It’s a pleasure to rise this afternoon and join this debate on opposition day motion number 3.

I can tell this House that hearing from the member opposite that we are a very different party on this side actually warms my heart, because we, on this side of the House, are very different from the opposition and from the Liberal Party. We are getting things done.

On the topic for today, I would like to start just by differentiating our budget items from the Liberal budget items. This comes from the Auditor General’s report itself. Between 2015 and 2018, the Liberal government spent $48.9 million annually on advertising. On this side of the House—if you take out the pandemic years, which were very different—this side has spent $29.2 million, and it has been money well-invested in ads that have been informing. They’ve been approved by the Auditor General, pursuant to the policy, and they have been providing Ontarians with important information about what has been going on in our province—important information about access to health care; important information about housing programs; important information about long-term care; and important information about how we are improving Ontario’s economy.

We’ve attracted, as we heard this morning, 700,000 jobs to this province and over $35 billion in investment in the EV sector and the agricultural sector and other business sectors.

We are absolutely different, on this side of the floor, from that side of the floor. We’re improving life for Ontario residents, and we’re getting the job done, and we’re happy to talk about it.

Madam Speaker, if I can just review the Government Advertising Act history—it was passed in 2006, and it requires the Auditor General to review government advertising to ensure it is free of partisan content, as defined by the act. The act applies to a government office, which the act defines as a ministry, Cabinet Office and the Office of the Premier. Items that are reviewable by the Auditor General under the original act included any advertisement that a government office proposes to pay to have published in a newspaper or magazine, displayed on a billboard or broadcast on radio or television; printed matter that a government office proposes to pay to have distributed to households in Ontario by bulk mail or another method of bulk delivery, where bulk mail or bulk delivery means the printed matter is not individually addressed to the intended recipient; and any additional classes of messages prescribed by regulation.

That original act was amended in 2015, and these changes include: adding digital advertising to the Auditor General’s scope of review, and digital advertising is defined by the regulations; defining what partisan means in relation to government advertising; clearly stating what can be advertised publicly by the government, such as fiscal policies and policy rationales or objectives; clarifying rules around government advertising during general elections; and, finally, requiring the government to submit a preliminary version of the ad to the Auditor General for review, in addition to the final review process.

The amendments addressed comments received since 2011 from former Auditors General requesting the ability to review digital advertising. The amendments also clarified what is meant by the term “partisan” and defined a partisan ad as partisan if:

(1) It includes the name, voice or image of a member of the executive council or the Legislative Assembly, unless the primary audience is outside Ontario. However, the use of a member’s title would be permitted—e.g. Premier’s Awards.

(2) It includes the name or logo of a recognized party.

(3) It directly identifies and criticizes a recognized party or a member of the assembly.

(4) It includes to a significant degree a colour associated with the governing party, unless the item depicted in the ad commonly appears in that colour.

Just adding to the comments of my colleague from Mississauga–Lakeshore, these ads were all approved by the Auditor General, as per the act. These ads were all legitimate, they were almost half the cost of what the prior Liberal government was investing, and these ads were serving a public purpose in making sure that Ontarians know about the activities that are going on at Queen’s Park that impact their daily lives.

We believe that the government should provide important health information, like vaccination campaigns and public health measures, like we did during the pandemic.

We believe that the people of Ontario should be told about what their government is doing to help build new homes so that young families can achieve the dream of home ownership.

We believe that the people of Ontario should be informed about how their hard-earned tax dollars are building a stronger economy and creating thousands of new jobs across our province.

We believe that Ontario is a place we should all be proud of.

There’s work to be done, and we’re happy to do that work, we’re quite prepared to do that work, and we will continue to do that work. It is for this reason that we on this side of the floor believe that the ads that we have been putting out are responsible, informative and are a very critical part of continuing to be an open and transparent government about the things that matter most. And we will not apologize for that.