It’s a pleasure to follow my colleague and friend from Orléans.

He’s right; never has a government in Ontario’s history spent so much, borrowed so much, incurred so much debt to do so little.

Ontarians have to ask themselves: “Is my life any better? Is it any easier?” “Is my rent cheaper?” “Is my mortgage cheaper?” “Is it easier to get groceries?” “I’ve got a problem with my landlord. I’ll have to take him to the tribunal. Oh, it takes 400 days now; it used to take 70 in 2018.”

This budget does nothing for those people.

As my colleague just mentioned, there are two million Ontarians without a family doctor, so people are having to use their credit card instead of their OHIP card to access basic medical attention for their son or daughter or themselves.

Interruption.

Interjection: It’s not yours.

Interjection.

That’s not fair. Put some more time back on the clock.

It all starts at the top, folks.

Interjection.

Oh, pardon me, I withdraw.

Thanks for the call, the member from Nepean.

Now stop, Lisa, because I’ve got to finish. I’m going to have a big finish here, Lisa.

It all starts at the top. As my colleague just mentioned, since 2019, the Premier’s office budget has almost doubled, to $7 million. It has increased by $4 million—it has actually more than doubled. There used to be 20 staff in 2019; there are now 48—sorry, that’s 48 staff on the sunshine list. There are actually 80 staff. My colleague just talked about the average Ontario family income. Let’s talk about the median Ontario family income—the people right in the middle. All of those people make more than that—a whole bunch of them make double; another group makes triple; there’s another group that makes quadruple that. It doesn’t make any sense.

People are having a hard time paying their bills, their rent, their mortgage. It’s hard to put food on the table.

Do you know what the minister said the other day? “Yes, some people are using their credit card to get health care—just a few people”; they used to say there was nobody.

And then, the Premier did what he does best, the thing that he really excels at, which is pointing a finger: “It’s them over there. They have got to fix their legislation. It’s the federal government. It’s their problem.” It’s not their problem. So instead of pointing a finger, the Premier needs to lift a finger and actually realize that all you have to do is pay nurse practitioners. It’s not complicated. It’s simple. You could have done it a year ago. You just have to pay them. It’s about who pays them. Treat them the same way as, well, pharmacists. Pharmacists can diagnose 12 minor ailments. That’s their scope. Who pays them when they do that? The government. Who pays them when they do meds checks—that’s a whole other issue altogether about financial mismanagement. The government. So what’s wrong with nurse practitioners? Why is that so hard?

So the Premier has to stop pointing a finger at the federal government. I know it’s easy.

They did mention the carbon tax 10 times in the first 10 minutes of the speech of the budget. They ask every single darn question in question period about it. But they have got their own carbon tax and they have got their own cap-and-trade.

It’s like, do something to help Ontario families with affordability, and maybe, just maybe, life will get better.

Fix the rental housing tribunal so it’s not 400 days for a tenant to get there—I know it’s 70 or 80 days for a landlord to get there. That’s not making lives easier for Ontario families.

Premier, maybe un-bloat your office. That’s a bloated office—48 people. Remember the old show Entourage? I wanted to Photoshop that, but then I realized they didn’t have 48 people in the picture. So it’s like this small army of people, while people are hurting. I know I’m making a joke about it, but it’s serious. If you’re serious about helping families, you don’t bloat your office up more than double; you don’t have 48 people who are making more than the median Ontario family—some of them four times as much.

The Premier used to like to rail about the gravy train and the sunshine list and insiders and fat cats, but he has become the ultimate insider. When he said, “Stop the gravy train,” maybe he meant, “Just stop it so I can have a station here, over on Wellesley there, on the sixth floor.” I don’t know; maybe that’s what he wanted to do.

So I just would encourage the Premier to walk the talk; to slim down his office to what I would say would be a mean, lean fighting machine.

And on behalf of the people of Ontario, make sure that you address their issues of affordability—whether having to use their credit card instead of their OHIP card or that they have to go the rental housing tribunal, or any of those things that families need most.

I’ll be sharing my time with the members from Orléans, Kingston and the Islands, and Don Valley West.

I want to begin by offering my condolences to the family of Adi Vital-Kaploun, with family ties to Ottawa. In fact, I want to offer my condolences to all the families that are impacted by this senseless violence and attack on October 7. There are not many degrees of separation in families who are impacted by this. I can’t imagine people’s grief.

The attack by Hamas on innocent civilians—moms and dads, children, brothers and sisters, friends, grandparents—was deliberately brutal and barbaric, I find, in a way that is unspeakable. It’s hard to find the words of truly how inhuman the attack was.

Israel has a right to defend itself against this terror. Since October 7, I have had those images of those families in my head and in the pit of my stomach. It’s not going away. The intent of Hamas was to spread terror. That’s why we call them terrorists. That’s not disputable. It’s hate—hate that doesn’t care about innocent lives, no matter where they live, in Israel or in Gaza. The attacks were brutal to stoke anger, to provoke a response, to broaden the conflict.

Here’s the thing: It’s not just about broadening the conflict in the Middle East, and not just about broadening the conflict in our world. It’s about broadening the conflict in our communities. They seek to divide us, to pit one against the other.

I’ve spoken to many in my community: people of faith, people not of faith, Jews, Muslims, Christians. I spoke to my kids. They’re all worried about the rise of hate, the rise of anti-Semitism, the rise of Islamophobia. People are anxious in our communities. They’re worried—all of us, no matter who we are; we can feel it. We’re worried about the targeting of communities. Our job is to keep us together, is to bring us together, is to find the commonalities that we all have in our communities.

The thing with conflict and war is, like they always say, truth is the first casualty. That’s going to make this really hard, but we have to find a way to bring people together about the thing that I think we all agree on in here and outside of here, which is protecting innocent lives. That’s important, no matter where they live. I think we can all agree on that.

I saw the amendment this morning—the number of amendments—and I had one that I wanted to suggest. As a province, in the past and right now, when there have been areas in conflict—in Ukraine, in Lebanon—when there have been calamities and casualties in this world, we’ve found a way to respond. As a government, we found a way to respond, to find some way to contribute to people’s security and safety, to try to meet their needs. I would like to put an amendment forward like that. I would like the government to consider that. I think we need to send that sign, that we’re about protecting innocent lives, wherever they live.

Now, I don’t have too much time left, because I would like to share my time with my colleagues here. I wish I had some more time to talk about this. I think we need to think about how we are, in here, and how we work together so that we can keep our communities together. We have to be an example. I think we can do it; there have been a few moments recently when I’ve been very worried about that, and I just want to leave you with that thought.