To the member across from Mississauga–Lakeshore, thank you for your presentation. I’m just going to ask you about the 407.

Obviously, part of the term sheet in the original agreement between the provincial government and the 407 operator was to maintain a certain amount of vehicles on that highway to reduce the congestion on the 401, and that meant that the operator had to set the tolls at a particular price. It couldn’t be too high, otherwise you would see a drop in vehicle use, and of course we saw that the tolls were too high, and the vehicles came off the 407.

Your government, in 2021, waived a billion dollars of congestion penalties from the 407 for-profit operator. Do you have any regrets about waiving that billion dollars now that we’re facing a $9.8-billion deficit?

Thank you to the member across for the question.

As I mentioned, a budget bill is a confidence bill, and you have to have confidence in the budget for us to pass this.

Well, let me tell you what’s missing in this budget. There is no concrete increase for school repairs for 2024 and 2025, and the funding for the school repair backlog has decreased year over year. This budget is simply not supportable.

To the member across, thank you very much for your presentation.

The Enbridge Gas plans were reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board. It was a plan that looked at what was going to be happening over the next five years. The board then argued that the company’s proposal would lead to an overbuilt and underutilized gas system. They wanted to move the company forward to ensure that they were going to meet the needs of the future by moving away from fossil fuel towards renewable energy.

Minister, what in this bill actually does that for the homeowners and the future taxpayers of Ontario? How do we protect them from undue and unnecessary costs that this bill will actually bring upon them because we’re still using outdated technology?

Good morning, Speaker. I’m also very proud to rise in the House today to welcome a number of housing advocates. They’ve travelled from across Ontario. I’d like to welcome Genna Ross, Jenna Yuill, Brian Harris, Beth Edwards, Bobbie Gunn, Cynthia Meshorer, Laura Paley, Sameer Butt, Shannan Humphreys and Dr. Siu Mee Cheng from Street Haven.

Thank you to the member across for the question. I absolutely do support the expansion of transit, especially transit that’s well-studied, transit that should connect communities to where they need to go on a daily basis and transit that is funded, not just capital costs upfront, but with provincial dollars for operating and that is sustained into the future. Without all of that coming together, the transit that’s being talked about in this bill, that’s being referenced in this bill, will actually not come to fruition. And that’s why I have trouble with this bill, because I want your community to have the public transit it deserves and this bill is not going to deliver it.

Absolutely: Torontonians want further accountability, stronger accountability, more accountability from the provincial transit body. If anything, it’s actually been written about in most major newspapers in Toronto and by most transportation and transit journalists covering the issue: It’s that Metrolinx is not accountable to the people that they are supposed to be serving and the people that they are supposed to be building for. And in the city of Toronto, things are happening to us and not with us, especially when it comes to transit.