Last year, from April to October, 441,000 hectares of forest burned in Ontario. We all remember the orange skies, the unbreathable air and the community evacuations of last summer, which is why it’s such a disappointment to see that climate change is ignored in this do-nothing budget.

Do you know what this budget has done to firefighting? Since 2022, $100 million of funding has been slashed. Quebec is hiring more firefighters. Alberta has declared their wildfire season open in February. Ontario? We cut $100 million from the firefighting budget.

I have a question for the Premier. Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned around him. What instrument will the Premier choose?

But I’ll tell you what I’ll give the minister: I will give the minister a chance.

A lack of snow this winter and a dry spring spells disaster for our wildfire season. Ontario has historically hired 800 firefighters; this year, we’re projected to hire 440—that’s half of our firefighting teams.

The government is fully aware of this crisis. They commissioned a $100,000 third-party audit on firefighter retention, and then they didn’t publish it. They know what it will take to fix the problem, but they want to hide it because they’re not doing what needs to be done.

Will the Premier commit to publishing the final report of that audit?