I’m proud to be standing up today to speak to the budget bill. It was released last week. Quite frankly, this budget doesn’t meet the moment.

Ontarians are struggling with affordability. When I think about my riding, I think about the food bank line I have to pass on the way to work, on College Street at Spadina, for the Fort York Food Bank. Every time I go by, week after week, it’s astonishing how many people are waiting for food because they can’t make things work anymore.

I think about the people I meet who cannot afford to pay the astronomical amount that they’re paying for rent. Even when they have good-paying jobs, earning $80,000 and up a year, they’re astonished that they still cannot find a place that works for them and their family in my riding that’s affordable, especially with rent upwards of $2,500 a month if you’re looking for a new one-bedroom apartment in our riding.

I also think about the hospitals in my riding as well: Toronto Western, Toronto General, SickKids. When I look at the emergency room wait-lists in my riding and in hospitals across Ontario, I hear that it takes 22 hours. The average wait is 22 hours when you go to the emergency room right now.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this budget does enough to help people. Those examples that I gave explain how people in my riding are not going to be adequately met by this budget.

There was a Toronto Star editorial, “An Ontario Budget Without Vision.” There is a sentence in here that I think really summarizes nicely what this budget is about, and I’m going to read it: “If this budget were a Christmas present, it would be a three-pack of white socks. Not entirely useless. But an exercise in going through the motions.” That’s not a round of applause there, folks.

Especially at a time when we have record inflation of 6.8% and we have a budget that, overall, increases spending by 1%, what we are going to see is cuts in services. On a real level, we’re going to see cuts in services. I want to spend my time going through some of the ministries and some of the sectors to look at the specifics.

The first one that I want to touch on is health care. Health care funding is essentially the same as last year. There’s some COVID money that you’ve stored on to and you’ve put onto the budget for this year, but essentially funding is the same as last year. That is especially concerning given that emergency rooms across Ontario are closing on weekends—that’s unheard of; I’ve never heard of that before—and when we’re seeing that wait time in emergency rooms, and we’re also seeing, according to the Financial Accountability Officer, thousands of people waiting for necessary surgery.

I’ve had a lot of parents reach out to me in my riding, because I have SickKids. I’ve spoken to the CEO of SickKids and their staff there to get an understanding of what kind of time period people are waiting there. We have 12,000 kids who are waiting for necessary surgery, and what is also concerning is that many of these children are waiting for surgery so long that they’re beyond the point where they can get best outcomes. I can’t imagine the stress that a parent would be going through to know that their child has moved beyond the window, where they’re not getting their surgery in a time frame where their child can reach their full potential and fully recover. That’s extremely concerning.

What’s also concerning in the budget is that there is a decision to direct more money to for-profit health clinics. I’m deeply disturbed by that. The main reason why I’m disturbed by that is because I have seen what happens when you bring in a two-tiered system, a public health care system and a for-profit health care system that healthier and wealthier people can access. I saw it in Australia, and it is not something to replicate.

We’re also seeing the impact of a two-tier health care system already in the situation that’s happening in the Ottawa Hospital, where operating rooms are being rented out on the weekend to a consortium of doctors for orthopedic surgeries. We are hearing from nurses that the decision to rent out those rooms is resulting in an exodus of nursing staff time going to staff those operating rooms on the weekend, and it has led to a reduction in the number of cancer surgeries that can be done during regular times at the Ottawa Hospital on weekdays, because the private surgery clinic can pay nurses a lot more, and they’re walking with their feet. I’m very concerned about that model because it does seem like there are some unintended consequences with this decision to create two-tiered health care. I encourage the Conservatives to look into that, investigate and make up your own mind on that, because it is deeply concerning. What are the guardrails that are going to be set up to ensure that the kind of issue we’re already seeing does not expand and continue?

When it comes to mental health, I do see that there is $425 million dedicated to community mental health care and addictions. Personally, I see that as a good sign. I would like more, but that is a good sign. The reason why I see it as a good sign in my riding is because we have a horrible opioid crisis in our riding; we have people dying and overdosing in washrooms, Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, and it is extremely concerning. These people need help. It is a step in the right direction. It’s not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction that there is an acknowledgement that funding for mental health needs to increase.

Then there’s transit. When it comes to operations and maintenance, I am very worried about the provincial government’s decision to not continue to fund operating funding in this budget. There was a decision by the federal government and the Ontario government to provide emergency operating funding during COVID, and that was a very good decision, because when operating funding and maintenance funding is provided, it provides this additional revenue when ridership is down, and it ensures that our buses run frequently and our trains run frequently. Now that that money is no longer there, what we are going to see is an increase in the cuts that we’re already starting to see in Toronto. In my riding, we are going to see less service on line 2, which many of you might take to get to work. We’re also going to see cuts to Queen Street and Dufferin Street.

When you look at the cuts that are happening with the TTC, what’s most disturbing is that the worst cuts are happening in the marginalized areas, the lower-income areas, the racialized areas—it’s bus service. That’s a shame, because the lines this government is looking at funding—the Ontario Line, the Yonge line extension—are not going to be in service for upwards of 10 years. What’s going to happen in the meantime? How are we going to build the city that we need, where people can get from A to B at a cheap price and quickly, if we’re not funding operations and maintenance? It’s the lifeblood of our city, and I’m very disappointed by that decision there.

Then there’s the issue of housing. I’m hearing the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing talk on and on and on about how there is an additional $202 million each year for two years for homelessness prevention and Indigenous supportive housing, but do not think for a second that this is new money. When you look at the budget and you go to how much money the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was allocated in 2022-23, and you compare that to how much they were allocated in 2023-24, you see a $124-million cut. For all practical purposes, municipalities are going to be seeing less funding for supportive housing, affordable housing and shelter services than they did in the previous year, and that is at a time when homelessness is on the rise. You know it. You see it. I’m sure some of you are living in towns where you are seeing the first encampment you have seen in decades, because people can’t afford housing anymore. So it is deeply concerning that there is a cut there.

This is also happening at a time when the Conservatives are moving ahead with Bill 23, which is hampering and curbing municipalities’ ability to require developers to pay their fair share for the partial cost of infrastructure, to pay for what is necessary for the new people who are coming in. Affordable housing, co-op housing—you like to say all this is about that. The vast majority of the cuts in development fee revenue will not be coming from co-operative housing and non-market housing, because most of that housing already gets a massive development fee discount. The city of Toronto has an Open Door program where if a developer is going to be building truly affordable housing, they already get their development fee waived.

The bulk of the cut is going to be taking place with the new market housing that is being built, especially on park services and on the thousand-dollar development charge that’s allocated to housing services and shelter services. I’m urging this government to look at that, because infrastructure is necessary for Ontario to grow, and you are curbing municipalities’ ability to build the infrastructure that is necessary to house new people and make our cities function well.

The final piece I want to talk about is about education. The Conservatives, with this budget, like to say that there has been a historic investment in education. That is not true. The funding increase that has been allocated to the education budget is overwhelmingly a result of the $2.3 billion in federal money that is earmarked to child care, which you have merged into the education budget, then claiming it’s your money and it’s all about education JK to SK. It is not true. It is federal money, and it is going to child care.

We know the full extent of the cuts when we look at what school boards are saying are going to be the cuts. School boards across Ontario are developing their budgets right now, and what we are already seeing with the school boards that have developed their budgets and are projecting into 2023-24 is that they are experiencing cuts. The Toronto District School Board is estimating a $61-million shortfall, with a loss of 522 staffing positions. The Toronto Catholic District School Board is also estimating a shortfall, and the Ottawa-Carleton school board is also estimating a shortfall.

I am very concerned that if this government does not address and increase the Grants for Student Needs funding, then our kids are not going to get the support they need in the classroom that will allow them to reach their full potential.

These are the comments that I have to make about the budget today. I’m looking forward to your questions.