I actually think Bob Rae removed rent control back in the mid-1990s, if I’m not mistaken—the one chance the NDP ever had at government.

But I do want to talk a little bit about ODSP because the member did bring that up as well. I just wanted to let her know that, since 2022, there’s been an 11.5% increase in ODSP rates, and not only that but for the first time in the history of the province it’s actually tied and indexed to inflation.

So when we look at what we’re doing around minimum wage, when we look at what we’re doing around supporting low-income earners by removing the provincial portion of income taxes, when we look at what we’re doing to support people on ODSP, when we look at what’s happening in the fall economic statement, we are on the right track to helping Ontarians, we are on the right track to bringing more money back in their pockets, and I just can’t understand why the member opposite wants to stand in the way of that.

I hate having my back to you when I answer your question, but just for the sake of the microphone—listen, I think there has been a lot of misconception when it comes to parts of this bill and when we talk about development charges. All new builds are still subject to development charges, unless they are purpose-built rentals or they are not-for-profit. For anything else, it still applies. There is a bit of a sliding scale when it comes to some certain developments not being able to have 100% of development charges charged at the time, but they can charge up to 80%, and then there’s that 20% that gets made up after that. But just to be very clear again, purpose-built rental and not-for-profit housing are not subject to development charges. New greenfield, brownfield, infill, single-family homes that are being built out in the country, and townhomes still can be part of that development charge process.

This member spoke about the climate crisis, spoke against gridlock and carbon emissions, and talks about the fact that he wants to see more people get off the road, wants to be using transit. He mentioned two-way, all-day GO specifically. These investments will help two-way, all-day GO become a reality, and I hope he will support this budget, and I hope he will support the transit infrastructure within it.

I think the member from Markham–Unionville brings a very interesting perspective to this. Correct me if I’m wrong: You were a school board trustee, I think, at one point, prior to getting elected here to the provincial government. Maybe you could talk a little bit about some of your experience and what it was like having to work with, maybe, some challenging colleagues who didn’t necessarily want to hear the views of parents being brought before the board and the other trustees.

To the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington, you really touched on something that I think a lot of parents can appreciate. With a career spanning many years in law enforcement, I wonder if maybe you could touch on some of the things that you have seen in regard to sexual harassment and different things like that that we have seen and that still continue, unfortunately, to happen within our school boards and within our public education system.

I know we’ve only got about five minutes to get things kick-started here, but I did want to mention that I will be sharing my time, once we resume debate later this afternoon, with the member from Newmarket–Aurora.

Of course, it is a pleasure to join debate today. It has been a good morning here in the House. I know that any member who has heard me stand up in here before will know—and I’m going to say it again for those who haven’t heard—that I have five children, all in public school. That’s why I’m very, very excited to see this bill, hopefully, come to fruition and become law in the province of Ontario. All of us here who are parents—or maybe even, dare I say, there could be some grandparents here in the House. They’re also, I think, very excited to see a lot more transparency, a lot more accountability, and historic investments being made by the Minister of Education to move education forward in the province of Ontario.

Another thing that may come as a shock to some of the people here is that I’m the son of a former Premier. In my case—

But I digress, Madam Speaker. I guess what I’m really getting at is, we’ve got a little bit of an inside track to try to figure out how to navigate the school system, and it can be a challenge for a lot of people.

The key goal for Bill 98 is simple: You should not need to be the son of a former Premier to know who to call about your child’s education. You shouldn’t need to be a former school board trustee to know how to navigate the education system. You shouldn’t need to be a member of provincial Parliament to know the local priorities of your school board. It’s time to make the education system more accessible for the average family. For too long, information on local priorities has been too difficult to access for many families across this province. This bill, if passed, will make outcomes for families of all backgrounds—and I think that’s key. We’re not just selecting a few; this is for all the people across Ontario, to make education more equitable, and I hope members on all sides of the House can support that.

Bill 98, for the first time in Ontario history, would require school boards to make their plans to improve student achievement public. It would also require them to give every single parent the opportunity to view and review these plans at the start of the year and at the end to measure progress.

The Minister of Education has said this—and I agree: “Our government has no higher purpose than to protect the children of this province.”

I do want to say that one thing that I’ve been able to take part in was the Safer School Buses Act. Most of you who have seen a school bus here in the province of Ontario over the last year have now noticed that they have a yellow or an amber lens and a red lens. We were the last jurisdiction in North America to adopt this. I know this was something that you were very interested in. We’ve had many—

Just to go back a little bit here, I had an interesting conversation with some members from the township of Woolwich, which is in my riding. They didn’t even know they were sitting on $6.5 million of DC charges. I can tell you for sure that in Waterloo region, not all charges are allocated and accounted for.

But I just want to go back to the member from Oshawa’s comments that she just made. If it’s okay to have an organization—you can call it a “community builder;” you can call it a “developer;” you can call it whatever you want, but if they’re coming in and they actually want to make a difference in your community and they want to build purpose-built rentals or they want to build true affordable housing, it’s okay to take money from that project, but a municipality needs to be made whole. That’s the logic I’m hearing here. To me, that is anti-building-anything in this province. To me, it just doesn’t make sense.

I’m sure the member from Brantford–Brant will get an opportunity to ask a question to the minister here shortly, but I wanted to pick up where the minister left off, talking about development charges.

One of the things we’ve heard, that we’ve seen in the news is, “Oh, my gosh, the sky is falling. Municipalities aren’t going to have the revenue they used to have if they’re out there building affordable housing and/or purpose-built rentals.” I’ve had some conversations with municipalities, and I’d like to remind them that they’re sitting on about $8 billion of reserves when it comes to development charges—I know in my region of Waterloo alone, if you take all the municipalities, it’s hundreds of millions.

So I’m wondering if the minister could touch on what some of the discounts look like for building affordable housing and how municipalities are going to be able to leverage some of the reserves they already have.

As we all know, the last two years have proven to be very challenging for many parents and students. The recent EQAO data shows that most Ontario students, like students all across Canada, are struggling with math. I’ve also heard from many parents who say their young children’s reading skills are not progressing as they should. After the pandemic and with union-driven strikes, it’s fair to say that we cannot take children out of class.

We now have an opportunity to help Ontario students recover. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Education: What is being done to help our children recover from these learning losses?

These are unpredictable economic times, marked by increased costs that are across the board, and parents, now more than ever, can use financial relief that will ease the costs associated with their children’s learning recovery. Parents need flexibility so that they can best spend those dollars to help their kids catch up.

Speaker, on behalf of hard-working parents in my riding, can the minister inform this House on what our government plans to do for parents who are in financial need?