I want to thank the member for her great speech.

I have a question, and I think I know the answer to it—at least the first part: Does the member believe that finance, the ability to pay, should be a barrier to justice in Ontario? And if she doesn’t believe that, which I’m sure she doesn’t believe, why won’t her government properly fund and increase legal aid so that everyone has access to the justice they deserve?

I thought it was ironic that the government question that just came before talked about passion with regard to crime. Ironically, it seems that the government does have passion when it comes to crime, but when it comes to helping victims, all the passion goes out of the room; there’s no passion whatsoever. In fact, they got rid of the victim compensation board, and they’ve replaced it with something that gives far less.

When people become victims of violence, their families can be destroyed. They need help. They’re counting on a government. And yet, this government has no passion to help those victims. Why?

Speaker, you know, you can’t make this up. This government put out these blue plates not that many years ago. Those plates couldn’t be seen in bad weather, couldn’t be seen in the light of day, they couldn’t be seen in the night, and it was an embarrassment, right? Because border officials, officers were saying, “Guys, get it done. Get these plates off. They’re a safety issue. They’re a safety issue”—over 150,000 on the road.

And so what did this government do? The minister came out and he announced a plan. Do you know what he announced the plan to get it done was? To let weathering and rust take care of the plates. The plan was to do nothing.

My question is, why can’t this government get it done right?

I want to thank the member for his always-eloquent speech. I wanted to ask a question of him: When this was first debated at second reading, a government member got up and spoke that tolls weren’t the way to go; that it was actually gas tax that was the way to go, that it was sensible, that it was smart. A PC Conservative Ford government member said that the gas tax was the way to go. In fact, he sits way over on that side. I just wanted to ask what the member thought about this Conservative government member talking about gas tax being the way to go.

Speaker, I’ve been thinking about it, and I really believe that this government truly does not want to get rid of the carbon tax, because if they did somehow, they would have nothing else to talk about, literally. You go in the halls and they’re walking the corridors, “Carbon tax, carbon tax,” bumping into each other, bumping into walls.

My question is simple. Do you believe they believe that if they repeat the words “carbon tax” over and over and over enough, it may actually change the scary and embarrassing fact that they’re under RCMP investigation?