Residents in Orléans and across Ontario are asking if the convenience of buying a beer at the corner store is really worth $1 billion. The answer, of course, is no. So why the rush?

We have a teacher shortage, Ontario schools need billions in repairs, and this government has cut $1,500 in per-student funding since they were elected in 2018. But there is $1 billion to accelerate corner store beer sales by a year.

Two million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor. Imagine: Not a single person in these combined cities of Ottawa, Windsor, London, Kingston and Guelph have a family doctor, but there is $1 billion to accelerate corner store beer sales by a year.

Instead of cutting education and health care further, perhaps this government will do what they always do, which is just take on more and more debt. Madam Speaker, it’s not what we need.

If this government were to auction off the new liquor licences, it could net nearly $300 million in additional value to taxpayers. This is what the Conservative governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan did, netting a small fortune to fund education and health care.

And since this government is refusing to follow the lead of fiscally conservative governments, I have to ask: Which friend, supporter or crony is going to benefit at the expense of students, teachers, nurses, doctors—at the expense of all of us?

In the end, this government cares little about fiscal responsibility, having increased the debt by over $100 billion under their watch, the largest debt of any subnational jurisdiction in the world. This—