I just want to, before I begin, acknowledge that February 28 is Pink Shirt Day, and you will notice my colleagues and members of the House are all wearing pink today. This is an important day to raise awareness for bullying with our kids and our children. At a time when one in five kids is affected by bullying and struggling with mental health, raising awareness by wearing pink shirts on one day will help all of us work to create safe environments, to create kind and inclusive environments for our kids and our youth in Ontario and across the world. They deserve that, absolutely, so thank you.

I also would like to acknowledge, as have other members in my caucus—the member from Oshawa and the member from Ottawa Centre, particularly, who spoke so eloquently in describing and acknowledging the passing of Ed Broadbent. He meant so much to us in this NDP family. He represented a lifelong commitment to social justice, to inclusion and just human decency, something we need more of.

I also wanted to talk about the fifth anniversary of the passing of another exemplary legislator, Dr. Richard Allen. Dr. Allen was elected as the NDP MPP for Hamilton West in 1982. He went on to serve in the 32nd, the 33rd, the 34th and the 35th Parliaments, and under Bob Rae, he served as a cabinet minister. I had the privilege of being the next NDP in the same riding, following along Dr. Richard Allen.

He was a remarkable historian; he was a fearless politician and universally described as a wise, caring, compassionate person. Richard was the son of a United Church minister, and this influenced his life’s work, which was dedicated to social justice. His first book was The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada. Richard described his belief that there is an essential connection between our faith and social action, and this was at the heart—the guiding principle in his political career. That is a tradition that goes back through the NDP to important CCF figures like J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas.

Richard was always a really busy guy, and he published his last book in his 90th year, just before his death. That book was entitled Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies: The Protestant Ethic and the Quest for Social Justice in Canada.

I was lucky to have had Dr. Allen as a mentor. When I was first elected, it was a difficult time, and I confided in Richard that I was feeling a little despondent in the changes that this government was making and my ability to help the people in my riding. So he sent me a note, and I think this is inspirational advice that we could all use. It comes from a script from John Wesley. I’ll just read it here: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” I want to thank you, Richard, for that piece of inspiration.

Now turning to the bill, Speaker, I just want to set the tone or the theme, if you will, the motif for my debate today on this bill, and I want to set it in the light of the Premier’s recent remarkable comments in this Legislature. They weren’t the comments about his political interference in the judicial system; those were remarkable enough. But these were the comments that he made in response to a question from our finance critic, the excellent MPP for Waterloo.

Interjection: All-star.

Did the Premier address any of MPP Fife’s concerns for the struggles of Ontarians? No, he did not. Instead, he told the Legislature that we need a lesson in marketing and sales. Imagine. And that’s when I really understood—that’s when the penny really dropped, Speaker—that this isn’t a Premier that wants to govern in the best interest of the people. He’s not governing; he’s selling.

I don’t know if anybody has seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. Has anyone seen that excellent movie? The line in that is, “Always be closing. A, B, C.” And I would say that is very telling of the pattern of this Premier.

This bill, the Get It Done Act, Bill 162, really is the Premier’s lesson to us in marketing and sales. It just exposes his modus operandi when it comes to addressing the people of the province of Ontario.

So is this a bill? It’s really, actually, a bill of goods. I mean, if I could rephrase it: The Premier is marketing, I would say, an empty promise and he hopes that the buyers of this empty promise will be all of us, the people of Ontario. But after what we’ve been through with this Premier—the greenbelt scandal, the land grab, the RCMP investigation—people don’t have faith in this government, so I’m pretty sure nobody is buying what he is selling with this bill.

Now I will admit—I don’t know; maybe I need a lesson in sales and marketing. I’m not quite that slick. But I don’t know, colleagues, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s a fantastic strategy to give bills titles that just beg to be mocked. I mean, you can’t help it. Let’s do it together: “Get ’er done.” We tried—

Interjections.

Let’s be clear that people see through this. They’re tired of the theatre. They’re tired of hearing sales pitches in the Legislature. They’re tired of the Premier actually just paraphrasing the ads that go on ad nauseam on our TV.

The media, they got into the fun. The Star said, “It’s not unreasonable to say that Ontarians might have gleaned a better understanding of the contents of this unholy mishmash had the province named it the crazy clown car act, or the empty political gestures act, or, as a political historian once joked, the poke the opposition in the eye act.

“In the era of constant campaigning, it appears governments now see even the simple act of titling bills as just another opportunity for partisan messaging.

“But there’s more to the matter than mere mischievous wordplay. At core in this bill, the Ford government is again flaunting its ... disregard for transparency and accountability.”

I can’t help but quote the TVO article that says, about this bill, “In the meantime, we’re left with the irksome elements of the so-called Get It Done Act. We could call it a stunt, but stunts are usually captivating or entertaining. This bill is a dull retread of an idea that was bad the first time. And if it does anything at all, it will be to make the electorate even more ill-informed about governance than it already is. In a better world, the government would never have introduced it. In the world we actually have, we can perhaps just pass it speedily and never speak of it again.”

So while this is kind of funny, I have to actually say that none of this is actually funny at all. It’s not funny. It’s deadly serious because people in the province of Ontario, as you all know, are struggling. We know. It seems to be that there’s a cone of silence on the other side. They don’t seem to understand that people can’t pay their bills, that people don’t have access to primary health care. People don’t have adequate housing. People are going to food banks to feed their children in this province. That’s what’s deadly serious in this province.

But what we see again and again is a PC government that only gets it done for their friends and their donors and their insiders. This continues to be an insiders-first agenda that we have seen from day one from this government. So, let’s just say, what can they get done? Well, they can get it done by overriding democracy, by stacking the courts with their like-minded politically appointed judges, but apparently they can’t fix the system that they’ve broken so that that it works for people seeking justice. They can get it done for a for-profit corporation, giving them a 99-year lease on Ontario Place public lands, destroying parkland, thousands of trees and natural habitat, and they can pony up millions of tax dollars for Therme’s luxury spa, but they can’t provide the taxpayers of the province of Ontario with the details of this sketchy deal.

They can get it done, as we are seeing over and over again, for private, for-profit health care operators by destroying our public health system in order to privatize it, but they can’t get it done for the 300,000 people who are currently waiting for a mammogram in Ontario that will give them the life-saving care that they need.

Who can this government get it done for? They can get it done for Enbridge. They can get it done for Staples. They can get it done for Walmart. They can get it done for Loblaws. Who have I missed, folks? They can get it done for Metrolinx.

Can they get it done for the people of Ontario? I would say, and this bill is proof positive, no, they can’t.

Yes. I’m not going to sing today.

The Minister of the Environment went on to say, “Such projects as highways, railways and transmission lines ... are going to be subject to streamlined assessments. These will allow us to focus our resources on projects that have a greater potential for environmental impact.”

Honestly, when I hear this, I think, “What could have greater environmental impact than a highway through the greenbelt?” But apparently, according to this government, this is a low-risk project. We can streamline. We can water down the environmental protections to make this happen. Again, I would remind you that this government keeps talking about spending $98 billion on highways and infrastructure. At the same time, they are dismantling any protections for the environment. So I don’t take anything that this Minister of the Environment says at face value, and I don’t think the people of the province of Ontario do anymore at all.

As I said, not only does this schedule continue its assault on environmental protections in the province; it makes it easier, it’s designed to prevent landowners who aren’t in on the Highway 413 scheme—you know, those people, private landowners that aren’t developers and connected donors of the Premier. It’s designed to prevent them from legally challenging the seizure of this land. We know the government is moving quickly to destroy habitats, waterways, I guess Indigenous sites also, but this bill very specifically targets individual landowners along that route. So, what I want to focus on is who would be some of those landowners connected to the loss of farmland in this province?

The people that are most upset and concerned about this schedule are farmers—farmers that farm on the greenbelt, that are along the proposed route of the 413. They know what’s up. They can see the writing on the wall. This government is getting ready to seize their farms, to pave, to build a highway, to perhaps have an ONroute, to put a Walmart or a Staples on land that used to grow vegetables in the province of Ontario. Farmers know what the score is.

There was an Ontario farmer that says “he fears he could lose his family farm if the Doug Ford government goes forward with the proposal to build Highway 413, which would cut through ... a quarter of his land.”

He’s saying that it doesn’t “sound like a huge amount to a lot of people. It’s only 25%, but a lot of the margins for grain growing are really slim.” The 25% he’s prepared to lose will make it impossible for him to grow because it will bisect his property.

Farmers are now fighting back. They have an ad campaign that says, “Farmers against the 413.”

They advocate that “the money earmarked for the highway”—this billions of dollars—“could instead be used to preserve farmland, adopt climate change strategies, and improve rail and public transportation.”

Well, there’s an idea. Rather than pave over our food source, rather than ruin our environment and spend billions to do it, why wouldn’t you use that money to come up with climate change strategy or improve public transportation? There’s an idea.

The David Suzuki Foundation’s Gideon Forman said, “The research we’ve looked at suggests that thousands of acres of prime ... farmland will be paved by this highway.” That estimate is growing.

I think that it’s really important to know that, given the information and the research that’s coming out, these farmers believe that there’s absolutely no good reason for Highway 413 to go forward. It’s a bankrupt notion. It continues to be debunked. It doesn’t save the time in travel that they purport. They talk about a single mom who can get home faster to their family, but I put it to you that that single mom is going to have to be working longer hours to pay her taxes that are going to be the financial impact of this boondoggle that this government is putting forward. So don’t pretend to me that you’re on the side of a single mom trying to get home to her family when none of your policies have shown that that’s anything that’s in your plans or that is in your realm of concern.

I also want to say that I had the pleasure of meeting with farmers in my riding, the Loewith family. They have a farm called the Summit Station Dairy farm. They really spent time with me to explain how important it is not only to protect farmland but to understand that if you bisect farm land, if you make it impossible for large farm equipment to move around, you really are reducing their ability to have productive land.

If you’re ever in the neighbourhood, I highly suggest you visit Summit Station Dairy. They’ve been in business for 75 years. In 1947, Joe Loewith purchased 100 acres, and it was known as “Summit” because it was the highest point along the railway line between the cities of Brantford and Hamilton. They started with 15 cows, and now they have a fully fledged operation, and they, since then, have spent much money in a streamlined and modernized operation.

They also have a really, really lovely storefront where you can buy milk right off the farm. They have strawberry milk, chocolate milk. They’re working on a coffee-flavoured milk. This is the kind of product and this is the kind of thing that we should be proud of, this kind of homegrown, generational family farm that this government is putting at significant risk to build a highway that benefits simply their friends.

While we’ll talk more about highways when we get to the notion of taking tolls or taking phantom tolls off phantom highways, I think we just need to understand that this government will move heaven and earth to get things out of the way. We hear the Minister of Housing say, “We’re going to get all the obstacles out of the way to build housing. Nothing’s going to stop us.” And this bill, this actual schedule in this bill, says yes, nothing’s going to stop them: not farmers who want to preserve their land, not expropriations of land when people don’t want to sell it, not loss of farmland. And I’m here to say what’s also not going to stop them is, again, the environment.

I just want to talk a little bit about a fish, a minnow, because it’s sort of—

Interjection.

This fish, even though it’s little, plays a significant role in the ecosystem. They are very sensitive to changes in environment like those wrought by the climate crisis or urban development. For that reason, they’re seen as indicators of larger problems in a watershed. If they start dying, it’s a sign that other species might soon be in trouble, too.

The Ontario government’s last assessment of the species in 2020 concluded it was at imminent risk of being wiped out in the province. That wasn’t good enough. The government now has taken the time to remove this little fish from the Species at Risk Act because, again, they do not want anything to get in their way of building this Highway 413. In fact, I would say that if they could actually expropriate this little fish’s waterways, they would do that. But instead, what they’re going to do is make sure that it is not protected so that they do not have to take that into consideration when they bulldoze, pave and otherwise destroy the habitat of this little fish. And that’s just one little fish. There are so many species at risk along that route.

It’s shameful to preside in a Legislature where the government will allow our species at risk to die off; that, by their actions, we will see more of the things that we cherish when it comes to our biodiversity and natural spaces—the government doesn’t care. They truly don’t care.