What they are is a shady government under investigation by the RCMP. That’s what they are, and we won’t forget it.

Speaker, we now know that the Premier has been secretly planning to pave over a portion of Lake Ontario for more than three years. He pushed for a secret deal to hand over public land to a private luxury spa operator for 95 years—95 years. Who does that? Then he changed environmental and integrity laws just to force through his personal vanity project. If that doesn’t smell bad, I don’t know what does.

To the Premier: What are the real plans for Ontario Place, and which of the Premier’s insider friends are set to benefit?

Interjections.

Speaker, I understand that the Premier and the government House leader don’t want to address the questions about the RCMP criminal investigation of their government.

I bet the RCMP won’t accept that the Premier can’t recall—I know that the people of Ontario and I don’t buy it.

It’s not just September 15—there were a number of meetings between the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Premier’s office, the Cabinet Office and the Premier’s chief of staff. The Cabinet Office booked a meeting on September 7. On September 21, there was a meeting to discuss site-specific removals. An hour-long conversation between the Premier’s chief of staff and Mr. Amato on September 23—I could go on.

Does the Premier really expect people to believe he had nothing to do with this?

Two senior members of the Premier’s staff and a minister of his went down to Vegas with a greenbelt speculator and may have “misled” the Integrity Commissioner about it.

Will the Premier use the ability his cabinet has to ask for a full inquiry from the Integrity Commissioner into the Vegas affair?

This boys’ trip to Vegas, with its massage tables and its good luck rituals and its manis and pedis, made international headlines. How embarrassing.

This government wasted no time asking the Integrity Commissioner to look into the actions of a staff member, Mr. Amato. They promised that they would look to the Integrity Commissioner to investigate the actions of someone else who was on that trip—the member for Mississauga East−Cooksville, a former Conservative minister—but they don’t seem to have taken any action.

Back to the Premier: Is his government dragging its heels because the Premier himself has something to hide?

We won’t be taking any lessons from a government under criminal investigation. The special unit at the RCMP is called the sensitive and international investigations unit. That’s who is investigating this Premier and this government’s actions in relation to the greenbelt. They investigate elected officials on “allegations of fraud, financial crimes, corruption and breach of trust”—fraud, financial crimes, breach of trust, corruption.

Back to the Premier: How can the Premier maintain the confidence of the people when he and his government are being investigated by the RCMP for corruption?

So back to the Premier: This government used to say that it’s for the people. Well, they’ve lost the people’s trust. How do they carry on when they are under an RCMP criminal investigation?

Speaker, weeks ago, the Premier stood in front of the remaining members of his cabinet and claimed he was sorry for their greenbelt grab. But now, in the same breath, he and his minister deny anything untoward happened. This is a scheme—

Interjections.

This is a scheme—I’m going to remind the members opposite—that favoured land speculators and people with Conservative connections who got preferential treatment from this government. It’s a scheme that saw provincial land use policy being decided on the casino floor in Sin City.

Returning the land is not enough to repair the absolutely colossal damage to the people’s trust. When will the Premier confirm that his personal phone records—

Interjections.

Interjections.

I get that that this minister has a job to do—he has to protect his embattled Premier—but these responses show nothing but disdain for the people of this province who have serious questions.

Even after being found to have breached the Members’ Integrity Act, the government voted against an NDP bill to strengthen it; they have refused to produce documents; they voted down a NDP call for a Speaker’s warrant because it was going to protect their friends; and they even voted against NDP legislation, weeks ago, that would have returned land to the greenbelt.

Speaker, back, again, to the Premier: Is he truly sorry, or is he just sorry that he got caught?

Interjections.