The homelessness crisis is worsening, encampments are growing, and it’s taking a devastating toll on people in communities across this province. It has gotten so bad that in Toronto hospitals, cold-weather ER visits by people experiencing homelessness skyrocketed by nearly 70% in the last few years. These are people who are in the waiting area of emergency departments. They don’t need medical attention, but they’re there because they need a safe place to stay warm. There’s nowhere else for them to go. Hospitals are becoming shelters. What is also worrisome is that there are thousands more who are just a few hundred dollars away from losing their home and ending up on the streets.

There is such an urgency on this issue, and yet this government is so consumed with things like delivering a luxury spa. You’ve completely lost touch with reality. Your priorities are not what people need you to be working on.

As we recess the House for the winter, I ask Conservative members to reflect on this and ask yourselves, are you up to the task? This is not a partisan statement. You have the opportunity. You have the power. You have the majority votes. You have everything it takes to solve this problem.

We know the solutions. Stop wasting time and energy on things that are not helping people, and just do the right thing.

I’d like to discuss a problem that all of us see daily. In fact, when we walk out of the Legislature, we cannot walk more than 100 metres in any direction without seeing an unhoused person. Some are in tents; some are not. Some have covers on; some don’t. In the park that is right across the street, there is a tent. This is right under our nose.

There are an estimated 10,000 homeless people in Toronto alone. Now multiply that in every city, every region across this province.

Does this Conservative government not see that we have a major problem? Municipalities see it. That’s why they’re declaring states of emergency on homelessness. But there’s only so much they can do. This is a province-wide issue, and the province must to do something as well.

Winter is here, and the shelter system is going to be overloaded; we know it because it happens every year. Where are the homeless people supposed to go? Where are they supposed to sleep—in the subways, in ATM vestibules, in front of small businesses, in parks and playgrounds?

I’m urging this government: Take this issue seriously. Everyone is impacted by it. Declare a state of emergency on homelessness.

My question is for the Premier.

The homelessness crisis is escalating across Ontario, with municipalities now declaring a state of emergency on homelessness—Niagara, Hamilton—and with over 10,000 people who are unhoused right now in Toronto, city council is poised to declare a state of emergency of homelessness this week. Cities across the province are in crisis, and the Ford Conservative government is abandoning them.

Will this government enact a homelessness strategy and work with municipalities to improve the lives of unhoused people in Ontario?