As is so typical of this government, there are lots of promises but nothing to back up the words with action. For example, there is a proposal to offer mammograms to women below 50, but there is no funding for that. You cannot perform mammograms unless there is funding for more staff, for more infrastructure, for more technical fees. So I find it audacious, preposterous, that this government can grandstand as though they’re actually going to help patients, when they say the words but don’t back it up with the dollars or the action to actually deliver on their promises. That is a very consistent pattern, time and time again.

But what’s even more outrageous is the fact that we have an opioid crisis, an addiction crisis across our province. We have a mental health road map that has been bandied about for the last five years that needs to see massive and sustained improvements and increases, especially increases in funding, especially as it relates to delivering those services in rural and remote parts of Ontario.

So I want to reiterate: There is this road map to mental health or mental wellness, but so much more needs to be done. I look forward to working with the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to push the government to address that in greater detail.

My friends in the government across, the members across: I would suggest, do a little bit of self-reflection and have some self-awareness before choosing your words. This is preposterous.

I’ll be sharing my time with the member from Don Valley West. It’s always an honour to rise in the House to discuss matters of importance to the constituents of Don Valley East and, more broadly, across the entire province. Today, of course, we’re discussing Bill 146 and the fall economic statement, and I have to admit that it is clear this government has been so busy covering its tracks and reversing its commitments that they have not been able to focus on the matters of real importance to Ontarians. Indeed, they’ve been so preoccupied with a range of things—the greenbelt debacle, an RCMP criminal investigation, a special prosecutor, an urban boundary flip-flop, three ministers resigning—that they have not been able to take meaningful action on real issues relating to affordability.

For example, they could have instituted rent control. They could increase the Ontario Child Benefit. They could look into potential collusion around grocery prices. But no, sadly, they have failed to do any of these things. Indeed, it is so clear that the Premier is a conductor on his own gravy train on which he’s yelling “all aboard” to donors, friends and people who stand to benefit from for-profit private corporations.

Now, as it relates to the fall economic statement, very clearly this government has not taken action. Rather than dealing with real issues, they proposed a $3-billion infrastructure bank with very, very questionable prospects.

As it relates to health care, we have a number of issues. Amidst the FAO reporting a $1.7-billion period of underspending in the last financial quarter—no action. They are leaving hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government on the table rather than raising the wages of health care workers such as PSWs. It was actually really difficult to hear the member across speak about the government’s so-called work on increasing hospitals in our province as we see unprecedented emergency department and hospital closures ever since this government took power.

In fact, on health care the number of things the government has done has been, frankly, minuscule. We saw a $72-million investment that is targeted specifically towards private, for-profit clinics. And just yesterday, we learned the consequence of investing in this manner. We learned that a private, for-profit hospital is being paid two to four times what the public hospital is being paid to provide the same service—the same surgery, the easiest surgery with the least complex patients at the most convenient times with the least oversight, and yet they are making the most money. This is how our budget is being mismanaged.

Moving forward, we now also see a number of so-called investments on home care, supposedly $569 million, which is, by the way, not at all a new investment into home care. It is merely a recommitment of hundreds of millions of dollars that were already supposed to be spent.

Let’s not forget that this government is merely dragging its feet. There is much more that I could say around the fall economic statement’s shortcomings on northern development, on Indigenous affairs, on colleges and universities, but I’d like to surrender the rest of my time to the member from Don Valley West.