The minister can spin all he wants and deflect blame, but documents reveal that this government is spending less on community housing and is making the homelessness crisis worse. The goal should be to prevent homelessness, which is better for people and costs less in the long run.

Will the minister do the right thing and restore community housing funding?

It’s always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Parkdale–High Park to speak in this House, and today I speak to the 2023-24 budget motion that is before this House. This budget has failed to meet the needs of Ontarians and to address the current problems that the people of Ontario face. This budget has failed to meet the moment, and it is our duty as legislators, as elected officials, to stand up and fight for the needs of our people.

Speaker, don’t take it from me; take it from the Toronto Star editorial that was written last week. The title is, “An Ontario Budget without Vision.” That’s the title, and there is a quote in that editorial that says, “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.” This is the feedback from people across the province, that this budget has failed to meet the moment. There’s so much more we could do, that this government could do, but did not in this budget.

This is the biggest budget ever, at $204.7 billion. There’s so much we could do, particularly to help Ontarians who are struggling. Conservatives want Ontarians to think that this is the new normal, that this is as good as it gets, but things are not normal in Ontario right now. People are struggling to find an affordable place to live. They’re being forced to go to work sick just to put food on the table. Cancer patients are waiting months for treatment. They’re showing up at emergency rooms with a sick child, only to find it closed. In fact, in Ontario, more than any other province at any other point in history, we have had more emergency room closures than ever. The Ford government promised to deliver on these issues, but once again, with this budget they have failed to do so.

The NDP has a vision of an Ontario with more opportunity and prosperity, not just for the well-connected, but for everybody, for the everyday Ontarian. People are feeling squeezed with the rising cost of living, and this government is doing nothing meaningful to offer relief to everyday Ontarians. In fact, it’s going to cost Ontarians more.

The Ford government is diverting public money into private health care facilities. What does that mean for Ontarians? Longer wait times, more ER closures, more nurses being driven out of our health care sector. They’re shortchanging municipalities through massive cuts, meaning families will pay higher property taxes for poorer services. It also means that Ontarians who are going to work using transit will be waiting longer for the bus, and that it is going to be even harder to find an affordable place to live.

This budget shows that the province is moving in the wrong direction on housing. They’re dismantling the greenbelt, and even that isn’t delivering on what they’re promising. This budget predicts fewer housing starts next year than this year, and they are nowhere near on track to meet the stated goal of 1.5 million homes in 10 years.

We in the Ontario NDP will fight to make sure we’re investing in strong and caring communities that will attract workers, that will attract new businesses to our province and keep them here. We want to see communities with excellent health care, mental health supports, education workers who are able to help our children learn and work in safe spaces, more affordable places to live that have reliable public transit.

Speaking of public transit, I want to take a moment to say that on behalf of the leader of the official opposition and our entire NDP caucus, our hearts go out to Gabriel Magalhaes’s family, friends and community members. Gabriel is the 16-year-old who died just last week from a stabbing attack at Keele station, which is located in my riding. Only a few months ago, there was another knife attack on two people at the adjacent High Park station, and another constituent, Vanessa Kurpiewska, passed away from that attack.

Gabriel attended Keele Street Public School. His classmates will be hosting a community candlelight vigil this evening, starting at 8 p.m. from the High Park gates and ending at Keele station. I will be joining alongside my colleagues from the ATU—transit workers who are also ringing the alarm bells in terms of not just public transit, but the increase of violence that we’re seeing.

Speaker, I want to take a moment here, because Gabriel’s mom, Andrea, has demonstrated incredible courage and grace and has been shining a light on the issue, on the struggles that people are facing. I’m going to quote her directly. This is what she said: “We need more social services. We need more investment into physical and mental health. We need more support for housing. I feel like if things keep going the way they are going right now, so many people are going to be suffering the horrible pain that I’m going through right now.”

Speaker, as a mom of two little kids, I can’t imagine the pain, and so it is incumbent on all of us to address the root causes of violence—as Andrea herself has said—to address the social determinants of health. We have a choice as legislators. The budget is that choice. The investments we choose to make or not make are reflected in the budget, and this budget is not delivering. It’s not delivering on mental health supports that are needed. It’s not delivering on the housing that is needed. It’s not delivering on the homelessness crisis that municipalities across the province are experiencing.

It’s very important that we not only express our condolences, but that we take action. With this budget, again, this Conservative government is choosing to benefit a select few at the expense of everybody else. This budget is a failure of leadership. True leaders meet the moment. This one is out of touch with reality and out of touch with the experiences of people.

There’s obviously a lot to cover in a budget, so I will only have time to go over a few key problems with this budget. I want to touch on housing first. It is getting increasingly unaffordable. In my riding of Parkdale–High Park, almost 60% of residents are tenants, and rents in this city are out of control—absolutely out of control.

Earlier this week, I joined tenants from 55 High Park and 58 Quebec Avenue in delivering a letter to Great West Life Realty Advisors asking for the dramatic increases to their rents to be stopped. These are buildings that are not covered under the Rent Control Act, and so their rents can increase by whatever amount the company decides. Even though it’s a new building, there are no major repairs. There are no new services or anything like that; it’s simply increasing because it’s not illegal, but just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s right. We know that tenants are suffering.

As well, with this budget, the government talks about creating a supply of housing. Yes, we need to increase the supply of housing—the official opposition agrees with that—but we also need to ensure that it is (1) affordable and (2) that the government follow through on the recommendations of their own housing task force and build within existing boundaries. Report after report is showing that there is absolutely no need to build on the greenbelt.

Speaker, the government passed Bill 23 and that is hurting municipalities a lot—municipalities like the city of Toronto, who are already with a $1-billion shortfall. This government promised that they would make municipalities whole because Bill 23 cut development charges, and development charges are very important for municipalities. It is through development charges that the city is actually able to invest in the infrastructure that the people who are going to be living in these new homes are going to receive, infrastructure like green spaces, parks, child care. We can’t just live in homes; we have to live in communities. We have to be able to access all of the services and we want to be able to do that. But if development charges are going to be cut, if the government is going to prevent the city of Toronto from collecting development charges, and if the government is not going to make any investments to replace that loss of revenue, then the city’s services that we rely on are not going to be there. And cities need these services to function.

I don’t have too much time, so I want to go over very quickly and touch a little bit on education. Earlier this week, again, I asked the government if they would repay the TDSB the pandemic costs because the TDSB was forced to tap into their reserves during the pandemic in order to meet the direction that was set by this government and by public health. They wanted to make sure that the health and safety needs of students, teachers and all education workers, everybody in the school community, were met and that they continued to provide academic excellence and supports during the pandemic.

Speaker, what I find particularly troubling is that the Financial Accountability Office has repeatedly come out with reports showing that this government is underspending. There is money that is being allocated to education, to health and to different areas, but that allocated funding is not being spent. And that’s the same for education. While this government was underspending on education, they were forcing the TDSB to tap into reserves, and the TDSB has now reached a point where there are no more reserves. So for the upcoming school budget year, the board will be forced to make support staff layoffs, will be forced to cut programs, and we’re already seeing that. Through a school newsletter at Humberside, parents and students were informed that their math drop-in program was going to be discontinued. In fact, it’s going to be discontinued as of today.

At a time when the needs of students are still very high, at a time when we need more caring adults in our schools, when violence is up in not just high schools but in elementary as well, we cannot afford to lose any more staff. We cannot afford to lose programs in our schools.

Speaker, as I mentioned, budgets are about choices, and I want to let the government members know that we can choose to invest in strong and caring communities. We can choose to have excellent public health care, mental health supports and invest in education workers. One of the things that increasingly I’m hearing about from my constituents is that it’s no longer low- to middle-income families who are struggling. Most people are feeling the pinch. Not only are rents up, mortgages are up; the cost of buying a home is up. The dream of being able to have your own home, especially for young families, is feeling like it’s slipping. It’s further and further away—to the point, in fact, that people have to make very, very hard decisions about where the money goes, because wages are not increasing at the same rate as costs are going up. This is impacting people in a very deep way.

And I think about, particularly, the front-line health care workers. I think about public sector workers. Speaker. For them, not only are costs increasing, but this government, through legislation, Bill 124, is keeping their wages low. Inflation is through the roof, but public sector worker wages cannot increase more than the 1%. The court decision was that this bill, Bill 124, was unconstitutional. And instead of repealing Bill 124, instead of giving cost-of-living increases to public sector workers, particularly to our front-line health care workers, what is this government doing? Spending more public dollars in appealing this decision.

Speaker, we cannot have a great health care system without health care staff, and we cannot have enough health care staff—we are not able to recruit and retain the health care staff—if we’re not paying decent wages, if we’re not ensuring that every worker—including health care workers; many health care workers don’t have paid sick days. With this budget, the government is bringing an end to the paid-sick days program. Paid sick days are good for the economy, because when workers are sick and they stay at home to take care of themselves or their child or their family member—perhaps a parent or a grandparent—it stops the spread. They won’t be infecting and spreading the virus or the illness to their co-workers. Paid sick days are good and sound economic policy.

Speaking of workplaces, one of the other things that I’m also hearing increasingly is from our small businesses, through our BIAs, who are saying that one of the top priorities for the small businesses is actually greater mental health supports, because they are increasingly interacting with people who are struggling. That’s making it hard for them to feel safe themselves, but also to make sure that the clients are safe, that the community spaces are safe. And so they really want to see greater mental health supports as a policy to support small businesses, Speaker.

In the last minute that I have, I just want to conclude by saying, again, this budget is a failure of the leadership. It’s a failure on the part of this government because it fails to prioritize the needs of Ontarians and to invest in a better future for our province. Speaker, we don’t have to accept this as the new normal. We can choose a different path, one that puts people first, one that creates a brighter future for all of us. Unfortunately, once again, the Conservatives have failed.