I’m going to be sharing my time with the members from Ottawa South and Kingston and the Islands.

C’est un peu ridicule que le gouvernement a décidé d’annuler la session d’été une semaine avant le « schedule ». Puis, maintenant, on ne retourne pas à la législature qu’après la journée de l’Action de grâce en octobre. Cela veut dire qu’on a une vacance d’été plus longue que nos étudiants, que nos enseignants; que la législature est fermée plus longtemps que nos écoles ici en Ontario, et qu’on n’a pas la possibilité d’avoir un débat ou une discussion pour améliorer la qualité de notre système d’éducation pour nos enfants qui retournent en septembre à des écoles qui agrandissent, à des écoles sans le système de chauffage nécessaire pour une bonne qualité d’éducation.

It’s a little ridiculous that this government has chosen to not only end the spring session a week early, but now, not return the Legislature into session until after Thanksgiving. This, of course, means that the Legislature will be closed for almost 50% longer than our schools. We’ll have a summer vacation that is significantly longer than our kids and teachers—teachers this government far too often decries for not having the same kind of work ethic that they do. And yet, they’re extending their own summer vacation by months—not just weeks, but by months. Of course, this is time that Ontario’s elected officials, the members of this place who are chosen by the people, could have used to debate important issues that are before us.

I’m reminded that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who is also the House leader, promised us legislation this session on improving integrity issues across our 400-plus municipalities across the province. As we know and we’ve heard far too often, staff members in our cities and our towns, elected officials in our cities and our towns are going to work at city halls and town halls across Ontario and facing really egregious levels of harassment and abuse. We’ve had serious cases in Ottawa, in Brampton, in Barrie, in Mississauga, and undoubtedly in communities right across the province. This is a government that said they were going to address this issue. They’ve had legislation drafted for almost two and a half years. We have a minister who promised to bring this legislation forward before the end of this session. Of course, this session is ending a week early, and no such legislation has been tabled. I fear it hasn’t been tabled because a week after the minister said he would bring legislation forward this summer, the Premier was in Ottawa saying that he would never support that kind of legislation at all. So I have to question who is actually in charge. Is it the Premier or is it the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing?

Of course, we could have been using this next week and the six weeks in the fall that we’re going to miss to talk about the doctor shortage across the province. We have over two million Ontarians, two million of our neighbours and our friends, who don’t have a family doctor or a front-line health professional. This is a number that is getting worse and worse, and it has gotten particularly worse in the last six years under this government.

Just yesterday, I was speaking to a constituent of mine, Christie, who, like many parents this spring, received the thrilling news that their child has been accepted to university and their child is going to be going away to university. It is a thrill for many families to get to that stage in their life. As a result of being accepted to university, as a result of going away to school in the fall, her daughter was dropped by her family doctor. Her family doctor dropped her from her list of patients because she thought that she would be too far away to provide adequate continuing care. That’s ridiculous. If we allow our kids to be dropped by their family physician simply for being accepted and deciding to go away for college or university, we are going to have a tsunami of students who are going to be losing out on primary health care. That is an issue that is worth discussing and debating in this place, and it’s an issue we won’t be able to talk about again now until after the Thanksgiving break.

Small businesses in Ontario are suffering. They’ve been suffering for years as a result of the pandemic, and they continue to suffer. So this would have been a perfect opportunity to debate my colleague from Don Valley West’s proposal to cut small business taxes in half, saving small business owners up to $18,000 a year. That’s real money—real money that they could reinvest into their business, real money that they could use to pay off some of the lingering debts from COVID, real money that they could use maybe even just to keep the lights on and doors open and ensure that small business continues in their communities to serve their neighbours, friends and residents, and that’s a debate that we won’t be able to have now until after Thanksgiving.

Of course, as the largest city in the province, as the largest city in the country, which is in the midst of a potential devastating and crippling transit strike, we could have spent six or seven weeks we’re not going to be sitting here talking about adequately funding transit operations in Ontario. It’s possible that while the Premier and his cabinet are taking a summer vacation that transit in the largest city in the country might actually shut down the city. That is something that we could be debating, that we could be discussing. We could be sharing stories of those who are going to go through that pain and suffering as a result of a potential transit strike, but unfortunately, we won’t be here to do that, because, I presume, the Premier is going to be at his multi-million-dollar cottage in the Muskokas.

So, there is absolutely no need to extend the summer vacation well past Thanksgiving. It’s going to simply take away the opportunity to share stories from our constituents. It’s going to take away the opportunity to debate important legislation. It’s frankly going to take away the opportunity from the government to introduce important legislation. We know that they haven’t used the opportunity so far this year to introduce a heck of a lot of important legislation. I presume that’s why they don’t think they need these five or six weeks, is because they’re just bereft of ideas and don’t have anything else to bring forward.

So, with that, I can’t support this motion. We need to be here in the fall to debate these important issues.

And now, I’m glad to pass it on to my friend from Ottawa South.

On behalf of my friend and colleague from Kingston and the Islands, I’d like to welcome visitors from his riding: Gemma, Milo and Cole Zelmanovits, and Scott Grant, who are here to support their nephew and page Luke DeBoni.