It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Ottawa Centre to talk about the government’s budget bill, Bill 180, this morning. As I do, I was hoping that you and the House would permit me a little latitude as I get started, because it’s been an interesting week for me. I had my family here for the first time in six years on Monday; that was lovely. But I also had an opportunity to eulogize in a member’s statement a great Ottawan, Voula Sardelis, who we lost, whose celebration of life I missed on Monday, but I had the opportunity to eulogize Voula, and I just wanted to talk a little bit more about her if you and the House will permit me to do that.

I also wanted to talk about another great Ontarian we lost, a journalist, John Bell, who used to actually be in the press gallery in this building. So I’m just wondering if you and the House will permit me a few minutes to do that before I get into the substance of comments I have about Bill 180—just full disclosure.

Voula Sardelis, as I mentioned on Monday, was a truly remarkable woman. What I didn’t have a chance to talk about is her story in arriving to Canada. I focused instead on the collaborative work that I had done with her and her daughter in putting forward a motion on the floor of this House, motion 129, which confirmed that we all believe that seniors and persons with disabilities who live in retirement homes, long-term-care homes and congregate care homes—group homes—have a right to see their powers of attorney, their caregivers, their families and friends. They have a right to receive visitors.

This has been a hotly debated topic, certainly during the COVID-19 pandemic but since, when there have been disagreements over the conditions of life and the conditions of care. There have been a minority—and I want to stress that for the record, a minority—of care home operators for vulnerable persons who have decided to, instead of negotiating disputes with powers of attorney and family caregivers, issue trespass act notices to keep those wanted visitors out of homes.

For all of us who have family members in congregate care facilities—I do; I’m sure most of us here do—the presentation of a visitor on any given day is the highlight of our family member’s day, week, month—maybe, if it’s a great visit, the year. So I just want to, again, for the record, congratulate Voula and her daughter, Maria, on that victory, but I also want to talk a little bit about Voula’s story because I think it tells a little bit about Canada as a country and the kind of province and country we want to build through the government’s budget bill.

Voula Sardelis arrived to Canada in 1954. She arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax. I’m sure many of our families have these stories. She was immediately head-counted, assessed by immigration officials and sent on a bus to Montreal, where, because of her training in her homeland of Greece, she became a seamstress. She worked for a tailor in the city of Montreal. She later moved to my city in Ottawa, where she was both a seamstress and a nanny. And her husband, who she knew from the old village, came to join her in Ottawa.

What is remarkable for me, Speaker, about Voula is that this is a woman who came to Canada without any family connections, without the capacity to speak either of our two official languages, who simply took a risk on herself at 33 years of age because, as she told Maria, she was tired of not having shoes. She was tired of not having shoes and tending to animals in the field and, in some cases, she talked to Maria, and related the story to me through Maria, about having her feet hurt because of walking on ice in the small amounts of frozen time in the year in that country, Greece.

It’s the immigrant story; it’s the striving immigrant story that so many of our families have, Speaker. I think those—they could be genetic; they could be learned tendencies passed from mother to daughter. When I had the opportunity to work with Maria, I just remember meeting someone with such an indomitable spirit because—think about this for a moment: If you were separated from the person who is most important to you for 316 days, if you miss Christmas, you miss her birthday, you miss Easter, you miss Thanksgiving, you miss all the important things, you’re hurting. But at the end of that 316-day period, Maria decided to defy the trespass act. She decided to defy it. She called the Ottawa police ahead of time and she said, “I will be compliant with your officers if they’re deployed to the scene, but I believe this care home operator is abusing their power under the Retirement Homes Act. I’ve contacted the regulator. I’ve had no progress.” I had worked with her, and she had had no progress.

So think about the courage it took Voula Sardelis to come to Canada without any capacity in English or French, without any family connections, to start a life in 1954, and think about how those skills were passed on to her daughter who had that same courage to take personal risk and to test the law. Let’s be gratified that we as a House agreed to support the right for Voula and every other person in a congregate care facility to receive their loved ones as guests. God bless you, Voula; God bless you, Maria. Thank you, House, for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about that.

I also want to talk about John Bell, who has got a funny story too. I don’t see any London, Ontario, members of the House here, I don’t think—oh, pardon me. My goodness, the friend from London North Centre is here, sorry. So, John comes from your city, my friend, and he’s the son of a nurse; he’s the son of a high school teacher. I met John when I was a graduate student in the city, Speaker, because he was part of the press gallery in this building, but part of the press gallery from a source that I don’t think many Ontarians know about. He wrote for a socialist newspaper called the Socialist Worker, and it was something that I had seen around York University when I was a campus member, and I thought it was a pretty outspoken publication. When I met John, he was somebody who I thought was an interesting person. He had a mind of his own.

What I remember from the celebration of life—John passed away on March 28—is that he was one of those people on the left in the early 1980s that was changed by the Polish ship workers strike of 1981, because at that time the people who called themselves the left, the Stalinist regime, was putting down the shipyard workers strike, and if you were to advocate for those Polish shipyard workers in this city or any other Canadian city, you were accused by the so-called left of being agents for the United States or some other surrogate that is supposed to be anti-left. But John had the courage, as a student in the early 1980s to say the following words, and I will repeat them for the record of this House: “Either you backed the workers or you backed the generals and their tanks trying to smash the strike. Shamefully, most of the left backed the tanks, characterizing rebellious Polish workers as agents of the CIA or the Vatican.”

John had a mind of his own. He was raised by a teacher and a nurse. He was raised also by an aunt who was a librarian. He thought for himself. He thought deeply. And he, like many Canadians, decided to back the shipyard workers in the early 1980s, despite the names he was called. I saw that same independence of spirit. He decided to devote decades of his life afterwards to writing a column—I encourage any member of this House to look up—called Left Jab. In Left Jab, he wrote about fascinating topics that were political, cultural. One of my favourite columns John wrote was about the great Charlie Sifford, who is often referred to as golf’s Jackie Robinson. He passed away in 2015. He was the apparent mentor for the great Tiger Woods, the golfer Tiger Woods.

Through John’s column, I learned a lot more about my country, I learned a lot more about major figures in history, but always from a very independent streak. This is what I want to mention about John. He was somebody who thought for himself and he wasn’t afraid to ruffle the feathers of others if it was called for. This is a guy I truly believe could have had a great career as a mainstream journalist or as a professor, but he decided to devote his life to writing for a socialist publication and working on contract.

In 2018, after a debilitating lung illness that John had lived through, he got a double lung transplant, and his productivity as a columnist went through the roof. I remember that. I remember him publishing once a week to publishing twice a week, commenting on social media frequently, and very much enjoying his work. But in November 2023, unfortunately, he had a fall, he broke his hip, he was admitted to hospital. That was the moment I remember of John’s columns when he talked about the risks persons with disabilities faced in the COVID-19 pandemic, being immunocompromised, and how getting sick could often mean the end of his life. Unfortunately, John lived out that example himself. He passed away on the 28th of this year, but he lived a remarkable life, and I’m glad that I’ve had a few moments to talk about him and what he contributed to debate in this country.

I also want to thank the Ottawa Festival Network. This is my substantive contribution for the debate—surprise, I only have 25 seconds left. I thought I had more. I do want to put a nod, because my friend the minister responsible is here. The Ottawa Festival Network has a great pitch in front of him and his ministry for the tulip festival that’s happening on the 10th to the 20th of this month, which is our opportunity to celebrate veterans’ history and the important sacrifice that 7,600 Canadians made to liberate the Netherlands, and the gift that the country of the Netherlands gives us. My pitch to the government in the budget bill: Don’t forget our festivals.

I enjoyed the presentation by the member from Ottawa Centre, and any time he wants to ask me for an indulgence to tell a really good story in this chamber about people coming to this country and making good, I can assure him that he will always have my indulgence.

He did at the end of his presentation talk about tulips in Ottawa. I know a little bit about tulips in Ottawa, and I understand that that’s linked to bravery and liberation and certain things that happened in the past. I would like to invite the member from Ottawa Centre, because obviously it’s something that’s close to him, if he would like to take a moment to elaborate on this tulip festival and tell us where does it originate from, where do the tulips come from, why do the tulips arrive, where and when they arrive, and why we should all be interested in that and what it commemorates.

Questions to the member for Ottawa Centre?

I thank the member for Essex. What I’ll say in response is that this is the 72nd edition of the Ottawa tulip festival. It acknowledges the sacrifice of 7,600 Canadian soldiers who lost their life in liberating the Netherlands. The gift in return that the country of the Netherlands gives our city is 100,000 tulips. If you haven’t been to our city to see the blooming of the tulips, you really should. It’s very important for Jo Riding, who is the festival director, for it to be no cost so the children can learn about that military history and the sacrifice of those veterans but also appreciate the beauty of those tulips and what they mean. You can go to the Man with Two Hats statue, which is right in Commissioners Park, which is literally geographically facing the same statue in the Netherlands. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands joined us to unveil that two years ago.

The fact of the matter is, I would love this government, in its budget, to invest heavily in libraries because it creates opportunity for people to better themselves, to learn more about their community. We should be investing in that, for sure.

No, I’m not. I’ve been on the record here many times saying that we actually have, in our city, the opportunity to cover 30,000 people with primary care through our community health centres and through some family health team proposals before the government, but we’ve had just one proposal funded, at 30% of its ask, in the downtown. I think we can do better than that.

One thing I do want to say for the record about our health care system and John Bell is that John had that resurgence of creative activity because he got a double lung transplant, thanks to public health care. So that’s important—

The Ottawa Food Bank is seeing new people every day. More and more food bank clients are employed people and families coming from two-parent households, blurring traditional poverty lines.

Cort Sarion’s family have been clients of the Ottawa Food Bank. She said last week, “We are all equally teetering on the precipice of falling into one bad year, month or day away from ending up on the street, not one good year away from making millions.”

Food insecurity in Ottawa has doubled, with a 68% increase in visits since 2019. Other food banks across Ontario have reported similar increases in visits. Food insecurity across the province is a direct result of the rising cost of living, and my community of Ottawa–Vanier is really struggling to keep up. Minimum wage in Ontario is $16.55, but the minimum living wage in Ottawa is set at $21.95. Are we really okay with knowingly paying less than what people need to survive?

As I reflected on the Ottawa Food Bank’s 40th anniversary event, I was reminded of the importance of addressing food insecurity and implementing direct policy solutions. Before the Ottawa Food Bank reaches 80 years, let’s support the hard-working families in Ottawa and beyond coping with the rising cost of living.

Thanks to my friend from Nickel Belt. I want to add to this debate by focusing on an issue that’s really important to growers and residents where I live, in Ottawa Centre, and that is the issue of food waste.

It was alarming when I did the rounds back home the first time and started checking in with farmers’ market vendors, family farms around the greater Ottawa area and experts on the issue of residential and commercial food waste to learn some of the following things that I’m going to share with this House that I think are very appropriate to the mandate of the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, because after all, we are talking about what are the ideas that drive the bread basket, of, I believe, a lot of our country, but certainly of the jurisdiction for which we’re responsible.

So let’s just go over some numbers when we think about food waste in Ontario and in Canada. Surprisingly for me, I learned Canada has one of the highest food waste percentages of our output in the entire world. About 60% of all the food produced in this country ends up in waste. In Ontario, the 805 landfills we have in the province are expected to reach capacity by 2041, and a while ago, nine years ago, in 2015, the province estimated that approximately 32% of the landfill waste is food waste. So that accounts for 3.7 million tonnes of food that is thrown out every year. In a context we talk about all the time of hardship and affordability and poverty, 3.7 million tonnes of food is thrown out in Ontario every year.

The vast majority of this organic matter is sealed in plastic bags, which is serious because what that means is, when it decomposes, it doesn’t decompose properly and it emits methane—methane, of course, being a gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It traps heat and is exactly opposite to what we should be working towards as a province.

I’m going to cite a local agency, a local community agency that has a lot of expertise, Foodsharing Ottawa. They said, in their report made available to the community, that 50% of the wasted food that they were aware of happened from farm to retailer. So it’s the capacity of the retailer to utilize the food to sell the product to the consumer, as the member from Peterborough–Kawartha said earlier. The consumer has an idea of what appropriate food should look like, and when it’s not appropriate, it’s not bought, and when it’s not bought, often it’s disposed of.

In 2016—again, some time ago—the province committed to revamp its waste management strategy. They talked about moving towards a system in which we encourage what’s called a circular economy, so when a grower produces food and that’s brought to a retailer, if there is food waste, we find some use for that food waste.

I want to salute, in the time I have left this afternoon, some people back home who are pioneers and innovators who are doing exactly that. I want to talk about Karen Plunkett from an enterprise called the Frugal Farm. Karen has relationships with 26 grocery stores in the greater Ottawa area, and she saves for her animals 10 to 12 tonnes of food that would otherwise go wasted per month, which she uses to feed her animals. If you go on Facebook right now—and I know everybody right now is paying rapt attention to the words I’m using, but if any one of my colleagues were on Facebook right now and you were to pull up the Frugal Farm’s Facebook page, you would see images of Karen’s farm, of livestock eating pumpkins that were otherwise destined for the landfill, of chickens eating pieces of watermelon, all appropriate for their diets, all tested with good veterinary science, but reutilizing through a circular-economy approach food that would otherwise go wasted.

I want to salute another organization called Box of Life. Box of Life, at home, is a vermicomposting social enterprise. What they are doing is trying to find a way to partner with apartment complexes, with restaurants, with agencies responsible for the creation of food, to make sure that what otherwise might go to the landfill is used in a revitalization process where worms are put in big tubs of earth that make some of the richest soil. I know there are green thumbs in this place. If you love to garden, then the kind of gold that gets produced from these vermicomposting units is precisely what you need.

Box of Life, I’m happy to say, has added 500 new residents to my own constituency office at 109 Catherine Street. We have one of the large vermicomposting units. It does not stink up the office; the scent is fine. What we do with our office staff team is repurpose any food scraps from our own homes and feeding our family. Anything in the day ultimately gets fed to the worms, our 500 friends in the office. What we do is, we have a fantastic little garden box outside our office door at 109 Catherine Street—you’re all welcome to visit any time—and we make some of the best cherry tomatoes, I believe, in Centretown. But that is all, again, part of that small version of what that circular economy should look like. And it’s a lot better, quite frankly, than—let’s review the statistic again—3.7 million tonnes of food being wasted in Ontario every year.

Why I’m bringing all of this up as we talk about the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario is, I would actually like to see significant provincial investment put into how we support these local champions—Frugal Farm, Box of Life, Foodsharing Ottawa—because what we know is that any time we have invested in these pioneers, we use all or most of the food that we create in this province, which is good. We repurpose and lower costs for farms who would otherwise have to buy food for their animals. It’s a win-win all around.

But what we have to remember is that in the agricultural sector, we want to do everything we can to preserve arable land, to support the farmers and the growers and the agricultural workers who are doing all of that work. But once we have that bounty harvest, we’ve got to make sure that it’s used appropriately, and that has often been part of the discussion that’s not been appropriately understood.

I want to point to two jurisdictions for inspiration as I end the discussion of food waste, which I think is appropriate when we think about what this agency should be doing for Ontario. I want to talk about the city of Vancouver. The city of Vancouver has passed a bylaw which works directly with restaurants in the greater city of Vancouver, which provides pretty steep fines after an introductory period of education—and this has been around since 2015—if there are excessive food scraps going to their landfill. What they try to do long ahead of time is partner those restaurants and large community operations, business operations that are creating and making food, to repurpose all of that food waste so it can be used to produce effective fertilizer. They have one of the best green box programs in the country. They have shown that green box opportunities are possible for multiple-dwelling homes, single-family homes, large business enterprises, and that once business was aware of the conduit with which their food could find a home, you took a burden off them, and it was embraced.

I also want to point to the country of South Korea, which, as my friends back home have indicated to me, embraced this over 20 years ago. South Korea used to have, according to the research made available to me, 97% of the food waste going straight to landfill—today, it is almost 100% efficiency of turning around that food waste and, through a circular loop, repurposing it back so it plays a productive role and not the role of waste.

This is an odd moment, in which I am appearing as a conservative as a New Democrat. I am known by my children, in my own home, as “the food police.” They hate it when I pick on them—not just for finishing their meals. I don’t demand that they finish their meals, but I do hate it when food goes to waste in our own fridge. And I think that’s something we all should care about.

If the people we rely upon to grow the food, to manage the animals, to manage the enterprises that produce fantastic food in this province—it is a shame that 60% of that food should end up in landfills. We need to do a lot better than that. And what I know, from the folks I’ve had the pleasure to work with at home, is that we can do a lot better than that, but it requires making the right investments.

So I suggest to the government, as it works with this research institute going forward, that food waste should be a priority. We should be thinking about how we utilize all the food we produce. And we should be supporting the local producers and the local innovators who are making it happen.

The member from Ottawa Centre just inspired to me ask a question. I’m known, in my house, as a person who takes care of most of the food waste. It is very visible, in that case, and I enjoy it.

We waste $49 billion of food in Canada each and every year. I’m just wondering if you could elaborate on the importance, from a financial perspective, a climate perspective and a food security perspective—why it’s so important that we reduce that $49-billion number.

Thank you to the member from Ottawa Centre.

I’m also very interested in what’s possible in terms of meat. I’ve seen some of these composting things that you can buy. They’re pretty expensive. They’ll take everything and then, some time later, you’ve got your soil and so on. Can you help us out—like, can the worms do it? What are the options?

Well, thank you very much. We have a proud history of reducing, reusing and recycling in Waterloo region as sort of the creators of the Blue Box Program, but I wanted to just touch a little bit more on the member from Ottawa South’s comments about Vancouver and hear a little bit more about what is setting them apart, with their green box program, from other parts of the country. And because we are obviously talking about research and innovation here, what research and innovation led to them being the leaders in mitigating food waste in Canada?

C’est toujours un plaisir de poser une question à la députée de Nickel Belt. J’imagine qu’elle serait très contente de recevoir une question sur le sujet que le député d’Ottawa-Centre vient de mentionner, et je pose la question.

This question is for the member from Ottawa Centre. As most know, I do own a restaurant, and we have a significant amount of waste that comes through the restaurant. I actually compost everything at my restaurant through my house, so I can understand what you’re saying, that black gold that comes out of what our food waste is.

I’m just curious if the member is aware of the FoodCycler system. That’s something that came out of Cornwall, actually, and it’s quite an interesting system that a lot of municipalities have come on board with, and they’ve done pilots with the residents of the municipalities. I’m just not too sure if you’re aware of that or if you want to touch upon that a little bit more. It’s not worm-based, but it provides compost on your countertop within 24 hours, so I’m just curious if you want to touch upon that.