In 2019, Nicole’s landlord filed for a personal-use eviction. She later learned that this was misrepresentation. Today, Nicole is still waiting for an LTB hearing after moving into a new apartment that costs her now twice as much. LTB’s own data shows that landlords are being fast-tracked for hearings over tenants.

Can the Premier explain why he is making tenants wait so long for access to justice?

Why is it agreeable to this Premier that tenants have to wait so long for access to justice?

It’s an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Toronto Centre today and to speak to the government’s budget bill, Bill 2.

With skyrocketing inflation, tenants need support from their government more than ever before: tangible supports to keep people housed, to keep them in their homes and out of encampments. But instead of helping, this government is actually hurting Ontarians, especially renters, by allowing rents to rise by a historic 2.5% this year. But despite these increases in recent years, the number of applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board to evict tenants for renovations or repairs has actually surged.

This government has recognized this problem and made some moves to track when landlords apply for renovictions for their tenants. That’s good. However, the Toronto housing secretariat recently noted that a significant number of illegitimate evictions are still happening without documentation. The Toronto housing secretariat has called for a centralized data system on rental units, not to mention vacancy rent control. There is no funding of any sort for this kind of program in this government’s budget.

With skyrocketing inflation, vacancy rent control is the least expensive way that this government can curb the cost of living and help the most precariously housed in Ontario. But with such a growing backlog of cases at the Landlord and Tenant Board, I don’t see the measures in this budget to help those who are really needing the support. We need to be able to provide tenants the support that they need to get, and those laws are actually on the books, but they’re not being enforced.

So let’s speak about the laws on the books. I want to comment that there are no new measures in this budget to correct the problems facing Ontario’s tribunals. Ontario’s tribunal backlog needs investment, so that they can function at the level that Ontarians rightfully expect from their courts and government. The wait time for cases before the Landlord and Tenant Board, the Human Rights Tribunal, the Social Benefits Tribunal and Family Court are creating avoidable costs for my constituents, your constituents and businesses. I’ve heard about law firms now being worried about taking on additional family law cases, because the costs are so high and case completion times are so protracted that families now let go of their lawyers early, because they can’t afford to pay them. So we are finding that Ontarians are not getting access to justice.

Speaker, I do not see investments in legal aid in this budget, something that I understand, based on studies in other jurisdictions, has shown to be a net-neutral effect on government budgets, because investments in legal aid reduce the costs and prevent homelessness-associated costs and mental health costs. It allows for a more speedy resolution of complex cases, rather than having it fall into our judicial system.

Since 2018, this government has now subjected our legal aid system to years of cuts after years of cuts after years of cuts. This is having consequences that I’m being told mean that people in Toronto Centre and other communities are now finding that people are no longer able to get access to trials in a timely fashion, which means that cases that have underlying mental health or economic issues at their core will not be resolved, because the legal aid system is so poorly funded. From the limited information available to me as an opposition MPP, it seems that spending on justice is not even keeping up with the rate of inflation.

In 2022, in April, tenant representatives reported that tenant applications are being scheduled within nine to 10 months after they are filed. By comparison, only two years earlier, those applications took nine weeks to schedule—nine weeks, and now we’re at nine to 10 months. Those same reports note that eviction for non-payment of rent took seven weeks to schedule in the year 2020, but a year later, they’re now taking 18 weeks. This is the backlog this government has created when we don’t actually invest in the programs and we’re denying Ontarians access to justice. Literally everyone is stuck in the system—landlords, tenants, business owners, everybody—and they’ve got no place to go.

Again, while I do not have access to the detailed budgetary information which I need, but I don’t have, I also know that with respect to the Landlord and Tenant Board, CTV found out that the Tribunals Ontario business plan shows a shrinking operating budget, from $81 million in 2020 to about $63 million today. That is a defunding of $18 million over two years, which is the wrong direction to be headed in.

Delays in access-to-justice issues at Tribunals Ontario are connected to the following—and I’m going to try to summarize: the government depleting the overall skills and experience of the adjudicators at Tribunals Ontario by appointing in some cases, not all, poorly qualified adjudicators and by insisting on the removal of physical access points for service and in its place primarily digital service, which has left many Ontarians unable to assert their rights because of technological, language, disability and other barriers. That is a problem that has to be addressed. The Zoom hearing format is not suitable for the busiest and most litigious tribunal in the province, which is the Landlord and Tenant Board, which now further extends the time needed to adjudicate disputes. Legal aid clinics which used to routinely resolve their matters now are not able to do so, again because of the digital divide, because low-income Ontarians can’t get access to the Internet or stable Internet.

The duty of care is failing our residents. This is a problem that this government can fix by addressing it in the budget, but they’re choosing not to.

Legal Aid Ontario’s budget must be at least restored to its pre-pandemic level. That is the baseline where we need it to go. Otherwise, we’ll see more Ontarians fall through the cracks and fall on hard times that we’re not going to be able to resolve.

I’m just going to take some time to speak about what I’m seeing in the Statistics Canada recently reported data. This is important, because I think all of us care about safe communities. But what I want to flag for everyone here is that the budget is entirely silent on new funding when it comes to gender-based violence. And yet, at the same time, Statistics Canada is telling us that the rates of violence and incidents of violence have now gone up over 18% from 2020.

While sexual assault is underreported to the Toronto police, we need to see that survivors need support. A survey by the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres found that during the pandemic, what they saw was 81% of Ontario sexual assault centres saw a rise in crisis calls for their programs. Yet their funding has not moved for years—not under the Liberal government, not under the Conservative government. This budget, again, remains dead silent on new funding for gender-based violence. Not addressing sexual assault is costly. When the government does not invest in appropriate services, it costs taxpayers much more later on. Studies have shown this repeatedly.

This is the time to fix this budget. We are willing to work with you to fix this budget. There’s no reason to delay, especially when the needs of Ontarians are there for us to meet and yet we are failing to meet their needs.

So I implore you. You have said that you want to work across the aisle. I’m putting forward some solutions that, I believe, can be worked on. These are non-partisan solutions, but they’re solutions that get us to where we need to go.