It’s always a good thing to get up in the people’s House and talk about public education.

This is the question I want to ask in the three minutes I have this afternoon: I wonder how often the minister over there thinks about the people we are losing every day in our public schools. And I’m not just talking about the staff who may decide to leave. I’m talking about the kids who are excluded from class. I’m talking about the kids who feel like they don’t belong in our schools. And why? Because they need more support.

What’s on the chopping block right now back home? Special education.

Albert Einstein, high-school dropout—how many other wonderful minds, even if they aren’t geniuses of that calibre, are we prepared to lose because this minister can’t figure out what inflation means? This minister can’t figure out that the amount of money you spend in 2018 is not what you need to spend now to at least keep things moving. It’s a wilful refusal.

The question, again, I will ask rhetorically now is, who are we losing as this minister decides to throttle the funds of public education?

I will submit to you, Speaker, we are losing autistic kids, we’re losing dyslexic kids, we’re losing kids with anxiety disorders—kids who are brilliant, compassionate, wonderful people, who need help at that stage of their life. We stand at risk of losing them.

My friend from Thunder Bay–Superior North has the role now, but when I had the honour of being the disabilities critic in this province, the amount of disabled adults I talked to who had interacted with the corrections system, who had a hard time holding down work because they felt like they weren’t smart enough and they were told and they felt like they weren’t worth anything—the staff in our public school system stand ready and stand prepared to help those kids, but they can’t do it at a ratio of 24 to 1, or in JK, like 32 to 1, when half the class are on individual education programs. It’s an impossible task.

If one actually is a Conservative, I would like to say that an important thing you’re concerned about is waste. So how many kids and how many people in our system are we wasting wilfully because we refuse to invest in them?

We’ve got $600 million for a parking garage for a spa, or we have billions in potential money that we hand over to real estate speculators and real estate investment trusts, but we do not have money for disabled kids, and we do not have money for the staff who are prepared to help them.

Who are we losing? That’s my question this afternoon.

If we vote for this motion and we say as a House that public education requires investment kept up with inflation, then we are speaking the honest truth and putting our faith in the staff and the kids who deserve our help.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for putting this on the floor.

Fraser Institute?

And how you measure is important, because if all one cares about is supply, as I just heard in debate from my friend in the government, then you can say, “Oh, purpose-built rentals are up. Everything’s great. One climbs the ladder. One day you might have a home you can afford.” But the fact of the matter is, if we look at affordable housing by that definition, 30% of one’s income, then we have failed—abysmally failed Ontario.

We’re failing Ontario because—I’m not making these figures up. Look at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the federal agency responsible for measuring housing starts. What are they saying? Housing starts across the board from last month are down almost 14%, and from last year at this time, they are down by 4.6%. That is the market itself, but if we look at affordable housing units—this is the thing that disturbs me the most from Professor Whitzman’s research—in our market in Ottawa, for every unit of affordable housing we built—remember the definition, 30% of your income—we are losing 15, and why? Because greedy real estate investment trusts are sweeping into our communities, buying up real estate stock, prettying up the units, throwing out the tenants.

Councillor Ariel Troster back home just published an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen. I encourage people to read it. What she has uncovered from her research at the city of Ottawa is that the number of N13 notices—those are the eviction notices—has increased—wait for it, Speaker; wait for it, members—by 545% between 2021 and 2022—545%. So we are watching the affordable homes in our community, 30% of market rent, being ripped out of our hands by greedy real estate investment trusts swooping in, buying up units, prettifying them to an extent, kicking out the tenants. And what have we done? Absolutely nothing—nothing—because we have had blind faith, blind faith that the market is going to produce affordable housing. And as the member for London North Centre said, that is not what the market does. That is not what private developers do. It’s actually the role of government. It’s the role of a government to make sure that there are affordable homes for people so they can climb the ladder the member opposite was talking about. But it doesn’t happen by accident.

Let me talk about a government that made it happen. I know about this government because my friend, my neighbour Evelyn Gigantes, who was once Minister of Housing, who was once the MPP for Ottawa Centre, was there and saw it happen. There was a federal government that had very good financing for non-profit and co-operative homes, and between 1989, a period preceding her government, and 1995, more than 14,000 co-op homes were built in the province of Ontario—more than 14,000.

But wait, what happened in 1995? A Conservative government was elected. They immediately ceased the funding of that program, and they immediately ceased the funding of affordable social housing. Why? Because Premier Harris at the time said, “The market will solve these problems.” It hasn’t.

The market has made real estate investment trusts very rich. The market has made sure that people who earn wonderful salaries, like the 82 vice-presidents at Metrolinx I was talking about earlier today, can have not just one home; they can have a vacation property. They can have lots of opportunities. But the average person scraping and struggling, the 50% of Canadians that research tells us are living paycheque to paycheque right now—they can’t find a place to live. So that’s why I’m very happy that our housing critic from University–Rosedale and our party, led by Marit Stiles, has said it’s time for this province, Ontario, to get back into the business of enabling non-market homes, because that’s what we need.

Now, we could have blind faith. Speaker, I could have it too. I could stand here before you and say that after I make this speech, I’m going to get back to my condo at a rate of, per 100 metres, 10 seconds; I can bench-press 300 pounds; I could earn a Nobel Prize tomorrow; I could imagine myself earning a Grammy Award one day. I could have lots of fantastic ideas, but if I’m not partnering with the people who can build the housing, it won’t matter at all. It won’t matter at all.

I’m aware of the fact that the government has talked often about the need to build critical infrastructure so housing could be built—the water and sewer systems. It’s true. But the problem is, if you look at their latest bill, Bill 185, the kinds of homes that are being encouraged here would lead, potentially, as I’m reading the bill before the House, to sprawl development. Let me talk about one project of sprawl development in our city that the staff of the city of Ottawa urged the city council not to authorize but they did: the Tewin development, way in the south end of the city. The cost of running water and sewer to that one development is going to be $600 million, in excess of $600 million. The amount of money my city can expect from the latest federal program, the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, a $6-billion fund, is about $180 million. That is one housing development that we can’t even pay for with the program that the Prime Minister is talking about.

And let’s be fair in case the government thinks I’m picking on them: The federal government has been asleep at the switch too. The federal government has had a housing strategy—it launched in 2019—that began with the idea that housing is a human right, that said they were going to build affordable homes, and they have not done that. Three per cent of the homes, according to Professor Whitzman, that they have built over the last five years can be described as affordable housing, at 30% of income—3%.

I remember it well, because when I was knocking on doors for the Nova Scotia NDP in the last provincial election, I was in a neighbourhood, Halifax-Fairfax, if I’m getting the riding correct, and it was a wonderful postwar bungalow neighbourhood. Apartment buildings were coming in, and I was getting ready to talk to neighbours about housing opportunities for their kids. What I was hearing from the neighbours, in fact, was that rent in many of these buildings in the city of Halifax was in excess of $2,000 per unit. When I walked by them, I saw big signs saying, “Benefiting from the National Housing Strategy.” Why in the world are the taxpayers of this country providing generous subsidies to developers to make market housing that is not affordable? That’s my question to the federal government.

But my question to the provincial government here is, you signed a deal in 2018 with the feds—a $5.8-billion deal—and you pledged to build 19,660 affordable housing units. You’ve hit 6% of your target. That’s better than the Prime Minister’s 3%, but not much better. So if the market has consistently failed, it’s time to get the state back involved, without apology.

I want to rise this afternoon and speak to a particular concern I have with this bill. My colleagues have talked about it. When we spend $20 million-plus on advertising that is not persuasive, that does not reflect the government’s record, what are we missing an investment on? Well, Speaker, I spoke this morning in question period. I asked a question that was not answered about the fact that Metrolinx, a public agency of this government, is following their example. They spent $2.5 million on an ad that insulted transit riders as Metrolinx continues to fail in its record to build transit. I think that’s because the government set the example.

But what could we have done with $2.5 million? Well, Speaker, back home, primary care clinic founders in the market for folks with mental health and addictions and their families, they proposed a clinic that would cover 10,000 people, that would help some of our most struggling neighbours in need. They got $2.5 million. That’s the amount of money we’re talking about.

But if I were to say in this moment we’re living in right now—because I think there’s a role for government advertising—what kind of government ads do we need right now? I am hearing consistently from neighbours back home about their heartbreak and the heart-rending situation they are seeing in Gaza right now. They would like this government to affirm, like the federal government did last week, that the Geneva Conventions are being broken right now, that a million and a half Gazans are starving in Rafah as they are awaiting a military invasion. I would like to see billboards, I would like to see ads from this government, saying they see those people suffering, they support the fact that we need an immediate ceasefire, we need to help those people in the region. That is the billboard Canadians are waiting for, not some self-congratulatory message.

Human rights is core to the province of Ontario. It should be something we all care about. That’s the ad that we want: a ceasefire right now.

It’s an honour to rise to this issue, and do you know why? Because the history of affordable housing in this country is the history of the New Democratic Party. Let me tell you why. In 1944, when people who fought for our freedom returned from a war overseas and veterans and their families were being gouged, who stood up for them? New Democrats, social democrats across this country. We linked arms with them, and we stood up for them, while the Liberals and the Conservatives did nothing as price gouging of veterans and their families happened in droves.

And then I’m proud to say that once that standard was set and when the business lobby, the big corporate lobby, counteracted and took away rent control when it was given in 1944—took it away in 1949—the NDP didn’t give up. Did the NDP give up?

So I’m not going to take any lectures from these members opposite, certainly not when the great Evelyn Gigantes is my neighbour back home. Evelyn Gigantes stood in this place, was the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and under her leadership—not this government’s leadership—non-market housing increased in Ontario by 60%.

Co-op housing, community housing—that’s the NDP record on housing. And do you know why? Because when you go to any one of our fundraisers, you’re not going to find the DeGasperis family. You’re not going to find the Cortellucci family. You’re not going to find the real estate investment trusts like Smart Living, which—in my community back home, Smart Living is throwing 121 tenants out of their homes, in the south end of our city, to create gentrified units of $3,000 to $3,500 a pop. And these are some of the last remaining affordable housing units in this area. Who fought for them to remain? Who stood by the tenants? The New Democratic Party stood by the tenants. ACORN stood by the tenants while these vultures from Smart Living swoop in, buy up housing stock that they know is dilapidated, refuse to fix it, and throw people out on the street.

The member for University–Rosedale mentioned that the average rent in this city of Toronto is 3K; it’s 2K in Ottawa—that’s up 11.5%.

Everything in our lives is becoming more expensive under a Conservative government—groceries, rent, gas. The way to get out of this mess, on this day when we are fighting for affordable housing, which is an NDP tradition, is to get rid of the Conservatives who serve the rich and powerful. You should have a government that works for you.

I’ve often asked myself, “What will it take to get progress on mental health and wellness?” And somebody back home said, “Joel, it’s going to take a hurricane of honesty.” And I think that happened this afternoon in this chamber, Speaker. I think that happened with people bravely sharing their hurt and their pain.

It leads me to want to talk in the time I have to the need for mental health support for our neighbours struggling with addictions. It leads me to a song written by the great Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails called Hurt. It goes:

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that’s real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything....

And when I’ve thought about addiction and learned from neighbours at home who work with folks who have addictions or who themselves have lived experience about addictions and the need for mental health, I think about that last line—that so many people right now are trying to forget the trauma that has happened to them in their life, likely in childhood.

When we think about where addiction comes from and the need to get mental health supports to our neighbours struggling with addictions, there are so many immediate answers that are put before us. Is it just about our genes? That’s not what the research actually suggests. Is it about our bad choices? No, it’s much more complicated than that.

Addiction is not a choice. Addiction is a product of our environment, more often than not a product of our past. When I’ve had occasion, sadly, to see people in our community at home or in this great city of Toronto struggling openly with addiction, I don’t see addiction; I see pain. And I ask myself, “What can we do as a Legislature to help people with their pain?”

When I think about what this $24 million could do in our own community of Ottawa Centre, I think about the Somerset West Community Health Centre, I think about fantastic harm reduction workers like Sophia, who I spoke to on the train ride down here yesterday, who told me we are losing people who make their way through the harm reduction facility with safe use because they get placed in supportive housing in an apartment—and I know in Ottawa, we’re lucky to have some of that—but then they’re left alone. They’re back on their own, not surrounded by that love and that community, because—what I’m hearing—they’re missing that support.

We need to make sure that support is available. We need to make sure people like Sophia can support our neighbours struggling with pain, struggling with harm. If we all agree, let’s vote to empower the change-makers in the community that are making people available, dealing with their pain and taking that big step toward wellness.

I want to thank the leader of our party, the MPP for Davenport, for putting this motion on the floor today.

I want to thank our health critic, the member for Nickel Belt, for so articulately saying what is really at risk right now in this moment: It is the well-being of our hospitals—let’s be very clear—because if you take these surgeries, 50% of available surgeries, and you hand them as a gift to Tory-run, private, for-profit clinics, you jeopardize the funding of our hospitals.

Do you know who’s not fooled, Speaker? Rachel Muir is not fooled. Rachel Muir is the president of ONA Local 83 back home. She leads all the nursing units at the Ottawa Hospital campuses. Rachel texted me Friday night with a revelation: A private for-profit clinic was going to be operating for the first time the following morning, at 7 a.m., at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital. She learned about it because members of her union had been approached, as the member for Ottawa West–Nepean just said, in the hospital, near the ORs, about whether they would work in this private, for-profit organization running out of a public facility. So I’ve just learned, if you’re a health care professional, how you get a raise under this government—it’s not at the bargaining table, with Bill 124 and all the assistance they give their lawyers fighting people in court; you go for 100 bucks an hour, and you work for one of the private operations run by one of their friends. That’s how you get a raise from this government. Well, guess what? Rachel sees through them.

Do you know who else sees through them, Speaker? Marilena Fox. Marilena Fox is a recording secretary of CUPE 4000. That is the group that represents almost all the workers at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital.

Did anybody ask people in administration, housekeeping, patient transportation, foodservice, trades, nursing, personal care attendants and orderlies—were any one of these people approached by the Ottawa Hospital or this government, the Ministry of Health, before they embarked on this for-profit experiment in our public system? What do you think, colleagues? Not a single one. And yet they call them heroes in this place. I just heard it over there: “We love our nurses. We love our orderlies.” It’s a load of nonsense if you walk into their workplaces and disrespect them.

This Thursday, the nurses will be rallying outside the Sheraton hotel here in this great city of Toronto. And the members of the New Democratic Party are going to be with you, nurses. We’re going to be with you, CUPE. We’re going to take on this government and embarrass them the way the education workers of CUPE did in November. Get ready for a very, very hot winter.

I usually get up and say I’m happy to rise to speak in this House, but this is a subject that hits close to my heart because I’m married to someone back home who is one of those health care professionals at CHEO dealing with kids who are struggling to breathe—struggling to breathe. This is Canada—struggling to breathe.

We have flu season every year. We don’t have seven kids over a weekend having to be resuscitated. We don’t have little kids like the one I talked about this morning, Chloe, fighting to breathe—fighting to breathe, and our friends in government are saying, “Crisis? What crisis? There is nothing happening here to be concerned about. We’re giving the system more money than we ever have before.” Chloe’s fine. My partner working her tail off back at CHEO is fine. Everything’s great. Shouldn’t we applaud them for how innovative they’re being in this moment?

I just want to appeal to the hearts of the government members opposite and ask them to truly consider the gravity and ethical implications of making comments like that, because it is one thing to ask first responders and health care workers to sacrifice, which is what they signed up to do every single day—it’s one thing to do that, but it’s another thing to tell us a story about how there’s no significant problem here and how we’re investing more money than ever before and we’re just fantastic, because it doesn’t correspond to the reality of the nurse or the doctor or the orderly or the custodian holding the hand of the mom with the breathing tube in the kid’s face. There is a disconnect. I want my friends in government to understand that disconnect. It hurts.

What also hurts is when they see government in July give 44 members of this government caucus a parliamentary assistantship—the greatest percentage of parliamentary assistantships in Ontario history. That’s a $16,000 raise while you’re giving 1% to people in hospitals keeping kids alive, a $16,000 raise while you’re telling people that you’re doing the best you can and it’s the best it has ever been.

I just want to appeal, through you, Speaker, to the government to acknowledge that we are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis. I asked the Premier this morning to lead by example and wear a mask in this place. The Premier would not stand and answer my question. He deserves the opportunity to honour the office he holds for the province of Ontario, to wear a mask and to actually be on the ground in communities across this province, repealing Bill 124 and the other legislation which is not only hurting health care workers but it’s insulting their everyday reality.

Stop the insult. Fund the health care that we need. Fix it right now.