunder Bay; and we absolutely need it for Ottawa, Speaker. I can tell you that. Because what we just learned at city council in Ottawa is that in 2024, we are going to have 74,000 fewer service hours in our public transit system—74,000.

I took the bus over the weekend, as I was finding my way around community events. I took the number 6 down Bank Street, headed back to home near where I live, near Billings Bridge—packed to the gills, barely a place to sit or stand. But do you know what was great, Speaker? You could always see, as I’ve seen on so many buses, so many subways, neighbours helping elderly folks, people with children finding safe places to sit.

But you ask yourself the question, “Why isn’t there another bus right behind this bus at peak hours? Why is there one staff member on this entire elongated bus sitting in the front, behind Plexiglas, and no other staff members that are available, dispersed across stops to help people figure their way on and off the bus who have mobility challenges?” Cutbacks, Speaker—cutbacks from this government.

What we know is, we’re $500 million short in operational funding for transit across the province of Ontario. We have been making the message very clear to this government that in their upcoming budget, they need to put that $500 million back into the system so the buses, the subways, the streetcars can run safely and run effectively to get people to work and get people back home, get people where they need to go. But that hasn’t happened.

So who has been the stopgap, as this government loves its aspirational transit but neglects its operational transit, loves its dreams but disrespects the people who deliver every single day? I’m going to tell you: It’s the riders who are organizing to get together to bring messages into this place and, close to my heart, it’s the workers who operate the public transit system.

I want to spend some time this morning talking about someone who has got a message for this House. His name is Cory MacLeod; he’s the president of ATU 1320, which is in the great city of Peterborough. In Peterborough, Cory MacLeod just presided over a terrific campaign that sadly had to lead to a strike, in which he told the city of Peterborough that 2%, which was the original wage offer being offered by the municipal authorities in Peterborough—2% is good for milk, but it’s not good for people fighting to make a living.

It was great to hear the presentation this morning from my colleague from Ottawa. I was, however, slightly confused during parts of the presentation, because on one hand, the member rails against one of the primary features of the deal between the Premier and the mayor of Toronto, which is the completion of the Ontario Place partnership and the building of a water park and what he describes as a luxury spa, and on the other hand, he tries to take credit for the NDP in negotiating such a great deal with the Premier of Ontario. That’s certainly the tack that the leader of Ontario’s New Democrats has taken the last number of days.

So I’m wondering, is he going to vote against the bill and support the leader of Ontario’s New Democrats, or is he going to vote for the bill and support the most powerful New Democrat in Ontario, the mayor of Toronto?

I find it really rich when someone from Ottawa Centre starts giving advice on transit. That’s special. Then the member from Ottawa Centre is trying to give the NDP credit for this deal. What Olivia Chow did is that she decided to sit down with the Premier, with mutual respect, and come up with this deal. It is so many good things for Toronto, but it’s also good things for Ontarians. The Premier is known for deals for the benefit of Ontarians. The Minister of Economic Development speaks about it almost every day.

My question to the member is, does the member not know or believe that deals require two people, two parties with a focus—and the focus is for the benefit of Ontario—and is he going to support this bill?

It’s a pleasure to rise and discuss this new deal for the city of Toronto. It’s great to see everyone this morning—a little bit warmer today than it has been in the last couple of days here in the Big Smoke, and maybe that’s because of this deal that the city has now entered into with the province and is trying to get through.

I think, if I was a resident of Toronto, which, of course, I’m not, or if I was a politician in Toronto, if I was a member of provincial Parliament from Toronto—especially one from maybe downtown Toronto—and I was a New Democrat and my New Democratic mayor had just negotiated this deal with the Premier of Ontario, I would with think that this is a really good deal, because it’s going to support investment in affordable housing. It’s going to support investing in transit. It’s going to upload highways off of the backs of property taxpayers in Toronto and free up even more cash for the mayor of Toronto to be able to do with as she and her council pleases.

Unlike other New Democratic leaders, the mayor of Toronto has demonstrated that she can bring disparate elements together into a common cause. There are Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats and probably others on Toronto city council that she’s been able to bring together. Obviously, she’s made a deal with a Conservative Premier in Ontario. I think that’s an example for other New Democratic leaders in the province who are currently having a little bit of difficulty bringing people together, who are having a little bit of difficulty keeping the team rowing in the same direction. I think there are some lessons that could be learned there.

It’s a very good sign, this legislation, that the Premier and his government are open to investing more in municipalities. We’ve seen over the last five years—and certainly since the pandemic began and is now behind us, we hope—that cities are struggling. They’re struggling with declining public transit ridership because of the nature of people’s workplace. There aren’t as many people travelling into downtowns of our cities and, therefore, there’s an enormous reduction in the number of people using public transit.

We’re dealing with an affordability crisis where the price of groceries is up, the price of provincially regulated hydroelectricity is up, the price of provincially regulated natural gas is up. The price of most of the things in our lives is up, and so the ability to provide some financial relief to Toronto taxpayers, whether that is through some kind of property tax action or investing in social services that will help people, is obviously very good for the city of Toronto.

But my question, as someone who lives in the city of Ottawa, is, does the government understand that there are more cities in the province than just Toronto? The Premier was very clear that he made a one-sided deal. He made a great deal for the city of Toronto, which he admitted was one-sided, because he loves his city. And I don’t blame him for loving his city. He grew up here. He represents a part of Toronto. I think we would all be silly to not say that we love our cities. Of course we love the communities that we all represent and the communities that many of us were born in.

The real question is, though, are other cities going to see some love? The city of Ottawa is the second-largest city in the province. There are a million people in Ottawa. If you include the metro region and if you include Glengarry, Prescott and Russell and going to Kemptville, and heading out into the Ottawa Valley into Renfrew, Nipissing, and Pembroke, you’re getting into 1.2, 1.3 million people. So, there are a lot of people in eastern Ontario as well that would like to see some love from the Premier, and I think part of our ongoing frustration is that over the last number of years, it doesn’t seem like that love has been there. There was an absence of love.

There was an absence of presence during the convoy protests. The government really didn’t take notice of what was happening in Ottawa and didn’t really say anything about the protests overall until the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was being blockaded. That’s when the government decided to talk about the convoy situation.

When the derecho windstorm ripped through eastern Ontario in the spring of 2022, there was an absence of love from the Premier then. He came to Orléans. He came to the fire station on the Charlemagne Boulevard. It’s a fire station I know very, very well. He thanked those firefighters for their efforts in the recovery and he said that he would be there for the city of Ottawa. He said to the mayor that he would be there for the city of Ottawa. And as of the city’s budget process, which is ongoing right now, we’ve heard from the president and the chair of Hydro Ottawa that they’ve received no funding from the province to cover the—I think it’s $30 million or $40 million in costs they had to clean up from the derecho. The city of Ottawa itself has received no funding to help with its cleanup costs for the derecho. So again the question is, where is the love? Where is the love for Ottawa?

And it has continued since then. We know that Ottawa, as the second-largest city in the province, isn’t represented in the Premier’s cabinet. There are many—well, maybe not many, but there are certainly a few government members from Ottawa and the Ottawa region, and yet we don’t have a cabinet minister in the cabinet. We don’t have someone who can be that cabinet champion for investment in the National Capital Region, who can be on the phone with the mayor every week or occasionally to talk about the issues that are important to the city that relate to the provincial government and how they might move forward on them. We don’t have that representative who can be in contact with the federal minister for the National Capital Region to work on those issues collaboratively. So again, residents in Ottawa are wondering, where’s the love for Ottawa there?

An important part of this deal that the Premier has made with the mayor of Toronto is, of course, the uploading of the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway. I think that’s a very good deal for the property tax payers in Toronto. Property taxes aren’t really designed to pay for urban expressways like the DVP and the Gardiner, and that money that’s used on policing those highways, that’s used on repairing those highways, that’s used on snow-clearing for those highways, that’s used for lighting those highways—all of that money could be better spent on local roads, on side streets and collectors and main arteries that perhaps don’t get the care and attention that they need. Those policing resources can be better spent in the community to deal with the increase in violence that we’ve seen around the TTC and other areas of downtown Toronto. So there’s a great benefit to the city of Toronto and to taxpayers in Toronto for that upload.

Again, though, I ask, where’s the love? Because in Ottawa and in eastern Ontario, we have a very similar situation. We have an urban expressway, Highway 174/17, that travels from the centre of the city of Ottawa all the way out to basically the border of Quebec, through Orléans and through the riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell that is the responsibility of property tax payers of Ottawa and Glengarry–Prescott–Russell. That’s a highway that takes millions and millions and millions of property tax dollars each and every year to maintain. It requires additional policing. It requires an additional snow-clearing operation. When there are major events like the flooding we experienced in Ottawa or the sinkhole that we experienced on Highway 174, we’re talking about tens and tens of millions of dollars in both unforeseen but enormous costs to maintain that urban expressway, which is really a regional highway. The 174/17 in fact used to be part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, which I think should just in and of itself tell everyone that that’s not the kind of road that property tax payers should be paying for with property taxes. Property taxes should be used to pay for your local infrastructure: for the street that you live on, for the streets that your bus drives on, for the parks around the corner and for the rec centre your kids learn to swim at. It should not be paying for urban expressways.

So the upload of the Gardiner and the DVP in Toronto, I think, is a very good step. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s obviously a very good deal for the residents of the city of Toronto. But for the residents in Ottawa and the residents of other cities across the province who have similar situations, I think they are and will continue to ask, “Where is the love for our communities?” Because we have these same financial pressures.

I want to continue to talk about the city of Ottawa a little bit more because the government doesn’t have that member in cabinet to maybe share with their caucus the challenges that Ottawa is facing. I want to spend the next three or four minutes sharing some of those.

OC Transpo, which is the second-largest transit agency in the province, is running a $40-million deficit this year. They are cutting back bus routes—and I’m not talking about a bus route at 11:30 at night that’s got one person riding it; I’m talking about suburban connection routes that feed into the hub-and-spoke system of OC Transpo, two in particular in Orléans that travel past a community rec centre. It travels past a library, and it travels past a high school. These are the kinds of bus routes that are now being cut in the city of Ottawa because of the financial challenges that the city is facing.

The city is also facing challenges when it comes to affordable housing. In fact, right now, as the city is going through its budget process for the next fiscal year, it is contemplating and debating the purchase of those white military refugee-style tents. Imagine that—

Mr. Speaker, to the carbon tax king who wants to increase taxes on absolutely everyone, I’ll follow up what the minister has just said. We’re building the largest transit expansion in North America. We’re doubling the size of the Toronto transit system. As he was mentioning, for years and years—decades—under the Liberals, they forgot about the people of Scarborough. They forgot about the people of Etobicoke going west, which is, by the way, six weeks ahead of schedule and on time. And we’re doing the Yonge extension as well. He mentioned all the LTRs going in, the great Hazel McCallion Line out in Mississauga and the line going along Finch.

We’re making a difference here for the people in Toronto and the GTA and right across this province. We’re going to continue building transit. As you vote no against every single transit project, we’re going to keep moving forward. Thank you for the question.