I think that there was so much “pivoting”—that word almost causes stress, because we all had to pivot so much—during COVID, and so much was learned. So, I’m not going to say that these advances or that these digital systems or modernizations were all bad. In fact, it allowed the systems to continue once we got to that point.

But talking about tribunals—why is that all that we can do? Why did we have 11 in-person hearings at the tribunals last year? That’s it. That should be an opportunity. Technology should be an option and an opportunity. It should not be the requirement.

Even the letter that I read from Jackie—she’s 70 years old, and she has no idea what to do with Zoom. Why is that her only option to access justice?

I think, disappointingly, the positives in this bill are going to get lost because folks right now have less faith than they did in the direction that the Premier is going when he has doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on appointing like-minded judges. I’ll continue in that vein.

The Federation of Ontario Law Associations have called on this government to depoliticize and return independence to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee. One of the things that they have shared is that the Premier’s comments contaminate all of the government’s judicial appointments, and that is really problematic, because with judges who are there based on merit—now it’s up to the average Ontarian to guess which ones, if the government is highlighting that they want political appointments. That undermines people’s faith, and the government knows that, and yet, they’re doing it anyway.

When we’re talking about those partnerships that help people stay safe or, as the member just raised, how we support victims of crime—this is a government that voted against an NDP amendment in committee that would have required the Attorney General to make a plan to increase the amount of compensation available to victims under the Victim Quick Response Program+, which was a replacement, by the way, for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, which had its own problems, but victims had access to money that they don’t anymore.

Also, the amendment wanted to extend the program’s deadlines, making it more accessible to victims of historical crimes and making that program available to eligible victims regardless of their access to other available publicly funded programs. And you said no.