Thank you to the member opposite. I can tell you this minister and this government care a lot about the Niagara region. We have dedicated a lot of resources and time. In fact, we have the great member from Niagara West, who is a member from the government here, who has been advocating for great health services here in the Niagara region and throughout Ontario. And we have a new hospital being built in Lincoln in the Niagara region which is going to be of tremendous benefit to the people of Niagara.

I can tell you, we’ve also been supportive of all the wine producers and the craft beer manufacturers in the Niagara region which have been very thankful for the support we have given them in this budget to make them more competitive, to get their products sold to market and helping consumers and businesses in the Niagara region. We will continue to be supportive of the people and businesses in the Niagara region.

My question is for the minister. By any measure, Ontario carries the largest debt burden in Canada. It’s the most indebted province in Canada. By your own measures, I might add, you are supporting an unsustainable debt burden. Your net debt-to-GDP is now higher than when Kathleen Wynne left office.

You have a $9.8-billion operating deficit. Your total debt and deficit is projected to be $439 billion. You’ve increased it by almost $150 billion. The amount that you’re spending, the interest on the debt, continues to climb.

At the same time, you are spending the least in Canada on per-capita spending when it comes to health care, when it comes to education.

How do you square the fact that you are the most indebted province in Canada but spend the least on the things that people care about?

Great member from Markham–Unionville for a great question. He is absolutely correct in that we do need more medical professionals here in Ontario. That’s the case not only in Ontario but, indeed, throughout Canada and, in fact, all throughout North America. So, we are incentivizing them with northern stay grants to have doctors who are educated stay in remote communities so that they can service those communities.

We have announced that we are creating a new medical school in York University, close to your community, right in Vaughan, Ontario. Minister Lecce is here, I see—great for you and that community.

We need to educate and foster more doctors right here in the province of Ontario, and this is the first government in many decades that is actually doing that.

What is making progress is the deficit that has been going down year over year. We actually had a surplus two or three years ago. We have a path to balance—the only major government in Canada with a path to balance. We will be balanced in two years.

With all the things that the opposition is promising, could you imagine if they were in power, the fiscal mismanagement, the debt we’d have piled on?

We have a great path right now. It’s a path of investment in building Ontario, but also being fiscally prudent. I’m proud of our track record with respect to the debt and deficit.

With respect to Ottawa in general—I know you did touch on Ottawa—Ottawa is a region we’ve been extremely committed to. As you know, the government recently had the Premier down there to make a big announcement for a new funding agreement for the region of Ottawa and changing some of the cost situations with the government there. Ottawa is a region we’re very committed to as well as, of course, as you touched on, the mental health and addictions, which we’ll continue to support.

Thank you to the minister and to the wonderful PA for the presentation. I know this budget is very fiscally responsible and has so many things to offer for Ontarians.

I’m going to stick with one specific area. It has been said many times before December but I will say it again: Ontario is home to some of the world’s best and brightest doctors and medical professionals. I know this government, not a long time ago, opened the door for foreign-trained nurses for the first time in history.

Through you, Speaker, I ask the member from Oakville and PA to please tell us what our 2024 budget does to continue to provide the people of Ontario with the medical professionals they need in order to receive the quality of care that they deserve.

Next question?

Further debate?

First of all, we are building infrastructure. And first of all, I have to thank the Minister of Education for being in my riding on Friday to announce a new public school for our growing community. In that area where we’re growing and building, we’re building another 825 student spaces and another 88 child care spaces, which is just huge for families. Thank you again to the Minister of Education for this infrastructure build.

Also, what we’re looking for in some of our communities is—we have aging infrastructure when it comes to community centres, and we need that extra little help. We see a lot of our malls are changing. A lot of our seniors would walk around the malls, but our malls are being redeveloped into townhouses and different types of housing—affordable housing—because of our initiatives from our government. Once again, thank you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for helping us build more housing, but for that we need some help with some community space.

I’m asking the parliamentary assistant, if you can help me: Explain what’s in the budget to help with community space for our growing communities.

First of all, I’ll say thank you to the member from Lakeshore, Etobicoke–Lakeshore—there are two Lakeshores—for your advocacy for the people of Etobicoke–Lakeshore. You’re so right. Who does not remember going to community centres or the libraries to play and have fun? Those who are parents—I do remember when my kids were young, I used take them to the Fletcher Creek community centre. It used to be fun. We would hang out as parents, the kids would have fun. They learned swimming and essential things for their lives. These centres have been serving our community for generations.

That is why, as said earlier, this is the government that believes in investing for the people of Ontario. We are investing $200 million to new community sport and recreation infrastructure. All the caucus members—

I’m so pleased to be here today. I’m going to say it like I mean it: I’m really pleased to be here today. This budget, budget 2024, we have been very vocal about the gaps that we see in this budget and I’m going to talk about some of the amendments, but I’ve been listening to some Pink Floyd recently, and I’m going to try to get some Pink Floyd quotes on the record because it’s very applicable to this current culture of this government.

I’m really doing this for my own amusement, but at third reading, we need all the help we can get, especially having gone through an extensive pre-budget consultation process where myself and my colleague from London North travelled around the province, and our colleagues met us in Hamilton and northern Ontario. Although, I must point out to the government members who are so happily here, as well, that no Toronto pre-budget consultations were scheduled. This government left Toronto off the pre-budget agenda. And I have to say, I know that there is some bias towards the GTA area; certainly earlier, the Minister of Health was talking about how we’re just downtown New Democrats, even though I’m from Waterloo and we’ve got people from Windsor; we’ve got people from northern Ontario; we’ve got people in the Ottawa area.

Toronto matters. It really, really does, and the fact that this government intentionally removed Toronto delegations from the budget process was very problematic, because this is the economic engine of Ontario. The connectivity with our various communities truly does matter, and if you are trying to design and craft a budget that meets the needs of the people who we are elected to serve, then you need to include Toronto. I wanted to point that out.

I also wanted to say that we did try to make this budget bill better during committee. We introduced two significant amendments. We’re, of course, limited, just so you know, in what we can do. This obviously is not the budget that I would have designed, by a long shot. But I do want to say, we did try to make it better and, very quickly, we introduced a couple of amendments.

One of the amendments proposed an emergency room emergency fund, because we have had so many emergency closures across this province. When those small rural hospitals are shutting their ERs down—in Durham, there was emergency room closures, as well—I think there were 203 over the course of the last year. That’s another record in the province of Ontario—check—for this government. We’ve never seen these kinds of closures for emergency rooms ever in the history of the province of Ontario, and it is impacting the health and safety and well-being of the people that we’re elected to serve; make no mistake about that.

So what we did is that we created a new schedule to create an emergency room emergency fund, to keep ERs open that would otherwise be shut down due to the lack of funding. And do you know who actually recommended this? They came to committee, and I want to thank the good folks from Minden, because that community got blindsided as this government allowed and permitted and fast-tracked the closure of their emergency room in Minden. It’s heartbreaking for that community. They have been tracking the deficits of the hospitals in this province, and you would have to be literally with your head in the sand to not know how dire the situation is for our acute-care hospitals in Ontario. So we proposed this; of course, it went nowhere.

And then one of the schedules, of course, renames the infrastructure bank to the new Building Ontario Fund. The infrastructure bank was introduced originally in the fall economic statement; it’s copying the federal Liberal infrastructure bank, which has been an abject failure. So instead of this government actually looking at a mechanism that would assist with infrastructure development, do you know what they did? They just rebranded it. They just called it a new name.

We tried to really get at the heart of what this new Building Ontario Fund would look like: What are the parameters? What’s the framework? We don’t have a lot of confidence in this government’s ability to create legislation, or even regulations, well, and so what we did is we introduced an amendment that would ensure that the Ontario Infrastructure Bank—or the Building Ontario Fund, now—would not allow for public dollars to be used for private, for-profit projects that would otherwise get built. This makes a lot of sense, because, as my colleague has pointed out, this province is in massive debt and with an ongoing $9.8-billion operational funding shortfall, which was not predicted even in the fall economic statement.

So people are paying the price for your poor policy decisions, for your poor legislative decisions, and the costs for Bill 124 in total, the FAO predicts, are at $13.7 billion. I’d like to point out that that is money you put your hands in the pockets of Ontarians for, because this government talks about pockets a lot. You put your hands in the pockets of Ontarians when you introduced Bill 124, an unconstitutional piece of legislation which caps wages at 1%, then you called everybody who was working during that pandemic—the nurses, the front-line health care workers, the doctors—heroes, but you capped them at 1%, which is a contributing factor to the out-migration of those health care professionals in Ontario—100% for sure it is.

So what we wanted to make sure with this new Building Ontario Fund—how would the implementation happen? Because reduced public financing for long-term-care facilities or affordable housing that are normally privately financed that would not otherwise get built is an issue. And public financing is a big part of our Homes Ontario plan, because this government has to get back in the business of building truly attainable affordable housing. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has encouraged this government to build that kind of housing, not market share. This is truly affordable attainable housing, because that is the stabilizer for the economy, right?

And we now know, after five and a half painful years of this particular government, that housing starts are down. It is very disturbing to see these numbers decrease in the face of people living in tents and temporary shelters across this great province. That crisis is real.

If you were serious about stabilizing the housing market, you would get back into the business of building non-market housing. We have a plan. We presented it to you in the face of a really positive solution, one part of the solution to address the housing crisis. This government said no. They’re very good at saying no to us, as they just did earlier, on the education funding.

However, it would not be worthwhile to allow costly private financing to displace affordable public financing. So, we tried to get some clarity on this, because, I have to tell you—I mean, there’s a lot of talk about the gravy train in this place, but we’re really focused now on the gravy stains, because you keep leaving a path of destruction and, quite honestly, really poor fiscal decisions which we are going to end up paying the cost for.

So we tried to make the bill better. It didn’t go very well for us, because it’s a supermajority here at Queen’s Park. We did put a dissenting opinion, though. This is a record-long dissenting opinion; I believe it’s nine pages long. I do want to thank my staff in my office, Karissa Singh, who is my legislative assistant, and Steffi Burgi, who is an OLIP intern—they’re doing amazing work—but also Caitlin Hipkiss, who is our researcher.

Interjections.

Yes, that’s good. Thank you very much.

Say what you want; we punch above our weight in the research department, I can tell you, usually out of necessity. But we put in a dissenting opinion that has never been this long, because the grievances are so real.

And really, Madam Speaker, when you go through the process of engaging the public on what they would like to see in the budget and then you essentially ignore everything that they asked for, this is insulting, and we can do better as legislators. We’re so far apart on so many issues, but there’s no willingness even to compromise on those investments that would save the health care system money down the line, for instance. And this includes access to medication or even oxygen. We heard from several organizations about the cost of oxygen and the availability of oxygen as medicine, and this government refused to even entertain increasing the availability and reducing the cost to people who require oxygen to live. I think it’s very symbolic, Madam Speaker. We can all agree, I would hope, that oxygen is one of those key factors in staying alive—but not with this government.

The other thing I do want to say is that during the consultations in Oakville, we were at the Holiday Inn ballroom. We’re all set up there, and the Canadian council of universities started their deputation to us. It was a big ballroom; there was a lot of room for people to come and watch us listen or talk—more listen, I would say—and then a leak started to happen in the ballroom. As the council of Canadian universities kept moving forward with their presentation, the leak got more profound and more water started to come in. And just at the moment when the CEO of the Canadian council of universities mentioned the infrastructure deficit on our campuses, the ceiling came down and we had to suspend the pre-budget consultations—again, very symbolic. However, the ignoring of the original leak proved to be very meaningful at that very moment.

I just wanted to reference the fact that, today, this is actually a historical time in this Legislature. It goes all the way back to the Mike Harris years—1996, when the first omnibus bill was brought into this Legislature, and it was by the previous Premier, Mike Harris, who had his slogan, “Make Ontario Great Again.”

I know, right? It’s quite something.

That was the first introduction of the omnibus bill. These omnibus bills are very problematic, because you can actually have some good things in them, but then you always have a poison pill and so we obviously have to vote against it. They actually were referenced during those 1996-97 years as bully bills.

It’s funny, because Alvin Curling stood in his place in this House—

Interjection.

I want to actually thank Steve Paikin for posting that, because I find that sort of stuff interesting.

Our own Peter Kormos also was successful in, I believe, doing 21 hours of a filibuster at the time. Of course, we can’t do that now; if we did, we would be here all the time, I have to tell you, because the legislation—including even this latest Bill 185, this so-called “build more housing, cutting red tape” bill, which is going to create so many problems for our municipalities across this province.

I’m going to circle back to health care.

During the pre-budget consultations, we heard from so many organizations, and the language that they were using, I personally have never heard before. They said, “We’ve hit the wall. We are well past the tipping point. There is a tsunami of broken people in our communities. We do not have the medical staff to take care of them.” On the mental health file, never have I seen the anxiety around the lack of mental health resources to be so profound.

In our northern and rural communities, these problems are highlighted, I would have to say. We still, obviously, are fighting for culturally appropriate health care so that people have a connection with their doctor. But in northern communities, it is very dire.

I want to thank our northern members, including our amazing health critic from Nickel Belt, who has been just tracking the money—because it doesn’t matter all of the press releases that you quote; when you start believing your own press releases that you wrote, this is a problem. But at the end of the day, it really does matter where the money is going. And of course, the figure that’s contained within the budget also includes the compensation for Bill 124.

You’re very proud of saying, “This is a historic amount of historic funding.” I’ve never heard the word “historic” used in such an unhistoric way—and incorrectly, I might add.

Where we are right now is a standoff with doctors in Ontario—and where we are right now is, we have a Minister of Health who is not concerned, she says, about the diminished supply of doctors. This is a very dangerous standoff, I just want to say. We’ve seen this play out, actually, even in our education system, where the out-migration of teachers from that sector has been—I would say, obviously, we’ve never seen that many teachers—usually teachers are moving into the system with great enthusiasm, because it’s a calling; teaching is a calling, to be an educator. But now, even following this debate and listening to the minister really diminish those concerns that exist in the system, and then not acknowledge the impact of the learning and working conditions of our classrooms and how that is impacting people staying or leaving the field—this is basic common sense: If your work experience is dreadful, if you aren’t able to actually meet the needs of your complex students in your classroom because of underfunding, because of a lack of human resources, that is going to impact whether or not you stay in the profession. This is not a complicated concept here.

This is an article from Allison Jones from the Canadian Press: “Arbitration with province’s doctors over compensation in dire shape”—and this is the Ontario Medical Association. Listen to some of these things that the minister has actually said. I’ll set the stage for you:

“Recruitment and retention of doctors in Ontario is ‘not a major concern,’ the Ministry of Health suggests in arguments it is making in arbitration with the Ontario Medical Association over physician compensation.

“The argument from the province comes as the OMA, which represents Ontario’s doctors, has repeatedly warned that more than two million residents don’t have a family doctor and thousands of physician jobs are going unfilled.”

This reminds me of that Pink Floyd lyric; you know the one—I always listen to Pink Floyd. Nobody believes that, but this is it—“Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?” That’s pretty relevant, eh? I mean, Pink Floyd is amazing, I have to say. But literally, you’ve called these people heroes, and yet when you sit down with them in arbitration, the conversation becomes less respectful, I would say.

“But the talks are going so poorly that an arbitrator is now being asked to determine compensation levels for the first year while the two sides work on the 2025-2028 period”—so they’re pushing this down the line. There are no solutions here, because there’s no respect, and you’re not going to get to a stabilized place with doctors in Ontario if you do not respect those doctors.

It goes on to say, “Things are in such dire shape that that’s the fastest way to get money out the door to stabilize family doctors’ practices”—by pushing it down to 2025-28. And this is coming from Dr. David Barber, the chair of OMA’s section on general and family practice.

In between, in these articles, there’s old titles, and one of these titles says, “Want More Family Doctors in Ontario? Pay Them Better” and “Can’t Find a Family Doctor? It Might Be Because They’re Busy Doing Other Specialties”—you know where they’re going? They’re going to the private sector, because this government has said, “Listen, it’s the Wild West out there right now, and we’re really friendly towards these medical businesses versus public health care.” It’s very clear where the resources and the talent are going.

So David Barber, who is the chair of OMA section on general and family practice:

“The government’s arguments in its arbitration brief are unlikely to improve relations, he said.... It’s really quite insulting.”

How can this government, after all of this time, after seeing what happened in the education system, after seeing what happened to the nurses, not acknowledge that doctors will walk? They will go to other sectors. They will go to other provinces. If we have 2.2 million Ontarians right now who do not have a family doctor, in five years we’re going to have 4.6 million Ontarians that do not have a family doctor.

Why I should have to explain that family doctors are the gatekeepers to the entire medical system—that is the way our system is designed. You don’t want more people going to the emergency room to access basic medical health care when those hospitals, those acute care centres, are already overrun, in a state of chaos and in a state of crisis—and also running a deficit. There is a cost to not dealing with doctors in a respectful manner, and this cost is increasing costs in other parts of the system, instead of just having a respectful dialogue around arbitration.

Barber goes on to say, “The numbers are one thing, right, but ... the government’s approach here is their briefing essentially says there’s nothing wrong. I get there’s posturing, but this is actually quite dangerous posturing on the side of the government.”

This is coming from the Ontario Medical Association, calling your rhetoric on the state of medical care, the state of doctors in Ontario—they are calling your actions as a government dangerous. And it’s dangerous for so many reasons.

“The average physician income adjustments compared favourably with other settlements where retention and recruitment is not a major concern,” the ministry wrote. And this is a direct quote: “We will illustrate that there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians. Across Canada, Ontario has the best record in attracting medical graduates to train in Ontario. Further, Ontario has enjoyed a growth in physicians that far outstrips population growth.”

This is what the government is saying at the Ontario Medical Association arbitration. Can you believe this? Can you believe that the government has one in four people in a few years who is not going to have a doctor, and the Minister of Health is saying, “There is nothing to see here. There is no concern.”

In order to address a problem, you need to at least acknowledge that the problem exists. In Kingston recently, there was a lineup of 200 to 300 people just trying to access urgent care. In Kitchener-Waterloo, 70,000 people do not have a doctor—between 60,000 and 70,000 people. And this is with the chamber of commerce working 100%, every single day, trying to recruit more medical professionals into our region. Because—I shouldn’t have to explain this—when you have access to medical facilities and when you have access to really great schools, this social infrastructure draws investment into our communities. They are dependent upon each other.

So this rhetoric that’s coming from the Ministry of Health during what most people would acknowledge, especially if you don’t have a family doctor, is a crisis, is such a dangerous game, and it feels like a bit of a game from the Minister of Health.

I’ll just tell you an example of how it impacts people. It’s certainly impacting the people in Minden, right? People aren’t going to buy a house in Minden if they don’t have access to an emergency room. I want my parents, Allan and Sheila, to move from Peterborough to come to Waterloo. They can’t move because they can’t find a doctor. This also impacts quality of life.

You know, you don’t see this in the commercials that the taxpayers pay for: “It’s all happening here.” Yes, it’s all happening here: 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor. That’s not something that the government wants to acknowledge or even pay attention to, it seems like, because, according to the Minister of Health, this is not of great concern to her. I’m telling you right now, this is a huge concern for the people of this province, and for very good reasons.

Ontario right now is short more than 2,000 doctors—2,000 doctors, right? Sure, start a medical school. That’s great. It takes almost 10 years from beginning to end to become a doctor in Ontario. Very few doctors want to go into family medicine anymore. They are looking where the money is.

The government has sort of carved off a whole market share on eyes, on hips. So you’ve created a whole new market for for-profit health care. You have created a very competitive sector where, if you’ve got the money, you can get to the front of the line. When the Premier once said, “You’ll never have to use your credit card”—this is factually incorrect. People are using their credit card to access health care in Ontario. In fact, we continue to bring stories to the floor of this Legislature because we believe truly in maintaining what we have left, anyway, of the universal health care system, and it shouldn’t depend on how much money you make, especially with a growing population—the demographics in this province, more and more seniors on fixed incomes. Them going to access health care and getting a bill is very stressful. We hear about it all the time in our office in Waterloo.

So this is where we are. Our health critic says the government needs to work with doctors to address the issues that are driving physicians out of family medicine. Amen. That’s exactly what needs to happen. “Over two million people don’t have a doctor.... Instead of trying to solve this problem, the government wants to ignore it.” We agree with the Ontario Medical Association that this is a very dangerous game to be playing on health care.

It is interesting; I have actually never seen this before, but the Ontario Union of Family Physicians have started a petition to call on the minister to resign. I’ve never seen doctors become this political, ever, in Ontario, so that is historic. I guess I can say that. That’s the correct use of the word “historic.” This is what they say: The Ontario Physician Services Agreement—they entered into arbitration between the Ontario Medical Association and the Ministry of Health, and then they go on to say:

“We have now learned through the publicly released details of the ... arbitration briefs that the government has no intentions on taking appropriate steps to address the family medicine crisis in Ontario. In fact, the Minister of Health ... response to the worsening crisis in family medicine is to outright deny there is any crisis at all. Her comments state ‘there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians’ and that ‘retention and recruitment is not a major concern.’ This is a slap in the face to Ontarians, particularly to the 2.3 million in Ontario who do not have access to a family doctor and for those who have recently or will soon lose their family doctor due to inadequate funding and increasing administrative burden. The Ontario College of Family Physicians projects that by the year 2026, one in four Ontarians will not have a family doctor.”

You can avert this crisis, but you need to get back to the table and you need to be more respectful. They go on to say that “these comments are insensitive and dangerous. They also signal that the Ontario government has abandoned addressing the health care needs of Ontarians and is akin to denying to recognize Ontarians’ basic right to access universal health care.” So they are calling for the immediate resignation of the Ontario health minister. “Our current health care system is simply unacceptable. Ontario deserve better.” We agree, 100%, and until you redesign the system, doctors are key to accessing the health care system in Ontario, full stop.

I do want to move on just very quickly to education, because we did have a really painful debate, I have to say. To listen to such a—we’re so far apart on the education file. It’s like you’ve never stepped foot in a public school; you’ve never talked to a parent whose child has special needs and has had to be sent home because the staff are not there. When we talked about special education staff having to wear protective equipment like Kevlar, you laughed. Every year since 2018, I have to say, it’s like death by a thousand cuts.

I also want to point out that traditional conservatives acknowledge that inflation pressures are real. Inflationary pressures are not fictional. The FAO has clearly outlined the gap in really addressing the costs of education in the education file. But boy, you know, as someone who got involved in politics because of education, I will always show up for education, because it is always worth fighting for. People have said that it is the great equalizer. I have to say, I fully, 100%, agree with that.

The fact that the Minister of Education, earlier today, would not acknowledge that learning conditions and environments are working conditions—when we talk about educators—teachers were not mentioned in the budget bill, by the way. Whatever increase is in there is really allocated for Bill 124 costs, so you created a problem and now you have to pay more for the problem. You also created more problems because of Bill 124, and that was the out-migration of staff.

I fully support what our leader said during this debate when she said students in Ontario “deserve better than basics.” They deserve all of our attention and all of our energy and strategic investment in ensuring that children in the public education system can reach their potential. But when you see how many people—there are huge concerns around the number of non-teachers working in classrooms. These numbers have skyrocketed under the leadership of this minister. That’s nothing to be proud of, I must say. Schools can’t find enough supply teachers, so they’re using non-teachers to be in those classrooms.

In the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, about five years ago, it was maybe 100 times a month, very random, over the course of those 30 days. Now that number is 899 non-teaching staff in those classrooms. That’s nine times more since that point.

In the Waterloo public, it was 600 days a month over the winter to use non-teachers in the classroom, and on average it’s about 200 to 300 days a month now when no teacher was available. And I think that this is the key piece here, that educators—I call them educators because they are educators. I don’t call them union bosses and insult them to their face. That’s actually not good for morale, I just want to say.

There’s that Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall: “We don’t need no education”—

Oh, no.

“We don’t need no thought control.”

“We don’t need no thought control,” yes. I’m just really channelling Pink Floyd a little bit today.

This is what they said: “The job has changed in such a way that teachers are leaving the profession in numbers we’ve never seen before.” They are leaving the profession because of the conditions of the system.

And these are young teachers too. I just want to say that my husband, Dale, teaches at Waterloo-Oxford. He’s a mentor. He’s a department head. He has got some young teachers there, and they cannot believe the pressure and the responsibility around the mental health piece in particular, because not all teachers have a degree in psychology. That’s not why they’re there. There used to be social workers. There used to be child and youth workers. There used to be educational workers who were trained to adapt to this new world.

And there’s no doubt that social media has impacted this. There’s no doubt that social media has an impact on mental health. But having cameras around the schools is not going to solve the problem of unravelling some of that tension and that anxiety. And so, we value quality trained staff. We know that quality trained education staff keep kids safe.

Let’s be honest: The education system, in so many ways, fills those gaps for so many children. The fact that this morning our leader was talking about a breakfast program that’s being cut in Hamilton—boy, Hamilton is hurting. There is some pain there. There’s an adjustment after that industrial sort of push. They are modernizing, but the gentrification in some of these communities, where people can’t afford to live in their neighbourhoods where they have lived for years, is real.

When I was a school board trustee, I used to go to these breakfast programs—because not even the Liberals would fund the administrative cost. They would fund the materials, but they would never fund the operations. It had to be volunteers. I guess the Liberals and the Conservatives still haven’t got the idea that when children are hungry, they are not going to learn. It’s not going to happen.

When I was a trustee, I remember going to one breakfast program one year, and there were stair-step kids. There were three stair-steps: grade 6, grade 4 and grade 2. They were there at that breakfast program a half hour early, and they were hungry. The ladies who volunteered to distribute the English muffins and the cheese said that they would wrap them up for their lunch and for their supper.

The thought that this breakfast program is going to be cancelled—I mean, surely this is a good investment. It’s a good strategic investment to ensure that children have the appropriate nutrition, that they can reach their potential. If you’ve ever seen me hangry, you would also agree that it impacts behaviour, as well, and it does impact classroom management when kids are hungry. There’s no doubt about it.

Just to finish off on the teacher shortage—why are we facing a teacher shortage? It’s about the working conditions. People are completely burnt-out because the job continues to get harder and harder. Teachers are burning out, quitting or retiring. And the teachers who stay are taking more sick leave, but the supply shortage means fewer teachers are available to fill in for those who are off sick—so the failure to fill, I can tell you, in high schools across Ontario is changing the whole culture of how we talk about wellness in our workplace and how we respect the people who are on the front lines, for sure.

I do want to say, I have examined where the money is going in this budget, and one of the most egregious areas that we’ve seen an increase in, which really surprised me a little bit, was the Premier’s office, his cabinet office.

This piece is from earlier in April, and it reads, “‘His Own Gravy Train’: Cost of Staffing Doug Ford’s Office More Than Double Kathleen Wynne’s”—well, so much for streamlined and tightening the belt and reducing the expenditures, and even being careful, even going through the optics of being careful about where money is going. This government is not even concerned. Their hubris on this issue is profound.

“The cost and size of the Premier’s office in Ontario has ballooned” under this government. “Despite promising to be careful with public money, Ford’s office is much larger and more expensive than his Liberal predecessor....” Well, isn’t that interesting? It is about priorities.

Budgets are supposed to be moral documents which tell the people we’re elected to serve about the—it demonstrates our priorities. For some reason, now the Premier’s priority is his own office, in the face of breakfast programs closing up, in the face of record use of food bank use, in the face of record demovictions and renovictions, in the face of above-guideline rent increases that are displacing seniors out of their homes and out of their communities. And for the 77% of renters in Ontario, it further destabilizes the economy, because a vast majority of their take-home pay is now going towards rent, which is arbitrarily being raised, and that is not good for the economy.

There is a serious productivity issue in this province. When people are constantly concerned about how they’re going to afford food, how they’re going to afford their rent, how they’re going to make sure that their children have the supplies that they need to go to school, this destabilizes the economy.

There was an opportunity in this budget to stabilize. That’s what we should be focused on right now, because it is so precarious out there, especially for the part-time workers in Ontario.

I haven’t seen too many members on the government side defend the Premier for his vastly expensive office, so I’m going to be curious to see what some of the members say about this, because this is not your traditional fiscal conservativism: “The cost of staffing the Premier’s office ... has more than doubled since 2018, according to public salary disclosure data, spending that has far outpaced” the former Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“Public salary disclosures of those making $100,000 or more, also known as the sunshine list, for 2023 show the total number of staff in the Premier’s office ... along with the number of people earning six figures, has grown since 2019....

“The increase in spending is a departure from the government’s initial declaration that Ford was ushering in a ‘new era of fiscal responsibility and respect for taxpayers.’”

When people show you who they really are, you should really believe them. Their actions, obviously, are more important than the press releases.

“The Premier said that under his stewardship, his government would search for savings while remaining mindful of how Queen’s Park was spending public dollars.”

Yes, that’s what was said. But in 2019, the first full year in office, they had 20 employees who made the sunshine list, and there was a cost of $2.9 million in total compensation. In 2023, the number of Premier’s office employees on the sunshine list more than doubled to 48—48—with a combined compensation of $6.9 million.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a group that I’m always surprised that I’m quoting—just as I am surprised to be quoting Pink Floyd—they say, “‘That’s unacceptable,’ said Jay Goldberg.... ‘Is the Premier’s office two or three times more effective than they were just a few years ago?’” I think not, especially with some of the legislation that you’ve had to reverse, even in Bill 185.

You’ve spent a vast amount of energy and money reversing decisions, right? You got caught on the greenbelt. There was a mea culpa, but you still found a way to dig away at the greenbelt, especially around Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. It’s happening in Windsor. It’s going to happen in Ottawa. It’s certainly happening in Waterloo, Waterloo region, where this government is condoning and encouraging the expropriation of 770 acres of prime farmland—so much for respecting farmers. If you see the testimony for these farmers—

They’re mad.

Bill 28.

They’re mad. They’re sad. They’re confused. They thought it was very un-Canadian to displace—some of the most productive farmers in Ontario are in Wilmot township. The farming sector contributes $47.8 billion to the economy of Ontario, and this government wants to pave over those 770 acres.

One of the farmers said, “Listen, I don’t even know what to say to you.” He goes, “I don’t even know if I should plant my seeds this year,” because the organization from the United States that came to do the dirty work, Canacre, said, “We’re going to offer you $29,000 an acre, and if you don’t sell to us, we’re going to take it.”

What does that sound like? Does that sound very democratic to you? I would say no. Are we getting any answers from the various levels of government? I would say no. Although, the Premier said he fully supports it, and they put the call out for these kinds of expropriation, mega industrial sites. You can’t eat an EV battery; I’m telling you right now. This is sort of the greenwashing that we’re seeing, what’s happening in Wilmot township.

And farmers, let’s be honest, vote for the Conservatives, traditionally. They have. But, boy, do you know what? When you break the trust with a farmer and that relationship is compromised and then you are part and parcel of the stealing of his or her land, they’re not going to vote for you anymore. And they have long memories, I’ll tell you this much. I know a farmer. He’s a dairy farmer. He’s our House leader. He’s got a long memory.

So, for some reason, now the Premier needs $6.9 million just to run his office? This is what Jay Goldberg says: “I think that we’re paying a lot more but we’re not necessarily getting more.” Well, isn’t that the truth?

“The increase—136% in five years—also eclipses what Wynne’s Premier’s office spent on staff.” And then they go into what the previous Liberals—and I do remember the outrage, because I was here and so was my colleague from Niagara and so was my colleague from London, is that if the previous Liberal Premier had done this, the Conservatives, who all sat here, would be furious. There are some people who would be—

Interjection.

Interjection.

And then also, this is a government that has given—almost everybody has parliamentary assistant status. A few people have got King’s Counsel status. These are good titles if you can get it.

Just for reference, we as MPPs, our salaries here have been frozen here for 14 years. But we come here every day and we work really hard. But for some reason, the Premier has found a nice little workaround on these salaries.

This is the final line: “At the same time, nearly every member of the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus has been named as a cabinet minister or parliamentary assistant, topping up their MPP salaries by thousands....

“Goldberg said the ‘runaway spending’ is a sign that costs at Queen’s Park need to be reined in.” Well, I think this is something that we could totally agree with, across party lines. If the Premier wants to reduce his staffing in the Premier’s office, we fully support that. We will work hand in hand with you to help make that happen.

What we will not do is allow the government to say everything is great in education, when we see how many students are being removed from their educational experience, especially special-needs students; when we still have a broken transportation funding model. Kids should not be on buses for an hour and a half one way just to save a few bucks. So if the Premier wants to divert some of that $6.9 million to a breakfast program, we’re 100% in support of making that happen.

It does tell a story, and this is really the important part of having a budget and transparency. I am worried about transparency, I will just say, because a new bill was just dropped today that’s going to be looking at the FOI process. One of the only ways that we as legislators have been able to access information from this government has been through freedom-of-information requests. It takes a long time. We’ve really benefited, I think, from the Canadian Press, when they actually disclosed how many nurses are needed in Ontario and how many doctors are needed. The government wanted to prevent people from knowing that information. If you were on this side, you would be incensed by that, because these are numbers that should direct where funding goes, that should direct resources to ensure that we can stabilize the health care system, for instance. That’s where we are with that, Madam Speaker.

And even though we bring solutions, like the caregiver motion that my colleague from Niagara had brought forward—you don’t want more people going into the emergency room with acute health care needs. You want to make sure that people can stay in their home as long as possible. People need financial resources and support to do that, because the long-term-care system is 100% a mess in Ontario.

For me, whenever I talk about long-term care, I have to talk about Jim MacLeod and his wife, Joan. Jim just called me on Saturday morning, and, you know, your heart breaks—it really does. He said, “I’m really sorry, Catherine, to call you on a Saturday morning, but what’s happening? Why can’t they call Bill 21 at committee?” You’ve said that if it’s not a perfect bill, then let’s find a solution. Let’s find a compassionate solution. If we all agree that separating seniors who have been married for years in the last years of their lives—Joan and Jim MacLeod have been married for over 65 years, but they’ve been separated for the last five and a half. Jim is a tough guy. He comes from the insurance sector. He used to chase money. He’s used to the fights. He’s a strong guy. But let’s be honest: They’re running out of time.

In the last shuffle, the member from, I think, Mississauga has now been transferred over to that file. Listen, whenever you want to talk about it, whenever you want to try to fix it, we’ll come to social policy. The bill needs to be called, though, because spousal reunification is good for the health care system, first and foremost. If you want to make the economic argument, keeping spouses together, having them care for each other in long-term care, is good for both those people, but it’s also good for the entire system.

But also, we take this oath when we get elected. We say a prayer every morning. We talk about using our power wisely. We talk about putting the people who we’re elected to serve at the centre of that conversation.

We can fix this. We can fix and design a long-term-care system with care campuses, so that Jim doesn’t have to drive all the way to Hilltop, which takes about half an hour every day, to see his wife Joan. He should just be able to walk down the hallway, where she has different needs, because he’s more independent, because people don’t age at the same time. This is not new information.

But it does come down to priorities, I would say. And I personally will be reaching out to the new committee member from Mississauga Centre, MPP Kusendova, who now is on that committee. Maybe two women can get this done; I don’t know. But I am just urging the Minister of Long-Term Care to call the bill, to find a solution. If you want to rewrite it, call it a different name, I don’t care. I just want the government members on that side of the House to understand that this is an urgent issue because they are running out of time to be together. And it’s time.

From the Pink Floyd album Dogs, there is this quote that says, “You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to.” It is a very powerful quote for a song lyric, because I feel—and I don’t know if you feel this way—that people are starting to lose faith in this place.

Oh, the other reversal was the Hazel McCallion Act, where they were going to make Mississauga stand-alone, and now they’ve just sent the bill for efficiencies and I think it’s at about $6.9 million right now. You can’t even make this up. The story was very interesting, because this was all happening in the Premier’s Office, and the transition committee that is earning six figures—all of them—could not get a call back from the Premier’s Office. So I would say the $6.9-million budget you’ve got going on there, you’re not getting good value for; let’s be honest. So that was one of the other reversals.

But this line is very powerful, because I am genuinely concerned about our democracy in Ontario. Moving to make the freedom-of-information process less accessible is problematic. Think about all of the times we have had to go to court to get mandate letters or fight unconstitutional legislation like Bill 124. You didn’t even just lose one time in court on Bill 124, when it was deemed unconstitutional; you did it twice. You doubled down on an unconstitutional piece of legislation, which really—I think the impact of this Bill 124 is going to be felt in this province for a long time, because trust was compromised.

And there are some people who, I think, have become comfortably numb—also another Pink Floyd lyric—but we are not that. We’re coming here each and every day to propose some solutions, be they on housing, in the face of the epic failure on the housing file, I would have to say—I mean, even on housing, one of the first steps that should happen is that at least those people who are renters—give them some consistency. Give them some surety, if you will. But when we’re seeing these above-guideline rents just become the norm, then that destabilizes even the renters.

On health care: As we pointed out, the fact that the Minister of Health is on the record saying that there is no concern around the lack of doctors—I mean, is it intentionally starting a fire? I remember back in the 1990s, in 1995, when Snobelen said, “I want to create a crisis,” because, boy, when you create a crisis, you can get away with a lot of things, Madam Speaker. You don’t have to create the crisis, though, anymore, because the crisis is real. The crisis is successful years of underfunding and policy inconsistencies, which has destabilized both health care and education.

And then when I go back and I look at the advertising money that this province is spending, including—very good connector piece—with ACTRA today, where the government is employing non-unionized advertisers in the face of a two-year lockout for ACTRA. How can anybody in this very expensive Premier’s office think that this is a good idea? How can you defend that expenditure when you are intentionally undermining the very people that are a part of that creative economy, which is also very undervalued by this government?

Finally, I just want to say, on the post-secondary education file, I have two universities in my riding, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier. I also have Conestoga College. That sector was looking for real leadership from budget 2024. They were pretty clear that there are no vast reserves, as has been suggested by the minister. This is what they said: “The budget is a death knell for the post-secondary institutions, and so many are at risk of going under, under this government’s watch.”

So if you step back and you look at how this government has made very specific and targeted funding announcements for specific communities and projects which benefit the very prominent people of the development sector, for instance—you are prioritizing that work in the face of the fact that we are seeing breakfast programs cancelled, for instance.

The mental health piece: When I met with the Associate Minister of Mental Health on the need for more alternative destination clinics so that people are not going to emergency rooms when they are in crisis—I hope that we can agree that a hospital room, a busy, chaotic hospital room, is not the best place to go when you are in crisis. Alternative destination clinics—your own minister supports them, but the money is not there.

So the way that you actually demonstrate that you understand these issues and that you actually care about these issues is that you have targeted resources allocated, and I would even say enveloped, in this budget for mental health.

I didn’t get a chance to talk at length about municipalities, but there was nothing in this budget to make them whole. Right now, we are seeing councils hire former staffers out of the Premier’s office so that they can gain access to the Premier’s office. This is today’s story, where people are making money by selling—opening the door to the Premier’s office, a little seat at the table.

Everybody in this province should have a seat in this House and access to their government representatives. They should not have to buy access, Madam Speaker. They should not have to, especially municipalities, because there’s a lot of rhetoric around how they are our partners and we’re working with them; meanwhile, you undermine their planning decisions at every single turn.

I think I will just leave you with one of the greatest quotes from Pink Floyd, which says, “Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?”

The silence that we hear from the government members on some of these truly, I would say, unethical funding decisions, around funding priorities around where the money is going, really tells the true story of what’s happening in that Premier’s office, even as the staffing allocation explodes.

We, on this side of the House, truly believe that the province of Ontario is worth fighting for. That is why we show up here every single day. Our goal is to hold the government to account, especially through this budget process, to make sure that you know that you are missing key areas to make the lives of Ontarians better in this province. And I have to say, it shouldn’t surprise you at all: There is no way that we will ever be supporting a budget that misses the mark so profoundly.

In our area, in the greater Essex county area, there is a police force that has a program called ROPE. That’s the repeat offender parole enforcement program. It is funded in part by the province of Ontario. And just four days ago, the police in Windsor arrested a fugitive from justice. This person was convicted of 14 Criminal Code offences, but the day before sentencing, he skipped out on bail and went missing. But as a result of this program, partially funded by this government, the police, under the ROPE program, captured him, and now he’s back in justice and he’s going to face his sentencing. This is made possible under the budget of the province of Ontario.

When are the NDP going to abandon their “defund the police” position and help us fund the police?

Questions?

I’m so pleased that you asked me that question, because 1,326 sexual assault cases got thrown out of court in 2022 because you are underfunding the court system. This tough-on-crime government are allowing literally rapists to walk free. So that program that you were just talking about—you spent all that money rambling up this convicted criminal, but if that guy goes past 18 months, he walks. That’s the system that you’re so proud of.

Interjections.

You cited some stats around people making distinctive choices not to go into that sector because the working conditions are so tense and so hard, and they’ve been made more difficult by this government. But I always think about the existing resources in health right now. My concierge at my building, a block away, is a renal specialist from Pakistan. He would like to be a practising doctor in Ontario. So I would urge the government to look at all avenues to ensure we have the appropriate health care professionals working in Ontario.

The base funding that was included in this budget is already allocated to Bill 124. It’s already spent.

This is—22 hospitals in Ontario are running deficits. So this budget allocation, unfortunately for all of us in all of our ridings, misses the mark so profoundly. It truly was a missed opportunity to hear the acute message that we heard from acute care and allocate the appropriate funding. That did not happen.

I was pleased to see the government do that with midwives a little bit. So why not expand the scope so that actually we can meet the needs of health care? I will say my future daughter-in-law—I’ve told you my son is getting married. She’s a nurse at Grand River Hospital—

Interjections.

With every passing year, that hole gets bigger and bigger, right? This comes back to inflationary costs. But the fact that hospitals right now are—22 are running deficits. It should be a red flag for this government that the funding is not keeping pace.

But also, when you inject that 30% for-profit part, that 30% is a huge carve-out in a multi-billion-dollar budget item. So what I would have to say is that I guess I’m going to have to see you on “the dark side of the moon,” because things are not going very well in the hospital sector.