It’s an honour to rise in the House this afternoon in my role as parliamentary assistant to the President of the Treasury Board and as a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to discuss the process of concurrence in supply, particularly with respect to estimates for the 2023-24 fiscal year. This is the third year that I’ve had the privilege to rise in this House to speak in favour of concurrences.

But first, before I begin my remarks, I want to take a moment to offer my deepest condolences to the minister and her family on the passing of her father, the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, the 18th Prime Minister of Canada. Speaker, Brian Mulroney was the reason that I first got involved in politics in Mississauga, in the local campaigns of MP Don Blenkarn and then MPP Margaret Marland.

For them and for all of us, Brian Mulroney was a transformative leader and a reminder of what can be possible in public life. He was the driving force behind NAFTA, an incredible success in North America and an example of the benefits of free trade for the rest of the world. His acid rain treaty was one of the most successful environmental initiatives in history, with our emissions of chemicals like sulphur dioxide down by 90% or more.

As former US President George Bush said, Mulroney helped to end the Cold War. Along the way, he made Canada the first Western country or government to recognize the independence of Ukraine. He also holds a special place in the history of South Africa as a leader in the international campaign against apartheid.

Speaker, his position was not always popular at the time, but as Mulroney said a few years ago at the Albany Club event in honour of Sir John A. Macdonald, “Leaders must have vision and they must find the courage to fight for the policies that will give that vision life. Leaders must govern not for easy headlines in 10 days but for a better Canada in 10 years.”

I will always remember him with the deepest admiration and respect, and I’m so honoured to be able to work together with the minister to fight for our Premier’s vision, including the investments outlined in Ontario’s 2023 budget, Building a Strong Ontario Together, and supported by the 2023-24 estimates.

Speaker, concurrence in supply will not be the subject of the water cooler discussions tomorrow. It won’t trend on Twitter or appear on the nightly news. But as I’ve always said before, during this annual process, I believe it is important for the general public and, in particular, for all members of this House to understand every detail of the procedures of our fiscal cycle.

It can’t be said enough that every dollar spent throughout the fiscal year comes out of the pockets of hard-working Ontario taxpayers. In times like these, it is very essential that the government be held to the highest standards of fiscal accountability and transparency for all of the decisions that we make. And the concurrence in supply debate is a key part of meeting that high standard.

So, to begin, I would like to outline the government’s fiscal cycle. The former President of the Treasury Board tabled volume 1 of the 2023-24 expenditure estimates on April 20, 2023. This part of the expenditure estimates provides a detailed public record of government ministry and office budgets, based on the spending plans outlined in the 2023 Ontario budget.

Of course, the government may also table supplementary estimates to ensure the government has the funding it needs through the year. In this fiscal year, supplementary estimates were tabled on November 29, 2023, and again last week, on February 29, 2024. Combined, they provided additional funding for the contingency fund, to add greater flexibility to the fiscal plan, and for education and transportation initiatives.

The President of the Treasury Board tabled volume 2 of the 2023-24 expenditure estimates on November 29, 2023. This second volume of estimates outlines the spending plans of the independent legislative offices, including the Office of the Assembly, the Auditor General, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Ontario Ombudsman.

Speaker, all together, the estimates provide details of the operating and capital spending needs of ministries and the legislative offices for the 2023-24 fiscal year. They represent the government’s formal request to the Legislature to approve its spending requirements for the fiscal year. This is an annual process that every Ontario government completes to provide each ministry with the legal authority to spend their capital and operating budgets. Basically, it allows us to proceed with the business of government.

For everyone curious about estimates, I should note that they are all available to the public at ontario.ca/estimates. This an excellent resource because it provides information on estimates going back more than 20 years.

Once the estimates are tabled, they are referred to the relevant standing committees for review. The committees then select ministries to appear and answer questions about the relevant estimates. The 2023-24 cycle is the second time that we have used this approach. Previously, the estimates were referred to the old Standing Committee on Estimates. And as a member of that committee at the time, I can recall—and I’m sure other members will agree—under the old standing orders, many fewer ministries were selected for the estimates review process.

So, again, I want to thank the government House leader for his approach, which ensures that there can be a more rigorous review of the estimates of almost every ministry, every year.

Speaker, committee members have the opportunity to review specific allocations. These allocations are referred to as votes, because the committee votes on each allocation. Committee members review the estimates briefing books provided by the ministries, including the published plans and annual reports for each ministry, which provide important context for every vote item. Members then have the opportunity to question representatives from the ministry and give them an opportunity to explain the proposed spending.

The reasons for this process are clear: It provides oversight of the government’s spending and ensures that spending is 100% accountable to legislators, and through them, accountable to the people of Ontario.

Standing order 66(a) requires that the committee must complete their work by the third Thursday in November of each year. After this process, the estimates of all the ministries and offices that were selected for review by the Legislature’s committees are reported back to the House for concurrence. Which brings us to the issue that we’re dealing with today.

This process known as concurrence, together with our review of the supply bill later this month, represents the final steps toward the approval of all spending proposed by the government in the estimates and supplementary estimates that have been tabled for the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2024. This, along with the public accounts process, can be seen as crossing the finish line for the fiscal year.

It’s very important for me to note that the government is not proposing any new spending today. Those debates and those votes have already taken place. What the government is asking for is for the House to approve the spending plans that are outlined in the 2023-24 estimates.

Speaker, it is important to note that the spending plans outlined in the 2023-24 estimates are consistent with the 2023 Ontario budget, Building a Strong Ontario, published a year ago. As the parliamentary assistant at the Treasury Board, I had the opportunity to work with the Minister of Finance and with our colleagues to help ensure that the 2023 budget is a fiscally responsible plan for a stronger Ontario.

I also had the opportunity to travel around the province last year for pre-budget consultations with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. As I’ve said before, the 2023 budget reflects the concerns and priorities of the Ontarians who were heard from during the process.

It was also a long-term, prudent and realistic path forward for Ontario. Speaker, that path has been clear. Throughout the estimates process, it focused on driving growth and lowering costs, getting key infrastructure projects built faster and attracting more jobs and more investments right across Ontario. This was a budget designed to help businesses, families and workers.

The people of Ontario deserve a government with a clear vision for the future. As Brian Mulroney would say, they deserve leaders who govern not for easy headlines in 10 days, but for a better Ontario in 10 years. Because we know that the hard-working people of Ontario were not served well by the government that looked only at short-term political consideration.

Before we were elected in 2018, companies were leaving Ontario. Ontario had lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs, including many in the auto sector. Sergio Marchionne at Fiat Chrysler said Ontario was the most expensive place to do business in North America. My friends and I at the Ford assembly plant in Oakville, where I worked for 31 years, watched as Ontario lost auto sector jobs, while a former Liberal Minister of Finance from Mississauga–Lakeshore told us that assembly line manufacturing was just a thing of the past.

Speaker, 15 years of Liberal mismanagement and underinvestment left us with an infrastructure deficit, overcrowded hospitals and badly outdated facilities that simply were not up to the challenges we faced during the pandemic. As the former Liberal Deputy Premier and the Minister of Health George Smitherman said, Ontario Liberals really starved health care for five years, and that is not spoken enough. Former Premier Wynne admits that she would not have done this if she had known a pandemic was coming. I was shocked last year when the current Liberal leader, Bonnie Crombie, who did know a pandemic was coming, told TVO that she would have spent even less on health care.

Speaker, we have a very different approach. The Premier, the Minster of Finance and our team have made Ontario open for business again. We’re cutting taxes and energy costs; we’re building a world-class skilled workforce; and we’re reducing burdens and red tape. These policies have produced an economic recovery that leads the country, and they give us the revenue we need to invest in world-class infrastructure and service.

Since 2018, Ontario has added over 715,000 new jobs. In fact, in 2023, Ontario created more manufacturing jobs than all 50 US states combined. In the last three years alone, we have been able to attract over $28 billion of investment from global automotive manufacturers.

As the Premier said last month at the event at the Pioneer gas station in Port Credit, provincial revenue in 2017 and 2018 in the last full year of the former Liberal government was $150 billion. This year, 2023-24, provincial revenue is projected to be almost $203 billion, a $53-billion, or 35%, increase over six years. Growth has given us the revenue we need for the specific investments in hospitals, schools, transit, highways and other key infrastructure that are included in the estimates, and I’d like to speak about some of these today in great detail.

Speaker, we all recognize the Ontario population is growing rapidly. That is one of the reasons this government has developed the most ambitious capital plan in Ontario’s history. Ontario’s Plan to Build includes investments of $185 billion in infrastructure over the next 10 years, including $20.4 billion this year alone and almost $26 billion next year, in 2024-25. This is real investment and a real commitment to the growth and prosperity of this province.

But, Speaker, since we are discussing the finances of the province in this fiscal cycle, I think it would be a good time to provide some top-line numbers. As you know, a month ago, the Minister of Finance released the province’s third-quarter finances to provide an update on the overall picture of Ontario’s economic and fiscal outlook. This is the most up-to-date financial information that we have.

Of course, the deficit is a key measure of the province’s financial health and stability. As the government upholds the highest standards of fiscal responsibility, it is always important to understand exactly how much of a burden that a deficit represents for future generations of this province. With this in mind, the province’s 2023-24 deficit is now predicted to be $4.5 billion. Now, there is no denying that this is a significant number. However, it should also be noted that this deficit is $1.1 billion less than what was predicted in the 2023 fall economic statement. This means that we’re moving in the right direction.

The reduction of the deficit was mainly due to increased revenues and lower debt interest expenses. This is very good news for the fiscal health of our province. It means that we’re reducing the burden on future generations of Ontarians, on our children and our grandchildren and on their children as well as the many newcomers who will come to Ontario in the next year.

Setting my red pen aside now and picking up my black pen: Overall government revenues in 2023-24 are now projected to be $202.7 billion. That’s $942 million higher than the forecast from the 2023 fall economic statement. Now, it’s a fair question to ask: How did the fall economic statement underestimate government revenues by nearly a billion dollars? Well, the answer is actually quite simple: The new revenue forecast reflects stronger-than-expected college sector revenues. It also reflects higher tax revenues as a result of new information received from the federal government since the fall economic statement.

In 2023-24, overall program expenses are now projected to be $193.4 billion. That is $424 million higher than the forecast in the 2023 fall economic statement, and it’s $2.8 billion higher than the 2023 budget plan. Again, the obvious question is “Why?” Well, there are a few factors that explain this increase. Firstly, there was an additional $1.7-billion investment in the health care sector, mainly to address the pressures related to the compensation costs, cancer treatment services and other health care initiatives. As well, there was a new $704-million investment as part of the New Deal for Toronto, including $504 million for transit and transportation.

Speaker, I would now like to move into some of the particular details about the government’s fiscal activities over the past year, including some of the key investments that the government has made in 2023-24.

As you know, Speaker, the health and well-being of the people of Ontario has always been and always will be the top priority of this Premier and this government. We continue to make investments to improve health and long-term-care infrastructure right across the province, from Fort Frances to Cornwall, from Pickle Lake to Kingsville, and everywhere in between.

Under the leadership of this Premier, in the 2023 budget the government committed more than $54 billion over 10 years in the largest hospital and long-term-care building programs in Canadian history. That includes $32 billion in capital grants—grants that will get shovels in the ground to build the health care infrastructure that Ontario needs, including over 50 hospital projects that would add 3,000 new beds over 10 years.

In long-term care, the government is making an historic investment of $6.4 billion to build over 30,000 new beds and to upgrade 28,000 long-term-care beds across the province by 2028.

In my community of Mississauga–Lakeshore alone, this includes an historic multi-billion dollar investment to build the largest hospital in Canadian history and the largest long-term-care home in Ontario, which we just opened in November. At 22 storeys, three million square feet and almost 1,000 beds, the new Mississauga Hospital will be the most advanced in the country. It will include a 200,000-square-foot women’s and children’s hospital, which will be the first of its kind in Canada. In total, it will be triple the size of the current hospital, which first opened in 1958.

And in one of Ontario’s fastest-growing communities in Brampton, we’re working together with the William Osler Health System to transform Peel Memorial hospital into a 24/7 in-patient hospital and urgent care centre.

Speaker, we promised to make investments to improve health care in every corner of this province, to ease pressure on hospitals, to help doctors and nurses work more efficiently, and to provide better, faster health care for patients and their families. And we’re keeping that promise.

In the 2023 budget, the province announced significant investments to reduce hospital wait times by offering more surgeries at community surgical and diagnostic centres. This investment allows hospitals to turn their attention to more complex and high-risk surgeries, reduce surgery wait times, and ease emergency department pressures. And I’m pleased to be able to say that this approach has already seen results. As of June 2023, the wait-list for surgeries has been reduced by more than 25,000, from its peak in March 2022. The government is committed to learn from this and to reduce wait times even further, by expanding funding to existing community surgical and diagnostic centres and funding new centres for MRI and CT imaging and orthopaedic surgeries and procedures.

Of course, reducing hospital wait times is just one part of our vision for the health care system in Ontario. We’re also making important progress on our plan to build modern, safe and comfortable long-term-care homes for seniors and residents.

From 2011 to 2018, the former Liberal government added only 611 long-term-care beds for the entire province; as the number of Ontarians over 75 increased by 75%, the number of long-term-care beds increased by less than 1%.

When I was elected five years ago, there were over 4,500 people on the wait-list for long-term care in Mississauga alone, and we had 20% fewer long-term-care beds than the provincial average, with many of them badly out of date.

This government has a very different vision. When I joined the Premier just over three years ago to announce the accelerated build program in an empty field on Speakman Drive in Mississauga–Lakeshore, he had a clear vision of what it could be: a modern, comfortable and safe new home for hundreds of seniors. As I said, 632 new residents have just moved into Wellbrook Place, the largest long-term-care home in Ontario—larger than the Credit Valley Hospital was when it was first built 38 years ago. It will be part of the new campus of care for seniors, including a new health service building and the very first residential hospice in Mississauga.

And, Speaker, there are projects like this under way right across Ontario. Since the 2023 budget, a number of new long-term-care homes have been completed and opened to new residents. Of course, any new facility that is built is going to require staff: more trained physicians, nurses, personal support workers and other health care professionals. That’s why we’re building a stronger health care workforce that will be able to meet the needs of our growing province.

Over last five years, Ontario has added over 10,000 new doctors and over 80,000 new nurses to the health care system. Thanks to this government’s investments, Ontario now leads the country, with 90% of people connected to regular health care providers. But, Speaker, this is just the start. As the Deputy Premier announced last month, the government is investing $110 million to connect up to 320,000 people to primary care teams.

Combined with this historic investment to expand medical education, including in growing and underserved communities like Brampton and Scarborough, and the work that we’re doing to allow highly skilled but internationally trained doctors to care for patients in Ontario, the Minister of Health expects that up to 98% of people—almost everyone in Ontario—will be connected to a regular health care provider within the next few years.

Of course, Ontario’s growing population also means that there is a need to continue to build the province’s infrastructure. As I’ve mentioned, the government plans to invest over $185 billion over the next 10 years in public infrastructure. Speaker, I’m proud to say that this is the largest capital plan in the 156-year history of Ontario.

This plan includes $71 billion for transit infrastructure, including $7.5 billion this year, the largest investment in transit in Ontario’s history. It includes game-changing new projects like the Ontario Line here in Toronto, which will connect to over 40 other transit routes, including the GO train line, TTC subway and streetcar lines, and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. In my community of Mississauga–Lakeshore, it includes the new 18-kilometre Hazel McCallion LRT line on Hurontario and the new BRT line on Lakeshore.

The government’s plan also includes $28 billion over 10 years to support highway expansion, maintenance and repair projects right across the province to improve our highway network, because, whatever the federal environment minister may say, we know that highways and roads are critical to the economic well-being of Ontario. This includes Highway 413, which will connect Peel, Halton and York regions to support the moving of people and goods across the western GTA.

As the Minister of Transportation said earlier this week, the GTA is adding hundreds of thousands of new residents every year. We simply don’t have the highway capacity that we need to support this growth. All the major highways in the western GTA, including the 407, will be over capacity within the next 10 years. The 413 will finally bring relief to an area that clearly needs it, saving drivers up to 30 minutes of commute each way. That’s five hours per week, 260 hours each year, or a total of 11 days every year.

The Bradford Bypass, from Highway 400 in Simcoe county to Highway 404 in York region, is expected to save commuters even more, up to 35 minutes per trip. That is six hours each week, or 300 hours each year. In my community, the first phase of the QEW/Dixie interchange improvement is now completed in Mississauga–Lakeshore, and the $314-million QEW/Credit River Improvement project is well under way, with traffic now on the new twin bridge over the Credit River.

Speaker, this government is also making improvements to ensure that we can build highways, transit and other community infrastructure better and faster. For example, we are looking at how big projects were delivered in the past, and we found that we could do this better and more efficiently. We are improving our procurement process to reduce the risk of delays.

The government is now using a variety of delivery models and innovative procurement strategies to make it easier to work with builders on project requirements, design and pricing. This will help to ensure that Ontario gets the most competitive bids for our infrastructure projects.

We have re-examined the bidding process, looking through new lenses that value creativity and efficiency. We are now separating large complex projects such as the Ontario Line into smaller contracts to generate more market interest and to lay the foundation for future work.

The government is continuing to use modular bids and promote design standardization while also working with municipalities to enable faster improvements. All of these initiatives are helping us get shovels in the ground while creating new jobs to help us build our much-needed new infrastructure. That is why we introduced the Building Transit Faster Act, to streamline processes on priority projects.

I would also like to highlight the important initiatives from my ministry, the Treasury Board Secretariat. In just a few weeks, on April 1, a new regulation under the Building Ontario Businesses Initiative Act, the BOBI, will come into effect. This will help provide businesses across Ontario with greater access to procurement opportunities right across the public sector, including ministries and agencies but also hospitals and schools in the broader public sector.

It will do this by changing the way we evaluate bids to help level the playing field for Ontario businesses. Because of this initiative, Ontario businesses will be able to sell more goods and services and create more jobs in their local communities.

In fact, our government expects, through BOBI, at least $3 billion in contracts will go to Ontario businesses every year by 2026. That’s $3 billion back into our own economy. And when you think about this, it only makes sense that Ontario businesses should benefit from the spending of their own government. But beyond the actual dollar amount, I bring up the example because it demonstrates the kind of innovative thinking and approach that our government is taking. This is not a time for businesses as usual.

I have mentioned some of the economic pressures that are affecting the people of Ontario in their every day lives. It is because of these factors that the Premier and this government have made it a top priority to help keep cost down for families, businesses and people right across Ontario. The province has taken many actions this year to do just that, and I’d like to take an opportunity to speak about just a few of them now.

After much consultation, we have extended the province’s gas tax and fuel tax rate cuts until the end of June 2024. That means savings for the people of Ontario every time they go to the pumps.

As Jay Goldberg, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said, this will ensure that critical tax relief continues into 2024. At the same time, we have called on the federal government to stop their carbon tax increase, which would add 17.6 cents per litre to the price of gas on April 1. That increases the price of everything.

I want to take a moment to thank my friend from Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for his motion number 82, which I look forward to supporting.

Speaking of putting more money back in people’s pockets, I also want to congratulate my friends the Minister of Transportation and the Associate Minister of Transportation on the One Fare initiative, which eliminates double or triple fares for most local transit services in the greater Golden Horseshoe when commuters also use GO Transit service.

With the One Fare program, commuters in Mississauga–Lakeshore and across the province are now able to travel more easily and affordably, saving an average of $1,600 each year on an expanded and electrified GO Transit Lakeshore West line, on the new Hazel McCallion LRT and on the new Lakeshore BRT corridor, on the TTC or on other municipal transit systems right across the GTA.

Speaker, the 2023 budget also provides financial support for more seniors by expanding the Guaranteed Annual Income System program—100,000 more seniors will be eligible for this program beginning this July, including payments of up to $166 per month for single seniors and $332 per month for seniors in couples. I think it’s important to note that this benefit is now adjusted each year based on inflation, which is a critical detail in these times.

Our government also committed to invest in supportive housing, with an additional $202 million each year for the Homelessness Prevention Program and the Indigenous Supportive Housing Program, a 40% increase over the 2023-23 budget. Both of these programs were designed to help those at risk of homelessness and those escaping domestic violence.

In my community of Mississauga–Lakeshore, this investment is helping to double the capacity of Armagh house, the only transitional housing facility in Peel for victims of domestic violence. Again, I want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and his team for all their great work on this program.

These are just a few examples of the concrete actions that this government is taking to keep costs down for some of this province’s most vulnerable people.

Speaker, I would like to close my remarks today by thanking all the members who are here today to listen to the debate, and I hope all members will vote in support.