This one is a petition entitled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.” It points out the Market Basket Measure poverty line and the OW, Ontario Works, rates are far, far apart. The Ontario Works rate is $733 a month, and no one in this province can possibly survive on $733 a month. You cannot even rent a room for $733 a month. ODSP is just over $1,300 a month. Again, you cannot survive on that. And so there’s been an open letter to the Premier and to cabinet ministers, with signatures of 230 organizations that are asking that the OW and ODSP rates be doubled. There have been some small increases, but they do not even keep up with the rate of inflation since this government took power in 2018. In fact, the rate of inflation has been 17% since this government took power and the increase in ODSP rates has been only 5%.

They’re asking for a doubling of this—of basic survival. Basic income set with CERB was $2,000 a month. They’re asking for an immediate doubling of social assistance rates to end the destitution of people living on Ontario Works and ODSP.

I fully endorse this petition and will pass it to page Sophie to take to the table.

I have a petition entitled “Stop Bill 166.” This is legislation, of course, that was passed yesterday in this Legislature, despite the opposition of the official opposition. The reason we opposed that bill is set out in this petition. It’s because it directs anti-racism and mental health work on campuses without the involvement of those who have expertise in this area, at a time when there have been significant cuts to community mental health services and, also, an effective dismantling of the Anti-Racism Directorate.

It also notes that our post-secondary institutions are facing a very serious fiscal crisis, and the inadequacy of the government’s funding for post-secondary education is going to mean cuts to staff who work in mental health and anti-racism services on campus. The petition raises concerns about the political interference in university research and education in Ontario through Bill 166, and notes that the protection of universities from political interference is lauded as a cornerstone of democracy and, therefore, calls on the government to not move ahead with Bill 166.

I fully support this petition, affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Harry.

This petition notes that the pressure placed on our education system has led to a dramatic increase in reports of violence in our schools, as well as an increase in the severity of the violent incidents. The petition recommends that classroom sizes be reduced, that additional supports be funded for schools, including mental health resources. It calls for an end to violence against education workers, teachers and EAs and other education staff. It calls for improved workplace reporting and more support staff.

Those are the kinds of measures that would be needed to address violence in our schools. Those are measures I fully support, and I will affix my signature and send the petition to the table with page Harry again.

I have a petition here that speaks about support for access to spine care in Ontario. To summarize it, if you have a complex spinal condition, your access to surgery is hampered simply because of the OHIP fee schedule and the way that the funding formula works for surgeries. So people aren’t getting access to critical care that they need, and it’s causing a lot of suffering.

What they’re asking the government to do is to simply take a look at how they can fund complex spine surgeries in a fair way, compensate surgeons fairly, and ensure that anyone who needs this service gets access to it.

I agree with this petition, and I’m going to give it to page Soyul.

That concludes the time we have available for petitions this afternoon.

I will be sharing my time this afternoon with the member from Mississauga Centre.

Monsieur le Président, en tant que présidente du Conseil du Trésor, c’est un privilège de prendre la parole aujourd’hui dans le cadre de la troisième lecture de la Loi de 2024 visant à bâtir un Ontario meilleur (mesures budgétaires).

But before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge two bright young Ontarians, Colby Farrell and Noah Loreto, who are present with us today. Colby and Noah have joined my office as summer interns and I am delighted to welcome them to this third reading.

Speaker, members have already heard how this budget will deliver on our government’s plan to build.

Je tiens aujourd’hui à rappeler les actions concrètes et les mesures prudentes mises en oeuvre par le gouvernement pour bâtir une meilleure province.

First, no budget is delivered overnight. This is why it’s necessary to briefly outline the conditions, the context, that helps shape our plan.

Monsieur le Président, l’Ontario n’est pas à l’abri des soubresauts économiques mondiaux.

The province continues to deal with the very real ramifications of considerable inflation, global instability and high interest rates.

Il ne s’agit pas là de simples problèmes d’ordre macroéconomique. Nous parlons ici de véritables problèmes qui ont une incidence sur la vie quotidienne des Ontariennes et des Ontariens qui travaillent dur, and these are challenges that must be addressed directly by the government in its fiscal planning.

C’est pourquoi je me réjouis que, dans ces circonstances, le gouvernement tienne son engagement de continuer à bâtir pour l’avenir.

Speaker, now is the time to meet these economic challenges head-on: actions such as targeted investments to build more homes to accommodate our growing population; actions like attracting good-paying jobs in growth industries; and actions like making sure that there is more money in Ontarians’ pockets by keeping costs down for families.

Le budget de cette année est soigneusement équilibré.

It calls for significant investments in infrastructure without raising taxes. It includes investments in new highways and roads like the Bradford Bypass, which the great people of my riding of York–Simcoe have been asking for for almost 50 years.

Speaker, our budget goes beyond roads and highways. It also represents the largest public transit expansion in North America, all without increasing taxes. And why are we doing that? Because in these challenging times, it would be unfair to impose additional burden on the people of this province.

Le gouvernement a le devoir de présenter aux familles un plan responsable, transparent et rationnel pour l’avenir. C’est ce que fait le budget de 2024.

It adopts a long-term perspective on our future.

Il tient compte du fait que la population ontarienne devrait enregistrer une nette croissance au cours de la prochaine génération.

Of course, this is a great compliment to the place that we all call home. I believe, Speaker, that it can also be seen as a vote of confidence about where this province is headed. But the expected increase in population is not without its own challenges. It means that the status quo just won’t cut it.

L’Ontario a besoin de plus de logements, de meilleurs moyens de transport en commun, d’infrastructures municipales améliorées, ainsi que de services efficaces dans les domaines de l’éducation et de la santé.

Ontario needs to provide for all of its people, today and tomorrow. There’s a great deal to cover in this budget, so I will not be exhaustive, but I would like to point out a few highlights.

Tout d’abord, le gouvernement investira plus de 190 milliards de dollars au cours des 10 prochaines années pour construire des infrastructures essentielles, comme celles servant pour le transport en commun, l’élargissement des routes ainsi que l’amélioration de la couverture des services Internet haute vitesse.

There is $1 billion of investment in the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program. This funding will help municipalities get shovels in the ground on critical infrastructure that is so needed to increase housing stock across the province. Cities and towns have been asking for this funding to unlock more housing. Our government listened. As well, the budget calls for an investment of $825 million in municipal water infrastructure projects.

Le budget comprend également les premiers investissements dans le Fonds pour l’accélération de la construction. Ce nouveau programme triennal de 1,2 milliard de dollars comprend un nouveau soutien financier majeur accordé en fonction des résultats qui sont obtenus par rapport aux objectifs provinciaux établis en matière de logement.

Speaker, this new fund will ensure that more municipalities have the tools they need to build homes faster, to help alleviate the affordability crisis in housing across our province.

Monsieur le Président, l’accent mis sur les transports est un autre pilier essentiel de ce budget.

Gridlock costs this province every single day of the year. People need to spend more time at their destinations and less time in their cars. That’s why the government is making significant investments in projects like the Bradford Bypass and the new Highway 413. As well, the government is expanding existing highways, like Highway 7 and Highway 401.

But it’s not just about car traffic. The budget also calls for significant improvements in GO train and GO bus services to create cohesive and comprehensive transit across the province, and includes the long-overdue restoration of passenger rail service to northern Ontario.

La concrétisation de cet investissement représente la plus importante expansion du transport en commun en Amérique du Nord.

Speaker, I mentioned how the budget will also keep costs down and keep more money in the pockets of Ontarians. I’d like to highlight a few initiatives that will do just that.

À travers tout cela, le gouvernement maintient son engagement d’accompagner les collectivités les plus vulnérables de l’Ontario.

This includes our low-income seniors, those of us living with addiction and mental health challenges and the many who are dealing with inconsistent housing.

The budget also highlights changes in the Ontario Electricity Support Program that will make electricity more affordable for thousands of low-income families. As well, the government has already proposed the extension of the existing gasoline and fuel tax rate cuts until December 21 of this year. That’s 10 cents off at the pumps, Mr. Speaker. This will put more money in the pockets of drivers at a time when they need it most.

With this aim in mind, the government is proposing to freeze fees on drivers’ licences and ban any new tolls on new and existing provincial highways.

Monsieur le Président, les économies réalisées grâce à ces initiatives sont à 66 millions de dollars au cours des cinq prochaines années. Nous faisons ainsi économiser de l’argent aux familles.

In closing, I’d like to emphasize that this budget is a great example of the balanced, responsible and careful approach that our government is taking as we look towards the future.

Le gouvernement procède à des investissements judicieux dans le logement et l’infrastructure, pour soutenir une province qui est en pleine croissance. De plus en plus de gens élisent domicile ici en Ontario.

At the same time, the government is protecting the most vulnerable amongst us and keeping costs down despite economic pressures.

Le gouvernement a mis de l’avant un plan robuste—a plan that supports the contention that Ontario is the best place to raise a family, the best place to work and the best place to live.

Thank you for the time today, Speaker.

I respectfully ask that all members support the Building a Better Ontario Act, 2024.

Point of order?

Point of order, the member from Nickel Belt.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 15, 2024, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

Further debate?

It’s always a pleasure to be able to rise and ask questions of my colleagues across the way. I listened to your presentation—both presentations, actually—this afternoon.

I guess my question is, in a time when rich, well-connected people in Ontario are benefiting from this government and the working family continues to struggle, how can the government defend a budget that fails to address the soaring costs of living and their duty to build affordable housing, which even our federal counterparts are pointing out Ontario is desperately failing at, and which is affecting real people in all of our communities, especially across Niagara?

Great presentation from the member for Mississauga Centre. I’ve had a lot of constituents in my riding reach out to me, concerned about the rising crime, auto thefts. I’ve seen it in my own neighbourhoods. People are actually scared to walk in the streets and to leave their kids at home at night because there have been many, many break and enters. There’s a WhatsApp group that was formed and it literally went from zero to 1,000 people in 24 hours. There is no doubt, unfortunately, that there is a growing crime problem.

The federal government controls the Criminal Code, so we’re not able to have any say in that, beyond obviously talking with and suggesting to the federal government that they do make changes. I wondered if you could add your voice to what is being done by the provincial government in this budget to fight crime.

It is now time for questions and answers.

I have been up in this House many, many times asking for funding for Highway 69. Highway 69 is the only highway that goes from Toronto to Sudbury. It is used by hundreds of trucks every single day. For 68 kilometres on Highway 69, it is not a highway; it is a two-lane road, with very few opportunities to pass—so you go from a four-lane highway that is at 110 kilometres an hour to a two-lane pathway that goes just awful to make it to Sudbury.

I have been in this House for 17 years. Your government has been in power for six years. You are spending billions of dollars on the Bradford Bypass, on Highway 413, on Highway 7, on Highway 401 in southern Ontario. When can we expect a few million dollars out of those billions to four-lane Highway 69?

I want to thank the member from Mississauga Centre for her remarks and her most recent comment about public safety. She represents an area that’s protected by the Peel police service, a phenomenal police service in Ontario, a flagship service.

In the budget, there was reference to us providing monies for helicopters so that Peel and other GTHA services would have the special aerial support they need to fight crime.

My question to the member is, how important are these investments to making a difference in her own community, to keep Peel safe?

I’m very happy to answer this question. I think there is no other government in the history of this province that has taken more action and more measures to make sure that life is affordable for Ontarians. Whether it is getting rid of the licence sticker fees, getting rid of tolls, keeping the gas tax frozen—not increasing it—we have taken concrete measures to ensure that Ontarians keep more money in their pockets.

Another great example, which my residents in Mississauga are truly benefiting from, is One Fare, which is saving $1,600 for commuters who often commute from Mississauga to Toronto and back.

I’m not sure what the member opposite is talking about, but this is the government that truly understands the affordability crisis in Ontario.

Our Solicitor General has made so many investments into our men and women in uniform, like in Peel, where last year we were together for a major announcement on investing in Peel police to ensure that our men and women in uniform have all the tools they need to fight crime.

Also, recently, our Minister of Transportation made another announcement about how we’re going to keep criminals responsible. If they are charged criminally with an offence of car theft with aggravated factors, they will actually have their licence suspended for 10 years. We’re using all the tools in our provincial tool box to make sure criminals are held liable for the crimes they commit.

I can assure the member opposite that we’re building beds across the province, and that includes several hundred beds in the city of Mississauga. In fact, Wellbrook Place, which I referenced in my speech, has over 600 homes, or 600 beds, for seniors that they can choose—

We’ll continue investing. We’ll continue building. Our budget—a $155-million construction funding subsidy—is another step in the right direction to encourage providers to build more beds and more homes, which is exactly what we need.

It is also policing week in Ontario, so I do want to wish Peel police and all our wonderful men and women in uniform a very happy policing week in Ontario. As a nurse and a first responder myself, I really appreciate the work and the dedication, the sacrifice that they do every day when they put on that uniform and show up for duty.

The Solicitor General is right: These investments will make a tangible difference in my community of Mississauga Centre to ensure that people feel protected, including my mom. She lives in my riding, and sometimes she calls me at night, scared, because there’s something happening in the community.

We need to continue these investments to ensure that our partners in uniform have all the possible tools, including modern helicopters, that they need to ensure that they keep our streets and our communities safe.

There is no other government in the history of this province that has made more investments in transportation. Whether that’s roads, highways and bridges and, of course, our transit expansion, whether it’s the Hurontario LRT in my community of Mississauga Centre or whether it’s Highway 413 that we are building or the Ontario Line, we are making huge investments—huge investments—to ensure that we save commuters time so that people can get home from work and spend more quality time with their families or they can get to work faster, because time is money. Instead of standing in traffic for two hours every day, we could be using that time to make some money.

We’ll continue making those investments and this budget is a great testament to that.

My question is for the member from Mississauga Centre. You said that the opposition accuses your government of mismanaging health care, yet you claim that you are supporting seniors and that you are doing things so that seniors can live out their lives in “beautiful, modern ... homes.” That’s a direct quote from you. Yet, in the city of Mississauga, Chartwell is evicting more than 200 seniors from their homes. Chartwell is a for-profit corporation that was heavily subsidized by the former Conservative government and that is heavily subsidized by this Conservative government, and yet they’re evicting seniors, so seniors are not able to live out their lives in their homes. In fact, they’re being renovicted so that Chartwell can sell that property to Minto and then Minto can jack up the rents on the property.

So how can the government possibly claim that they are supporting seniors living in their homes when this government is actively subsidizing a corporation that is evicting more than 200 seniors?

It’s now time for further debate.

I’m pleased to be able to stand in my place on behalf of the fine folks from Oshawa and speak on the 2024 budget. This is the supposedly—well, the named Building a Better Ontario Act, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of the perspectives from my community, although, I will say, Speaker, that the community perspectives that I’m sharing are going to sound familiar because we are hearing it from across the province.

Unfortunately, this is a budget that misses the mark. Folks from across the province don’t see what it is they need to get by in this budget, and if folks are looking for change, it isn’t in this budget. If people are looking for a family doctor, they’re not going to be reassured with this government’s plan. A young person trying to find affordable housing is going to come up short with this budget. If people are struggling with the cost of living, there isn’t anything in this budget for them. Unfortunately, this is a budget that is out of touch, and it would seem that they’re out of ideas, doubling down on policies that have been failing people. So I’m glad to be able to rise and point out a few specifics that we would have wished to have seen in this budget.

While I am the member for Oshawa, I am the only non-government provincial member in the Durham region. There are seven MPPs that have been elected to represent the entire Durham region, and I’m the only non-government and that’s been true for the 10 years I’ve been elected. I’ve always been this little orange island in—for a while it was in a sea of red; now it’s in a sea of blue. Regardless, it would seem that I have the only voice that can rise up against the government of the day and perhaps challenge them. I hope that my colleagues from the neighbouring ridings that are government members are indeed advocating in the backrooms or to the Premier, but publicly, I guess it’s up to me.

One of the things that I have raised in this House, and we’ve talked about in our community is the need for investment in health care and the need to invest in the future for access to health care, specifically a hospital in the Durham region. Oshawa would like that hospital to be in Oshawa. Every community wished that it would be chosen and put in their community, but there was a panel and a task force put together by Lakeridge Health and Whitby was the chosen site.

So the Premier of this province had said on our local radio about that hospital in Whitby, “Is it going to be tomorrow? Not tomorrow, but down the road, very shortly, we will be issuing the planning grants. Right now, for a short period, we’re not issuing any planning grants, but is Durham right in line for the next go-round? One hundred per cent they are.” He had said also, “There’s going to be a Whitby hospital.”

There isn’t any planning grant in this budget. There wasn’t in the budget before. The government has said, “Oh, we don’t put planning grants in the budget.” Well, where the heck do you put them? Put them somewhere. Tell us if that $3 million, or whatever it is, is coming so that folks in Durham can look to the future and know that at least some of their health care needs will be met. We continue to put this at the feet of the government, that the people of Durham region need medical investment, need medical care, need a hospital.

But hospitals, Speaker, are under pressure—part of the reason that we are looking to the future and need to see that that is moving ahead. The government is spending $1 billion less on health care and people are facing longer wait times, ER closures. The galleries were filled today with folks from Durham—not Durham region, Durham. There’s another Durham, and they’re losing their emergency room. They’re losing their hospital. They’re here wearing shirts saying, “Save the Durham Hospital.” It’s a reminder of what the folks from Minden went through. In their yellow shirts, they came here asking that their health care access be saved. It feels like déjà vu. It’s a year later, and it seems to be following the same script. So I would say that all communities across the province need to brace themselves, because this is not a government investing in a stronger future for health care. They’re actually pulling it away. And the folks who came from Durham are probably entering the next chapter of their lives, where they’re actually reaching for more health care.

So, Speaker, we’re seeing that hospitals are under pressure. Certainly, unfilled nursing vacancies, they’ve more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. I want to share from ONA. The Ontario Nurses’ Association had put out a piece called, “Ford’s Budget Promises Cannot Be Trusted to Improve Care in the Public System, Says Ontario Nurses’ Association.” I will quote from the ONA provincial president, who said, “There are several actions this government could and should have taken to address the health care crisis it has created. Instead, Ontarians will see their taxpayer money flowing to for-profit, private corporations as the public health care system falls further into disrepair.” She goes on to say, “This meagre one-year increase does not begin to address Ontario’s hospitals’ budgets, some of which are using lines of credits to pay off their debts.” That is a sad state of affairs, and that’s from ONA.

I will continue sharing voice from nurses, from RNAO. They have highlighted that the number of Ontario nursing vacancies unfilled for 90 days or more have more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. This number has remained around 10,000 since the last quarter of 2022. And they have recommendations.

They have said, “To address Ontario’s nursing crisis, barriers that stand in the way of retaining and recruiting nurses, and advancing their career pathways, must be removed. This includes action on compensation and workloads. Policymakers must also leverage opportunities to pave the way for a brighter future for nursing in Ontario. This is the only way to emerge from this crisis with a stronger nursing profession and health system.” And their specific recommendations, on “Barrier: Compensation,” they’ve said to:

“—increase compensation for Ontario nurses in all roles, domains and sectors so it is competitive with compensation in other jurisdictions, including the US;

“—address pay disparities among nurses working in different sectors, including home care and long-term care, by harmonizing their compensation upwards.”

Some of their other recommendations: regarding workloads, “ensure safe and healthy workloads for nurses by increasing nurse staffing and supports all across sectors”; provide mentorship supports; provide leadership training; increase career development opportunities; register internationally educated nurses; increase nursing education seats and funding; expand nursing education pathways; return nurses to the workforce; eliminate racism and discrimination. Those are a whole whack of very clear able-to-be-implemented recommendations. We don’t see in this budget what we would want to in terms of funding to be able to act on those recommendations. We should be listening to nurses.

Speaker, I have another article here, from CBC, called “Ontario May Not Meet Long-Term-Care Direct Care Target Due to Staff Shortages.” We just talked about the systemic shortage of nurses. But as of this year, there’s a need for 13,200 additional nurses and 37,700 PSWs in Ontario, and this is a document, referenced in this article, that was prepared for the long-term care minister. Sharleen Stewart has said, “Every time the government announces that they’re going to have all these thousands of new beds, we’re sitting on the sidelines, saying, ‘Who’s going to staff those homes?’” Referring to the PSWs, “Some of them, they don’t last six weeks,” says Stewart. “A lot of them go in and say the workloads are just too heavy, the conditions are unsafe, and they move on. So we’ve had reported close to 50% of new hires leave within the first between six months and definitely after a year. So it’s a continuous revolving door.”

This is from a document that the minister has in front of him. The government knows that they’re dealing with a shortage. They’re getting information. So where do we see in the budget that we can rectify these challenges, that we can address compensation and workload and training for PSWs? We don’t see it.

I want to take the opportunity to highlight a success story in our riding. During COVID, a lot of our communities had stories of folks who came up with creative solutions, who rallied to meet a changed need. One of those stories in our community is Mission United, which was housed at the Back Door Mission in downtown Oshawa. This is a partnership across many organizations to support street-involved community members. Especially during COVID it started, but it has continued. It has grown; it has changed; and it’s meeting the acute medical needs of those who would otherwise not have access to medical care. It is building relationships with them so that they can perhaps connect with a service partner in the community they otherwise wouldn’t have known about.

It is having success; it is also having challenges and struggle. I want to say that when I had flagged this issue, and I’ve done it a few times because their funding has almost run out now twice—I want to thank the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions that when I raised this issue, he listened. He acted and actually came at my request to the Back Door Mission, to the Mission United project in Oshawa, saw for himself and also listened to community members, listened to the partners and, I’ll even say to his credit, came back another time unannounced so that he could see—just wanted to make sure that it was indeed what they said that they were. The government funded it so it can continue.

Then, we were in the same position again where the funding was about to run out. Again, we got that one-time funding. Remember, this is to meet the medical needs of street-involved community members.

So what I want to say is, after the back and forth and the advocacy and the understanding of the minister, I want to actually say thank you because there is funding now that is not year to year. It still is short term, but it allows us to figure out our next chapter. That’s not a small thing, but that is a perfect example of a community that came together and created a solution that the government recognized was a positive thing.

There are positive things happening across communities, and we hope that the government would indeed fund those as they come across them. Recognizing the opportunity to appreciate that, I’m going to say thank you, and I’m going to continue to do the work alongside the partner agencies with Back Door Mission, Mission United, CMHA. I want to thank Dr. Ho, Dr. Meunier. I want to thank Stephanie, the folks at Back Door Mission and the ED and just everyone at CMHA who have been working so hard to help very real people with very real needs.

I’m hoping to be able to continue to work with the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to address the needs that are not being met in our community for youth and youth mental health. I’ve been reaching out with community partners, and we’re hoping that that could be something, maybe in the next budget, to address mental health needs of youth in Oshawa, in our community.

While I’m talking about health care and kids, I had the opportunity to meet with a pediatrician, Karen Mandel, and Maureen Cuddy, who’s a neonatal nurse practitioner. They’ve been doing unbelievable work in our community, and they have put together a proposal, the KidsKare pediatric health team.

There is a very real need. It’s strange to imagine that babies aren’t getting the health care that they need. They’re so vulnerable. They’re brand spanking new, and there’s no doctor who will take them. Very few doctors will take on newborns. Numbers wise, there aren’t enough family doctors, and very few are setting up practice, because they can’t make a living. That’s another conversation.

What I’ll say specifically about this KidsKare pediatric health team—it was an application, a vision for children’s care in Durham region. The Ministry of Health had a call for proposals for new models of care—partnership models. They were due in June 2023. We’re coming up on a year. Some places have heard that they have received funding; others have heard nothing. We’ve heard nothing on this particular model. It’s a really impressive model. It has sort of loosely been working out of a pediatric clinic right now, but they’re looking for that funding to grow it to serve babies—well child visits, routine visits for health maintenance. It doesn’t need to be done by an MD; it could be a nurse practitioner, someone who can teach and care. We’ve got young parents with a brand new baby who don’t know what to do with this child. They’re seeing people who, for five or six months, with a new baby, have never seen a doctor. Imagine that for a moment. I have not been a new mom, but all of us can imagine that when you have a brand new baby, you want to ensure you’re doing the right thing. But when there aren’t doctors, when you cannot have those wellness checks, we’re missing a step.

So this is a plan, this was an application that’s before the government, and it’s just lost. I don’t know where it is. They haven’t heard anything—it was received, and that’s the only thing that they’ve got. This is a good idea—and if it’s not, if the government has a problem with some part of the application, work with them. We have need for babies, newborns, to be receiving medical care. They have got so many cases they’ve come across, as this pediatric clinic that is lucky enough to have a neonatal nurse practitioner who draws from years of experience, and they’re hearing that bad things are happening. So I’m hoping that someone in the ministry is watching this and can find that application and work with them, fund them.

Speaker, I want to talk a bit about homelessness.

Rent is so unbelievably high. In Oshawa, it’s really bad—it’s bad all over. We are hearing from tenants who cannot find affordable rent.

People who aren’t actually legally considered tenants but who are boarders will answer an ad to share a room—or answer an ad for a room in a home for maybe 800 bucks, and they get there and there’s another adult on the other side of the room, a stranger they are meant to live with. They’re not tenants. They’re not protected by the Landlord and Tenant Board, which is not being appropriately funded. The backlog is wild.

We have so many people who are struggling, and we don’t see the money in this budget to address our housing challenges. The budget admits it has never been more expensive to own a home. Young families and newcomers have been totally priced out of home ownership. And that’s going to continue to rise.

This government is not meeting their own goal of building 1.5 million homes. The government lumped long-term-care-home beds into their overall housing count to bump up the numbers, but even with that, they’re still falling short of the target.

The affordable housing commitments are shockingly low. They’ve just built 8% of the affordable homes that this government said that they’d build back in 2018—the number I have here is 1,187 homes in six years that have been built. That number might be a bit different today, but it’s not enough. People don’t have places to live.

There’s such a struggle for people, also, to have remedy if something goes sideways. I’m hearing from tenants, and I’m hearing from neighbourhood landlords.

Roxy, who I heard from in my riding, has a home that she rents, and she has had a really rocky journey with bad tenants, in this case—has been through the Landlord and Tenant Board. The tribunal has issued the eviction notice. But did you know that in Oshawa we only have one sheriff? So it has taken, my understanding is—not in that case, but in others—four months for that sheriff to be able to go and enforce that eviction. That’s a long time for a neighbourhood landlord who’s trying to make ends meet and who’s also trying to be a part of the solution to housing people—we’re talking basements; we’re talking a small home. These aren’t corporate landlords. These are our neighbours. But nothing is working for anyone with the LTB right now, and that is not okay, and the money is not in this budget to address this, to fix it.

Speaker, it’s no surprise to anyone here that I’ve run out of time. I have so much—I’d like another 20 minutes, if I may, on education. No? Perhaps during the questions and comments, my colleagues would be so kind as to ask me about education, because I have thoughts to share.

Before I wrap up, Speaker, I want to say that this is a budget that missed an opportunity. And the thing is, I do believe the government members read their emails and speak to people in their community, and they know that things are tough for real people, so we would have expected to see some real solutions that will have that impact on people’s day-to-day lives. It’s missing from this budget, so I’m encouraging the government to do better.

It’s now time for questions and answers.

I listened to the member and, like her, I’m interested in our most vulnerable. I think the member from Mississauga Centre talked earlier about our heartfelt interests in our most vulnerable, which are our seniors. They’re a crucial part of our communities. They’ve helped build this province.

One of the things that our government did was expand the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income System program to provide more supports to seniors across this province. I was just wondering if the member would support that, given she does care about the seniors, who are our most vulnerable.