Organs? It is such a dangerous precedent to be focused on.

The Shelter Health Network: We share the concerns of this organization that “worries that the vulnerable population they care for will use the pay-for-plasma centres as a source of income because they desperately need money.” This is really where we are in Ontario right now. I would have loved to have heard a very clear answer from the Minister of Health this morning, saying, “We’re going to shut this down. This is wrong. Not everything should be for sale.”

One of the last issues I want to talk about—I already addressed the justice issue. I should mention this, because it’s very politically—the timing of this particular motion, the upcoming budget bill, we’re going to be watching the justice file very closely. Right now, there are “53,000 unresolved cases … as of March 2023,” at the Landlord and Tenant Board, “impacting at least one million Ontarians.” This is a direct quote from Tribunal Watch Ontario.

Even the folks that are in prison right now, the latest stat was 63% of them are on remand. So these are people who may be innocent but they can’t afford bail, and they have been there for months or years. This is impacting families, impacting the economy. For some reason, the Attorney General doesn’t see that this is an urgent issue, and we’re just going to keep putting a lot of pressure on that.

But the other story that is around community and children’s services: Now, we all know that the autism wait-list right now is a disgrace. It is a point of shame that I think that this government will never be able to get away from. That system is so broken, and families tell me that they are breaking because of it. But our critic from Kiiwetinoong raised the issue of a recent story by Global News that just broke, and it’s called “Profiting Off Kids: Indigenous Kids Allegedly Called ‘Cash Cows’ of Ontario’s Child-Welfare System.”

Any government of any stripe anywhere should be judged on how they treat their most vulnerable. These children are some of the most vulnerable in this country and in this province. This story is called, “The Business of Indigenous Kids in Care.” It reads, “At a group home in eastern Ontario, the owner allegedly called First Nations kids from northern Ontario his ‘bread and butter.’

“Behind the doors of other privately run group homes”—which are a scourge in this province, and the oversight on these homes is almost non-existent—“former workers say that staff and management referred to Indigenous youth sent there for help as the company’s ‘cash cows,’ ‘money-makers,’ or even ‘paycheques.’” Imagine referring to Indigenous children in that manner.

“A year-long Global News investigation has revealed how some private group homes allegedly prey on the vulnerability of Indigenous youth from remote First Nations in order to generate profit.” This sounds accurate, because if it was a not-for-profit, profit wouldn’t be driving the chasing of the money, right?

“‘These are lives. They’re not a commodity’: Indigenous kids in care” are not a commodity. This needs to be clearly stated, and the minister responsible—I mean, I like the minister. I saw no acknowledgement that this is actually happening in Ontario, but this story goes on to say, “The result, according to some workers, child welfare experts and youths, are horrendous experiences some liken to the abuse that took place during … residential schools….

“Allegations of kids being violently restrained. Indigenous youths allegedly punished for speaking their languages. A vulnerable child asking visiting Indigenous social workers if they were there to rescue him.

“This … investigation, based on leaked and other internal government documents obtained under freedom of information laws, government contract data, and interviews with more than 100 former group home workers, youths and children’s aid employees, reveals: …

“—These companies allegedly charge resource-starved Indigenous children’s aid societies in the north higher daily fees to care for their kids compared with what they charge non-Indigenous agencies….

“—These group homes are often compared to a ‘prison’ where staff frequently use physical force to restrain children, former workers and youths said.”

And this is the last quote from this article: “‘People need to know that Indigenous youth are being monetized by the child-welfare system and that no cultural considerations are being made,’ said a former worker of multiple group homes in the Ottawa area….

“‘The average person would be quite shocked and frankly horrified,’” and we should be. We should be, Madam Speaker. This is not the Ontario of promise. These are intentional financial decisions that the government is making. The lack of oversight on all of these files and the accountability and needed transparency on these files are incredibly concerning for not only myself as the finance and Treasury Board critic—you certainly give me a lot of material to work with—but our entire caucus.

So we’re committed to showing up for the people of this province, for bringing the voices of the people who are not going to your events, who are not buying tickets to your stakeholder relations, not attending your mental health mixers—we are focused on bringing the real voices of Ontarians to this place, as we’ve taken an oath to do as legislators.

Madam Speaker, this government could do so much better for the people of this province and we’re going to hold you to account in that regard.

Get it done. I would just say, do something to alleviate some of the pressure.

Moving on to health care—let me just take a look. I want to say, I just want to do a special little shout-out on the health care file to the good people of Minden, who are still fighting for some financial transparency in how their emergency rooms in their hospital were closed. They continue to share information with us. They’ve done their financial responsibility, their fiscal due diligence. It really is too bad that the Ministry of Health did not do that, quite honestly. This is an emergency room which was a game-changer for that community, as they all are. You will know that we’ve had record emergency room closures across the province like we’ve never seen in Ontario. Health care professionals from across all sectors have said that this is the worst health care crisis they have ever seen in Ontario. That is not a record to be proud of.

Looking at where the funding is going right now and following the FAO report from earlier today, the impact of the unconstitutional Bill 124 which this government brought in, which is wage restraint legislation that limited increases to 1%—while you’re taking care of corporations, 1% for health care workers, the mass migration of talent from this province. It keeps me up at night, quite honestly. How are we going to rebuild the health care sector when such deep disrespect was shown to them—and illegal—Madam Speaker? Bill 124 was deemed illegal. This government fought it two times in the court system. It’s ironic that they finally got their day in court. It did take, I think, almost three years, though.

It does lead me to believe, watching how Minden was treated, how various emergency rooms across this province are experiencing such stress on basic services, access to family physicians—we heard at pre-budget consultations one doctor in a rural community who is 76 years old who said he would love to retire. The pressure for him as the only doctor in that community is profound, right? Where is the strategy for this government to attract doctors and medical professionals here?

The Ontario Medical Association has some good suggestions. It’s not like talented, knowledgeable people haven’t stepped forward and said, “Listen, this would be a really good idea.” It’s just that there’s no willingness, no goodwill to actually entertain some solutions. I think, really, when we’re seeing some of the privatization—which, of course, the parliamentary assistant said would never happen. This is not going to be privatization, she said, but here we have people paying for basic access to primary caregivers in Ontario to the tune of $4,900 a year.

I will say that we are going into a very dark place, though, with the recent decision for a pay-for-plasma centre coming to Hamilton. Our members from Hamilton asked this question earlier this morning, receiving a dodgy answer. When I say “dodgy,” I mean just not even meeting the question. I know it’s not called answer period, but it would be really good when we got some information. Instead, the Attorney General keeps coming back asking us questions. I feel like this place has become a little bit of a theatre of the absurd some days, or a Monty Python film.

But this is what’s happening right now in Hamilton: A private company from Spain plans to open a centre in Hamilton that will pay for plasma donations. I’m going to tell you why this is so concerning—and there is an organization called BloodWatch.org that suggests the plasma collection centre will be located on Barton Street in Hamilton. Listen, if you know Hamilton, you will know this is an area of the city which is really hurting, I mean seriously hurting, and has been for a long time. It is an area where, historically, there has been higher unemployment and lower incomes than the city’s average.

Then Dr. Kerry Beal, who’s the lead physician at the Shelter Health Network, an excellent organization doing amazing work on a shoestring budget, said, “Isn’t that going to be a great location? They’re targeting vulnerable people.” Imagine you are looking at paying a higher energy bill, paying higher rent because there’s no more rent control, sky-high grocery costs, and then this place opens up in your neighbourhood. Now, we don’t know the full price point, but they’re suggesting between $75 and $100 for a plasma donation.

I have to say, BC has ruled this out. Even the Liberals, in 2014, when this was first suggested, stopped it; they blocked it under a significant amount of pressure. I keep thinking about these government advertisements and these commercials that we’re paying $25 million for—that’s a low ball on that part. But if the government is concerned about blood donations, which are down post-pandemic, or plasma donations, why not use some of that money to advertise how great this is for you? It’s a good thing for people to do, if they’re able to do so. But what does this government say? We got no answer this morning from the Minister of Health on this issue.

This needs to be shut down. It needs to be shut down now. It is a predatory practice. Privatizing the sale of bodily fluids like blood and plasma is a dangerous precedent to be setting. I have to say that you will see very vulnerable people coming to this place to earn $75 or $100 for their plasma, instead of a proactive, healthy policy in place, which should be supported by the government of the day.

Plasma and blood are obviously needed in the health care system, but selling it from a company from Spain is a very dangerous direction to go in. It makes me wonder, what else is going to be for sale in the province of Ontario? Is everything going to be for sale?

Interjection: Organs?

Yes, they’re doing okay. You know who’s not? The people who are looking for housing, particularly affordable housing, and the people who are getting energy bills. And you’re going to increase their energy bills. Why would this government go down this road, Madam Speaker?

So we question the decision-making. Honestly, the OEB’s decision was based on research by experts. The evidence is clear that the government’s direction around expanding natural gas was not in the best interests of Ontarians. And yet, now we have a piece of legislation, ironically called “keeping your energy bill down,” or something like that—something ridiculous. I don’t know who writes the titles of these bills.

And then you know what? Even when we do come to this House and we propose some solutions, the government is not willing at all to even contemplate them. I’m thinking particularly of our oppo day motion from this week. We came to this House with our oppo day motion to remove the tolls for truckers on the 407. For us, this was a very creative solution; perhaps a stopgap for other highways or other infrastructure projects, but really, an immediate solution to address painful gridlock on the 407.

This would also address the productivity of Ontarians, because people spend too much time on the parking lot called the 401. And this would address the economic development call and potentially save $8 billion by not having to build another highway directly parallel to the 407. And also, quite honestly, there would be significant environmental benefits from ensuring that we make better use of the 407. There was, of course, the forgiveness of the $1 billion in non-compliance fees that were forgiven by this government. So there’s definitely a need to sit down and have this conversation.

I don’t know why they’re so soft on tolls because, ironically, they brought forward a piece of legislation saying that they’re going to take the tolls off roads where there are no tolls, but they refuse to take the tolls or even address or reduce the tolls where there is a toll, on the one highway in Ontario that has a toll, which is the 407 ETR.

Just to give you some sense as to how this would play out, the potential—and this is a report that I will quote in a second. This would move trucks to the 407 and “12,000 to 21,000 trucks a day off Highway 401, reducing daily traffic for passenger vehicle drivers” on that highway. Moving trucks to the 407 “will improve journey times for truckers by approx. 80 minutes”—time is money, Madam Speaker—“which would be less than half the length of time than the equivalent trip on Highway 401.”

Subsidizing the 407 will “cost $6 billion less than constructing” another proposed highway. And that highway isn’t even going to be built for another decade. People who are stuck in traffic and gridlock on the 401 right now, they cannot wait another decade for some kind of relief.

This report from Environmental Defence says this confirms—if they had even been willing to have a conversation, right? “Their findings confirm that the alternative approach of subsidizing the toll for trucks on the 407 would address the key aim of reducing congestion on the 401 while eliminating the risk of negative environmental impacts.”

Was this government willing to have this conversation with us? No, they were not. In fact, for some reason, the Minister of Transportation didn’t even want to talk about the 407. I know why they don’t want to talk about the 407. They don’t want to talk about the 407 because this was the worst deal in the history of the province, and our debate really revealed a lot of issues that are ongoing.

This goes back to contract law. For some reason, the 407 ETR contract with the province of Ontario heavily favours the 407, not the people of this province. Some of the highest tolls in the country—I think “the universe” may have been quoted the other day—but definitely the highest tolls, on the 407, in Ontario, than any other province in this great country.

Going back to that $1 billion: Let’s remember that during the pandemic, obviously, ridership was down on the 407, and the 407 ETR wanted some COVID-related relief. They got relief. They got $1 billion worth of relief.

According to documents obtained through the provincial freedom-of-information act, the government “didn’t pursue ‘potential congestion penalty payments in the order of $1 billion’ for 2020 and could decide not to do so again”—which they did.

This comes at a time when the government was planning to build a parallel highway to the 407. It’s really about priorities.

Even if you go back to the pocket issue, this government is actively choosing to provide relief to the 407 ETR and not to the people of this province, who, in better times, are back on the 407, paying the highest tolls in the country.

Let’s remember that the 407 ETR received that $1 billion in relief even in the year when they made $147.1 million worth of profit. So, yes, they still posted a profit, and yet they still received very, very generous—I would say $1 billion is very generous. This is a very profitable highway. When you’re charging the kind of tolls that they are, of course they’re going to generate a lot of money.

What’s really important to think about, when a government is making choices or setting priorities—this is what actually happened. The highway, during this time, had the option of reducing tolls to encourage more drivers to use the highway, possibly preventing the congestion clause from being triggered, but they opted not to do so. Do you know why they opted not to do so? Because they were like, “It’s okay. This PC government will take care of us.” They knew where the interests and the priorities of this government fell. It fell with the 407, not with the people who pay the highest tolls.

It goes on to say in the contract—“‘407 ETR is required to use commercially reasonable efforts to minimize the effect and duration of the force majeure,’ ministry officials noted in their April 3 memo. ‘This could include, amongst other things, reducing tolls to encourage traffic.’” It’s right there in the contract. The government has never even tried to pressure or push the 407 corporation to meet their contractual obligations. This meant that the 407 ETR was failing to meet its contractual obligations—I just said that.

CEO Sacristan explained to the ministry and wrote a letter, and in that letter they quoted—“407 ETR has initiated discussions with ministry staff and is seeking comfort that the government will exclude the pandemic period from any congestion penalty payment calculations. Corporate reporting requirements to shareholders, investors, debt holders and public auditing and disclosure requirements are driving the urgency of this matter....”

And the government met them at that urgent place. They met them in that moment in time. Meanwhile, minimum wage workers are actively having the government remove money from their pockets, but the pockets of the shareholders, they’re fine; they’re doing okay.

The Ministry of Transportation, ironically, does not make its traffic data public, despite the open-government legislation. The language that we hear around here around “the historic investments” and “this never happened in the history of the province of Ontario”—I have never heard a government use the word “historic” to such historic measures. I mean, it’s quite something. This is a very clear example of a government showing us who they really are, right? At the end of the day, there were a few ministry staff who really tried to push back a little bit, but not on the political side, I have to say. They said, and this is the quote from one of the FOI documents, “We believe that the congestion relief mechanisms have been rendered inoperative by the lack of congestion.” And then: “Mindful that the 407 managers could reduce tolls to encourage higher traffic levels and avoid billion-dollar penalties, however, the assistant deputy minister, operations division”—at the time, Eric Doidge—“at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, took issue with the company’s characterization of traffic levels.”

There were people, I’m sure, who were advising the Minister of Transportation at the time that we didn’t have to be so compliant with their request to seek comfort. That is not the job of the government, to comfort corporations. It is the job to put the interests of the people of this great province ahead of those corporations. And the ministry disagreed “with the 407 ETR’s statements regarding the existence or non-existence of congestion in the” GTA. The only reason that we know some of this stuff is really through FOIs—and several people, though, who have been following this debacle of the 407, beginning with the worst deal in the history of Ontario by selling it after we’d already paid for it.

“The government could have pressed them to drop the tolls” after viewing these documents. “They don’t seem to have put any pressure on the operator. They lost that opportunity.” So this government chose the interests of this corporation over the interests of the people that we serve. I have to say, we continue to really just be the people that paid for the original highway and pay the highest tolls. They continue to pay the highest price for a really messy policy decision.

I’m just going to move on a little bit, because the government is not indicating at all that they’re even interested in alleviating congestion on the 401 with a creative option, even though it’s well within their rights, particularly on the provincially owned 407. There’s literally nothing stopping this government from removing tolls on that part, but they do have a piece of legislation that says “get it done”—is it just “get it done”?

No more HVAC scams. Thankfully, it really prompted the government to move on that. White-collar crime in Ontario is out of control.

It’s astounding to see the Premier of this province stand up in this House and pretend that he has a little gun in his hand and say everybody is getting shot up. It’s not a comical situation at all.

The court system is so underfunded. In fact, in that last cycle—I think it was Q3—there was a reduction of 2% in the judicial system.

So when you meet with the Ontario trial lawyers and you talk about the characterization of judges, including this very strange civics lesson that we got from the Attorney General about judges becoming impartial when they’re appointed—this is language that is really straying into a very dark space.

This morning, when we were talking about this, I have to say, one of the delegations said to me it’s so dangerous that—and this is the quote: “In order for justice to be done, it can’t just be done; it needs to be seen to be done.”

The confidence in our judicial system is so compromised right now, because people are waiting so long for their day in court. And it’s an overused quote, but justice delayed is justice denied; it truly is.

I’m working with a young woman in my riding right now who waited two years for her day in court, and those two years were the most painful days of her young life.

The system that the Attorney General describes as top-of-the-class, first-class—there’s a serious disconnect between that language. But the fact that now the Minister of Energy is also using this callout for like-minded people, chairs of committees—this morning we heard about an appointment to the LTB, about people who will do the government’s bidding. This takes away from those first comments that I started with about the duty to serve the public.

There should be a very open and transparent judicial appointment process. It is key to having confidence in the judicial system, and right now, the comments by the Premier about having like-minded judges, and now the comments about the Minister of Energy finding someone who will fall in line with the government’s directives, is language I actually haven’t seen a lot in this place. I’ve seen a lot of things, and sometimes I’m surprised, but more and more, I’m not that surprised.

The Ontario Energy Board—there has been lots of criticism about this, as well. And this is about people’s pockets, so let’s say what’s really going on here. This is what the Minister of Energy has said: that if the do-overs return the same result, the minister wouldn’t rule out intervening again to ensure the province gets what it wants. “It’s incumbent on the Ontario Energy Board to realize what our policy is as the government [goes] forward.”

This is a key piece, because the OEB has the public interest at heart. It’s actually their mandate, Madam Speaker, and when the politicians interfere in that process, that undermines confidence in the energy sector as a whole, I would argue. If the government even hints at appointing a Ford-connected insider who’s not going to act in the best interests of the people of Ontario, but instead acts in the interests of a multi-billion-dollar fossil fuel company, then we have a serious problem in Ontario.

That’s what this legislation that the minister brought forward is all about. At the end of the day—and this is the key piece—who is it going to cost? It’s going to cost ratepayers in Ontario more, because the OEB is being overturned, because of political interference to the tune of I think it’s almost $600.

This is Kent Elson, who’s a lawyer representing the non-profit Environmental Defence, which intervened in Enbridge’s rate application. He told Canada’s National Observer that this “government’s decision to name its legislation the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act is ‘Orwellian.’

“‘It should be called the Keeping Enbridge Profits and Energy Bills High Act,’ he said.

“‘The OEB decision would have cut capital costs covered by gas customers by approximately $600 per customer,’ he said. ‘Reversing the decision will certainly raise energy bills.’”

Why is this government raising the energy costs of Ontarians? They’re already hurting so much.

And so if you care about housing starts, if you care about the environment, if you care about being fiscally responsible, avoiding fitting a house with gas infrastructure and connecting it to the gas grid by switching to electric heat or cooling means only one system. Actually, we heard this at pre-budget consultation: Moving away from this government’s plan would actually increase the supply of affordable housing, because it reduces that infrastructure pressure.

At the end of the day, this government now is actively creating legislation that’s going to increase your gas bill. It makes no sense whatsoever. We fought it. Our energy critic spoke eloquently about it, and at the end of the day, what’s concerning for us is that this is all too similar to the greenbelt scandal. The government is legislating against the public good in the service of a few private interests, namely Enbridge and housing developers.

How did we get to this place in this province? Honestly—amidst an acknowledgement by every member of provincial Parliament in this House that the housing crisis is real. It is hurting our economy, it is hurting our families and our communities, and it’s having a devastating effect on the quality of life. So why bring in legislation which hurts Ontarians? This is the genuine question that I have.

This legislation also sets a dangerous precedent. This is the first time any government of Ontario has brought through legislation and overruled a decision by the independent Ontario Energy Board. Please remember: The Ontario Energy Board’s mandate is to keep energy costs down. And that’s the problem. That’s the problem when a government interferes and intervenes and actively works against the people that we’re elected to serve.

I have to say, I’m very discouraged by this move, because not only is it going to negatively impact the housing sector, but it’s going to also impact people’s pockets. It’s just really interesting, because Enbridge is going to be fine. Enbridge makes a lot of money; in fact, I think last year, their net profits were $19.1 billion. So don’t worry about Enbridge. Enbridge is going to be okay.

Environmental, oh my God. I mean, I know the independent officers are sort of on eggshells a little bit, because this government is not a fan of impartial non-partisan critiquing.

But this case is so interesting, because the Ontario Energy Board, please remember, is responsible for ensuring that energy policy in Ontario serves the people that we’re elected to serve, that it’s in their best interests. In this instance, the OEB decision reviewed where the government was going with natural gas, and the “decision requiring new gas infrastructure to be paid upfront was an attempt to grapple with the realities of the energy transition off fossil fuels.” Remember, this is the hottest year that we’ve seen, I think ever. Climate change, just for the record, is real and it is impacting the province of Ontario and this great country. “As fossil fuels are phased out in favour of clean alternatives, allowing Enbridge to pay off fossil fuel infrastructure by spreading costs over all ratepayers into the 2060s represents a significant financial risk to the public.”

The Ontario Energy Board found that the government was moving in a direction which was fiscally irresponsible, that was not conforming to our environmental responsibilities and that was going to be very costly for the people, including many, many stranded assets. That’s their job. Their job is to be forward-looking and to see what the land is like out there.

So, the government said “it is overriding the regulator in the interest of keeping housing costs down, but that position isn’t supported by evidence,” much like the legislation and policies of this government. “In fact, high-efficiency heat pumps are more affordable over the lifetime of the equipment than new gas hookups, meaning Ontario’s decision to reverse the regulator’s decision could actually make housing more expensive.”

Given what I have just shared about the lay of the land around housing in Ontario, the fact that housing starts are down, that housing has never been more affordable, that this provincial government is actively getting in the way of permitting the development of 3,400 affordable housing units in north Waterloo, why would a government overrule this decision when this is the context of the lived experience of Ontarians?

The Minister of Energy was questioned at length about this policy decision, and it goes on to say that he bristled at questions asking if the government was taking control of the regulator, and he said that the OEB decision, which emerged after a year of hearings, thousands of pages of evidence and testimony from environmental advocates, industry representatives and utility experts alike, was simply “wrong.”

Independence of the OEB is key.

Don’t worry; more hot air is coming, more gas is coming. The minister said that they’re now going to come out with a natural gas policy statement to provide further direction to the Ontario Energy Board. That’s not really how it’s supposed to work. The government does not control the independent regulator. The regulator provides information and data and evidence to the Minister of Energy, and that should inform policy—but not in this new Ontario, under this PC government.

They’re going to bring in this policy, and then they’re also going to bring in a new chair of the OEB. This is what the minister said: “I’ll expect the appointee to help ensure the [OEB] conducts appropriate consultation before reaching any decisions, and to reinforce the government’s priority”—essentially, he’s looking for a new chair of the Ontario Energy Board who is like-minded. I raise this characterization, if you will, of “like-minded” because this is a new direction that we have not seen this government go in. The fact that the Premier is bragging about appointing like-minded judges is such a dangerous direction for this province.

Earlier this morning, I did have a chance to meet with the Ontario trial lawyers, and we had a really engaging conversation about the sad state of affairs of our court system in Ontario—the backlogs, not just for the Landlord and Tenant Board, but for victims of sexual assault who are not getting their day in court, and rapists are walking free because that 18-month threshold has not been met.

Ourselves here and my good friend from London North Centre introduced the HVAC—sorry; what was it called?

It’s a pleasure to join the debate today. This is actually the first time I’ve been able to get up to speak to a broad piece of legislation or, as today, a concurrence motion.

I just wanted to start with some good news. In my family, just before Christmas, my son, Aidan, proposed to his long-time love of nine years, and she said yes. So I think you should be prepared to hear a lot about the wedding industry and that sector. I can tell you one thing that won’t be happening, though: I will not be inviting any stakeholders to the stag and doe. I’ve learned the lesson here from Queen’s Park.

The other thing that happened is that now I have VIP parking at Rexall because I turned 55, and it’s a really good program. I’m taking all the perks that I can get wherever I can get them.

Also, I just want to say, we had a very successful pre-budget consultation, and this is my first opportunity to thank the broadcasting staff, the Clerks and, of course, the research staff. I’m really hopeful, when the government reads the report that we prepared for the finance minister ahead of the budget, which will be on March 21 or March 28—he will not tell me—that those voices across Ontario inform that budget, because that is actually our responsibility here in this House. I want to thank the Chair of the finance committee, who I see here in the House as well.

I also just want to say, before I get into the substantive comments about the finances of the province of Ontario, that this morning’s tribute to Brian Mulroney was really touching. I have to say I think that our leader really brought it home, the impact that public service can have, the long-standing impact on communities, on our reputation as a country, on our own families. I thought everybody did a very good job. I also want to say, including to the Premier—he actually made me cry a little bit and not for the usual reasons. That is my attempt at humour in that regard.

It is also worth noting that in my office here at Queen’s Park, I have this beautiful scroll that is signed by Brian Mulroney. It was signed to my father-in-law, Walter Fife, who is deceased. It indicates how politics used to be so very different, because it’s a thank-you note for his service to the country in national defence. I keep it there as a reminder that none of us do any of this work successfully, meaningfully, without the people who help us, the staff in this place and our own research staff. We really are very fortunate and very privileged to be in this House, to hold this responsibility.

It is with that that I will make some commentary on where the finances are in the province of Ontario. I’m going to start with housing, because in every riding across this great province, housing is the number one issue, I would say. It’s very much connected to the cost of living, which will underpin my entire commentary.

When you look at where we are right now, in March 2024, I don’t think anybody expected the housing crisis to worsen. Housing starts are down significantly. They are down from 96,000 in 2022 to 89,000 in 2023, and 24 of the 50 municipalities are below 80% of their annual target of housing, including my own city of Waterloo. I’m going to talk about why they are there and the role that the provincial government could strengthen, to come to the table as a true partner to municipalities in the housing crisis.

I’m going to quote from one of the first articles. This is a CBC article by our own Mike Crawley. It examines the tools—or the stick; whatever you want to say—and how this government is trying to motivate housing. Based on the housing starts, based on the fact that we are losing ground, those mechanisms that this government is using—those tools at your disposal, some of them legislative tools—are not succeeding. This could be a very dangerous tipping point for this province, because without shelter, without stable housing, it is so difficult to move forward as an economy, to ensure that people in this province reach their potential. Housing underpins the economy and we must get it right, and I would argue that right now the government is not doing that.

This article is called “What Should the Ford Government Do about Developers Who Go Years without Building Homes?” This is happening in all of our ridings. “Some Ontario cities want power to slap ‘use it or lose it’ penalties on stalled housing projects.”

Let me tell you why this is so important. Some of you will know this very personally. “The town of Newmarket approved rezoning of [a] property along Yonge Street to allow a high-rise development of more than 500 housing units back in 2018, but construction is yet to begin.

“At least 20 Ontario municipalities are so far away from reaching their provincially mandated targets for new home construction starts that they have virtually no chance of hitting the mark, and will face stiff financial consequences in 2024.

“The problem is something municipal politicians say puts Ontario at risk of failing to meet the goal of 1.5 million new homes.” This is a fictional goal as it stands right now, Madam Speaker—essentially just talking points.

“Under current rules set by” the Premier’s “government, cities that fall short of the 2023 target for housing starts will not get any money next year from the province’s $1.2-billion fund to help cover the costs of housing-related infrastructure.”

Now, we all know there is such a strong connection to having that infrastructure, those roads, those sewers. Without that, you cannot build houses, right? With this partnership, the government has intentionally created an imbalance between municipalities and the province.

Now, I will admit that municipalities are creatures of the province. This is a well-known relationship, but it has never become this hostile. It very much feels to many cities across this province that this is a very punitive measure of this government.

One councillor, who happens to be in that place called Mississauga, Councillor Tedjo, “feels particularly frustrated when he looks across the half-empty parking lot” that I just referenced. So cities have made these approvals. They have approved these developments and developers are not moving forward. And then, in turn, what happens here? The government punishes those municipalities.

But he goes on to say, “I don’t think it’s fair at all that the province is measuring our success on housing starts and not on housing approvals.” He's not the only one. He’s not the only municipal politician raising concerns about the role developers play in Ontario’s housing crisis. They’re pointing to housing projects that have all the necessary municipal approvals, but developers have yet to put a shovel in the ground. Some of those nine municipalities in York region include the cities of Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill. They’ve approved more than 49,000 housing units that are not yet under construction. That’s a lot—49,000, Madam Speaker.

So these councils are doing their work. They are fast-tracking and streamlining the approvals, but at the end of the day, the housing is not coming to fruition and that leaves so many Ontarians really—some of them, literally—out in the cold.

Some of these titles are—“Ontario’s Road to 1.5M New Homes Has Gotten Rockier, Construction Insiders Say.” So whatever you are doing, you’ve actually put up more barriers to housing. The question this provokes in city halls around Ontario is, why is this government taking such a punitive approach to municipalities? It really does. This is a really important question. We know that the minister has said that he’s not even considering changing the rules on how municipalities qualify for the fund, so this $1.2-billion pot of money is held out here in front of municipalities, and yet, even when they go through a successful approval process, they can’t build the houses themselves. This is the role of the developers. Some developers are land banking, right? They’re banking that land until prices go up, until things become more stable—who knows? But this is what Newmarket Mayor John Taylor calls “the policy not only unfair to municipalities, but also potentially damaging to the government's own plan … because he believes it will hamper the building of the water and sewer facilities needed” to build housing.

So some people think that some pressure should be put on some of those developers, but I actually have an example in my riding of Waterloo where we do have a progressive developer. It’s called Solowave. His name is Richard Boyer. These are 3,400 purpose-built rental units—that’s a huge number. It’s up by the Conestogo Park Square. But right now, it isn’t the city of Waterloo who is holding up this development and it certainly isn’t the developer. The developer has been working on this plan for almost four years; that’s how slow it has been.

The city of Waterloo—they’re on board. The region of Waterloo—on board. You know where the problem is? The problem is with the Ministry of Transportation, because MTO expects this developer to upgrade the highway to address traffic. And then every time there’s a new housing development, they have to do another traffic study. I think they’ve done three traffic studies. So what’s happening right now? Instead of building houses, developers are paying for traffic studies. It makes zero sense.

This developer, by the way—and I did write to the Minister of Transportation and there is a letter coming to the Minister of Housing—he’s about ready, if there’s one more barrier that’s set up in front of this project, to plant beans. So instead of building houses, we’re going to have non-descript farming. It doesn’t make any sense, Madam Speaker.

So the housing file is not going well. I think that would be an understatement. And just for context, in some part of Ontario, the number of homes sold in 2023 dropped to levels not seen for 20 years.

So we have a stagnant housing market in Ontario. The actions of this government have further destabilized that market, and the combination of high interest rates and buyers waiting for prices to tumble further certainly is not helping it.

But at the end of the day, the number of home sales in the greater Toronto area in 2023 is on track to be lower than in any year since 2001. And we all know that the population is increasing. So the housing specialists, the housing leaders across this province have said that we’re looking at housing stagnation. All of us need to make sure that the municipalities are supported in their work. This 2023 low, we have not seen it since the turn of the century.

When I looked at the FAO report this morning, and I see where some money is going some places and some money is not going some places, this government has to get your act together on housing. It’s long overdue.

This speaks, really, to the priorities of this government. We hear so many throwaway lines from this government, like: “We’re putting more money in your pocket. We’re taking our hands out of your pocket.” It’s really very interesting to see which pockets you are really concerned about, because the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. And one of the first things that this government did was freeze the minimum wage, you’ll remember. What a devastating impact this had on front-line workers. This happened in 2018. The government froze the recently changed minimum wage, which at that point was $14, and they did it for two years.

They also cancelled a series of planned increases that had been set to begin with the 2019. What Deena Ladd has said is that, “What he did was basically take away a dollar increase, then take away the adjustments for two years, and then start to adjust it again in 2021.”

It’s really interesting, if cost that out—and we did raise this during the debate at the time. If you cost it out, one estimate—and this was from a research study—confirmed that if this government had not “instituted the freeze, each minimum wage worker would since have earned between $3,000 and $6,000 more between 2018 and 2021. These lost potential wages came at a bad time, the authors of the estimate write: ‘Many minimum wage workers put their own health at risk to keep working on the front lines of our economy throughout the pandemic. The three-year delay in raising the minimum wage to $15 cost them dearly.’”

So once again: very selective about who you’re saving money for and who you’re not. And let’s remember, this study could not even quantify the impact on racialized minimum wage workers, and that gap and that disparity in wages is well documented.

When we look at the findings of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives around the minimum wage, because we hear lots of talk about how generous and compassionate some of these changes have been, this is a hard and cruel change which we are still feeling today. The impact of those decisions are still being felt today. But the findings from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report says, “The discrepancy between the rental wage and the minimum wage is such that, in most Canadian cities, minimum wage earners are extremely unlikely to escape core housing need. They are likely spending too much on rent, living in units that are too small, or, in many cases, both.”

So, I’m connecting your policy decision to freeze the minimum wage and that impact on people’s ability to be housed, to find shelter. These are core issues that Ontarians face.

Even with the catch-up, the 6.8% raise, “A full-time minimum wage worker in the GTA will still be short by $260 a week in trying to make ends meet.... There’s nowhere in the province where you can survive off the minimum wage, now, or after Oct. 1.” This quote was from Craig Pickthorne from the Ontario Living Wage Network.

These are important policy decisions that the government has made, that have not been in the best interests of Ontarians.

I’m going to move on to energy costs too, because as I mentioned in my opening comments, the cost of living is really having such a negative impact on the quality of life that Ontarians are experiencing. And what I will say about energy costs—I think that my parents from Peterborough may be watching. Energy costs are something that impacts their daily lives because most seniors are on fixed incomes, and there is not a lot of wiggle room there at all. But the decision by the Minister of Energy to override the Ontario Energy Board—and we read about this just before the House came back. This story, you couldn’t write this story because—please remember that I served with many of the PC MPPs that are across the row today. When the Liberals interfered and politicized the Ontario Energy Board, there was such a hue and cry. You could not believe it, quite honestly. What I’m seeing is such a complete reversal in how politicians act when they’re in opposition versus when they are in government, and I’m going to give some context for this.

This is an article by John Woodside. He writes: “Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is tabling new legislation to overrule the provincial energy regulator in a move worth billions of dollars that benefits gas giant Enbridge,” and it goes on to say that if passed, this “move would effectively strip the regulator of its arm’s-length role.”

Now, we know that this government is not really big on independent arm’s-length agencies or, for that matter, independent officers, quite honestly, as demonstrated by their removal of the child advocate and the francophone—

I do. It actually caused some confusion too, because some people were like, “Well, we got invited to this budget consultation, and the member who represents that area wasn’t invited,” which is a whole other level of disrespect, but sometimes you’ve just got to get used to that stuff. Fortunately, we have such good working relationships with the people of this province that they call us and they say, “Why weren’t you there?” And I said, “That’s because that’s the government’s system.” If you want to come to the public, transparent, open budget consultation, then by all means, come to it and try to get into it. Of course, the government conveniently forgot London and Niagara and K-W, and so people had to travel. If you’re putting up barriers to people engaging in their budget—just like this is their House—it doesn’t instill trust and it doesn’t instill confidence, I would say.

I just want to finish on the FAO report from yesterday, because there were five areas that the FAO focused on: long-term care; hospital capacity; emergency rooms, which we already heard about; home care; and I think most importantly, key provincial workforce measures and the impact on the people who work in those systems. There is a desperate need also, and this is just a clarification. When they’re focused on the health care human professionals, it was not comprehensive of all professionals. It certainly didn’t engage the issue of the doctor shortage as well. Perhaps there may be a separate report on that. But it did make me think though that where so few people have access to a primary care provider—two million to be in the area—because the system is still designed as the doctor being the gatekeeper for the entire health care system. If you don’t have a family doctor, it’s really hard to access a specialist, to have a health care contingency care plan where you see a very clear guideline as to how you can get better again.

With so many Ontarians not having access to a doctor, it does raise the issue of what is the strategy? Our health critic has been so strong on the nurse practitioner-led clinics, because a nurse practitioner, if you did so choose to invest—once again, we hope that it’s in the budget—a single nurse practitioner can alleviate a wait-list of 900 patients because they’re funded differently. It’s a very holistic model of care. I believe there are nine current applications into the government to address northern and rural communities and to address key areas where people do not have family practitioners.

The chamber has also advocated—I mentioned they were here earlier—that accelerating the registration of internationally educated medical professionals should be happening right now. The government says that they’re doing this on nursing, but I just want to leave the government with this one key piece: You can’t recruit nurses from other provinces into a broken system. It doesn’t work. The smart investment, the fiscally responsible investment is to respect the people who are currently working in the system, because they’re experienced and they’re connected to those communities. That in and of itself will help you recruit health care professionals into those sectors, be it into the mental health field or into home care or into the hospital system.

We also have to provide an opportunity for internationally trained medical doctors to access the system in Ontario. Our critic on this from Scarborough has been incredibly strong. This was a topic that I was talking with my concierge last week. His name is Mohammad; he’s from Pakistan. He’s a renal specialist. He’s a doctor, and he’s working as the concierge in my building. He has four children. He took the medical exam. He failed by one point, so now he’s a concierge.

I’m working with him because I think the Ontario College of Family Physicians has recognized that there have to be opportunities where trained medical professionals can reach their potential in Ontario. We’re desperate for doctors. We’re desperate. What a missed opportunity. Ontario should be a province where you come to this province and you get the opportunity to reach your potential, because Ontario needs you. This actually was interesting because the same day, one of our northern members was talking about how much it costs to fly and house folks who need to travel for dialysis. The smart investment is on recruiting and retaining those medical professionals in communities that desperately need those talented people. I’m certainly hoping that the government can make some progress on that as well.

With that, I just want to conclude by saying we are going to be respectful of the people’s voices that we heard during the budget consultation, we are going to continue to fight for greater transparency in the funding and we’re going to push the government to actually acknowledge that the plan that they have for health care right now is a plan that will fail. We need that acknowledgement to be made by this government, because having a $21.3-billion discrepancy is basically setting up the health care system in Ontario to not be successful, and I would hope that none of us want that to happen

With that, Madam Speaker, I just want to say thank you for your undivided attention. I look forward to budget 2023.

Back pay. Thank you. The back pay will be $3.6 billion.

Instead of doing the right thing, accepting the court ruling that it’s unconstitutional and violates charter rights; instead of actually valuing health care workers, nurses, PSWs and everyone that works in a hospital, who have been capped at 1% now—and during the pandemic, also, collective bargaining rights were violated during that process around sick days and benefits and what have you, because if you work in the health care sector, apparently you’re not allowed to get sick.

But if the province actually loses the court case, the financial repercussions are monumental, and it will have to happen in a massive way. You can’t just keep fighting and fighting and fighting in court—although you have done that with the mandate letters; now you’ve lost four times. It’s just a common practice. It’s a transparency and accountability thing that the government is not so keen on, but cabinet ministers usually release their mandate letters, indicating their priorities, their directions, their vision for the ministry.

I’m really interested in reading the mandate letter for the Minister of Health, I have to say. I am. Because when you are actively underutilizing the operating rooms that exist and the surgical suites in Ontario, you are actively underfunding that particular pressure point that exists in the province of Ontario, and at the same time you’re proposing this parallel system of private profit-driven surgical suites, then I’m sure that mandate letter says this is the intentional goal: to create this two-tier system.

I see I’m running out of time, which can’t be real.

I think I just want to say, on the so-called transparency of the money, clearly there are some significant issues. The $2.9 billion that’s currently unallocated right now should be out there in the health care system. It should be part of the retention of the experienced, talented people that are working in the health care system right now.

The fact that we heard so clearly—and all the government members heard the same message. That’s the value of having a budgetary process which is open, public and transparent: that we all hear the same thing, and it’s captured in Hansard. What doesn’t work very well is the other parallel system that the Minister of Finance does, where they have their invite-only—and we ran into this issue in Niagara, right?—where the government has their own consultations that are not public and that are by invite only and you get three minutes, somebody rings a bell and you’re done. And we don’t have any documentation from those consultations, which would be valuable, don’t you think?

It’s a pleasure to join the House this morning to talk about this particular motion before the House. It was interesting to hear the member talk about the process that the finance committee goes through with regard to estimates. He did leave out the part where we only got 20 minutes to review the Ministry of Finance expenditures. The entire estimates process this year was truncated. My colleague and myself, who sit on the finance committee, tried to make the case to the finance committee Chair and to my colleagues across the aisle that our due diligence as parliamentarians includes exposing and honouring those words that he just said, which primarily revolve around transparency. Unfortunately, receiving 20 minutes to review the Ministry of Finance numbers proved to be very challenging. This was a very public debate at finance committee.

We did, however, get the opportunity to question the Minister of Finance, which is always an opportunity that I value, I would say, and I appreciate the Minister of Finance coming to that committee. He and I had a disagreement in that committee, I think it would be fair to say, in that I raised the issue around Bill 124. Now, for those of you who are watching at home—which is probably just Peter Tabuns’s mother and my mom and dad—Bill 124 has had a humiliating and devastating impact on our health care human resources.

I asked the minister straight up: “What is your resistance to removing this piece of legislation, which now for three years has demoralized the health care workers in Ontario, has pushed them out of the province of Ontario, has compromised the health and well-being of the people who we’re all elected to serve?”

In fact, we usually say a prayer saying that we are going to bring the best of ourselves to this place and that we are going to work to the benefit of the people of this province, for the greater good. Bill 124 is a piece of legislation which is compromising, ironically, even the goals of the government. The government has put forward a plan around health care; you are actually working against yourself and the interests of the people of this province by keeping this piece of legislation on the books.

In fact, it’s worth noting that this piece of legislation has already been deemed unconstitutional in the courts—that it violates the charter rights of Ontarians—and yet, having lost that case on Bill 124, you maintain, in the most stubborn and callous manner, this piece of legislation, and you’re wasting more tax dollars fighting and appealing that decision in the courts of Ontario.

I do want to be fair to the Minister of Finance. Maybe we’ll get into this a little bit later on, but during that committee meeting I said, “How is it fiscally responsible to undermine the health care workers who are currently working in our hospitals by having Bill 124 still on the books and then forcing hospitals—including the entire caring sector, including long-term care—to have to go to outside agencies, which are private companies, and pay those agency nurses sometimes two, three or four times as much?” In fact, we heard in Kenora that this has an incredibly demoralizing impact on the work environment, and let’s remember, the work environment is the health care environment, where the well-being of patients is supposed to come first.

In that exchange with the finance minister, I said, “Why are you willing to pay so much money for an agency nurse?” And then the private company also skims off the top of that somewhere between $200 and $400 per hour—and then not honour the nurse who is working alongside that agency nurse, coming to work every day, who went to work during the pandemic, who showed up for the people of Ontario. You called them health care heroes.

I do want to say, the finance minister said, “You and Bill 124”—yes, Bill 124 is what we will fight day in and day out in Ontario.

The fiscal irresponsibility of it is at the core of this, really. The government received a devastating report from the Financial Accountability Officer yesterday. You have a plan for health care—yes, it is a plan, but it is a plan to fail the people of Ontario. The shortfall is $21.3 billion. You will not meet your own targets. The important piece with the Financial Accountability Officer is that they are measuring you against your plan, your budget targets, and to find this large a discrepancy is—even I was surprised, and you have surprised me a few times; I will admit to that.

The process by which the budget this year, the estimates this year—it has been incredibly truncated. I’ve always said, for the last 10 years that I’ve been in this House, that when you have a flawed process, you will have a flawed product, and that has certainly been true of multiple pieces of legislation that have come before this House.

The high-level piece on health care—and of course we’re going to talk about health care for a fair amount of time today, because it is very topical to the people of this province, particularly to the 107,000 people who are called “long waiters,” who are waiting for surgery.

We know that the surgical ORs in the province of Ontario are underutilized. We know that on Thursday at 3 o’clock when the money runs out, the hospital is not allowed to run a deficit, so that OR closes. Instead of funding that OR, instead of funding the nurses and the doctors who are required to open that OR more fully, to its full capacity—in our 100 public hospitals—the government is proposing a little sideline on the surgical units. I think that our health critic, later on, is going to be exposing some of those sidelines and how devastating and how damaging they can be to the entire fabric of our universal health care system.

I will say that out of the 107,000 people who are long waiters—just to be clear, these are people who have been waiting so long that the original surgery they were booked for—they are past that point of optimal health care outcomes. This number has never been this high—107,000 people. I have asked the FAO to pull out some of the demographics on that, because we also know that there are 12,000 children waiting for surgery in Ontario. The Children’s Health Coalition has asked this government for $371 million to close that gap.

When the chamber of commerce was here on Monday—it has been a very full week, a really good week. One of their concerns is health care, because they, as a chamber—as their members from across this province have said, “When health outcomes are compromised, that impacts our work environments, and it impacts the economy.”

So those parents whose children are still waiting, those 12,000 children and their parents—you can imagine that when parents go to work and they’ve been waiting one or two years for spinal surgery, they’re not working at their optimal. We heard this story from our leader last week. When your child is sick, you are well past distracted; it is hard to focus.

I don’t think that this government fully comprehends the impact of not honouring that $371 million.

Now, the plan that the government has also put forward on health care will leave a shortfall of 30,000 nurses. The Ontario Nurses’ Association yesterday responded in a very strong manner to the FAO report, as you would imagine. They’ve experienced the brunt, really, of Bill 124, as have personal support workers.

At the end of the day, the plan that you have put forward for people in this province is already failing. We know that. We know that because there are 107,000 people—long waiters—waiting for surgery. There are 12,000 children who are left in the lurch for surgery. Unless you have a serious course correction—which hopefully happens on March 23. Listen, I’m looking forward to coming back to this House for budget week. I’m looking forward to seeing how this government acknowledges the pain of the people of this province on housing, on health care and on home care.

I just want to really talk quickly about home care because the member talked about transparency. Thank goodness we do have an independent budget officer in the province of Ontario who has an expenditure monitor, who tracks what the government said they were going to spend and what they actually did, in the end, spend. The discrepancies tell a story. They tell a very powerful story. We see the press releases, we see the announcements, we see the re-announcements on the same funding allocations, but you know what we’re not seeing? The money get out the door and invested into the communities.

Home care is really one of the pillars that actually would support and alleviate the pressures on the health care system, particularly on the hospital system, but also on long-term care.

So on home care, you’ll remember that there were several announcements made about a $1-billion investment. We welcomed that investment. The agencies across the province, home care and the helping agencies, like Meals on Wheels, for instance, and Independent Living Centre, welcomed it. They’ve never seen a number like that. And it’s an impressive number: $1 billion is nothing to ignore. But at the end of the day—and this just came out in February: “Almost a year after the Ontario government announced a historic $1-billion investment in home care and $100 million in community support services, just a fraction of that funding has been paid out, leaving the faltering system that provides care to people in their homes and in the community teetering on the brink of collapse, officials say.”

This is coming from Steve Perry, who is an Ottawa-based home care owner, Carefor, and he said, “‘We are going to run the risk of collapse, or at a minimum of service rationalization,’ if the province doesn’t quickly put enough money into home and community care to stabilize the system.... His is among the home and community care agencies and organizations pleading with the province to fast-track funding.”

Now, one could ask the question, why is the money not getting out there? It’s not like these not-for-profit and community agencies haven’t proven their worth. If you’ve ever gone on a visit or a tour with Meals on Wheels and you’ve gone from house to house to house, that agency, Meals on Wheels, has a strong volunteer base, but obviously really good leadership. They have eyes on seniors. They have eyes on vulnerable people who are isolated, who are lonely. And loneliness kills. We know that from the pandemic.

Meals on Wheels, and we heard this at budget committee at every stop, are looking at a reduction of services by 30%—30%. Who cuts home care? Especially when we know that these upstream investments actually save the health care system money down the line, so a senior doesn’t find themselves dehydrated or undernourished and then in an emergency room.

God willing they can get into an emergency room, because 145 emergency rooms were closed last year. Never in the history of the province have we seen so many—they’re called unplanned emergency rooms. That means they didn’t have the staff—I see I’m losing my audience here—they didn’t have the resources to stay open.

Does anybody remember when the Premier himself said, “You know what? We’re going to get rid of those Liberals and hallway medicine?” There are people in the province who would be happy to have a hallway to go to right now; they don’t even have an emergency room. For the love of humanity, when you make a promise to invest in a community, have the decency to follow through, or at least look into why the money is not getting out into the community, because this is a definite lack of transparency.

Just to continue on with the money that hasn’t got out there, this is, again, Steve Perry: “‘At the end of the day, these are people we’re talking about. These are people who need care and services not getting care and services.... It is really big deal that we get this right. ‘”

The promise was actually $1 billion over three years to shore up the home and community care services. They talked about how significant this investment was. It was, as I said, welcomed by agencies, but, obviously, what happened during the pandemic—and making no excuses; if there was ever a time to invest in keeping people healthy, that’s one of the big, I hope, lessons that we learned through the pandemic: that those investments are worthwhile. But the situation did worsen during this pandemic because home and community care workers are underpaid compared to their counterparts in hospitals and long-term care. I know that the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane actually understands this is as well.

“Since the province’s announcement, less than $130 million of the $1 billion promised has flowed to home care agencies, according to those who receive it. Only $32 million of the $100 million for community support services has been distributed....

“Agencies have received no word”—this is a real breach trust, I think—“on when more money is coming or how much, forcing most of them who planned to cut services in the upcoming fiscal year. Perry says that they have only been told that the province is continuing to examine how best to spend the money as part of its plan for health care transformation. The struggling home and community care systems can’t wait, he said.”

So you’re holding on to the money, trying to decide who should get the money. These agencies have been in business in communities for years now. They have proven track records, and yet you don’t trust them? It makes no sense whatsoever.

“Sixty-six per cent of the community support service agencies across Ontario are planning to reduce service volumes as part of their budget planning process with Ontario Health, and 22% say their wait lists for care will get longer. Planned cuts in service average about 27%, which officials say translates” to 874,000 hours.

“Carefor, meanwhile, has already had to cut services because of worsening staff shortages ... between health workers in the home and community care system....”

This is the biggest piece, this is the biggest lesson from this one example: that the government of the day does not value health care human resources—people. You talk a lot about funding beds. A bed does not take care of people. In fact, we heard through the budget delegations that if you’re just talking about a bed and funding a bed then you’re really funding furniture, not the services. This is a serious disconnect that this government has. At the end of the day, even when you make grandiose promises around services, we’re seeing a huge disconnect between the words and press releases and the announcements, and the money that does not get out there.

“In a statement ... Home Care Ontario warned that the Ontario government’s plan to modernize the health system could be upended unless it first stabilizes home care staffing.” Once again, this is the theme: You are actively working against yourself by not acknowledging how important it is to value the people who are in the health care and caring sector.

I did want to also talk a little bit about education, because we are starting to track the education cuts across Ontario. We’re hearing from our communities of people leaving, and we heard this at budget committee here in Toronto. OSSTF and ETFO all came to the committee and said, “Listen, we have a huge human resources issue. We can’t keep the people working in the profession that they trained for. They’re moving to other competitive fields and sectors primarily because of wages.”

Also, we do know that in the child care and education sector—elementary—that there is a disproportionately higher level of women who work in the fields. They’re leaving because they can’t afford to do the work they were trained for. Educational assistants and all of the support staff that help make a school a real community are actually in crisis. And the government of the day has said, “Listen, we’re putting in historic levels of funding.” But that funding is actually not translating down into the classroom. And the classroom, in the funding model for education, should come first and then work up to the administration, and I think that’s a key part of getting education right.

I have been in the education sector for a number of years, back in 2003 when I first was elected as a trustee, and then I became the president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association and worked with those 71 school boards from across the province, and then at the national level. As I was moving and learning as a trustee, I also had the opportunity to chair the province’s mental health round table. And because of this, educators recognized that mental health was having a devastating impact on education outcomes. At the time, the government of the day, the Liberals, had also legislated student well-being as well and gave that to the boards. So mental health became central to some of the work we were doing as school boards. At the national level, it also was really encouraging because our interaction and exchanges with Indigenous communities also weighed in on that as well, and we became genuine allies through that process.

But I wanted to talk about the education dollars, because our critic from Ottawa has challenged the minister on several occasions. She said, “Listen, you say this, but what we’re hearing from school boards, classrooms, classroom teachers and principals is a very different story.” This is from a Mississauga newspaper that came out February 27, so this is like two and a half weeks ago. The title of it is, “‘The Kids Aren’t All Right’: Mental Health Supports Needed in More Than 90% of Ontario Schools, Report Finds.” This was an annual survey done by People for Education, which is an excellent organization that I worked with for many years—Annie Kidder. And this is a survey of principals from across the province to get a sense on the culture. It’s basically an environmental scan, if you will, of our education system.

It goes on to say, “The percentage of Ontario schools with no access to a psychologist has nearly doubled over the last decade. A symptom of a system ‘under severe stress,’ according to the report published Monday by People for Education.

“It comes as young Canadians report declining mental health, leaving overburdened education workers trapped in a ‘downward spiral’ as they confront COVID-19’s ripple effects, the report said.”

This is something that we have said to the government: We have to plan to address what happened during the pandemic. We just can’t say, “Okay, you know what? It’s over. Everybody resume as you were.” because there was some real damage that happened during that pandemic. There were learning gaps. There was learning loss. There were social skills that were compromised. Our youngest learners who learn visually by watching people’s faces looked at people wearing a mask for two-plus years. So you have to acknowledge, and you need a long-term strategy to build back stronger and to address the vulnerabilities that exist in the system. And I will say that system was already strained prior to the pandemic.

This is a quote: “‘What principals are saying—and what so many are saying—is that the kids aren’t all right.’” We need the government to hear this. It’s a genuine call to engage in an authentic conversation on what is happening in our education system.

“The survey of principals at more than a thousand elementary and secondary institutions across the province found 91% of the schools were in need of mental health supports from psychologists, social workers and other specialists.” Child and youth workers are a key part of that as well.

Some of you know that my husband does teach in a rural secondary school, and those child and youth workers are sometimes the main connection that a student has within the community. They pull those students in, they make them feel connected to the community, and we’re losing those child and youth workers. They’re moving to other jurisdictions because they are also stuck under Bill 124, which is the theme of the day.

This is a stat that I found very sobering: “In 2011, just 14% of elementary schools reported having no access to a psychologist. But by 2022, the report notes, that figure jumped to 28%.” It doubled. So over a quarter of our schools in Ontario have no access to a publicly funded resources around helping children navigate through a mental health crisis or duress.

The research and the evidence are so clear: It absolutely impacts academic outcomes and student well-being, Madam Speaker. All of us, every MPP, all 124 of us have experienced having to attend a funeral for someone who has died by suicide. In the 10 years I have been an MPP, I have attended three of these funerals. The emotional labour of doing that is one thing, but having known that with early intervention and the appropriate resources—when people have the courage to actually ask for help, that help should be there.

“Meanwhile, just 9% of Ontario schools have regular access to other kinds of mental health specialists. Some 46% of schools reported having no access at all.”

This is what a teacher has said from the Halton District School Board. She sees a system “teetering on the verge of collapse.” That’s a direct quote from her. Her name is Nicolle Kuiper. She says, “You can’t teach kids algebra when they feel their whole world is crumbling.”

We know this, and we know where the mental health supports need to be. They need to be where the students are, because navigating the mental health system in the province of Ontario—it’s almost like it was designed never to be easily navigated. If you don’t have cash, you don’t have benefits, you don’t have resources and you don’t have a natural advocate in your family, it’s a very challenging system.

That is definitely not a knock against the community agencies who have stretched those dollars as far as they can. When I meet with the Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre or, really, any health care professional, they are literally making those dollars stretch as far as possible.

So we’re really hoping, all of us on this side of the House, that on March 23, the finance minister recognizes that by not investing in accessible mental health resources, this is a lost opportunity for a whole generation. The stakes are high on this one. One could argue that they are also life and death.

This teacher goes on to say that “the most support she’s seen in her workplace is a child and youth counsellor split between two schools—a resource that ‘barely scratches the surface.’” In fact, she just made my point. These resources are stretched as far as they possibly can.

One other stat says, “Some 82% of schools surveyed in the report said they needed more support staff like educational assistants, administrators and,” yes, “custodians.” Custodians play an important part in the education system.

You can see there is such an obvious disconnect between the words that we hear from the Minister of Education and from the Minister of Finance and the reality that’s playing itself out in our schools.

The supply motion covers a number of ministries. As I mentioned, we didn’t really get to ask too many questions on this because it was a very truncated process. I believe it was about 20 minutes that we got to ask the government questions on what you’re planning to spend. But we do have, as I said, a good benchmark for where the funding is going and where it’s not.

Really, the theme that I’ve become more and more engaged in is this so-called transparency that the government says that they’re all about. When you do follow the money, you actually learn a lot, and the numbers certainly tell a different story. The province started off the 2022-23 fiscal year with $4.6 billion in contingency funds. The reason why the contingency fund component is very interesting—this is separate from the surplus, and you’ll remember inflationary costs, the costs of services and costs of goods, have gone up so much that the government cleared their deficit three quarters ago because so much tax revenue came into the province of Ontario.

So the government benefited from a high inflationary rate. Did they pass on those savings to the people of Ontario? No, they did not. What they did, though, was put it into an unallocated contingency fund. The reason why this is so important—I believe the FAO has said the same thing in various public settings—is that it removes the transparency and the accountability over this funding allocation. Every dollar that comes through this place on behalf of the people of the province is allocated. Sometimes, as I’ve just told you with home care, you can allocate it, but you don’t necessarily get it out the door.

But in the instance of a massive contingency fund—and Ontario is an outlier in this regard—by underspending on home care, by not getting the appropriate amount of money out that you targeted for education, all of this money goes into this unallocated contingency fund—a slush fund, if you will. This removes our responsibilities as MPPs—it actually removes our rights as legislators—to oversee those expenditures and that amount of money.

This is something that is a new practice, I would say, for any government. The Liberals couldn’t do it because they ran regular operational deficits. But this money should be in the system. That’s the key part I want to say. This money should be in the court system, for instance. There’s a young person in my riding who was assaulted. She has been waiting three years for her day in court. That is justice denied.

We would support a more streamlined funding system into the court system. We would obviously support more funding into mental health—and I want to thank the minister for coming to Carizon in the fall and talking about the importance of community. Help us help you, is what I want to say. We want the minister who is responsible for mental health to receive the resources that he needs to get that money out the door and into communities—all communities across the province.

But when you have this much money—the last quarter came out, so now it’s $2.9 billion, ahead of a massive budget—and knowing that organizations like the Children’s Hospital Coalition are asking for $371 million, this money could have got to those hospitals to alleviate that surgical backlog back in the fall. So the question that the people of Ontario should be asking of this government is, what are you waiting for? How bad does it have to get before you spend the money that you actually said you would invest in health care, in education, in transportation, in infrastructure and in mental health?

And so we see this unallocated contingency fund as fairly detrimental from a financial transparency perspective, because we don’t even know—if we started the year off with $4.6 billion and now we’re at $2.9 billion, we don’t know where that money went to. The government is, one could argue, actively preventing us from doing our job, and that doesn’t serve the people of this province very well.

I did want to—this came up, actually, in budget delegation. You’ll know that the finance committee hasn’t travelled for the last few years because of the pandemic. We did go to 11 different cities. It was an interesting selection of cities, I might add, though. We missed all of the London area, all of the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cam-bridge area. We didn’t go to Niagara. It’s not like tourism is a big thing, I guess, in Ontario. We tried to go to Sioux Lookout. We had Red Lake. We ended up in Kenora. We went to Sault Ste. Marie, to Sudbury, to Timmins. We went to Ottawa. We went to Kingston. We went to a fair number of places but we missed a good part of south-central and southwestern Ontario. We also travelled Bill 46, the red tape reduction bill, but not too many people showed up to that. I just wanted to give a few of the perspectives of what we heard on this committee.

In Red Lake, one of the nurses who spoke to us, her name is Meghan Gilbart and she is the chief nursing executive. She said that to have an agency nurse working alongside you making four times as much as you impacts morale, work culture, patient satisfaction and patient safety. It depresses the caring environment because it speaks to how the government values nurses and health care workers. This is where Bill 124 was called “humiliating.” If you want to build up a health care system, you have to support the people that are in that system. If they feel that the government is actively working against them, that obviously will impact productivity and work outcomes. She went on to connect wage suppression with morale suppression.

This was also around the time that we found out that the Minister of Health actually had received a briefing note from her own ministry saying how Bill 124 would negatively impact the health care sector. So even the ministry—the minister’s own ministry—has told her how negative Bill 124 is for the entire sector. And still, they press on and are fighting and appealing the decision in court which found the legislation to be a violation of our charter rights.

We also heard from—I want to say, the Alzheimer Society showed up in a big way this year, because they have warned this government of the negative impact of not investing in those supports. We heard from caregivers as well. The province of Ontario definitely needs to understand and to support the people who are caring for their partners who are experiencing Alzheimer’s. This is one of the cruellest diseases that we see in Ontario right now and across the world.

This is what we heard from Stéphanie Leclair, and this was in northeastern Ontario: It currently takes, on average, 18 months for people in Ontario to get an official dementia diagnosis, some patients often waiting years to complete diagnostic testing. More than half of the patients suspected of having dementia in Ontario never got a full diagnosis. Research confirms that early diagnosis saves lives and reduces care partner stress. They said, and this is a direct quote, if we don’t act now and invest, “Ontario’s hospitals will exist solely to house/care for those who have dementia or Alzheimer’s.” The sector is warning you that if you don’t plan now, if you don’t invest now, there will be greater costs down the line.

I’m sure that we all know somebody who is going through this journey. It is a cruel journey for the entire family. If you don’t want the further pressures on the health care system the plan that you have, if you’re not willing to course-correct—I hope that the government recognizes that keeping people out of hospital by those community supports is one of the main pillars of trying to rebuild the health care system. The demographics of this province are also well known. They were well known before the pandemic. We have an aging demographic and the population has certain needs; we need to plan for those needs. That’s what a responsible government does. It’s not like you don’t have the money. The money is in an unallocated contingency fund.

Really good organizations like L’Arche Sudbury came. They came with solutions. That’s what was so impressive about this budgetary process: People are not just asking for a handout, they’re not just asking for cash. They’ve come to the table saying, “We want to partner in a very real and genuine way. We’ll do our part, we’ll fundraise on our part, but we need a financial partner, a willing partner to come to the table.” L’Arche Sudbury did an amazing job on that.

I want to say, the post-secondary institutions, like Algoma University, came forward and they’ve identified one of the key issues around the health care human resources crisis, which is that people in that sector are not being supported. Bill 124—a humiliating piece of legislation—aside, they’ve recognized that certain training needs to be incorporated to deal with the complex mental health and societal issues that people are facing. They want to be part of the solution, and they want to train people to deal with people who are incredibly vulnerable.

We did hear from the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. This started some time ago, but they have an Indigenous Trustees’ Council, which has made a recommendation to the government of Ontario and the Minister of Education to create a compulsory course that deals with reconciliation and the residential school history of this country—basically just to tell the truth about what happened in Canada. They see this as a true path to reconciliation.

One of the quotes that I heard, which really resonated with me through this, is that the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, points to education as key to reconciliation: “Education got us into this ... and education will get us out” of it. It was powerful presentation because education really is the great equalizer for so many communities, if it’s done right and if you build those supports for student well-being and make the school really the hub of the community.

Doug Gruner of the Ontario College of Family Physicians came to us, I believe it was in Ottawa, and he expressed a great deal of frustration with the system that surrounds the hospitals. He said they can’t get patients into specialist appointments. Over two million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor, 150,000 have no family provider whatsoever and 75% of family physicians do not work in family health teams—and that supportive work environment actually retains those health care professionals.

He referenced the underutilized surgical suites across Ontario. Why aren’t we making the most of our publicly funded hospitals and the investments that have been made in those surgical suites? We should be opening them as much as we can to alleviate that devastating wait-list.

They had a solution for the Minister of Health around time allocation. They said that by providing some technology and some technical supports by way of a medical scribe, doctors could spend more time with patients and less on paperwork.

These were solutions that came from the sector. They were informed, they’re research-based, they’re evidence-based and they’re looking for solutions.

I could go on at length about some of the great people who came and who took the time to come to these budget selections. I feel like the government members weren’t so keen on the Bill 124 conversation, to say the least. But not one delegation—not one—said anything good about Bill 124, because there really isn’t anything to say that is good about Bill 124. The only good thing that we can say is that at least the courts have upheld the law of this province, and they did so again earlier this week, which—thank goodness we have the court system in Ontario, although the government really should just call the last 15 court cases a lawyer employment strategy, in my view.

Earlier this week, the third-party election guidelines that the government brought in prior to 2022 were struck down in the courts, as well—and deemed it null and void and a violation of charter rights, and also a piece of legislation which prevented Ontarians from participating in their own election.

I wish people were paying attention to this kind of thing, because it’s a whittling away of our democratic institutions in some regard. When legislation is brought in by a government which undermines the rights of the people we serve, everybody should be paying attention. The court system obviously has been focused on this for some time, as well.

There are a number of other ministries that the estimates capture—certainly, the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs is timely, given our discussion around Bill 71 yesterday and some of the comments that were made by some government members about indicating what’s good for Indigenous communities. I think that our critics and our speakers yesterday were quite strong on this. Reconciliation only happens when you actually engage in an authentic and honest conversation and when you include Indigenous communities in that conversation, particularly as it relates to treaty rights and the fact that it’s their land. One would think that would be a core principle of any kind of consultation process. As is already indicated with the building mines faster act, Indigenous communities are already gearing up to go to court. I suspect that you’ll lose that court case, as well. So it actually makes fiscally responsible sense to engage with those communities sooner, at the very beginning—because consultation after the fact is called disrespect. Those are certainly our concerns with Bill 71.

On the transportation funding: The FAO also identified a $656-million discrepancy in funding that’s supposed to be going out for transportation and for transit. This is particularly impactful on the people of Toronto, with the Eglinton Crosstown and Metrolinx—the lack of transparency as it relates to the Ottawa LRT and the Eglinton Crosstown. The people of this province have the right to know where that money is going and how much money is actually going to profits versus infrastructure. The transparency language that we heard earlier, quite honestly, doesn’t resonate on this side because we’re still looking for answers.

But I will say, at the very least, we do have a very good understanding now of how poorly prepared the health care sector is for the changing demographics, as indicated by the FAO yesterday.

I do want to say, just because I’ve been consistent on the Bill 124 conversation and the question arose yesterday—if the government of the day loses the court case, the appeal of Bill 124, which the government is actively appealing right now, the cost to Ontario just in hospitals—60% of the funding around hospitals goes to wages because you need people to deliver health care. Beds do not deliver health care. If the government of the day loses that case, the—what is it called?

Interjection.