I’m proud to submit this petition on behalf of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto. Their petition, as summarized, is calling on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

—immediately reverse the cuts to our schools;

—fix the inadequate education funding formula;

—provide schools with the funding to ensure the supports necessary to address the impacts of the pandemic on our students; and

—make the needed investments to provide smaller class sizes; increased levels of staffing to support our students’ special education, mental health, English-language learner and wraparound supports; and make sure that buildings are safe and healthy.

I will proudly affix my signature to this petition and send it back to the table with page Sophia.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise and to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre.

As I was listening to the Minister of Education’s debate remarks, I couldn’t help but feel that if this chamber was actually filled with parents and students, what a tragedy it would be for them to come out to this House and to have the Minister of Education essentially vilify them. If you were a family, parents and students living in urban centres, that would hurt double as much, because he did take aim specifically at families and students living in urban centres, and specifically downtown Toronto.

As a parent from downtown Toronto, I can tell you that my worries are the same as every other parent in Ontario. I want to make sure that my kid and all children in Ontario have access to a high-quality public education. It’s absolutely critical for us to invest in education because that’s a great equalizer for every student, every child in this province.

It really goes to the heart of the values that this government believes in. Will you be investing in education to support our students? Will you be investing in the education system to ensure that teachers and administrators have the resources that they need in order for them to deliver the high-quality education that every student deserves?

The motion is actually very simple, Speaker. The motion is simply asking the government of Ontario to substantially increase the funding for public education in Ontario so that every child receives the high-quality education they deserve, regardless of their family’s income. What could be more Canadian in Ontario than that?

But the government is doing exactly the opposite. For six years they’ve had a chance to increase funding to ensure that education receives the resources to allow success in Ontario, and they’ve done exactly the opposite. They have been defunding education, less and less every single year. They’re leaning right in to shrinkflation, which means that your money is buying you less every year in households across Ontario, and the same thing is now happening in the government’s coffers. Classrooms are oversized—30, 31, 32, 34, 38 students in a classroom. Now put in five or six students with developmental delays, global delays, autism and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, which is why we are hearing from educators, principals, parents and students themselves that the rise of violence is across Ontario.

These are choices being made by the government, choices that can be reversed if the government prioritizes student education as they say they do. But we know they don’t, because if they did they would put their money where their mouths are. Otherwise, they’ll stand up and they will insult the opposition, they will vilify unions and teachers, as they have done so on and on again, because they’re scapegoating them for their failed government policies.

Speaker, I’m just going to end by sharing a story very quickly from Chelsea, who is a teacher of grade 8 students in my community. She wants the government to understand that teachers are drowning. They are not successful at this moment because they’ve been underfunded, and the burnout is high. As much as they love their job—and they do, Speaker—they can’t hold on forever. They’ll be forced to walk away if this government doesn’t reverse its course. The stakes are too high. I hope they consider.

On the same point of order, the Minister of Health mistakenly identified that the question came from Toronto Centre; rather, the question came from the honourable member—

I also want to extend my personal and warm welcome to Community Living Toronto—I look forward to your reception this evening.

And a very special welcome to Winston Lee, who is my new intern. I hope you’ve made it into the chamber. I want to say thank you for all you’re doing so far.

I rise today to extend my warmest wishes to the Jewish community in Toronto Centre and across Ontario as they prepare for Passover.

Passover commemorates the liberation of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and their journey to freedom. The story of Passover reminds us all of the importance of standing up against oppression and the power of hope in the face of adversity.

Across Toronto, the Jewish community has made invaluable contributions to our rich, vibrant cultural tapestry. From the bustling streets of Kensington Market to the historic synagogues dotting neighbourhoods, Jewish heritage is woven into the very fabric of our province.

Over the years, I have attended many Passover celebrations where families and friends gather around the Seder plate and table to retell the story of the Exodus, enjoy traditional meals, and strengthen the bonds of love and kinship.

This year is special, as we will be hosting a Seder at our home for our friends and chosen family. We’ve taken the time to appreciate the blessings, where we will reflect upon freedom and reaffirm our commitment to building a world rooted in compassion, justice, equality and peace for all, including Israel and Palestine.

May the message of Passover inspire all of us to work toward a future where every single person can live safely in dignity, peace and freedom.

To the Jewish community in Toronto Centre and beyond, I wish you a happy and meaningful Passover. Chag Pesach Sameach.

My question is to the Premier. An Ontario family that has been waiting three years for the trial of the reported murder of their beloved brother has just been told that they’ll have to wait another year, and this is because that is the next available date at the Toronto Superior Court.

Last week, yet another child sexual abuse case was thrown out at the Toronto Superior Court, once again due to court delays. This is all happening under the Premier’s watch.

The first step to getting help is admitting that you have a problem. Yes or no—question to the Premier: Will the Premier admit that public safety is in chaos because the Ontario courts have not been his priority?

We have a record-high historic backlog. This is the worst record across the country. But this government works harder at putting out press releases than they do at fixing the courts. They search for old funding announcements so that they can reannounce them again instead of finding qualified workers to actually staff the courts.

Nathaniel Brettell’s murder trial was delayed yet one more year. His sister told CTV, “My life has been on hold for three years.... I’m suffering badly with survivor’s guilt. Now, with another year on top of that, I’m not in a good place.”

For the families watching: Does the Premier believe that it is reasonable to make Ontario families wait four years for a murder trial date?

It’s always an honour to rise in this esteemed House to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre.

I’m here, as we all are, to debate government Bill 180, the budget bill. Obviously, it’s a bill that actually sets forward the spending priorities of the government; it also, as in every budget, lays out the priorities and the values of the government of the day.

I think that we have all heard quite a bit of debate now about the things that the government is interested in doing, but I want to dial back, Speaker, to the time of the pre-consultation budgets.

When those pre-consultation sessions were rolling out across Ontario, Speaker, as a Toronto representative, I must note once again in this House that the city of Toronto, the capital of this province, was deliberately excluded from the budget pre-consultations. That means 2.8 million people. The financial heart, the cultural capital of the province was not at the table. We had to go elsewhere in order for our voices to be heard. This is a city that generates over $430 billion of GDP for the province and the country, and it just is absolutely mind-blowing that we didn’t have our own pre-budget consultation date here in the city.

But we did hear from a number of other stakeholders, including Toronto stakeholders that had to leave the city to be heard. We heard from many different communities and stakeholders, and I want to just highlight that some of the concerns that was brought forward to us at the hearings have to be read into the record one more time, Speaker.

We heard that now in Ontario, life is harder than ever before. The cost-of-living crisis that faces us requires real solutions, Speaker. We have a housing crisis that’s gripping every single household and ripping apart their budget. That’s making life extremely difficult for families. So we are looking for solutions in this budget that address the needs of hard-working, struggling Ontarians. That’s what I was looking for when the budget was released. That’s what Ontarians were looking for as well.

Let me tell you, Speaker, what Ontarians told us during the pre-budget consultation. Let’s also think about what Ontarians are asking and speaking about after the budget was released.

They said that the government should invest in proactive solutions to Ontario’s publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system and provide immediate support for community mental health programs and support for community health care coverage. That needs to be expanded under OHIP.

They also said that we need to make meaningful investments in order for us to combat the devastating impact of worker burnout and stress for workers impacted by the understaffing and under-resourcing of many different programs that are government-funded.

We also heard from Ontarians—and this was at every single budget session—that this government needed to directly invest in the creation of affordable and supportive housing. It’s not good enough to just leave it to the free-market forces expecting the for-profit developers to meet our needs when it comes to social as well as rent-geared-to-income housing.

They also told us that we needed to invest in public education at consistent and appropriate levels so that our post-secondary institutions as well as our public institutions would no longer have to come cap in hand every year with a request. Therefore, they wanted a government that was going to partner with them in a respectful manner. They said that this government needed to repair the formula for post-secondary education to ensure that Ontario keeps pace with its counterparts across Canada.

They also said—and this is very important, because we’re going to have a moment very shortly in this House to allow the government to correct the record. They also said that the government of the day needed to adopt the Renfrew county inquest recommendations—86 recommendations directly directed at the Ontario government. The first recommendation, which costs you absolutely nothing, is to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic so that this government would be able to address the problem with the same type of urgency and focused intention.

Speaker, I mentioned that this government would have an opportunity to correct the record because on April 10, in two days, this House will have a chance to debate it. This government will then have their opportunity to go on the record and adopt the Renfrew county inquest recommendation.

We also heard from community members and advocates and Ontarians about the need to double the ODSP rates. Right now, in this moment in time, we are legislating poverty and condemning people to a life of hardship through acts of government. We need to be able to reverse that as soon as possible. You can even say, Speaker, that as people choose medically assisted suicide, that is a form of social murder.

We need to protect and invest in Ontario’s libraries, museums and cultural institutions while recognizing their vital importance as economic drivers—very basic what I would call value propositions that allow us to build this budget.

Budgets, as we know, are going to be confidence bills. As the government likes to taunt, “Is the official opposition going to support us?” Well, you would get support if it was adequate, if there was adequate funding. It’s very difficult to support a bill that says we have confidence in the government when there isn’t enough to work with.

So across the province, we heard from health care providers who shared very practical solutions to the many challenges to our health care system. Speaker, as we all know in this House, it has been said time and time again that 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family physician. This number is going to swell alarmingly to 4.4 million by 2026, in two short years, unless swift action is taken.

The average family physician spends about 40% of their work week on administrative tasks that pull them away from other patients. The recommendation from the Ontario Medical Association is to provide efficiency initiatives to reduce non-clinical work and to improve access to care for patients. It’s something that this side of the House and the official opposition strongly supports, and we would absolutely put that into play if we were the government of the day. But we actually put that in play by putting the motion before this House so that this House could adopt that and move towards reducing the administrative burden on family physicians so they can do more and actually help the patients that they desperately want to help.

Speaker, we also heard from physicians as well as nurses who work in emergency departments, and what they have shared with us is that they are seeing massive closures in unprecedented manners. And this is largely due to a shortage of nurses, nurses who are leaving the field at unprecedented rates due to burnout and to overcapacity struggles. Closures and long wait times caused by understaffing result in delays or misdiagnoses, leading patients to return to the emergency department in much worse shape. This is shameful. We are a very rich province. We can certainly do better. But we are not going to be able to meet the problem with the actual solutions if the government has its head in the sand.

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario emphasized that in implementing staffing ratios, there has to be a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio. It’s the only way to address retention. If no action is taken, Ontario will suffer a shortage of 30,000 nurses—a staggering 30,000 nurses—by 2028. Also, closing the wage gap that nurses experience and closing the private clinics, which we know that the ONA has claimed and reported is undermining the public health care system. All of this is setting the way for privatization, something that this government is blatantly, intentionally dedicated to, and they’re not even hiding it anymore.

I want to speak about the need to ensure that we can provide funding that is stable and reliable for safe consumption sites. I represent Toronto Centre, known as the downtown east, and I can tell you that my community is hit very hard. We have safe consumption sites, Speaker, that are funded largely, 100%, by private donations. Safe consumption sites are a continuum of care in the health care system and you cannot help people if they keep dying, especially if there is a solution to reverse that horrific trend. The province needs to step up and do it quickly in order for them to save lives. Right now, they are not.

In northern Ontario, there are only three safe consumption sites and only one of them is federally funded. I’m not sure what this government is waiting for, but it’s clear to me that those who are living with addictions are not their priority. But they are family members and I can tell you that that is the priority of the families.

Mental health is a massive concern for Ontarians. We are facing a mental health crisis and the official opposition has been ringing this bell over and over again, saying that we are willing to work with you on solutions to address the problems that are being caught downstream. They are being caught in ER departments. They are being caught by our hard-working police officers. They are being caught in our school system and they do not have the resources and the skill set to address this problem.

Agencies that provide mental health care in Ontario are looking for multi-year funding to stabilize, sustain and build the sector. They are literally at a crisis point and they have been for years, but pretty soon, the runway is going to be gone. They have asked the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to consider the plight of the families, and this same message would go to the Premier and to everyone sitting on the front bench in cabinet. They have asked them to put themselves into the shoes of those families, to empathize with their pain about what it feels like to surrender a child simply because their community lacked the appropriate mental health supports.

I have a son who is just about five years old. I do everything I can to provide care for him; my partner and I both do. It would break my heart if I couldn’t care for him, and that’s exactly what’s happening to families right across Ontario, because they’re not getting the support from this government. Speaker, we all know about the alarming, damning statistics and the backlog with the Ontario Autism Program. We are not seeing this government do enough, nor are we seeing them coordinate and lead on these files, and we desperately need to.

Cities cannot experience the download of mental health and other social services and that this government asks that cities and neighbourhoods pick up the tab, but that’s exactly what they’re doing when they passed Bill 23 and then promised that they were going to make these cities whole. By on one hand stripping away their ability to actually raise the revenues they need, and then at the same time underfunding and defunding the mental health system, you downloaded it once again. We saw this with the Harris government, we saw this with the McGuinty government, and now it’s happening with this Conservative government.

We’re also facing a demographic tsunami. This is where individuals who are 65 and older are going to become, at some point in time, a sizable portion of the population. Right now, it sits at 20%. By 2031 it will be 25% and by 2040 the population of individuals who are 80 years old and over is going to double. There is no planning in this budget, or anywhere else in this government’s priorities, that says that they acknowledge that this problem is here and that they’re ready to work with the sector and to hear from families to come up with the solution. Things are only going to get worse if the investments and, just as importantly, the leadership coordination and the partnership with the sectors are absent.

Seniors can live safely in their communities—many of them can. They also want to live productively in their homes, but they will need to have those supports. Whether it’s home care or other types of care that allow someone to continue to live independently for as long as they can, all of that takes time and all of that takes resources. But most importantly, Speaker, it takes workers and it takes coordination.

It’s important for us to address the wage and benefits gap when it comes to workers who are paid in community support services. What we’re seeing is that that sector in particular—dominated by women; dominated by racialized women—is grossly, grossly underpaid. And that’s not unintentional. I believe that is intentional, and they know it as well.

I have to talk about housing, because it is not possible for us to have an opportunity to pass the budget in Ontario in the grips of a housing and affordability crisis and not talk about what this government is doing to address the housing crisis. They should be using every legislative lever in their portfolio, in their hands, to address the housing crisis. Whether it’s vacancy decontrol, whether it’s rent control, whether it’s the building of new RGI units, whether it’s new subsidies, whether it’s new legislation to prevent rental demovictions, all of that is just a snapshot of some of the arsenal that they can use, and they are using none of it.

So they’re not serious about addressing the housing crisis. There’s really nothing in here that says that they’re serious about meeting the needs of low-income and moderate-income individuals in Ontario, because if they were, some of those tools I talked about, the policy changes that are within the power of this government—they could do that, but they’re choosing not to.

The housing sector, especially the non-profit housing sector, sees that, and they know they do not have a partner in this government. Regrettably, they know that they’re in this all on their own. So who are they turning to? They’re turning to the federal government, they’re turning to their municipalities, and both of those government partners are saying, “Where’s the province?”

What we’ve seen, Speaker, is that every single year, we have the association of interval and transition houses who make a request to have a $60-million investment to offset the services to ensure that their workforce is stable. They do this every single year. And what we also heard during the pre-budget consultation is that other housing sector partners come to the province with the same request every single year. It’s astounding that we have a government that’s not willing to work with the non-profit sector, to actually support them to expand deeply affordable housing for Ontarians to meet them where they are needed.

Education is a very important topic that this House has direct purview over, and since 2018-19 funding for education has fallen to an alarming $1,200 per student—peanuts—leaving us a laggard in Canada. Chronic underfunding creates a significant impact on the quality of education—the ability of hard-working teachers, education workers, administrators and trustees to deliver the resources and supports that students need.

Speaker, I was recently at the Toronto District School Board. I was outside of their building as the trustees were grappling with a massive budget deficit. They were put into a most impossible situation: Cut services to balance their budget or run a deficit—a symbolic deficit in this case—to send a message to the government that they will not play their game anymore.

That’s not the only school board in Ontario that’s struggling to make ends meet. Every school board is struggling. We’re hearing this from every union and association that represents educators. We’re hearing this loudly from parents—loudly from parents—when they are telling us that class sizes are too large, that their children cannot be successful, and if their children have special needs, God help them, because this government is not going to, and it’s heartbreaking. I sit in this House, and I have the privilege of being able to work in this House, so close to the solution, and I can’t reach it, but our members across can do something about it. I know they’ve heard from their constituents about the same problem because their constituents have reached out to me, telling me that they tried to talk to their MPP or the Minister of Education without much success.

Speaker, in the 30 seconds I have, I just want to say that for Ontarians who are looking for a budget that will work for them, this budget clearly does not. If you’re looking for a family doctor or better access to one, it’s not going to help you. If you’re a young person looking for housing, you’re not going to see anything in this budget for you. If you’re struggling with the cost of living, which most Ontarians are, there isn’t enough in this budget to make it work for you either.

I’ll tell you, Speaker, that we have resources and we have ideas. We need to work together, but we can’t do it if the government’s not willing to step forward. Thank you.

Thank you to the member from Toronto–St. Paul’s for your very passionate presentation. I know that education is close to your heart, and certainly, you are a subject matter expert.

I’m very interested—because one of the biggest contributors of stress and anxiety and depression for post-secondary students is financial stress. It’s the biggest barrier for students to actually seek support and treatment. The second, of course, is the wait-list to get access to those services, and the third is the lack of available services. These are all things that the government has the power to do something about. Is there anything in the bill that actually resources the students so that they can actually access the services that they need to combat anxiety and depression?

I’d also like to lend my voice in support to the good, hard-working first responders from Toronto Centre who are here specifically to be recognized. Thank you for your hard work and ongoing efforts in making our communities safe. If you stick around, I actually have a question specifically around the incident coming up in question period.

Speaker, empty words that don’t actually keep trans communities safe. Hate crimes are on the rise in Ontario and in Toronto; we have seen this tripled in the 2SLGBT community. In fact, according to Toronto police, queer and trans people are the ones most frequently victimized by physical assault.

In April, I introduced an NDP bill to address this violence by creating the first-ever Ontario-wide strategy to address 2SLGBTQI safety. Every day that goes by without a provincial plan to stop transphobic violence, the community grows more afraid and is losing hope.

Can the Premier—can anyone in government—assure trans and queer families like mine that they will keep us safe? How will he commit to working with us to pass this legislation as soon as possible?

I’m proud to present this petition. Signatures were collected by Hugh Armstrong, a resident of Toronto Centre. The petition is to the Ontario Legislative Assembly.

“Pause the Expansion of the Methane-Fired Electricity Generation.

“Whereas the Earth just passed through the hottest three months on record;

“Whereas Canada is experiencing the most severe wildfire season on record;

“Whereas the Ontario government is preparing investments for electricity supply for the long term;

“Whereas in light of recent reports by the RBC Climate Action Institute, Dunsky Energy and Climate Advisors, and the Sustainability Solutions Group;

“We, the undersigned, call upon the government of Ontario to pause the expansion of methane-fired electricity generation and evaluate the role of renewable energy and storage, conservation, distributed energy resources, and municipal net-zero plans in meeting Ontario’s electricity needs.”

I’ll affix my signature to this petition and return it to the table with page Shahan.

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,308 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas small increases to ODSP have still left these citizens below the poverty line. Both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to survive at this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I want to thank Dr. Sally Palmer, who collected signatures and submitted them to my office. I will now present the petition to page Henry, who will bring it to the table.

I’m proud to present this petition on behalf of the good people of Toronto Centre.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas this government knew exactly what was coming with the Omicron wave—we all did. But they marched us right into it without preparing hospitals and long-term-care homes;

“Whereas hospitals are so understaffed and overrun that people are left to worry if they can get the care they need;

“Whereas front-line health care heroes are exhausted, run off their feet on every shift, getting sick at an alarming rate, and doing it all while being disrespected by the government;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

“—scrap Bill 124 and increase health care workers’ wages;

“—increase hospital funding that matches inflation, population and the community’s needs;

“—give all workers 10 permanent paid sick days;

“—expedite recognition of nursing credentials of 15,000 internationally trained nurses;

“—create new jobs for late-career and recently retired nurses in supervisory roles and mentorship roles;

“—implement a funded return-to-nursing program to bring back the over 4,000 nurses who have left the profession.”

Sorry, Speaker, I’m just not feeling well. I proudly affix my signature to this petition and send it back to the Clerks’ desk. Thank you very much.

“Petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas health care and support services are increasingly understaffed workplaces; and

“Whereas health and care services rank second highest for lost-time injuries (LTIs) among all sectors in Ontario; and

“Whereas complex care is increasingly prevalent with a growing and aging population; and

“Whereas recipients of care prefer services outside of large institutions and close to or inside their homes, whether group homes, retirement homes, or other residential care facilities; and

“Whereas personal support workers (PSWs) are the backbone of retirement homes and home and community care settings that deliver care for seniors; and

“Whereas developmental support workers (DSWs) are the backbone of group homes and similar residential care facilities that deliver care for people with exceptionalities; and

“Whereas bites, cuts, broken bones are all-too-common injuries when doing this work; and

“Whereas all group home and residential care workers deserve workplace protections as we ask them to care for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities; and

“Whereas it is not currently mandatory for employers to provide WSIB protections to PSWs and DSWs, particularly in retirement homes and group homes where a majority of workers like them provide care; and

“Whereas approximately 25% of health and care workers have no WSIB protections under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997; and

“Whereas efforts to expand WSIB coverage to PSWs and DSWs and all workers like them have received yes votes from members of all political parties represented in the Legislature in the past; and

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Legislate or regulate an expansion of mandatory WSIB coverage to all health and care service workers in Ontario by categorizing all those who operate a group home or residential care facilities or home/community care, including retirement homes, rest homes and senior citizens’ residences a schedule 1 employer.”

I want to thank the good people of SEIU for canvassing and collecting the signatures for this petition.

I’m speaking today on the issue of provincial bail reform. News story after news story, Ontarians are losing faith in their justice system. I hear from small businesses in Toronto about how the accused are released back into the community without access and pathways to housing or rehabilitation. Innocent people are getting hurt. Iconic businesses like Dudley’s on Church Street have experienced smashed windows caused by people out on bail without supervision, thus threatening their staff and their business.

Risk to community safety needs to be screened properly and adequately in the courts before anyone is released back into the community. People at high risk of committing violent offences are not having past violence considered. People at low risk are being detained for far too long. Police officers and other first responders are being put at unnecessary risk, as we have tragically learned through the murder of OPP constable Greg Pierzchala.

The Premier can do more than just write letters to the Prime Minister. The Ontario NDP will continue to push for real provincial bail reform, including taking immediate action to (1) ensure timely bail hearings, compliance and enforcement; (2) restore the Ford government’s $130-million cut to legal aid funding; (3) ensure that the targeting of the most dangerous offenders does not criminalize people are who are experiencing poverty, mental illness or addiction; and (4) ensure that everyone who needs it can access adequate housing and mental health care.

We call on this government to do more than to point fingers. Start implementing provincial solutions immediately.

It’s always an honour to rise in this House to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre. It is an honour specifically to speak to this important motion. I want to give my thanks and heartfelt gratitude to my colleague, our deputy leader, Sol Mamakwa.

This motion was crafted after consultation with the Indigenous community. Their voices were centred at the table as they shared with him and everyone who would listen, and as they recorded the results, what the community needed in order for them to be healthy and well. There is no doubt in my mind that, as they shared those stories, they oftentimes had to peel back the layers of pain and reveal their vulnerabilities of what they didn’t have access to. And we know for sure that this is probably one of the most important issues gripping our province today: the lack of high-quality access to health care for the Indigenous communities, communities living in the north and fly-in and remote areas. Indigenous people suffer and experience disproportionately high levels of maternal and infant mortality, malnutrition, cardiovascular illness, HIV/AIDS and other diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

My own riding of Toronto Centre has one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in Ontario, and that means that it is home to vibrant Indigenous communities and service providers who are doing incredible work with very little resources. These communities deeply understand what this motion spells out, Speaker: that Indigeneity and colonialism are critical social determinants of health that need to be properly and formally recognized in this House.

The needs of urban Indigenous communities are oftentimes different from northern and on-reserve communities. Toronto also has a significant population of community members who are Indigenous who actually commute—they have dual connections. These are folks who come to work in Toronto and they come to study, but maintain a deep connection to their rural and on-reserve communities.

Unlike northern and on-reserve communities, urban Indigenous people in Toronto do not struggle, generally, with long travel times for medical access or access to clean water. But many do struggle—all do struggle, I should say—with the lack of culturally appropriate health care access and services, and the medical racism that meets them everywhere they go, especially as they interface with the larger hospitals. And they all suffer from a lack of connection to spiritual support and community elders.

That’s why I’m so proud of the organizations in my community that are bridging those gaps. They bring together vital health, social and cultural services under one roof, oftentimes an amalgamation of so many different services, because they’re doing so much to support our community. I particularly want to highlight Anishnawbe Health, Thunder Woman Healing Lodge, Native Women’s Resource Centre, the Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy, Two-Spirited People of the First Nations, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto and Toronto Council Fire—just a handful of the hard-working and underfunded organizations in my riding.

Many urban Indigenous people in my community have deep connections to their culture, language and land, but some do not. The effects of residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, the Millennium Scoop and ongoing trauma and racism really impact how they interface and interact with our publicly funded services—their publicly funded services. They are always looking for culturally competent health care. Indigenous-led health care providers like Anishnawbe Health are all trying to do what they can with what I said are limited resources, but none of those organizations I named actually provide service at hospital-level care.

Given the current health care crisis, Ontarians of every cultural background are struggling to access timely and appropriate care. This means that many Indigenous people access mainstream health care and supports every single day, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, but every single day there are barriers and obstacles. They experienced racism and they were oftentimes turned away.

It is deeply troubling, Speaker, that this government has not recognized, so far, the importance of this motion—not in the remarks from the member across. It’s so important for all of us to remember that if we are to do better for the—

Pride Toronto released their 2023 economic impact report this morning. I had the pleasure of putting a copy on every member’s desk, at their request. Pride Toronto has generated $600 million in economic activity for Ontario, creating almost 7,000 jobs—very impressive. But because of the rise of hate incidents, insurance and security costs have now doubled. This government has cut Pride Toronto’s funding, and it is now sitting at 50% less than where it was in 2019. This is happening at a time as we’re entering into a recession. During a time Ontarians are now seeing rising hate everywhere, Pride festivals matter more than ever before.

I want to thank the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport for recently meeting Pride Toronto, but I understand that no commitments were made regarding funding.

The Premier is here today. I’d like to ask the Premier directly: Will his government commit to increase permanent, sustainable for Pride festivals across Ontario?

So, speaking about safety, Speaker, I’m very interested in knowing why this government has not been able to develop an anti-2SLGBTQ-hate-crime strategy thus far. Windows are being broken, hateful graffiti sprayed on schools, Pride flags torn down and burned. Queer and trans families are being threatened and bullied, and yet we are seeing no action from this government.

Speaker, how much longer do two-spirited, queer and trans Ontarians have to wait before their safety matters to this government?

Good morning, Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity. I’d like to welcome visitors to our House: the executive director from Pride Toronto, Kojo Modeste, as well as the co-chairs of Pride Toronto, leZlie lee kam and Grant Gonzales. And to the entire board and the set of volunteers and staff, it’s wonderful to have you here.

I’d like to welcome the medical officer of health for the city of Toronto, Dr. Eileen de Villa. I look forward to speaking with you and the OMA colleagues this afternoon.

It’s always an honour to rise in this House to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre and, in particular, today’s debate is around Bill 131, the government bill entitled Transportation for the Future Act.

You know, when it comes to public transit, I have a very personal and deep relationship to this critical piece of infrastructure in the city of Toronto, this essential service that my family and I have used for my entire life in Canada and my entire time in Toronto. My parents never had a car. They never had a driver’s licence in this city. I was the first person in my family—believe it or not, Speaker, this might be a very challenging story for folks in the House to comprehend, but I was the first person in my family to actually get my driver’s licence here. So, for the majority of my life, right up until being a young adult, if the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission, didn’t take us there—meaning it didn’t travel there or the route wasn’t covered—we simply didn’t go. That meant that my mom, my dad, my grandmother and three children would all pile onto a streetcar or a bus or the subway if we were to make any journey as a family. Imagine that being difficult for newcomers, especially with young children, kids who didn’t always listen, who were always being sort of pulled around. That was very, very difficult.

So I am deeply invested in the quality of public transportation, the quality of public transit in Toronto, but also recognizing my experience is not so uncommon, for many people don’t necessarily have access to a vehicle. And, if some families do have access to a vehicle, you may have five or six people who need to go in many different routes—someone in the family is reliant on public transit.

This bill is actually very important, especially as we talk about the future of transit in Ontario. I want to be able to support the spirit of the bill because I think that’s important, but as we dig deeper into this bill, things start to unravel, and it unravels very quickly, so I am very pleased to be able to provide some thoughts and some feedback with members of this House.

Transit riders in Ontario have been waiting at stations, as well as bus stops, for far too long. We have seen advocacy groups, like those in the city of Toronto called TTCriders, who have been calling for fare integration for literally years and, beyond that, decades. I’m very happy to know that this government is listening, as previous governments have said that they are very interested in fare integration. This is a long time coming. Fare integration, of course, will reduce expenses for transit users, especially those who have the furthest to travel. Like you and many who are still using transit, I don’t want to necessarily spend my time calculating how much my trip will cost. I just want to be able to go in and tap. With the rising costs of gas, insurance and maintenance, fare integration and the reduction of fares overall is actually going to be welcome.

But we’re not talking about the reduction of fares; we’re simply talking about fare integration. At the same time, the cost of operating transit is on the rise.

Let’s not forget that the government has refused to continue the previous Liberal government’s commitment to at least reducing GO riders’ fares by $1.50 in 2020. This government scrapped that. There was another short-lived fare integration project that predates this one, and this is where Torontonians were asked to pay an extra $60 a month for a little sticker that we would have attached on the back of our monthly metro pass that would allow us to ride the GO system within Toronto. While those measures may have been well intentioned, they never really did meet its obligations, and that also was a problem, as it hurt thousands and tens of thousands of Ontarians trying to get through their daily commute.

I worry about the fate of our small businesses in the downtown as more and more people are now working from home and they don’t oftentimes go out to buy their lunches or perhaps do their local shopping while they’re here. Workers have obviously created their own schedules, and they do this oftentimes in collaboration with their employers, but I would hate to think that small businesses who are actually reliant on the reliability of the connectivity of transit in order to move shoppers and diners through the city—if you don’t have a reliable transit system that is going to be properly maintained and staffed, you will also see the decline and the struggle of small business. Of course, we saw that during the pandemic, and many of the businesses in the core of the city have said they are still not up to the sale and revenues of where they needed to be before the pandemic. And we know that many businesses in Ontario are still covered in debt. The average small-business debt these days is $134,000. When we build transit—good, reliable transit—it’s going to foster and help our economy. Not only are we moving goods and services along when we build good roads, a connected highway system, but transit actually allows us to move people along, which then drives the economy as well. So those are definitely good, attainable goals that we should all be striving for, but if the transit isn’t there, it’s not going to be helpful.

Let me share with you, Speaker, an experience that I have had sitting on Toronto city council, and it was the first of many experiences that we had at city council. On the first day of then-Mayor Rob Ford’s tenure, he stood up at city council and he tore up Transit City, which was an $8.15-billion LRT plan which covered 120 kilometres across the city over seven LRT lines. Shovels were already in the ground. Shovels had to be put down. Contracts that were signed up to $1.3 billion were then torn up, and everybody was frozen. They didn’t really know what to do. Some 150 Transit City staff were told to stop working, and $130 million that was already spent was gone, with another $65 million of sunk costs that we would never recover.

We have a legacy here where we have Conservative politicians coming into Toronto and ripping up our transit plan. In 1995, Mike Harris did the same thing; he came into power with the Common Sense Revolution. Very shortly afterwards, he actually said no and tore up two significant projects that were under way. One of them was the Eglinton West line. A couple of years later, he began the most horrific impact to the TTC that, generations afterwards, we’re still living with, and that’s when he cut the operational funding and the subsidies to transit in Toronto. To this day and time now, the transit system in Toronto is one of the least-funded—regionally, provincially, state-wide funded—transit systems in North America. What a horrible title that we hold there, Speaker, but yet we are living with the legacy, unfortunately, of Conservative politicians constantly meddling in the affairs of city council, and in this case with the transit plans that the city had already put under way.

But they’re not alone, Speaker; they were supported. In this case, with Mayor Ford at that time, he was supported by the Liberals at Queen’s Park as well as the Liberals in Ottawa. What we saw there was, if the Liberal government of the day here said no to the mayor—“You shouldn’t be tearing up a transit plan. You should build what’s already under way. Finish the LRT system”—Toronto would be moving faster today than it ever would be, because that’s what would have happened.

We have two significant factors that cannot be ignored where we have Conservatives and Liberals constantly working together in partnership to undermine local transit planning as well as local transit construction. Now we have the Premier who took a crayon, and he decided to redraw the downtown relief line. When he did that, he moved stations around and then dropped stations without any consultation, without any technical review or design. We are now building the Ontario Line—or you’re building the Ontario Line—and it’s creating a little bit of chaos and a lot of confusion, largely because we are watching the Eglinton Crosstown fiasco unfold—and I would say it’s a fiasco. You can ask the residents and the business owners along Eglinton how that line has served them over the past 13 years while it’s been under construction. As billions of dollars have ballooned in terms of overrun and with no opening date on the horizon, there is lots of cause of concern for whether or not this will actually work well for the local residents.

Speaker, the other thing I want to point to your attention is that we had a mayor, John Tory, who actually created a new transit plan called SmartTrack. Largely, everyone would agree that that SmartTrack cinched him the 2014 victory. Ten years later, SmartTrack is nowhere to be found. It’s a shadow of itself. The project went from 22 stations under the Transit City banner to about five stations, and who knows if they’re going to actually be realized? We have a city that’s growing, bursting at the seams. The project has dragged on, as projects sometimes do when you don’t have core funding and it’s not properly vetted and if it’s not properly acknowledged by all parties, and you have it now left sort of floating, again, in the wind.

So it’s not that Torontonians in particular don’t rely on transit. I just told you my personal story. Without a transit system that’s well funded and properly operating, my goodness, my family wouldn’t have been able to get to work. And both my parents worked. I hardly saw them because they worked so darn hard. Everybody else who doesn’t have a car is reliant on transit. That’s why the stakes are so incredibly high.

We now have a new mayor in Toronto who is deeply committed to public transit. Her first few political acts in the city of Toronto have already shown us that she’s going to be reversing service cuts, she’s going to be putting money back into transit as she can. But Mayor Chow and Toronto city council can’t do any of that work on their own. None of that can be done without actual government support here.

And that’s what brings me to Bill 131 and why I think we need to be able to move through this very carefully. Cities need to build transit in partnership with the province. That is non-refutable. But when you defer those costs, and you download the responsibilities to the cities, and you talk about building transit for the future when you can’t even get transit done today, there isn’t going to be a lot of trust. We know that through Bill 23, cities are going to lose about a billion dollars already in Ontario, and so we’re also seeing an economic real estate slowdown. Every developer that I speak to, especially in the busiest part of the country, in Toronto Centre, they tell me it’s coming.

When you have a bill that’s largely structured—that talks about attracting development and levies to build the transit that government should be building, you’re walking into a timeline right now that is not going to be proven to have a good outcome. Nothing is going to be built, especially when you have developers who are already very nervous, as they all are right now, about the future of construction, the future of the housing sector because of high interest rates, because of high labour costs, because there’s disruption in supply chain. All of that is before us, and you’re putting forth a piece of legislation that has very little details, that doesn’t say anything with respect to how you’re going to operationalize it. It’s very vague on how you’re going to fund it, except for that some developer, some private sector partnership with the municipalities is going to build it for you. It makes no sense.

Developers will tell you, because it’s been tried before in the city of Toronto—many conservative politicians have said, “The development industry will build you transit.” They will tell you they are not going to do it. Every single one of them will tell you that transit is provincial, it’s a city responsibility or it’s a federal responsibility. “You build it. We come to build the housing.” That’s what they’ll tell you.

This strategy, this legislation as laid out, is not going to be producing the transit that you think it will, because it’s not going to work. It has been promised over and over again, and it has never, ever really built a network of connected, reliable, affordable, well-operationalized transit.

It’s clear to me that the government’s actions are going to create that condition where municipalities are backed into a corner, and that corner is: They’re starved for transit. They haven’t really had working partners in the provincial government that will sit down with them on a regular basis and take a look at their expansion plans and how they want to grow up their neighbourhoods, grow up their cities. They haven’t had that mutual relationship and constant back-and-forth feedback loop where everyone is working together. It’s always “my plan or your plan,” and “If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to withhold funding. If you will take up my plan, I might give you a little bit of funding, but you have to come up with more on your own.” This is why we have gridlock, and that’s why we are struggling in Ontario right now, as we see transit start and stop, transit plans drawn up and ripped up constantly.

I want to join the members of ATU Local 113, the hard-working men and women who actually run Toronto’s transit system, in sharing their concern that this bill could have very significant implications to how they operate the system, the largest transit system in Canada. They haven’t been consulted. They haven’t been asked to come to the table, to work with the government to resolve some of these big loophole questions. You put forward a bill that’s going to impact ATU 113 and the transit workers, who are deeply committed to keeping Toronto running, but you haven’t talked to them, and that, of course, is a big, big problem. We know that you and I are not going to operate those trains, buses and streetcars, so you’ve got to talk to them, and that needs to happen as soon as possible.

If Bill 131 interferes with collective bargaining rights or their collective agreements, then you’d better bet that we will oppose it every step of the way, because we are not going to allow anything that will actually upend their collective agreements. The courts will not let you either.

Bill 131 also requires municipalities to negotiate with developers when it comes to the construction of GO stations. I have shared with you that that doesn’t work. I’ll tell you that if you think you’re going to be building housing on the greenbelt, and that it’s going to be highly desirable and it’s not going to further urban sprawl, there isn’t a single piece of construction of transit that’s going to connect those new homes, which should be built elsewhere, especially on lands that are already approved, that are already within our urban municipal boundaries.

Any reliance on development charges or any type of levies is really tipping into the P3 partnership. Of course, P3 partnerships have been proven to be an utter disaster for public coffers, for public decision-makers and, ultimately, the public taxpayer. They are always much more expensive. They never finish on time. They’re always, always a disaster. We have so many examples to point to, and they don’t necessarily need to be transit. It could be hospitals; it could be other types of public buildings. They’re all stuck in the same boat when you’re trying to contract out your risks and you think that somebody is going to do it for you without the profit structure. That’s just not possible. That’s not how capitalism works, and they’re not doing it because of benevolence.

What we’ve also seen with the government’s transit agency, which is tasked with building transit in Ontario, is that they’ve been mired in secrecy. I’ve experienced that and the good member for Toronto–Danforth has experienced that, when we had political staff in the Minister of Transportation’s office direct them to actually exclude us from notification: “Take the names of the member for Toronto Centre and the member for Toronto–Danforth off the notifications.” That was revealed in a Toronto Star article. When I tried to ask some questions, it was shut down. When I tried to FOI this information, I was given a very long list of costs. It was very hard, and I am a public office-holder. I have every right to have that information, because a public agency is tearing down 21 trees in my community. It happened on a bitterly cold weekend, and without any notice to my community, which is an absolute disrespect there.

We are now seeing Metrolinx and the Eglinton fiasco unfold even further. It is an absolute joke. It really is a painful pressure point in the city, as it actually has created so much additional gridlock with no end in sight, and the costs continue to balloon. When we ask for accountability, we’re told that it’s almost like it’s not really ours to ask for. Well, it is—it is every Ontarian’s right to know what’s happening with those billions of dollars being spent with no service being offered, with no infrastructure coming online that we are aware of. And of course we want it to be safe, but we’re not getting the answers without a tooth-and-nail fight.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity of speaking to this bill. I look forward to any questions that come forward and it’s been an honour to speak to this House.

In June, as we gather across Ontario in municipalities in recognition of two-spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex equality, I wish to extend a happy Pride Month to all those community members and all Ontarians who embrace and strive for acceptance and love in the name of human rights.

The overall story of Pride in our province and nation is one of progress, resilience and advocacy. The first official Pride parade in Canada took place in Toronto in 1981, known then as “Toronto gay pride day.” It started as a modest gathering of 1,500 brave individuals who showed up to demand basic human rights and respect.

Over the years, this tiny, Toronto-based pride day has now grown in size and significance. Today, Pride is now one month long, and Pride Toronto’s marquee Sunday march is now the largest one in the world, outranking the heavyweights of São Paulo, Madrid, New York City, Berlin and London, UK.

If the government wants to grow social cohesion, equality, the creative class, jobs, tourism and the GDP, then I suggest that this House gets behind immediately reinstating Pride Toronto’s full funding and then properly funding every single local Pride in Ontario.

Speaker, I would be remiss in my remarks today if I did not mention that I’m a proud member of the 2SLGBTQI community. I benefit from the hard work of those who came before me, including Rev. Cheri DiNovo, United Church minister and former member of provincial Parliament for Parkdale–High Park.

Under her leadership, the Ontario NDP passed into law more pro-2SLGBTQI legislation than any other party in Canadian history, including Toby’s Act, which added trans rights to the Ontario Human Rights Code in 2012; the Affirming Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act, which banned conversion therapy for youth in 2015; Cy and Ruby’s Act, which established parental equality for 2SLGBTQI parents in 2015, which meant that I did not have to adopt my son when my wife gave birth to him, which would have been a demeaning and laborious task; and of course, the Trans Day of Remembrance Act in 2017.

Yet, despite these important gains, Pride is starting to look and feel a little bit different this year. We’ve seen an escalating rise of hate and vitriol being directed at our community members, specifically the trans community and drag artists. Religious fundamentalists and right-wing extremists, many of whom share white supremacist tendencies and values, are showing up at libraries, schools, restaurants, municipal councils and places of worship. Pride celebrations and LGBT communities are seeing the costs of security, as well as insurance, rise, largely due to those threats.

A small minority of publicly funded Catholic school boards are now refusing to fly the rainbow flag, despite having done so in previous years. This is why I’m so proud today that we are joined by 20 clergy members and Christian faith leaders who are representing 500 more who are not here today. From right across Ontario, they represent the five-largest mainline churches: the United Church and Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist and Lutheran churches. They represent 70 municipalities in Ontario, from Toronto to Marathon, Sarnia to Ottawa, who have signed a unity statement calling for love and acceptance, calling for the affirmation of the 2SLGBT community, calling upon our House and this government to raise the rainbow flag across every single publicly funded school in Ontario. I thank them for taking the time to speak up. I thank them for being here today, asking us to do better, compelling us to uphold our obligations in the act that binds education and the Accepting Schools Act. I thank them for all their hard work.

I recognize that it’s not just the 2SLGBTQIA community that is under attack, Speaker. I recognize that Muslim and Jewish communities are also under attack. We’ve seen right here in Ontario the dark rise of hatred. We’ve seen that they’re targeting these religious as well as 2SLGBT minorities. We recognize that, in 2021, there was a 67% increase in incidents linked to hate towards a person’s religion and that, in Ontario, an over 107% rise in hate crimes against sexual orientation.

Pride Month should be joyful and we will continue to hold onto that. We are never going to let that go. I want us to rise and fight for human rights together. I want us to be able to understand that every single human being should have dignity and respect. Let’s stay united against hatred and bigotry. Let us be courageous in our advocacy to ensure that all Canadians can live free from hatred and discrimination.

Happy Pride Month, Speaker.

It is my pleasure to welcome Grant Gonzales, who is a co-chair of Pride Toronto.

It’s wonderful to see you here.

I also recognize Guidy Mamann, someone I have a long history with, going back to the time I was in my twenties. I actually worked in his law firm.

Ms. Smith moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 121, An Act to enact the Improving Dementia Care in Ontario Act, 2023 / Projet de loi 121, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur l’amélioration des soins aux personnes atteintes de démence en Ontario.