My question is back to the Premier.

It is unacceptable that they will stand here and say to the women who worked on Lydia’s Law, the women who travelled to Queen’s Park yesterday, and to Lydia herself, that it wasn’t their turn to speak.

The government says they need to know more before they can address the crisis in the courts. Well, yesterday they had a chance to learn, but they refused to listen.

Survivors of sexual violence are being told to wait until the government gives them permission to come to committee. They feel betrayed. Lydia feels betrayed.

Premier, how can the intimate partner violence study succeed when you have lost the trust of this community in this province of Ontario?

Interjections.

Members will please take their seats.

Government House leader.

I remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The government House leader may respond.

I will continue to ask members to make their comments through the Chair.

Government House leader to respond.

Member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

Member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry, please conclude your answer.

The supplementary question.

Interjection.

Interjection.

Interjections.

I need a note, too, to keep track of who has got the floor. I hope no one objects to that.

Start the clock.

Leader of the Opposition.

My question is for the Premier.

Survivors of sexual violence travelled from all across this province to hear this House discuss the crisis in our justice system yesterday, and their government betrayed them. They didn’t just kill the debate on an important bill; they wouldn’t even allow a discussion about the thousands of sexual assault cases that are being dismissed right now in our broken court system.

Will the Premier stand in his place and explain to survivors of sexual assault why they are not only losing their day in court, but also losing their day in this Legislature?

Interjections.

We are asking, actually, about accountability, and we are asking about clearing the backlog for sexual assault cases. Our courts are so overwhelmed that in one year alone, over 1,300 survivors had their cases dismissed, thrown out. There is no justice in that. And you don’t need to study it. It is a fact.

But once again, the government is playing procedural games on a very important issue.

So I want to ask the Premier—you are in government. You have the power. How about you be decisive for once and do the right thing?

Interjections.

Speaker, 10,000 patients are going to lose their primary care in Sault Ste. Marie by the end of this month, in just a couple of weeks, including retired steelworkers. Do you know why that matters? It’s because those retirees founded the Group Health Centre, and they took a pay cut; they took their hard-earned dollars to build themselves a world-class, world-renowned clinic in their hometown. In exchange, they were promised health care at that clinic for the rest of their lives. But now that’s being taken away, and this government has no plan to help them.

I’m going to ask the Premier: Is he going to make sure that his health minister finally acts here, or is the loss of primary care in the Soo not a major concern either?

Interjections.

Interjections.

I just want them to answer the question. They know perfectly well that they’re not addressing the current issue.

Access to primary care shouldn’t depend on where you live.

If these patients in Sault Ste. Marie lose access to their primary care doctor, do you know where they’re going to end up? They’re going to end up in emergency rooms that are already overcrowded. And there’s only one emergency room in the Soo. The next closest one is Sudbury. That’s four hours away.

So what is this government’s plan to address the urgent crisis in primary care in Sault Ste. Marie before the end of the month?

The final supplementary.

The member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

The Solicitor General.

The House will come to order. The member for Perth–Wellington has the floor. He’s allowed to ask a question.

Member for Perth–Wellington.

Any death is too many. We are absolutely committed to making sure that Ontario’s correctional system is safe for everyone.

Years ago, under the previous government’s watch, they brought our correctional system and our public safety system to its knees.

That’s why this government, under Premier Ford, has made a tremendous investment to make sure that our correctional systems are safe. We’ve invested over a half a billion dollars on infrastructure improvement. We’ve hired over a thousand new correctional officers. We have native inmate liaison officers, NILOs, and chaplains there.

Mr. Speaker, we have done a lot in a short period of time, and we will continue to do so each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, that’s exactly why, in the last years since Premier Ford has been our Premier, we have taken public safety very seriously—and that includes the investments in our correctional facilities, the half-a-billion-dollar infrastructure improvements, the suicide prevention and intervention training to make sure that our correctional officers understand things that they may not have understood 20 years ago.

It’s important that everyone knows we will make the investments required to keep our Ontario safe.

I want to thank the member from Perth–Wellington for a very important question.

I can’t believe the response from the opposition parties in the Legislature today when everybody in our province and across the country knows that the carbon tax is driving up the cost of living. It has been confirmed by the Bank of Canada, C.D. Howe and so many different institutes, and it is having an effect on people’s ability to afford groceries, gas and home heating.

This federal carbon tax, supported by the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, is going to—well, it’s the impact today. It’s going to be the legacy of the federal government, and ultimately it’s going to be the downfall of the federal government, because not only is it causing a crisis now in communities across our province and our country; it’s going to create an even further impact next year on April 1, when the carbon tax goes up again.

We have a plan here in Ontario. It’s working, and it doesn’t include a carbon tax.

My question is for the Minister of Energy.

Speaker, last year’s Feed Ontario report saw a 38% increase in food bank usage in Ontario, with over 800,000 Ontarians having to access a food bank. This is the single largest increase ever recorded. Sadly, Ontarians are being forced to visit food banks because the regressive and harmful carbon tax is driving up the cost of food.

Interjections.

Interjections.

The independent Liberal members in this place and the federal Liberal government need to understand that if you tax our farm families who grow the food and the truckers who ship the food, you end up taxing the Ontario families who buy the food.

This regressive tax is a disgrace, and it must be scrapped.

Can the minister please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is making life harder and more expensive for hard-working Ontarians?

Speaker, the fact is, this clinic is closing its doors to 10,000 people by the end of this month—10,000 more people in the Soo without health care, and this government has no plan.

Some 2.4 million Ontarians have no primary care right now, but for this government, for their health minister, that’s not a major concern.

We’re 350 physicians short in northern Ontario, including more than 200 family doctors. Many, many more—half of the physicians working in northern Ontario—are expected to retire in the next five years, and this government has no plan.

So I want to ask the Premier to stand in his place for once, stop making excuses, do something decisive and treat this issue like the crisis that it surely, surely is.

Interjections.

As I clearly stated, I don’t think the Leader of the Opposition likes to listen to the facts.

We’ve invested $1.1 million into two new primary care teams in Sault Ste. Marie.

Speaker, I’ll state it again: Ontario is leading the country, with almost 90% of Ontarians having a family doctor or a primary care health provider.

We are continuing to reverse the horrible Liberal policies that were propped up by many of the members of the NDP over there. Since 2018, as I’ve stated clearly, we’ve registered 12,500 new doctors in Ontario, and we’ll continue doing what is needed to be done to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care system across Canada.

Last year, we registered 2,400 new doctors who practise in our province.

We’re also opening a new medical school at York University that the opposition can vote for today.

Last year was a record-breaking year for nurses in Ontario. We registered over 17,500 nurses. We’ve also increased the amount of nursing seats by 3,000 nursing seats in Ontario’s colleges and universities.

We’re funding the largest expansion of medical school spots in over 15 years, adding 1,212 undergraduate and 1,637 postgraduate seats across Ontario. Speaker, 60% of these spots will be dedicated to family medicine.

Again, I recommend the Leader of the Opposition vote for our budget today.

Supplementary question.

The next question.

The Minister of Education can respond.

Minister of Education.

Thanks for the supplementary.

I would advise the opposition members to talk to the not-for-profits, to talk to the food banks in their region, like I do.

I talk to the Gleaners Food Bank, I talk to the Trenton Care and Share Food Bank in my riding, and they are definitely hearing from their clients that the carbon tax is having an impact on their day-to-day life.

That’s why we’ve taken a different approach here in Ontario than Justin Trudeau and the federal government. We’re lowering taxes. We’ve cut the gas tax by 10.7 cents a litre. We’ve implemented the LIFT credit; it eliminates the provincial income tax for many low-income workers, and it’s making a difference for them. We’ve eliminated fees. We’ve eliminated the licence plate sticker fees. We brought in One Fare for those who ride transit, saving them up to $1,600 a year. That’s real, tangible savings for the people of Ontario.

Here in Ontario, with our plan, which doesn’t include a carbon tax, we are seeing growth in our economy, more good-paying jobs being created, like the ones that will soon be created at Honda, Volkswagen, Stellantis and those—

Thank you to the minister for his response.

As a young member in this place, I know the carbon tax has done nothing for the environment but instead has driven up the cost of basic necessities and made it difficult for food banks and other non-profits to serve our most vulnerable citizens.

Food banks across the province are now paying more for gas and diesel to transport the food, more for natural gas to heat their buildings, and more for the food on their shelves. Speaker, 69% of food banks are concerned that they don’t have enough food to meet the demand, and the carbon tax is forcing them to stretch their already limited budgets even further. What’s worse is that this tax burden is only going to rise every single year.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what our government is doing to protect our food banks and other non-profits from this disastrous carbon tax?

As the member is aware, years of Liberal mismanagement and neglect have left this province with huge labour shortages and thousands of good jobs left vacant.

Sadly, to make matters worse, as millions of workers struggle with today’s higher cost of living, the Bonnie Crombie Liberals and the carbon tax queen want to make their lives even more unaffordable. Her support for the carbon tax translates into higher prices, not just at the gas pumps, but across all aspects of life. It effectively becomes a tax on everything, as it will cause transportation costs to soar and grocery bills to rise. By increasing the financial burden on essentials, the carbon tax under Bonnie’s watch threatens to diminish the quality of life for all Ontarians, making it harder for them to thrive in an already uncertain economic climate.

That’s why our government has established—over $1 billion for the Skills Development Fund, which has already assisted over half a million individuals in advancing their careers and securing higher pay.

Again, it was bad enough when the Liberals simply neglected our trade workers. Now, under Crombie’s leadership, it’s even more dire as they support their federal counterparts in taxing not just the livelihoods but also the ability of these workers to support themselves and their families, with their oppressive anti-worker carbon tax.

However, our government will never go against the workers of this province. To support jobs in the skilled trades and all workers and job seekers across Ontario, our government is making groundbreaking investments in communities across the province to ensure workers and job seekers can upgrade their skills and get jobs closer to home.

Our government’s message is clear: Skilled trades are open to everyone.

Our government is proud of the steps we have taken so far, and we have seen the results. We have seen the percentage of new registrants to the skilled trades who are women up by a historic 28%. We have launched the FAST program to get our youth into the trades.

Our government will always work for workers and job seekers to ensure Ontario’s economy works for everyone.

I’d like to ask a question to the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.

The Liberal carbon tax is punishing Ontario businesses and making life more unaffordable for families and businesses throughout the province. It is driving up the price of everyday essentials such as food, heating and gas, making it more expensive for workers to transport equipment.

We know that workers in Ontario deserve better. The federal government needs to stop listening to elites, extremists and activists and start listening to the families and businesses that make up our province, who have had enough of this tax hike. It’s time to scrap this job-killing tax today.

Speaker, can the minister please tell the House the steps our government is taking to ensure we have a trained workforce ready to build Ontario’s future and fight this Liberal carbon tax?

I think you’re absolutely correct. The people of Ontario spoke a few weeks ago in both Milton and Lambton–Kent–Middlex, and they told us what they think of this Liberal carbon tax.

This impacts every single person every time they go to fill up their tanks at the gas pump, and it drives up the cost of operations and transportation for business owners.

But let’s be clear: Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals don’t care about what impacts this disastrous tax is having on Ontario workers and families. They are happy to see their federal cousins nearly triple this tax by 2030.

Our government will always stand up for the workers here in Ontario. It’s time the federal Liberals and their provincial counterparts stand up and do the same with us.

Speaker, can the minister tell the House how our government is improving the lives of workers in spite of this Liberal anti-worker agenda?

The parents are saving $6,000 to $12,000 because of our government’s policy on child care. So the price they’ll pay is longer wait-lists, if we adhere to the advice of the NDP and Liberals, who want us to literally make the wait-lists longer by precluding one third of the sector from being involved in the federal deal.

That is your position. That is your stated recommendation to government: to preclude 70,000 spaces.

You’re asking me a question about access, when you have urged this government to sign the first deal—which would have denied every parent in a for-profit child care. These are operated by women, small businesses, who simply want access to affordable care too.

Why does the NDP oppose affordable child care for every parent in this province?

What we’ve also committed to is continuing to reduce child care fees. When we came to power in 2018, child care, on average, was $46 to $50 a day. It is $23 a day, and on track to go down even further over the next year and a half, delivered by our Premier and our Progressive Conservative team.

We are increasing the spaces in every region of Ontario—86,000 additional spaces are on track, 19,000 in Toronto alone.

We are committed to affordability, to standing up against higher taxes on working parents. From the carbon tax to higher fees—we stand for affordability in this province.

My question is to the Minister of Education.

As Ontario drags its feet to create new $10-a-day child care spaces, this government has forced many affordable spaces we do have to leave the program, and this means doubling the costs that parents pay.

Ontario child care centres have been urgently calling for a funding formula that actually works. Back in September 2023, this government said it was working on a new formula that would be in place at the end of 2024. Now they’re telling child care operators to wait another year.

Minister, what excuse do you have to give families who have to pay the price for your funding formula delay?

Ola, a child care provider, pulled out of the program, citing a broken funding model.

The YMCA, the largest operator in the province, has been warning for months about the risk of closures if the funding formula isn’t updated soon to actually cover the costs for providing child care.

Families are worried about whether there will be affordable child care available when they need it.

Why is the minister putting more child care spaces at risk with these delays?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, to our great member from Orléans: I appreciate his question, but I just have to remind him that his party was the one that bankrupted this province. His party was the one that chased 300,000 jobs out of the province, that destroyed our health care system. When we walked into the office almost six years ago, every single ministry was a disaster.

Move forward to today: There are over 700,000 more people working today, paying taxes.

We’re the only government in the history of this country that has never raised a tax. We’ve actually reduced taxes. We’ve reduced the gas tax by 10.7 cents; we got rid of the tolls on the 412 and 418; we got rid of the car registration stickers, saving millions and millions of dollars for the people of Ontario.

Think of that: raised revenues by $64 billion, never raised a tax, cut and reduced the burden off companies by $8.5 billion each and every year—and we’re seeing tens of billions of dollars of investment in our province.

My question is for the Minister of Energy.

At a time when Ontario families continue to struggle with the rising cost of living and high interest rates, the federal Liberals went ahead with their 23% carbon tax hike last month. To make matters worse, the Liberals are doubling down and tripling the tax by 2030. It’s unfair that the federal Liberals, supported by the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, are hiking this regressive tax on the back of every Ontarian. When this tax gets tripled, the increase in the cost of food, goods and services will triple for all of us. That’s unacceptable.

Our government condemns the carbon tax, and we are once again asking the federal Liberals to scrap this tax now.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what our government is doing to address the devastating impact of the carbon tax?

In my community of St. Paul’s—the question is to the Premier—we are fortunate to have the John Howard Society community office working tirelessly to support people affected by the justice system and those trying to rebuild productive lives post-incarceration.

JHS has been on the front lines, advocating for a just and reformed bail system. They have offered substantive recommendations to this government’s Standing Committee on Justice Policy. One of those key recommendations was for the government to invest in bail supervision programs that have a proven history and provide a lower-cost alternative to pretrial detention, a practice that is disproportionately applied more to Black, Indigenous and racialized individuals than white individuals for the same and similar charges.

Can the Premier share what investments they have made in the current budget to address the need for more bail supervision programs?

The John Howard Society is recommending deep government investments in programs focused on prevention, intervention and reintegration, as well as robust investments in supportive housing, people, since the overall dismantling of the social safety net by this government has led to an increase in incarceration.

My question, again, is back to the Premier. Hopefully he’ll answer. Why is spending $300 a day to warehouse legally innocent people the status quo, as opposed to lower-cost, effective, community-based interventions like supportive housing?