It’s very concerning to hear about this eleventh-hour motion to extend the amount of time that we will be in summer session to October 21. People in Ontario expect us to be legislators in this building at the assigned times, which means, after Labour Day, we are here debating legislation to improve the lives of people in Ontario. It’s very concerning that there is this sudden announcement that instead we are going to be coming back on October 21—wow. School has started, people are back from their vacation, and what’s this government going to be doing? You want an extra month off; is that it? Is that what’s motivating you? You want an extra month off? That’s very concerning.

The reason why I think it’s concerning is because things are not okay in Ontario today. We just debated a housing bill where, it’s safe to say, it was at best mediocre. It’s not going to be doing anything to fix the housing crisis that we’re experiencing, where rent has never been more expensive and owning a home has never been more expensive. We should be here in the Legislature debating solutions to the housing crisis. What we shouldn’t be doing is extending the amount of time that the government is on summer break—summer break in the fall, when people expect us to be doing our jobs here at that time. I don’t understand it.

I think about the issues that I’ve been raising or that we’ve been raising over the last few weeks. The issue of auto theft: I spoke to the minister just briefly beforehand. People want us to take action on auto theft. We agree there is a federal piece to this, where we need to properly regulate the outflow of products from ports, but there’s also a provincial element to this too: It boggles my mind that an individual can take a stolen car to ServiceOntario and get it re-licensed and back on the roads. That’s a provincial issue. Why aren’t we dealing with that? Why don’t we deal with that in September? Nope. Instead, this government wants to extend their summer vacation into fall—into fall—for another four weeks. I think that’s a shame.

The last few weeks, we’ve also brought up the issue of the court backlogs. And we’re hearing that in our riding, too: People want their cases to be heard in court and tribunals, from landlords to tenants, to small claims court, to people who have filed assault charges or have had assault charges filed against their perpetrator. They want our court system to be functioning as you would expect a court system to be functioning in a province as wealthy as ours, in a democracy in the western world. But it’s not.

Court cases are being thrown out every week, court cases with evidence, because the courts are not able to meet the Jordan principle and they’re not able to ensure that someone is tried within 18 months or two years. That’s what we should be trying or working to solve in September instead of this government choosing to extend their summer vacation into the fall. It doesn’t make sense.

I think about the growing issue of poverty in our riding. On the way here, I walk down College Street. College Street has changed a lot in the last six years where I’ve been the MPP. As I walk down College Street, I pass an encampment outside St. Stephen’s church. People are desperate. They have got nowhere to go. No one wants to sleep in a tent in the heat of summer on concrete. No one wants to do that, but people do it because they have no where to go.

In September, I would much prefer to be debating legislation. We could be debating the fall economic statement, where we present solutions to the homelessness crisis that isn’t just in downtown Toronto anymore; it’s in towns and cities all across Ontario, as well as the mental health crisis, the drug addiction issues that we’re seeing, the opioid crisis. No, instead, this government is choosing to extend summer vacation by four weeks. I think that is a shame.

And then as I walk College Street, you’ve got the encampment on one side, and on the other side you’ve got the excellent Fort York Food Bank. They do an amazing job. Our riding association has organized fundraisers for them. We attend their events. We organize food drives for them, as well. And when I speak to the organizers of the Fort York Food Bank, they tell me that need has never been higher. It has never been higher. People who are coming are not just people on social assistance; they are people who are working full-time, who have children that they are looking after. There are seniors in the line because it is too expensive to live in our city. It is just too expensive. And when I walked by there today, the line was so long. It’s so long: 80 or 90 people were waiting there this morning, sometimes for hours, just to get basic food supplies. We’re talking cans, milk, cereal, vegetables and basic stuff because they cannot afford to pay their rent and go to the supermarket and pay their bills.

I would prefer if this government spent their time in September debating legislation with us, debating the fall economic statement, to address the growing inequality in our city and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people do not have enough to survive. We could be talking about increasing social assistance. It’s horribly low. It puts people in legislated poverty.

We could be talking about what we should be doing to ensure seniors aren’t evicted into homelessness, which is happening in my riding more and more frequently. It’s very concerning.

We could be debating increasing the minimum wage, so when someone works full-time, they have enough money to afford to live an okay life in Ontario. And it is very difficult to do that on the current minimum wage right now. It’s very concerning.

That’s what we should be debating, but instead, this government wants to go on a summer vacation in the fall. I think that is an absolute shame.

I think about some other issues that have come up this week, where we had a tragedy in a school, where an individual was left alone in a room when he never should have been left alone—a child—and he died. That is a tragedy that should never happen. The member for Hamilton Mountain talked about the mother and when she received a text and then a phone call that her child had died at school—that is a parent’s worst nightmare. I can’t even fathom how horrible what would be. That is a life-altering event. We should and could be debating legislation to talk about how we can assure that that never, ever, ever happens again in any school in Ontario.

The other kinds of issues that Ontarians want us to be debating and solving in here, they don’t—that’s what they want us to be doing in September. That’s what they expect. People come back from vacation in August, they go to work in September, and so should we. It’s very concerning to hear about that—