Under this Conservative government, Ontario’s justice system is in shambles—everywhere, access to justice is denied routinely. Ontario courts rank dead last in case backlogs and wait times nationwide. The Conservatives play politics with justice, appointing unqualified cronies, including a gun lobbyist, to select their next round of judges.

Delays and denials of justice ruin lives. Criminals walk free, and the innocent suffer behind bars.

This isn’t just about funding; it’s about setting priorities.

The government’s budget ignores the crisis in our courts. This government released its budget two days ago. I scoured the budget. I was looking for funding in our courts, and it was not there. Not once did it mention bail, pretrial detention or court backlogs.

It’s easy for Ontario survivors to give up when their own government has given up on them.

Today in the chamber sit two extraordinary women, Cait Alexander and Emily Ager, who have individually endured violent crimes against them, only to have their cases tossed out because of court delays. Devastated, they watched their accused walk free and back into the community.

Cait and Emily are here to demand tangible solutions, starting with the budget; not hollow assurances from the Premier and the Attorney General.

We must thank Cait and Emily for their incredible strength, for coming here today, and for sharing their painful stories once again in hopes that this government will actually come up with solutions and fix our broken courts.

Thank you to the government for their presentation on the new justice bill. I was actually very excited to see a bill that was entitled “accelerating access to justice,” the short title of the bill, be tabled, because we’ve all heard about the extraordinary delays that we’ve seen in the courts, about certain charges being dropped. Whether it’s criminal charges affecting sexual assaults of minors, rapists walking out the door, we’ve heard them all, oftentimes because it took too long.

What I’m very interested in knowing from the government is, why are we not seeing the investments come in through the bill specifically to address the shortage that we are seeing in the courts? We do not have enough law clerks. We do not have enough court reporters. We do not have enough trial coordinators, as well as judicial assistants. So why are the solutions for funding the courts not there?

Despite the political spin, what we do know is that there is a base-funding cut from this ministry. In this incident, Judge Brock Jones said, “There is no reason this case could not have been completed ... had the courts been properly staffed. Instead, two full days of court time were” wasted “and [the case] adjourned.”

In an interview with CTV, Emily of Fergus, Ontario, the survivor, was devastated after her case was tossed, and she shared this comment:

“I crumbled,” she said. “It took so much to even do that first step of giving my statement to the police and [going to] the hospital. Then, a year and a half later, I decided to go back to Toronto to do this trial, face this man, and tell my story.

“Now it’s just over.”

Speaker, what does the Premier have to say to Emily and all the survivors seeking justice after allowing their rapist to walk free?

My question is pertaining to schedules 2 and 3. I’m just going to combine them together.

Having the retired judges go back to work seems to me like a form of double-dipping—not only are they accessing a lucrative pension; they’re also now accessing very substantial salary compensation. At the same time, it’s not a sustainable solution with respect to clearing the backlogs in the courts.

The Ontario trial lawyers have put forward a long-time position where they want to be able to remove the choice of a jury trial, especially for most civil matters. This is a long-standing position of the Ontario trial lawyers. It also means that Ontario right now is the last jurisdiction in the country that actually offers that. They’ve noted that it costs more—it’s more time to administer and not necessarily a good use of court resources.

Why does the government not invest in that type of red tape elimination, and why are they proposing something else that’s not sustainable?