This is a petition to the Ministry of Transportation regarding early warning lights. It’s a request to have warning lights all along the Thunder Bay Expressway as it goes from the very beginning of Thunder Bay to the very end, so it circles the entire city. The reason for the petition is because there are so many trucks coming through and they need a lot of time to stop. There are a lot of unnecessary accidents taking place because of the heavy traffic flow.

So the request of the petition is to put warning lights so that truck drivers and other drivers have enough room to stop.

I fully support this petition, and I want to thank Will Vandewater from the Lakehead Regional Safety Council for putting it together and gathering so many signatures. I will give this to new page Farhan.

I’d like to welcome Katy Commisso from the Ontario Bar Association, the newly elected second vice-president and in two years’ time will become the president—the first time in 50 years the association has been led by a lawyer from northwestern Ontario. Welcome to Queen’s Park. We’re glad you’re here.

First of all, I want to thank my colleague for his words, and I also want to thank him for pointing out that for-profit has no place in the child welfare system. It’s a poor motive for providing the really important help.

I’d just like to mention Feathers of Hope, a program that Irwin Elman had in northwestern Ontario. This was where Indigenous kids who had been in care had a safe place to come together and talk with each other, and they also presented to the leadership of the community and told us their stories. It was extremely important.

Can you tell us anything else that a child welfare advocate would bring if we were to have that position again?

To the Premier, through you, Speaker: Your government announced a one-time bonus for wildland firefighters, a great PR stunt that completely ignores the need for a higher base salary for these workers. It continues to amaze me how disrespectful the government is towards wildland firefighters.

According to OPSEU, the bonus was a take-it-or-leave-it offer that did not come out of consultation with the workers. Yes or no: Will your government commit to permanently raising the wages of wildland firefighters?

Prior to 2015, there were clear rules forbidding governments from using taxpayer dollars for self-promotion; however, in 2015, the Liberals changed the law so that the definition of “partisan advertising” was so watered down as to be useless, and in 2017 the Liberals got away with spending $17.4 million to promote themselves on the taxpayers’ dime—shameful.

In 2018, while in opposition, the current Minister of Health introduced a bill entitled End the Public Funding of Partisan Government Advertising Act, which is what we are reintroducing today.

Here we are now in 2024, and I’m getting furious phone calls from people watching the Super Bowl, asking me why they are being subjected to partisan political ads promoting the Ford Conservative government. That was just the beginning. When my constituents found out that $25 million of our taxpayer dollars were paying for these partisan ads, their fury changed to rage. What we are seeing is partisan and self-congratulatory government advertising.

What these ads tell me is that the Conservatives are so worried about the damage their government has done to public education and public health care; the fact that food banks can’t keep up with the demand; the fact that low-wage, precarious workers make up the majority of people teaching at universities and colleges; that arts institutions are crumbling; that the wages of forest firefighters, highway inspectors and conservation officers are so low they can’t attract and retain staff; that private, for-profit health care is popping up everywhere; and that schools are so underfunded, special needs kids are left by the wayside—what this tells me is that the only way the Conservatives can overcome their dreadful record is to use our money to convince us of the opposite.

You have a chance to rediscover integrity as a concept and a reality. Support our bill to end partisanship in taxpayer-funded advertising.

I want to thank the member from London West for a very thorough presentation.

The post-secondary sector has been chronically unfunded—wages for contract lecturers are minimum wage; people still paying off their PhDs; no time to share with students; doubling of class sizes; international students with the pressure of their families’ life savings riding on their backs; successive policies that have basically put the post-secondary sector on fire, and a bill offering up what I’d say is the equivalent of a hand-held fire extinguisher.

Do you see these conditions as being root causes of the mental health crises pervading the post-secondary sector?

Thank you. And I’d like to say, the biomass projects have nothing to do with helping the workers in Terrace Bay. There has been no communication with the workers in Terrace Bay whatsoever.

The owners of the mill, the Aditya Birla Group, received nearly $130 million from the province with an expectation that, when they purchased the mill, they were in for the long hail and the community could depend on the jobs. The town, the workers there and all the surrounding communities don’t have two years to wait until maybe another multinational thinks they can get a good deal on a mill that actually produces some of the best pulp in the world.

There has been no communication with the workers and almost no communication with the town leadership, so everybody is waiting to hear something.

So I want to know now, today, with workers who have travelled all the way here from Terrace Bay, what is the government doing, specifically, to bring back jobs for the workers at Terrace Bay, to bring that mill back to life?

Interjections.

I’d like to welcome two people who are here for Principals’ Day: Hillary Howe, who is here from the Superior-Greenstone District School Board, and Greg Arkwright, who is here from the Trillium Lakelands District School Board.

Welcome to your House. I’m looking forward to meeting with you later today.

Thank you for the presentation. I would just like to say, she started by saying they were having to fix the mess that was left behind, but we’ve had seven bills that this government has had to rescind, so I think that they’re quite capable of making their own mess, and a considerable mess.

I’d like to know how increasing the cost to people who are already Enbridge customers by $600 is keeping costs down for the people of Ontario.

I would like to welcome Tanya Baker, who is here from Thunder Bay, representing AdvantAge Ontario.

I would also like to welcome, from OPSEU: Noah Freedman, Simon Chateauvert, JP Hornick, RM Kennedy and Simran Ghuman, who are all here to represent the interests of forest firefighters.

We saw after the Mike Harris government privatized long-term care that conditions for workers and people in long-term care have been disastrous, but enormously profitable to the former Premier himself.

Given the terrible wages and working conditions of PSWs in home care at this time, are you worried that those working conditions and the quality of care will decline even more in order to provide profits to investors?

Thank you to the member from University–Rosedale for your comments. Now, we know that the Ontario Medical Association was also very concerned about fixing the crisis in primary care and expanding and integrating home and community care. There are a number of serious concerns about the privatization of community care. I’m also wondering if perhaps you could speak to the need to expand nurse practitioner-led clinics.

I want to pay tribute this morning to the many non-profit organizations that operate on inadequate budgets while providing essential services to our communities. Non-profits provide supports in times of crisis, and they are also the cultural and recreational lifeblood of our communities. Demand for non-profit services is through the roof, yet the sector is running on fumes.

In Thunder Bay, we have lost the important Street Outreach Service, known as SOS, and we have also lost the sexual assault clinic in Victoriaville mall. These losses are devastating for my community.

The Ontario Nonprofit Network is warning that many more vital services will collapse without significant changes in how the government supports this sector. Organizations struggle to attract and keep staff because one-off, project-based funding means that all jobs are short-term and precarious. Organizations need stable and long-term funding that reflects the true cost of delivering services and programs. Without a significant change in how governments deal with the non-profit sector, it will disappear, and with it, our social cohesion.

Government members need to look carefully at the recommendations of the Ontario Nonprofit Network and do what is necessary to support the critical work of these vital community organizations.

Thank you for the question. I can’t really answer why. I wish that the government had addressed price gouging, because it really is such a central area where people are being ripped off. I don’t think that it’s an easy thing to fix, because those corporations are extremely powerful, but it is the place of government to be protecting all of the people of Ontario from that kind of price-fixing.

Thank you very much for your question.

This petition is entitled “Stop Ford’s Health Care Privatization Plan.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition, and will sign it and give it to Margo.

I think we can all agree that home care done well is what seniors want, and we certainly support that. But home care done well is not by any means going to come out of this bill. We have seen the effects of privatized long-term care brought in first by the Mike Harris government and entrenched further with this government, and with this plan we see up to 30% of tax dollars going into shareholder profits from that large amount of money.

My question is, why should taxpayers be paying for shareholders profits when that money could be going to support pay for PSWs and quality care for our seniors?

My question is to the Premier. I am very concerned about this government’s plan to further privatize home and community care services. In Thunder Bay and across the province we have seen the devastating consequences of turning over critical services to private corporations: missed appointments, staffing shortages and, ultimately, worse outcomes for Ontarians.

To the Premier: Will you ensure there is publicly available home and community care for all Ontarians?

To the Premier: Will you listen to home and community care workers and clients and stop the privatization of essential services for seniors and people with disabilities?

The region of Thunder Bay has at least 45,000 people without access to primary care. Greenstone is losing two doctors at the end of the month, and seniors are being left without access to any care whatsoever.

There are solutions: Further increase enrolment and create a learn-and-stay program for doctors at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Establish more nurse practitioner-led clinics. Reduce the administrative burden on doctors and create a centralized electronic records and referral system now, not in five years.

Will the government finally invest in the solutions so clearly identified by medical professionals that are not happening now?

It’s getting late. Thank you, Speaker.

My question is, what is there in the bill or in the government’s plans to protect young workers? We know the WSIB is not there for workers, and so I’m very worried about the lives of young workers. I’m hoping you can tell me how the government will be protecting them.

I’ve heard from the government side an apparent interest in looking after human trafficking, about doing something about human trafficking. I was very shocked this morning to hear that the Elizabeth Fry Society of Hamilton lost its funding.

I’m going to create some context: When women are released from prison, they’re taken to a bus stop and they’re given a bus ticket, and that’s it. They’re immediately targets for human trafficking. The Elizabeth Fry Society provides programming to help women become ready to resume civilian life, and also to make sure that they get home safely and that they have safe places to live.

To see that cut is really horrifying to me. My question to the member from London West is, do you have concerns about how vulnerable women are being treated in this budget?