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Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2024 09:00AM
  • May/29/24 10:40:00 a.m.

Look, as I said yesterday, if the honourable member has additional information that she would like to provide to the Integrity Commissioner, I encourage her to do so.

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  • May/29/24 10:40:00 a.m.

My question is to the Premier. Back in February, I asked the Premier about discrepancies in his chief of staff’s testimony to the Integrity Commissioner. You’re going to recall that Mr. Sackville testified that he didn’t discuss removal criteria related to the greenbelt with anyone until October 27. We now have evidence that he actually got an email with all the greenbelt removal criteria to his personal email account 10 days earlier.

Can the Premier explain why his chief of staff provided false testimony to the Integrity Commissioner?

Why did the Premier’s right-hand man apparently mislead the Integrity Commissioner on multiple occasions, and what consequences is he going to face?

This is the third senior staff member from this Premier’s office to have been caught given inaccurate testimony to the Integrity Commissioner. This is a government that has shown they have no respect for the people’s right to know.

I want to remind the government that their former minister was forced to resign when it was revealed that he lied under oath to the Integrity Commissioner about—

Interjection.

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  • May/29/24 10:50:00 a.m.

Look, as I said, I have every confidence that if the member has information that she wants to share with the Integrity Commissioner, the member will do so. I have the same confidence that the Integrity Commissioner will review any information that he has, and if he needs to inform this House of additional actions that need to be taken, I’m sure the Integrity Commissioner will do just that.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about accountability. Well, the people of Ontario just returned a verdict on accountability, and they returned two Progressive Conservatives to this government. They didn’t just return two Progressive Conservatives, they returned them in greater numbers than they did at the general election. And do you know what happened at that point? They also passed judgment on the Leader of the Opposition and on the leader of the Liberal Party. Do you know what that judgment was, Mr. Speaker? That they continue to fail the people of the province of Ontario.

In the NDP’s case—

Interjection.

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Out of the ashes of them, we are building a bigger, better, stronger Ontario—

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The Leader of the Opposition talks about accountability; we know what accountability means for the NDP. We’re seeing it in Ottawa right now: They could bring down a government in Ottawa that is forcing a carbon tax on the people of the province of Ontario and Canada, which is harming Canadians. What do they do? They sit on the sidelines. When the former Liberal chief of staff was going to jail, what did they do? They kept him in office, Mr. Speaker, because that’s what the NDP do.

They don’t want to do the work. They don’t want to put the time in to build a bigger, better, stronger Ontario. They’re always happy to talk down to the people of this province.

What we will do is talk up Ontario, continue to bring investment opportunities—700,000 people have the dignity of a job that didn’t before, and we’ll continue on that path.

Interjections.

Interjection.

Now, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Liberals came in and doubled down on bad government. So what did we have to do? Rebuild the province of Ontario from the ground up, Mr. Speaker. We had to encourage people to come back and invest in Ontario. We had to rebuild our health care sector. We had to ensure that our emergency services—our police, fire, paramedics—

Interjection.

We had to build new schools, roads, public transportation. The job is not done, Mr. Speaker. We will continue to build a bigger, better, stronger Ontario whether they join us or not. We know the Liberals never will. We will continue to get the job done.

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