It’s always a privilege to take my seat on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin, and to speak to, particularly, the 2024 Ontario budget that this government has brought forward. From my seat, now, I bring a different lens. As an independent member and no longer part of the opposition, I look at reasons why I could potentially support the bill. But one thing I want everybody back home to remember is that I will never forget why I’m here, and that’s to bring the issues that matter most to people across Algoma–Manitoulin. So I will touch on the shortfalls and what’s not in this particular piece of legislation that this government has brought forward.

Having said that, I’ve looked at this budget very closely and—it’s hard to look for new things. There are things that are there that are substantial for people across Algoma–Manitoulin, like replacing the Little Current Swing Bridge, the key to Manitoulin Island, which is very important, and the investment that is required to making sure that the service, the products, the economy continues on Manitoulin Island. So it was nice to see, again, the reannouncement of this particular piece of infrastructure that’s going to be done. I think this is the fourth or fifth time that the government has announced this infrastructure fund—I think if we follow what the previous government had done, it’s normally about seven times that they announce it before it actually gets put in place. I’m hoping it’s going to get done fairly soon because people on Manitoulin Island deserve a reliable route, and this infrastructure needs to be done.

In the forestry industry, we see that there’s going to be $20 million over three years in the forest biomass program. I do know several communities that are going to be benefiting from that. Wiikwemkoong First Nation has been leading a lot of initiatives towards this, and they are looking at community projects that they’re going to hopefully be able to utilize to stimulate the economy and diversify their employment opportunity for community members there as well.

The new school that is being built in Blind River—okay, this is number four, but it’s already in the process of being built. So that was a new announcement. I have to give a shout-out to the Algoma District School Board and the Conseil scolaire du Grand Nord, who really put so much work in getting this to move forward.

There are a few other nuggets that are contained within the context of the budget, so I’ll give credit where credit is due—the $10.9 million to bring improved Internet access across the northern communities and First Nations of Ontario. Get it done. It’s long overdue. We’ve been announcing this over and over and over again. Let’s get the shovels in the ground and get this work done.

Now let’s talk about what’s not in this particular budget. Things that I wish this government would have listened to is—early in October, I found out the dire need of the hospital situation. I knew they were in rough waters, but I didn’t appreciate how bad it was in hospitals. So I took it upon myself, once I received correspondence from the 25 northern hospitals, to reach out to all 11 hospitals across Algoma–Manitoulin—and, yes, I said “11 hospitals.” Algoma–Manitoulin is a very vast area. The consensus within these hospitals is, at a bare minimum, they need, at the very least, a 10% increase to their base funding in order for them to address a lot of their financial needs that they have in order to continue to provide the services, to keep their emergency rooms open and so on. We didn’t see that in this budget. We see a mere pittance that won’t even keep the hospitals in line with the cost of inflation.

I’m not sure what this government is not grasping in regard to the dire need of our hospitals and the fact that they need some additional funding in order to meet the services and meet the demands of individuals across this province, but they’re not. And that’s frightening, Speaker.

I’ve sat with many of the administration, and I’ve asked them. I said, “What’s missing here? Why aren’t they listening to you?” And everybody just seems to step back and say, “We don’t know. We get head nods from the government, and saying, ‘Yes, we understand, but keep going.’” They’re lean. They’ve cut everything. There’s no more integration that they can do.

But again, when the ask is there, it’s falling on—there’s silence from across the table. The fact that they have to deal with the enormous costs of agency nursing, which is required—they have to have a certain level of professionals within the context of the hospital. Nothing in this budget to deal with agency nursing regulation, nothing on capping—hospitals are paying three to four times more to have this coverage done.

Nothing on enhancing the administrative wages—why would somebody in a hospital setting—if I’m a nurse within the emergency department, why would I step up in an administrative role when there are no compensations for those individuals because there are no base funding increases to their hospital?

Why did we not see the 5% increase in the base funding in developmental services, such as what we have throughout this province as far as Community Living?

The elastic is stretched so much there is no more stretch. That elastic has broken.

Over the weekend, my son and I, we enjoyed a hockey game up in Blind River—go, Blind River Beavers. I hope that you guys can pull off—you’re down 3-1. I’ll be at the game on Thursday night in Blind River.

After we had supper with my son—my son is one of the individuals that works with developmentally challenged individuals. And I’ve always said he’s a special boy. He’s got this knack of identifying someone in the crowd. It doesn’t matter if that someone is four years old, 14 years old, 24 years old, 44 years old or 64 years old; he has this ability of identifying someone that’s in need. And what he does: He zeroes in on that person and makes them his priority. He’s always had that knack. When he was a young boy, while he was in school, we often heard from teachers that, “You’ve got a special one. Don’t change him.” And it was such a pleasure for me seeing him going through high school and getting through his education up at Collège Boréal and coming out as a social worker.

The fun part for me is, as much as I love being part of this building—going into his workspace and his office and him showing to me what programs that he does and the activities that he sets up for all of his clients is amazing. But he’s limited, because those services have not been recognized by this government. And there’s no investment that has been done into that particular field. So, in developmental services across this province, the elastic is broken. I’m looking at this government, and I’m imploring this government to recognize the benefit of these services and make the proper investments that are needed.

Highway improvements across northern Ontario: I drive up from Elliot Lake every week, and I see that big billboard, bulletin board for the 413/Bradford Bypass investment, and I see the big billion-dollar investments that are coming in there. But highways such as 551, 542 or 637 going into Killarney—I don’t see that same kind of recognition or investment that is being done out of this budget from this government. And that’s unfortunate.

Highway 519 into Dubreuilville was just done, I would say, about five or six years ago. Not a stitch of additional work was ever done to maintain that road. That brand new road is washing out. What’s embarrassing to watch is, since when has it become a standard operating procedure to replace gravel from a washout with a cone? When does that become a standard operating procedure? When does the gravel go back in? It is so bad, Speaker, that there’s this one area where the guardrail posts are hanging void, with no gravel there, and this happens time and time again. It’s not only in my area; it’s across northern Ontario. We really need to look at our service providers that are responsible for returning the gravel to their shoulders.

Heck, I spent an entire day with an Amish and Mennonite group, travelling roads in a horse and buggy on Highway 17, and I tell you, Speaker, if you haven’t, I would suggest that each and every one of these members in this room experience that first-hand because that will be an eye-opener for you. There is something that we need to learn in this province: that we all need to share the road, and that road, for many of us, is only between the white lines. Well, there’s a shoulder and then there’s gravel, and there’s a lot of people that are using those roads.

Again, there’s a lot of things I didn’t get to touch on within the context of this budget, but there’s a lot of things that are missing. I take great pride in looking at why I could be supporting this bill, but there are too many things that are missing out of this budget that would be very valuable to people from northern Ontario.

I want to thank the member from Algoma–Manitoulin for his address this morning. I also want to congratulate him and commend him for doing what we all do here, and that is to stand up for the people who send us here each and every time there’s a general election, the people in our constituencies, because that is and must be our first priority.

No budget solves all of the problems individually, and he has pointed out some of the things. We have challenges in our own ridings that we would hope there’d be enough money in this budgetary session to take care of, but we also know that we have to be patient and many things take longer than we’d like.

But the member did say—and I do want to congratulate him on Elliot Lake being chosen the winners of Hockeyville. That’s a great honour, and congratulations to the member and to all of us here in Ontario. That’s two years in a row that Ontario has had the Kraft Hockeyville.

But can you tell us some of the things that you do like in the budget? Because you are considering voting in favour of it. I’d love to hear that from the member.