Yes. How did you manage that? I’ll tell you: You are spending more to get less, and you are intentionally doing that on the health care file.

I have to say, I view budgets as moral documents. I totally buy into it. Budgets should reflect the priorities of the people we’re elected to serve. I totally believe, 100%, in servant leadership—that you come to the table and put the problem and the person in the centre, and then you build resources around that and you find solutions. I totally, 100%, buy into that.

What this government has been doing is almost worse than what the Liberals used to do. The Liberals did have a pay-for-access policy, and after the Auditor General identified it, the Integrity Commissioner investigated some of the cash-for-access—if you have cash, you can buy legislation. That was the problem that the PC Party, at the time, countered very strongly. We were also aligned with them. So we brought in this policy around the per-vote subsidy, so that would sort of get this cash-for-access and union donations and corporate donations off the books.

This government has steadfastly reversed those policies one by one, so we’re in a whole heap of trouble around ethics in politics in Ontario right now.

We have an RCMP investigation into the greenbelt scandal, which was never about housing. Thank goodness we have the Auditor General, who did a thorough investigation into the insider trading of land. It’s true there were no bags of money, but the money was the land. It was worth $8.3 billion.

At the end of the day, we have a party that is really blurring the lines between the partisan party and the government, and this has been identified by several media experts.

Registered nurses wanted to make this really clear to the government: You can build a bed, but you will never be able to open it without human resources. The direct quote is, “I am emphasizing investment in human resources, not just infrastructure.” The bricks and mortar obviously matter, but the bricks and mortar were open in Minden—but without the people, it’s a closed hospital. So we really are going to try to push the government on this.

The Ontario Nurses’ Association—I’m going to go through their recommendations really quickly, because I want to move on to another issue: Legislate safe staffing ratios—absolutely, fully support this; drop the appeal of Bill 124—this was before you guys got caught with unconstitutional legislation, but the fact that you were appealing Bill 124 was incredibly insulting; close the wage gap—this is a huge issue for retention of nurses and health care workers; close private clinics, which undermine public health care—absolutely, 150%, shut it down. We can’t afford it. It’s not delivering service.

Interjection.

And then: Make all nursing placements paid. This is an interesting idea. There’s a cost to going through the health care system. You’ve made training and education for police officers free. Why are you not valuing nurses in the same way? Why are you not making sure that they have a clear pathway to becoming a registered nurse? Oh, I know you’re shaking your head. Is it because they’re women?

I can tell you, when I go through my list of everything that you’ve done to women in the province of Ontario, many of you will leave.

“Since 2018, 35,000 nurses have left the profession.” This is true. And once again, they say that ratios are the only way to address retention. We totally agree.

The other piece, around the doctors: The Ontario Medical Association has been coming to these budget consultations for a number of years. I know there’s a little bit of a complicated relationship, and it’s not just with the OMA; it’s with other organizations as well.

There is a new culture here at Queen’s Park, I’d like to say, and I want to put it on the record: If you speak out against the government, if you criticize the government, if you’re not thankful enough or grateful enough, there’s punishment. It’s a punitive culture here at Queen’s Park, and we’ve seen it on several files.

The not-for-profit sector right now—even the Alzheimer Society. They were promised $1 million in 2020, 2021, 2022. The money never flowed.

That’s how you got the $5.1-billion contingency fund. You created a slush fund on promising money and then not delivering it, which is completely unethical, I have to say.

As I said on The Agenda on Tuesday night, one good thing is that the contingency fund is down to half a billion dollars. I like to think that we shamed you into doing your job and investing.

I really hope that the Alzheimer Society gets the money that you promised for three budget cycles. I hope that money gets into the community, because what we learned at budget committee is that, on the Alzheimer’s and dementia file, the tsunami is already here. What we heard last year and what we heard again this year is that, in the space of five years, every hospital room down University Avenue will be occupied by someone who is suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. You can’t pretend, in five years’ time, to be surprised by this. That’s the value of learning from the organizations that actually do the real work in our province.

The Ontario Medical Association came to us with a solution last year. They tell us that they spend 19.1 hours on administrative tasks every week. That is time that they could be seeing patients, and this is time that they want to be spending with patients. We heard from a small-town doctor—and God love him, he’s 74 years old. He said, “It is daunting to be the only physician in a community”—because he feels that he cannot retire.

Interjection.

The mental health piece: Phil Klassen from Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences said the challenge is mounting—also not news. Mental health and addictions visits to the Lakeridge Health emergency room have gone up. Mental health apprehensions have increased over the same period of time. Emergency departments struggle to triage these cases. It is not uncommon for these emergency departments to have numerous patients strapped in gurneys. This is a health human resources challenge. They presented last year, and they asked for $1 million. They have not received the funding. These are choices. Budgets are about choices. So you are choosing to not address a problem for $1 million in a $214-billion budget, the biggest budget in the history of the province of Ontario. Budgets are about choices.

On the mental health front: What’s happening to children right now, how they suffered through the pandemic, has to be addressed. Children are waiting 2.5 years for treatment—this is from Children’s Mental Health Ontario, CMHO. In the life of a child, two and a half years is a lifetime—some receiving no treatment at all. They said, “For the first time, we are facing a health human resources crisis, especially in northern regions.”

I have to say, this budget almost ignores the north altogether. It’s like the north doesn’t even exist. There was a reannouncement of $1 billion for the Ring of Fire. This announcement was made in 2014—it’s the same money every single year for the last 10 years. We should just call it the ring of smoke and call it a day.

The wage parity, also in mental health—huge issue for retention. Wait-lists for kids were already lengthy before the pandemic, and now the situation is even more dire. They asked for $140 million over four years to “stabilize, sustain and system build.” This year’s price tag would be $35 million for community-based child and youth mental health services.

Again, these are choices that are being made by this government.

This government also talks a lot about infrastructure, like Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass—and now, because we have a by-election in Milton, a $3-billion dedicated GO train service. That’s almost as good as the Liberals’ bullet train that we were promised by the former Minister of Transportation. That’s actually a really good example of how this government is making decisions—to be kind, on the back of a napkin. Because there’s a by-election in Milton, now we have a promised GO train, with no business plan, no costing—a random $3 billion. I have to say, when you drop a GO train into a transportation plan that has never been costed, never been talked about—no environmental assessment—we don’t even know if it’s possible.

I would say there are some real challenges in a dedicated line from Milton down to Union, based on our experience in Kitchener-Waterloo, where, for 10 years, we’ve been waiting for the long-awaited 15-minute service—we’re still at an hour and 47 for the GO train, every couple of hours, if you’re lucky. Brampton is getting some increased service, so we’re happy for Brampton to get increased services. But it’s called the Kitchener line for a reason. Kitchener should also benefit from GO service—never mind that our station was built in World War I and nothing has been changed to it.

Because there’s a by-election in Milton—a dedicated GO train, at $3 billion, which will bump down other transportation projects. And that’s actually what has happened with Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, for people who are waiting for Highway 7—those plans get bumped down the list. There’s only so much that can actually happen.

So you drop in these little pet projects that just happen to benefit some developers along the course, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, which—they just happened to buy the land, and now we have a highway.

That’s how things are proceeding right here in the province of Ontario. And that’s why the RCMP is investigating this government—a criminal investigation.

That’s why justice matters. That’s why the law matters.

That’s why legal aid should be mentioned in this budget. Legal aid should be funded. Legal aid is an important part of ensuring people have access to justice.

That’s also a good reason to ensure that criminals who hurt people in Ontario, or even steal cars—because now carjackings are a serious issue. I’m sure the helicopters are going to solve it. I’m sure that will happen. Once they get into the justice system, if they don’t get access to a judge within that 18 months, then they walk. And let me tell you, those numbers are pretty alarming—who is walking. And I thought this government was the tough-on-crime kind of government.

Going back to the infrastructure piece: Good Roads. God love Good Roads, Scott Butler. They’ve made the case for safe infrastructure investment as a cost-saving measure for health care. This is what they said: 50% of the fatalities occurred on rural and northern roads. This is good information for the government to have. Good Roads wants to leverage the lessons learned in other jurisdictions to address this risk—cost-effective solutions like guardrails, paint and lights. He described this as really simple, low-hanging fruit. This is a good solution—to the members who are still here in the Legislature. He said, “Right now road safety in northern Ontario is ‘thoughts and prayers’—we hope for the best.” I know our northern members have experienced this as they commute back and forth to Queen’s Park. Sometimes they’re stuck there for hours.

He made a really important point on health care costs. Those accidents that are happening on poorly designed infrastructure in Ontario—listen to this—resulted in 43,000 days of hospital stays, due to accidents on these roads. They are looking for a program for five years where they will look into what is actually happening on the roads. This has been tried in other jurisdictions. It has impacted where investments happen. I’m sure it would benefit Ontarians across the entire province. So that’s something that we were looking for. Also, as Good Roads points out, this is low-hanging fruit. This is stuff that is not super-costly, but it has benefits. It also improves the lives of Ontarians who are travelling on these northern roads. This makes sense on many levels.

We heard from so many other folks around the dismantling of the social safety net in Ontario. Ontario used to have a very strong social safety net, if you were experiencing poverty, if you had health issues, if there were mental health challenges, if there were addictions.

All of us know somebody who is struggling with addictions. This government has solutions around safe consumption sites. They have made choices not to grant those licences for those safe consumption sites. You are basically saying that this is not a priority—keeping people healthy. These are sons, daughters, uncles, fathers. It’s a really important piece to catching the people who are faltering, who are struggling. I think it’s a very callous move, in my estimation, to not grant those licences, even though the health care sector and your own ministry have said that this would save lives and would save health care costs. Fewer people would be in emergency rooms.

I’m going to circle back right now to how this budget really is a lost opportunity to reflect on what people in Ontario said to us.

Going right back to that gender lens—taking action to ensure women and children are better able to access culturally responsive care to strengthen the health of their families, with investments. Even the Healthy Babies Healthy Children Program—these are programs that people care about.

Preventing gender-based violence—the $13.5 million over three years to enhance initiatives that support women and youth. This is one part where it looks like new money, but we have to actually dig down and pull back the layers on that.

The Independent Legal Advice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Program, which the government expanded without expanding the budget—there’s a small increase in there. We’re going to be looking at evaluating that. I think that if someone has the courage to come forward after being assaulted, that justice system should be there, and that legal advice and guidance should be proactive. They shouldn’t have to go looking for it.

I do want to say, just to end on education—because education actually pulled me into politics. When you have kids, you see that the system is being broken. I used to sit over there, as an audience member, when former Premier Harris and Snobelen—I think it was Snobelen who was the Minister of Education—created a crisis. It was such an effective policy that it’s still in place today. They created a crisis so that they could create their own made-in-Ontario solutions, and those impacts on our education system are still being felt today.

If you don’t get education right, a lot of other things don’t fall into place. When I was here protesting, 25 years ago, the cuts to education—a serious government views education as a solution, as, really, an equity policy, because when you get education right, a lot of good things can happen.

I hope the Minister of Education was listening carefully to the voices of informed people, because the word “teachers” is not even mentioned in this budget. I think we should be listening to and learning from the front-line people who have the experience to share with us, as a province.

It is 10:02, and I will end my one-hour lead. Thank you very much.

Last month in northwestern Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation declared a health state of emergency.

There continues to be unnecessary suffering and needless deaths across Kiiwetinoong.

Speaker, what page in the 2024 budget addresses this crisis?

Speaker, hospitals across northwestern Ontario are struggling to retain surgeons.

Patients in Sioux Lookout will be sent further away from home for surgeries that they need.

Again, what page in the 2024 budget addresses the crisis?

Speaker, what page in the 2024 budget addresses highway standards in the north?

This petition’s entitled “Mental Health Services in Ontario.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is currently a lack of consistent mental health intake policies and care across Ontario when people seek assistance at hospitals;

“Whereas staff training and readiness to support patients with mental health issues at Ontario’s hospitals lacks consistency and is not sufficiently trauma-informed or evidence-based;

“Whereas current discharge procedures often leave vulnerable people without access to adequate care or support;

“Whereas ... 4,500 people” have died “by suicide each year in Canada and suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth and young adults ages 15 to 34; and

“Whereas the experience of Waterloo’s Roth family in the death of their daughter Kaitlyn has brought to light serious flaws in mental health discharge procedures;

We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to direct the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to earmark funding for dedicated training for staff providing mental health services with a focus on evidence-based, trauma-informed approaches, to review intake and discharge procedures to ensure consistency of care, and to provide funding for alternative destination clinics in communities across Ontario.”

It’s my pleasure to support this petition in honour of Kaitlyn Roth and sign my signature.

It’s my honour to read the following petition into the record. It’s entitled “Health Care: Not for Sale.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Ford and Health Minister Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining, and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it to the Clerks.