I’d like to welcome Madeline Lovell from my riding of Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry for the Model Parliament.

I would like to welcome constituents here for Model Parliament: Brodie Johnston, who may be replacing me here, but not too soon, who is here with his mom, Lisa. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to welcome Adrian Au and FeiXue YangYe, participating in the Model Parliament, from Markham–Unionville.

I want to welcome Mahreen Siddiqui, who is here from Brampton Centre for the Model Parliament. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome a constituent of Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill who is also a board member of My Women’s Place Shelter, and all the non-profit organizations that are here today.

I look forward to seeing all of you at tonight’s reception.

I would like to welcome Celia Ciufo and Tristan Kim. They were chosen to represent Huron–Bruce.

Have a great day. We’ll see you on the stairs afterwards.

I would like to welcome Model Parliament participants from Eglinton–Lawrence: Leora Kasneci, Victoria Greenwood and Kevin Guo.

I’d like to introduce four model parliamentarians from Oxford: Angella Ortiz, Savrup Saran, Xin-En Tan, and Nathan Bean. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

This question is for the Premier.

Yesterday, the Premier tripled down, I guess, on his decision to interfere in our judicial appointments process. He described an epidemic of crime happening on his government’s watch. His solution: appointing Conservative insiders to the committee that appoints judges.

Ontarians don’t want an American-style partisan judiciary. They do not want judges picked because they are “like-minded” with a government that is under criminal investigation by the RCMP. They just want a system that works.

Will the Premier rescind these appointments and start reversing the damage that his neglect has had on access to justice in this province?

The newly appointed chair of the judicial appointments committee is a registered lobbyist who lobbied the government as recently as last week—among their clients, American gun manufacturers. Yesterday, the Attorney General seemed to say this was all business as usual, and I have to say, unfortunately, I don’t disagree, because under this government, business as usual means that insiders, donors, people with access come first every single time.

Back to the Premier: Will he rescind these appointments now or do we have to wait another month for him to backpedal on this latest scandal?

I would like to welcome to Parliament Feiyang Luo from Kitchener South–Hespeler as part of the Model Parliament.

I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to think about it.

I’m not going to double down, I’m not going to triple down; I’m going to quadruple down to make sure that we keep these violent criminals—that they go to jail.

We have the greatest police officers anywhere in the world right here in the province. They arrest criminals for doing heinous crimes, and guess what happens? The judges let them out on bail to do more heinous crimes the next day. They’re kicking in doors in the middle of the night, putting guns to people’s heads, scaring their children, scaring the families, scaring neighbourhoods. Where are the rights of the people of this province?

Why are you always supporting the criminals?

We know the Liberals and NDP aren’t tough on crime. They want these criminals out.

Let me give you headlines:

—"Court Grants Bail to Alleged Gunman of Five Victims”;

—“Teacher Charged with Sex Offences Released on Bail After Weekend in Jail”;

—“Woman Charged with Manslaughter Released on Bail”;

—“Southern Ontario Man Charged with Forcible Confinement, Drug Trafficking Granted Bail.”

People breaking into homes—

Interjections.

The Premier will take his seat.

Stop the clock.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

Supplementary.

I hear the public sometimes say politicians are all the same. But here’s a stark contrast. If the Leader of the Opposition had clue one how the system worked, then she would understand that we don’t cherry-pick judges. There’s a committee that makes recommendations. There are judges who sit on the committee.

Never mind all that. They want to defund the police. They want to tie the hands of the judges with all sort of crazy notions that their federal cousins are [inaudible] Justin Trudeau, do what he’s doing. They run the Criminal Code. You want to talk about tough on crime? Their federal cousins could be helping us, but they won’t. They’re moving in the other direction.

We’re going to stand up for the average citizen.

I hope she asks me another question.

Back in April 2020—actually, before that—I sat down with the NDP government in British Columbia because their court digital system is renowned. I sat down with Minister Eby at the time—he’s now Premier Eby—and said, “I hear about this fantastic system,” and he said, “We would love to share it, and we will give it to you for nothing, as long as you adapt it to your market and then share the enhancements.” I’ve talked about this in speeches. I’ve talked about this in the House. But just like I said before, until somebody wrote about it in the paper—they’re not paying attention. It’s in the estimates. It is in Hansard half a dozen times.

I’m happy to explain more, but I’m glad they are now joining the discussion.

What is true and what tribunals is saying is that we had a crisis because the Liberals left us a system that was failing. When we came in, we had this failing system. That is why we looked around the country. We went to BC and had a conversation so that we can have something that works for the people of Ontario.

I’m happy to send over a letter—this is not a prop; I will send it to the Leader of the Opposition—wherein Minister Eby says exactly what I was saying, that they would share it for free. Minister Eby says, “You have to pass—you can go with PwC, which we recommend; it will be faster, or you can go the longer way around”—

I’m not going to take business lessons—

We have a duty to protect the people. We have a duty to protect the students here, there, the people right in this Legislature. You ask them: Do they approve of letting these criminals out, after committing heinous crimes, terrorizing neighbourhoods, running around with guns like it’s the Wild West? No, they don’t support it. I’ll guarantee you they don’t support it. The students are so terrified they don’t even want to stay at home without their parents because they’re worried about these gun people coming in, shooting up the streets, kicking their doors in, putting guns to a woman’s head, saying, “I’m going to blow your brains out if you don’t give me the keys to your car.” How do you think that feels? Or the child who was so scared they ran outside and jumped in the car when the criminals were taking it.

But guess what? The Liberals and the NDP are okay with these criminals—"Let them out. Let them keep committing crimes. Let them keep going.”

You guys are so weak it makes me sick.

Interjections.

The Premier will take his seat.

Final supplementary.

I had to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition; I apologize.

Start the clock.

The Leader of the Opposition has the floor.

Hon. Doug Downey —because they have success in BC.

So what is the choice? Let the system fail? Let Ontarians fail, or go with the proven track record?

Interjections.

It’s the Speaker who decides what is a prop and what isn’t, and you used that as a prop. Please don’t do so again.

I would remind members to make their comments through the Chair.

Start the clock.

The final supplementary.

This Premier refuses, again, to take accountability and responsibility for anything. Our court system is collapsing, and he is blaming the judges?

The government spent a billion dollars on a new Toronto courthouse—

Interjections.

Our court system is collapsing, and he is blaming judges?

The government spent a billion dollars on a new Toronto courthouse only to have it dubbed “a monument to failure.” Courtrooms are forced to close every single day in this province because of understaffing. Their chronic underfunding means that people never get their day in court, and it means that victims will continue to be forced to watch their assailants walk free under this government.

Will the Premier finally take responsibility or will he continue to look for scapegoats for his own failures?

To the Premier: Why was a multinational accounting firm with little to no experience with software development handed this contract without having to compete?

Despite what the government members say, ministry and tribunal staff say timelines and milestones are repeatedly delayed, and the costs just keep growing.

To the Premier: Can you explain why you’ve let the costs balloon to over $26 million when they cannot seem to get the job done?

People are not getting justice at the Landlord and Tenant Board. They have been plagued with delays since this government came into office six long years ago. There are now more than 38,000 people waiting for their cases to be heard. People are waiting months and sometimes years for their hearing to be even scheduled.

And while Ontarians are stuck in this chaos, this government’s solution is to hand out more multi-million dollar contracts to their insider friends and giant corporations.

So one more time to the Premier—and I’m going to make it simple: Why was only one company considered for this contract, and why is it 26 times more expensive today than it was when it was signed?

I will not take any lessons from the NDP in terms of how business is run.

This is not a company with two men in the basement of a cottage. This is a company that has been in Canada over 100 years. They have an entire justice division within the company, and they have a track record by building the BC product.

So this disingenuous, if I could use that word—

Thank you to the great member for Richmond Hill for the question and for her great advocacy for the businesses in her riding.

Since day one, this Premier and our government have fought back against the carbon tax. It’s because we know that for so many households, more tax means less money to spend at their local small businesses. And for so many entrepreneurs, more tax means less money to invest in their businesses or to hire staff.

Speaker, while the Ontario Liberals and NDP have stayed silent as their friends in Ottawa plan to increase the carbon tax by over 37 cents per litre, our government is working to guarantee that no provincial government can force a costly carbon tax on the people of Ontario without ensuring their voices are heard loud and clear.

Speaker, let me tell you what I’m hearing from businesses around the province—and this is a quote from a small manufacturer: “The carbon tax increasing each year is crippling our ability to do business outside of our local area. We used to have a large province-wide presence with some of our product in a major retailer and online delivery but now shopping costs are too high to make a profit doing that.”

I’ve stood in this House and raised the fact that the federal government still hasn’t returned the millions of dollars owed to small businesses in rebates. So, once again, we’re calling on the opposition NDP and Liberals to pick up the phone, call their federal counterparts and start supporting and advocating for their businesses and job creators in their ridings.

We do take very seriously the work that we are doing with First Nations throughout the province of Ontario, especially in the north and in the rural communities.

In fact, I was present for the announcement in Thunder Bay just two weeks ago, and it wasn’t the end of the work we’re doing; it’s the beginning and a continuation of the collaboration that we’ve had for a long time.

In fact, under the leadership of Premier Ford, this government and the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, we’re working collaboratively with all First Nations across the province of Ontario. We’re making investments in all the communities as well as utilizing the Addictions Recovery Fund to put 56% of all the beds we’ve opened in the province in northern Ontario.

Specific investments: $7 million to support land-and-water-based healing—Batchewana First Nation, Mushkegowuk, Kashechewan, Kettle and Stony Point—

Mr. Speaker, we’re also working to provide supports to the youth, with—