The housing crisis is throughout the province. That includes in my riding of Nickel Belt. As you know, Speaker, there’s a brand new gold mine, Iamgold, that has opened. They’ve started to get some gold out of it. I’m going to the grand opening on Wednesday.

But two years ago, we had the ribbon-cutting for the starting of the mine. The Premier was there at the time, and I told him that the government owns homes, beautiful homes, in Gogama. They closed down where the OPP officers used to live—beautiful homes. The MNR office that they closed—beautiful homes. Those homes should be put up for sale. I’ve asked the ministry to put them up for sale for the last two years, and they have not. Do you think it would be a good idea for those homes, rather than to stay empty—

I will be sharing my time with the member from Parkdale–High Park.

I’ve heard quite often in this House, from the government side, “No other government in the history of the province” etc., but I would like to put a different ending on that. No other government in the history of the province has had a criminal RCMP investigation brought against it. No other government in the history of this province has had to roll back as much legislation as they have. No other government in the history of the province has had, I believe, six class action lawsuits brought it against it in regard to long-term care, and a class action lawsuit against the former Minister of Long-Term Care.

One of the things that I find is also remarkable is how much is promised, how often big numbers are put out, when, in fact, the amounts are less—the amounts going for supports for key things like health care, education, are actually less.

In terms of health care, in comparing 2023 interim actuals with the plan in this budget, the government plans to spend $1 billion less. And then we have all the money that’s going to private nursing agencies—that is gutting hospitals across the province, putting them into deficit.

I want to take a moment to talk about nurse practitioners in our riding. We have one of the oldest nurse-practitioner-led clinics. It is not-for-profit. It is a fantastic, holistic clinic, team-based—the kind of thing that we hear from this government that they want to support.

And yet a report came out in 2012 saying that nurse practitioners were grossly underpaid, and that has not changed—there were incremental changes since 2016, but not the pay that they need. Nurse practitioners, because they can’t make a solid living there, are moving into private, for-profit practice, or they’re leaving the province, or they’re going to the United States, where they can make more, or they’re going to Botox clinics, where they can make a decent living.

I’ve heard twice from the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan that somehow he doesn’t know about the for-profit clinics in our community. That surprises me. There is a for-profit nurse-practitioner-led clinic in his riding and one in my riding, so I’m quite surprised he’s unaware of this—he should be. This is what is happening.

It has been known for so long that nurse practitioners need to have an increase in wages. They have an enormous scope of practice. And I must say that the Minister of Health completely ducked the question when I raised this before, by talking about scope of practice but not talking about wages, which is actually the issue in question. This same Minister of Health, of course, is also making remarks about not needing doctors, that it’s not a problem. Well, we have about 45,000 people in the area of Thunder Bay who do not have access to primary care.

This government talks a lot about job creation. I would like to talk about job destruction, and that is taking place in education. It has certainly been taking place in health care. But let’s talk about education, where there’s actually a cut of $1,500 per student—5,000 fewer education workers in the schools.

I just received a letter today from a constituent, from a father who has a special-needs child. That child, unfortunately, is continually being sent home because there’s no one in the school to support the child, so it’s not safe for the child to be there. He said, “For various reasons, people just don’t want to work in education anymore. There’s not enough supply staff to cover, and shortages are occurring way too often. Something needs to change. Investing money in upgrades and building new schools doesn’t really benefit the students if there isn’t enough staff inside for them to even attend.”

Well, we know there’s nothing in the budget, or certainly nothing in the education minister’s plans that is actually going to increase staffing, and that is tragic because the violence taking place in schools is enormous.

We heard from ETFO, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, yesterday. They brought with them statistics, and the statistics are shocking, with 80% of students and educators experiencing violence. That really affects people. For anybody who has experienced a lot of violence in their lives or experienced violence in their homes, they know that that becomes part of your body. It becomes part of how you see the world, and you start to approach the world with fear, wondering when the bad thing is going to happen again.

These schools are even experiencing evacuations. This is something that was unheard of certainly when I was a student. It is happening because there just aren’t the people in the schools to do the work, and there aren’t the people in the schools because the working conditions are untenable. The money needs to be put into the schools.

The minister started his discussion when he spoke here the other day by saying how much money they put in, but later, in fact, he admitted that he wants the boards to do much, much more with less. But when it comes to students and student needs, overcrowded classrooms, you can’t do more with less. I have been in those classrooms, and I know how hard it is to pay attention to all the students. They have such different needs. If you have half a dozen high-needs children in your room, you can’t look after them. You can’t look after anybody else. You can’t actually do a lesson. It’s impossible, and it’s tragic.

The money should be going into our education system, and it’s tragic that it’s not. That is a piece of the budget. This is why I say that I see this government putting out big numbers, but the reality is that they are continual cuts to the services that people depend on. I call that job destruction because people are leaving the profession because they just can’t cope.

I have a couple of minutes left. I want to talk a little bit about justice or the lack of justice. We hear from this government that it’s tough on crime, but it’s not tough on crime against women. It’s not tough on crime if it’s about sexual assault. A hundred people—survivors—had booked off time, had paid air fare and transportation to come here in order to hear a debate as a way to heal and have their experiences validated and to hear a bill put forward intended to really address some serious gaps in the justice system. Yet the government chose to dispense that bill, denying the opportunity to have those debates. What difference would it have made to allow the debate? The government could have voted in favour—

I’ll just say that regardless of what the third parties said, the Financial Accountability Officer, an independent officer of this Legislature, showed that the biggest percentage area of growth in spending over the next few years versus the last few years is interest on debt.

The member talked about some of the things I would prioritize spending on. I want to tell the member the things that I think they’re mis-prioritizing spending on, because we could meet the objectives I’ve talked about within our existing fiscal framework. Did you know that we’re the only jurisdiction in all of North America that spends over $7 billion subsidizing electricity prices in the province of Ontario? And people who earn over $100,000 are getting that subsidy. So why not means-test it for low- and middle-income households, not wealthy households, so we can actually invest in health care, education and housing affordability?

I want to talk about affordable housing for a second, because 93% of the deeply affordable homes in the province of Ontario were built before 1995. What happened in 1995? The provincial and federal governments got out of supporting deeply affordable housing. It’s time for them to get back in, like the Scotiabank report says, so we can actually make our communities and our homes affordable for people.

I apologize to the member for Thunder Bay–Superior North.

I recognize the Solicitor General.

Thank you very much. Funding for courts is in the budget, so it is relevant. It could have gone to committee after today. It could be changed and altered in committee, so there was no reason, really, to deny all of those people who were coming here the opportunity to have their experiences validated and to have a larger public know how the justice system is failing those people.

Perhaps I won’t be allowed to say all of these things, but I’m very concerned about the approach—and I only have a few seconds left—of the government toward issues that affect women. First, the midwives had to go to the Human Rights Tribunal—and they won—about systemic sexism in terms of their salaries. Then we had Bill 124, which constrained the wages of workers in largely female-dominated professions.

Then there was the bill to remove charter rights. It was interesting that the member from Mississauga Centre was waxing eloquent about charter rights, when in fact it was this government that tried to take away those charter rights from the largely female workforce of education support workers.

They voted down the private member’s bill to hold city councillors accountable if they were found guilty of sexually assaulting their employees. They voted down extending WSIB support for PSWs working in home care, a largely racialized and female workforce, many of whom were in the gallery to hear this debate. And, of course, today they made sure that 100 survivors would not be attending the Legislature today.

So I am very concerned about what is not in the budget in terms of justice. I want to point out that it’s not acceptable to be talking about being tough on crime when perpetrators are walking away after committing sexual assault.

It’s my honour to rise on behalf of my constituents in Parkdale–High Park to speak to budget 2024, as presented in Bill 180.

Speaker, the Conservative government is out of touch and out of ideas. With budget 2024, they had the opportunity to provide real solutions for Ontarians, solutions that Ontarians are seeking: solutions to skyrocketing costs of living, the affordable housing crisis, the family doctor shortage, the massive funding shortfalls that are damaging our public schools, universities and hospitals. Instead, the Ford Conservatives are doubling down on policies that have failed people.

An NDP budget would deliver the homes, health care and hope that people are looking for. It would help families get child care by fully funding the $10-a-day child care program. It would secure faster and better health care, without leaving patients with a bill. It would build affordable housing in the communities that people want to live in, and so much more.

Speaker, a budget is more than just numbers and percentages; it’s a statement of values and priorities. If the Ontario government, the Conservative government, is working for the people, then the budget should reflect the values and priorities of Ontarians. It’s that simple.

As Ontario geared up for budget 2024, I listened to my constituents about the needs and priorities of Parkdale–High Park. I held multiple pre-budget consultations with local stakeholders to gather insights on spending priorities, policy directions and investment needs. I met and heard from residents, service providers, small business owners, parent councils, local community members and advocacy groups to learn what a budget for them would look like. My constituents spoke passionately about the need to address issues related to housing, health care, education, the environment, small businesses, affordability and reconciliation. I compiled that in a report summarizing their insights and shared it with the Minister of Finance, in the hopes that my constituents’ priorities and perspectives would help inform budget 2024.

Speaker, the report was not very different from what we heard from communities across Ontario. But after reviewing this Conservative government’s budget, I’m disappointed, Speaker. It’s not for the people. What would have been for them? Speaker, here are some main priorities and perspectives shared with me by Parkdale–High Park residents that are not reflected in budget 2024.

My constituents want increased funding for child care. Too many times in this past year, families in my riding have been left scrambling as lack of investments have led to program closures, facing higher fees, and have put them at risk of losing the child care they rely on. Families at Ola Day Care faced an $800-to-$900 per-child increase when the operator had to withdraw from the $10-a-day child care program due to the Conservative government’s poor implementation.

Then there was the High Park YMCA, which was forced to suspend its infant care program in January due to the shortage of early childhood educators. Despite being warned for years about the staffing crisis in the child care sector, this Conservative government still does not take the issue seriously, even as it is leading to the closure of desperately needed child care spaces.

In April, I received an email from a registered ECE in the High Park area who was distressed that the minimum wage increase that she and other ECEs were promised in January wasn’t coming until June, nearly half a year after the Ford government said it would kick in. At a time when many child care workers are struggling to buy groceries and pay rent, this delay was incredibly hard to deal with. The lack of investments also means that the $10-a-day child care program is under threat.

My constituents want proper investments into our public schools, our education system. Despite the Conservative government’s claims about historic spending, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association confirmed in a report that this year’s funding is the lowest level of per-student funding in more than a decade. This budget continues the trend of education cuts in every year since the Conservatives have been in government. Education funding is down by over $1,500 per child since 2018.

The only historic thing about education is the number of families who are putting their children into private school. Speaker, people are not stupid. They can see right through the government’s actions. They are starving the public education system so that they can replace it with a privatized system. It’s happening in health care and it’s also happening in the education system.

School boards are getting less money year over year. The Conservative government is simply ignoring the struggles that our kids, parents, teachers and other education staff are dealing with. There is an extreme teacher shortage across all schools in this province: 24% of elementary schools and 35% of secondary schools are reporting teaching staff shortages every single day. There are students who require additional support who are being sent home from school because there are not enough staff available to help them. Parents are having to find and pay out of pocket for supplemental educational support that their children need.

These were the things that we used to be able to count on our schools to provide. It’s all boards: big school boards; small rural district school boards. They’re all facing deficits. They’re all having to make cuts and find the money somehow. The TDSB is facing a $26.5-million budget deficit this year, and this is after $17 million in cuts already. Outdoor education programs, language programs etc. have been cut.

In other programs, like the IB program, fees are being introduced now. Parkdale Collegiate in my riding is one of the few schools in Toronto that offer the IB program, and I want to read to this House a letter from a constituent of mine. She writes:

“My son is graduating from Parkdale this year, having participated in the IB program. He chose to participate in this program himself, and from what I have seen has been able to broaden his mind and perspective in a way that would not have happened if he was not part of it. I have seen how his view of the world has been challenged and how he and his fellow students have been enabled to think ‘differently’ and do more with what they have. I am proud of him for participating and grateful to his school, PCI, for making it available to him. I would hate to see this taken away from future students.

“The fact that the concept of charging for a special program in the public system goes against the entire idea of public and barrier-free education. The best part of the TDSB’s free IB program currently is that it creates an equal opportunity for all students to receive a university preparatory education and has a lack of barriers to access, to apply and attend, no matter family income. To charge for the IB program would remove the IB program’s most important feature.”

And as you hear from this parent, she continues, finally, to say, “I write to you in the hope that you can help put pressure on our government to fund education, as this is the most meaningful way that our province can progress and grow.”

Speaker, the Conservative government is denying equal learning opportunities for kids everywhere.

I only have about a minute and a half left, but I want to also share very quickly that obviously when it comes to health care, the residents of Parkdale–High Park also want to see a budget that is prioritizing increased investments into our publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system. Constituents have shared stories about their experiences in emergency departments, in accessing family doctors, and just the number of challenges that they are experiencing in terms of access to care.

Housing is another very important issue. The residents of Parkdale–High Park want the government to address the crisis head-on and to make safe, affordable homes accessible to all.

In the last few seconds that I have, I want to close by calling attention to Parkdale–High Park residents’ steadfast commitment to reconciliation. Constituents in my riding want to see meaningful reconciliation that goes beyond land acknowledgements. We need to make sure that First Nations are given the decision-making powers over their own lands.

Speaker, among the many things, they want to see an enforcement of the moratorium on the province’s staking of mining claims and requiring free, prior and informed consent from Ontario’s Indigenous people before mining in the Ring of Fire region, something that this budget does not do.

Point of order.

I think everybody in this room can agree that we want the best possible outcomes for our communities. And I’m very proud that near to my community, there’s going to be a York University medical school in Vaughan. This is a major step to create a goal, to create the doctors of tomorrow, because it’s going to be concentrating solely on physicians that are going to focus on family practices.

So I’m going to ask the member if she would support that, in favour of the doctors of tomorrow, alongside us.

It’s now time for questions.

A question to the members opposite: Part of this budget includes Critical Minerals Strategy funding—it’s part of this budget.

The Ontario Mining Association puts together a report every year. It’s called the State of the Ontario Mining Sector. They are forecasting gross domestic product from the mining industry to grow between the years 2020 to 2025 by 25%. I’d say that’s a good thing. I think that it’s, in part, attributable to the Critical Minerals Strategy that’s part of this budget and part of the previous budget as well.

And so, to either of the speakers who spoke on this issue, I would like to know: What are their views on the Critical Minerals Strategy? And do they think that the Critical Minerals Strategy is, in part, helping to grow the domestic product of the mining sector in Ontario?

Yes, it may be helping that economic outlook, but there’s a significant problem. First Nations communities, many affected by mining projects, are not being consulted. They’re coming to Queen’s Park—they’ve come to Queen’s Park three times already and have been refused meetings. That’s one piece of it.

My colleague also pointed to another piece where hundreds of mining claims are being put on Indigenous territory that’s actually protected, which means that those companies are actually going to lose everything they invest, because they will never ever have access to those claims.

So there’s some significant problems and gaps in how the government is handling the development of critical minerals.

We also know that these are the best models of health care that are out there. The one in Thunder Bay takes the most difficult patients, because they won’t be taken elsewhere. They have a team-based model. It’s an incredible place, and they should be supported better. All of those clinics need to be supported better.

I thank the member from Thornhill. First, I want to say if we truly all agreed on wanting the best outcomes, then it would be reflected in this budget. The Conservatives say that they want the best outcome. Then how come we are cutting education funding and we are continuing down the path of privatization of health care—among the many, many examples that are contained in this budget?

Yes, with regard to, very specifically, the family doctor shortage, we need to create more spaces. We need to train more medical doctors. We need to encourage family medicine as a practice. There are a number of measures that can be taken. A lot of this is down the road, but this problem is urgent and there needs to be an immediate solution, as well.

One of the things that we have proposed in the NDP is to reduce the administrative burden that family doctors are experiencing so that they can spend more of their time seeing patients—a recommendation that has been put forward by family physicians themselves. And yet this government voted it down.

I thank the member from London North Centre for his question and also for speaking very passionately yesterday about how we can address some of the challenges that the public education system is experiencing, particularly around violence, and try to make sure that everybody—students and staff alike—is in safe learning environments and safe teaching environments.

With regards to questions, this is one of the things that the Conservative government continues to claim, that they’re making historic investments, but in fact, they have been cutting education funding every year since they’ve come into office.

I’ve got a few things I want to talk about in this budget—

I have some really great things to talk about in the budget, but I want to address a couple of things the member just said. Two facts—I think all we really need to do is talk about two facts. Health spending when we were elected was $60 billion annually. Today it’s over $80 billion. We’ve had a 6%—higher than inflation—year-over-year increase in health spending. Let’s just put a pin in that for a moment.

Then we can talk about education as well. When we were elected, the budget was $23.6 billion; today, it’s $28.6 billion. That is a $5-billion increase. That’s almost $1 billion a year that the education budget—there are 3,000 more teachers; there are 7,500 more educational workers. What they have suggested is completely opposite than what the facts outline.

Speaker, I can also tell you that our government continues to move ahead with the economy, not just the $5 billion more that’s spent in education since we were elected, not just the $20 billion more that’s been spent in health—each year, $20 billion, Speaker. This is what we’ve added up to. And all of that came as a result of the fact that when we got elected, the revenue in Ontario was $150 billion; today the revenue in Ontario is $214 billion. It is a $64-billion increase in revenue. Why? Because we lowered taxes in the province of Ontario, and that made 700,000 new people working in the province of Ontario—700,000 new taxpayers, 85,000 new businesses last year alone. Those businesses and those 700,000 workers are all paying taxes for the first time in Ontario. That’s why our revenue has gone from $150 billion to $214 billion, which allows us to spend $20 billion more in health care spending and allows us to spend $5 billion more since the election.

We are going to continue—look to just last month alone. If you want more facts, last month alone, 25,000 people were added to the job rolls in Ontario; 5,800 in manufacturing. We’re back now to where we were in manufacturing before the Liberals, backed by the NDP, gutted the manufacturing sector and we lost 300,000 jobs. That’s what’s happening. It’s because we’ve secured $43 billion in new auto investments, $3 billion in life sciences, tens of billions of dollars in tech. That’s what’s happening, and this budget 2024 ensures that we continue to build on that momentum and attract more of these job-creating investments.

Some really exciting news in the budget is the new Barrie Regional Innovation Centre. It’s a RIC, as we call it. In the budget, we announced $1 million a year over three years to establish a brand new regional information centre in Barrie. Now we have 17 of these RICs across Ontario, and they ensure that innovators and entrepreneurs have all the tools they need in front of them to succeed. These RICs will help our entrepreneurs protect and commercialize their intellectual property, attract talent, attract customers and attract capital. This is what will happen now in Barrie with this brand new, million-dollar-a-year regional innovation centre that 17 communities here in Ontario already have.

Speaker, we are North America’s second-largest tech cluster. We are growing 350% faster than Silicon Valley. Just last July, in a 48-hour period, we had 10,000 California tech workers flee California and apply for visas here in Ontario—10,000 in 48 hours. That’s the attraction that we have here in Ontario. We also saw 11,300 self-employed jobs created just in the province of Ontario. That’s the kind of activity that’s happening here.

Let me turn to Invest Ontario, our investment agency, our investment arm of the province of Ontario. In the budget, you’ll see an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund, which brings the total fund to $600 million. They have been very pivotal in the successes, in landing our investments in advanced manufacturing, in automotive, life sciences and the tech sectors.

Since its inception, Invest Ontario has secured over $2.4 billion in investments and created over 2,600 jobs. They have helped land these important auto investments, like Dana, a $60-million investment that landed in Cambridge and Oakville, and they’re creating thousands of good-paying jobs through Invest Ontario.

Just yesterday, of course, Invest Ontario was with us to welcome Asahi Kasei’s $1.6-billion investment to build an EV separator plant in Port Colborne. That’s what’s happening in Ontario because of the kind of incentives and the kind of action that are built into this budget 2024. Asahi Kasei’s $1.6-billion investment is a game-changer for the people of Ontario.

It’s almost that we’ve used that word too much, because that is actually what’s happened: $43 billion has landed here in Ontario in four years. We’ve stood here and said, “That’s a game-changer,” because these are. In a community like Port Colborne, they have been hit hard by the Liberals’ slashing of the manufacturing sector in Ontario—300,000 jobs lost. We drove through Port Colborne yesterday and saw where a lot of those businesses used to be. The person who was one of the people who are assembling the land in Port Colborne showed us: “Well, this is where that company used to be. This is where that manufacturing used to be. This is where that paper mill used to be.” It was shocking to see.

This investment of $1.6 billion is the single largest investment in the history of Port Colborne, and it’s because we put the economic climate together: lower taxes, lower red tape, lower electricity rates, all of these things. All of the things that we’ve done are why companies like Asahi Kasei are now investing $1.6 billion. They chose Ontario because they know we have everything here in our boundaries to succeed: this dependable supply chain that we’ve shown them, access to the best talent in the world, an abundance of clean energy. We have green steel—just so much more for them to be able to access.

I mentioned the $43 billion. I might have mentioned that a few times in this Legislature.

Point of order?

Further questions?

I recognize the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

I recognize the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

Interruption.

I’d like to thank my colleagues for their presentations today on the budget bill.

My question is for the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North. I was very interested in your comments about front-line health care workers who have been recommending a health care human resources strategy that focuses on recruitment as well as retainment. Most importantly, one of the things that has been recommended is the need for wage parity across health care sectors. Specifically, actually, the finance committee’s own report on the pre-budget consultations mentions the need for wage parity. I’d like to ask the member: How important is this, and would you like to see this reflected in the government’s budget?

My question for the member for Parkdale–High Park: This government seems to have ignored the crisis that is going on, and I’d like to know: Would you like to see further investments in education and education being brought back to the cuts that they’ve made since 2018 to address what’s going on in schools?

Thank you very much for the question.

Wage parity is critical. We know that physician assistants have two years of training and make quite a lot more than nurse practitioners, who have six years of training. So nurse practitioners are very unsettled in their positions right now because they don’t have wage parity with peers, or even with peers with less training than they have, and therefore, they are leaving. They’re either setting up private practice or they’re leaving the province altogether.

I will say, absolutely, the NDP supports the development of mining and the attempts to bring more industry that may lead us to EVs and heat pumps and so on. There are a lot of things that stand in the way of that. But, again, if the government is not prepared to get free, informed, prior consent from all impacted First Nations, they are not doing their job; they’re not doing their due diligence. So lots of these things may never happen, because you’ll be tied up in lawsuits. So, yes, I’d like to see these things happen, but I have concerns that they won’t under current policies.

I’ll ask another mining question. Frequently, what happens among Canadian jurisdictions and other mining jurisdictions is that we compete for investment. For years, Ontario was a leading investment jurisdiction for mining, and then we slipped behind Quebec, because Quebec introduced a mining strategy that helped mining companies get started. Then we came up with our mining strategy for junior mining companies, and now we’re back in the number one place; we’re ahead of Quebec again, and that is, in part, I would submit, because of the policies in this government and set out in this budget.

So my question to the honourable member across the way is, does she support the policies that put Ontario into the number one position for junior mining companies in Canada?