I’ll be sharing my time with the members from Orléans and Don Valley West. I just want to say I’ll be supporting this motion, because I believe that our responsibility as legislators—and any government official, anybody who’s in government—is primarily public safety. There’s an issue of public safety here that we have to address.

But I do want to say a couple of things that we need to be thinking about in this Legislature beyond encouraging the federal government to take this on.

In my riding of Ottawa South—and my friend from Ottawa Centre would remember this—Anne-Marie Ready and her daughter Jasmine were murdered on June 27 last year by a young man who was their neighbour, who was let out by a justice of the peace. Their father and husband, Raf, has been trying to sort out what happened there.

One of the challenges that we have in our justice system—it’s not just now; it has been through previous governments—is communication and making sure that people who make decisions have the information they need when they make that decision.

The second thing is to apply the principles that they’re given to make decisions each time. I hope that the government will help the Ready family, very much so.

The other thing I want to mention is we’re sending this message to the federal government, but we have the Community Safety and Policing Act that received royal assent four years ago. What that act does is it provides some protections for public safety around policing. We have an individual who’s charged with very serious crimes, including sexual assault, who has been allowed to collect a publicly funded salary for seven years. So the government dropped the ball with this act. It should have been enacted. It received royal assent four years ago.

The second thing is there’s the Accommodation Sector Registration of Guests Act. This is something to protect people from human trafficking. It has been on the books for two years—still hasn’t been enacted.

I’d ask the government to pick up that ball and run with it, because these are two important issues of public safety. If we’re going to preach about public safety, then perhaps we better do our own homework.

I understand the desire of developers to make a profit by developing the greenbelt. The thing is, we haven’t been elected here to help developers make a profit. We’ve been elected to define and uphold the greater public interest. It’s our responsibility, it’s our duty, it’s our job.

It’s not our greenbelt to give away; it’s the people’s greenbelt. The people’s greenbelt plays a unique and invaluable role for the people. It provides safe, local farm foods for the people. It protects against flooding and helps filter and clean drinking water for the people. It provides natural space, cleans the air and allows the earth to breathe, for the people. It’s the people’s greenbelt. It’s not the developers’ greenbelt, not the government’s greenbelt, not the Premier’s greenbelt. It is the people’s greenbelt.

All of us bear a heavy responsibility to protect the greenbelt for the people. Once it’s gone, once it’s paved over, we’re not getting it back. Because we need to remember: No one is making any more land. We need, all of us here, to protect and preserve the people’s greenbelt for the people.

Therein lies the problem, exactly the same problem that happened last February: “It’s someone else’s problem. It’s not my problem. I’m not going to worry about it.”

The problem is, when it comes to public safety and people’s security, it’s all of our problem. Speaker, the Premier was not there for the residents of the city of Ottawa.

The Premier may win in court next week, but he’s losing every single day in the court of public opinion. I can remember three Premiers in this province who, when they were called to testify before a committee or through court were there: Premier McGuinty, Premier Harris and Premier Wynne. What makes this Premier any different? They did this because it was the right thing to do. They didn’t shirk their responsibility. They knew that that came with the office.

Speaker, through you, I will ask again, will the Premier simply drop his court action, apologize to the city of Ottawa and do the right thing: take his responsibility and testify before the inquiry in Ottawa?