I’d like to welcome to the House today a member of the other branch of government, my brother, the Honourable Mr. Justice John Raymond McCarthy.

Good morning. Just on behalf of the government side of the House, I would also like to welcome the Tibet delegation here to Ontario. It was a wonderful bilateral, bipartisan meeting we had this morning.

I also want to welcome the Catholic Women’s League. I thank them for their meeting this morning and all the important work they do.

I want to welcome Aislyn Doyle, a page that’s here from Parry Sound–Muskoka joining us for the next few weeks, and her parents, Sonya Doyle and John Doyle, and her sister Rowan Doyle joining us today here at Queen’s Park. Welcome.

I am very pleased to recognize two special guests who are with us in the members’ gallery: Juergen Klingohr and his wife, Anita Klingohr, of Pickering. Mr. Klingohr served the people of Ontario for 28 years in the Ministry of Transportation, working as a full-time chauffeur with the executive transportation services of the minister. He twice received the ministry’s Beacon Award for service excellence in 2009 and 2016. He retired from the ministry in 2020 after a distinguished career marked by exceptional day-to-day dedication.

I consider Mr. Juergen Klingohr a good friend and he has earned our sincere gratitude. I would ask you to join me in welcoming him and Mrs. Klingohr here today.

It is my honour and pleasure to introduce this group of legislative pages: from the riding of Brampton East, Armaan Bagarhy; from London North Centre, Jerome Bow Pearce; from the riding of Kitchener Centre, Lyra Cooper; from Niagara West, Jack Cunningham; from Parry Sound–Muskoka, Aislyn Doyle; from Kitchener–Conestoga, Ryder Harris; from Don Valley West, Audrey Lo; from Etobicoke Centre, Ruby Madden; from Kitchener South–Hespeler, Shivanshee Patel; from Mississauga East–Cooksville, Mariam Rasheed; from Haldimand–Norfolk, Emirson Ricker; from Hamilton Centre, Nate Rochwerg; from Dufferin–Caledon, Shylah Sandhu; from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte, Aura Sarin; from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, Bella-Sitara Soares; from the riding of Milton, Shiara Sribalan; from Carleton, Simon Valentini; from Kingston and the Islands, Duncan Venditti; from Cambridge, Brayden Vermet; from Richmond Hill, Erwin Wang; from Newmarket–Aurora, Manha Yusuf; and from the riding of York–Simcoe, Malcolm Yusuff.

Please join me in welcoming this fine group of Legislative pages.

Applause.

Today, we are honoured to remember and pay tribute to a former member of our provincial Legislature, the late Mr. Roy McMurtry, who was the MPP for Eglinton during the 30th, 31st and 32nd Parliaments. Joining us in the Speaker’s gallery are Mr. McMurtry’s family and friends: his children and their spouses Michael McMurtry, Jeannie McMurtry, Erin McMurtry, Patti Moran and Chris Deacon; his grandchildren Kaia McMurtry-Moran, Aidan McNab and Matthew McMurtry; his cousin Andrew McMurtry; and his friend Tim Armstrong.

Also in the gallery are Kathleen Wynne, the MPP for Don Valley West during the 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st and 42nd Parliaments; David Warner, Speaker during the 35th Parliament; Steve Gilchrist, MPP for Scarborough East during the 36th and 37th Parliaments; Alan Eagleson, MPP for Lakeshore during the 27th Parliament; and Arthur Potts, the MPP for Beaches–East York in the 41st Parliament.

Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow members to make statements in remembrance for the late Mr. Roland McMurtry, MPP for Eglinton, with five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s loyal opposition, five minutes allotted to the independent members as a group and five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s government.

The member for Guelph.

I’m honoured to rise today to pay tribute to the late Honourable Roy McMurtry. Mr. McMurtry was a giant in the legal profession, serving as Attorney General, Solicitor General and, of course, Chief Justice of Ontario. As Attorney General, he was instrumental in the creation and expansion of the province’s legal aid system, led the effort to reform family law, and started the process to make Ontario’s legal system bilingual and to translate Ontario’s statutes into French. In addition to being a champion for Franco-Ontarians, he was a steadfast advocate for human rights and he was an ally for the Black community, chairing Ontario’s Cabinet Committee on Race Relations and being steadfast in opening doors and ensuring equality in fighting for the rights and freedoms of all Ontarians, regardless of their background.

Among his many accomplishments, Mr. McMurtry will be most remembered for the late-night kitchen accord with Jean Chrétien and Roy Romanow to broker the deal that achieved the patriation of the Canadian Constitution and the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And I want to be clear: Canadians will be forever grateful for Roy McMurtry’s role in bringing in the Constitution and the charter.

All of us in this House strive to make a difference, but few of us will ever, ever accomplish the achievements that Roy McMurtry accomplished through his courage and his conviction and his passion to public service.

I want to welcome Mr. McMurtry’s family, friends and colleagues to Queen’s Park today. There is no question he was loved and he was cherished by those around him, and I want to thank you for sharing him with us. We’re a better province and we’re a better country because of Roy McMurtry’s service to Canada.

It’s an honour today to rise to pay tribute to Roy McMurtry, member of this Legislature from 1975 to 1985 for the riding of Eglinton. He served as both Attorney General and Solicitor General in the government of Bill Davis.

Serving in this Legislature is only one aspect of a remarkable life and career. He served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League, Chief Justice of the Superior Court—I could go on.

I never met Roy McMurtry, but I’ve read a lot in the last few days—which is always a good thing when you get to do these tributes; you get to know somebody. Here’s the sense I got: You knew when he was in a room, and not in an offensive or obtrusive way, and not just because of his size, but because of his manner. He knew how to bring people together to find a solution.

He was there when we repatriated our Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and he played a pivotal role in getting it done. He was able to build Ontario’s justice system by bringing everybody to the table.

I think he understood the hardest part of politics and life is how you use the power and influence and skills to do the things that need to be done, and to have the courage to do the things that people didn’t understand or believe needed to be done, like the work to make Ontario courts bilingual at a time when our provincial neighbour to the east had elected a separatist government. C’était la bonne chose à faire pour assurer aux Franco-Ontariens un accès approprié à la justice.

And in a landmark decision in 2003, essentially legalizing gay marriage in Ontario—many of us can remember how controversial and how difficult that was. That took courage. Here’s what he said about it, and I like this: “I knew the sky would not fall.” He was right. It didn’t fall.

I was talking to my friend and former Premier Kathleen Wynne about Roy McMurtry. She reminded me about something I think is really important. There are so many things. I could be here for the rest of the morning talking about Roy McMurtry, but I’ll try to keep it short. His efforts to educate youth about Ontario’s justice system and the work he did on the roots of youth violence and understanding the supports that young people need—here’s what Kathleen said: “Roy understood how important it was to keep youth out of the criminal justice system that he knew and served so well.”

Roy McMurtry accomplished so many things, but the thing that hit me the most—I don’t know if people read it, but I saw the family obituary in the Star and it said at the top something like, “All his accomplishments are listed elsewhere.” I thought that was a great thing, because the most important accomplishment was there and it was what they wrote. Here’s what the family wrote: “He was a loving family man ... who delighted in the chaos of frequent family gatherings, especially at our beloved cottage.”

I’d like to finish with something that his son Jim wrote. I mean, if we wanted to say one line about Roy McMurtry, maybe we would all want to have our kids say this about us: “My father fought for rights and freedoms; I was the proudest son.” Thank you for sharing your father with us.

As one of four brothers—we heard from his surviving brother, Robert, at the funeral. To hear of the family and his focus on the family—his accomplishments are many, but his family, he was so proud of. You can tell by the way they speak of him. He had six children, as we know. His wife Ria, through 66 years—all the adventures—just a remarkable partnership. But what we heard at the funeral was about the signing and the dancing and the focus on the grandkids, because that was the most important part to him.

He had many accomplishments. He had many careers. We should all be so lucky. As a youth, he carried water for the Toronto Argonauts, if you read his background, but I’ll say he carried water for nobody else. He was his own man; he had his own convictions.

He spent a lifetime taking care of the disadvantaged, those who needed it the most, and he was at the front end of change in every stage that he served, whether it be as a parliamentarian or as a judge. Even when he was High Commissioner, he did things nobody else did. It is a remarkable career.

But what people don’t actually realize is that he had a successful law career for 17 years before that, a full law career, attached to names like J.J. Robinette and Arthur Maloney, just absolute icons in the legal profession. He took cases from them. He ran about a dozen murder cases. He did high-profile stuff. He did important work. And then he came to politics.

Now, Mr. Speaker, he got involved in politics in 1965. He was helping Dalton Camp in his bid. Historians know how that went. But I didn’t realize the connection; I didn’t realize that he was actually part of the Big Blue Machine, because it had to be through the Dalton Camp experience that he met Norm Atkins.

Norman Atkins was a bit of an upstart in his day. I had the pleasure of working with him on Hugh Segal’s leadership campaign. He called it the “march to nowhere.” We can come back to leadership campaigns. But I didn’t realize—you see, Dalton Camp was Norm Atkins’s brother-in-law, and Norm Atkins was a brilliant political strategist. They learned from John F. Kennedy’s political world, and they came up—and so that’s where Roy must have met Dalton Camp. And, you know, I had never thought of that connection.

There was a leadership in 1971, to be clear, for the Progressive Conservative Party, and Roy took on the job of lawyer for the party in 1970 because his friend Bill Davis was going to run for the leadership. Well, for those who know their political history, in 1971, when Bill Davis ran with Roy at his side, Norm Atkins and his crew were feeling sort of not appreciated in the Bill Davis world, so they ran with Allan Lawrence. And I’ll tell you, Mr. Speaker, that leadership culminated in a vote differential of 44 votes. It was very, very close. And you know, when it’s that close, it can be very bitter and very acrimonious, but Steve Paikin’s book The Life talks about Roy’s role in bringing those parties together, because he was the link with Norm Atkins and Bill Davis. So it’s a tribute to his ability to bring people together even when they’re deeply divided.

Now, he went on to run in a by-election. That didn’t go so well, but all of us who have lost something along the way know to dig in and go deeper. In 1975 he got elected, and the record shows he was appointed Attorney General before he even took his seat in the Legislature. That’s how well respected he was by Bill Davis. As we’ve heard, he served for nine years, 124 days as Attorney General, and simultaneously four years as Solicitor General. He was a workhorse. There is no doubt he was a workhorse.

He was friendly. He wasn’t shy with the media, I’m told. And as Doug Lewis, my former law partner, describes him, he was always approachable and well thought of.

Now, Mr. Speaker, he was also a solid campaigner. I have not phoned him recently, but John Tory and I have talked about his campaigning. John Tory worked on at least one of his campaigns and has some great stories to tell. And my friend Peter Bethlenfalvy told me on the way in this morning that he in fact worked on his leadership in 1985. So his tentacles are wide, and he really was a model for all of us, Mr. Speaker.

I’m proud to say that although he carried water for the Argonauts, I carried water for him as a page. He sat right where Vic Fedeli is sitting when I was a page like these young individuals. And he was that: He was the guy who would stop and talk to you, ask you how you’re doing. But it’s also a lesson to all of us that they’re watching all of you, and it’s something that he set a model for.

Now, as High Commissioner, it says in the books—I like to read books—that he was often asked to Buckingham Palace and was entertained there. I suspect they asked him to Buckingham Palace because he entertained there. He was a great storyteller. He had an ability, again, to tell stories and bring people together. But this is what he did as High Commissioner: He refused to take the traditional post of the chairman of the 170-year-old Canada Club. Why? It didn’t allow women. That’s pretty remarkable.

Now, the thing that makes me reflect on how we’re doing is 1988, when he stepped down as High Commissioner—at the age of 56. It makes me feel like I’m not doing anything with my life, Mr. Speaker. But shortly thereafter, in 1991, he was appointed Associate Chief Justice by Prime Minister Kim Campbell and shortly after that by his friend Jean Chrétien to Chief Justice, where he served for a long time.

We’ve talked about policy; we’ve heard about policy. But Roy McMurtry is one of the few individuals that I’ve ever seen, ever had the privilege to meet, who spanned all political parties, all partisan positions and was a change leader from the front of the parade. He really was remarkable.

I want to thank the family for sharing him with us. Thank you for being here.

Applause.

The Attorney General.

I want to thank the members for those eloquent tributes as this morning we’ve come together to give thanks for the life and public service of Roy McMurtry.

Final supplementary?

Actually, Speaker, that’s in fact not what I said. What I said is that there were not enough details with respect to the announcements made by the federal government on its infrastructure programs. I also said that we would be working very closely with our municipal partners—AMO; big city mayors; ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—and we will be coming forward with a Team Ontario approach to ensure that we can access as much as of the federal dollars that have been put on the table.

At the same time, I’ve been very clear. The Premier has also been very clear that we don’t think that we’re in the best position to mandate what 444 municipalities should be doing across the province. We want to ensure that we meet our goals of building 1.5 million homes. That is why, of course, the Minister of Infrastructure has brought forward one of the largest infrastructure programs in the history of the province to ensure that we can get sewer and water in the ground. It is also backed up by the Minister of Education, who will be building more schools, and the Minister of Transportation, who is building more roads and transit. We’re building communities, Mr. Speaker.

The reality is that we want to work with our municipal partners—there are 444 of them—who have very unique circumstances across the province of Ontario. We have set a goal of building 1.5 million homes, and across the province, we have heard one issue constantly gets in the way of building more homes, and that is sewer and water. That is why we brought forward a nation-leading program of $1.8 billion to build sewer, water, roads and bridges across the province of Ontario.

But what also gets in the way are high taxes and regulation. So the high interest rate policies of the federal government because of high inflation, because of overspending and taxation, are stopping people from building homes. They are also stopping people from being able to afford homes. So what we’re going to continue to do is double down on removing red tape, putting sewer and water and infrastructure in the ground, working with our municipal partners to build not only hundreds of homes but millions of homes in communities across—

I have talked about the student and the family in my riding. He works at Circle K. He works at the Petro-Canada. He and his family live in a basement apartment miles away from their college. You know what he said to me? He’d like to live closer to the college. He’d like to live on campus. He would like options. For the NDP, he’s a bother; he’s a nuisance. For us, he’s somebody who builds the province of Ontario, and we will stand by him every step of the way.

My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, I asked why the government was suddenly ruling out missing-middle housing options like fourplexes and risking losing billions in federal funding in the process. In response, the minister told us that they needed more details—more details before they would decide if they would accept the money.

The research has been done. The studies are clear and there’s no time to waste. So I have to ask again: Why is the Premier risking billions in badly needed federal funding by ruling out higher-density options?

Why is the Premier ignoring the experts, ignoring the people of this province and standing in the way of getting housing built?

Speaker, people don’t want padded housing numbers. They want a decent place to live. If the Premier can’t get housing built, will he at least get out of the way so somebody else can do it?

Speaker, every Ontarian should also be able to see a doctor. They should absolutely be able to see a doctor when they need it, but right now, 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family doctor, and that number is expected to nearly double in 2026. That’s going to be more than a quarter of the population in Ontario.

Despite the need, community health clinics haven’t seen a base budget increase in 15 years. They were forgotten in this year’s budget, too. While local clinics are being left to scrape by, the Premier’s budget for his office has somehow doubled since 2018. Does that seem right to the Premier?

This question again is for the Premier. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Canada Health Act, which enshrined into law the principle of universal public health care in this country.

Interjections.

Can the Premier tell us what directives he has issued to prevent unfair billing for primary care?

I thank the member from the opposition for allowing me to speak about Ontario’s world-class health care system. Our government has taken bold action through the Your Health plan. Ontario is leading the country, with over 90% of Ontarians having a family doctor or primary care provider. Since 2018, we’ve registered over 12,500 new physicians in Ontario, with 10% of those being family physicians. But we do understand more needs to be done.

The NDP, when in office, cut 10% of medical enrolment seats, and the former Liberal Premier in 2015 removed 50 medical residency positions, leaving Ontario with hundreds less physicians practising in our province today.

We also just announced the York University investment, where it will be exclusively towards family physicians. We will continue doing what is needed for the people of Ontario to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care.

Our government will not tolerate clinics taking advantage of a loophole created by federal legislation. We need the federal government to take action to ensure all people of Ontario and Canadians can access publicly funded primary care. The ministry reviews all possible violations that come to its attention, to ensure that all OHIP-insured patients who are charged for an insured service are reimbursed in full.

If the NDP is serious about expanding access to primary care, we invite them to vote in favour of our budget that will connect hundreds of thousands of people to primary care in their communities for years to come.

Final supplementary.

The Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Speaker, I’ll tell you what: This government’s platitudes mean nothing to the 2.3 million Ontarians who are struggling to find a family doctor right now, to those standing in line to register for a doctor or those waiting hours and hours in emergency rooms.

Times are tough for Ontarians, and this government is only making it harder by compromising that treasured health care system, that public health care system that we all believe so strongly in. The government is moving at an absolutely glacial pace, approving and funding integrated primary care teams. They either don’t understand the urgency, or they’re hoping they can push everyone into for-profit health care to benefit their corporate friends.

So to the Premier: Which is it? Incompetence or insiders?

Interjections.

Let’s look at the history of medical schools. The Liberals and the NDP have voted against every single measure we’ve taken to increase medical seats in this province. Budget 2022 was the largest expansion in medical seats in over 10 years, and you voted against it. Budget 2023: again, another increase in medical seats, and guess what? They voted against it.

Budget 2024: a new medical school at York University that will be specifically for family medicine. I urge both of you, the NDP and the Liberals, to get on board, support budget 2024 and see access to more family medicine in this province.

Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

In Sault Ste. Marie, 10,000 people will lose access to primary care at the end of next month. Some 280 emergency room closures; 1,200 hospital services closures: This is the reality of rural and northern Ontario.

We deserve access to care, Speaker. Why is this government ignoring the crisis in rural and northern Ontario?

It doesn’t have to be that way, Speaker. We have solutions sitting on the minister’s desk right now, collecting dust. Will the minister start listening to rural Ontario and fund these proposals right now?