Good morning, Speaker, and welcome back. It’s good to be back here, I think.

This question is for the Premier. Throughout the break, I was travelling all around this province. It’s pretty clear that people all across this province are hurting right now. They’re feeling the rising cost of everything from utilities to mortgage payments, groceries, rent. For workers in our hospitals, in our schools, in the broader public sector, they’ve also had to contend with their own government fighting to suppress their wages with Bill 124 and then with the costly legal battle and campaign to defend that bill. But the workers won, and the courts have ruled once again that Bill 124 was unconstitutional. It was an unconstitutional attack on the rights of working people and their paycheques.

So my question to the Premier is: Will he apologize to Ontario’s hard-working nurses, PSWs, teachers, educational assistants and all the public sector workers for suppressing their wages with Bill 124?

Interjections.

I’ll tell you, Premier, that did not sound like an apology to me. The government not only used their power to cut the wages of health care and education workers during a pandemic, they spent untold amounts of dollars fighting those workers in court for years, only to be told what we already all knew: The bill is and always was unconstitutional.

Speaker, through you again to the Premier—do-over—how much did this government spend on legal costs to keep down workers’ wages on Bill 124?

Interjections.

Bill 124 deteriorated conditions in hospitals, in long-term-care facilities, at the worst possible time. We were already struggling with rampant hallway medicine when this government came into power, and they managed to make things even worse. Burned-out nurses, health care workers have been leaving the sector in droves. They can’t get out of here fast enough with this government in power. And guess what, Speaker? Private nursing agencies, the friends of this government, have been ready to jump in and fill the gap, bleeding our hospitals dry at the same time, and demanding exorbitant fees for exactly the same work.

Speaker, back to the Premier: Will he admit his choices worsened the crisis facing our health care system and, once and for all, please, apologize to Ontarians for Bill 124.

Interjections.

Just consider for a moment, Speaker, how many times this government has let Ontarians down. We are starting this session with another example of that, another policy reversal.

Here’s the thing, though: There are consequences. Because of Bill 124, the privatization of health care and the growth of these for-profit nursing agencies has absolutely exploded. Ontarians want reliable, publicly delivered health care, not a publicly funded revenue stream for private companies.

Back to the Premier: If the government is going to continue backing up the policy train this session, can they make reversing their privatization of health care their next signature policy reversal?

Interjections.

Speaker, the government has had to backtrack on almost all of their major policy decisions because they met with tremendous public opposition: the greenbelt grab, unilateral municipal boundary changes, the dissolution of Peel, licence plates you can’t read, cuts to public health during a pandemic—all bad ideas that we warned you about. At this rate, they’re going to spend more time reversing their own legislation than taking the actions that would make life better for the people of Ontario, the people that they were elected to serve.

Speaker, back to the Premier: How many reversals, how many flip-flops, how many backtracks does he have to be forced to make before he realizes that his insiders-first agenda is failing Ontario?

Interjections.

I want to take, for a moment, the plan to sell off our critical services at ServiceOntario to yet another American big box corporation, like Staples and Walmart. Ontarians are so on to you. They are so on to you, and they can tell that this is another privatization scheme, Speaker, that is going to make corporations richer and not serve the people of this province.

My question is for the Premier: How exactly did Staples get a sole-source contract to open ServiceOntario kiosks?

Speaker, to the Premier: Since the Legislature was last in session, Ontarians want to know, how many government officials, including ministers’ staff and staff in the Premier’s office, have spoken with the RCMP as part of their investigation into the greenbelt scandal?

The greenbelt grab was an $8.3-billion scheme intended only to carve up vital resources in the province of Ontario for wealthy developers with connections to this government. And I will remind everyone in this room again: They are being criminally investigated by the RCMP for that scheme. It has cost this government at least two cabinet ministers. An RCMP investigation, I will remind you again, is under way. And we are still no closer to improving access to affordable housing in this province.

Today in Ontario, housing starts are down from last year, the cost of housing is skyrocketing and rents are worse than ever. Encampments have become the norm in most cities. Will the Premier finally act, support our proposal to build the affordable, non-market housing that people desperately need and bring back real rent control?

Interjections.