You don’t like Working for Workers one, two, three and four?

Get it done. I would just say, do something to alleviate some of the pressure.

Moving on to health care—let me just take a look. I want to say, I just want to do a special little shout-out on the health care file to the good people of Minden, who are still fighting for some financial transparency in how their emergency rooms in their hospital were closed. They continue to share information with us. They’ve done their financial responsibility, their fiscal due diligence. It really is too bad that the Ministry of Health did not do that, quite honestly. This is an emergency room which was a game-changer for that community, as they all are. You will know that we’ve had record emergency room closures across the province like we’ve never seen in Ontario. Health care professionals from across all sectors have said that this is the worst health care crisis they have ever seen in Ontario. That is not a record to be proud of.

Looking at where the funding is going right now and following the FAO report from earlier today, the impact of the unconstitutional Bill 124 which this government brought in, which is wage restraint legislation that limited increases to 1%—while you’re taking care of corporations, 1% for health care workers, the mass migration of talent from this province. It keeps me up at night, quite honestly. How are we going to rebuild the health care sector when such deep disrespect was shown to them—and illegal—Madam Speaker? Bill 124 was deemed illegal. This government fought it two times in the court system. It’s ironic that they finally got their day in court. It did take, I think, almost three years, though.

It does lead me to believe, watching how Minden was treated, how various emergency rooms across this province are experiencing such stress on basic services, access to family physicians—we heard at pre-budget consultations one doctor in a rural community who is 76 years old who said he would love to retire. The pressure for him as the only doctor in that community is profound, right? Where is the strategy for this government to attract doctors and medical professionals here?

The Ontario Medical Association has some good suggestions. It’s not like talented, knowledgeable people haven’t stepped forward and said, “Listen, this would be a really good idea.” It’s just that there’s no willingness, no goodwill to actually entertain some solutions. I think, really, when we’re seeing some of the privatization—which, of course, the parliamentary assistant said would never happen. This is not going to be privatization, she said, but here we have people paying for basic access to primary caregivers in Ontario to the tune of $4,900 a year.

I will say that we are going into a very dark place, though, with the recent decision for a pay-for-plasma centre coming to Hamilton. Our members from Hamilton asked this question earlier this morning, receiving a dodgy answer. When I say “dodgy,” I mean just not even meeting the question. I know it’s not called answer period, but it would be really good when we got some information. Instead, the Attorney General keeps coming back asking us questions. I feel like this place has become a little bit of a theatre of the absurd some days, or a Monty Python film.

But this is what’s happening right now in Hamilton: A private company from Spain plans to open a centre in Hamilton that will pay for plasma donations. I’m going to tell you why this is so concerning—and there is an organization called BloodWatch.org that suggests the plasma collection centre will be located on Barton Street in Hamilton. Listen, if you know Hamilton, you will know this is an area of the city which is really hurting, I mean seriously hurting, and has been for a long time. It is an area where, historically, there has been higher unemployment and lower incomes than the city’s average.

Then Dr. Kerry Beal, who’s the lead physician at the Shelter Health Network, an excellent organization doing amazing work on a shoestring budget, said, “Isn’t that going to be a great location? They’re targeting vulnerable people.” Imagine you are looking at paying a higher energy bill, paying higher rent because there’s no more rent control, sky-high grocery costs, and then this place opens up in your neighbourhood. Now, we don’t know the full price point, but they’re suggesting between $75 and $100 for a plasma donation.

I have to say, BC has ruled this out. Even the Liberals, in 2014, when this was first suggested, stopped it; they blocked it under a significant amount of pressure. I keep thinking about these government advertisements and these commercials that we’re paying $25 million for—that’s a low ball on that part. But if the government is concerned about blood donations, which are down post-pandemic, or plasma donations, why not use some of that money to advertise how great this is for you? It’s a good thing for people to do, if they’re able to do so. But what does this government say? We got no answer this morning from the Minister of Health on this issue.

This needs to be shut down. It needs to be shut down now. It is a predatory practice. Privatizing the sale of bodily fluids like blood and plasma is a dangerous precedent to be setting. I have to say that you will see very vulnerable people coming to this place to earn $75 or $100 for their plasma, instead of a proactive, healthy policy in place, which should be supported by the government of the day.

Plasma and blood are obviously needed in the health care system, but selling it from a company from Spain is a very dangerous direction to go in. It makes me wonder, what else is going to be for sale in the province of Ontario? Is everything going to be for sale?

Interjection: Organs?

Yes, I think so.

Further debate? Further debate?

Seeing none, Mr. Jones has moved concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carries?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Further debate? Further debate?

Seeing none, Mr. Jones has moved concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Government order number 43.

Organs? It is such a dangerous precedent to be focused on.

The Shelter Health Network: We share the concerns of this organization that “worries that the vulnerable population they care for will use the pay-for-plasma centres as a source of income because they desperately need money.” This is really where we are in Ontario right now. I would have loved to have heard a very clear answer from the Minister of Health this morning, saying, “We’re going to shut this down. This is wrong. Not everything should be for sale.”

One of the last issues I want to talk about—I already addressed the justice issue. I should mention this, because it’s very politically—the timing of this particular motion, the upcoming budget bill, we’re going to be watching the justice file very closely. Right now, there are “53,000 unresolved cases … as of March 2023,” at the Landlord and Tenant Board, “impacting at least one million Ontarians.” This is a direct quote from Tribunal Watch Ontario.

Even the folks that are in prison right now, the latest stat was 63% of them are on remand. So these are people who may be innocent but they can’t afford bail, and they have been there for months or years. This is impacting families, impacting the economy. For some reason, the Attorney General doesn’t see that this is an urgent issue, and we’re just going to keep putting a lot of pressure on that.

But the other story that is around community and children’s services: Now, we all know that the autism wait-list right now is a disgrace. It is a point of shame that I think that this government will never be able to get away from. That system is so broken, and families tell me that they are breaking because of it. But our critic from Kiiwetinoong raised the issue of a recent story by Global News that just broke, and it’s called “Profiting Off Kids: Indigenous Kids Allegedly Called ‘Cash Cows’ of Ontario’s Child-Welfare System.”

Any government of any stripe anywhere should be judged on how they treat their most vulnerable. These children are some of the most vulnerable in this country and in this province. This story is called, “The Business of Indigenous Kids in Care.” It reads, “At a group home in eastern Ontario, the owner allegedly called First Nations kids from northern Ontario his ‘bread and butter.’

“Behind the doors of other privately run group homes”—which are a scourge in this province, and the oversight on these homes is almost non-existent—“former workers say that staff and management referred to Indigenous youth sent there for help as the company’s ‘cash cows,’ ‘money-makers,’ or even ‘paycheques.’” Imagine referring to Indigenous children in that manner.

“A year-long Global News investigation has revealed how some private group homes allegedly prey on the vulnerability of Indigenous youth from remote First Nations in order to generate profit.” This sounds accurate, because if it was a not-for-profit, profit wouldn’t be driving the chasing of the money, right?

“‘These are lives. They’re not a commodity’: Indigenous kids in care” are not a commodity. This needs to be clearly stated, and the minister responsible—I mean, I like the minister. I saw no acknowledgement that this is actually happening in Ontario, but this story goes on to say, “The result, according to some workers, child welfare experts and youths, are horrendous experiences some liken to the abuse that took place during … residential schools….

“Allegations of kids being violently restrained. Indigenous youths allegedly punished for speaking their languages. A vulnerable child asking visiting Indigenous social workers if they were there to rescue him.

“This … investigation, based on leaked and other internal government documents obtained under freedom of information laws, government contract data, and interviews with more than 100 former group home workers, youths and children’s aid employees, reveals: …

“—These companies allegedly charge resource-starved Indigenous children’s aid societies in the north higher daily fees to care for their kids compared with what they charge non-Indigenous agencies….

“—These group homes are often compared to a ‘prison’ where staff frequently use physical force to restrain children, former workers and youths said.”

And this is the last quote from this article: “‘People need to know that Indigenous youth are being monetized by the child-welfare system and that no cultural considerations are being made,’ said a former worker of multiple group homes in the Ottawa area….

“‘The average person would be quite shocked and frankly horrified,’” and we should be. We should be, Madam Speaker. This is not the Ontario of promise. These are intentional financial decisions that the government is making. The lack of oversight on all of these files and the accountability and needed transparency on these files are incredibly concerning for not only myself as the finance and Treasury Board critic—you certainly give me a lot of material to work with—but our entire caucus.

So we’re committed to showing up for the people of this province, for bringing the voices of the people who are not going to your events, who are not buying tickets to your stakeholder relations, not attending your mental health mixers—we are focused on bringing the real voices of Ontarians to this place, as we’ve taken an oath to do as legislators.

Madam Speaker, this government could do so much better for the people of this province and we’re going to hold you to account in that regard.

Further debate? Further debate? Seeing none, Mr. Jones has moved concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Education, including supplementaries. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy House leader.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Government order number 45.

Government order number 46.

Thank you, Speaker. Do you think I was going to let an opportunity go to waste to talk about the great things that are happening in Ontario thanks to Premier Ford and the team that is bringing jobs and prosperity right across all of Ontario?

We’re reminded, of course, of some years ago, under the previous Liberal government, when we lost 300,000 jobs. I recall the day when the former chair of what was then called Fiat Chrysler was sitting on a stage in Windsor with the former Premier, Kathleen Wynne—don’t forget auto companies were leaving Ontario at the time—and she was musing with Chrysler’s chair, “Are you going to be expanding in Ontario?” He looked at her with this shocked look on his face and said—I’m paraphrasing: “You have made Ontario the most expensive jurisdiction in North America in which to do business.” And she pushed a little further, and he replied one more time, “You’ve got to lower the cost of doing business in Ontario.”

The very first thing Premier Ford said to our team when we got elected was, “You heard loud and clear the problem in Ontario: 300,000 manufacturing jobs have left us. We’ve got to lower the cost of doing business in Ontario.” And we began immediately by reducing the cost of WSIB, workers’ compensation. Think about it: We charged employers a fee. We had charged so much that that fund was so overstuffed with cash, it was far beyond any financial realms. It was so far beyond any moral requirements that we reduced that fee by 50%. That is a $2.5-billion reduction in the cost of doing business in Ontario overnight, and that’s permanent reduction. The benefits have not changed, but the premiums have been lowered by 50%.

The next thing we did was bring in what’s called an accelerated capital cost allowance. That means that businesses can now write off the cost of their brand new equipment in the same year. That’s a billion-dollar savings to the businesses.

Then we reduced industrial and commercial hydro rates by 15%. That’s a billion three in savings.

The Liberals had a tax increase plan for January 1: $465 million in taxes that were to go up on January 1. We cancelled that tax increase and every other tax increase since the day we were elected. That’s $465 million, year after year after year, of savings.

Then we lowered the provincial share of your local property taxes by $450 million annually.

Then the red tape reductions began. Think about this: There are a couple of simple red tape reductions. General Motors, for instance, told us at the CAMI plant, they have to go through 120 pages of red tape. We reduced it to 12 for them. That is a massive savings of money and time that they can put in to doing great things like designing the BrightDrop electric vehicle that comes off the assembly line in General Motors.

We put red tape reductions that today amount to almost a billion dollars a year. Add all these things together and many more, and it is an $8-billion annual savings to the cost of doing business in Ontario. We pulled on every lever that we had at our hand to lower the cost of doing business, and the business community did exactly what we expected they would do. We lowered the cost, we lowered taxes, we lowered all of the red tape, we got out of their way and let them do what they do best, and what do they do? They hired 700,000 new employees since we were elected.

You can see the signs of this success all over Ontario. Here we are in Toronto. You look up in any direction in the city of Toronto and you will see cranes building this city. In fact, today, there are 240 cranes in the city of Toronto at work. Now, Speaker, that is an all-time record. There is no other city in North America that has ever had more than 60 cranes at the same time. There are 240.

This is an interesting list that I must read. There are more cranes operating in Toronto today than every other city on the crane list. That includes Seattle, LA, Denver, Boston, Washington, Portland, Honolulu, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Phoenix. We have more cranes operating in Toronto today than all those cities combined.

That’s the might. That’s the power. That’s what happens when you reduce taxes, lower the cost of doing business. They put people to work. They create jobs. Families earn incomes. This is what’s happening in the city of Toronto. This is what’s happening all across Ontario.

No better example than in the auto sector, where we now have landed $28 billion of new EV auto business in the province of Ontario in the last three years. That’s a remarkable statistic, and it is in conjunction with the $3 billion that we’ve landed in the life sciences business and the tens of billions of dollars we’ve landed in the tech sector. It is a remarkable picture that you see in Ontario.

You’ve heard me in this Legislature—I love this statistic. I can say this statistic 10 times a day in this Legislature. There were more manufacturing jobs created in Ontario last year than in all 50 US states combined. That’s what’s happening. That’s the picture of Ontario that people need to see.

You think back to that day when Sergio Marchionne was sitting on the stage telling Premier Wynne that Ontario is expensive. Reuters announced that there would be $300 billion spent in the EV sector, and zero of it was coming to Canada, zero of it was coming to Ontario. We put that $8 billion of savings, that power of that low tax, in front of the business community, and they did everything they said they would do. Last year, the business community hired another 180,000 people. Ninety-three per cent of those were full-time jobs. This is what’s happening.

What you hear across the aisle and what you see, the Liberal policies of high tax, carbon tax—tax, tax, tax—that is exactly the opposite of what we’re doing here in Ontario. We’re lowering the costs. We’re putting the conditions for businesses to want to be here and create jobs, and that is exactly what we see happening in the province of Ontario.

So, Speaker, there’s a very different Ontario happening today: one of job creation, one of economic development. We’ve had, as trade minister, the privilege of travelling far and wide last year, and we heard two messages—very consistent, unrehearsed, un-asked-for messages. We’ve heard that in this world, this post-COVID world—lots of trauma, lots of uncertainty. We saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine creating more uncertainty, more disruptions. We see China disrupting the supply chain. Now, this was all before the war in Israel. But we see this sense of uncertainty around the world, and they all say—but they can look across the ocean. They can look across and see this beacon of hope that is Ontario. They know that they can come here, and they find certainty, stability, dependability, reliability, almost boring, in a sense—in a good way. That’s what they see in Ontario. They know what they’re going to get, and they understand that we’re open for business.

Then the other thing they tell us is that Ontario is safe. It’s safe for their executives. It’s safe for their employees. It’s safe for the families to be in. This is the vision around the world that is Ontario today. It’s a vision that was not Ontario only five years ago, before we were elected.

So, Speaker, I would say to you that the state of Ontario’s economy is very solid. We have great projections for this year, all because we’ve lowered the cost of doing business by $8 billion.

The deputy House leader has moved government order number 57. Further debate? Further debate? Further debate? Mr. Jones has moved concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Transportation, including supplementaries. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection.

I recognize the Minister of Economic Development.

Government order number 58.

Further debate? Further debate? Seeing none, Mr. Jones has moved concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Order of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day?

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Orders of the day? Deputy House leader.

Interjection: On division.

Motions agreed to.

Government order number 59.

I recognize the deputy House leader.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I hear a no.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

Those opposed, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

We’ll now move on to private members’ public business.

Report continues in volume B.

It’s always a pleasure to stand in this chamber to represent the great people of Chatham-Kent–Leamington. I’d like to thank all members who have given speeches for their contributions to second reading debate on Bill 162.

With that, Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

The following are the titles of the bills to which Her Honour did assent:

An Act to amend the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012 / Loi modifiant la Loi de 2012 sur un système d’information sur les infrastructures souterraines en Ontario.

An Act to amend various Acts in relation to the courts and other justice matters / Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne les tribunaux et d’autres questions relatives à la justice.

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 5, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 162, An Act to enact the Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act, 2024 and amend various Acts / Projet de loi 162, Loi édictant la Loi de 2024 sur la protection contre les taxes sur le carbone et modifiant diverses lois.