I want to ask the member, because he’s in Scarborough: Why hasn’t he advocated for operational funding for the city of Toronto so that Scarborough could have better services within the TTC?

My question is to the Premier. The Eglinton LRT has been under construction for 12 years. It has also spiralled beyond its estimated cost, from the original $5 billion to nearly $13 billion, and it’s likely to rise as well. While the consultants building this project keep racking up the bill, we get faulty LRT platforms—in fact, stations that are broken up and taken away in dump trucks.

Taxpayers whose hard-earned dollars are funding this project, long-suffering residents and businesses that actually went bankrupt and had to close down are all looking for answers. They want transparency.

My question to the Premier is, how much more money, how much more of people’s hard-earned dollars, will your government waste?

We need to invest in our schools. In fact, the lack of support for Ontario school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, in the 2023 education budget is deeply concerning. Our government’s failure to provide reimbursements for pandemic-related expenses not only affects the financial stability of the board, but it also has a direct impact on the education workers who provide vital support to our students.

With the potential cuts to nearly 500 positions, we risk losing the expertise and support of educational assistants, child youth counsellors and administrative staff, who are critical to the success of our students.

Many of my constituents have shared their worries about the already underfunded education system and how further cuts would only make things worse.

A parent in my riding, Bethany Lynn-Rice, shared that her son, who has an IEP and is diagnosed with ASD, hasn’t received adequate support due to staff shortages, leading to an unsettling year. Bethany also shared about her daughter, who has been facing bullying, especially at recess, because there aren’t enough supervising staff to supervise during recess. Bethany and so many other parents are worried that cutting more staff positions will only make things worse for her children and for many children across this province.

We have seen far too many school safety issues over the past year as students transition back into in-person learning.

With these funding cuts, we also risk losing important mental health support staff, who are critical to the well-being of our future generation—

I listened to both of the members speak about the budget, and my question is to the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston because he spoke specifically about the investments that the government is making and how proud he is.

One of the things that took place last night was the TDSB board meeting, and they made some really difficult decisions. They made a lot of difficult decisions which will really show the cumulative cuts over the last 20 years and the impact of that to our students and their learning.

So I want to ask the member, why has the government underspent, specifically, $47 million in your previous budget, and now, while projecting for the education funding—and seeing the amount of violence and need for learning within our schools, why isn’t your government spending more on education than before?

My question is to the Premier. We’re facing some extremely challenging times for the people of this province. Today’s budget is an opportunity to address these challenges and provide the support Ontarians need.

My question is very simple, Speaker: Will this government take this opportunity that the budget provides and chart a new, hopeful course, one where the needs of everybody in this province—every single person—are met?

Speaker, budgets are about priorities. Time and time again, this government has shown that it doesn’t share the priorities of folks who aren’t the insider friends of this government. A recent FAO report found that the Premier’s plan for health care falls $21.3 billion short of the funding needed for hospitals, home care and long-term care. We have seen underinvestment in social services, education and infrastructure.

My question is, will budget 2023 reverse course and make up for the shortfalls this government has manufactured?

Groceries, gas and rent are through the roof. The people of this province deserve better. They deserve a government they can trust to follow through with their actual funding commitments. So this time my question is, will this government actually invest the money that they budget for in 2023?

Earlier this week, we had dozens of families of children with autism here at Queen’s Park with the autism coalition, who brought stories of the struggles that they face every single day, and they wanted us to listen to those concerns.

Families have been stuck in the vicious cycle of dysfunction of the Ontario Autism Program for years. Parents wait for years to get an invitation, and then keep waiting for their assessment, and then they keep waiting for their funding to be released, and then they wait to access to the programs that the child actually needs. And then, when they find access to that program, sometimes their funding deadline finishes or it starts again. This is the vicious cycle that they go through every single day here in this province. This is the reality.

The program has set a target of registering 8,000—yes, 8,000—children into the program. But the reporting from Global News shows that we have only registered 888. If the program applications were to stop today and there were no new applications, we would need 66 years—66 years—to get through the program wait-list.

Speaker, I cannot even imagine the pain some of these parents are going through. Some of them come to my office, and the tears—I cannot tell you the horrible situations they are going through. I implore this government to take a hard look at the program, invest the funding that’s necessary and make this program—

I want to thank the member from Ottawa South for his presentation. He mentioned the previous Mike Harris government and talked about hospital closures, funding cuts—I would add on the destruction of the model for our education system—privatizing our health care sector, long-term care, seniors’ care or home care. There are a lot of things to mention.

I would like to ask the member if you would enlighten us a little bit in terms of the way that the Harris legacy has impacted us and where we are today, and what this bill would mean for the future.