Thank you to the member from Oshawa for her very enlightening remarks on this bill and on the science centre this afternoon.

I want to ask a question about the fact that the Ottawa Convention Centre is included in this bill. I’m not aware of anyone in Ottawa who asked for this to be included. I haven’t heard any hint of a concern that the Ottawa Convention Centre was going to acquire or dispose of property.

I know that the real concerns of Ottawa residents are the affordability crisis, the lack of affordable housing and our health care system, which is falling down around our ears. So how does this bill make life any better for the residents of Ottawa?

The member opposite spoke a lot of the science centre. Of course, we are very proud of the decision that we made, because now we will have a brand new science centre that families will be able to enjoy for another 50 years, as opposed to letting an old facility continue to break down and never actually address the issue. But nonetheless, Ontarians will have a brand new science centre.

The member opposite spoke about it. She refuses to acknowledge the facts that were mentioned in the AG report, which do confirm everything the government said in terms of building a brand new facility and some of the challenges of the old building. My question is, then, will the member opposite accept the recommendations and comments made by experts in the field like Lord cultural planning, Ernst and Young, and Pinchin, all of which have commented on the science centre and conducted business cases to move the science centre over to a new—

The cherry-picking—

Interjection.

The cherry-picking is bonkers. It’s a document that does not compare apples to apples, and saying that the critical maintenance, the $369 million in deferred costs—the government is using a number that stretches it over 20 years. That’s not what it will cost to fix; that’s to fix and maintain over 20 years. That’s a big number.

When Infrastructure Ontario had their consultants use a 1.3 increasing factor, those aren’t real numbers. That is inflated by 30%. That’s not a fair number.

When the government is choosing not to listen to its own consultants, quantity surveyor A.W. Hooker’s numbers—that put it at $499.2 million. How come you’re not listening to your own experts in that regard?

This is just trying to make the story fit their narrative, but that doesn’t make it real.

In fairness, I had asked the Minister of Infrastructure about the buy-in or if they had had positive or negative feedback from the institutions within this, and the government has said, by and large, there was buy-in or there wasn’t pushback, except for some. But we don’t know what the “some” is. We don’t know who. We don’t know what their concerns are, because that’s not for us to know.

It might be interesting for you to circle back to the folks in Ottawa and ask them how they feel about privatization; how they like seeing their money, public dollars, go to these private consortiums, the P3s; and how they feel about accountability and transparency in provincial assets.

The optimization, centralization, modernization, all of that—tell me what that looks like for the taxpayer. All of these fabulous gems in our community, Science North, the Royal Ontario Museum, the science centre, Public Health Ontario, Ontario convention centre corporation—all of these, when people walk in, what is it that they’re going to see and measure that they’re going to be like, “Oh, my God. Thank goodness the government centralized the optimizable modernness”?

What are you talking about? We don’t want word salad. We want value for our tax dollars. We want investment in our gems. That’s what we want. Show us what that looks like.

Response?

Further debate? Further debate?

Ms. Surma has moved third reading of Bill 151, An Act to amend various statutes regarding infrastructure. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Interjection.

Miss Taylor was escorted from the chamber.

Third reading agreed to.

The House recessed from 1727 to 1800.

Report continues in volume B.

I said no.

We said no.

Oh, you’re kidding me. Both of them said no.