The ayes are 76; the nays are 30.

No further business.

Thank you, Speaker. I, too, would have liked to see things in the budget that are not there. The first thing is in my riding. In Foleyet, they are at risk of losing their ambulance services because the district services board doesn’t have enough money to maintain an ambulance service to a community that is an hour away from the next town, whether it be Chapleau or Timmins. How could you fathom that in Ontario there would be a community an hour away from the nearest hospital without ambulance service there? This is what’s about to happen in Foleyet if the district services board does not get an increase to their budget. But it’s not in the budget.

How could it be that in Gogama, tomorrow, on September 1, there’s a chance that their—well, there’s not “a chance;” Their nursing station won’t have a full-time nurse practitioner, won’t have a collaborative physician. The good people of Gogama won’t have a nursing station anymore. They have had a nursing station for decades. This is how they access the health care system.

Do we see in the budget money to improve people getting access to health care through nursing stations? Absolutely not. But what we do see are things to help the for-profits, whether it be for-profit home care or for-profit long-term care.

I just had the courage to read the Sienna Senior Living report—their second quarter for 2022. I am happy—no, I’m not happy to report at all that they made $354 million in the first six months. That’s $180 million in the last three months out of their long-term-care portfolio alone. That’s $2 million in profit. That would be 110,000 hours of care more if that money had gone to care rather than going to their shareholders. But no, they’re happy to report that their revenue increased by 10.7% to $180.2 million for Q2.

Also interesting is that they issued this on August 11, and they already knew that the bill to force people into the long-term-care home that they didn’t want was going to come. Not only did they know this, but they used it in their financial statement to say, “Don’t worry, although we are only at 88.5% average total occupancy in our long-term-care homes, we know that we will be at full occupancy to get the full amount of money, because we were made whole during the pandemic.” Although they’re supposed to have 97% occupancy to get full dollars, they were made whole. Now that the government is stopping this on October 1, they told their shareholders, “Do not worry, we will continue to be full; although we’re only at 88.5%, we will be at 97%,” because they already knew that the government was going to pass a bill that would force people to go into a long-term-care home that is not of their choosing. So that they could maintain, or even increase—rather than making $60 million a month, maybe they could make $65 million a month on the back of frail, elderly people who do not get the care they need in those long-term-care homes.

I could go on and on, Speaker. But the fact is that we will be voting against this budget because we want care to be based on needs. We want the taxpayers’ money to go towards the care, not the shareholders who make hundreds of millions of dollars, who are willing—it’s on the website, so anybody can go and see it. Sienna Living: Type it up and you will see they’re very proud of the $354 million that they made in the first six months. The $180 million—$151 million that they made in the last three months out of our long-term-care homes. I am not proud of that, Speaker. Not at all. And forcing people to go into those long-term-care homes so that they can continue to make millions of dollars is wrong.

I’ll be voting down that budget.

Thank you, Speaker. I, too, want to congratulate you on being in that Chair. It seems like you know exactly what to say and how to identify the members. I tell you, that must really impress the Clerks’ table. That’s a talent that speaks for itself.

There’s no surprise in where I stand on the position of this proposed budget bill that this government has put forward, which I will not be supporting. There’s no surprise. What I want to do is bring a sense of what people in Algoma–Manitoulin were telling me when I was knocking on the doors, and what they’ve been saying for quite a long time. When I was knocking on doors, Speaker, it was health care. Then it was health care. Then it was health care. And then it was health care. They’re not seeing that—we’re not seeing that—in this bill.

Health care comes in a variety of ways. Where are the travel grant increases or the review that we’ve been waiting for? Where are the increased PSWs? Where are the doctor recruitment and retention programs that we need to get doctors? Primary care is absent in northern Ontario.

Also, on the doorsteps, there was nothing as far as the discussion, even when we were talking about the opposition—because there were other candidates who were going to the doors, I was hearing what they were bringing to the doors as well. There was nothing about Bill 7 when we were going to the doors, in regard to removing consent from seniors and being travelled from one long-term care home to another. There was nothing about that.

There’s a variety of things that should have been there. Health care in northern Ontario is imperative, because we have to travel long distances to get to specialists. So primary care is very important to our communities—communities like Wawa, Manitouwadge, Thessalon, Blind River, Manitoulin. Doctor recruitment is a challenge for us. It has been huge. The East Algoma Primary Care Work Team—we’ve been working with this government. I’ve walked over and provided them with a complete proposal on a path toward getting doctors in northern Ontario, or at least to the north shore in my riding of Algoma–Manitoulin, but it has been crickets. I have not heard anything from this government.

We look at this bill, and for the life of me, there are so many things that are in there, but there are so many things that are missing. Speaker, tell me how repealing the requirement that WSIB headquarters in Toronto, under schedule 6—how is that going to help an individual who is being penalized? Deeming is happening, upon them. They are losing their shirt off their back. How is that going to help? Why didn’t we put anything on eliminating the practice of deeming under WSIB within this bill? We didn’t do that. It’s not there.

Price-gouging: Gas prices have been ludicrous in northern Ontario. People have been paying high prices. This is what I was hearing quite often at the doors, where everybody was upset. Did we see anything in legislation that was contained in here? I remember, just before we went to the doors—we had a very nice exercise here this afternoon where we demonstrated a lot of the words that the Premier was using when he was first elected in 2018, on how he was going to bring in legislation and monitor certain individuals to make sure that price-gouging stopped. That didn’t happen.

Health care was also affected in another way in northern Ontario, because people are wondering, “How am I going to get to and from my appointments?” We have to use our roads, right? So the investment that this government has touted, putting $10 billion-plus into roads like the Bradford Bypass and the 413—well, heck, there’s 68 kilometres of Highway 69 that could be finished that this government didn’t put a dollar or a cent towards in this budget. We didn’t see that.

In my specific riding of Algoma–Manitoulin: 542 and 551. Those are roads on Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater island in this world. You would think it would be a strategy for this government to develop a tourism practice which would attract individuals to northern Ontario, whether it be cycling or just sightseeing, and provide good roads. Well, they did some resurfacing just a couple of weeks ago. Guess what I was informed of this morning? Those roads are already full of potholes—the deterioration. So the five-year cycle is already starting. I can see why the people are so frustrated on Manitoulin Island that this is wasted money, when they could have properly paved those roads, which would have lasted the test of time.

Highway 637 into Killarney: It is a disaster. For crying out loud, that’s one of the best tourism areas we have in this province.

Highway 548 on St. Joseph Island—again I’m very fortunate in my riding. I have two beautiful islands, gems on their own. But again, if we’re going to attract individuals to come to our community, let’s make sure that the infrastructure that is there is properly cared for.

There are many other things that are not in the budget. Why did they not legislate the 10 paid sick days for people across this province? Why wasn’t that done? The experts have been telling this government to do so.

Why wasn’t there anything in this budget on climate change, real action on climate change? There was nothing in this budget. We see what is happening. We see more forest fires. We see more floods. We see the impact that it’s having on our municipal infrastructure. Bigger drains, larger culverts are needed, but we didn’t see anything about that.

Donna Behnke out of Elliot Lake has been writing to me: “Mike, please get them to do something on ODSP.” I told her, “Listen, I hear there’s something coming in the budget.” A 5% increase, $58—my goodness, that is a slap in her face. Those were her exact words that she provided to me. That is an embarrassment. She says, “What am I supposed to do with that $58? Do they not know my rent went up $110? Do they not know the price of food has gone up? Do they not know how much money it costs me in order to get to the grocery store?”

There are many things that are missing out of this budget that should have been in here, and this government again has shown how disconnected they are with those who are not singing their song. If I’m not singing the song, then I’m not going to be part of the band, and a lot of people are feeling like that in Ontario.

I know I’m going to hear from this government, “The member from Algoma–Manitoulin did not support the budget,” and they’re going to quote the area that I didn’t support. You know what? That’s fine. My communities know well enough and they are informed of the game this government is playing. I look forward to the next four years because I will stand in my place each and every day and bring the voices of people across Algoma–Manitoulin to this Legislature.

Further debate? The member for Algoma–Manitoulin

Mr. Bethlenfalvy has moved third reading of Bill 2, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

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

All those opposed?

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

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

Third reading vote deferred.

The House adjourned at 1724.

Thank you very much, Speaker. This is my first opportunity to see you in that chair, so I want to offer you my congratulations. It’s great to see you there.

I’m pleased to rise to offer a few minutes of comments on this bill, this budget that is before us today, on behalf of the people I represent in London West.

This week and last week I have been raising stories of people from my riding who are experiencing first-hand what the crumbling of our health care system means for them. Our home care system is broken.

I raised the story of Robin Floyd; her son was discharged from surgery with a drainage tube. He had to wait nine days before he had a home care appointment.

I raised the story of Kim Fowler, who is exhausted trying to care for her mother, who is at home with dementia and COPD—cannot get admitted into long-term care, PSWs regularly don’t show up. Kim is frantic with worry about what will happen if she herself gets sick and cannot get the care that she needs and her mother deserves.

Today I raised the story of Jane Berges; her husband Don was discharged from hospital and admitted to a private sector long-term-care home that did not have the capacity to care for him properly. He fell out of the bed in the long-term-care home, was readmitted to hospital and tragically died.

I hear regularly from constituents who do not have access to a family physician, whose only recourse if they or a family member are sick is to use our overcrowded and stretched-thin emergency services.

And yet this budget that is before us today does nothing to address these pressing problems in our health care system. It does nothing to repeal Bill 124 and make sure that our front-line health care workers are compensated fairly, they get the wages that they deserve and the benefits that they surely have earned. It does nothing to deal with violence in health care workplace settings. It does nothing to fast-track internationally educated health professionals at the rate that they need to be fast-tracked.

I hear the government talk about their plan to stay open, as if that plan is to ensure that the health care system is going to be there when people need it. But one of the most important things that this government could do if they want to stay open, if they want our health care system to be there for Ontarians, is to legislate paid sick days. We heard today from Dr. Moore that Ontarians are supposed to stay home until their fever clears, until their symptoms have improved—60% of Ontarians don’t have access to paid sick days. They can’t stay home if it means losing a paycheque, if it means not being able to pay the rent or put groceries on the table. And we know that for racialized workers, for Indigenous workers—they are highly more likely not to have access to paid sick days.

The other issue that is of grave concern to people in London West with this budget is the absence of any appropriate measures to lift people out of poverty. The minister talks about the LIFT tax credit, but more than 200 advocacy organizations have told this government that what we need is to double social assistance rates. Instead, we see a paltry 5% increase for ODSP and nothing for Ontario Works. That ODSP increase will mean $58 more a month, which locks people into legislated poverty.

There’s no mention of rent control for the many London West constituents who don’t know that when they move into an apartment that was built after November 2018, there’s no rent control whatsoever. They are being hit with double-digit rent increases, unable to know how they’re going to afford to continue to live there.

There’s no mention of the climate crisis and the need for strong climate action. There are many, many gaps in this budget that make it impossible for me to support it if I am doing my job on behalf of the people of London West.

I would like to focus my time today on talking about the failure to seriously address climate change and the lack of environmental protections in this bill.

During the previous Parliament, this government made significant changes to the province’s environmental policies: for example, a 70% funding cut to the Anishinabek/Ontario Fisheries Resource Centre, a 30% cut to the Canadian Environmental Law Association and a 100% cut to the Ontario Biodiversity Council. The budget of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks was slashed, and in 2019, without any consultation, the Ford government gutted the province’s 36 conservation authorities, removing their ability to protect crucial waterways and wetlands.

In November 2021, the Auditor General accused the government of deliberately undermining its own rules by not following the province’s Environmental Bill of Rights, by passing changes to environmental assessment procedures without consulting the public. These cuts were not about saving dollars. In 2018, the Ford government killed the Green Ontario Fund, which included 227 clean energy programs. Okay, they didn’t agree with anything designated as clean energy, but it cost the people of Ontario more than $230 million in fines and legal fees to shut down these projects, and then there was the enormous cost of taking cases to the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, only to be found guilty of acting illegally by cancelling programs without public consultation. Note the pattern here of refusing to have public consultations whenever the government doesn’t want scrutiny of its plans.

Now, regarding Highway 413: The people of Thunder Bay–Superior North do not support the government spending billions of dollars on an unnecessary highway that will, not incidentally, pave over 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, damage 220 wetlands and disrupt the habitats of 10 species at risk. Claiming that new highways will reduce emissions because there will be fewer idling cars is a case of magical thinking. Decades of research show that new roads do not resolve traffic problems in the long run; rather, they attract even more drivers with even more cars.

The government has also not been able to answer the question of how the food production lost through this significant loss of farmland will be replaced. The last environmental review of these highway projects actually took place in 1997, and it found that they posed significant risks to groundwater, surface water and air quality and were not worth pursuing. However, this government has exempted both highways from undergoing another full review before construction begins.

My concern is thus that while there are many projects to expand the development of natural resources, environmental protections have been gutted, leaving nothing in place to protect the land, trees, air and water that are also under our care.

Growth that doesn’t have environmental stewardship at its centre risks burdening present and future generations with the long-term poisoning that we have seen in Grassy Narrows and Indigenous communities in the Sarnia area. In southwestern Ontario, we had the devastating explosion in Wheatley that has drawn attention to the thousands of abandoned oil wells in the province, an issue the province is currently ignoring.

Climate change mitigation, environmental protections and respect for Indigenous rights needs to be baked into every single government project from the outset. Between this government’s silence on climate change, their record of abandoning injured workers while repurposing the WSIB as a cash cow for employers, and their record of dismantling environmental protections, I cannot support this bill.

Further debate?

It’s an honour to rise today to participate in the debate on budget Bill 2.

Speaker, budgets are about priorities. They define who we are and who we want to be. And yes, I want to build in Ontario, but we have to build in a way that is strategic, sustainable and responsible, and this budget fails to meet the moment that we’re in, in achieving those criteria.

I’m going to focus in my limited time on three critical areas. The first is health care. The government talks a lot about building hospitals and long-term-care homes. Yes, I want those. Yes, we need a new hospital in Guelph and in many other communities. The bottom line is: If you don’t invest in the people who are going to run those hospitals and care for the patients who access those hospitals, they will not provide the care we need.

I wanted to see a budget—I believe the people of Ontario wanted to see a budget—that repealed Bill 124 and said nurses and front-line health care heroes can negotiate fair wages, fair benefits and better working conditions, that we could have fast-tracked internationally trained health care providers to address the chronic health human resource crisis we’re facing across our health care system. We could have invested in the 28,000 young people who are on a mental health wait-list right now that averages 18 months. Imagine: Imagine not being able to access care for your child for 18 months.

Secondly, investing in people is also about addressing poverty and housing in ways that take pressure off our health care system. We are forcing people in this province to live in legislated poverty if they’re on social assistance. Doubling social assistance rates would be the right thing to do, to bring them up at least to the poverty line, and it would help save Ontario $33 billion a year, which is what poverty costs this province.

Finally, Speaker, the biggest crisis of our generation is the climate emergency, and I don’t understand how a government, in the face of the fires we see, the flooding we see—the fact that just in the month of May, when we had an election campaign, we had people in northwestern Ontario being evacuated from their communities because of flooding. We had a storm that hit eastern Ontario which forced people to go two weeks without power, and we were already having extreme heat days.

As a matter of fact, a report just came out two days ago saying that the climate crisis is going to cost us, from an infrastructure standpoint, $139 billion over the next two decades. And yet, this budget proposes to spend $25 billion paving over the farmland that feeds us, the wetlands that protect us from flooding—protect us from flooding at no cost. We simply cannot afford in this province to continue to pave over the farmland that feeds us and the nature that protects us, if we have any hope of mitigating the costs of the climate crisis and leaving a livable, sustainable future for our children and grandchildren. That’s why I will be voting against this budget.

I’m Jessica Bell, the MPP for University–Rosedale, and I rise today to speak about the government’s budget. A budget is not just about numbers; it’s a moral document because it affects our lives. It tells us who the government cares about and who they don’t. Here are a few things I noticed when I read through the government’s budget and how it affects the University–Rosedale community.

Number one: Education funding falls short. I recently looked at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ analysis of education funding and the state of education funding in Ontario, and the reason why I had to go to an outside source is because the government does not provide a clear indication of how they’re spending their money and when they’re spending their money. So we have to go to outside sources and our Financial Accountability Officer to get that data. Their assessment is that, over the past five years, the amount of funding that now goes to each student has dropped by $800 a student when you factor in inflation and enrolment. They looked at how much that affects each school, and they calculated that the average high school has lost $600,000 in funding over the last five years. This budget is part of that process.

It’s a reason why there is not going to be enough funding to hire enough education workers to help kids catch up and grapple with the learning loss that they face because of the pandemic. There’s not going to be enough funding for the community nurses and the mental health professionals and the social workers to help kids who are struggling, who need extra support. There’s not going to be enough funding to hire education workers and teachers in order to decrease class sizes to ensure that our kids get additional time with a teacher to help them learn how to read and write and excel at math.

It is a tragedy that we are not investing more in our public education system, because it is good for our kids, it’s good for our future, it’s good for women and parents in particular, and in the long term, it’s good for our economy.

I also notice—number two in this budget—the issue with health care funding. This government loves to talk a good game about how much funding they’re putting into health care and how many nurses are supposedly going into the system, but the reality is, in my riding of University–Rosedale we have critical care units at Toronto Western who cannot take new patients at certain times because they have staffing shortages. We have issues at SickKids, where they have a shortage of 15%. They’re short 15% of staff, and they’re short funding. And this is the pre-eminent hospital for children in Canada. We have issues where Toronto Western’s emergency room was at risk of closure—the MPP for Davenport raised this issue in the Legislature—because there wasn’t enough staff. That’s unbelievable that that is happening.

Number three, what I noticed in this budget: I deeply care about our response to climate change and how we can adapt and mitigate to climate change. There’s nothing in this budget that will seriously address the climate crisis that we face. There are no significant funding programs for energy efficiency, for building resilient cities, for funding transit operations so that we can improve the service and lower fares on the thousands of transit routes that operate across Ontario today. There is nothing in there.

There is funding for future transit projects, that will one day—2030, 2032—be built. But there’s also a huge amount of funding for highway projects that we just don’t need. Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass will not save commuters time, and they will cost upwards of $10 billion. That money should be invested into our health care system, into our education system, and it should be invested into climate change programs so we can adapt to the crisis that we are facing.

There are many other issues that I see with this budget. The minimum wage is not going up fast enough. It should being $20 an hour, because $15.50—with inflation at 7%, with rent at the rate that it is today—is not enough. It’s not enough to live on. And the social assistance rate increase of 5% is really an insult to the people in this province who are living on Ontario Works and Ontario disability. It is locking them into poverty, when they should be helped, not hurt.

I urge this government to do more for the people of Ontario and bring forward a budget that invests in education, in health care, in mitigating climate change, in investing in public infrastructure and to helping people who are struggling get a leg up.

Further debate?

I’m disappointed today. I’m disappointed that the Conservative government was not able to get an update done of this important budget document, first issued four months ago, when so much has changed around us. Interest rates have gone up. Inflation is soaring. The cost of food is soaring, and families are feeling the pain of that. There is an ongoing war in Ukraine, and many economists and individuals are worried about how we will weather these challenges. This budget document has few mentions of climate change and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, two of the many great challenges facing our province and our country.

Ontario’s economy has weathered COVID quite well, thanks in large part to federal transfers for health care spending and growth in personal taxes from the revenues that federal programs like CERB and CEWS provided to workers. But we also need to prepare now for how a possible economic slowdown based on global supply chain challenges, rising interest rates and the cost of living could affect Ontarians. This means spending more now to prepare for transitioning workers to new jobs in new industries. This government has a history of underspending on education, including post-secondary education, and that is not a fiscally responsible approach to making sure that our workforce and our workers are prepared for the economy of the future.

This government also has a history of underestimating its overall financial results. While prudence and fiscal responsibility are admirable features of a budget, underspending on priorities—like health care and protecting our kids, our seniors and our most vulnerable—is not.

Take the latest year of 2021-22. The FAO projects that the 2021-22 budget will be $8.1 billion, versus the government’s deficit projection of $13.5 billion. That’s a difference of $5.4 billion. That money could have gone a long way if it had been spent on treating health care workers with respect and paying them a fair wage by repealing Bill 124 and not cancelling the 10 paid sick days implemented by the Liberal government that would have helped to relieve the staffing crisis our health care system is facing.

This Conservative government talks frequently about how it is working for the people of Ontario, yet in 2021-22, the Expenditure Monitor report from the FAO indicates that the government underspent from its plan: On children’s and social services, it underspent by $662 million; on K-12 students, it underspent by $284 million; and on post-secondary education, it underspent by $289 million. That money could have been spent to better support our students and education workers by providing better mental health supports, which were, and continue to be, much needed during the pandemic.

Given this underspending and strong revenue growth projections in the budget, I believe it is the responsible and moral thing to do to increase ODSP rates by 20%. It is within our fiscal ability, and it would greatly improve the quality of life some of our most vulnerable citizens are facing.

This budget still focuses on building a new highway, the 413—this government’s pet project—which paves over more than 2,000 acres of some of our most precious farmland, not to mention over 400 acres of the greenbelt, at a time when Ontario should be preparing for ongoing global food supply challenges. We’ve seen the cost of food rise in response to the war in Ukraine and many other global factors. The government has proposed the creation of a food security strategy, but is also proposing to build a highway which will pave over that fertile farmland and spur development on that critical land. So we see billions of dollars for highways, but a mere strategy for food security. That, to me, is not fiscal responsibility.

Let’s talk a little more about this highway. The Conservative government likes to say this project will save commuters 30 minutes per day and get them home to their families sooner, but data from their own ministry says otherwise. In May 2022, the Toronto Star reported, “That’s the promise that appears right at the top of the official website for the proposed Highway 413: The new highway will save commuters as much as 30 minutes each way when crossing the Greater Toronto Area.

“It’s an appealing message for commuters—and voters—but a Ministry of Transportation analysis obtained by the Star suggests it’s not true.

“That’s because the calculation doesn’t take into account the existing 407 ETR, a major toll highway commuters can already use. If that highway is factored in, according to a briefing note prepared Sept. 16, 2021, by a team of Ministry of Transportation officials ... as of 2041 commuters using the already-existing 400, 401 and 407 highways could cross the GTA 16 minutes faster than they could using the proposed Highway 413 alone.”

Madam Speaker, this highway will hurt our environment by adding greenhouse gases. It wasn’t fiscally responsible of this Conservative government to not pursue $1 billion in penalty payments from the 407 during 2020 and 2021—$2 billion that would have added to the treasury—and it’s not fiscally responsible to spend $10 billion on the proposed Highway 413.

Let’s talk about energy. We need sufficient capital investment to address our growing energy needs related to the thousands of new electric vehicles we’re building to go on those highways, especially as the Pickering nuclear plant is to begin decommissioning in 2024. The government is proposing turning Ontario into a green vehicle and clean steel powerhouse, but does not have a robust plan to produce the energy needed to see that transition through and is not committed to ensuring the energy that we create remains green. Expanding the use of electric vehicles will require an estimated 26 million megawatt hours by 2042. The Pickering nuclear plant is 14% of our energy supply. The government plans to replace electricity from Pickering with emitting sources. New energy that is not clean energy is not good for the air we breathe, nor is it good for attracting companies that are looking for clean energy sources.

Education and innovation: In 2019, we saw a decrease in funding to post-secondary education of over 13%, or $1.5 billion. This was compounded by a further cut of $1 billion in 2020. We’re not projected to return to that funding level even in 2024. There is an opportunity cost to four years of cuts to the development of an educated and innovative workforce. The government understands the concept of vertical integration—their plan for electric vehicles does just that—but the most important thing that will help grow the economy of Ontario is education. Without strong, continuous and innovative primary, secondary and post-secondary education, we will not be able to attract and retain the innovative workforce and companies of the 21st century, the high-tech industry that we also need.

Madam Speaker, I’d like to also talk about transparency. Like Bill 7, which violates long-term-care patients’ rights, the budget bill has not gone to committee for review, but is being rushed through to a final vote without giving stakeholders and other experts the opportunity to speak to what’s in the budget and what is not. As the legislated budget deadline of March 31, 2022, was looming, the government changed the rules and passed legislation to allow it to present the budget a month later, by April 30, allowing it to follow the new rules it had set for itself by issuing the budget on April 28. We also have not yet seen estimates—that is, more detail on how the government will spend the money included in this budget.

The Auditor General, in her Review of the Pre-Election 2022 Multi-Year Fiscal Plan, made some statements of note that should be taken seriously: The “supporting documentation prepared by ministries was not as detailed as the information used to support the previous pre-election report in 2018.”

More importantly, she reports on some exceptions. Exceptions from an auditor are a big deal and should be taken seriously. Her report says the government’s multi-year fiscal plan “understated estimates of provincial revenue from corporate tax in each of the three years” by $1.5 billion to $3.4 billion in 2022-23 alone. It should be noted that she was right on this point for 2022. The government’s budget for corporate taxes was $14.4 billion, and the actual amount spent was $22.2 billion. This government could be spending that money, almost $8 billion, now to pay our health care workers a fair wage instead of asking the federal government for more.

Ontario is a wealthy province. We are rich in resources and rich in talent. We need to ensure that we deploy our vast resources wisely by protecting our environment, building a clean energy supply, investing in our future in a way that is environmentally and fiscally sustainable, by supporting our younger generations with an education system that allows them to grow and develop to the best of their ability, by working towards reconciliation with the Indigenous communities.

Instead of building unnecessary highways, let’s spend that $10 billion to build up our public health care, our public education, our environment, clean industry, social and mental support systems, to ensure we have a healthy, strong and vibrant society and economy in the years ahead.

Further debate?

It’s an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Toronto Centre today and to speak to the government’s budget bill, Bill 2.

With skyrocketing inflation, tenants need support from their government more than ever before: tangible supports to keep people housed, to keep them in their homes and out of encampments. But instead of helping, this government is actually hurting Ontarians, especially renters, by allowing rents to rise by a historic 2.5% this year. But despite these increases in recent years, the number of applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board to evict tenants for renovations or repairs has actually surged.

This government has recognized this problem and made some moves to track when landlords apply for renovictions for their tenants. That’s good. However, the Toronto housing secretariat recently noted that a significant number of illegitimate evictions are still happening without documentation. The Toronto housing secretariat has called for a centralized data system on rental units, not to mention vacancy rent control. There is no funding of any sort for this kind of program in this government’s budget.

With skyrocketing inflation, vacancy rent control is the least expensive way that this government can curb the cost of living and help the most precariously housed in Ontario. But with such a growing backlog of cases at the Landlord and Tenant Board, I don’t see the measures in this budget to help those who are really needing the support. We need to be able to provide tenants the support that they need to get, and those laws are actually on the books, but they’re not being enforced.

So let’s speak about the laws on the books. I want to comment that there are no new measures in this budget to correct the problems facing Ontario’s tribunals. Ontario’s tribunal backlog needs investment, so that they can function at the level that Ontarians rightfully expect from their courts and government. The wait time for cases before the Landlord and Tenant Board, the Human Rights Tribunal, the Social Benefits Tribunal and Family Court are creating avoidable costs for my constituents, your constituents and businesses. I’ve heard about law firms now being worried about taking on additional family law cases, because the costs are so high and case completion times are so protracted that families now let go of their lawyers early, because they can’t afford to pay them. So we are finding that Ontarians are not getting access to justice.

Speaker, I do not see investments in legal aid in this budget, something that I understand, based on studies in other jurisdictions, has shown to be a net-neutral effect on government budgets, because investments in legal aid reduce the costs and prevent homelessness-associated costs and mental health costs. It allows for a more speedy resolution of complex cases, rather than having it fall into our judicial system.

Since 2018, this government has now subjected our legal aid system to years of cuts after years of cuts after years of cuts. This is having consequences that I’m being told mean that people in Toronto Centre and other communities are now finding that people are no longer able to get access to trials in a timely fashion, which means that cases that have underlying mental health or economic issues at their core will not be resolved, because the legal aid system is so poorly funded. From the limited information available to me as an opposition MPP, it seems that spending on justice is not even keeping up with the rate of inflation.

In 2022, in April, tenant representatives reported that tenant applications are being scheduled within nine to 10 months after they are filed. By comparison, only two years earlier, those applications took nine weeks to schedule—nine weeks, and now we’re at nine to 10 months. Those same reports note that eviction for non-payment of rent took seven weeks to schedule in the year 2020, but a year later, they’re now taking 18 weeks. This is the backlog this government has created when we don’t actually invest in the programs and we’re denying Ontarians access to justice. Literally everyone is stuck in the system—landlords, tenants, business owners, everybody—and they’ve got no place to go.

Again, while I do not have access to the detailed budgetary information which I need, but I don’t have, I also know that with respect to the Landlord and Tenant Board, CTV found out that the Tribunals Ontario business plan shows a shrinking operating budget, from $81 million in 2020 to about $63 million today. That is a defunding of $18 million over two years, which is the wrong direction to be headed in.

Delays in access-to-justice issues at Tribunals Ontario are connected to the following—and I’m going to try to summarize: the government depleting the overall skills and experience of the adjudicators at Tribunals Ontario by appointing in some cases, not all, poorly qualified adjudicators and by insisting on the removal of physical access points for service and in its place primarily digital service, which has left many Ontarians unable to assert their rights because of technological, language, disability and other barriers. That is a problem that has to be addressed. The Zoom hearing format is not suitable for the busiest and most litigious tribunal in the province, which is the Landlord and Tenant Board, which now further extends the time needed to adjudicate disputes. Legal aid clinics which used to routinely resolve their matters now are not able to do so, again because of the digital divide, because low-income Ontarians can’t get access to the Internet or stable Internet.

The duty of care is failing our residents. This is a problem that this government can fix by addressing it in the budget, but they’re choosing not to.

Legal Aid Ontario’s budget must be at least restored to its pre-pandemic level. That is the baseline where we need it to go. Otherwise, we’ll see more Ontarians fall through the cracks and fall on hard times that we’re not going to be able to resolve.

I’m just going to take some time to speak about what I’m seeing in the Statistics Canada recently reported data. This is important, because I think all of us care about safe communities. But what I want to flag for everyone here is that the budget is entirely silent on new funding when it comes to gender-based violence. And yet, at the same time, Statistics Canada is telling us that the rates of violence and incidents of violence have now gone up over 18% from 2020.

While sexual assault is underreported to the Toronto police, we need to see that survivors need support. A survey by the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres found that during the pandemic, what they saw was 81% of Ontario sexual assault centres saw a rise in crisis calls for their programs. Yet their funding has not moved for years—not under the Liberal government, not under the Conservative government. This budget, again, remains dead silent on new funding for gender-based violence. Not addressing sexual assault is costly. When the government does not invest in appropriate services, it costs taxpayers much more later on. Studies have shown this repeatedly.

This is the time to fix this budget. We are willing to work with you to fix this budget. There’s no reason to delay, especially when the needs of Ontarians are there for us to meet and yet we are failing to meet their needs.

So I implore you. You have said that you want to work across the aisle. I’m putting forward some solutions that, I believe, can be worked on. These are non-partisan solutions, but they’re solutions that get us to where we need to go.

Further debate?

When we’re talking about the budget, it’s a very large document that has a whole lot of stuff in it, and usually the government focuses on some of the key things that they want to talk about in it—and there’s a lot of good things in this one. We talk about eliminating the licence plate renewal fee. We talk about electric vehicles and our Critical Minerals Strategy. We talk about seniors’ tax credits so that they can stay at home. We talk about child care costs and reducing that for parents. We talk about some of the gaps that there are in education as a result of what’s happening with COVID—and there’s a lot of really good things in it. The Ontario Staycation Tax Credit—up to 20% for people who want to vacation here in Ontario; spend your money in Ontario, get the economy going. Those are all great things that we talk about in the budget, and the opposition focus on things that they want that may not be in it.

But, Speaker, there’s something that we don’t often talk about and it’s one of the tools that we, as MPPs, have. As members, all of us have the ability to introduce a private member’s bill. We can all craft some legislation that we would put forward, but you can’t have anything that commits government money in it. That’s not possible. But sometimes there are things that we, as members, are passionate about, that really got us here at Queen’s Park: things we’ve decided that we want to do, that we want to make better, and bills like the budget and the fall economic statement are ways that we, as members, can actually have influence on what the government does because we have the ability to go and lobby a minister.

I’m going to touch on a couple of things. Specifically for me, in my first year I was really active in our community with the special-needs community, involved with hockey, involved with baseball. A lot of the people I worked with helped me, and I said to them, “I’m going to do some things that are going to raise awareness, that are going to make a difference in your lives—small differences, but they make a difference.”

One of the things I was able to get in the first fall economic statement was Special Hockey International day. For those who don’t know, Special Hockey International is a hockey league designed specifically for those who have special needs. Ontario has hosted that tournament—it’s an international tournament—a number of times. And 2019 was the last time we hosted it in Ontario. Prior to that, it was 2016 and it was in Peterborough, and I was involved in it. I was able to convince the Minister of Finance at the time—again, I’m not allowed to say his actual name—that this was something good. It was something I was able to accomplish, just a small thing. It became part of the budget—actually, the fall economic statement.

I was appointed as special adviser to Ontario Parks at one point, and I did a great deal of work on a parks report. What came from that was two budget cycles later—just about everything that I had recommended was something that was implemented in our budget. It’s a way that we, as private members here representing our communities, can make that difference without having to be a minister, and it doesn’t have to be partisan. In fact, it’s not partisan in a lot of cases.

A story was relayed to me today by my good friend Jeremy Roberts, the former member from Ottawa West–Nepean. He talked about his time when he was working for the federal government, and how Jack Layton had this great idea and he went to Prime Minister Harper about it. He went to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty about it and pitched it, and they worked together across partisan lines.

Jack Layton’s idea was something that truly was not partisan: It was a way to help veterans turn their helmet into a hard hat. How could we get veterans who were leaving the armed forces into the skilled trades? How could we do something that would make it easier? That ended up being part of the budget; I believe it was 2011. A federal budget: a private member—opposition leader, actually—Jack Layton working with the finance minister to get something put in the budget that was completely non-partisan, that was in the best interests of not only the people Jack represented but the people every MP represented.

That’s a tool that we have in the tool box. We have that ability, then, to lobby the minister, to lobby the Premier, to work with the ministry to flesh out things that are going to make a positive difference.

We heard Jeremy’s story of why he got involved in politics, why he wanted to make a difference: Jeremy’s younger brother is on the autism spectrum, and there were some significant challenges that his family had gone through navigating the system and getting things done.

One story in particular—and I’m going to apologize to Jeremy, because I’m going to plagiarize a number of things that he has said and done. When his brother was 10—Jeremy was 14 at the time—they had gone into CHEO hospital, and there were some issues around behavioural outbursts with his brother. That’s not uncommon when you’re on the spectrum. When you’re far on the spectrum, it’s not uncommon for something like that to occur. They were working with the children’s hospital and, as Jeremy has relayed the story, they were talking to the doctor about it. He wanted to change the medicine, but they needed to speak to a neurologist, as well, to find out how that would affect Jeremy’s brother and whether or not this was actually something that was going to be good and have the desired effect. But they couldn’t talk to the neurologist right at that point, because that’s not how the system worked. At 14, Jeremy was dumbfounded by this and said, “He’s only three floors above. Why can’t we get together in the same room? Why can’t we have the same meeting?” The answer was, “Because that’s not how the system works.”

He was a very strong advocate for the autism community. The reason he got involved in politics was because of that: to try to make life better.

On page 128 of the budget—I just have to bring my laptop back up here so that I get the quote appropriately. On page 128 of the budget, there’s a line in there. It reads, “An example of a children’s health investment is $97 million over three years to improve the experiences and lifelong outcomes for more than 1,100 children and youth with complex special needs at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario”—CHEO—“Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and McMaster Children’s Hospital. Funding will support a pilot project for an integrated model to provide key health and social services, including hospital‐based assessments, access to interdisciplinary clinical teams, medical care and behaviour therapy.”

What it is, is a long way of saying, “We’re going to make it easier for those families.” We recognize that when there’s a child with a special need, that there are multiple diagnoses, there are multiple people you need to be working with. The way the system is right now, you are going to be working with multiple different divisions within the hospital.

I’m going to pivot a little bit to a personal experience. It’s been well documented that my daughter had cancer when she was four. We saw the nephrologist. We saw the oncologist. We saw a psychologist. We saw a urologist. And after treatment was over, we still had to see all of those individuals. It was about once a month that we saw them—four different departments in the hospital—and it meant we were coming up once a week, because there was no coordination of it. There was no way that we could get all of those different departments together.

You go through a traumatic experience, and the way our system was set up—fantastic medical support, absolutely the best. My daughter is alive today because of our health care system. There’s no question in my mind about that. We have, by far, the best medical professionals in the entire world, but the system is not designed to be focused around the patient, to be focused around the child or the family.

If you have a child with a special need, it’s not uncommon to have multiple different diagnoses, and everything is based on that diagnosis. The supports that are there are based on this diagnosis or that diagnosis, but there isn’t a system in place where they’re put together, where they work together for the needs of the child, the needs of the parents, the needs of the family.

This small paragraph—I’ll read it again, because I think it’s so important: “An example of children’s health investment is $97 million over three years to improve the experiences and lifelong outcomes for more than 1,100 children and youth with complex special needs at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and McMaster’s Children’s Hospital. Funding will support a pilot project for an integrated model to provide key health and social services, including hospital-based assessments, access to interdisciplinary clinical teams, medical care and behaviour therapy.”

For many parents across the province whose children are diagnosed with special needs, they’re shocked to learn that clinical therapies for the children are often not fully funded and, unlike other medical issues, special needs treatments are often funded through a web of social services and health care. It’s a challenge to navigate and access it.

This is a pilot project to show that we need to be focusing on the needs of those families and those kids. What we have said all throughout government, for the last four years that we were elected, is that we need to break down those silos. We need to make sure that things that are inter-ministerial are actually breaking down those silos. This is one of those prime examples, because you have the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, who looks after most of the funding for special needs, but there are health care components to it. What this pilot is doing is putting the Ministry of Health together with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, and they’re working closely together and they’re jointly funding a project that, in the grand scheme of things—and I never, ever thought in my life I would ever say this: $97 million isn’t really a whole lot of money for a government. I never thought I would ever say $97 million isn’t a whole lot of money. It’s a $190-billion budget; $97 million is not a whole lot when you look at it from that perspective. But it’s going to make such a positive difference for so many different families.

The only reason it’s in the budget is because a former member decided to put his name forward, because of his personal experiences with how the system worked. That member had the tenacity to not accept “no.” He knew what the problem was. He had the lived experience with it. He saw how the system wasn’t working properly.

All of us, as members, find times where we feel like we’re beating our head against the wall talking to the bureaucrats on different things, because a government of this size with a budget of that much money doesn’t turn on a dime. It’s a massive, massive shift, and the way things are done. We hear that a lot when we introduce things.

I’m going to use one of our catch phrases, and the NDP is going to boo me for it and harass me and heckle me on it: Status quo doesn’t work anymore. You can’t just accept status quo. Jeremy Roberts didn’t accept status quo. He had an idea. It was the right idea. The idea was, focus on what the needs are of the families; focus on what the needs are of the kids.

How do we make it easier to get a better outcome? The system is the system. We’re not changing families. We’re not changing what’s happening that creates the environment of whatever it is. We can’t do that. But what we can do is, we can change the system. We can make it easier for families to navigate. Because when you find yourself in those positions—whether it is a special need, whether it’s a family illness, whether it’s some diagnosis that you don’t know anything about—your focus is on, “How do I deal with this? How do I help my child? How do I help my brother or sister?” That’s where your focus is.

This is one of those times where a private member has been able to get into a budget a pilot project that says, “How do we focus on the needs of that family? How do we focus on what is going to give the best outcomes for that child?”

In the grand scheme of things, it’s $97 million of a $190-billion budget. It’s a small victory. It’s not a victory for us. It’s that small victory for all of those families who have had to navigate the system, for all of those families who have found themselves in the position where their child, at two or three years old, was diagnosed with something that was outside of the norm of 80% of the rest of the population. It’s a change to the system for the better. It’s a small change, but the expression is, how do you eat an elephant at a barbecue? You do it one bite at a time. Government systems are a massive, massive thing. It’s very difficult to change the direction. It’s very difficult to make an adjustment. The system wants to continue with status quo.

But a private member, a member elected by his community who wasn’t a minister, said, “Status quo is not acceptable. This needs to change. We need to focus instead on the needs of the families, the needs of the children, the needs of everybody who is coming through the system.” We can make that change. It’s a small change, but it’s a change that is going to make a difference for every one of them.

By doing it as a pilot, it makes it small enough and nimble enough that we can try different things. We can see what’s going to work. We can see that maybe there’s going to be some challenges with it; maybe there are some things that aren’t going to work perfectly. By rolling it out by a pilot this way, we can do things to get it right. Because that’s why all of us have been elected, to make that positive difference for so many families.

I want to make sure that it is on record that my friend Jeremy Roberts stepped up and made a positive difference for all of these families. He made a change to the system that will benefit everybody, and deserves the credit for it.

Further debate?

Madame la Présidente, les Ontariens sont frustrés. Ils sont frustrés parce que les salles d’urgence ont été fermées. Ils sont frustrés parce que de plus en plus d’entre eux n’ont pas accès à leur médecin de famille.

Ontarians are frustrated because they know nurses and front-line health care professionals are overworked, underpaid and burnt-out as a result of this government’s crushing Bill 124. They’re frustrated because when they call 911, they are less and less likely to have an ambulance available to reach them quickly.

Ils sont frustrés parce qu’ils voient toutes ces choses et qu’ils voient leur gouvernement parler et parler et parler et ne prendre aucune mesure pour y remédier.

They’re frustrated because they hear their government talk and talk and take no action to address these issues.

Now, I’d like to take a moment to address the growing challenge of level zero here in Ontario. Level zero, for those of you who don’t know, is the complete unavailability of ambulances to respond to a 911 call. In 2021, Ottawa paramedics spent more than 49,000 hours in off-load delay at area hospitals. This resulted in 750 incidents of level zero—49,000 hours of off-load delay at hospitals, Madam Speaker.

The 90th percentile off-load delay was 97 minutes, far exceeding the 30-minute benchmark. That means that paramedics are waiting over an hour and a half to transfer their patients to hospital.

Plus que 90 minutes en retard à l’hôpital, madame la Présidente.

Now, that’s two paramedics and an ambulance stuck at a hospital because the hospitals are too backlogged to take them. That’s two paramedics and an ambulance not on the road responding to emergency 911 calls to save someone’s life.

In the first seven months of this year, Ottawa paramedics have experienced 1,125 level-zero events. In some cases, Ottawa has had 11 hours of continuous level zero—11 hours without an emergency ambulance available to respond. Imagine an ambulance not being available to respond to a 911 call when your spouse is having a heart attack or a stroke. Imagine it’s your child who has just fallen off the deck and is unconscious and unresponsive. Imagine that for a moment, Madam Speaker.

One in 10 people survive cardiac arrests that happen outside of hospital. One in 10—that’s it. With cardiac arrest, the odds of survival go down by 10% for every minute until a person is resuscitated. After 10 minutes, the risk of permanent brain injury is very, very high.

When my heart stopped, I was fortunate. The fire service was already outside dealing with a minor car accident, and they just walked into the gym. The paramedics were already on their way to respond to that car accident. I’m here today because of that fast emergency response, and I’m here today because the doctors and nurses at the Montfort Hospital had the time to spend with me.

The Montfort emergency room is one of the rooms that was recently closed. For a weekend, the emergency room closed. Why were they closed? Because of the health care crisis this government has created.

Now, it’s no mystery what would have happened to me had there been no ambulance to respond. It’s no mystery what would have happened had the emergency room been overcrowded or closed. It’s no mystery what would have happened: I would have died. That’s what would have happened, and that’s what will happen in Ontario if we do not address this problem.

Level zero isn’t just a problem in Ottawa; it’s a problem right across the province. It’s in Hamilton. It’s in the valley. It’s in the GTA. In fact, Madam Speaker, when there’s a level-zero incident in Ottawa, guess who we call? We call the paramedic service in the valley to come to Ottawa, leaving your residents without ambulances too. That’s how it works. We call the ambulances in Embrun and Russell as well. That’s your government. That’s your government not providing the funding. The province and municipalities pay for paramedics to be there for us. They don’t pay for them to be conducting hallway medicine in our hospitals—hallway medicine caused by the chronic underfunding of health care by this government, hallway medicine created and amplified by Bill 124, leaving health care professionals underpaid, overworked, burnt-out, and leaving emergency rooms in Ontario in a crisis. It’s time to make the health care investments that we need for our families, and to repeal Bill 124 and pay front-line heroes what they’re worth.

I don’t come just with criticisms of this government, because I could be here the entire 20 minutes. I come with a solution. The city of Ottawa is seeking $5 million in base funding to hire 42 new paramedics. These paramedics will be strategically deployed to emergency rooms at area hospitals so that the paramedics who arrive with patients can transfer them to these paramedics, who will be permanently stationed at the hospitals. They’ve requested $5 million in base funding from this government, and I hope that this government says yes. I hope the government chooses to get this done, because it’s imperative for families in Ottawa, it’s imperative for families across Ontario that ambulances can respond to 911, that they can get people to hospitals quickly, that those hospitals are open and have the capacity to take them and save their lives.

Meegwetch, Speaker. Remarks in Oji-Cree. It’s a good day.

Thank you for the opportunity to be able speak on the government’s proposed budget. I know that this budget is disappointing but not surprising. Over the past four years we have seen this government make significant funding cuts in certain areas, and I know that although the government may call this budget the “corridor to prosperity,” we must ask ourselves: prosperity for whom? To me, this is a corridor to oppression. This is a corridor to colonialism. I say that because there’s such a focus on the Ring of Fire. I know that this government is not an ally to First Nations people. I know this government does not understand us. This government does not know our ways of life.

When the government speaks of reconciliation, the only type it wants to engage in is economic reconciliation. That’s the easy part—jobs. We must look at the government’s intentions critically and ask, is it economic reconciliation the government is after, or is it the exploitation of our lands and the resources that are in our traditional territories?

We see the government using the divide-and-conquer approach, the divide-and-conquer strategy, to develop the Ring of Fire. It has been done time and time again, over and over. That’s what colonialism does. That’s what colonizers do. They do this rather than seek the consent of all First Nations that are affected. They are working selectively, with only those who support the mandate.

When we talk about the Ring of Fire and projects like it, we have to remember that there’s always more than one perspective on it. If you listen to the questions the government asks itself in question period about this development, you only hear one of those perspectives. There are so many voices to be heard. One of them is Grand Chief Reg Niganobe, who reached out to me to further elaborate on comments which the member of Chatham-Kent–Leamington quoted yet neglected to add the full context to.

This is what he said: “Thank you for quoting Anishinabek Nation’s Grand Council Chief Reg Niganobe on Monday, August 28, 2022, in the Legislature.”

The Grand Chief “expressed that mining and large-scale projects could move more swiftly, and I stress, with the full implementation of UNDRIP, as well as veto power for First Nations impacted by projects on their territories.

“This will ensure proper consultation, accommodation, inclusion, and equity in projects which impact First Nations territories.

“So will this government take into account his full statements and pledge veto power to Anishinabek Nation communities when projects are being proposed, considered, or staked in their territories?”

These are his words.

But also, I’d like to thank the government. I’d like to thank the government for reminding me that colonialism, oppression, still exists. I’d like to thank the government for letting us know as First Nations that you will divide and conquer—to whatever you guys want to reach, whatever prosperity that you’re looking for.

One of the things that I’ve learned, though: As people, we’ve always been here, for thousands of years. We are here today. We will continue to be here. But the more oppression you bring, the stronger we become as nations. So bring it on.

Further debate?