I did get asked in a scrum about a week ago about this, and yes, the government decided that they needed another media studio. It’s a cost of $300,000 to $350,000. It’s a very controlled environment, where the media can only ask one question and one follow-up question. The media as a whole feel like this is just another way for the government to avoid accountability and transparency—which, this government is now fully embracing the lack of accountability and transparency. And so, no, the people of this province did not put out a call-out for a bunker media studio over in the finance building, where the media have to go in order to hear what the government is doing. That is not how an open and transparent government works. One would even say you’re not even open for business on the media part.

I will say that what we heard is that municipalities, through Bill 23, identified a $1-billion loss every year for infrastructure. So the fact that the government is coming back with $1.3 billion is really a bit of a shell game, right? You’re taking that $1 billion a year away from municipalities through the loss of development fees. Developers are happy about that. But then you’re subsidizing that infrastructure cost with taxpayer dollars, so people in Ontario get to pay twice, really, for these infrastructure promises.

What I will say is that there’s so much room for improvement with municipalities right now. They are hungry for some leadership. But they are also, as I indicated with Wilmot, moving—the lack of transparency around housing developments right now is a real problem, and in Wilmot, paving over 770 acres of prime agricultural land is very problematic for us.

I want to thank the member opposite for her comments. Actually, 60 minutes—well done.

Coming back from my previous role as a Tecumseh town councillor, the barrier for us to build more housing was access to infrastructure. This budget has $1 billion to the Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program allocated. That’s going to be a game-changer in communities like mine, where housing is in short supply, the municipality is not wealthy enough to finance it on their own, and developers really are small-town, smallish developers that can’t up-front the money. So do you see this as being a worthwhile investment to get shovels in the ground on new housing?

I move adjournment of the debate.

This is a strategy to invest in the economy, to create good jobs and to build a better Ontario. This plan invests in the future of Ontario—our children—and for them, we will spare no effort to get it done. This budget is an honest appraisal of the challenges facing Ontario, assessing the current political landscape and charting an optimistic course forward for the people, the businesses and the communities of our great province.

Like the rest of the world, Ontario continues to face economic uncertainty due to circumstances beyond our control. These include high interest rates and global instability. We know how these challenges affect Ontario families and Ontario businesses. High inflation and high Bank of Canada interest rates have pushed costs up. Families have struggled with mortgage rates, rents and grocery prices. With increased costs, families feel immense pressure and face difficult choices in their day-to-day lives. Our small businesses, the backbone of our economy and the creators of well-paying jobs, have trouble coping with inflationary pressures and high interest rates. We know this all too well.

These factors also have a profound effect on the province’s finances. The province does project deficits in 2024-25 and 2025-26, but our plan includes a path to balance the budget in 2026-27. And, Speaker, this government, under the leadership of the Premier, is resilient. We look to the future with confidence as we continue to work hand in hand with Ontarians to build the Ontario of tomorrow.

We are investing in the future, in growth, infrastructure, economic development and local communities across Ontario, and our government takes pride in the fact that this will be done without raising taxes or without raising fees.

This budget is a commitment to the people of Ontario that this government has their backs and will continue to make principled decisions to help our province moving forward. This instills confidence in our markets and tells the world that Ontario is strong and Ontario is a leader and that this government is making the smart investments we need to become better than ever. Our budget is a plan to build by investing to attract better jobs, to build roads, highways and public transit while keeping costs down for families and businesses.

Speaker, the province of Ontario created almost 900,000 net new jobs over the past three years—the fastest growth on record. Our strengthened economy is estimated to be on track to boost employment growth over the next three years.

As the Minister of Finance indicated, inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, is projected to remain under 3% this year and then reduce to 2% over the following two years.

Our government, under the leadership of the Premier, is leading the charge in ensuring that Ontario’s economy is prosperous. We are making sensible choices and we are sticking to our plan to get it done for all Ontarians. We are keeping taxes low, cutting red tape and investing in our workers. It is this government that is taking on the responsibility of building Ontario.

Speaker, we do frequently debate about infrastructure in this House. We do so because of our government’s unwavering commitment to build the vital infrastructure that Ontario needs—an infrastructure that serves as the backbone of a thriving society and the foundation upon which economic growth, job creation and community development are built.

Our government understands the pivotal role that robust infrastructure plays in connecting communities, fostering innovation and enhancing the overall quality of life for our residents and citizens.

Let me review some of the ways that we are doing that, as set out in this budget for 2024: By 2046, the population in the greater Golden Horseshoe is expected to reach 15 million—close to the population of the entire province today. This will result in growth by approximately one million new residents every five years. We must act now to build the roads, the highways, the bridges and the public transit that our growing province needs. That means tackling gridlock and saving commuters time by advancing critical highway projects like the new Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. It means expanding existing, in-demand highways like Highway 401 and Highway 7, supporting the construction of new interchanges and improving roads, highways and bridges in communities all across Ontario.

My ministry, Speaker, is also playing a vital role in the building of new infrastructure through Bill 153, the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, which passed this House unanimously earlier this year and received royal assent on March 6. This will create a catalyst for the positive change that our province needs, one that ensures that our infrastructure projects are pillars of strength for future generations to come.

Our government has also taken the steps in keeping costs low for drivers by proposing to ban any new tolls on new and existing provincial highways. This ban would also apply to the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, once uploaded to the province. This government, of course, already removed of the tolls on Highways 412 and 418 in April 2022, during the term of the 42nd Parliament.

It has also been two years since our government’s removal of licence plate renewal fees and stickers for passenger vehicles, light-duty trucks, motorcycles and mopeds. This change has resulted in annual savings of $120 for vehicle owners in southern Ontario and $60 each year for vehicle owners in northern Ontario. And with Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, we are reaffirming our pledge to ensure affordability and to reduce costs and burdens by enshrining into law the freeze on Ontario driver licence and photo card fees.

We are also making the entire licence renewal process automatic, providing convenience and saving precious time for all citizens and residents of the province. It is important to note, Speaker, that until automatic renewal is enabled vehicle owners still do need to renew their licence plates, but, obviously, at no cost. They can do so online or in person at one of our ServiceOntario centres. Renewing licence plates is one of over 55 of our government services now available to Ontarians online 24/7 through ServiceOntario. It is one of the many ways we have improved ServiceOntario’s service delivery, along with an appointment-booking system to book multiple services in a single appointment or even a single appointment for the whole family. My ministry and ServiceOntario are committed to continuing to make strides to make it more convenient for citizens to access vital government services, and we will continue to evolve these services to best support Ontarians in our ever-changing and increasingly digital landscape.

Our budget is also supporting the largest transit expansion in North America. This includes bringing back two daily weekday train trips on the Milton GO line and moving forward with our plan to provide two-way all-day GO service to Milton.

Closer to home, this budget has provided funding to improve and expand GO train service to Bowmanville in my riding of Durham. With Durham’s population growing, especially for commuters to Toronto, this service would help them get where they need to be faster, while at the same time saving precious time to focus on what matters to our fellow citizens and residents and their families.

We are also bringing fast and reliable transit to downtown Mississauga and Brampton by expanding the Hazel McCallion light rail transit line, including a two-kilometre extension and a loop through to Confederation Parkway.

Four major subway projects in the GTA are under way. These include the Ontario Line, the three-stop Scarborough subway extension, the Yonge North subway extension into York region and the Eglinton Crosstown West extension, with a planned connection to Pearson international airport, one of the largest employment areas in Canada.

We are funding construction of station and track improvements to restore the Northlander. To restore the Northlander is a key part of our government’s plan. This passenger rail service between Toronto and northern Ontario was ended by the previous Liberal government, supported by the NDP, and we are bringing it back.

We are keeping costs down and saving daily public transit riders on participating systems an average of $1,600 a year. That is an accurate figure of $1,600 a year—tremendous savings for individual commuters. This savings of $1,600 per year is through our government’s newly enacted One Fare program, and I congratulate both our Minister of Transportation and our Associate Minister of Transportation for rolling that out.

Our students and seniors, as well as all transit riders, will only have to pay once to transfer between GO Transit, the TTC and other participating transit systems in the GTA. Cross-boundary travel in our province has never been more affordable and has never been just as convenient as this.

Speaker, I have mentioned previously how fast Ontario’s population is growing: More than five million more people will be living in the province over the next 20 years, and that’s a conservative estimate. It may well be more. We welcome all the newcomers, and we have to be ready for them because Ontario’s strength is newcomers.

Not only do we need more road and transit capacity; we need more homes, and we need more infrastructure to support new home developments. Beyond highways and transit, beyond housing and hospitals, investments in infrastructure affect every aspect of our province’s future growth. It is why we are aggressively working to attract more investment in all of the province’s infrastructure needs.

The Building Ontario Fund will help build more projects in areas like clean energy generation, long-term care and student housing. At the Darlington nuclear plant in my riding of Durham, we are moving forward with adding three additional small modular reactors. This will help our government move forward with the mandate of clean energy and keeping costs low for the citizens and residents of Ontario. We’re starting with an allocation of $3 billion, Speaker, and the fund will create opportunities for pension funds to put their members’ investments to work right here in Ontario.

We are also supporting Ontario’s mining sector by investing an additional $15 million over three years in the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund to help the sector undertake research and development and commercialize innovations. The economic potential of the critical minerals in the Ring of Fire is enormous, and our government has made it a goal to take advantage of Ontario’s natural resources for positive purposes.

We want to help power Ontario’s electric vehicle battery supply chains. By unlocking minerals mined in Ontario, we will power electric vehicles. These vehicles will be built in new Ontario factories by Ontario workers, purchased in Ontario and around the world. Our government has made massive investments into EV battery production, including a $7-billion investment for a new Volkswagen plant in St. Thomas to manufacture cars with clean and renewable energy.

We are also increasing the Northern Energy Advantage Program to a total of $167 million in 2024-25 and $206 million annually in 2025-26 and 2026-27. We are helping eligible large industrial operators manage electricity costs and create good jobs in northern Ontario. Ontario needs this sector to prosper, Speaker, as new jobs are created and skilled workers in this province are needed to fill these new jobs.

Speaker, this government is investing in our skilled workers with an additional $100 million in 2024-25 alone in the Skills Development Fund training stream. There are rewarding careers in the skilled trades, and this government is investing in the young people ready to take on this challenge, this new vocation, this new path to prosperity.

Speaking of education, the budget supports the growth of young minds with an investment of close to $172 million for the 2024-25 school year. This is for targeted math and reading supports and an updated kindergarten curriculum, starting in just a year and a half, in September 2025. An investment of $23 billion over 10 years, including about $16 billion in capital grants, will help build, expand and renew schools and child care spaces right across Ontario.

This includes $1.3 billion for the current school year to support the construction, repair and renewal needs of schools. This investment helps our citizens and residents across the province, including in my riding of Durham. We have provided funding for a brand new public elementary school in Bowmanville, and we’ve also added a brand new edition to St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in North Oshawa. As previously mentioned, this budget is working toward the future; that is why this government is investing in our youth.

We are also supporting families and students across Ontario by extending the tuition freeze at Ontario’s publicly assisted colleges and universities for at least three more years. And to help Ontario communities grow and thrive, we introduced a $200-million investment in an application-based Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund to strengthen communities across Ontario.

Speaker, our government is supporting the health and well being of children, families and seniors. That means continuing our substantial investments in our health care system. The 2024 budget affirms our support for hospital expansion, the largest in the province’s history; $50 billion over the next 10 years, and that includes close to $36 billion in capital grants.

We are investing an additional $965 million this year alone, including a 4% increase in total base hospital funding, committing $620 million over 10 years to allow health care system partners to address urgent infrastructure renewal needs.

We know also how important it is to have a primary care provider, and we are investing in more family doctors, including the investment in a new medical school at York University with a primary focus on training family doctors; and $128 million over the next three years to support enrolment increases of 2,000 registered nurses and 1,000 registered practical nurses.

One of our mandates is improving mental health and addiction services, and so an additional $396 million investment over three years is at hand. As noted in the budget, we are providing support to about 100,000 low-income seniors by expanding the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income System Program. And we are increasing public safety, investing in fighting auto theft with an investment of $49 million and $46 million over three years to purchase four police helicopters.

This is a testament to our government’s commitment to all aspects of what we need to build and shape a future of progress in prosperity.

Next question?

I recognize the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Interjection: On division.

Second reading debate adjourned.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 8, 2024, on the amendment to the motion regarding amendments to the standing orders.

Mr. Fraser has moved that the motion be amended as follows:

By deleting everything from “Standing order 115(b)” to “Standing order 115(f) is deleted” inclusive; and

By inserting the following: “Standing order 35(g) is amended by adding, ‘In addition to the Speaker’s allotment of questions to independent members under this standing order, the Speaker may also allot to independent members the slots for what would otherwise be the third and fifth questions allotted to government members.’”

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

The motion is lost.

Mr. Jones, Chatham-Kent–Leamington, has moved government notice of motion number 24 regarding amendments to the standing orders.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I declare the motion carried.

Motion agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 8, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

Thank you for your presentation. Moving on to questions, please.

The budget talks about affordability, but there’s not one word about grocery prices, that’s because the government knows food prices are high because companies like Loblaws, owned by the Weston family, are gouging consumers and they don’t want to provide help to families. At the same time, food banks are dealing with a massive increase in demand for their services.

Project SHARE, a not-for-profit in my community, is now saying one in eight Niagara Falls residents are using food banks, and 25% are children. These not-for-profits receive no funding in this budget, no funding, no new funding in this 2024 budget. Frankly, these food banks need help, and the grocery chains need to be held accountable.

Will your government commit to taking on “greedflation” and supporting food banks with new funding right across the province of Ontario?

The minister had spoken about certain health care investments that were made in this budget, and I want to refer to a couple of health care investments that are important to the constituents of my riding of Essex; first of all, one which increased the number of patients that can be rostered to a nurse practitioner by 1,200 people. That’s another 1,200 people who are going to get primary care in my riding of Essex, and in addition to that, a new hospital, which is now in phase 2 of development for the region. That’s another promise that was made to this region, a promise that was previously made by another government but not fulfilled, but that was picked up by this government and indeed fulfilled.

So I’m wondering if the minister might comment on the various excellent health care investments that are made in this budget because I can tell you that my constituents in the riding of Essex are definitely pleased with the health care advancements being made in our area.

Madam Speaker, this budget has a lot of good investments, a lot of good things. Something that the members from Mississauga and Peel region have been asking about is insurance.

I’m just going to quote something from Amanda Dean, the VP of the Ontario and Atlantic insurance bureau. She said, “IBC and its members welcome the government’s auto insurance reforms, which are a good ... step in giving Ontarians more control and choice over their auto insurance coverage. We have long advocated for much-needed reforms that provide consumers with more choice and options when purchasing auto insurance.” This is one of the things which I have seen.

To the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, my question is: Minister, for your riding, what do you think in this budget you like the most, which you would like to share with your residents?

Thank you to the member for Essex for that excellent question and for his advocacy for his community.

The Minister of Finance well appreciates that these announcements are province-wide, but we see the results on the ground in Essex. We see the results on the ground in Durham. It is a record investment: $50 billion to build and upgrade new hospitals, investments by the millions in new family doctors for better primary care across the province in each district of the province, and, of course, investing in the ability to have primary care by way of nurse practitioners. This is innovation in health care and with the investments made in this budget.

The same old ways of doing things are not adequate. We need the investments. We have the record investments. We’re seeing them in each riding and district, and we’re seeing it done in innovative ways. When we speak of primary care, we speak of not only more family doctors, but more nurse practitioners. We speak of empowering pharmacists to work with the customers they know best with the 13 common ailments. Investing in innovation, investing in people, is the right way forward. We’re doing that.

This builds on last year’s budget commitment. We’ll continue to build. We’ll continue to invest for all the people in Ontario. We’re enhancing primary care, and we’re innovating and investing at once.

People have to be able to make choices. When it comes to the gas taxes, we have maintained a cut to provide for affordability. We have brought in and extended other measures so that people do not have to make the choice to not drive their cars.

We, on the other hand, with auto insurance, have left the choice for affordability up to the individual citizen by providing the opt-out option to provide lower premiums. It’s not an opt-in but an opt-out. If a particular person with their insurance broker determines that they have more insurance than they need for a particular aspect of their lives, such as an income replacement benefit, this budget will provide for a program by way they can opt out of that. Why should they have to pay for insurance twice? That creates affordability by choice and that’s a key aspect of our auto insurance initiative in this budget.

I stay in touch regularly with people in my riding and across the province, and I hear it from nurses on the front line and from physicians. I was with health care professionals yesterday at an event in my riding for Autism Home Base and they applaud our government’s smart investments, our innovation in how health care is delivered. And that is the answer. That is the way forward.

I am thankful for our dedicated professionals, our doctors and our nurses and others—

Thanks to my friend from Durham for those comments. I do have a question for him, though, because it is a common refrain I hear from friends in the government that they’re all about never increasing the costs of living through regulation and taxes. I’ve heard it often.

But, Speaker, to the member: What do we call the refusal to extend public programs and, when that refusal to extend those public programs happens, the cost of living goes up?

I’ll give you a case in point: We desperately need primary care, nurse practitioners, family physicians in the city of Ottawa. In this latest round, there is talk of one nurse practitioner proposal being funded in the market—a terrific one; I’m very supportive of it—but there are 160,000 people in the city of Ottawa who do not have a family doctor or nurse practitioner. So what do they do? They go down the road to one of these clinics that is, frankly, I believe, breaking the rules of the Canada Health Act, charging people $400 membership fees, charging women $110 to get a Pap test. Those are costs that are borne by the taxpayer because the government doesn’t extend services. I’m wondering if my friend—

Next question?

I will move to further debate.

I listened to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport talk about the budget, and one of the things he mentioned was that we have to have smart public investment in key public services. That’s what he said. And just now, he talked about how this health care is funded by this government; I’ll remind the member that it’s actually funded by the people, the taxpayers. That’s why this government has the money to fund health care.

But what this government has done is actually not use the money correctly—hasn’t been wise. Because Bill 124 is an unconstitutional bill that you wasted taxpayers’ money—you lost that case. Now you actually have to make up for those wages. That is an oversight of—a far supreme error. The other one that this government has wasted money on is spending $1 billion on agency nurses.

These are not investments in our public system; these are wasteful acts of this government. Can you explain why this happens under your government all the time?

It’s always an honour to rise in this esteemed House to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre.

I’m here, as we all are, to debate government Bill 180, the budget bill. Obviously, it’s a bill that actually sets forward the spending priorities of the government; it also, as in every budget, lays out the priorities and the values of the government of the day.

I think that we have all heard quite a bit of debate now about the things that the government is interested in doing, but I want to dial back, Speaker, to the time of the pre-consultation budgets.

When those pre-consultation sessions were rolling out across Ontario, Speaker, as a Toronto representative, I must note once again in this House that the city of Toronto, the capital of this province, was deliberately excluded from the budget pre-consultations. That means 2.8 million people. The financial heart, the cultural capital of the province was not at the table. We had to go elsewhere in order for our voices to be heard. This is a city that generates over $430 billion of GDP for the province and the country, and it just is absolutely mind-blowing that we didn’t have our own pre-budget consultation date here in the city.

But we did hear from a number of other stakeholders, including Toronto stakeholders that had to leave the city to be heard. We heard from many different communities and stakeholders, and I want to just highlight that some of the concerns that was brought forward to us at the hearings have to be read into the record one more time, Speaker.

We heard that now in Ontario, life is harder than ever before. The cost-of-living crisis that faces us requires real solutions, Speaker. We have a housing crisis that’s gripping every single household and ripping apart their budget. That’s making life extremely difficult for families. So we are looking for solutions in this budget that address the needs of hard-working, struggling Ontarians. That’s what I was looking for when the budget was released. That’s what Ontarians were looking for as well.

Let me tell you, Speaker, what Ontarians told us during the pre-budget consultation. Let’s also think about what Ontarians are asking and speaking about after the budget was released.

They said that the government should invest in proactive solutions to Ontario’s publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system and provide immediate support for community mental health programs and support for community health care coverage. That needs to be expanded under OHIP.

They also said that we need to make meaningful investments in order for us to combat the devastating impact of worker burnout and stress for workers impacted by the understaffing and under-resourcing of many different programs that are government-funded.

We also heard from Ontarians—and this was at every single budget session—that this government needed to directly invest in the creation of affordable and supportive housing. It’s not good enough to just leave it to the free-market forces expecting the for-profit developers to meet our needs when it comes to social as well as rent-geared-to-income housing.

They also told us that we needed to invest in public education at consistent and appropriate levels so that our post-secondary institutions as well as our public institutions would no longer have to come cap in hand every year with a request. Therefore, they wanted a government that was going to partner with them in a respectful manner. They said that this government needed to repair the formula for post-secondary education to ensure that Ontario keeps pace with its counterparts across Canada.

They also said—and this is very important, because we’re going to have a moment very shortly in this House to allow the government to correct the record. They also said that the government of the day needed to adopt the Renfrew county inquest recommendations—86 recommendations directly directed at the Ontario government. The first recommendation, which costs you absolutely nothing, is to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic so that this government would be able to address the problem with the same type of urgency and focused intention.

Speaker, I mentioned that this government would have an opportunity to correct the record because on April 10, in two days, this House will have a chance to debate it. This government will then have their opportunity to go on the record and adopt the Renfrew county inquest recommendation.

We also heard from community members and advocates and Ontarians about the need to double the ODSP rates. Right now, in this moment in time, we are legislating poverty and condemning people to a life of hardship through acts of government. We need to be able to reverse that as soon as possible. You can even say, Speaker, that as people choose medically assisted suicide, that is a form of social murder.

We need to protect and invest in Ontario’s libraries, museums and cultural institutions while recognizing their vital importance as economic drivers—very basic what I would call value propositions that allow us to build this budget.

Budgets, as we know, are going to be confidence bills. As the government likes to taunt, “Is the official opposition going to support us?” Well, you would get support if it was adequate, if there was adequate funding. It’s very difficult to support a bill that says we have confidence in the government when there isn’t enough to work with.

So across the province, we heard from health care providers who shared very practical solutions to the many challenges to our health care system. Speaker, as we all know in this House, it has been said time and time again that 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family physician. This number is going to swell alarmingly to 4.4 million by 2026, in two short years, unless swift action is taken.

The average family physician spends about 40% of their work week on administrative tasks that pull them away from other patients. The recommendation from the Ontario Medical Association is to provide efficiency initiatives to reduce non-clinical work and to improve access to care for patients. It’s something that this side of the House and the official opposition strongly supports, and we would absolutely put that into play if we were the government of the day. But we actually put that in play by putting the motion before this House so that this House could adopt that and move towards reducing the administrative burden on family physicians so they can do more and actually help the patients that they desperately want to help.

Speaker, we also heard from physicians as well as nurses who work in emergency departments, and what they have shared with us is that they are seeing massive closures in unprecedented manners. And this is largely due to a shortage of nurses, nurses who are leaving the field at unprecedented rates due to burnout and to overcapacity struggles. Closures and long wait times caused by understaffing result in delays or misdiagnoses, leading patients to return to the emergency department in much worse shape. This is shameful. We are a very rich province. We can certainly do better. But we are not going to be able to meet the problem with the actual solutions if the government has its head in the sand.

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario emphasized that in implementing staffing ratios, there has to be a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio. It’s the only way to address retention. If no action is taken, Ontario will suffer a shortage of 30,000 nurses—a staggering 30,000 nurses—by 2028. Also, closing the wage gap that nurses experience and closing the private clinics, which we know that the ONA has claimed and reported is undermining the public health care system. All of this is setting the way for privatization, something that this government is blatantly, intentionally dedicated to, and they’re not even hiding it anymore.

I want to speak about the need to ensure that we can provide funding that is stable and reliable for safe consumption sites. I represent Toronto Centre, known as the downtown east, and I can tell you that my community is hit very hard. We have safe consumption sites, Speaker, that are funded largely, 100%, by private donations. Safe consumption sites are a continuum of care in the health care system and you cannot help people if they keep dying, especially if there is a solution to reverse that horrific trend. The province needs to step up and do it quickly in order for them to save lives. Right now, they are not.

In northern Ontario, there are only three safe consumption sites and only one of them is federally funded. I’m not sure what this government is waiting for, but it’s clear to me that those who are living with addictions are not their priority. But they are family members and I can tell you that that is the priority of the families.

Mental health is a massive concern for Ontarians. We are facing a mental health crisis and the official opposition has been ringing this bell over and over again, saying that we are willing to work with you on solutions to address the problems that are being caught downstream. They are being caught in ER departments. They are being caught by our hard-working police officers. They are being caught in our school system and they do not have the resources and the skill set to address this problem.

Agencies that provide mental health care in Ontario are looking for multi-year funding to stabilize, sustain and build the sector. They are literally at a crisis point and they have been for years, but pretty soon, the runway is going to be gone. They have asked the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to consider the plight of the families, and this same message would go to the Premier and to everyone sitting on the front bench in cabinet. They have asked them to put themselves into the shoes of those families, to empathize with their pain about what it feels like to surrender a child simply because their community lacked the appropriate mental health supports.

I have a son who is just about five years old. I do everything I can to provide care for him; my partner and I both do. It would break my heart if I couldn’t care for him, and that’s exactly what’s happening to families right across Ontario, because they’re not getting the support from this government. Speaker, we all know about the alarming, damning statistics and the backlog with the Ontario Autism Program. We are not seeing this government do enough, nor are we seeing them coordinate and lead on these files, and we desperately need to.

Cities cannot experience the download of mental health and other social services and that this government asks that cities and neighbourhoods pick up the tab, but that’s exactly what they’re doing when they passed Bill 23 and then promised that they were going to make these cities whole. By on one hand stripping away their ability to actually raise the revenues they need, and then at the same time underfunding and defunding the mental health system, you downloaded it once again. We saw this with the Harris government, we saw this with the McGuinty government, and now it’s happening with this Conservative government.

We’re also facing a demographic tsunami. This is where individuals who are 65 and older are going to become, at some point in time, a sizable portion of the population. Right now, it sits at 20%. By 2031 it will be 25% and by 2040 the population of individuals who are 80 years old and over is going to double. There is no planning in this budget, or anywhere else in this government’s priorities, that says that they acknowledge that this problem is here and that they’re ready to work with the sector and to hear from families to come up with the solution. Things are only going to get worse if the investments and, just as importantly, the leadership coordination and the partnership with the sectors are absent.

Seniors can live safely in their communities—many of them can. They also want to live productively in their homes, but they will need to have those supports. Whether it’s home care or other types of care that allow someone to continue to live independently for as long as they can, all of that takes time and all of that takes resources. But most importantly, Speaker, it takes workers and it takes coordination.

It’s important for us to address the wage and benefits gap when it comes to workers who are paid in community support services. What we’re seeing is that that sector in particular—dominated by women; dominated by racialized women—is grossly, grossly underpaid. And that’s not unintentional. I believe that is intentional, and they know it as well.

I have to talk about housing, because it is not possible for us to have an opportunity to pass the budget in Ontario in the grips of a housing and affordability crisis and not talk about what this government is doing to address the housing crisis. They should be using every legislative lever in their portfolio, in their hands, to address the housing crisis. Whether it’s vacancy decontrol, whether it’s rent control, whether it’s the building of new RGI units, whether it’s new subsidies, whether it’s new legislation to prevent rental demovictions, all of that is just a snapshot of some of the arsenal that they can use, and they are using none of it.

So they’re not serious about addressing the housing crisis. There’s really nothing in here that says that they’re serious about meeting the needs of low-income and moderate-income individuals in Ontario, because if they were, some of those tools I talked about, the policy changes that are within the power of this government—they could do that, but they’re choosing not to.

The housing sector, especially the non-profit housing sector, sees that, and they know they do not have a partner in this government. Regrettably, they know that they’re in this all on their own. So who are they turning to? They’re turning to the federal government, they’re turning to their municipalities, and both of those government partners are saying, “Where’s the province?”

What we’ve seen, Speaker, is that every single year, we have the association of interval and transition houses who make a request to have a $60-million investment to offset the services to ensure that their workforce is stable. They do this every single year. And what we also heard during the pre-budget consultation is that other housing sector partners come to the province with the same request every single year. It’s astounding that we have a government that’s not willing to work with the non-profit sector, to actually support them to expand deeply affordable housing for Ontarians to meet them where they are needed.

Education is a very important topic that this House has direct purview over, and since 2018-19 funding for education has fallen to an alarming $1,200 per student—peanuts—leaving us a laggard in Canada. Chronic underfunding creates a significant impact on the quality of education—the ability of hard-working teachers, education workers, administrators and trustees to deliver the resources and supports that students need.

Speaker, I was recently at the Toronto District School Board. I was outside of their building as the trustees were grappling with a massive budget deficit. They were put into a most impossible situation: Cut services to balance their budget or run a deficit—a symbolic deficit in this case—to send a message to the government that they will not play their game anymore.

That’s not the only school board in Ontario that’s struggling to make ends meet. Every school board is struggling. We’re hearing this from every union and association that represents educators. We’re hearing this loudly from parents—loudly from parents—when they are telling us that class sizes are too large, that their children cannot be successful, and if their children have special needs, God help them, because this government is not going to, and it’s heartbreaking. I sit in this House, and I have the privilege of being able to work in this House, so close to the solution, and I can’t reach it, but our members across can do something about it. I know they’ve heard from their constituents about the same problem because their constituents have reached out to me, telling me that they tried to talk to their MPP or the Minister of Education without much success.

Speaker, in the 30 seconds I have, I just want to say that for Ontarians who are looking for a budget that will work for them, this budget clearly does not. If you’re looking for a family doctor or better access to one, it’s not going to help you. If you’re a young person looking for housing, you’re not going to see anything in this budget for you. If you’re struggling with the cost of living, which most Ontarians are, there isn’t enough in this budget to make it work for you either.

I’ll tell you, Speaker, that we have resources and we have ideas. We need to work together, but we can’t do it if the government’s not willing to step forward. Thank you.

Something which I’m really passionate about is making sure that the youth have the resources they need, and I’ll give you an example. When I got elected in 2018, something I found out was that every high school in Peel has a sports facility. Malton was the only one with two high schools and no sports facility. Thanks to the ministry, both high schools now have track and field.

Something which I noticed in this bill is about making investments of $200 million in the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, which will help build new rec, sport and community centres all across our province, including some of the NDP ridings as well.

Through you, Madam Speaker: I’d like to ask the member whether she will be joining this side in delivering our commitment to uphold the mental health, physical health and well-being of all Ontarians, and is she going to support this important investment?

We’re going to go to questions for the member.

I listened to everything that my colleague from Toronto Centre was talking about, and there were so many really important points in those 20 minutes. But the one thing that I honed in on while they were talking about it was around the parents who are basically being forced by this government to surrender their children to children’s aid, thinking—when they can’t access the mental health supports that their children need—that if they surrender their kids to CAS, that CAS will be able to get them that access, which CAS cannot do. In my area, we have kids as young as four or five in hotel rooms because they cannot get foster homes for these kids with their complex needs.

So I’m wondering if my colleague can tell me if they see anything in this budget that will actually not only address the funding shortfalls that CAS is seeing but also the mental health supports and, in some cases, the developmental or intellectual supports for kids with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Is there anything in this bill that would address those issues?

Thank you to the member across for the question.

As I mentioned, a budget bill is a confidence bill, and you have to have confidence in the budget for us to pass this.

Well, let me tell you what’s missing in this budget. There is no concrete increase for school repairs for 2024 and 2025, and the funding for the school repair backlog has decreased year over year. This budget is simply not supportable.

Madam Speaker, I was listening to the member opposite, who was talking about the investments we’re making in schools.

I just want to read that what we’re doing here in the province is investing over $23 billion, including $16 billion in capital grants over the next 10 years, to build more schools and child care spaces, including a new joint French and English public school in Blind River, a new English public school in Ottawa, an additional Catholic elementary school in St. Thomas and a new French Catholic secondary school in Vaughan. This includes $1.4 billion in funding for the current school year to support the repair and renewal needs of schools.

But what I do want to talk about is also the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund where we increased the investment from $200 million to $800 million. I do get it. The NDP usually says that we’re not going far enough. So I again want to ask the member whether you will support the increase from $200 million to $800 million in the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund and are you going to support this bill?

Through you, Madam Speaker: I would like to ask the member if she can help us to understand whether she will be voting in favour of such an important infrastructure investment we are planning to do in favour of doctors for tomorrow alongside with us—

Next question?