From the Ontario Motor Coach Association, I’d like to welcome Brian Denny, Shawn Geary, Greg Hammond, Jennifer McGregor, Ted Goldenberg, and meeting with me later today, Ray Cherrey and Vince Accardi. Welcome to your House.

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.