It’s a pleasure to get up and speak to the Get It Done bill, the predecessor to the “get it undone” bill, which will be the predecessor to the Get It Done bill and then to the next “get it undone” bill. So, backwards and forwards they go; backwards and forwards we go.

When I came in here this afternoon, it kind of felt like church. It was very quiet—almost holy. It felt like a place of sanctuary.

Let’s just start with road tolls. Newspaper headlines across the province: “Ontario Banning Road Tolls.” “They’re banning it.” “We’re doing it; we’re getting it done.” But the tolls are still the same on the 407, the piece we don’t own and the piece we do own. Is that right? Somebody can answer this when they get up in questions, but I don’t think you’re taking tolls off the provincial portion of the 407. And I think most Ontarians, when they looked at that, probably thought, “Oh, good.” But there will be a sad reality when they find out that they’re still paying tolls.

The members across the aisle like to bring up history all the time, like to throw stuff back in people’s faces. What your government did while saying you want to ban tolls is you forgot that your party ensured that road tolls will be on the 407 and continue to increase in perpetuity, forever. You sold it. You’ve got no control. As a matter of fact, you forgave a billion dollars. So I don’t think you’re for drivers.

You know, that billion dollars would have been really handy. It would have prevented a lot of Ontarians from having to decide, “Do I need my credit card, or do I need my health card? Which one?” I’m not holding up the cards. I’d love to be able to do that, but I know the Speaker would let me know that that wasn’t right. I want to be on my best behaviour this afternoon. Which one, folks? Which one?

Here’s a suggestion: I think a member across the aisle could say, “You know what? I’m going to make an amendment to this bill, and I’m going to take tolls off the provincial portion of the 407.” I challenge you to do that. That way, you would really be battling road tolls. I know you can’t do anything about the mess that Mike Harris left us with the 407. You’d all have to agree that that was a mess, selling it off. I’ll forgive you that—not that you’d forgive me anything that we didn’t do such a good job on—but you guys really messed up on that one.

Maybe when we get to committee, we can see an amendment on the bill that says, “You know what? We’re wiping out the tolls on the provincial portion of the 407, all the way from”—it’s about Whitby, right? Is it Whitby or Brock? Someone correct me. Somewhere in there, that portion—I don’t know how long it is. The tolls aren’t as much. It’d be nice if you did something about tolls right now that actually meant a plug nickel in somebody’s pocket. I’d be more enthusiastic about supporting this bill—if I could support this bill. I’m not saying whether I will or I won’t, because there are some thing in there, like referendums—they aren’t a bad thing.

I think we should have had a referendum on carving up the greenbelt. I think we should’ve talked about that. If you like referendums, maybe we should have had one for that. Do you think maybe we could have had a referendum for for-profit health care, letting private, for-profit clinics take services out of hospitals? Or, hey, maybe a referendum for whether we should actually put some measures of control on temporary staffing agencies in health care, something that the government said they’re going to do for two years. They’ve got time for a nice show, but they can’t actually guard the taxpayer dollar by putting some guardrails around temporary health care agencies. Why don’t we have a referendum on whether we should have that or not?

We could have tons of referendums. What the heck? Every big government decision that you make, put it to a referendum. I don’t see you doing that. I see you talking about it. It’s nice. It’s great talk. They’re great headlines, guys. They’re great headlines. But actually, government isn’t about creating headlines on a daily basis.

Interjection.

Interjection.

Honestly, guys, you want to change environmental protections. What you’re saying is, “Trust me. No, I really wasn’t carving up the greenbelt for my friends. I really wasn’t changing urban boundaries for some of my friends or signing MZOs for some of my friends—really. But trust me, I’ll protect the environment, because that’s what’s top of mind in our government.” That’s what you’re trying to say here.

It’s hard to trust you on this. It really is. I’d like to say I trust you—

Interjection: But you can’t.

My gosh. It says it’s an omnibus bill, but usually the omnibus bills I used to see were like this thick. This thing is probably about this thick. I don’t have it here with me right now. It’s only omnibus in the sense that it’s not doing lots of things; it’s doing a whole bunch of not really big things, but some things that will have real impact and some things that will have no impact at all—because they’re all about the news release; they’re all about the thing you want to say, like “We’re banning road tolls.” That announcement didn’t put one plug nickel, one penny, any money into people’s pockets, and it never will. As a matter of fact, to go back again, that 407—those tolls are going to increase in perpetuity, but you can prevent that, at least on the part that we own, so I challenge the government to put forward a clause and take it off. Because do you know what’s supposed to happen with a toll highway? A toll highway lasts for 30 or 40 years. You pay the highway—then you plan to take the tolls off, or you extend the highway or you improve it. But we don’t own it anymore. Somebody else owns it. I don’t think that’s good politics. But you’re banning road tolls.

Licence fees being frozen—yes, I think that’s a good thing. I can support that. But we have to make sure that we don’t nickel and dime ourselves so that we can’t invest in mental health as much as we want to, or primary care or cancer surgeries. It’s all about choices. So when I see something like that, I’m happy that people are getting some support. But if they’re making that choice—which one?—I’m not sure that makes any difference. It’s good that you’re not going to raise the fees, but you’re not putting any money in their pockets. It’s not happening. You’re just not taking any more. That’s a good thing.

The question is, are we actually putting money into the things that matter most to people?

I’ll go back to primary care. Almost two million Ontarians don’t have a family care practitioner. That’s serious. It messes up our whole health care system—