It’s my pleasure to present a petition around protecting farmland and sustainable growth in Waterloo. It’s signed by hundreds of people from Waterloo, Kitchener, Wilmot and Cambridge.

Essentially, this petition calls upon greater transparency around the proposed industrial site in Waterloo region. Most people are not against this site. They just don’t want it on 770 acres of prime farmland.

They also have concerns that developers approached those farmers even before the land was rezoned industrial. They also have some concerns around a non-disclosure agreement that has been made public with, we assume, the proposed industrial site. People want transparency, they want democracy, and they want to be part of the process.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and give it to page Simon.

My question is to the Minister of Health. For years, the Ontario Medical Association has been sounding the alarm on the shortage of doctors in the province. In Kitchener, there are currently 55 open physician positions on the provincial recruitment program.

The KW chamber of commerce has said, “There are somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 people in Waterloo region right now who don’t have ... a ... doctor.”

Kitchener is not alone; there are 2.2 million Ontarians who do not have a family doctor, and that number is going to surge to 4.4 million by 2026.

Speaker, my question to the Minister of Health: When will this government prioritize the patients and families waiting for care in Waterloo region.

A shortage of doctors causes more people to visit the emergency room, increasing wait times and putting further financial strain on this already overburdened health care.

KW is not alone; there are currently 32,000 people in Peterborough alone without a family doctor, another 28,000 in Kingston, another 10,000 in Sault Ste. Marie. This Conservative government is failing to provide Ontarians with access to primary care that they definitely deserve.

Back to the Minister of Health: When will this government finally address the crisis in Ontario and the 2.2 million people who do not have access to a family doctor?

My question is to the Premier. Over the last couple of weeks, the NDP, the official opposition, have put forward two motions that would make life more affordable for Ontarians. Both of these motions have been shut down by this government. Last week, we tabled a motion simply calling for a clear timeline and a clear, firm funding commitment for the expanded, two-way, all-day GO train service between Kitchener and Toronto. The business case for this is very sound, but the government chose to vote against that motion, even though in 2018 and 2022 this Premier promised the people of Kitchener-Waterloo that he would get it done. This Premier also has a candidate in Kitchener in the by-election right now, and when they announced him, they promised to deliver two-way, all-day GO service. I wonder how this candidate feels now that the government has voted down a firm funding commitment and a firm plan for two-way, all-day GO.

My question is very simple to the Premier of Ontario: Why does he keep leaving the people of Kitchener-Waterloo behind, stranded at the station?

Interjections.

Speaker, just yesterday, we saw this government again vote no to a measure that would benefit the lives of Ontarians. The NDP motion to make heat pumps subsidized, actually, in co-operation with the federal government, to help Ontarians with energy-saving retrofits was the only solution, so far, put forward in this House to tackle affordability and climate change. This would create good, local jobs. It would address the underground economy. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a good idea. But this government is not going to go down that road. Our proposal actually would make homes so much more efficient and lower people’s energy bills.

To the Premier: Why does this government continue to vote against the interests of the people we are elected to serve in Ontario?

It’s okay. It’s all right. It doesn’t really bother me at all. What bothers me is a government and a Premier that says, “We’re going to get it done for Kitchener-Waterloo. We’re going to make sure that the people of Kitchener have access to a reliable, affordable, consistent train,” which continues to not happen. It bothers me that the pickup and drop-off in Kitchener at the Via Rail station—that there’s no GO train station there; that it compromises the health and safety of the people who are trying to do their job. They’re trying to get to their jobs. What do you have against people trying to get to their workplace, trying to do it safely and trying to be productive people in the province of Ontario?

Yes, it does. So this is sort of like the next fight, but it’s interesting because that highway has been costed out at $10 billion—actually $10.4 billion. This was not on the transit strategy radar for the province of Ontario even five years ago. So this leaves people in Kitchener saying, “Okay, you’re going to do that 413. That means—where are we in the general mix-up of transit projects?”

Then you also tagged on that nice cottage highway so people can get to their cottage faster through the Bradford Bypass. That one is going to be—actually, I should say, there’s just estimates that we have. If you do the costing in 2023 figures, it’s around $10 billion. Of course, this highway is not going to get built for another 10 years, but the money has to be allocated, so that’s money that this Premier and this government are taking away from established, proven, well-researched transit projects like expansion of the two-way, all-day GO service.

If the business case is there, why would your gift of a highway to developers trump our Kitchener line? It doesn’t really make any sense whatsoever. So we have to say—

Interjections.

So news reached—

So that is really interesting, because how transit projects are getting planned in Ontario has drastically changed. You wouldn’t know that because you’re the new—

Interjections.

I’m happy, actually, that the conversation has gone in this direction, because it does show how this government prioritizes some projects over others. I mean, we’ve seen this with the MZOs—the MZOs “R” Us. There’s a reason why there is a criminal investigation by the RCMP into this government. This is why—I mean, you forced us to bring this motion to the floor of the Legislature, because people do not trust this government, without a question, and so we need to get you on the record. Will you be supporting clear timelines, clear funding commitments, for the two-way, all-day GO service to Kitchener? Will you be voting with us on this or will you say no?

We know who you say yes to; this is for sure. We know who gets MZOs. We know who gets their certain parcels of property outside of urban boundaries. We know who gets inside information around when a piece of property is going to be carved out of the greenbelt. We know this for sure. What we don’t know is why government members don’t use their government-issued phones to actually do government business. This is very true. So if it takes a few more Conservative members to actually—

Interjection.

I know. It was Glen Murray, the Minister of Transportation. He stood in his place, and he told the people of Kitchener-Waterloo that they were going to have a high-speed rail train and it was going to take half an hour.

I remember, then, taking the article at the time—because it’s actually published—over to my friend there Mr. Yakabuski and I said, “Look at this.” They had, even, a diagram. It was like a cartoon, if you will, that someone had drawn up, obviously, on the back of a napkin. They promised a high-speed bullet train and then they actually came ahead of the 2014 election and got on a GO train and had the GO train come into the station and everybody is waving. I wasn’t invited to that particular announcement, as you can imagine. They came and they promised us GO service every 15 minutes, both ways. Of course, there was no plan, no strategy to actually make that happen, and so my community feels burned, actually. Trust has been compromised, which is why the official opposition has brought forward this motion here today for your consideration.

Then we go just later in 2014, which says, “Road Ahead: We’re a Long Way from Two-Way GO Trains.” This is from Jeff Outhit, who’s a Record reporter. Anytime we mention GO trains, Jeff calls me, because we’ve had this conversation many, many times.

Listen, there were aspirational goals, I want to say. Actually, this train is referred to as an aspirational goal in a Metrolinx report. It’s aspirational for the communities along the line; there are aspirations of maybe having a strategy, a plan. But I will make this one point: That every time Metrolinx puts out a report about this particular train on the Kitchener line, our train gets pushed down the line. The latest number is 2030—full implementation by 2030. We’ve been promised so much, Madam Speaker. We still, to this day, have no weekend train, not one weekend train, which is why I have the petition before the House.

When you think of the economic potential of connecting Kitchener-Waterloo, which is essentially the silicon valley of Ontario—and Canada, to be honest; our IT and tech sector is second to none in this country. Their sense of frustration with a government that moves at a slug’s pace has really compromised the confidence in our potential as a community. That important corridor between Toronto and the GTA and KW—the research is done, the councils have endorsed it and all politicians at all levels have said how important and crucial it is to reach our potential as a community. Yet we cannot get this government or this arm’s-length agency, Metrolinx, to actually make the full commitment—and make the funding commitment, because resources are actually in question.

In this particular article, it ends by saying, “A plan to bring two-way trains to Kitchener will only ... emerge, and may be a low priority as ridership underwhelms.” So this is the challenge. As the service continues to not improve—it almost has reached a point of stagnation—then you have people getting so frustrated that they’re walking away from the service. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy actually. But boy, if the government came out with a strong strategy, a strong plan: “This is 2024. We are going to have two-way, all-day GO service,” as the Premier promised in the 2018 election, as he stood on that platform and as he said, “We’re going to do the environmental assessment on high-speed rail”—boy, they got sold a bill of goods on that one, I can tell you. The fact that the Premier actually said “environmental assessment”—I believe the last time those words were used was in that particular sector.

We’re going to move on to 2017, when we actually brought forward my private member’s bill. So it’s not like we haven’t been trying to work with the government. In 2017, we introduced a motion, and the quote is here—it’s a pretty good quote, I have to say: “Fife said the region is losing on economic potential as the region’s tech workers waste time stuck in traffic as they travel back and forth” on the 401. I go on to say—I’m quoting myself—that I had “tabled a motion asking the Ontario government to hold a vote on whether or not it will provide a ‘firm funding commitment and clear timeline’ to deliver all-day, two-way, GO train services along the Kitchener-Waterloo corridor.” This was obviously following through on the previous Liberal promise.

Now, we forced a debate on it. You’ll remember there was this fellow, Mr. Yurek, who was part of that at the time. Promises were made and he said, “Let’s just go in the hallway and have a conversation about this. Let’s see if we can get this done.” I mean, is that really the way you do business?

Having a master transportation plan for the province of Ontario is traditionally how responsible governments have planned for transit projects. There’s a reason why it’s 10 years: It’s because transit projects do take a long time. There’s a reason why it is a master plan: because you actually need a road map. But, boy, when you throw the cottage highway in there, the Bradford Bypass, and then your developers ask you to build the 413, that knocks down all these other important local projects. It also destabilizes, once again, confidence in a government that has said on many occasions, “No, no. We’re going to do this.”

But this new PC government came in, very similar to the Liberals in many, many ways. We heard the Premier make his promise. He said it’s doable, according to whatever napkin he was reading from on that day. But Jeff Casello actually is a planning expert, and he weighed in at the time, because once the majority was won, then there was sort of a revisionism happening around this timeline. Mr. Casello says—and this a direct quote—“There’s really no technical reason, no physical reason why we can’t have two-way, all-day GO service by 2024,” and he’s the University of Waterloo school of planning professor. He says, “It’s time for the province to be serious about this connection.” We agree. It is time for the province to be serious about the Kitchener GO train service. We’ve waited long enough.

And then you flash forward, and now we’re in 2018. I just want to remind the government members, because this is on all of you, right? It’s on all of you to make sure that this connectivity piece comes to be a reality. This was an interesting time, because Kathryn McGarry, at the time the Liberal transportation minister, was calling into question their numbers. I found the whole thing very amusing in some regards, because they were both calling out each other for not having strategy.

The Progressive Conservative leader at the time said—it’s right here in writing—that they would “fund all-day, two-way GO trains and continue with the environmental assessment for high-speed rail if elected in June.” He says, “We’re going to fund that. We’re going to” get it done “as quickly as possible.” Well, here we are, five years later, and the train still takes an hour and 46 minutes. There’s still no train that gets workers who need jobs from Toronto to Kitchener-Waterloo, where those good jobs exist. What a wasted opportunity, right? It really is about priorities, though, I would have to say.

Now, Mr. Ford wouldn’t provide a timeline for when the PCs would be able to reach that goal if elected, but he said that he would cut some red tape and get it done as possible. Well, if it was red tape—it’s more like “blue tape” right now, because this is a government that thinks that there’s some way to get some things done in those back rooms, just with those conversations, much like Mr. Yurek actually thought: “Let’s just have a conversation. Let’s just take the criticism off the heater, and let’s just be reasonable and be rational.” Well, can someone please say that to Phil Verster at Metrolinx? If you want to talk about red tape: 59 vice-presidents at Metrolinx? A million-dollar salary?

Interjection.

I want to thank our leader for weighing in with such passion and drive. I want to tell you, that’s exactly what the people of Kitchener-Waterloo are looking for. They’re looking for a leader who’s going to back up those words with action. The community of Kitchener-Waterloo—the region, in fact, which is highly dependent on this rail service, because the 401 between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto has turned into a 100-kilometre parking lot. It is unacceptable to wait for so long just even to have a timeline, just even to have a funding commitment.

I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to start at the point of frustration and give the House some sense of the tipping point that the people of Kitchener and Waterloo are feeling right now. This came into my office—and I’ve been getting these emails for 11 years. This is one commuter who posted and also reached out to my office. He said, “I’ve been commuting for five years, and the last 12 months have been absolute” garbage—he uses another word. “The parking lot is tiny and cannot accommodate the number of people that ride the train right now. Basically, if you want to guarantee yourself a spot, you need to take the 5:35 a.m. train or the 6:15 a.m., because by 6:20 it’s full and people are parking on the bloody grass. The exit is just a nightmare too. One entrance in and out. People double-parking, waiting to pick up folks, cutting the line. It’s pure chaos.”

For those of you who don’t know, we don’t actually have a GO station in Kitchener, even after all these years. We have a Via Rail station that is sometimes open and sometimes not. I can tell you, as a woman who does commute on the Kitchener line, there have been times when I’ve arrived very late and that station has been closed and it is dark. I want to raise the bar on this debate around health and safety, because the chaos that ensues around the Via Rail station in Kitchener is dangerous and it is unsafe, and it is time for this government to recognize that this substandard level of service is beneath even this government.

This person went on to say that this is only going to get worse as more people are forced back to the office. This is the work-life balance piece. And what’s worse is, no improvement or development plan has been implemented.

Also, I want to say, there are people in Kitchener-Waterloo who see other communities getting their nice, shiny GO stations—and we’re happy for them, but many of them have not been waiting as long as us. So that is part of the reason for today’s debate—to ask the government, what is actually going on over there, and why do we keep getting bumped down the list of priorities? It is only going to get worse. And as I said, it truly is a safety issue.

This is another reader: “The Kitchener GO station is completely inadequate for the amount of people who are now riding.”

There’s nothing that we can do in the short term, but there are things that we can do in the long term, and one of the calls is to actually have the station be part of the Metrolinx strategy, at least—because this actually impacts ridership, because public transit will only work if it’s working for the people who need it. It needs to be affordable, it needs to be fast, it needs to be reliable and it needs to be consistent.

Currently, right now, it takes an hour and 47 minutes to go one way. There are no plans to have even one express train. There is no train that leaves Toronto in the morning that can get people to Kitchener in the morning, to a job—where there are jobs available, in Kitchener. The tech sector is hiring. The tech sector has been lobbying for this for over a decade. Companies like Google, for instance, have pretty much given up on this government. They value their employees, these very talented individuals who have specialized skills. They’re not trusting those employees with the GO train, with unreliable service. Plus, there is no train that gets there in the morning unless you leave at 9:34 and then you arrive at 11:21. That’s a good chunk of the morning, right? Not too many bosses are okay with that.

I did have a unique opportunity here to go down memory lane a little bit, because I’ve been here what feels like, on a day like today, a very long time. However, when I look back at all of the governments and all the Ministers of Transportation that I’ve had to deal with, it’s astounding. When I go back to 2012, this headline in the paper is “GO Train Must Be Faster to Keep, Grow Ridership,” because there was a real reluctance for people to get on a GO train that was going to take two hours and five minutes to travel 100 kilometres. And you can’t really blame them. This was when there was a 7:07 train. This is when Kathleen Wynne, the previous Premier, came to town and we had two slow trains and she promised four slow trains. She doubled—this is what we like to call a Liberal overachievement and perhaps a stretch goal.

One of the students at the time—and I’m going to talk about the students because their voices are often left out of this debate. This is a student from the Ontario College of Art at the time, Christina, and she says that she hedges her transit options and takes a mix of GO trains, GO buses and Greyhound buses to downtown. You will know that we lost Greyhound. I also used to commute on the Greyhound. Boy, you can do a lot of casework on a Greyhound bus in the morning, I can tell you. She said that the addition of an express train, which stops at fewer stations, should be the government’s number one priority. Why is this thinking not even on the table? If there are four trains, at least one of them could truly be an express train, and then you give another community their express train, and you grow your ridership. You build confidence in the system as a whole and you actually run a competitive and competent train service in Ontario.

At this point, back in 2012, there were nine stops, and it took over two hours. So, at this point in the game, the Liberals of the day were dealing with their own scandals. It’s kind of like Groundhog Day sometimes around here. They had their OPP scandals, the Premier that had prorogued the Parliament, and so they were desperate to change the channel. Now, does this sound familiar to anyone around here? The Liberals were trying to change the channel. They took a very dramatic and creative approach. They promised us a bullet train.

Interjection.

I don’t get invited to them. I just got heckled that I don’t pass them up; I don’t get invited to them. I used to show up and crash the party. It was really fun, I have to tell you. But no, we don’t get invited to them, because this government thinks that that money is their money. So sometimes councillors or a community leader will say, “Oh, by the way, the member from Kitchener–Conestoga is going to this place, and you might want to show up.” And sometimes you do; sometimes you don’t. Anyway, in the end it doesn’t—

Interjection.

Interjection.

So this one final piece on the infrastructure bank—but, goodness, you gave me a lot of material to work with with this fall economic statement.

Why is the Premier’s government creating a bank to finance public projects? “Questions swirl” around this whole idea. I think that the general point is that here we have a government that’s on the ropes, that’s quite worried about the narrative that’s actually happening about what is driving your decisions around the budget, especially six months in, when you drop $2.5 billion in an unallocated contingency fund when you know—if your eyes are open, if you are paying attention, if you’re spending time in your community, you know the needs are there.

We even saw a reduction in Meals on Wheels. That’s eyes on seniors addressing the issue of isolation and loneliness—which, actually, the LG mentioned this morning—and we know after the pandemic that loneliness kills. We know that we have a minister responsible for seniors who says we have to do more. Well, you can do more by actually resourcing those amazing not-for-profits in the communities. You show up for the photo ops with them, and sometimes you go on a ride-along with Meals on Wheels. But when they see a 30% cut, they’re making very hard decisions about who they can see and who they can deliver food to. That is a big thing. It’s a big thing for a government to say, “I see you. I see you, and I’m going to work towards”—imagine having the money, which they do, that you have the legal authority because you have a majority government. Imagine making the choice to not help, to not invest and to sock away, or squirrel away, $5.4 billion in an unallocated contingency fund. It really defies a lot of common sense.

The last point on the infrastructure bank, because I’m just fascinated with the fact that it’s not really contained in Bill 146 but it’s in the fall economic statement, is that when the minister was questioned about this—CBC News had asked “if establishing the bank opens the door to big investors profiting off public infrastructure projects.” It’s a very good question for the minister. He went back, and he said, “I don’t think profiting is the right way to think about it. Think about it in terms of revenue streams.” But who are the revenue streams for, Madam Speaker? Because if it’s interrupting and if the investor becomes the primary person of concern, organization of concern, how dedicated really is the government of the day to the infrastructure project?

We’ve seen this carving out of responsibility, really an abdication of public responsibility by this government. Even this weekend, I’m sure my colleagues must have seen that Shoppers Drug Mart, which is also a favourite of the Premier—for some reason, they have the distribution contract for vaccinations. So these small mom-and-pop pharmacies across the province, they’re supposed to get 200 flu shots or they’re supposed to get 200 COVID vaccinations, and they’re getting 20 and 50. When we see 2.1 million people in Ontario not have a family doctor, they become very reliant on pharmacies. Pharmacies and pharmacists perform a very crucial role in the health care system, and for them not to be able to get access to basic and, I would say, essential health care resources because you have, essentially, a monopoly with a private distributor—and this was the best part. The news article that I read—I don’t have it here—said that the Ministry of Health is going to meet with Shoppers to see if they can do their job. Can you imagine? This is 2023. Have we learned no lessons on the privatization and outsourcing of basic health care needs? Apparently, we have not.

So that’s how we feel about the infrastructure bank. And this is something that has rarely happened in this House: I’m just going to quote the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. This is Jay Goldberg. He says the Canadian Infrastructure Bank was “‘a complete failure,’ and says it’s concerning that the province would follow suit.” Just one for the Hansard: We definitely agree with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Moving on, though, especially as it relates to where the money in this last fall economic statement is not going. One of the issues, and I want to get this on the record because this is certainly a disturbing trend, particularly on the justice file—we’ve seen it’s down over 2%, funding in justice. And if you’ve ever actually had to deal with a case in your riding of someone who is navigating the court system, you will see how completely broken the court system is in Ontario.

One story that caught my attention this week—and this will appeal, I think, this story, to the strong law-and-order group of Conservatives who often are complaining to the federal government about bail reform and about appropriate justice resources. Well, in Ontario, on November 7, an alleged rapist was released from custody because the court system took so long, Madam Speaker. And this is an important part, that—this is a CTV article, and this was done by Abby O’Brien and it’s very comprehensive.

I’m not going to read all of the disturbing details in it because it could be triggering for a lot of people: “In hindsight,” it says, “Emily recalled doing everything she’d been taught to do in the wake of an attack—she reported it to the police, took herself to the hospital, gave an interview to a detective, and, months later, testified in court.”

But on November 7, “a sexual assault charge laid by the Toronto police against the man Emily reported raped her in January 2022 was stayed and the case against him thrown out, court documents show.”

This is what she said: “It took so much to even do that first step”—right? This takes so much courage. It’s one of the worst kinds of violence you can ever experience, sexual assault. And then a year and a half later, she gets to face the alleged rapist in court, and it was a very—it takes a lot of courage to do this.

The court system is not kind to sexual assault victims. It’s a very harsh place. We need a better system, and we’re going to be working on a better system for sure, Madam Speaker. But it goes on to say that “Emily’s experience is no anomaly. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, anyone charged with an offence has the right to a trial within a reasonable time frame.” In Ontario, “barring exceptional circumstances, that time frame is 18 months in the provincial courts of Ontario”—18 months, a year and a half. Our court system is so underfunded and understaffed that we can’t get a victim and a perpetrator in the same court in 18 months in Ontario.

I think it adds insult to injury, given that this is the newest court, making my point that you can have a good building, you can build a bed, you can build a classroom, but boy, if you don’t have the human resources, you don’t have the people to help navigate that space, then you really are failing—failing. I have to say, if we had the opportunity, having a $5.4-billion contingency fund that is just sitting there, that you squirrelled away by not investing in certain areas—I would say that we could find some alignment here, with your “tough on crime” and more cops and more resources. We want more people. We want more people in the court system to make sure that people have access to justice, and that is what Emily deserved in the province of Ontario.

So in the end, Emily said a crown attorney told her that they believed she had been sexually assaulted, but that the charge had been stayed, and that they suggested that she move on with her life and try to put the event behind her. And she said, “What about my rights? Why are the rights of this man held with more importance?”

And then the judge of this particular court said, “This case should serve as a chilling reminder that this inexcusable state of affairs must never be allowed to happen again.

“The emotional trauma associated with never knowing the outcome of a case on the merits will often be long-lasting and severe for both victims and accused persons.”

“The judge identified the staffing shortages as the reason for the delays in the trial.”

So we have over a 2% cut in justice. We have a $5.4-billion contingency fund. If the minister responsible brought forward a motion to this House and said, “I need more money to staff these courtrooms,” you would have no objection from the NDP.

He goes on to say, “There is no reason this case could not have been completed....

“What happened in this case was entirely predictable, and avoidable. Yet it was allowed to occur, despite all the warning signs....”

He said this case serves “as yet one more example of how the government’s failure to ensure this courthouse could function at full capacity [has] produced tragic results.”

When charges are stayed, both parties in the case are failed by the system.

“That will now never occur. That alone is regrettable,” adding that the people of Ontario “deserve a justice system they can be proud of.”

Trust in the system is long gone, and Emily said, “I’ve lost faith in our province’s ability to keep me, us, safe.”

And I can tell you, Madam Speaker—I don’t know Emily; I’m just completely impressed by her courage. But this is an issue for everyone, and it should be a non-partisan issue. We should care about justice. We should care about timely justice, because we often hear in this House that justice delayed is justice denied and, certainly, that happened in that courtroom.

I want to move on to education, because education has seen a year-over-year reduction. I think our critic has done an amazing job on this file and pointing out inflationary cost pressures on the system as a whole. As I said before, this used to be a government—Conservatives used to acknowledge inflationary cost pressures as real, and plan for those cost pressures.

This, again, is from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’s Ricardo Tranjan, who is an excellent researcher and very well-spoken on these issues. But they have been tracking the pattern of this government and how they view public services. In this, Ricardo actually goes all the way back to the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, which was recently tabled, as the “clearest display to date of the Ford government’s ideological agenda against public education. The writing was on the wall from the start.”

It goes back to 2019, when there was a plan to eliminate 10,054 teaching positions by 2024 through increased class sizes and mandatory online learning. There was, obviously, a disruption around that plan by parents and organizations who fought back. Education is always worth fighting for. It’s one of the reasons why I’m standing in this House today.

But I do want to say, in tracking of the funding and this trust issue that I’ve referenced before, we have to remember that most of the COVID funding that came into the education system came from Ottawa or school board reserves, Madam Speaker. This is why it’s so ironic, really, that the Premier is bemoaning the fact that the federal government isn’t giving him the housing money so that he can then in turn pass it along to municipalities. I think the federal government learned their lesson in that regard and don’t trust the middle man here in the province of Ontario.

Also, after that, the government began sending money directly to parents, instead of into classrooms. We all remember this. It also expanded the scope of online education, justifying cuts to brick-and-mortar schools, and last year, when funding became available for tutoring, it had to be partially spent on third-party providers. This is directly, intentionally, with purpose moving education dollars out of the education system.

Now, I’m sure that the government of the day and the minister, perhaps, has his own rationale for doing this, but at the end of the day, when you factor in inflationary costs, in this year students are seeing $1,200 less per student around the GSN funding, so $1,200 less per student in the 2023-24 school year than they received in 2018-19. That has a real impact. If you’re going to invest in the future economy, in the health and communities that we’re all elected to serve, education is one of those key places, as is child care.

Toronto last week just saw 12 infant spaces close down because they can’t find staff. You know why they can’t find staff? They can’t find staff because this government does not respect early childhood educators. They deserve a fair wage. You cannot roll out a $10-a-day child care strategy in Ontario without child care workers, right?

This has an impact on the economy. If you’re not going to do it for the right reason, if you’re not going to say, “I value those first five years of a child’s life, one to five”—the impact that an educator, in collaboration with a parent, has can be life-changing. We’ve seen some real success stories across Ontario, and the research is sound. For every $1 invested in child care, you have a $7 return on that investment—$7. That’s actually 2019 numbers. I’m sure today it must be higher.

Also, there’s a new funding line that the government has in education. It’s on unallocated amounts. This appeared in the GSN for the first time with amounts between $30 million and $40 million. In this year’s document, that line was replaced with “planning provision,” which has $317 million sitting inside it, which is 10 times as much as was originally said. A footnote explains that the money is for possible in-year funding changes, and more unallocated funding has been included with the totals of specific grants.

This government is actively shuffling money away from the classroom. The amount is similar to the cost of the direct payments to parents, which is $365 million. Some parents really appreciate those two tutorial lessons that they get for their child with the money that they are allocated, but at the end of the day, $365 million invested specifically in special education resources in a classroom benefits the entire classroom. It benefits the entire school. It benefits the entire community.

Finally, Ricardo goes on to say, “Stashing cash away and using it to pay for populist measures—like cash transfers and tax cuts—has become a common practice of this government,” which they have been monitoring.

This is another trend of this government—shuffling the money around. I look forward to the new FAO’s analysis of where the funding is going. I was proud to be on the hiring committee. Jeffrey Novak is going to be the new FAO. He was the Acting FAO prior to that. I think that this government has given him a lot of material to work with as well—including the whole staff there at the FAO office.

We are down in justice, down in education, and then you have health care.

Madam Speaker, I just have to say: When I am reading these investigations—and thank goodness for the media, because they really are tracking the pattern of governance of this government, and I think that’s an important distinction to be made, because it’s not just about where this government is not investing or where they are investing; it’s about who gets control over that money.

Last year, as I mentioned, when the Minister of Health was not using her government-issued phone to talk to stakeholders, a major change was happening in Ontario. The government was creating another parallel system to alleviate the pressure on the public system, but they were very intentionally underfunding the public system, which is why we have had now over 5,672 hours of emergency closures in Ontario.

The damaging impact of Bill 124—I’m sure somebody somewhere is reviewing it and exploring it, but, boy, you absolutely were running health care workers right out of the province, and it’s going to take us years to rebuild. I will say this is one of the issues that keeps me up at night, because we have an aging demographic, so the health care needs of Ontarians are only growing, expanding and becoming—quite honestly, because of COVID and post-COVID impact—even more complex.

So when I read this morning that the Ford government is paying for-profit clinics more than hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries, this is what we always suspected was happening, but thankfully CBC filed another FOI—it’s the theme. We should just have an FOI banner outside of the Legislature: “If you want information, FOI it”. They’ve never made it public—the rates it pays private clinics to perform thousands of outpatient day surgeries each year. So this is why I posted it this morning. Ontario, quite honestly, cannot afford Doug Ford, because he is paying these surgeons in these private clinics exorbitant rates, which, again, is so insulting to the surgeons, doctors and nurses who are just down the way on University Avenue performing life-saving surgeries, who are answering the call.

Just before I forget to get this into the record, because I see that time has gone very quickly, the Ontario Medical Association—when they came here earlier in the fall, we had an amazing conversation with them, because they were proposing solutions. We even heard from a doctor last year in Windsor who proposed solutions. This is what’s happening to family doctors: They are spending 19.1 hours every week on paperwork. So they have proposed to the government—you have a doctor shortage; 2.1 million Ontarians don’t have a doctor. In two years, it’s going to be three million Ontarians with no family doctor. Unless you’re going to completely privatize the entire system, family doctors are the gateway to diagnostic tests and to really accessing acute care.

The Ontario Medical Association has said, “Having family doctors spend 19.1 hours a week doing paperwork is not a good use of our resources. If you funded a scribe, if you funded these family practices so that a nurse practitioner or a professional person who has medical knowledge could do the paperwork, at the end of the day you would have the equivalent of 2,000 more doctors available for patients.” That’s a good solution. Is that money here in the fall economic statement? No, it’s not.

This is another thing I don’t understand. Imagine having the privilege—and it is a privilege, I think, to be a minister of the crown. It’s a duty. It’s a responsibility. But if you have that power within the scope of practice, you should absolutely be using that power for good and making these decisions that actually make a difference.

This article very clearly outlines how much more these private clinics are costing. This money is absolutely coming at the expense of the Ontario Hospital Association, and this discrepancy, it goes on to say, “raises questions about the government’s imminent plans to expand the volume and scope of surgeries performed outside of hospitals, including the potentially lucrative field of hip and knee replacements.”

I just want to remind my colleagues on the other side of the House that when something goes wrong in these private clinics—you know where those patients end up? They end up in a publicly funded hospital. So, you’re throwing good money after bad. It is so short-sighted.

So the fall economic statement, for us—and none of these measures, for some reason, are contained within the technical bill which operationalizes the fall economic statement, including this new bank. I really feel somebody in cabinet should have said, “Let’s read the room here. We have a serious trust issue. Why are we creating a new fancy bauble of a bank when we should just do what we’re elected to do—invest in public services, support the people of this province and actually do our job.”

Just to continue on the housing conversation—although, I must digress, it does seem like the member from Kitchener–Conestoga knows who those third parties were in the region of Waterloo who requested the carve-out of the urban boundary. I don’t know who they are, but if you do know, I think it would be in your best interest to let us know who they are. I want to know. I want to know who they donated to. I want to know who they lobbied. I want to know if they’re registered lobbyists. I want to know everything about the carve-out and the urban boundary.

Now the member, though, has a long history of championing transparency and so I realize that this discourse is somewhat complicated for you. But the leaked report from the Premier’s office also says that we were being watched. It’s right in the document. April 2—there was a protest; we’re all listed in the people who attended.

Do you think that’s a good use of government resources to be spying on members of provincial Parliament?

All we’re trying to do, Madam Speaker, is open this process up and shed some light, not let it fester. The member says that we’re trying to slow things down. The only thing that we’re trying to slow down in this place is the corruption that’s happening with this government.

Speaker, the people of Kitchener-Waterloo have been waiting a decade for two-way, all-day GO service. Despite Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster’s promise yesterday that Kitchener-Waterloo would finally get trains “every 15 minutes or better on the Kitchener line,” the people of KW still have no timeline. Ten years of waiting for what we were promised is simply unfair.

Yesterday’s GO train network outage that caused such chaos is exactly the reason why the public requires a comprehensive plan and timeline, and this needs to be very transparent. Too many students—so many students—are left behind and waiting for buses. Those buses are packed. A three-hour commute is not acceptable for the people of Kitchener-Waterloo.

To the new Minister of Transportation: When will Kitchener-Waterloo finally get two-way, all-day service every 15 minutes, as they were originally promised?

We all know that trains are good for business, good for people and good for the environment. Again to the Minister of Transportation: Why doesn’t Kitchener-Waterloo deserve what they were originally promised, and when can they finally expect to see two-way, all-day service every 15 minutes? Stop leaving Kitchener-Waterloo waiting at the station.

My question is to the Premier. The people of Kitchener and Waterloo are getting left behind by this government. I don’t mean figuratively; I mean literally. There is so much demand for GO service on weekends, when GO trains don’t run, that buses are completely packed with people, especially students, and they are being left behind in Brampton. On Tuesday of this week, Waterloo regional council voted to send a letter to the government urging it to address exactly this.

The people of Waterloo region need and deserve two-way, all-day GO service, including on weekends. When can Kitchener expect a weekend train to get to Kitchener on the Kitchener line?

The level of frustration has reached a tipping point. I was speaking with Justin Fan, a University of Waterloo student, who told the CBC “he wants to use GO Transit regularly, but he gets frustrated when he can’t get on a bus.”

Ian McLean, president and CEO of the KW chamber of commerce, has said that more trains will “deliver, by some estimates, up to 170,000 new jobs, billions in new investment from the private sector.”

Trains are good for business, good for people and good for the environment. Why doesn’t Kitchener-Waterloo deserve a train on the weekend? This is a direct question to the minister: When can they expect it? Because the buses are not getting the people where they need to go.

Interjections.

This is my first time presenting this petition in the Legislature. It’s entitled “Weekend GO Trains for Waterloo Region.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Waterloo region is home to three post-secondary institutions, the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conestoga College, whose students and staff require weekend train options; and

“Whereas the government of Ontario is responsible for investing in building, maintaining and upgrading GO Transit trains and rail routes throughout the province; and

“Whereas the government of Ontario has repeatedly made commitments to invest in and improve GO Transit trains for the purposes of improving connectivity, increasing transit ridership, decreasing traffic congestion, connecting people to jobs, and improving the economy; and

“Whereas dependable, efficient public transit on weekends is as critical as weekday service to achieving these goals;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the immediate expansion of GO service to Kitchener-Waterloo, including weekend two-way rail service along the full length of the vital Kitchener GO corridor.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and give this to page Silas.

It’s a pleasure to join all of you on this beautiful Monday afternoon to discuss Bill 85. I was trying to think of a different angle today, just for my own amusement, mostly. But I wanted to address the revenue that’s coming into the province—so I’m going to save at least 10 or 15 minutes, on where the revenue is coming from and where it’s not coming from and what’s happening with it.

You will know from our first hour on this speech that we found this budget to be an opportunity that was missed by the government. And it is so astounding to me, still, even after 11 years here, how we see the province so differently—perhaps it’s the people we’re listening to; perhaps it’s our communities and what kind of engagement we have with the people in those communities. Certainly, you could tell by the cross-section of questions that we asked today in question period that we have serious concerns around where health care is going, how this province is planning and overriding the planning of our municipal partners.

For us in Kitchener-Waterloo, it’s not necessarily a new issue, but certainly a growing concern is the lack of resources for those who’ve experienced sexual assault and sexual violence. To have a wait-list at the Sexual Assault Support Centre in Kitchener-Waterloo of 240 people, primarily young women, is devastating.

There is an impact from picking and choosing where you’re going to be investing, or who has your ear, or who’s in that backroom or who’s coming to your events, and who you actually, as government members, are listening to.

I can tell you that we share some of the concerns that were raised by the Toronto Star editorial board when they described this budget, Bill 85, as a “complacent mishmash. But if it was uninspired and unimaginative, it was also largely unmemorable.” I think the tone of the editorial here is that it indicated that this government is being safe, that you are parking money in places where—I’m going to actually address—the money is not getting there, which is a transparency and accountability issue which we share with the Financial Accountability Officer.

Also, this is a government that—you have three full years ahead of you. There was a time and a place to be bold. Cost-of-living pressures are being experienced by everybody we serve, from the not-for-profit sector to the education sector to the health care sector, and we heard this loud and clear through our deputations. This finance committee travelled—we spent a lot of time together—and we heard the same thing, but what we heard wasn’t translated into action in this budget.

I think it’s also important to recognize that when the government says, “We are going to balance the budget in two or three years”—that that’s even foreseeable is because of inflation; it’s because goods and services are costing Ontarians so much money, because we’re not doing anything as a province to address the price gouging that is happening, particularly in the food and grocery sector. Those revenues are coming into this place, and there is a moral, ethical responsibility to pass on some of those savings to the people we serve, to acknowledge that they’re hurting. That is the approach that we would take. It is very, very different from the approach of this government. We see those upstream investments saving money for the province—being more compassionate to the people we serve and, actually, assisting in the long term of people finding their potential, which is what we should all want for every Ontarian in this service.

The Star article went on to say that our leader of His Majesty’s official opposition said that this budget fails to meet the moment, and we definitely feel that.

I do want to say, though, that we did try to make it a better budget at committee. Myself and my colleagues introduced several amendments to make this budget more reflective of what we actually heard when we were travelling around the province, and I’m going to get to some of those in a second. The quote that obviously sticks with us—and several of my colleagues have also raised it: “If this budget were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks. Not entirely useless. But an exercise in going through the motions.” So I hope that this is not setting the tone for the remainder of this term.

The editorial went on to say, “Overall, there was clanging dissonance between the budget’s palpable self-satisfaction and the economic anxiety, rising interest rates, soaring prices, health care concerns that have hit Ontario residents hard.”

That’s exactly what we heard.

I just want to confirm: We heard from the not-for-profit sector that they’re having a very difficult time keeping staff because of inflationary costs, because their budgets have flatlined and you can’t stretch those dollars any more. We heard from health care professionals, both front-line nurses and doctors, that recruiting into this broken system is difficult.

So, yes, absolutely, focus on attracting new people into the health care sector, but also retain the people who are experienced and went through the storm of this pandemic. We all call them heroes. Why not actually respect them? Thoughts and prayers do not pay the bills.

When the Ontario Medical Association came before us—and the Ontario college of physicians—they said, “We want to spend more time with our patients. These are the solutions. These solutions cost a little bit of money, but they save the system down the line.” So there were opportunities, wide-open doors—the barn door was fully open—on this budget really being more than a pack of three tube socks. This could have been a turning point for so many people in this province.

If you believe that budgets are moral documents, that they speak to the priorities of the government, then the government is intentionally, knowingly leaving so many people behind.

What I said to the finance minister when he came to the committee was, “I don’t understand. You have the money.” The money is there. There’s actually an unallocated surplus now in the province of Ontario of $2.9 billion. The funds are there to do the work, but the choice was made somewhere along the lines not to do that work.

We now have a planned contingency fund of $4 billion, separate from a surplus, and the reason why the contingency fund is concerning—and I believe very strongly that in a Westminster democracy, budgets are supposed to be approved by the Legislature in full. But with the government’s habit of hoarding cash in massive contingency funds and making radical in-year changes to the spending plan, we increasingly, as lawmakers, cannot trust that the budget presented will be what the government actually spends, and the lack of transparency is bad for our democracy.

I have seen from this Premier a complete disregard and even disdain for our democracy. I’ve never seen this before. There are rules that this Premier randomly reveals in press conferences. Friday’s press conference felt like a bit of an SCTV act, actually. There was policy flying all over the place, laws being run over—really just a very disconcerting randomness to the answers that the Premier was giving. Regardless of the constitutional responsibilities that we have as legislators, the Premier is not concerned with the Constitution. He’s not concerned with the charter. He’s not concerned with these human rights. He’s not concerned with the law of the land. And this does not inspire confidence in our democracy—but also confidence in our economy and how these deals are being negotiated, how they’re being met, how they’re paying for them. There are some contractual agreements around here that are a little dicey, I have to say.

If you have nothing to hide, then please reveal the mandate letters that you’ve been fighting in court for your five full years. It has gone to court now four times, and the government has lost four times. These mandate letters need to be revealed to the people of this province because—and I’ll get into where the money is going—there is a creeping privatization into the government of Ontario, and the money is not going to where it should be. And one only has to look at the gambling file in Ontario to actually use that as a full example. I will get into that.

The FAO had some words to say to the finance minister. We were on The Agenda, the Steve Paikin show, and he said we have this expenditure monitor, so we can actually track where the funding is going and where the funding is not going, and it’s there for all of us to use. I will say, in his last report—and it really was his last report, because the FAO, Peter Weltman, is no longer in office. His last day of work was not last Friday but the Friday before. Apparently, based on the interview that he did with Colin D’Mello, there was very little notice from the government; there was not a “Here’s your hat; there’s the door.” He didn’t even get that.

So this government really is a little shy around the transparency and accountability piece. They don’t like to be called out when the expenditure monitor from the office of the FAO actually documents where the money is going and where the money is not going.

Certainly, we were very concerned last quarter when $6.4 billion didn’t get to where it was supposed to go. This does call into question the legitimacy of the budget. The government can announce that they’re going to release $1.1 billion to community services, as they did around nine months ago to huge fanfare, really. Speaker, $1.1 billion is a good chunk of change, and we all have community agencies in our ridings that require that funding. But when we learned through the expenditure monitor that only $300 million got out the door into our communities, this, obviously, is concerning, and it should be concerning for everybody, especially people who are fiscally conservative. This was a moniker of the government: “We want to make sure that the money is being spent appropriately and going to the right places.” Well, we now have a growing body of evidence that that is not happening. So you can’t call us out for questioning this practice, because where the money is going, where the investments are going absolutely matters.

COVID-19—this was an additional part of the budget that I think is really concerning. I do want to thank our health critic for raising the issue of long COVID. COVID is serious. It’s still here. People are still suffering. And the hospitals that have been cobbling together some kind of a support system, gathering research, gathering best practices, have notified the government and this Minister of Health that they don’t have the funds to string these dollars along to provide that support. So if you know somebody who has long COVID, if you’ve seen how unproductive and debilitating long COVID can be, have a plan for it; have a strategy; have the Minister of Health stand in her place and say, “This is what we are going to do for long COVID.” That has not happened. Apparently, everything is fine on that side of the House.

The other lack of transparency which is really concerning to us—because health care and housing definitely dominated in this whole process. Even when the government says, “We’re going to make municipalities whole after Bill 23,” the Minister of Municipal Affairs stood in his place, after really taking these municipalities by surprise by overriding many of their growth plans—years and years of planning and consultation around environmentally responsible housing, intensification within those boundaries—and this minister decided, “You know what? We’re going to overrule, and we’re going to reduce the development charges that municipalities can access through developers.” Because this has been a long-standing relationship between municipalities and those who build houses—because it’s all primarily private sector—that those development charges help with the infrastructure costs. Those infrastructure costs matter, because they actually provide the opportunity to build the houses: the stormwater, the wastewater, the green space, the schools, the libraries, the roads. I mean, it’s kind of important.

So when the Minister of Municipal Affairs said, “You know what? Don’t worry, don’t worry. We still value you and we’ll make you whole”—in the budget, many municipalities, AMO in particular, were looking at making up for that funding gap. And for good reason, because their only other recourse is to raise taxes. So this amounted to downloading this responsibility to municipalities, who need the money. We actually did see a major jump in taxation—property taxes—across this province. Some municipalities were able to hold it to three or four, but in Waterloo region, it was at 8.9, because we’re a growing area and we need that infrastructure.

But when you follow the money, even more importantly, I would have to say—through estimates, our critic found this out—there’s actually a 25% Streamline Development Approval Fund for municipalities and there is a 70% Municipal Modernization Program, which is a reduction, which is a cut. So the Minister of Municipal Affairs says that he values municipalities, but when you follow where the money is going, he’s actually cutting the resources, one, to prove that the assets exist, because there’s a very patriarchal relationship in this House, with the Premier and with the minister and how they view municipalities—which is surprising, given the fact that they were both municipal councillors. And what the Premier said last week is that they just like to spend and spend and spend. Municipalities have the most accountability at any level, more so than federal, provincial. Local municipalities are held to a totally different level of account. So this discourse that the minister has and the Premier has with municipalities is not helpful to building new housing or even renovating new housing. So that’s where we are with that. There is a genuine growing distrust, and when you have that lack of trust, this undermines even good initiatives that the government may have.

When I was pressed to say what is good in this budget, I had to go through it a few times. The $202 million for affordable housing is a good investment. It’s a good step in the right direction. But when you look where that money is going, who’s getting the money and how little it actually adds to the value of housing initiatives in local organizations—I’m thinking of the city of Ottawa, whose top-up, based on this $202 million, is only $845,000. Our members from the Ottawa area said, “Listen, two houses”—this is not bold or ambitious housing development, not at all. There are some great inconsistencies, huge inconsistencies, between the language that the government is using about how great this budget is, and then the actual reality of what is happening in Ontario, the lived experience of Ontarians.

Thank goodness we have the Auditor General’s office as well. Who knows what’s going to happen with the FAO. This is a valuable part of our democracy. I’m hoping that this government will follow through and make sure that we go through the hiring process, but the Auditor General is also up for review, and I want to thank Bonnie Lysyk for the work that she’s done, particularly in the last report that came out. Her work on public-private relationships has been groundbreaking for Ontario and, really, Canada.

This is what she said around the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. and the entire gambling sector. She was particularly critical of the process that was used to select private casino operators for eight gaming regions within Ontario, resulting in 20-year contracts for the winning bidders. But among the criticisms were the facts that contracts were rewarded based on unrealistic financial projections, that the amount of capital investment included in the bid wasn’t included in the evaluation criteria, and that the capital investment which was included in the bids wasn’t included as a commitment in the final contract even when it was used to support revenue projections.

This is the important part: These contracts—because contract law used to be actually a thing in Ontario. These errors in the process have resulted in three of the eight regions needing to renegotiate what was supposed to be guaranteed revenue commitments and other missed opportunities for economic development, with direct losses to the province projected at billions of dollars over the length of the contracts.

So to say that the gambling file in Ontario is going well would be a huge stretch; it is messy right now, even with the regulator for gambling in Ontario going into the gambling business with iGaming. It’s unheard of.

She goes on to say, “Based on updated revenue projections for the eight gaming regions”—and this was as of March 2022—“total casino gaming revenue projections for the first 10 years of operations were reduced by $9.1 billion....”

Now, I’m not a gambler. I’m too Scottish, perhaps, to be gambling. I work very hard, and I don’t like losing money, and I have some charities that I’m very dedicated to, so I’m not a gambler, but gambling is here. The province of Ontario used to have this philosophy that if gambling is here, if people are going to gamble, then let’s make sure it is done in a safe manner, it is regulated, and that the funding that comes into the province goes to our schools, it goes to our hospitals, it goes to agencies that are actually doing really good work and protecting people—sometimes against themselves, because gambling is also very addictive.

The OLG’s share of these projected revenues was reduced by $3.3 billion—I’m sure the Minister of Education could use that money for education—reducing the projected net profit to the province by $320 million annually on average for 2024. So we are losing money. The government is gambling and the government is losing, and it seems intentional because this is actually by design, Madam Speaker. I’d like to know who got the contract to design such a terrible system.

But you know who else it’s hurting? It’s hurting Indigenous communities and nations. This is actually a growing theme here at Queen’s Park, when the government doesn’t take into account their responsibilities to negotiate in good faith with First Nations. This is from a recent article: “A First Nation community says they plan to challenge the Ford government’s decision to move ahead with online gambling, claiming it violates a constitutional right to consultation with Indigenous leaders.

“The Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation ... calls the Ontario government’s iGaming plans ‘deeply flawed’ and a move that will financially devastate their economy while setting back decades of community development efforts.”

It goes on to say that “most internet gambling by Ontarians currently takes place on websites not managed by the province, the new legal market will ensure integrity, fairness and player protections.” This is actually kind of comical right now.

“Kelly LaRocca, chief of MSIFN, called the announcement a ‘slap in the face of First Nations, and reduces their promises of reconciliation to a joke.’

“The First Nation says the provincial government has ignored section 35 of Canada’s Constitution, claiming the Ford government utterly failed to hold formal consultations with Indigenous governments—a violation of its duty to consult and accommodate impacted Indigenous groups.”

This is another quote from the chief: “‘The Ford government has recklessly ignored our concerns and has not offered any strategies to address the impact that their inadequate plan will have on our First Nation, our culture and our ability to provide services to our community.... We intend to challenge the province’s iGaming scheme in court.’”

And that seems like this is now the practice of this government, right? You know what the law is—the Premier, I assume, knows what the laws are. He may not have a respectful relationship, or even an understanding, that these dealings should be nation to nation. They should happen prior to announcements; they should happen prior to plans being rolled out to economies being interfered with. But he also seems very content to go to court. I’ve said this before in this House: The lawyers are doing very well in Ontario. This government has kept them very, very busy. I’ve even had to file an FOI to try to find out how many court cases this government has already engaged in. It’s easy to keep track of the ones you’ve lost because it’s actually almost all of them.

This is everything from stickers on gas tanks to—what’s another one? There are so many of them it’s hard to choose.

I want to give a special welcome to Elizabeth Witmer. Kitchener–Waterloo was well-served by her and that continues today. Thank you very much, Elizabeth.

It’s my pleasure to present this petition by the Grand River Environmental Network and specifically the students from Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School in the riding of Kitchener–Conestoga, and it reads as follows:

“Petition to the province of Ontario Premier and members of provincial Parliament:

“We, the undersigned residents of Ontario, call upon the Legislative Assembly ... to stop ordering sprawl via urban boundary expansion and development on farmland and natural spaces.”

I fully support the intent of this petition, will affix my signature and give it to page Akshitha.

My question is to the Premier. Last week, after the government doubled down claiming that Waterloo region municipalities were sitting on over $200 million of reserve funds from development charges, in fact it was reported that the legislation, Bill 23, will cost the region $530 million over 10 years, according to regional staff.

Waterloo Mayor McCabe said the bill’s reduction in development charges could leave the city short $23 million to $31 million. That’s money used to pay for roads, sewers, transit, libraries and other city services, and now the taxpayers will have to foot that bill.

Does the minister know whether the member from Kitchener–Conestoga now regrets his support for Bill 23, now that they know it was based on faulty information and will harm our community’s ability to build housing and infrastructure? It’s a—

Interjections.