Further debate?

It’s always a great opportunity to be able to speak here to private members’ business. I’d like to begin my remarks with a little bit of background on the current economic situation we’re seeing here in Ontario and, frankly, all of Canada.

We’re here to discuss the issue of affordability, perhaps the most pressing issue facing Ontarians today. Much like the rest of the world, Ontario continues to face economic uncertainty, high interest rates from the Bank of Canada, high inflation, the federal carbon tax—which, of course, the Ontario Liberals and their leader, the queen of the carbon tax herself, are so fond of. These challenges are putting very real pressures on the household budgets of every family in this province—so much so, Speaker, that the average Ontarian will tell you they feel like they are living in the middle of a recession, even though we aren’t technically in one. This is all too telling of the difficulty that people, especially families, are dealing with right now.

In the face of these difficulties, our government was left to make a choice. We could either raise taxes, cut back on spending and put the well-being of our people, families and businesses at risk, or we could take a different approach, one which invests in the successful future of Ontario communities and builds a strong economy that benefits everyone, all while keeping costs down. So we made a clear decision to stick a plan we know is working, a plan that puts people and families first and brings their bright future even closer to the present, all without raising the cost of taxes on people living and working here in Ontario.

That means no new taxes, no new tolls, no new fees, Speaker. The people of our province are being heard when they tell us that is what they want. We are choosing to help the hard-working families of this province through targeted, responsible investments and relief measures that have meaningful and impactful results, which is something that I’m afraid cannot be said about the proposed measure brought forth by the Liberal member for Orléans here today.

Speaker, for a moment I’d like to address viewers watching today’s debate from home to make something very clear: The proposal by the Liberals does not mean that you or your family will receive $1,000 back in tax returns. This is a terrible misconception that I sincerely hope my colleagues on the Liberal side of the House are not trying to take advantage of. In reality, Speaker, this so-called support would only give families a small percentage that they wouldn’t even see for up to 16 months in the next tax return in the following year. When you take into consideration that the Liberals want to impose a carbon tax in Ontario, this simply does not make sense.

With this bill, Liberals are proposing to hand out an insignificant pittance to families, only to take even more money from them later at the gas pump, the grocery store, paying their bills and everywhere in between. At every turn, the Liberals want to find a new tax to impose on the hard-working families and people of this province.

This proposal seems to make an insincere attempt to mislead Ontarians into thinking they won’t make life more expensive than it already is, if given the chance—

I want to congratulate and thank the member from Orléans for tabling this motion today. I must say that his debate here is always well researched, thoughtful and often very sharp-witted, which we need here.

We heard a government response that wasn’t so much sharp-witted as it was sharp. Upon listening—and I must digress. The amount of times the carbon tax is mentioned in the chamber—I actually believe that they may not, in fact, be interested in removing it because I don’t think they’d have anything else to talk about if the carbon tax was actually removed. I have a sneaking suspicion about that.

But on returning to the substance of this motion, I’m proud to stand and rise and speak on behalf of any measure to support our children and our youth here in the province of Ontario. It’s very important. I know, coming out of the pandemic, where many, many programs did not have the opportunity to even run—coming out of that, we are looking at ways to incentivize and to bring kids and youth back into programming, not just sports, not just music. There are countless ways in which this is possible. Certainly, this motion here is an attempt to do that. I know that it’s here in good faith.

I have to say, as a father of two young sons, having a child is truly a moment in your life where you could measure everything that has happened before and after. It changes you as a person into something you can only realize when you have that child. What would you not be willing to do for your own children? Certainly, programs that we send them to, extracurriculars, are not just important but they are essential for our children. We must remove any form of barrier that exists.

Certainly, there are many ways of doing it. Yes, you can invest in programming and find many different ways to do that. Yes, you can put more money in general into parents’ pockets. But incentivizing it in this way is also an important way and a way that will have children go out there.

Many parents face barriers of time and certainly finances to be able to put their children in important programs like this. We don’t want to see financial barriers. Many parents don’t have the time or money to be able to enrol them. But for those who do, it’s an average of $2,500 a year that parents spend. They spend to be able to give important opportunities for their children to reach their best potential, not just in learning skills and sports and new talents, but some of these extracurriculars may point them in a new direction that could change their lives.

Skills, friendships, social skills, motivation: The list goes on and on, and one could sit here an entire day explaining why this is a good idea and why it’s important to incentivize, give the parents the help they need and do the best for our children. Because after all, what could be more important than supporting our children, for they are our future?

We all say it, but once in a while we’re offered the opportunity to actually make it a reality. I believe this is one of those days. I’m proud to stand in support of this measure, and I thank the member for tabling the bill today.

Withdraw.

But you don’t have to take it from me; take it from the Liberals themselves, Speaker. When they were in power in 2010, they introduced a similar measure called the Ontario Children’s Activity Tax Credit, only to scrap it in 2017—

Speaker, do you know why they decided to scrap it? Because it turns out that it ended up benefiting higher-income families who were less likely to actually need the money in supporting their kids in extracurricular activities. Their plan completely backfired, Speaker, just as I fear this proposal would backfire again if this proposal were to go through. But this time, it won’t be the Liberals paying the price for their own mistakes, Speaker; the only ones who would end up paying more would be the Ontario families who simply can’t afford any more of the Liberals’ expensive and bad ideas.

Now, if that isn’t convincing enough, Speaker, all you need to do is take a closer look at the federal Liberals, their cousins in Ottawa, and the legacy of scrapping a similar policy, in fact just like this one. From 2017 onwards, the Trudeau federal Liberals, the cousins of the provincial Liberals here, eliminated the children’s fitness tax credit and the children’s arts tax credit.

Speaker, do you care to ask why they eliminated it? For the same reason that the Liberals under Kathleen Wynne decided to scrap their own program: Because it disproportionately benefited high-income families that didn’t need this help—so much so, in fact, that the Department of Finance Canada released a report in 2017 that found there was very little evidence to support the idea that these tax credits were effective at all. Not only does the report indicate that these programs were disproportionately helping families with higher incomes; it showed that the programs failed to get even more kids enrolled in extracurricular activities.

I simply don’t understand, Speaker. If the Liberals here at Queen’s Park and Ottawa discontinued these failed programs themselves, why are they trying to déjà vu and bring them back? All I see here, Speaker, is the same old policies, same old mistakes and same old Liberals. Speaker, they just don’t get it. They’ll cost Ontarians more and they know it.

I’d like to put our differences aside for a minute here. Myself, as a father of four children, I understand how important it is to have children in extracurricular and sports activities for their well-being. I know that many colleagues from all political stripes in this House who are also parents understand the importance of having kids in all these extracurricular activities. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing: that is, to give our kids the best childhood they could possibly have.

As I said in my remarks, these are difficult and challenging times for parents and families in the province. Life is getting more expensive, and families across the province are paying more and more for their bills. But what if they didn’t have to, Speaker? What if, instead of having to choose between filling up gas to drive their kids to hockey practice and making a fresh, nutritious lunch for school, they could afford both? It was with this question in mind that our government set out to build our plan to keep costs down for families in Ontario.

The results of our actions speak for themselves, Speaker. Our government’s efforts to keep costs down will total $8.4 billion—that’s “billion,” not “million”—in relief for Ontario families and individuals in 2023-24 alone, savings for Ontario families. These are real dollars saved by real families, and these savings can be seen across the province.

I have a simple proposal to make for my Liberal colleagues in opposition, Speaker: If Bonnie Crombie and the rest of her team wanted to truly help parents who are struggling with the high cost of living, all they had to do was vote in favour of our government’s 2024 budget today. But instead, they voted against giving parents relief.

The budget contained real cost-saving measures to help Ontario families. For starters, there’s an extension to the gas and fuel tax cuts which we implemented in 2022. That’s a saving of 10 cents per litre every single time you go to the pump and fill up your tank, go to work and take your kids to hockey practice.

Then, there are our protections from any future Liberal or NDP carbon taxes here in the province of Ontario. That gives confidence and certainty to families who need it right now that they won’t have to pay more to heat their homes or buy groceries.

Also, how about our new One Fare program, Speaker? Talk about the so-called $1,000 Liberal tax credit? One Fare is saving riders across the entire GTA $1,600 a year. No more paying a double fare if you want to take the GO train down to see the Jays or the Leafs or go away with your family on the weekend to Niagara.

For the parents whose kids are all grown up and starting to save in the next chapter of their lives at college or university, our government is extending the tuition freeze for publicly assisted post-secondary schools here in the province for three more years. That’s another $1,600 in savings per year if you go to university and $350 if you go to college—real dollars for real people.

I haven’t even talked about the $23 billion we’re investing to build more schools and child care spaces here in the province or about our ban on new road tolls on 400-series highways and our freeze on driver’s licence and photo card fees that is saving drivers $66 million over the next five years—like I said, more relief and cost-saving measures than I have time to count.

To wrap up, I’d just like to thank my colleagues who joined our Premier, our Minister of Finance and our government in voting for the 2024 budget. I wish the members opposite could say the same.

Point of order.

My apologies to the member. I recognize the member from Don Valley East.

Further debate?

It is the member from Oakville—

It is my honour to rise to speak to this bill, promoting leisure activities for youth. I didn’t realize the acronym: PLAY. It’s pretty clever. I think that a good bill needs a good acronym.

Before I address the merits of this bill, I want to just talk to the MPP for Burlington, who talked about his government’s fiscal record. I think I would like to remind the member that this government, this provincial government, this Ford government is the most indebted—in debt, in deficit—in the history of Ontario, and they’ve increased that every year since they took office. But at the same time, when it comes to spending per person on the things that are important, especially to low-income families like this bill is addressing, this government is last when it comes to per capita spending in the province. And so he did say that his—

The member from Oakville did also say that your government’s record speaks for itself; I couldn’t agree more. Because under your government’s watch, more families than ever before are living in poverty. Under your government’s watch, 2.4 million people don’t have access to a doctor—and that includes kids. There are more food bank users in this province than ever before, and the vast majority of people that use food banks are children.

So it’s very disappointing to see a government that has failed children in this province and continues to fail families in this province not supporting a bill that was trying to give parents that are already struggling the ability to look after their kids and do right for their kids.

This private member’s bill does propose a new non-refundable tax credit to allow Ontario families to help cover the cost of enrolling their kids in physical activities, arts programming, tutoring, camps, all the things that kids need. And we know, during the COVID pandemic our kids suffered greatly. They lost many years. They’ve lost out on schools and graduations. Their families are struggling. So we should all join in this House to support anything—anything—that can help kids in this province. I don’t understand why the government wouldn’t want to support a bill that’s aimed to help children in this province.

We know there’s an affordability crisis in this province. I stood here in my place the other day and asked the government what they were going to do about families that cannot afford baby formula in this province—baby formula. Do you know what they talked about, Andrea? Carbon tax.

I don’t think they get it. I don’t think they understand that parents are doing everything they can to give this advantage that’s very important to families. They’re cash-strapped. They can hardly afford to keep a roof over their house or afford groceries, but they still want to do right by their kids. You would think this government would want to support a bill like this that does that.

I mean, we did have a tax credit like this. Unfortunately, the Progressive Conservative government failed to renew the children’s activity tax. Reinstating this would have allowed us to pick up where we left off in making kids’ extracurriculars more affordable and accessible.

We all know—parents, grandparents—that we need to make it easier for kids to get active through extracurriculars like sports, music, arts and other programs. We know that there is a mental health crisis in our province. We know that there’s a two-year waiting list for kids to be seen when they have mental health concerns, under this government. These kinds of programs support kids and help kids feel healthier, both physically and mentally. I don’t understand why this government wouldn’t want to support that.

This provides for families that are stretched thin, as I described. They, just like all of us, want enriching experiences for their kids. Extracurricular activities teach vital skills, and I agree with what the MPP from Orléans said about the importance of these activities.

I also want to address the fact that newcomers in our province struggle not only financially but also to integrate their kids in programs that provide connections and community, and that’s what extracurricular activities provide. By voting against this, this government is choosing to turn their backs on newcomers who are trying to integrate into our communities and provide their kids with an opportunity.

I would just like to say that, in Hamilton, we had a program called Skate the Dream. We know that hockey has got to be one of the most expensive sports for parents. We had a low-income neighbourhood in Hamilton where they almost had to close the hockey program there because parents couldn’t afford the enrolment fees. They couldn’t afford the equipment. It’s really expensive. We had a program called Skate the Dream that we fundraised for and volunteers to help make sure that kids in that low-income neighbourhood who loved to play hockey, who showed up—kids, on their own, showed up with their hockey equipment over their shoulder, on the bus, to play. That’s how much they wanted to do it. So we wanted to help them out.

Parents, volunteers, community groups, they’re playing their part to help kids. Why is this government not playing their part in showing that they care? By passing this bill, we’ll be investing in the health and development of the next generation. We know and we’ve heard that this fosters community engagement and an active lifestyle, and we know we need to do that at an early age. The early years are so important, zero to five. Those are fundamental for kids’ well-being and for positive outcomes in later years. It’s about healthy childhood development, and this extracurricular activity plays a critical role in that. Why are we limiting these enriching experiences to children whose parents can afford this? We know that, as a community, we want all children to have this opportunity.

So I appreciate the member bringing this forward. I think it’s an important bill. It addresses a gap where children are being left behind and ignored by this government. I hope, despite what the member from Oakville said, that the government will change their mind and support this important bill.

Point of order.

I’d like to thank my colleagues from Humber River–Black Creek, from Don Valley West and from Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas for their remarks this evening.

I think it’s clear that the academic, the mental health and the physical health benefits of playing sports, of participating in extracurricular activities, are clear. The opportunities to improve academic results and test scores as a result of kids being more active after school, whether that’s in sports or other extracurricular activities, is clear. The health benefits of kids who play sports, who become adults who play sports and stay active, should be abundantly clear. When we’re trying to deal with a health crisis, when we’re trying to deal with a crisis in our schools, when we’re trying to ensure that we have the workforce that we need for the future, everything that we can do to enhance academic success, everything that we can do to enhance health outcomes and health benefits, should be a no-brainer.

The member from Oakville criticized the bill because not everyone will benefit, or it won’t be exactly $1,000. Well, if the litmus test to legislation in this place was that it was perfect, nothing would ever pass. I would like to propose a refundable tax credit. The rules of Parliament don’t allow me to do that. I would prefer to have the government create a fund to directly help parents pay for sports registration so you can get those families that can’t afford to pay it on the front end into sports. But I’m not allowed to do that, Madam Speaker.

I would encourage the government to consider those kinds of options for their budget next year. And if they actually had real measures in next year’s budget that would provide real relief for middle-class families, that would provide opportunities for families of all income levels to put their kids in more sports, then maybe they would get my support.

But tonight, I’m asking for their support to help some families keep more of their kids and put more of their—

Interjections.

Further debate? Further debate? Seeing none, the member has two minutes for a response.

Just before we finish, I just want to thank the pages that are still in the chamber. Thank you for all you have done. Wishing you guys all the very best as you go forward.

The time provided for private members’ public business has expired.

Mr. Blais has moved second reading of Bill 178, An Act to amend the Taxation Act, 2007 to provide for a non-refundable tax credit to encourage children’s extracurricular activities.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the next instance of deferred votes.

Second reading vote deferred.

Wishing all the members a successful constituency week, and to all the pages, goodbye.

The House adjourned at 1616.