SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
March 5, 2024 09:00AM

I agree with the member from Thornhill. This government is certainly digging. They’ve been digging a hole for a long time, and deeper and deeper it gets.

But I want to ask you about tolls. The government says we’re banning tolls. A big news release goes out all across Ontario with the news headlines saying, “We’re banning tolls.” But in actual fact, they’re part of a party that ensured there would be tolls on the 407 in perpetuity and that they would increase. But here’s the kicker: They’ve got a piece of highway from Brock, not quite going up to Peterborough on the 115, that they own, so they’re outlawing tolls except they’re not outlawed on the piece of road that they own. Can you explain that to me?

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Speaker, just a quick question: I heard in the last debate we were talking about tolls, and the government owns part of a road that they’re charging tolls on and they don’t want to take them off. Now they’re worried about breaking a contract? The government that has broken so many, so many contracts and gone in reverse so much on things like MZOs and the greenbelt and the “notwithstanding” clause and green energy—I don’t really understand, Speaker, why the government is concerned over breaking contracts.

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Earlier in debate, I was talking about this omnibus bull—uh, bill—and I wanted to mention that omnibus bills usually are heavier and thicker, and, well, you can’t actually grow things with this omnibus bull. But in it, what happens here is that the government is banning tolls but not banning tolls. They’re freezing licence fees, but they’re not returning money to people. They’re saying, “Trust me on the environment, because we have such a good record,” when you look at the greenbelt and the MZOs and all the favours for land speculators.

So, there’s this piece about referenda stuck in the bill. Again, that’s something else. It’s future, farther down the road, but it’s not putting any money in people’s pockets. What do you think of the referendum?

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