My question is to the Premier. The newly appointed chair of the judicial appointments committee is a registered lobbyist for an American gun manufacturer. The Premier then claimed that he wanted to quadruple down on violent offenders, but it’s actually on his watch over the last six years that we’ve seen offenders going free because the criminal justice system is literally collapsing under this government’s neglect.

Chronic underfunding has led to critical understaffing, which has led to the critical courtrooms being closed, which also means that serious cases are being thrown out because they have missed their basic administrative delays.

Will the Premier explain to victims of crime in Ontario why his focus is naming gun lobbyists to the judicial appointments committee as opposed to being laser-focused on funding and fixing the broken court system?

Under this government, court delays have exploded, forcing judges to release violent and gun-related offenders because they have not had their trials completed in a constitutionally allowable time frame. What I think Ontarians want to understand is, how can we have a Premier that has no respect for the charter rights of Ontarians?

Speaker, will the Premier own up to his track record and let Ontarians know how many sexual assault charges, how many impaired driving charges and how many gun-related charges have been thrown out because of the dysfunctional court system, because they can’t get their trials done in time, because they refuse to fund the courts properly and they refuse to fix the system?

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. The Attorney General recently put two of the Premier’s buddies onto the committee responsible for judicial appointments. Shockingly, when the Premier was asked about these appointments, he said that he wants to ensure that the committee is only recommending Conservative-affiliated judges. He went so far as to suggest that if a judicial candidate had voted for the NDP or Liberals, they are a threat to public safety.

Yet, it is on this government’s watch that our criminal justice system has spiralled into chaos. It’s on this Premier’s watch that our courtrooms are closed every day due to understaffing. It’s on his watch that serious cases are routinely thrown out for delay.

Will the Premier reverse his partisan appointments, or is he just comfortable further undermining public confidence in the justice system?

Interjections.

The Federation of Ontario Law Associations put out one of the more measured statements in response to the Premier’s comments, saying that the Premier has a “juvenile misapprehension” of the judicial appointments and that his comments are irresponsible, harmful and dangerous to our democracy.

It is shocking that even in our criminal justice system, the Premier’s focus seems to be entirely on producing favours for his insiders. Many people sitting across from me were given useless titles around King’s Counsel, and now, this government is putting unqualified friends into a position where they get to do favours for more Conservative allies.

Will the Premier reverse these appointments and apologize to the public and the legal community for their interference in the judicial appointments?

Interjections.

Today is the last day this government can choose to save Connect-Clinic, the only virtual clinic in Ontario dedicated to delivering gender-affirming health care. An alternative funding plan could save the clinic. They are commonly used in academic, northern and specialized health care settings already. Connect-Clinic checks all three boxes.

Tomorrow, 3,500 trans Ontarians will lose access to life-saving care. And I cannot stress this enough: They will have nowhere to go for this specialized care.

Losing virtual health care does not only affect patients in the north or rural areas of Ontario; I’ve heard from my own constituents in Toronto Centre who are reeling at the loss of virtual health care.

My constituent Andrew shared, “My partner and I are among 1.8 million Ontarians who don’t have a family doctor. We’ve registered multiple times for the Health Care Connect and contacted doctors’ offices with zero responses to date. My partner and I have just found out that we’re expecting a baby. So this weekend we booked a virtual appointment to be referred to an ob-gyn. If this service is no longer supported after December 1, we would lose access.”

Speaker, this government brags about their embrace of innovation, and yet they’re throwing away that same innovation that enables virtual care.

Funding cuts to virtual health care will not all be replaced with in-person appointments—they’ll be replaced with Ontarians without access to health care.

I urge this Conservative government to change course.