It’s my honour to introduce my former boss and, most importantly, my seatmate for four years, who made my life so much easier and enjoyable, the 25th Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne.

It’s an honour today to rise to pay tribute to Roy McMurtry, member of this Legislature from 1975 to 1985 for the riding of Eglinton. He served as both Attorney General and Solicitor General in the government of Bill Davis.

Serving in this Legislature is only one aspect of a remarkable life and career. He served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League, Chief Justice of the Superior Court—I could go on.

I never met Roy McMurtry, but I’ve read a lot in the last few days—which is always a good thing when you get to do these tributes; you get to know somebody. Here’s the sense I got: You knew when he was in a room, and not in an offensive or obtrusive way, and not just because of his size, but because of his manner. He knew how to bring people together to find a solution.

He was there when we repatriated our Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and he played a pivotal role in getting it done. He was able to build Ontario’s justice system by bringing everybody to the table.

I think he understood the hardest part of politics and life is how you use the power and influence and skills to do the things that need to be done, and to have the courage to do the things that people didn’t understand or believe needed to be done, like the work to make Ontario courts bilingual at a time when our provincial neighbour to the east had elected a separatist government. C’était la bonne chose à faire pour assurer aux Franco-Ontariens un accès approprié à la justice.

And in a landmark decision in 2003, essentially legalizing gay marriage in Ontario—many of us can remember how controversial and how difficult that was. That took courage. Here’s what he said about it, and I like this: “I knew the sky would not fall.” He was right. It didn’t fall.

I was talking to my friend and former Premier Kathleen Wynne about Roy McMurtry. She reminded me about something I think is really important. There are so many things. I could be here for the rest of the morning talking about Roy McMurtry, but I’ll try to keep it short. His efforts to educate youth about Ontario’s justice system and the work he did on the roots of youth violence and understanding the supports that young people need—here’s what Kathleen said: “Roy understood how important it was to keep youth out of the criminal justice system that he knew and served so well.”

Roy McMurtry accomplished so many things, but the thing that hit me the most—I don’t know if people read it, but I saw the family obituary in the Star and it said at the top something like, “All his accomplishments are listed elsewhere.” I thought that was a great thing, because the most important accomplishment was there and it was what they wrote. Here’s what the family wrote: “He was a loving family man ... who delighted in the chaos of frequent family gatherings, especially at our beloved cottage.”

I’d like to finish with something that his son Jim wrote. I mean, if we wanted to say one line about Roy McMurtry, maybe we would all want to have our kids say this about us: “My father fought for rights and freedoms; I was the proudest son.” Thank you for sharing your father with us.

It’s a pleasure to follow my colleague and friend from Orléans.

He’s right; never has a government in Ontario’s history spent so much, borrowed so much, incurred so much debt to do so little.

Ontarians have to ask themselves: “Is my life any better? Is it any easier?” “Is my rent cheaper?” “Is my mortgage cheaper?” “Is it easier to get groceries?” “I’ve got a problem with my landlord. I’ll have to take him to the tribunal. Oh, it takes 400 days now; it used to take 70 in 2018.”

This budget does nothing for those people.

As my colleague just mentioned, there are two million Ontarians without a family doctor, so people are having to use their credit card instead of their OHIP card to access basic medical attention for their son or daughter or themselves.

Interruption.

Interjection: It’s not yours.

Interjection.

That’s not fair. Put some more time back on the clock.

It all starts at the top, folks.

Interjection.

Oh, pardon me, I withdraw.

Thanks for the call, the member from Nepean.

Now stop, Lisa, because I’ve got to finish. I’m going to have a big finish here, Lisa.

It all starts at the top. As my colleague just mentioned, since 2019, the Premier’s office budget has almost doubled, to $7 million. It has increased by $4 million—it has actually more than doubled. There used to be 20 staff in 2019; there are now 48—sorry, that’s 48 staff on the sunshine list. There are actually 80 staff. My colleague just talked about the average Ontario family income. Let’s talk about the median Ontario family income—the people right in the middle. All of those people make more than that—a whole bunch of them make double; another group makes triple; there’s another group that makes quadruple that. It doesn’t make any sense.

People are having a hard time paying their bills, their rent, their mortgage. It’s hard to put food on the table.

Do you know what the minister said the other day? “Yes, some people are using their credit card to get health care—just a few people”; they used to say there was nobody.

And then, the Premier did what he does best, the thing that he really excels at, which is pointing a finger: “It’s them over there. They have got to fix their legislation. It’s the federal government. It’s their problem.” It’s not their problem. So instead of pointing a finger, the Premier needs to lift a finger and actually realize that all you have to do is pay nurse practitioners. It’s not complicated. It’s simple. You could have done it a year ago. You just have to pay them. It’s about who pays them. Treat them the same way as, well, pharmacists. Pharmacists can diagnose 12 minor ailments. That’s their scope. Who pays them when they do that? The government. Who pays them when they do meds checks—that’s a whole other issue altogether about financial mismanagement. The government. So what’s wrong with nurse practitioners? Why is that so hard?

So the Premier has to stop pointing a finger at the federal government. I know it’s easy.

They did mention the carbon tax 10 times in the first 10 minutes of the speech of the budget. They ask every single darn question in question period about it. But they have got their own carbon tax and they have got their own cap-and-trade.

It’s like, do something to help Ontario families with affordability, and maybe, just maybe, life will get better.

Fix the rental housing tribunal so it’s not 400 days for a tenant to get there—I know it’s 70 or 80 days for a landlord to get there. That’s not making lives easier for Ontario families.

Premier, maybe un-bloat your office. That’s a bloated office—48 people. Remember the old show Entourage? I wanted to Photoshop that, but then I realized they didn’t have 48 people in the picture. So it’s like this small army of people, while people are hurting. I know I’m making a joke about it, but it’s serious. If you’re serious about helping families, you don’t bloat your office up more than double; you don’t have 48 people who are making more than the median Ontario family—some of them four times as much.

The Premier used to like to rail about the gravy train and the sunshine list and insiders and fat cats, but he has become the ultimate insider. When he said, “Stop the gravy train,” maybe he meant, “Just stop it so I can have a station here, over on Wellesley there, on the sixth floor.” I don’t know; maybe that’s what he wanted to do.

So I just would encourage the Premier to walk the talk; to slim down his office to what I would say would be a mean, lean fighting machine.

And on behalf of the people of Ontario, make sure that you address their issues of affordability—whether having to use their credit card instead of their OHIP card or that they have to go the rental housing tribunal, or any of those things that families need most.

I think it’s more enraged than underwhelmed.

I want to remind the member from Nepean that she voted against the auto sector, as well—one of the few members who’s still here—and so did this member.

Do you know what? Never has a government in Ontario’s history, in six years, amassed so much debt—no government in Ontario history has borrowed so much, spent so much, incurred so much debt as this government. It’s to do, really, so little to not actually address those things that families need, like a family doctor or being able to go to the rental housing tribunal to make sure you’re not getting—I can’t use that word; “that your landlord is not getting one over on you” is the best way to put it. I could have said another word, but I didn’t.

I’ll stop there, Speaker.

I was in the store last night, and I saw Bartlett pears for $3.49 a pound. That’s lots of money—apples for three bucks a pound; butter, eight bucks—

So if you’re asking me what the budget does for people on assistance and the vulnerable, well, it is the square root of—anyhow, I’ll leave it there.

I guess it’s a solution. I don’t know whether it’s real or not. I guess we’d have to see it working, because we haven’t had an opportunity to for about 30 years.

But what I do want to say is that there’s a solution that’s right there, and I mentioned it earlier: The Premier, instead of pointing his finger at the federal government, just has to pay nurse practitioners. What’s so complicated about that? Just pay them. I don’t understand why he can’t do it. I don’t understand why the government can’t do it, especially when they’re spending a billion dollars on nursing agencies every year that they don’t have to spend.

You want to talk about ballooning deficits? A billion dollars, paying people two and three times what we paid them when they worked for us, just because they’re at agencies right now, because the government has mismanaged the health care human resources—a billion dollars; unnecessary MedsCheck—about a million dollars a week. Maybe we could solve the primary health care crisis by actually not wasting money, and spending it on primary care.

Speaking of natural disasters, I do want to remind the member that we did have a derecho in Ottawa and the Premier has not made good on his promise for emergency funding for not just Ottawa, but for, as the member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell would know, those people who were so affected. It would have been good to see that in the budget. It would have been a bit of a relief for them. I see some members smiling over there because they know that I’m right.

I would like to ask the member if she could explain to me why the Premier’s office grew from 20 staff on the sunshine list to 48 staff on the sunshine list, all earning more than the median family income in Ontario—some of them double, some of them triple, some quadruple. How in any way on God’s green earth is that helping Ontario families?