The spring budget plans spending $214 billion of taxpayer money, more than any government in Ontario history. Never has a government spent so much to deliver so little. And why is that? Because this Premier and his government are conducting a gravy train deluxe that delivers taxpayer money to their friends and insiders at the expense of the people of Ontario.

Speaker, who benefits from this budget? It’s not our public education system. Teachers spoke about that yesterday at the finance committee, during budget hearings. It’s not our public health care system. Doctors spoke about that too, yesterday. In fact, the OMA is so fed up with not being heard by this government about the crisis in family medicine that they are trying to get the government’s attention by saying they need to “prepare for the coming apocalypse,” all while this Premier spends money hand over fist in the Premier’s office on expensive staffers.

My question to the Premier: When will he take control of his own office and stop the gravy train?

While the Premier has spent $4 million on expensive staff in his office for at least the last three years—$6.9 million this year—the budget does not show that. The budget has been exactly the same—$2,432,661. The math just doesn’t add up.

My question to the Premier: Where is he hiding the money?

Interjections.

In 2018, the Premier ran a tough-talking campaign aimed at convincing Ontarians the previous government was wasting taxpayer money. He spoke about the growing sunshine list of public sector employees earning over $100,000. One would think he was some kind of Robin Hood figure who was going to take from the rich and give to the poor. His record in office proves otherwise.

Speaker, this government has made many mistakes: Bill 124, axing workers’ rights, the greenbelt scandal, to name just a few. But now, the government has a mistake right in the Premier’s office. The Premier has added so many new sunshine-list employees to his staff that it’s costing taxpayers more than double what it did under any previous government.

My question to the Premier: Is he ready to admit that he is running a government that is full of friends, insiders and fat cats, to use his own words, and to clean up the bloated mess in his office?

Ontarians have been subject to a bombardment of government self-praise in recent weeks. The government spent taxpayer dollars on one of the most expensive advertising spots you can buy, a Super Bowl ad, to give themselves a pat on the back. To make matters worse, they won’t tell Ontarians how much of their money was spent. Last week, the Minister of Finance said he would get back to us with that number; we’re still waiting. I wonder if he checked under all the brown envelopes in the Premier’s office. It’s just one more example of this government’s irresponsible spending and refusal to be transparent.

Super Bowl ads and foreign spas—while universities beg for help, 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a doctor, cities declare opioid crises and Ontarians use their credit cards to access health care. When will the Premier tell Ontarians how much of their money he spent on a Super Bowl ad while failing to deliver for the people of this province?

The Premier is looking for a way to hide from the $8.3-billion greenbelt scandal, the backroom deal to give away Ontario Place to a foreign spa for 95 years and lucrative sole-sourced contracts he gave to large American companies at the expense of small Ontario business owners. The Premier needs to remember he isn’t spending his own money; it’s the people’s money, and they have a right to know how it’s being spent.

Speaker, back to the Premier: How does he justify spending millions of taxpayer dollars to pat himself on the back when business confidence is at historic lows, unemployment is rising and he’s nowhere close to building 1.5 million homes?

I rise today to debate Bill 85, the budget measures act.

The people of Ontario really want one thing from their government: to do the right thing for the people of Ontario, the people they are elected to serve. Today, we are debating a budget that this government’s Minister of Finance says is about investing in people and the economy of Ontario to support our collective well-being and prosperity. I have to say, I beg to differ. Let me give you some context.

Before this government came to power, the Liberal government invested in health care, reducing the shortage of family doctors and significantly reducing emergency wait times.

The Liberal government built transportation, including the Union Pearson Express, GO train expansion service, the Yonge subway expansion as well as the resurrection of the Eglinton line following the irresponsible and short-sighted cancellation by Conservative Premier Harris. And we resurrected the Finch subway line. We started the Eglinton Crosstown and built Highways 412 and 418.

We created the greenbelt to protect our environment, to protect our agricultural lands, to protect our water.

We ended the burning of coal, turning Ontario into one of the most environmentally friendly jurisdictions in the world, with clean energy at 96% in 2017, which has indeed attracted manufacturing jobs the Conservatives brag about. What will happen to those jobs under this Conservative budget, which sees Ontario’s clean energy shrink to under 90%? That remains to be seen.

While jobs were lost during the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the Liberal government steered the province through that crisis. In fact, from 2004 to 2018, during the Liberal government, the number of jobs in the province increased from 10.3 million to 12.5 million.

Most significantly, our Liberal government introduced all-day kindergarten and brought up high school graduate rates from 67% to 87%.

Fiscal responsibility is making good decisions for the people of Ontario, investing in our greatest resource: the people of our province. Yet that is not what the people of Ontario see when they read this budget bill.

In 2018, this government came to office promising to fix hallway medicine and the cost of housing, heralding a new era of fiscal responsibility. And this government continues to brag about their record on that, so let’s do a reality check. Five years into a Conservative government, and the Conservatives brag about record investments in health care in this budget—but spending record amounts of money and seeing our health care system fall apart at the same time is nothing to brag about. With ERs closing and the number of patients receiving hallway health care 20% higher than it was in the last year of the Liberal government, I think it’s fair to say that this money is not being spent responsibly. One example I’ve spoken of before is spending three times as much for a nurse through a private agency instead of paying that nurse what she deserves in our public system.

Let’s talk about housing and the government’s disappointing results on that. In 2019, the median rent for an apartment in Ontario was $1,200; now it’s $1,400. The crisis is worse in our major cities—and those numbers include apartments still protected by rent control. The average list for a one-bedroom is $2,523 a month, in Toronto, and $3,347 for a two-bedroom.

Let’s talk about spending and provincial debt. We have record spending and debt in this province right now under this government. In fact, we have the biggest spending spree in Ontario history, a budget of $204 billion and a record $406 billion in debt, with priorities given to a twin highway, the 413, for the 407 because they sold it off at a bargain basement price.

So while this government likes to deflect from their own record of broken promises and propensity to do backroom deals that benefit their friends more than Ontarians, the numbers tell the real story.

Spending on the people of Ontario is a good investment. It’s investing in the health and education of our people, in the infrastructure that supports life and commerce in this province. And spending has indeed ballooned under this Conservative government, to over $200 billion, as I said, and $406 billion in debt—the highest it’s ever been.

That’s right. The Conservatives—not the Liberals, not the NDP—take the prize for the biggest budget in Ontario history. And what indeed is there to show for it? Plans for new highways at the expense of our health care, housing and social programs that support the people of Ontario. While there are some positive investments in jobs and retraining, is life for the people of Ontario better after five years of a Conservative government?

As I mentioned, health care and housing are worse. The opioid crisis rages through our communities, with a 56% increase in emergency department visits and a 52% increase in deaths from opioid overdoses—not one new cent allocated to that in this budget. Farmland is disappearing at a record rate of 319 acres per day, threatening our food supply and worsening affordability.

In regards to people experiencing homelessness, we can’t easily find the total number because the government cancelled their own recordkeeping on that matter, but our eyes don’t deceive us. It is clear in cities large and small that the homeless population has skyrocketed, with tent cities and people sleeping in transit stations. The $202 million announced in the budget for supportive housing and homelessness programs is a start, but underfunding agencies like CMHA is not supporting those who offer support to the homeless and others suffering from mental health issues and addictions. To end homelessness, we need to end the housing crisis and ensure that every person in the province can have a roof over their heads.

But the budget shows that housing starts have slowed and that the province is behind on its housing goal. This is because inflation and labour shortages are making it too expensive to keep building, especially affordable homes. That means it’s time for this government to step up and build homes instead of highways, to put meaningful taxpayer money into the construction of housing, supporting not-for-profits that are asking to do just that instead of asking the federal government to pick up the whole tab. Just today, in my meeting with CIJA, their housing not-for-profit executive director said, “I have been in housing for 35 years and I have never seen things so bad.”

Similarly, high office vacancy rates, particularly in downtowns, could be converted into housing for cheaper than new builds. This would create new housing in areas served by existing infrastructure. The Alberta government is doing just that, and this budget was a missed opportunity to do so here in Ontario.

Let’s talk about health care in rural areas. The announcement of the emergency department closure in Minden is a punch to the gut for that community and a canary in the coal mine for other rural towns. The government’s laissez-faire attitude in regard to this is equally disturbing. Rural hospital departments will continue to close as they lack staff and funds, and this government needs to take serious action to ensure this does not happen.

Let’s contrast that with what the government is going to spend taxpayer money on: half a billion to build an underwater parking lot for the mega-spa project, more than double the new investment in housing supports. That is not a good trade-off for the people of Ontario.

This budget invests $27.9 billion in highway projects over the next 10 years. While this government stands in the House and spreads misinformation about the Liberals being opposed to highways, let me remind the government that a Liberal government built Highways 412 and 418. What I and the people of Ontario are concerned about is the process in which these highway projects were selected, as the Auditor General found that political staffers cancelled highway projects approved by the Liberal government in favour of projects deemed low priority by non-partisan public servants. This includes Highway 413, which the Auditor General estimates will cost more than other high-priority projects, including highway-widening projects in the north. This is not a transparent way to decide how to spend billions in infrastructure, and it’s the opposite of fiscal responsibility.

Perhaps most concerning of all is the lack of transparency in the budget, like with contingency funds and legal fees. The government refuses to tell the people of Ontario how much they’re spending on legal fees to continue their fight to appeal decisions like the one that found Bill 124 unconstitutional, and their refusal to disclose cabinet mandate letters.

Similarly, the budget provides for almost $4 billion in contingencies, a completely un-transparent form of accounting that flouts all the best practices of fiscal responsibility. The budget does include a placeholder, though it’s not specified, for the Therme spa and new parking lot underwater at Ontario Place. While the government provides no details themselves, there are reports the province has given this company a 95-year lease of our public lands, yet the details have not been disclosed—more non-transparency.

While the government says this is a typical lease, I would say it’s more of a bargain for Therme. Even if they spend $500 million, that is less than $5 million in amortized expense per year. With a facility of, I think, 236,000 square feet, that’s a cost of $21 per square foot. Speaker, given the market price for space in downtown Toronto is $42 a square foot—half of what Therme is paying—I would say Therme is getting a pretty good deal on the backs of Ontario taxpayers. And let me just add: Therme’s owners are also not known to the Ontario public. We know it is their CEO and a company called A-Heat, but we do not know who owns A-Heat, so we do not know who stands to profit from this deal.

The government budget shows spending of over $200 billion, a record sum, yet the people of Ontario are being left behind: left behind in hallways of hospitals, left behind with dismal options for housing, left relying on food banks even though they have full-time jobs, left on the streets to face—

This Conservative government talks frequently about how it’s working for the people of Ontario, yet in the last three quarters, the expenditure monitor report from the FAO indicates that the government is underspending on the people of Ontario: on their health by $1.25 billion, on their education by $844 million, on children’s and social services by $458 million and on post-secondary education by $175 million.

Speaker, the government is asking us to vote for its supply bill even after they have failed to spend what they said they would. And with a record-level contingency fund that they’ve made a cabinet secret, as I sit here today in opposition, it’s hard to think about voting for any of the good things that may be in this act. The government is refusing to adequately fund critical services that the people of Ontario rely on by refusing to pay nurses and other health care workers what they are worth. Refusing to spend to keep the people of Ontario healthy isn’t financial prudence; in fact, it’s the exact opposite.

While the government talks of record investments, they also have record contingency funds. And we may have record levels of taxpayer money being spent by this government to defend their losing battles around their unconstitutional laws in court. As the President of the Treasury Board accurately pointed out just this afternoon, every dollar they spend comes from the taxpayers of Ontario. But we don’t know if this spending is at record levels because this government has not been transparent about how much taxpayer money they have been spending to fight in court. We do know that they budgeted $30 million to fight the federal government on their carbon tax, only for the Supreme Court to uphold the federal climate policy. They made private businesses put up their political notices, and the court found that unconstitutional. Now they refuse to disclose how much they’re spending on two further appeals: hiding their ministry mandate letters, and on the continued, ill-conceived and damaging Bill 124.

Fighting to hide their mandate letters has been going on since 2018—five years of wasting Ontarians’ hard-earned tax dollars. I’ve spoken about Bill 124 many times and its damaging effects on our health care and education systems. But to add insult to injury, the government continues to waste taxpayer money—money they could be paying those health care workers—to keep fighting what the courts have called unconstitutional; to keep fighting market-interfering, wage-capping legislation that’s driven away health care workers, nurses and other public sector workers.

And while the government decides to limit health care workers and nurses’ wages to a 1% increase and decides to spend taxpayer money to fight that illegal law in court, it speaks to the priorities of the government that they decide to create a record number of parliamentary assistants, effectively giving many of their MPPs a 14% raise.

Let’s talk about transit, Speaker. This government talks about getting it done. Well, the Eglinton LRT, which goes through my riding of Don Valley West and was started under the previous Liberal government, under this government is over budget by millions of dollars. The tab is still being run up, and the government will not tell the people of Ontario when it will be completed or how much their errors have cost.

The previous Liberal government started to get the work done on the Hamilton LRT. This government spent money to cancel it, only to decide the previous Liberal government was on the right track and then decided to bring it back. Had they not cancelled the project, it would have been completed earlier and for less money.

Similarly, the Liberal government started the work on GO expansion, which would include electrifying trains, making them more energy efficient and faster. Unfortunately, this government delayed that project when they came into power, and now they boast about bringing it back. While building these transit projects is critically important, the government will not accomplish what these projects are intended to when the government does not spend the money needed to help cities operate their transit systems.

Because the member for Mississauga–Lakeshore raised it, let’s talk a little more about Highway 413, the Conservative government’s unnecessary project that they claim will save commuters 30 minutes. Data from the Ministry of Transportation, their own ministry, as reported by the Toronto Star, refutes this, and says that by using the existing 400, 401 and 407 highways, commuters could cross the GTA 16 minutes faster than they could using the proposed Highway 413 alone. Perhaps the government should tell the taxpayers of Ontario if it might be more prudent to buy back the 407 that a previous Conservative government sold off, rather than to build a new highway that does what the 407 is supposed to do.

We need a government that’s willing to provide the services that people need, that’s willing to invest in children’s education and to build an economy that works for all. The government announces long-term investments while at the same crippling our health care system in the here and now by not funding it, and this is hurting the people of Ontario and our economy.

A recent article from CBC said 50,000 young people are leaving Ontario because they see better opportunity elsewhere. Building new subdivisions in the greenbelt is not going to address the housing crisis. Paving over agricultural land will not help food affordability. Underpaying our educators and health care workers until they quit is not going to give those same 50,000 young people the education system they need so their children can have a brighter future.

Health care, education, transit, protecting the environment and helping build opportunity for a brighter future are indeed the business of government. Ontario needs a fiscally responsible government that is fully transparent about what it asks its ministries, that treats its health care workers with respect so they can do the work needed for the people of Ontario, a government that manages all parts of our economy, including implementing an affordable daycare system that works for families in Ontario. Ontario needs a government that is fully transparent about our finances instead of artificially inflating projected expenses by squirrelling away billions in contingency funds. That is why, sadly, I will be voting against this supply measure.

We have heard this government talk about the importance of primary care providers, and building medical schools to train more family doctors will help in the years ahead. But why aren’t they taking action now? There are 1.8 million Ontarians who do not have a family doctor right now, including many of my constituents in Don Valley West. We hear every day, especially over the holidays, about ERs closing.

The OMA provided recommendations to help solve the family doctor problem right now: for example, investing to build centralized referral lists, reducing admin burden on doctors by hiring medical scribes so they can see more patients, and implementing more family health teams.

My question to the Minister of Health: Why is this government not implementing the recommendations of the OMA and instead prioritizing the introduction of Bill 60. And what metrics will they put in place to show Ontarians that profits don’t come at the expense of taxpayers?

I rise today to speak on behalf of the many residents of Don Valley West who have contacted me to ask this government to reverse course on two bills. Last week, they were asking this government to reverse course on a housing bill that could see many residents who rent in Don Valley West lose their apartments if Bill 23 is enacted as is. This week, they are writing to say “what can we do” to stop Bill 28 and protect the wages of education workers, many of whom care for our kids every day for less than $40,000 a year, and their charter right to bargain, which this government will simply punch out by using their version of the “easy” button: the “notwithstanding” clause.

Ontarians, including the workers employed by this government in our schools and hospitals, many of whom are women, are struggling with an affordability crisis. Yet this government is more focused on fighting with workers than addressing the issues, using easy tactics like writing $100 cheques instead of working hard to strike a deal which would help workers’ families cope with inflation. The government strategy is to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to fight in court, instead of talking at the bargaining table, while the province records a $2-billion surplus.

The finance minister talked yesterday about the need to be prudent. Of course we need to be prudent with taxpayer money, but prudent doesn’t mean unfair. Not paying education workers a fair wage hurts them and their families.

We have seen the crisis created by this government by not paying nurses fairly, which caused a shortage of them. Let’s not repeat that with education workers.

The Conservative government often talks about the need to be fiscally responsible. As a chartered accountant, I completely agree. The residents of Don Valley West completely agree.

Could the Minister of Health please tell us why she believes it is fiscally responsible to limit nurses’ pay to a 1% increase per year, contributing to them leaving the profession in record numbers, to only then have to desperately try to fill those vacant positions and possibly hire back those same nurses through private agencies at an estimated cost that is three times higher than what the hospital would pay if that same nurse were on staff?

The Conservative government often speaks about how it is fighting for Ontario workers.

Could the Minister of Health please tell us why more taxpayer dollars are being shifted to private agencies, giving those agencies a healthy profit, instead of repealing Bill 124 and paying that money directly to Ontario’s health care workers in our public health care system?