I’d like to thank my colleagues for their presentations today on the budget bill.

My question is for the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North. I was very interested in your comments about front-line health care workers who have been recommending a health care human resources strategy that focuses on recruitment as well as retainment. Most importantly, one of the things that has been recommended is the need for wage parity across health care sectors. Specifically, actually, the finance committee’s own report on the pre-budget consultations mentions the need for wage parity. I’d like to ask the member: How important is this, and would you like to see this reflected in the government’s budget?

My question for the member for Parkdale–High Park: This government seems to have ignored the crisis that is going on, and I’d like to know: Would you like to see further investments in education and education being brought back to the cuts that they’ve made since 2018 to address what’s going on in schools?

I would like to thank my friend from Oshawa for an excellent presentation on Bill 180.

I did want to ask, and I know the member herself is an educator as well: Within Bill 180, “school violence” does not appear once. The government says that they care about this, yet we only see mentions of cameras in hallways and vape detectors. Would the member like to comment with her background and her expertise in education about the things that are lacking in the budget for education?

Yesterday, Conservatives used the rules of this House to silence women, to ignore survivors and to shut down debate, sending Lydia’s Law to committee to die. Is the Solicitor General against having the Attorney General report on criminal sexual assault cases that have been held up, analyze the reasons for the delays and address them?

I’d like to thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for recognizing the life and work of John Bell. I think it was very beautifully worded, although I am surprised that you didn’t make mention of his cat, who is known as Randy Savage.

In the obituary itself, John and his family called for donations to the London Public Library and, in particular, the A Book for Every Child campaign.

In terms of the government’s budget bill, Bill 180, I wonder if the member would like to comment about the historic omission of library grant funding as well as their postures on education funding that are not meeting the needs of libraries as well as the young people in Ontario.

The Royal Bank of Canada’s research recently warned that the housing crisis is going to get even worse if governments don’t act. This government, because of their measures, have only created 8% of the housing that they promised will be created by 2025. In fact, since 2018, their measures have only created 1,100 units of affordable housing. RBC has indicated this: that drastic measures need to be taken right now by government.

So my question for the member from Hamilton Mountain is: Should the government return to its historic responsibility, do the heavy lifting, pick up their shovels and actually build the affordable housing that Ontarians need right now?

I’d like to thank my seatmate from Waterloo for her presentation, especially the remark that this is a total eclipse of common sense. We’ve seen so many policy reversals from this government that they’re stuck in reverse. It’s almost as though, with Bill 180, I’m wondering what they’re also going to do a one-eighty on when it comes to these decisions. We do see, however, great help towards Enbridge and sprawl developers.

Now, the government recently created a $300,000 state-controlled media studio, complete with teleprompters so Conservative staffers could think for the ministers, you know, to put in and type their answers up onscreen. Was this investment a priority for Ontarians at this time?

And there’s a siren too.