Next question?

Member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington.

I recognize the minister once again.

Subways.

I’m glad that the topic today is health care in the budget. As mentioned before, 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor.

In my riding, I just had a call in early March from a woman who had a stroke in October 2023, and she didn’t have a family doctor. And so, she has asked the professionals who were coming to her home to give her rehab, “What happens when I have a question medically? What happens if I’m not feeling well? I don’t have a family doctor,” and do you know what their advice was? “Go to the emergency room.”

Speaker, this government has failed on health care and providing for people to be able to get doctors. But the NDP talked about a solution. They have provided answers to those questions, to provide the primary care doctors with resources—the staff, if you will—so that they can be alleviated from the administration burden of reports. That would actually create enough doctor hours to provide care for 2.2 million.

Does the member agree that the NDP has a real solution to a doctor shortage here in Ontario?

I think that proves the point: They’re spending massive amounts of money and getting nothing in return; 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor.

You’ve increased spending. Where is it going? You’re running up deficits, you’re charging the credit card, and there’s nothing to show for it—

I guess it’s a solution. I don’t know whether it’s real or not. I guess we’d have to see it working, because we haven’t had an opportunity to for about 30 years.

But what I do want to say is that there’s a solution that’s right there, and I mentioned it earlier: The Premier, instead of pointing his finger at the federal government, just has to pay nurse practitioners. What’s so complicated about that? Just pay them. I don’t understand why he can’t do it. I don’t understand why the government can’t do it, especially when they’re spending a billion dollars on nursing agencies every year that they don’t have to spend.

You want to talk about ballooning deficits? A billion dollars, paying people two and three times what we paid them when they worked for us, just because they’re at agencies right now, because the government has mismanaged the health care human resources—a billion dollars; unnecessary MedsCheck—about a million dollars a week. Maybe we could solve the primary health care crisis by actually not wasting money, and spending it on primary care.

I’m really pleased to rise to speak to second reading debate of Bill 180, the Build a Better Ontario Act, 2024. Similar to the Minister of Finance, when you think about building a better Ontario, you think of those who came before us, but you also think of what led us here.

I would be remiss if I didn’t wish my mom a happy birthday today, because I wouldn’t be here without her, so: Happy birthday, Mom.

I was really fortunate. She made the ultimate sacrifice in our family in the sense that when I was four years old, our grandparents chose to move to Barrie, Ontario, from Cuba. When they arrived in Gander, Newfoundland, they called her and said, “By the way, we have your daughter in Canada,” and the best decision she could have made was to allow them to continue to raise me in a different country, obviously not being able to see me as a young four-year-old. So I’m forever grateful to you, Mom, for allowing my grandparents to raise me here.

And now, finally, she’s in Canada. She has spent the last decade or so here, so I’m really grateful for that. But I wouldn’t be here without her, and as we reflect on building a better Ontario, I could not build a better Ontario without her, so I wanted to mention that.

But we also couldn’t build a better Ontario without our veterans, and I also just wanted to give and pay my respect to the fact that it’s the 107th anniversary of Vimy Ridge and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and I want to thank those veterans who fought for our freedom and the reason we, as parliamentarians, are able to speak in this chamber and have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and this just comes on the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force as well.

My riding neighbours CFB Borden, and CFB Borden was actually a training ground for many of those military personnel who trained to go to Vimy. It was also the scene a few days ago, or just last week, where they raised a monument to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force, so I have to thank them for their great sacrifices.

Leading back into discussion of the budget, my community of Barrie–Innisfil is a growing community, and this budget really reflects the fabric of those people. They work hard every day. Often they have to use Highway 400 to commute from A to B in the city—because the city’s growing so much—in order to get to work or to drive their kids to school and all those things.

But what we’re really trying to do is that, as much as we are creating a lot of attainable housing within the city of Barrie and Innisfil, we also want to spur job creation. Something I heard a lot about in our community, not just in Barrie and Innisfil but all across Simcoe county, is the need for a regional innovation hub. It was clear that the fact that the closest regional innovation hub was 90 kilometres south in Markham, and the closest regional innovation hub north was 300 kilometres, in Sudbury—two great communities, I’m sure, but not a lot in common with what the needs are of Barrie–Innisfil, Simcoe county and our great area.

So a lot of folks came together—

Interjection.

What we heard very clearly from all on innovation hubs, whether it’s Nottawasaga in the member from Simcoe North’s riding, is the fact that the businesses that are there have room to grow, they have room to innovate, but they don’t have the tools they need. As I mentioned, the tools that were close to them for a regional innovation hub, we’re looking at 90 kilometres south in Markham and 300 kilometres in Sudbury. How is someone in Simcoe county supposed to get the right innovation and supports they need to grow their business if those supports are so far away? Luckily, we worked as a team, Team Simcoe county and Barrie to bring these resources closer to home, to allow for that job creation to happen so people can live and work all in one place.

I would be remiss, Speaker, if I didn’t mention the folks whom we’ve heard from already who are greatly supportive of this project. We have Craig Busch, who led the Sandbox in Barrie. He was very supportive of getting this project off the ground, as well as the Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre, with Mira taking the lead there with all the work that they’re doing within Georgian College. They really contributed some great thought ideas to this project.

Speaker, I just wanted to quote a few great supporters of the regional innovation hub. We have many to come, but I’m only going mention a few because I have a short time to speak on this particular matter.

I want to thank Georgian College for stepping up to support this. Their CEO says, “We’re thrilled that a regional innovation centre with a network approach will be in our area and look forward to continuing to collaborate with our partners to leverage our collective strengths, build capacity and, ultimately, expand our impact.” That’s a quote by Kevin Weaver, the president and CEO of Georgian College.

He goes on to say, “Our Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre is a well-established business accelerator in the region with a reach extending across Simcoe, Grey and Bruce counties. We’re proud to be a key partner in the innovation ecosystem and this new centre will further strengthen the influence we and our partners can have on the growth and development of our communities, local businesses and economy.”

That is really building the knowledge economy we have within our area, and it does start with great institutions like we have with Georgian College. They really see the great potential in having a regional innovation centre close to home.

But the other folks who see the great potential is the mayors that I get to work with in my riding. The Barrie mayor, the Innisfil mayor both see the great potential in this project. In fact, the Innisfil mayor, who knows that Innisfil is home to the DMZ—Speaker, that stands for digital media zone; it’s an arm’s-length of TMU’s digital media zone we have just down the street from Queen’s Park—says:

“We are excited to learn that the province is investing in Simcoe county’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.... The establishment of a regional innovation centre will support programs like the DMZ Innisfil and will drive growth and innovation in Simcoe county which is essential for future economic prosperity.”

Speaker, the mayor in Innisfil, she sees the growth we’re having in our area, the fact that we want to keep a lot of that knowledge in our community instead of having it leave our community. By doing that, we’re fostering it and investing in all of the economic and innovation potential we have in our region so we can continue to grow the jobs, and we’ve seen the successes already with the digital media zone, for instance. They have been so successful that one of their businesses that started there—it’s called FreshSpoke, so congratulations, FreshSpoke; I’ve spoke about them in the House before—they’ve grown so big that the footprint they used to be in, I just went to an opening of a different business there last week called Green Bowl that does a lot of upcycling of food, and they’re trying to get rid of food waste. That’s where the former business used to be. Now, they’ve gotten so big, they moved out of that location. Now, that location is home to a new innovative business that I’m sure will also be a great contributor to the regional innovation centre.

But, Speaker, this speaks to our government’s vision and agenda for building complete, whole communities and building interconnected communities where everyone has a sense of belonging and has a place to be. Like we said, we’re not only building regional innovation centres where we can again build that thought leadership and create more jobs. We’re building parks. We’re building Ontario parks. We’re building homes. We’re building ways for people to use transit more effectively. In Barrie, for instance, we have Barrie public transit, and many students in Barrie, when they graduate from high school, they choose to go to post-secondary in the greater Toronto area. Because they make that choice, they also want to save money. So, often, they stay at home and live at home, and they commute from Barrie and they go—whether it’s to York University, TMU or Humber; you name it—anything that is on a transit corridor.

Part of the government’s changes to, again, be connected with people and putting people at the centre of what we do is affordability. And because of our One Fare program, those students who are choosing to continue to live in Barrie or continue to live in Innisfil are able to use the benefits of One Fare, where they’re saving about $1,600 a year on their transit. That is good news for them in making sure that affordability is at the centre of what we are doing.

But part of the centre of what we are doing in terms of affordability is also making sure that we have those strong paycheques. That’s where we invest in training. Just like the regional innovation centres, it’s going to be such a big game-changer in local communities by empowering more of those businesses to grow, to strengthen those high-paying paycheques so that people can afford more things, and the cost of living.

In addition to that is investing in other training opportunities like skilled trades. In our community, not a day goes by where you can’t see a truck, you can’t see a crane. Our skilled trades and training community is vibrant and strong. But many of these individuals who work in contracting business or building business, they understand that gassing up a gas tank is going to cost them more, and they’re grateful for the fact that we’ve been consistent as government for lowering the gas tax. In fact, as a household now, Ontarians are going to save $320 for gassing up their vehicle. That’s $3.2 billion in gas taxes—

Interjections.

Thank you, Speaker. Please continue.

Thank you to the member opposite for her time on the budget and protecting a budget that, of course, she would have no choice but to do, as a member of the government.

She talked a lot about the carbon tax, and she failed to mention how Ontario actually got the carbon tax. It was due to her government’s cancelling of cap-and-trade in Ontario, which forced us into the default program, which was the carbon tax.

Also, within the budget, we didn’t see any funding to help people with heat pumps and making sure that they had affordable ways to heat their homes or compensate natural gas consumers for their higher rates that this government is forcing them to do through Bill 165. There’s no plan for low-income consumers who heat their homes with natural gas, oil and propane. Electricity subsidies are increasing to $7.3 billion.

Can the member please state how she actually, truly is helping people when it comes to energy rates?

Questions?

Well, we will never apologize, on this side of the House, as the government, for actually lowering the cost of living for Ontarians by cancelling cap-and-trade, which has lowered their cost of living and energy rates. It was our government that came in and swiftly stabilized electricity rates and since then has been keeping them stable. It’s our government that has actually embraced the fact that we need to diversify our energy needs in order to, again, embrace a clean energy grid.

In fact, we even have the Minister of Energy here, who signed a core agreement for net zero nuclear, something I know the opposition does not support but is the result of our clean energy grid that is an envy around the world.

Just recently, we were able to use the Trillium grant to upgrade the Morgan Russell centre. That is named after Morgan Russell, an officer for South Simcoe police who, unfortunately, we did lose to an incident that happened, which many people are aware of—they went to a home, and they were shot on scene. It’s to commemorate his memory.

It just shows you the need and those positive memories created in our communities, through the community recreation funds, like the one we have in our budget—so that everyone can enjoy their communities more as they grow.

I’m glad to be part of this government. We’re now opening the first new medical school in decades. We’re training more nurses. We’re hiring more nurses. We’re building new hospitals, under the leadership of this government. We’re building more primary health teams. We’re investing in home care. All around, this government is finally fixing the 15 years of mess in our health care system, to finally bring it back to life and put the care back in health care.

I appreciated the member on the other side’s comments. I really appreciate her passion for her community in Barrie–Innisfil. She talked about Lake Simcoe and her love for her community.

Building healthy communities is something that our government has put a lot of effort into. Our government is investing over $200 million with the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund. I’m just wondering what kind of impact that fund will be on the people in not only Barrie and Innisfil, but also Ontario as a whole.

I was really glad to hear the member from Barrie–Innisfil talk positively about nurse practitioner-led clinics and the fact that one of those clinics has been funded for the community of Innisfil, in her riding—just for interest, the very first one was created in Sudbury, and we worked really hard to get this up and running. I’m happy for her community.

How can she explain that a community like Capreol has been asking for one more nurse practitioner since 2021, and yet the government has not even had the courtesy to answer them back? They have written a number of times—they have submitted last June. They have sent their budget again last fall. They came to the budget consultation that took place.

I’m happy that her riding will be seeing more. But there are 40,000 people in Nickel Belt without access to primary care. What’s in the budget to help them?

Thank you to the minister for her remarks. I am one of her colleagues a little farther up north, but we also share Lake Simcoe, a priority for us.

The minister was recently in my riding. We were at Awenda Provincial Park, where we were doing a joint announcement with the federal government on park expansion. It’s incredible that, as she said earlier, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of provincial parks in 40 years, and yet, under this government, we’ve seen two new parks and now an expansion.

I was hoping she could tell us a little bit more about the importance of the park expansion and new parks, and what she’s hearing from the public.

Next question?

I want to commend the member for her speech and for focusing on her own community.

My question is about value for money. My question is simple: Does the member believe that, at a cost of a billion dollars, this was good value for money for nursing, when instead of paying public nurses a better rate, they went out to agencies—at a cost of a billion dollars—to get one third of the hours they would have got from public nurses in our health care system?

My constituents, like all of our constituents, were curious to see what in the budget was going to help them, whether it helps them gain access to health care, whether it helps them with the cost of living, whether there was anything in there to help them with finding a place to live. Unfortunately, it’s pretty slim.

I would like to start with the mention in the budget about Highway 69. Highway 69 is the highway that goes from Toronto to Sudbury. For 69 kilometres of it—68, as my friend the MPP from Sudbury will say—we are on a two-lane highway with I don’t know how many million trucks there are on this highway, but many, many.

Every year, I write a letter to the Minister of Transportation to ask, “How is the four-laning of Highway 69 coming along?”

In the budget, it says that they will continue their work on Highway 69. That’s all that’s in the budget.

In 2023, I wrote to the Minister of Transportation and I asked, “How is it coming with the four-laning of Highway 69?” And I got a response: “The ministry is taking the steps necessary to secure the federal and provincial environmental approvals required to complete the highway expansion. Once all the approvals are in place, construction will commence to expand these remaining sections.

“In the interim, the ministry continues....”

This year, I wrote to the Minister of Transportation and asked the same questions I’ve asked every year for the last 17 years that I have been here, and this is the answer I got:

“Thank you for your email regarding the Highway 69 four-lane expansion. I appreciate the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation.”

This is Véronique Filion, communications coordinator, north operations, of the Ministry of Transportation, who answered me.

She went on to say, “The ministry is continuing to take the steps necessary to secure ... the federal and provincial environmental approvals required to complete the highway expansion”—the exact same answer I got last year.

She went on to say, “When there is new information, the ministry is committed to sharing the progress with our partners and stakeholders that have shown interest in the continued expansion of Highway 69.” I hope I’m part of this selected group. I can tell you that my constituents sure would like to know.

She went on to say, “The overall Highway 69 expansion project, from Parry Sound to Sudbury, remains a priority for the provincial government and the work has been proceeding using a phased approach.”

It is really hard to tell my constituents that year after year—every time when I ask, “How is it coming with Highway 69?” I get the exact same answer: that they are working on the federal and provincial environmental approval, and nothing has changed. Actually, I think I am going to ask for a danger pay upgrade to my pay, because I have to travel Highway 69 every Sunday night, and then Thursday night when I go back home, because this is a very dangerous highway. I cannot believe that a province as rich as Ontario, a province that has $23 billion in the budget for road construction, comes back and tells us the exact same thing year after year and nothing changes for Highway 69.

I just took a trip across Canada. The minute you hit the frontier between where Ontario ends and Manitoba begins, you have four-lane highway all the way to British Columbia. Coming back from out west, you will go through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba—they all have four-lane highways. The minute you hit Ontario, you’re on a cow path with a million trucks, with closures pretty much every second day.

If we have snow, I guarantee you there will be closures on northern Ontario highways. It’s really bad—not to mention the number of serious accidents where people get hurt, not to mention the number of serious accidents where people die.

And yet, we have this huge amount—billions of dollars—in the budget, but all we get year after year for Highway 69 is that they are working to secure the federal and provincial environmental approvals. How many decades does it take to get those approvals, so that you can actually build a road? That’s actually going to be my question next year, when I write the exact same letter to the Ministry of Transportation to see if anything will move.

But I want to focus a little bit on health care. In the budget, if you look at how much has been spent in 2023-24, which ended on March 31, versus what’s going to be spent in health care starting on April 1, there’s over a $1-billion cut. There’s a $1-billion cut at the same time as 2.2 million Ontarians do not have access to primary care, and this number will double within the next few years.

The Minister of Health put out a show of interest. They got over $1 billion worth of ask. There are solutions that exist throughout Ontario to make sure that the 2.2 million Ontarians who do not have access to primary care gain access. Even in my riding—I represent small, rural, northern Ontario. We have solutions. The nurse practitioner clinic in Capreol has been asking for one more nurse practitioner since 2021. You figure with a budget of $85 billion, there would be money to help people. There are no physicians, but we have nurse practitioners.

Did they get any money? Absolutely not. They didn’t even get a response to the detailed budgets that they put forward. I take them; I bring them to the Minister of Health. I showed her: “You need to help those people. They have been without a family physician for a very long time. They need access to care.” We have underemployed nurse practitioners right in the city of Greater Sudbury who would love to come and work at the nurse practitioner-led clinic in Capreol, and not a penny goes to help them. We’re not asking for millions of dollars—a couple of hundred thousand dollars, not even a rounding error at the Ministry of Health, but yet no money comes, and we continue to have the problem with 40,000 people in Nickel Belt who do not have access to primary care. There are solutions that come from all over but that are not being funded.

There is money in the budget for more primary care. It will come in a three-year period when there’s 2.2 million people that need help right now, and there’s no guarantee that it will come to rural areas. There’s no guarantee that it will come to northern areas, which deserve equitable access to care. Mind you, there are many people in Toronto also who do not have a primary care provider.

Then, there’s home care. I want to share the story of Tina Senior. Tina has a severely disabled, beautiful little boy named Alex. Alex goes to school. He is J-tube fed, needs to have home care to come and feed him. Just like every other kid, he gets hungry. So Bayshore has the contract to come and feed Alex at school five days a week when the school is in session. They are paid for an hour and a half to come and feed him, because you have to hook up the J-tube, let him get fed, unhook the machine etc. Well, Bayshore comes for 15 minutes, they get him hooked up and then they go. They get paid for an hour and a half, but they get to stay for 15 minutes. Most of the time, the machine will start to beep, beep, beep. Nobody in the school knows how to handle a J-tube feed. They phone the mom.

The mom is an intensive care nurse at our local hospital. The mom is no longer—after 10 years at the intensive care at Health Sciences North, she had to quit her job because home care fails her son so many times a week that—she’s not going to let her son starve. When your children are sick, nothing else matters. When her son needed her, she did what needed to be done, but that means we lost an intensive care nurse at Health Sciences North, and Bayshore gets paid for services they don’t provide. Bayshore is the home care company. That happens all over.

I have Chantale in Capreol. The same thing: a cute little girl, Valérie, who has special needs—the same thing, needs home care. The home care fails her so many times—Chantale worked in home care for many, many years. She had to quit her job to make sure that her child will get the support that they need. Why is it that we continue to pay for-profit home care companies millions of dollars in profit every single year yet we cannot enforce the contract that they have? You’re paid for an hour and a half, why are you only there for 15 minutes? You’re supposed to show up to help Valérie in school. Why is it that you don’t show up? And yet there are no repercussions. It just keeps on—and the mom who has been a very good home care worker for a very long time has to quit her job because the home care system fails her.

Tina has to quit her job as an intensive care nurse because the home care system failed her. And it goes on and on like this, yet we are quite happy to continue to give private, for-profit home care companies billions of dollars in profits, but we can’t pay the PSWs who work home care more than 20 bucks an hour.

Do you know how you fix the problem in home care and long-term care? You make PSW jobs good jobs—75% of them should be full-time jobs, well-paid, with benefits, with sick days, with a pension plan, with holidays, and problem solved. There are many, many very dedicated PSWs even in northern Ontario who would love to do what they do best, care for others, but if they do this, they can’t pay the rent and feed their kids, so they have to find other jobs.

When the hospital puts out one job, they will have hundreds of applicants. When Bayshore puts out one job, they have no applicants. Why? Because Bayshore won’t give you a full-time job, won’t give you benefits, won’t give you decent pay—any of that. We could legislate that tomorrow morning, like we did way back for nurses working in hospitals. None of that is in the budget.

When we look at the Northern Health Travel Grant—the Northern Health Travel Grant is mentioned in the budget and we see right now, for people in my riding and all over the north that have to come to Toronto that you get $100 to pay for your accommodations. If you can find a hotel room in Toronto for $100, please let us know right now, because none of us have been able to find this. It will now be bumped up to $175 a night. I will tell you that for most people on low income, coming to Toronto and having to manage a budget of $175 a night is still impossible. It will mean, for people in northern Ontario, that they will go without care because they haven’t got the money to pay for the transport and to pay for the hotel in order to get equitable access to care. This is wrong. The Northern Health Travel Grant needs to be reviewed. It hasn’t been reviewed in decades—100 bucks made sense in 1983, it does not make any sense in 2024. Do we see a commitment in the budget or money in the budget to do this? Absolutely not.

There are many services that could come to the north. Multiple sclerosis in northern Ontario—northern Ontario has the highest percentage of population with multiple sclerosis, and yet we have no clinic dedicated to multiple sclerosis in northern Ontario. People have to travel to the south in order to do this.

We had the one and only supervised consumption site in Sudbury that has saved many, many lives. Sudbury—like Timmins, like Sault Ste. Marie, like many communities in the north—sees a three-times death rate from opioid overdoses compared to southern Ontario, and yet there was no money in the budget for supervised consumption sites. Our site closed last Friday, and I can assure you that there were many, many people crying.

The member from Sudbury has brought many examples of members in his community that depend on the supervised consumption site to stay alive long enough to wait your turn on the never-ending wait-list for mental health and addiction. In my area, it used to be 12 months to gain access to children’s mental health; we are now at 18 months to gain access to children’s mental health. Do you know how many things go wrong during those 18 months? When your child is sick enough, has been to the hospital many times and been told, “He needs to start mental health therapy. We will put them on the waitlist”—and you phone every week and you are told that you still have 12 months to wait, 11 months to wait? Ten months? That’s wrong. Do we see money in the budget for this? Very, very little.

There’s many more. The ambulance services in Foleyet—Foleyet is a community in the north of my riding, about an hour away from Timmins, an hour away from Chapleau, the two closest hospitals. The DSSAB, which provides ambulance services for the people of Foleyet, doesn’t have enough money to keep all of their sites open. There is a good chance that the site in Foleyet will be closed, which means that, in case of an emergency, when you phone to get an ambulance, the ambulance will have to leave from Timmins and drive for an hour before they get to you in Foleyet. Why is there no money in the budget for the DSSAB?

Things that would be easy to fix: 911 everywhere in Ontario. Did you know, Speaker, that Ontario is the only province that doesn’t have 911 everywhere? We are the only one. Every other province has an agreement with Bell to make sure that 911 is available everywhere. In my riding, there are about six different 1-800 numbers that you have to remember to be able to call. The services will be there, but the 911 won’t. Is there money in the budget to do that little, wee change? No, absolutely not.

There are many, many other things that I would have liked to see. I would have liked to see money in this budget for a French university in Sudbury.

La population francophone parle d’une seule voix : on veut une université francophone à l’Université de Sudbury.

The francophone community speaks with one voice: We want a francophone university in Sudbury, by the University of Sudbury. Is there any money in the budget to make that happen? No, absolutely not.

I could go on. Internet and broadband: I have met with every Internet and broadband provider. None of them want to come in to Nickel Belt because there is no money to be made. It doesn’t matter if you pay for all of their infrastructure, they do not want to set up shop. There is no money to be made. You have to look at another way of moving things forward in northern and rural Ontario, because having a for-profit provider won’t work. You have lots of money available that stays there every year for this.

And it just goes on and on. Cleaning of arsenic leaking into Long Lake in my riding: This has been happening since 2007. Having a stable workforce at the ministry so that we get that done and stop the leaching of arsenic into Long Lake—I could go on and on.

None of that is in the budget, but all of that were priorities that the people of the north wanted to see in the budget.

I want to thank the member and congratulate her on Wendat in her riding. It’s a place I like to frequent a lot with my family for hikes. Now, thanks to the work of this government, in partnership with the federal government—is expanding those park opportunities at Wendat.

This builds on not just expanding our parks, like we have at Wendat, but this budget is actually going to build two new parks: one in Muskoka, which is really exciting—that one, again, is in early stages, but it will be a new operating park—and, of course, we have our first urban provincial park in Uxbridge.

When I was in Uxbridge talking to some high school students, they had some really exciting, bold ideas of what they want to see in their urban park. Just to put it into perspective, this is something that—many people who have gone to New York City have gone to Central Park—is going to be larger than Central Park. So this is not only going to be great for Ontarians, for students, connecting people to nature, but it’s great for their mental health and great for our province.

And do you know what is a big saving in terms of value for money? Getting rid of a carbon tax, cap-and-trade included, full stop.

Like the rest of the world, Ontario continues to face economic uncertainty and pressure due to high interest rates and global instability. These pressures are being felt day to day by Ontario families, yet this government is continuing to work hard and strengthen Ontario. So, Minister, my question is, are you going to stop or are you going to keep going with this budget?

I appreciate the member singing me a song. I’ve never had anybody sing me a song before so thank you for that. It was kind of cool.

I live in northern Ontario so I want you to understand that in all the little communities—I have 33 little communities—you either have no gas station or you have one gas station.

That one gas station sells gas at whatever the market can bear. They don’t give a damn—am I allowed to say that?—they don’t care how much tax, they just sell it at how much they can. On a long weekend, when we have a lot of tourists, you pay over two bucks a litre for gas in many parts of my riding. It was just Easter and the price went up to $1.87 in my riding.

It has to do with regulating the price of gas. Do what many other provinces and states have done: Regulate the price of gas so that you set a cap so they cannot go over this. That would really help the people of northern Ontario.

Quand tu as une population comme Hearst, où plus de 65 % n’ont pas accès aux soins et qu’ils mettent des demandes de l’avant—il y a des façons de régler ça. Il y a des façons de donner l’accès. Ils font des demandes de financement au ministère de la Santé et n’entendent rien en retour.

Ces gens-là ont droit aux soins. C’est un droit fondamental de tous les Ontariens et Ontariennes, même quand tu vis dans le nord de l’Ontario, comme moi et le membre.

Mais je ne veux pas lui donner de faux espoirs : non, il n’y a pas grand-chose dans ce budget-là qui va aider les gens de Hearst.