I just wanted to let members know that Disability Without Poverty also has a reception at noon today. So there are many places to visit over the noon hour today. I hope you can make it.

Very quickly, I would just like to invite everybody to Diabetes Canada. They’re in 230 today and they would like to see as many of you as possible.

As you know, Speaker, people, students, businesses rely on the Internet to go about our day, whether it’s for your business to conduct your business, for students to study, for people to communicate with their community.

Unfortunately, the program that the government has put into place is a program that is 100% privately delivered. The government gives the private sector a lot of money to build infrastructure and run Internet. This does not work in many parts of northern Ontario, where there are no providers who want to set up shop. It doesn’t matter how much money the government wants to give them; they do not want to set up shop in northern Ontario because there is no money to be made. But the people of northern Ontario, we need Internet access, just like everybody else. We want it to be affordable and we want it to be high-speed. We want to be part of the connection that the Internet brings.

So I fully support this petition. I think it’s very much needed, and I will ask my good page Myah to bring it to the Clerk.

This petition comes from a small business person who lost his business during the pandemic because he paid his workers too much and can’t restart it because he’s working 24/7 to take care of his parents. He’s a family caregiver.

This petition calls on the Ontario government to support 24/7 family caregivers, including through financial compensation, so that those who are caring for their loved ones can have some relief from financial distress and the resulting mental stress.

I’m so eager to present this petition. I received it from Sally Palmer. She’s a professor at McMaster University, and she’s very passionate about OW and ODSP. With the cost of living, it’s so much more important, more than ever, for this petition.

What it’s asking for is that they want the rates for Ontario Works, because they have been frozen since 2018, and their small increases in the Ontario Disability Support Program—it has really left recipients struggling well below the poverty line. So they’re advocating for doubling of the ODSP and the OW rates. That’s what they’re asking this government to do.

I have a lot of signatures on this petition, and I want to thank Sally Palmer, the professor at McMaster University, for sending these through and making this a very important issue in this Legislature.

I fully support this petition. I will sign it and give it to page Jasnoor to deliver to the table.

Point of order.

Pat has served for 39 years as a school board trustee, of which 31 years were as the chair of his school board and the last six as the president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association. This man is a leader in Ontario.

He is joined by the bishop of Hamilton, Bishop Crosby. I want to welcome you, and Lorena and Nick and Anne and your family. Thank you for your leadership for the people of Ontario.

It’s simple, Mr. Speaker: Every dollar to fuel a vehicle in public safety—and public safety is very important to this government; it’s important to Premier Ford morning, noon and night, and it’s a priority for this government.

When you look at the numbers, 18 cents per litre for gasoline is just the carbon tax portion. If you look at the fact that an average SUV for public safety is 100 litres, you multiply it per year and it’s a minimum of $6,500.

When I met with Chief Jason Bellaire, also last week in Windsor—a great police service that keeps Windsor safe—the chief told me that the bill for their fuel is almost $1 million. That means with the carbon tax portion, they could put another constable on the road to keep Windsor safe. Bonnie Crombie—

Interjections.

This petition is entitled “Fight the Fees!” It talks about the increases of tuition since 1980, going up from 215% for undergrad and by 247% for domestic grad tuition. They also say that it takes almost 10 years to repay that debt after students graduate.

They talk about international students, as well, where their average tuition is over $14,000, compared to just over $3,000 for domestic students and the need for student financial assistance. They also want to ensure that students have legislation to protect their rights to organize, and funding for student groups.

The calls for action they have are: (1) free and accessible education for all; (2) grants, not loans; and (3) legislate students’ right to organize.

I want to thank the students from Canadore College and Nipissing University who collected these.

I support this petition. I’ll affix my signature and provide it with page Myah for the table.

I support this petition, I’ll affix my signature and provide it page Jasnoor for the table.

Basically, the people who are signing this who are literally from across the province are concerned with the closure, or potential closure, of six of the 11 Public Health Ontario labs. They point out the inequities in northern Ontario and rural Ontario as well, and that the cost of water testing would be $150 if these labs were to close.

As well, they point out the important work that Public Health Ontario labs do for medical testing, which helped us keep up with demand during outbreaks. They would like to prevent the public health labs in Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Peterborough, Kingston and Orillia—their asks are to stop the closure and to invest more in public health.

I support these petitions. I will affix my signature and provide it to page Maya for the table.

Ms. Ghamari moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr45, An Act to revive 1828469 Ontario Inc.

I’d like to thank Sally Palmer and the group from McMaster University, and I think it would be fitting, today of all days, on Disability Without Poverty day, to read this petition. It’s a petition asking us to double OW and ODSP rates.

During the COVID pandemic, CERB, basic income was found—the income to survive was $2,000 a month. People are living in legislated poverty, and it’s time we recognize this and double ODSP and OW rates and stop the clawbacks.

I support this petition. I will sign it and hand it to page Grace.

I support the “Stop Bill 166” petition. I will sign it and hand it over to page Tristan.

This is a petition that comes from high school students in my riding of Kingston and the Islands and asks the government of Ontario to provide mandatory standardized training for all employers and employees regarding anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the workplace, as well as understanding Judaism and Islam.

I would like to thank Louise Laplante from Hanmer in my riding for this petition. It is called “Blood and Plasma Donations Not for Sale.”

Speaker, you will remember, in the 1980s, 30,000 Canadians got infected by HIV and hepatitis through blood products; 8,000 Canadians died. There was a Royal Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Krever, who made recommendations. His number 2 recommendation was to make sure that we never pay for blood and blood product donations.

In Ontario, we passed the Voluntary Blood Donations Act that forbids the privatization of blood product collection and payment. But right now, Grifols has a contract and is opening up pay-for-plasma donations in Ontario, which will not only supposedly help with our supply, but they also sell Canadian plasma, Ontario plasma, back to the States. I think this goes completely against the Voluntary Blood Donations Act of Ontario, and so do the people who have signed the petition asking us to respect our own laws.

I fully agree with this petition, and I ask my good page Sophia to bring it to the Clerk.

Comme vous savez, monsieur le Président, les francophones de l’Ontario ont le droit constitutionnel à une éducation dans la langue française. La demande pour des écoles françaises continue d’augmenter et ça fait qu’on a besoin de près de 1 000 nouveaux enseignants et enseignantes à chaque année. Malheureusement, le système en Ontario n’en éduque que 500 par année.

Il y a une étude qui a été faite et un rapport qui a été rendu au gouvernement pour aider avec ces défis. Donc, ils demandent au gouvernement de financer le rapport du groupe de travail sur la pénurie des enseignants et enseignantes dans le système d’éducation de langue française, et de travailler en partenariat avec eux pour résoudre le problème pour que tous les enfants francophones de la province aient accès à une éducation de langue française de qualité.

J’appuie cette pétition. Je vais la signer, et je demande à Farhan de l’amener à l’amener à la table des greffiers.

Thank you, Speaker. And I just want you to know that I will be sharing my time with the member from Humber River–Black Creek.

I cannot tell you how happy the people of Nickel Belt were when the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act was announced. They actually promoted it. There was a clip on the local television to talk about it, and everybody thought, “Yes, finally, we will be able to get more homes.” Because, you see, Speaker, the demand for homes in my riding is really, really high.

I was really proud, last Wednesday morning, to attend the grand opening of the Iamgold Côté Lake gold mine, which was just across the street from the community of Gogama in my riding. The Minister of Mines was there, and many dignitaries from all over. People from Japan, people from all over were there. There are over 1,800 workers who come and work at this mine and all of them are looking for housing. Right now, they sleep in bunkers. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure to sleep in bunkers; it’s not exactly desirable. But they go to Gogama, and they see that there are many, many beautiful homes that nobody lives in. I have pictures here. I’m aware that I’m not allowed to show you those pictures, but I can talk to you about some of those properties.

There’s the home at 52 Conrad Crescent that has been there. It has a beautifully treed backyard. There is the home at 8 Low Avenue—a beautiful white home kind of up on a hill—that is available, that is empty. There’s the home at 56 Conrad Crescent, a nice little bungalow with huge parking. There’s about a dozen or so—one at 11 Low Avenue, a very nice home with a nice balcony. We have 34 McGowan Street. We have many, many empty houses.

You know, Speaker, that those houses are empty because there used to be a huge Ministry of Natural Resources office in Gogama, so they had houses for their employees to live in. They also had lots of garages and lots of infrastructure for them to do their work. The ministry comes with big trucks and a place to fix them and all of this. And all of this sits empty and belongs to the province.

In many parts of the north, we have no municipalities. We have what is called a local services board or a local road board, but they do not have the power of a municipality. So when a property such as a house sits empty—people don’t pay their taxes; it just sits there—then the property, if you were in a municipality, would go back to the municipality. But given that you’re in northern Ontario and we have no municipality, the property goes back to the province.

In September 2020, I was really proud when we did the sod-turning ceremony for the Côté gold mine. The Premier was there, the Minister of Government and Consumer Services, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Northern Development and Mines—anyway, the names of the ministries have changed since, but there were, like, six or seven ministers from the Ford government who came to the sod-turning ceremony.

Understand that this gold mine was being developed, that it would create hundreds and hundreds—really, thousands—of jobs to mine that gold that they had found at Côté Lake, that it was just across the street from Gogama, that there were lots of empty buildings that belonged to the provincial government in Gogama that people could buy. I made sure that I mentioned all of this to all of the ministers who were there, to make sure that they would quickly be up for sale. I guarantee you, if you put them up for sale today, they will be sold by the weekend. But nothing happened. So on January 6, 2021, I wrote a letter to Premier Doug Ford and to his chief of staff—that was Jamie Wallace at the time—to tell him:

“I am writing to you about the economic potentials of Côté gold mine for my constituents and for the community of Gogama. Gogama is a beautiful, small, isolated northern community in my riding of Nickel Belt. It was once home to 1,200 residents.” There are now many empty homes, and I named the homes, and I gave them the pictures and explained to them how those homes became the property of the provincial government and asked him if he could quickly put those homes up for sale.

This government says that they are for police, but not in northern Ontario. They closed the police forces, two of them, in my riding. The OPP does not have an office in Gogama anymore, so the police station is closed, and the homes where the police officers used to live just next to the police station are beautiful, beautiful homes with a stone fireplace and nice big trees—anyway, beautiful homes. They also sit empty since the Ford government closed the OPP station in that community. I explained all of that to the minister and said, “People need homes. Please put those homes up for sale.”

That was on January 6, 2021. But I also—on January 7; it took me one more day—wrote to the Minister of Government and Consumer Services, basically telling her more or less the same thing. I also wrote to the Minister of Finance, because apparently, when the houses are first repossessed, they could belong to the Ministry of Finance. But people didn’t know for sure, so I also wrote to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. I also wrote to the Minister of Infrastructure, because I figured those are infrastructure and it will be the Minister of Infrastructure who will eventually put those houses up for sale. I wanted to make sure that everybody knew.

The grand opening was in September 2020. I wrote to all of those people in 2021, and it took a year and a half before I got an answer back. The answer back came to say, “Estimated timeline is a minimum of 12 to 24 months, due to the complication with resolving” the issue of who owns what property.

So I had written in January 2021. They’re telling me it’s going take 12 to 24 months, so 12 months later, I wrote back to all of those good people and heard nothing. Twenty-four months later, I wrote back to all of those ministers and said, “Are those homes going to be up for sale?” And on August 11, 2023—so you’re talking three years after the sod-turning, two and half years after I had written to everybody, followed up 12 months later, followed up again 24 months later—I got a letter from the Ministry of Infrastructure, signed by the Minister of Infrastructure, telling me that the “Estimated timeline is a minimum 12 to 24 months” to put those homes up for sale. We are now in June 2024 and none of those homes have been put up for sale.

How much red tape exists in government? It is so hard to understand. The government owns those properties. Some of those properties, like the property that the Minister of Natural Resources used to use, have not been used for 11 years. The OPP station has been closed for four years. The rest of the homes that people have abandoned, they were abandoned in, I would say, early 2012. They’ve all been empty for 12 years.

Don’t get me wrong, the government pays to maintain them. They pay people to come and cut the grass and trim the trees. They pay people to come and shovel the driveways. They pay people to make sure that the home, the water pipes and all this are taken care of.

The government knows that they own these properties, they pay to maintain them, and yet, after writing to all of those people, after there are 1,800 people across the street that are looking for a home, there is too much red tape to put those homes up for sale.

We’re not talking million-dollar homes here. In my riding, most of those homes would go for, I don’t know, $250,000. How could it be that they can make decisions about billion-dollar greenbelt homes in three weeks’ time, and they cannot make a decision to put 12 homes that they own, that they maintain in Gogama, up for sale in four years? If that’s not red tape, I don’t know what to call this—that they don’t care about northern Ontario? I think they do.

I was at the grand opening of the gold mine. I got to try to lift the first gold nugget that came out of the mine. Did you know, Speaker, that a gold nugget about that big—I couldn’t even lift it. It is very heavy. I was pretending that I was going to lift it and put it in my pocket—you know, gold. I couldn’t even lift it. I had to ask the member from Sudbury to come and help me lift it so I could take a picture pretending.

Anyway, that being said, the Minister of Mines was there; he gave a beautiful speech. He knows about this situation. Anybody I talk to on the other side knows that those homes should be put up for sale, and yet, four years later—I stopped counting the number of letters that I have written, but we are over 30 letters that I have written about this, pictures that I have sent. How many times have I spoken about this in the House, and yet nothing has been done?

So my view of the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act is that people have to realize that the province is not only southern Ontario. Northern Ontario is beautiful. Northern Ontario is part of Ontario. When you put a piece of legislation forward that talks to something that is really, really pertinent to northern Ontario, you have to make sure that we are included in this.

But I would say the present legislation, Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, the way it is written right now, it’s not going to help northern Ontario. We face housing issues the same way that everybody else does. As I said, when you open up a new mine, when 1,800 new workers move to a new mine, they move their family. They need a place to stay. They need a place for their spouses and their kids to go to school, and all of this is available right there, belongs to the provincial government, and I cannot get them to put it up for sale. All I get is more or less the very same letter that was sent to me in 2021, 2022 and 2023, but there has been a change of minister—I mean, it’s still the Minister of Infrastructure. There’s a new Minister of Infrastructure on the different answers that I get, but it is the same answer—copy and paste from one year to the next. How could it be, Speaker? Those people matter.

They fully agree that mining is important to northern Ontario. Well, mining means that when you open up a new mine—were there a lot of people at Côté Lake before? No. There were five camps, one of them in pretty poor shape. There were a few people with trailers around Côté Lake. That was it; that was all. Now it is a fantastic facility. You wouldn’t believe it.

There are trucks that are—how can I explain? Bigger than—oh, I don’t know how many feet up, but they are huge, huge, huge trucks that you have never seen. I got a picture of myself beside the tire. I’m not even 25% of the size of the tire, never mind the truck. All of those are self-driving. They go 50 kilometres an hour down to the drilling. The drilling, again, is directed off-line. There are no workers there. Everything is done remotely. It is a fantastic gold mine.

They still need workers. Workers still need a place to live. Don’t get me wrong; many of them live in Timmins, many of them live in Sudbury and travel, but many of them come from Gogama, come from Mattagami First Nation, from Biscotasing, Westree, Shining Tree, areas around there. They want to be able to rent those homes. They want to be able to buy those homes, and the government has so much red tape that they cannot put them up for sale.

I know that I was sharing my time with my good colleague, and I’m sorry I took too much of my time, but I’ll sit down now.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Second reading agreed to.

Ms. Ghamari moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr45, An Act to revive 1828469 Ontario Inc.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on June 3, 2024, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

I thank my friend and colleague for her speech. Of course, there’s not a lot of time left to say—but any kind of legislation we have here to talk about housing has to include tenants, because the reality is, this government shows little to no interest at all. They talk about—they brag, in fact, saying that they’re leading in terms of rental housing starts, but I think it’s really patently obvious why that would even happen. It has nothing to do with them; it’s more of a chicken or an egg thing, because if the average cost of rent is $2,500, $3,000 a month, all of a sudden, a landlord can make tons and tons of money doing that, building more rental units that nobody can afford. The relief addressed by supply and demand might be a correction in five, 10, 15, 20 years, but it doesn’t bring relief to tenants who are being evicted right now in this affordability crisis.

On the subject of the affordability crisis, this government is not interested whatsoever in that. I’ll tell you what they’re interested in: beer. They’re interested in beer. I couldn’t get my head around it, why the common theme in the last six years—every once in a while, we would be debating beer. First, it was tailgate parties at football games. It was a buck-a-beer that never happened.

I’ll give an example of where I think it really comes from, because if you can’t fix a person’s problems—and this government really can’t; in fact, they’re making problems worse every day with legislation they continue to introduce here—what can you do? Well, I can think of something: Get them drunk. Get everyone drunk. We’ll put them to sleep with a good glass of wine on a hot Sunday afternoon. You might want to go to sleep after that.

So how do we get people drinking? Well, imagine going to the grocery stores. You’re trying to purchase things. You’re like, “Oh, my God, look at the price of this. I can’t afford this. I can’t afford that. Oh, look, there’s beer here. That’s new. Oh, my God—a bottle of wine. You know what? I’ll just take this home and have a drink.” And guess what? Forgot about the problem of groceries. But it’s not enough, because people start to wake up and they say, “Oh, my God, it’s really—it’s unaffordable.” What do we do? Well, let’s bring beer a little closer. Let’s put it in the convenience stores, and you know, we’ve got lots of convenience stores around the province. So now you’re going in there to do what you needed to do, because you couldn’t make it to the grocery store. Guess what? There’s beer there.

What’s it going to cost the taxpayers? A billion dollars, a year early? I mean, this contract is ending anyway. What’s the rush to take $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to put beer in corner stores? How is this a priority for this government?

The final thing I have in the last minute is this carbon tax. Do you know what? I finally heard a minister get up today. Do you know he said? “I’m sick of talking about the carbon tax.” Hi. I mean, half of every question period is about the carbon tax. You want to get them to talk about other federal issues, like, I don’t know, talk to auto manufacturers about making cars harder to steal. “No, we can’t talk about that.” But 30 minutes every morning about the carbon tax. Do one question, man—one question. We get it. Everyone gets it. The penguins in the Antarctic get it. Martians get it. We get it. You can’t change it. Talk about something else. You say you’re proud of doing things to change the province of Ontario, but all you want to do is talk about the same thing.

I’m commiserating with you. I know it’s hard. It was really good to hear the minister say that. I wanted to give him a hug after, because I know it’s not easy to meet your hundred-times-a-day quota. But, look, you have more to offer. I know you do. You’ve got fabulous members over there. I want to hear about something else, okay?

Thank you very much, Speaker. Have a wonderful afternoon, everybody.

I recognize the member for Humber River–Black Creek.

Ma question est pour ma collègue de Nickel Belt. J’ai écouté vos paroles, puis moi aussi, quand j’ai vu le projet de loi 185 de réduire le « red tape », j’étais encouragé, mais disons que ça n’a pas duré longtemps. On a commencé à regarder le projet de loi, puis on réalise que ça ne répondra pas aux besoins du nord de l’Ontario.

Moi, j’ai des communautés—j’en ai parlé souvent, que 65 %, 70 % de la communauté de Hearst, ils n’ont pas de médecin de famille. Mais même si on en trouve un, je ne sais même pas si on est pas capable de lui trouver un logement ou une maison. Ça n’existe pas. On a une pénurie. Mais aussi, on a une pénurie pour des domiciles abordables, des domiciles subventionnés et des domiciles avec de l’aide.

Montrez-moi dans ce projet de loi où ça va répondre aux besoins des communautés du Nord pour répondre aux besoins qu’on a dans nos communautés.

We’re going to go to questions.

I appreciate it. It wasn’t a question about the carbon tax; thank you.

So the solution is: Instead of paying $500 million, you’re going to pay $1 billion to cancel the contract. Again, you know what? When I go and purchase a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer, I go to the LCBO public workers. And the money goes back into government coffers directly. It doesn’t go indirectly. It goes directly there to pay for things like health care, reconstructing roads and other things like that.

But there is an absolute religion on this side to privatize everything and at any cost. So I understand how it goes in line with their brand and their ideology, but we are spending $1 billion when we have record deficits and massive priorities that we need to be spending on countless other things But no, let’s put beers in corner stores and spend a billion bucks to do it. Come on.

I want to talk about something. Let’s pretend this is question period in the morning and I’m in the government. Do you know who likes Justin Trudeau more than the federal Liberals themselves—because I don’t think they like him very much right now; I think they’re having a little bit of buyers’ remorse. It’s this government. Can you imagine if Justin Trudeau wasn’t there—that they could just focus all the venom and hatred in that one direction and jump on any train to lead there? What would they talk about, honestly? We’re sitting here, in the most cynical moments ever of this government, constantly talking about this. I want you all to go home, if you have a faith that you follow, and say a moment of prayer to him and just thank him that he’s there in Ottawa so you can direct all your venom towards—because do you know what? In the last couple of years, you guys were working really well together, I can tell you that.

I want to thank the member opposite for his comments, but I do want to pick up on the grocery shopping and the LCBO. As you know, the Liberal government 10 years ago signed an agreement that has been costing this province over $500 million annually. We’re moving proactively to transition, and we anticipate the point of sales will increase government revenues by about $300 million. We’ll create 7,500 new jobs. So, why not move forward with it now? That’s my question.

Thank you to the member from Nickel Belt and the member from Humber River–Black Creek for their debate this afternoon. In Hamilton, we have close to 1,900 people who are homeless. Visible homeless is in the hundreds. We can drive through our city at any time, and there are encampments of tents everywhere.

We have lost 16,000 low-income rentals that were under the $750 mark. We are currently losing. For every one house we build, we are losing four to the private rental market. This is an absolute crisis. With numbers continuing to decline in the rental market, there’s no hope in sight for so many people who cannot afford to pay the rent.

Do you see anything in this bill that will provide relief and a remedy to the absolute crisis that we’re seeing in our communities?