I rise today with great concern over the inaction and provincial defunding of urgently needed supervised consumption services in Ontario. This will result in increased overdose deaths and undue burden on emergency response services, and will deny the rights of access to essential health care interventions and wrap-around supports for people dealing with addictions.

In 2018, when this Conservative government came to power, they arbitrarily capped funding to only 21 sites. Six years later, despite overwhelming need and local support, only 17 sites have been approved and funded. Now, even this handful of sites are under imminent threat of closure due to lack of funding.

Communities across this province are declaring states of emergency over this crisis. Sites are operating through the sacrifices of burnt-out front-line workers, keeping doors open through piecemeal donations. This is for basic life-saving services.

There were an estimated 3,644 drug-related deaths just last year in Ontario and over 20,000 deaths under this government’s watch.

The Conservative government is literally abandoning the most vulnerable and marginalized people in our province.

The overdose crisis is impacting many in my community of Parkdale–High Park and people across Toronto. But do you know what, Speaker? It’s worse in northern Ontario and in southwestern Ontario. It’s smaller cities that are hardest hit by this crisis—many communities that Conservative MPPs represent.

These are preventable deaths. The government must stop ignoring this crisis. It’s not going to go away unless you do something about it.

April 1, as we all know, is April Fool’s Day. But do you know what is not funny? On April 1, the residents of Oakville, along with the rest of the province, will wake up to life being more expensive and more unaffordable.

My constituents in Oakville have reached out to me, concerned with the rising cost of living—especially the rising federal carbon tax. Just last week, I had residents come up to me at a local grocery store and mention how much the carbon tax hurts them. They are feeling the extra costs for basic activities, such as driving their kids to soccer practice.

At the Oakville Meals on Wheels grant recognition program event I was at a week ago, residents were really appreciative of the funding they received, but they were very upset and worried by the rising tax hike coming on April 1. For those volunteers, the hike for gas makes each delivery to vulnerable people that much more expensive.

I am proud that our government, under the leadership of our finance minister and Premier Ford, is supporting families and businesses by proposing to extend the gas and fuel tax cuts until December 31, 2024. We know every dollar helps, and this gas tax cut is another way to help keep the costs for Ontarians down.

But that’s not all. Licence plate renewal fees and stickers—saved vehicle owners $3.3 billion. And we launched the One Fare program, which will save commuters in Oakville $1,600 per year.

As April 1 is around the corner, we continue to call on the federal government to scrap the tax.

I have the parents of page Owen from Oakville here today. We have Ji Li and Frank Zeng. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome members of our University–Rosedale team today: Doga Koroglu, Matthew Cooke, Molly Tarsey, Leah Wahl, Madeleine Vogelaar, and Kirsten Snider. It’s wonderful working with you. Thanks for being here.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome folks who have travelled from Milton here this morning and who are part of the group called Action Milton. We have George Minakakis, the board chair; Sharon Barkley; Heather Murch; Cindy Lunau; Gary Williams; Monica Minakakis; Scott Travers; and Noah Zatzman.

Thank you for coming today, and welcome to Queen’s Park.

Au nom de la ministre des Affaires francophones, j’aimerais bien souhaiter la bienvenue à une délégation du Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir. Avec nous aujourd’hui, nous avons des élèves des écoles secondaires catholiques Saint-Charles-Garnier à Whitby, Académie catholique Mère-Teresa à Hamilton, Saint-Frère-André à Toronto, Monseigneur-de-Charbonnel, Renaissance à Aurora et Maple; ainsi que M^me Geneviève Grenier, présidente du conseil; M^me Nathalie Dufour-Séguin, vice-présidente du conseil; et M^me Nicole Mollot, directrice de l’éducation. Je souhaite la bienvenue à vous tous.

I’m really proud to announce our page Justin. His mom, Estelle Chapin-Ker, is here today with her husband, Jeff Ker, and Onikay Neil, who is the godmother of our page Justin.

Welcome to the House today.

I’m proud to welcome OPSEU Local 535 AGO workers to Queen’s Park today: Paul Ayers, local president; Ruth Jones, who works in facilities: Teya Vitko, bargaining team member; Charles Audu, local vice-president; and Mark Thornberry, bargaining team member. Welcome to your House, for the love of the arts.

I was truly proud to see that Windsor and Tecumseh were once again front and centre in our government’s affordability-focused budget.

As this House is aware, in 2017 the then Liberal government announced that planning funding for our new regional acute-care hospital would be stopped in its tracks with the 2018 budget.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer: Premier Ford committed to seeing the Windsor-Essex regional acute-care hospital, and this budget sets out the hospital procurement for 2025.

This budget also builds the new Banwell Road and E.C. Row interchange, right at the boundary of Windsor and Tecumseh—a project that successive governments of all stripes outright ignored for 40 years, until this government.

This budget also develops the future Lauzon Parkway and 401 interchange, supports thousands of new jobs at NextStar and Bobaek, invests in local broadband, grows access to primary health care and long-term care, and says yes to our new local schools, including the Beacon Heights Public School and Eastview Horizon Public School.

These investments make our region stronger than ever.

I want to say thank you to Premier Ford and the Ontario government for doing the heavy lifting for Windsor-Essex that just never happened under NDP representation and Liberal governments.

I encourage all of my Windsor colleagues to support these great investments in the budget.

We are joined in this House by some extraordinary individuals—survivors and advocates to end gender-based violence: Emily Ager and her husband, Brandon Quint, as well as Cait Alexander and her mother, Carolyn Alexander, and Tom Alexander.

Welcome to your House.

On a lighter note, Samantha has recently designed a most wonderful design on a tote bag for me, and it features Toronto’s beloved streetcars and raccoons.

None of us can take our place here in the Ontario Legislature without the support of our family.

I’m delighted to welcome my son Seth Harrison Kerzner to the Legislature today.

The member for Algoma–Manitoulin has a point of order he wants to raise.

That concludes our introduction of visitors.

As I look upon all of us in here, I look at you as being part of my family, and also team Ontario. And I want to wish you all a happy Easter weekend.

We have an opportunity to vote for Elliot Lake to become Kraft Hockeyville 2024. Elliot Lake is one of four who are reaching the finals—the only Ontario finalist. You are team Ontario. Voting starts in less than 24 hours. So I’m asking you, on March 29 and March 30, vote for Elliot Lake to become Kraft Hockeyville 2024.

My question is for the Premier.

As I continue to review this Conservative government’s budget, I’m left with very serious questions.

Does this budget make rent affordable for renters?

Interjection: No.

Interjection: No.

Interjection: No.

I want to introduce visitors from my riding in the gallery: Andrey Golubovsky and his daughter Maria.

Thank you for coming.

Road safety is a paramount focus for this government and with this transportation minister—

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about some of the investments that we have been able to make in northern Ontario.

We’re investing more in northern Ontario health than any other previous government.

Our plan is investing in infrastructure, in boosting health human resources and adding educational supports for the future. We have, of course, expanded the Northern Ontario School of Medicine—over a hundred additional seats available, and 60% of those, of course, are set aside for primary care, the family doctors we so desperately need across Ontario, and particularly, acutely, in northern Ontario.

We’ll continue to make those investments because we know that when people have access to primary care multi-disciplinary teams in their communities, it makes an impact, and it ensures that people have the care they need closer to home.

I hope the member opposite will continue to advocate, but I also hope that they will acknowledge the investments that we are making in northern Ontario and across Ontario.

Speaker, bragging about doubling down on failed policies is definitely not leadership.

I know who this budget is not made for. This budget wasn’t made for post-secondary students or educators. This budget wasn’t made for teachers or nurses or 1.7 million renters.

Funding in this budget is not going towards making life more affordable. It won’t improve wages for workers. It won’t keep post-secondary institutions afloat. It won’t make $10-a-day child care a reality for so many struggling families in this province.

Since this budget was not made for struggling Ontarians, Premier, tell us which corporations and private companies are set to benefit from this government’s budget. That’s your priority.

I do want to say that this government says that this budget is fiscally responsible. In reality, the government projected a $200-million surplus and instead delivered a $10-billion deficit. They have slashed post-secondary education by $425 million while almost half of Ontario’s universities are running deficits. The justice system is broken in Ontario—just ask Cait and Emily—and there’s no mention of legal aid anywhere in this budget.

Speaker, to the Premier: What will it take for this Conservative government to listen to the people of Ontario and fund the services that they rely on?

Interjections.

I’m not sure if the member opposite actually read the budget and read what people are saying about budget 2024, because what you’re saying is the complete opposite of what we’re hearing and what the people of Ontario are saying.

This is a budget that puts the people of Ontario first. The people of Ontario, like the rest of the world, continue to face economic challenges. Costs are up. People are struggling. And at this point in time, at this juncture, we could either slow down or we could continue to build—build an economy, build infrastructure, build housing, build health care—and put money back in the pockets of the people of Ontario.

This is a budget that’s getting it done for the province of Ontario.

This is a budget that is focused on affordability for the people of Ontario. This is a government that is getting it done for the people of Ontario.

We have the great Associate Minister of Transportation bringing in the One Fare program—$1,600 in savings for commuters across the GTA, whether they’re in Oakville, in York region, in Burlington. Wherever they are, that is an enormous savings for people who are travelling. Many of the staff who work at Queen’s Park actually take transit. They’re going to save a lot of money. You go and tell them that you don’t support that.

We’ve also indexed ODSP to inflation; we’ve had the largest increase in the history of Ontario.

We’re helping 100,000 additional seniors through the GAINS program.

We’ve cut the renewal fees for licence stickers and licence plates.

And, of course, we are lowering the gas tax here in Ontario, which is going to help everybody.

We are continuing to build Ontario, and we’re doing it in a fiscally responsible way. We have a path to balance, unlike every other government pretty much in Canada and the federal government.

We are investing $1 billion in municipal housing funding infrastructure—municipalities asked for this; we are delivering.

We are quadrupling the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund.

Of course, as I mentioned, we are extending the gas tax cut. Go ask the residents in your riding if they are against that tax savings.

We’re also adding an additional $100 million to the Skills Development Fund so we can continue to build Ontario.

Supplementary question?

The member for Oakville.

The member for Oakville.

The next question.

Interjections.