Further questions?

Further debate?

I enjoyed the presentation by the member from Ottawa Centre, and any time he wants to ask me for an indulgence to tell a really good story in this chamber about people coming to this country and making good, I can assure him that he will always have my indulgence.

He did at the end of his presentation talk about tulips in Ottawa. I know a little bit about tulips in Ottawa, and I understand that that’s linked to bravery and liberation and certain things that happened in the past. I would like to invite the member from Ottawa Centre, because obviously it’s something that’s close to him, if he would like to take a moment to elaborate on this tulip festival and tell us where does it originate from, where do the tulips come from, why do the tulips arrive, where and when they arrive, and why we should all be interested in that and what it commemorates.

It was very interesting listening to the member—even listening to the answer that he gave about the tulips. I learned a few things, so I thank you for that.

The bill and the story that you told also told a story of a health care system that did not meet the needs of John and that could have done way better at preventing airborne infections from spreading from one patient to the next, often making their health status worse.

Given the health infrastructure in Ottawa and the number of people in Ottawa who do not have access to primary care, are you satisfied that the investment in primary care will meet the needs of the people of Ottawa Centre?

I thank the member for Essex. What I’ll say in response is that this is the 72nd edition of the Ottawa tulip festival. It acknowledges the sacrifice of 7,600 Canadian soldiers who lost their life in liberating the Netherlands. The gift in return that the country of the Netherlands gives our city is 100,000 tulips. If you haven’t been to our city to see the blooming of the tulips, you really should. It’s very important for Jo Riding, who is the festival director, for it to be no cost so the children can learn about that military history and the sacrifice of those veterans but also appreciate the beauty of those tulips and what they mean. You can go to the Man with Two Hats statue, which is right in Commissioners Park, which is literally geographically facing the same statue in the Netherlands. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands joined us to unveil that two years ago.

The fact of the matter is, I would love this government, in its budget, to invest heavily in libraries because it creates opportunity for people to better themselves, to learn more about their community. We should be investing in that, for sure.

No, I’m not. I’ve been on the record here many times saying that we actually have, in our city, the opportunity to cover 30,000 people with primary care through our community health centres and through some family health team proposals before the government, but we’ve had just one proposal funded, at 30% of its ask, in the downtown. I think we can do better than that.

One thing I do want to say for the record about our health care system and John Bell is that John had that resurgence of creative activity because he got a double lung transplant, thanks to public health care. So that’s important—

Questions to the member for Ottawa Centre?

I appreciate the opportunity to stand and speak to Bill 180, the budget bill, Building a Better Ontario. We all want and deserve a better Ontario, but I was a bit disappointed with this budget because I think it’s one that misses multiple opportunities. However, I’m one who believes there is no monopoly on a good idea. There were items in the budget that I liked, that I can support—but no time in this three minutes to list them all.

I’ll highlight the investments in municipal infrastructure, which are welcome, but I do hope that small towns and rural municipalities do see their fair share. I will be watching with interest how the funds will be allocated with respect to the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which, to this government’s credit, has been quadrupled. I know Haldimand, Norfolk and Six Nations will be putting forward an application for their regional water supply project.

Here’s where I felt Bill 180 could have been better: Honestly, I felt it needed to demonstrate greater fiscal restraint, with a focus on measures to getting key portfolios back on track. I’ll give you some examples.

The finance minister said the government is ready to build infrastructure like roads and bridges. The minister also pledged to build more long-term-care spaces. As we all know, that’s all well and good, but there are projects that were previously announced that still haven’t seen a shovel in the ground. Of course, everyone knows the people of Caledonia, the people of Haldimand county continue to wait for the reconstruction of the Argyle Street bridge.

An additional $2 billion over three years in home and community care—that’s great, but I am interested to see how these monies will be spent, because until the government pays those on the front line a competitive wage, I believe it’s all wasted money. A tree cannot stand if its roots are rotten. Similarly, more money for addictions and mental health—each year, more and more money being thrown at these critical issues, and yet, poorer results.

The same goes for autism supports: more money but no realignment of services that create real results for Ontario families. Sadly, no relief for those choosing between heating and eating; only crumbs for those needing an investment to base budgets in the developmental services sector; little help for the backbone of many of our small towns, our small businesses; and nary a mention of rural Ontario, our farmers or the ag sector. Many farmers were looking for a top-up of $100 million to the Ontario Risk Management Program.

At the conclusion, the document reads, “We are not stepping back from the investments that matter. Nor are we going to increase the burden on you.” This is rich, an inference of doing the taxpayer a favour when it’s our money that the government has spent, is spending and, in some cases, has and is mismanaging.

With respect to the deficit, it will more than triple to $9.8 billion despite promises last year that the books would be balanced by 2025. Speaker, I think we are headed full speed, sadly, toward a debt wall, and in the back seat sit our kids and maybe our grandkids too.

I’d like to thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for recognizing the life and work of John Bell. I think it was very beautifully worded, although I am surprised that you didn’t make mention of his cat, who is known as Randy Savage.

In the obituary itself, John and his family called for donations to the London Public Library and, in particular, the A Book for Every Child campaign.

In terms of the government’s budget bill, Bill 180, I wonder if the member would like to comment about the historic omission of library grant funding as well as their postures on education funding that are not meeting the needs of libraries as well as the young people in Ontario.

Further questions?

Further debate?

I noticed that the member made reference to keeping costs down and affordability. I had the opportunity to read the budget document, and in particular, pages 71, 72, 73 and 74. I noticed that there were a host of affordability measures in the budget, including—to me, and most importantly, in my view—keeping the price of gasoline reduced. This budget commits to extending the gas tax reduction, which is an 11-cent-per-litre reduction, extending it until December. I thought that was a very important measure to be taken in this budget because it saves a person who is driving a car 11 cents per litre on the price of gasoline, and that adds up, especially when you’re from a rural area and there are no mass transit systems.

Now, I’m from a rural area called Essex, and I know the member is from a rural area. I’d like to know whether she thinks that that 11-cent gas tax cut is going to help her rural residents.

Good morning, Speaker. My question to the member—it’s always interesting to hear you rise in the House. We’re neighbours, and so I like to hear what’s going on in your riding.

You talked about how this government purports to be fiscal Conservatives, but, as you had noted, right now Ontario has the largest net debt per capita in the country. Right now, the debt per capita is $19,436, so every Ontarian essentially owes that much money.

So this government has the largest debt and deficit ever, and the largest in Ontario, while at the same time, they are pulling up the rear when it comes to per capita spending in health care. Can you square this? How is the government underspending in the things that matter to us—health care and infrastructure in rural communities—at the same time that they have the largest deficit in the history of the province?

My question is about hydro access to farmers. When I was at ROMA this year, a lot of farmers complained that they don’t have access to phase 3 electricity and that for a lot of farmers, it’s hard for them to decarbonize. It’s hard for them to turn their farming enterprise into bigger business, to scale bigger business, because of their access to this kind of infrastructure. I wonder if you could speak to what that really means to your agricultural sector.

The money spent on transit has gone a long way to help those who are most struggling with affordability, because we know that affordability isn’t just for people who own cars, but it’s also for people who use transit. And so this expansion of transit is the best way to use our dollars and to reach more people.

The infrastructure money helps us build more housing. We know that this is a gap that cities are struggling with. Not only is there a big price tag on the inflation on construction, but also the cuts to municipalities have led to our municipalities facing massive financial strains and possible cuts.

But while I’m glad we’re building hospitals, I’m glad we’re building schools, I’m glad we’re building infrastructure, we can’t just spend money on ribbon-cuttings. Just like all of us who maybe have bought a home, you don’t just buy a home and then stop paying the bills. We need to fill in the gaps and make sure we fund properly the operating costs of running this province.

Things that I don’t appreciate are the $10 billion spent on Highway 413. We know that this will save a mere 30 to 60 seconds for people in their daily commutes, and we know that it’s cheaper and more cost-effective and will serve more people to expand GO, like creating a Bolton line. That way, we could preserve 2,000 acres of prime farmland and we could preserve 400 acres of the greenbelt.

There are five pages on auto insurance and a mere two paragraphs on the climate crisis. Again, the climate crisis is real, and it has devastating consequences for my kids and all future generations. I hope to see more than a mere 0.01% of the budget spent to discuss the climate crisis that is barrelling toward us.

While I’m glad to see the 2.7% increase in funding for education, that is essentially a cut, because that is below the rate of inflation. We need to ensure that we have progress in retaining and recruiting more education staff, and that we address the violence that staff and I, as a school social worker, see in schools and the mental health crisis facing young people, often due to many things—consequences from the COVID crisis.

When it comes to health care, there is nothing to address our drug toxicity and to improve operation costs for our ER departments. So while we do see money—

I was making earlier reference to certain pages in the budgetary document, and I was specifically making reference to pages 71 and 72 and 73. On page 72, there is what I would describe as a very good program that was introduced. We call it the One Fare program. The One Fare program will essentially lower costs on people using public transportation, and it means that the average user of the public transportation system here in the urban Toronto area, and perhaps the greater area as well, will save approximately, it’s estimated, $1,600 per year. And I think that’s wonderful. I think it’s so wonderful, sometimes I think to myself that I wish that there was a One Fare program in Essex county that we could use.

I was going to ask the member if she would like to comment on the One Fare program and whether she thinks that’s an awesome program, the way I think it is.

My apologies to the member. You’re out of time.

Questions?

Further debate?

I would like to see One Fare come to our region so that we can go to Hamilton and it not take three hours. It’s a 50-minute drive. It takes two hours for somebody from downtown Kitchener to get to downtown Cambridge—two hours—and we live 20 minutes apart.

I would like to see investments in more light rail transit, like has been created in Kitchener-Waterloo. Let’s expand that to Cambridge. Let’s expand that to other municipalities.

To me, spending money on a highway doesn’t make any sense. We know that when people have to spend two hours driving to Cambridge, we are shoving people into their cars. A young lady who rents a room in my house, who is from India, just bought a car. It’s very unaffordable for her, but she can’t handle four hours in transit every day.

So we need to look seriously at our investments in highways and shift them over when they don’t make sense into transit options.

I am not confident that we have a good plan in place. We know that for every dollar spent on mitigation, every dollar we spend on adaptation, we will save more than $10 in both of those categories. We are not looking forward. We are putting Band-Aids on. The $5 million that’s spent right now on forest fires doesn’t even come close to what other provinces and other jurisdictions are doing to invest in prevention. Alberta, for example, can anticipate when the fires are coming. They use AI. They’re going there, and they’re investing. They’re getting new technology, not just trying to keep up.

We are behind on shelter beds, behind on climate disasters and behind on the future of climate readiness.

I just want to thank my friend from Kitchener Centre for focusing on climate policy and just give her this time to elaborate on anything she would like the government to focus on if we were going to elevate the amount of investment in climate policy.

Just to touch quickly on the forest fire piece, even though you may not see it in the budget, there theoretically is almost an unlimited amount that is used to fight forest fires. There’s a floor that is set by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, and then that is added on throughout the year as necessary.

I did want to touch a little bit on the One Fare program. The One Fare program is available in Waterloo region. It’s fantastic. You can use it with the GRT to then connect to GO train networks to then come to Toronto and other places in the GTA. So it’s great that we have that in the region, and I was hoping that maybe the member from Kitchener Centre, my next-door neighbour, would maybe like to elaborate on a little bit more about what she’d like to see in regard to the LRT. I know that’s something that has been challenging to talk about on both sides, and just get her thoughts a little bit more on what phase 2 could look like.

It’s always a privilege to take my seat on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin, and to speak to, particularly, the 2024 Ontario budget that this government has brought forward. From my seat, now, I bring a different lens. As an independent member and no longer part of the opposition, I look at reasons why I could potentially support the bill. But one thing I want everybody back home to remember is that I will never forget why I’m here, and that’s to bring the issues that matter most to people across Algoma–Manitoulin. So I will touch on the shortfalls and what’s not in this particular piece of legislation that this government has brought forward.

Having said that, I’ve looked at this budget very closely and—it’s hard to look for new things. There are things that are there that are substantial for people across Algoma–Manitoulin, like replacing the Little Current Swing Bridge, the key to Manitoulin Island, which is very important, and the investment that is required to making sure that the service, the products, the economy continues on Manitoulin Island. So it was nice to see, again, the reannouncement of this particular piece of infrastructure that’s going to be done. I think this is the fourth or fifth time that the government has announced this infrastructure fund—I think if we follow what the previous government had done, it’s normally about seven times that they announce it before it actually gets put in place. I’m hoping it’s going to get done fairly soon because people on Manitoulin Island deserve a reliable route, and this infrastructure needs to be done.

In the forestry industry, we see that there’s going to be $20 million over three years in the forest biomass program. I do know several communities that are going to be benefiting from that. Wiikwemkoong First Nation has been leading a lot of initiatives towards this, and they are looking at community projects that they’re going to hopefully be able to utilize to stimulate the economy and diversify their employment opportunity for community members there as well.

The new school that is being built in Blind River—okay, this is number four, but it’s already in the process of being built. So that was a new announcement. I have to give a shout-out to the Algoma District School Board and the Conseil scolaire du Grand Nord, who really put so much work in getting this to move forward.

There are a few other nuggets that are contained within the context of the budget, so I’ll give credit where credit is due—the $10.9 million to bring improved Internet access across the northern communities and First Nations of Ontario. Get it done. It’s long overdue. We’ve been announcing this over and over and over again. Let’s get the shovels in the ground and get this work done.

Now let’s talk about what’s not in this particular budget. Things that I wish this government would have listened to is—early in October, I found out the dire need of the hospital situation. I knew they were in rough waters, but I didn’t appreciate how bad it was in hospitals. So I took it upon myself, once I received correspondence from the 25 northern hospitals, to reach out to all 11 hospitals across Algoma–Manitoulin—and, yes, I said “11 hospitals.” Algoma–Manitoulin is a very vast area. The consensus within these hospitals is, at a bare minimum, they need, at the very least, a 10% increase to their base funding in order for them to address a lot of their financial needs that they have in order to continue to provide the services, to keep their emergency rooms open and so on. We didn’t see that in this budget. We see a mere pittance that won’t even keep the hospitals in line with the cost of inflation.

I’m not sure what this government is not grasping in regard to the dire need of our hospitals and the fact that they need some additional funding in order to meet the services and meet the demands of individuals across this province, but they’re not. And that’s frightening, Speaker.

I’ve sat with many of the administration, and I’ve asked them. I said, “What’s missing here? Why aren’t they listening to you?” And everybody just seems to step back and say, “We don’t know. We get head nods from the government, and saying, ‘Yes, we understand, but keep going.’” They’re lean. They’ve cut everything. There’s no more integration that they can do.

But again, when the ask is there, it’s falling on—there’s silence from across the table. The fact that they have to deal with the enormous costs of agency nursing, which is required—they have to have a certain level of professionals within the context of the hospital. Nothing in this budget to deal with agency nursing regulation, nothing on capping—hospitals are paying three to four times more to have this coverage done.

Nothing on enhancing the administrative wages—why would somebody in a hospital setting—if I’m a nurse within the emergency department, why would I step up in an administrative role when there are no compensations for those individuals because there are no base funding increases to their hospital?

Why did we not see the 5% increase in the base funding in developmental services, such as what we have throughout this province as far as Community Living?

The elastic is stretched so much there is no more stretch. That elastic has broken.

Over the weekend, my son and I, we enjoyed a hockey game up in Blind River—go, Blind River Beavers. I hope that you guys can pull off—you’re down 3-1. I’ll be at the game on Thursday night in Blind River.

After we had supper with my son—my son is one of the individuals that works with developmentally challenged individuals. And I’ve always said he’s a special boy. He’s got this knack of identifying someone in the crowd. It doesn’t matter if that someone is four years old, 14 years old, 24 years old, 44 years old or 64 years old; he has this ability of identifying someone that’s in need. And what he does: He zeroes in on that person and makes them his priority. He’s always had that knack. When he was a young boy, while he was in school, we often heard from teachers that, “You’ve got a special one. Don’t change him.” And it was such a pleasure for me seeing him going through high school and getting through his education up at Collège Boréal and coming out as a social worker.

The fun part for me is, as much as I love being part of this building—going into his workspace and his office and him showing to me what programs that he does and the activities that he sets up for all of his clients is amazing. But he’s limited, because those services have not been recognized by this government. And there’s no investment that has been done into that particular field. So, in developmental services across this province, the elastic is broken. I’m looking at this government, and I’m imploring this government to recognize the benefit of these services and make the proper investments that are needed.

Highway improvements across northern Ontario: I drive up from Elliot Lake every week, and I see that big billboard, bulletin board for the 413/Bradford Bypass investment, and I see the big billion-dollar investments that are coming in there. But highways such as 551, 542 or 637 going into Killarney—I don’t see that same kind of recognition or investment that is being done out of this budget from this government. And that’s unfortunate.

Highway 519 into Dubreuilville was just done, I would say, about five or six years ago. Not a stitch of additional work was ever done to maintain that road. That brand new road is washing out. What’s embarrassing to watch is, since when has it become a standard operating procedure to replace gravel from a washout with a cone? When does that become a standard operating procedure? When does the gravel go back in? It is so bad, Speaker, that there’s this one area where the guardrail posts are hanging void, with no gravel there, and this happens time and time again. It’s not only in my area; it’s across northern Ontario. We really need to look at our service providers that are responsible for returning the gravel to their shoulders.

Heck, I spent an entire day with an Amish and Mennonite group, travelling roads in a horse and buggy on Highway 17, and I tell you, Speaker, if you haven’t, I would suggest that each and every one of these members in this room experience that first-hand because that will be an eye-opener for you. There is something that we need to learn in this province: that we all need to share the road, and that road, for many of us, is only between the white lines. Well, there’s a shoulder and then there’s gravel, and there’s a lot of people that are using those roads.

Again, there’s a lot of things I didn’t get to touch on within the context of this budget, but there’s a lot of things that are missing. I take great pride in looking at why I could be supporting this bill, but there are too many things that are missing out of this budget that would be very valuable to people from northern Ontario.

Questions?

Question?

I want to thank the member from Algoma–Manitoulin for his address this morning. I also want to congratulate him and commend him for doing what we all do here, and that is to stand up for the people who send us here each and every time there’s a general election, the people in our constituencies, because that is and must be our first priority.

No budget solves all of the problems individually, and he has pointed out some of the things. We have challenges in our own ridings that we would hope there’d be enough money in this budgetary session to take care of, but we also know that we have to be patient and many things take longer than we’d like.

But the member did say—and I do want to congratulate him on Elliot Lake being chosen the winners of Hockeyville. That’s a great honour, and congratulations to the member and to all of us here in Ontario. That’s two years in a row that Ontario has had the Kraft Hockeyville.

But can you tell us some of the things that you do like in the budget? Because you are considering voting in favour of it. I’d love to hear that from the member.