I want to thank the member from Hamilton Mountain for her remarks.

I have the pleasure of working with a great community police officer in the west end of Ottawa Centre. His name is Darren Joseph. He was a running back in the CFL. He’s a fixture in the community. Members from Hamilton know of him because of who he played for. One of the things he tells me all the time is that good policing work is social work with the possibility of an armed response. The many layers of skills you need to try to reach someone in crisis are far more important. The member talked about those eloquently.

You mentioned that people are asking for more training, so I’m going to give you the opportunity to talk about what kind of training you’ve heard people ask for.

My question is for the Premier. Good morning, Premier.

As Gabriel Magalhaes was dying in the Keele Street subway 11 days ago, many people in his community were there to hold his hand. Among them was a transit worker who people don’t know because that transit worker didn’t want media attention. But transit workers take their jobs very seriously and among us in the gallery, as our leader said, we have many here today, from all over Ontario. Thank you for coming. They are the eyes and ears of our system, but their positions right now are being cut because we are not putting enough money into operational funding for the transit system. Speaker, my question to the Premier: Why aren’t we doing that?

What’s happening here in the city of Toronto—for subway cars, there normally were two positions. There was a conductor and there was a guard. The guard looked to ensure the safety of the platform. The TTC is cutting that guard position. It was a guard who saved a four-year-old girl at Coxwell subway station not long ago when they wandered onto the tracks. It was the guard who made sure that the conductor knew the subway train had to be stopped. Under this government’s cuts for this year in operational transit, people are less safe.

My question to the minister: Why did you not deliver on the $500 million that transit workers need, and can we not just call them heroes; can we make sure that their workplaces are safe so everybody gets to work or home safely?

I want to thank the member for her remarks.

I’m thinking about the implications of the government that, in its budget last week, announced no new money for operating public transit in the province of Ontario—just commitments to these trains they’re building that may happen at one point somewhere. We know about them in Ottawa. They don’t tend to work very well when they’re built by the consultants this government likes.

A 16-year-old, sadly, tragically lost their life this past Saturday, and people have been sounding alarm bells that we urgently need money into public transit so the transit system works well and is safe.

I’m wondering if the member has any comments about how we can make sure that the public transit system that we do have actually works well and is safe?

From your perspective, where should the money be going? Should it be going into operating transit for the TTC? Should it be going to helping folks who are homeless get access to safe, affordable homes with wraparound supports?

Give these folks, who seem to be fixated on trains that have not been built yet and are late, an idea of where the money should be going to.

What my friend opposite has proven to me is something that has disturbed me in the last four years working in this place. Unbeknownst to the people of Ontario, a gravy train has pulled up to this building and it has been helping members of this government and not the workers of Ontario.

I want to talk about the 43 government MPPs who got a $16,000 pay increase last July. That’s $132,000 a year they’re making, while constituents like Lisbeth Slabotsky write me to say, “The right to free and fair collective bargaining is a fundamental freedom protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” It is not good enough for workers of this province—but it’s great to ride the gravy train if you’re a member of the Ford government.

How do you feel riding on that gravy train, member?