The following petition I have is entitled “Protect the Greenbelt and Repeal Bills 23 and 39.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bills 23 and 39 are the Ford government’s ... attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing wealthy developers to profit over bulldozing over 7,000 acres of farmland;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats, prevent flooding, and mitigate from future climate disasters with Ontario losing 319.6 acres of farmland daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt, showcasing that Bill 23 was never about housing but about making the rich richer;

“Whereas the power of conservation authorities will be taken away, weakening environmental protections, and preventing future development;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately repeal Bills 23 and 39, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province....”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it with the page to the Clerks.

The petition I’d like to read is entitled “Protect the Greenbelt and Repeal Bills 23 and 39.” It states:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bills 23 and 39 are the Ford government’s latest attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing wealthy developers to profit over bulldozing over 7,000 acres of farmland;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats, prevent flooding, and mitigate from future climate disasters with Ontario losing 319.6 acres of farmland daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt, showcasing that Bill 23 was never about housing but about making the rich richer;

“Whereas the power of conservation authorities will be taken away, weakening environmental protections, and preventing future development;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately repeal Bills 23 and 39, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province by passing the NDP’s Protecting Agricultural Land Act.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it with page Olivia to the Clerks.

The petition I’m about to read is entitled “Protect the Greenbelt and Repeal Bills 23 and 39.” It reads, “To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bills 23 and 39 are the Ford government’s latest attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing wealthy developers to profit over bulldozing over 7,000 acres of farmland;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats, prevent flooding, and mitigate from future climate disasters with Ontario losing 319.6 acres of farmland daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt, showcasing that Bill 23 was never about housing but about making the rich richer;

“Whereas the power of conservation authorities will be taken away, weakening environmental protections, and preventing future development;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately repeal Bills 23 and 39, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province by passing the NDP’s Protecting Agricultural Land Act.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it with page Kundanika to the Clerks.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the following petition on behalf of Brian Williams from my riding of London North Centre. It’s titled “Protect the Greenbelt.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bill 23 is the Ford government’s latest attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing developers to bulldoze and pave over 7,000 acres of farmland in the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ontario is already losing 319.6 acres of farmland and green space daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ford’s repeated moves to tear up farmland and bulldoze wetlands have never been about housing, but are about making the rich richer;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats and prevent flooding;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately amend Bill 23, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province by passing the NDP’s Protecting Agricultural Land Act.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it with page Eric to the Clerks.

It gives me great pleasure to present the following petitions on behalf of Mary Margison, who collected all the signatures. It reads:

“Stop Highway 413.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the Ontario government is pushing ahead with plans to build Highway 413, a redundant and wasteful 400-series highway through the greenbelt that would cost taxpayers an estimated $10 billion; and

“Whereas the Ontario government’s expert panel concluded that Highway 413 would be a waste of taxpayer money that would only save drivers 30 to 60 seconds on their commutes; and

“Whereas Highway 413 would pave over 400 acres of greenbelt and 2,000 acres of farmland, destroy the habitats of at-risk and endangered species, pollute rivers and streams, and cause significant harm to historic Indigenous sites;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Stop the plans for building Highway 413.”

I fully agree with the petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it to page Juliet for the Clerks.

When we heard the throne speech, we knew it was an opportunity for relief, an opportunity for hope. And yet, unfortunately, there were some serious letdowns with this throne speech.

I think back to when I first entered this chamber back in 2018. I was pleased to see that this government has learned, because in 2018, if you will remember, Speaker, the throne speech began without a land acknowledgment—a very curious omission, something that was completely absent. Also, in mentioning the pillars of diversity in 2018 and going through all of these different attributes, the government included the word “lifestyle,” which anyone knows is a dog whistle to suggest that being gay is a choice. So I was glad to see that this wasn’t included in this government’s current throne speech.

I worry that the throne speech is really full of empty words, that it’s flimsy window dressing for actual substantive changes, and I am also concerned that it fails to directly address many of the most pressing issues that we see across our province as this time. Some of those issues include affordability, with inflation at an all-time high, and our health care crisis—such a precarious state in all of our hospitals, seeing emergency rooms closing, seeing people leaving the field; it’s a deep concern—also, in education. We need to make sure we have more robust supports for workers and social assistance and actually address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.

To begin my remarks, I’d like to take a deep dive through the throne speech itself. It starts off by talking about the virtues of partnership and collaboration, which is good to hear—that this government is interested in collaborating and interested in listening to the official opposition.

It also mentions the affordability crisis. It does mention inflation, yet we don’t see enough relief to stem that rising tide of costs.

Curiously, it does mention hard-working people, but it also, directly after that, just two paragraphs away, talks about the rising costs of labour. Therefore, they talk about inflation—they know that life is getting more unaffordable, that people are working hard—but they’re also talking about people wanting too much money. That’s a shame.

The government talks about creating good jobs in the throne speech, but they don’t mention, in combination with that, good wages.

They talk about high-quality hospitals and long-term-care homes, but they’ve left out the mention of public hospitals. That is a strange omission, but I get it; we see with government bills like G7 that they’re hoping to move money away from the public system and put it into the hands of a few shareholders.

As well, the government talks about the free rapid antigen tests that were provided directly to Ontarians, but they neglect to mention that that was yet another example of their privatization, of taking public money and putting it into the hands of people like Shoppers Drug Mart, who had a direct financial benefit from this government’s decision.

They also mention adding 3,500 new hospital beds and thousands more nurses—it’s funny that they first mentioned the furniture, almost as though the people are an afterthought.

They also talk about investing $1 billion more to expand home and community care, but what they fail to mention is that, largely, that system is private. In fact, they undertook great pains to make sure that some of the remaining vestiges of home care were privatized under the last Legislature.

There is a mention, as well, of 30,000 new long-term-care beds. I’m sure that people with private interests are just rubbing their hands together, thinking about all the profit they are going to get from people in our system.

There are, again, some very flimsy words, some sentiments saying that in the health care system there’s “an exhausted workforce and increasingly stressed emergency departments.” Those words are incredibly true, but if the government actually believed them, they would repeal Bill 124.

It mentions that nine out of 10 high-urgency patients are finishing their emergency visit within target times—as if nine out of 10 was a success.

They’re attempting to change the channel. But what is deeply concerning, when you analyze the language of the throne speech, is—they mention working with “health system partners.” They talk about doing “whatever measures” and that there’s “meaningful reform.” This is concerning because these are coded words. These are words that are signalling the increasing privatization of our publicly funded health care system.

There’s a mention of paramedicine, yet this government does not take into account the fact that, for instance, in my community of London, one third of paramedics want to leave. They’re actively pursuing another job because of the backlog at hospitals, the amount of stress they’re under, the fact that they don’t get breaks. They’re worked off their feet. All of their shifts are incredibly long. This government provides words, but we don’t see any investments to help make their lives better.

There are further buzzwords, like “stifles innovation,” “status quo.” Yet again, these are buzzwords. This government wants to overhaul the publicly funded health care system. It’s almost as though they’re suggesting that public funding is the status quo. Actually, funding hospitals properly is the status quo. They can’t claim that they have actually maintained that, because they have not funded hospitals properly. We have not seen that under this government’s mandate, yet they’re saying it’s not working. Well, it’s no surprise. If you strangle a system when it stops working, it’s no wonder it stops working because it is underfunded and cut to the bone.

There is also, of course, much finger-pointing. They’ve said that the federal government needs to pay its fair share of health care funding. Let’s look back at history. Provincial governments are calling for 35% of the health care transfers. Let’s never forget that it was a Conservative Prime Minister who cut the federal health care yearly increases from 6% to 3%—yet another example of austerity that we have not seen changed under a federal Liberal government, for that matter.

We also see: “Together, let’s build an economy with better jobs and bigger paycheques,” but it’s very careful language in that they are not saying “better wages.” It’s almost like this government is expecting people to work more so they have a bigger paycheque, but they’re not going to pay them what they’re worth—because they’re clearly not repealing Bill 124 at this stage.

They do, however, include an increase to the Ontario Disability Support Program. I’m reminded of when this government first took power. There was a promised 3% increase, which was cut to a 1.5% increase. After having learned the lessons throughout the pandemic, with everyone agreeing that $2,000 a month was an adequate, sustainable income for everyone in this province, this government still has chosen to ensure that people living on social assistance are well below the poverty level.

I’d also like to take a look at some of the things that we need to consider in terms of affordability. We see across our province that people are having to accept lower wages, and that everything else is going up in price, whether it’s the cost of food, the cost of fuel—the cost of everything else. It would be refreshing to see this government raise the minimum wage, repeal Bill 124—raise public sector compensation by getting rid of Bill 124. ODSP rates need to be doubled to make sure that people are able to maintain housing, to feed their families properly and to have a healthy life.

We also need the government to take an active role to protect people from price gouging. During the pandemic, we heard the Premier talking about becoming an 800-pound gorilla, being on people’s backs, and yet we saw no one who was pursued who reported price gouging across our province.

From the official opposition side, we introduced legislation for a consumer protection watchdog, yet this government didn’t feel it was important to protect consumers; they didn’t feel it was important to make sure seniors aren’t getting fleeced. We saw that door-to-door sales were banned under the previous Liberal government, but that doesn’t stop people—they call on the phone, they make an appointment, they get into people’s homes, and they force them to sign terrible agreements for HVAC systems, for home automation, for so many other things, and this government has done nothing to stop that.

If we take a look at our current health care crisis, right now there’s so much of our public money that is going to private, for-profit industries as it is. We know that health care spending is being used on hiring temp nurses, that spending on temp agency nurses has gone up 550% since pre-pandemic levels. There’s a clear connection here. Many nurses have been exhausted, and they feel, quite frankly, humiliated by this government—to be rejected, to be ignored, to be completely cast aside. We have words, and then we have actions. This government could repeal Bill 124 and deliver the respect that they deserve, and yet instead we see talking points and no actions.

This overreliance on these temp agency nurses is a stopgap that is not helping anyone—it is not only privatization, but it’s ensuring that people are similarly leaving the field to pursue these private industries. We also have the greater risk of injury at work for places that are unfamiliar. We also have concerns about the continuity of care. It’s yet another example of privatization, where this government is taking public money, our tax dollars, and flushing it down the drain. They’re making sure that only a few people are benefiting from that. Here, on the official opposition side, we believe in publicly funding health care and making sure we stretch every last one of those dollars as much as they can go to the greatest level of care, yet this government seems immune to that.

What’s a further tremendous concern is when we see this hinted privatization language within the throne speech. We see examples in Bill 7. We heard the government actually speaking about how people who are in hospitals, who are in an alternate-level-of-care situation, should be paying. This government believes that those people should be paying. This government wants hospitals to charge people up to $1,500 a day for their care. The only other option is for them to be forced into a situation that is not necessarily one of their choosing, into a long-term-care home that they did not choose, through really what is a disgraceful level of coercion for seniors, who deserve far better.

We also want to look towards inflation. We know that inflation is around 8.1% at this stage, yet this government doesn’t offer much relief for taxpayers; it doesn’t offer much relief for the middle class. In fact, in a recent report, it has been indicated that only 16%—did you hear that—of workers believe their wages are keeping up with inflation. That’s shocking. That would leave out so many people across this province. Think about the gig workers. Think about the PSWs who aren’t provided full-time jobs with benefits, because this government is happy to allow private, for-profit long-term-care homes to operate in the way they do.

I want to take a look at privatization itself because, as I’ve said, this throne speech reeks of it; it stinks to high heaven.

In long-term care, for-profit residents—let’s do some facts and figures here—were 60% more likely to be infected with COVID-19 and 45% more likely to die. In the for-profit homes throughout the pandemic, they were five times more likely to die than those in publicly and municipally run homes and not-for-profit homes. Yet instead of taking that information, instead of learning that lesson throughout the pandemic, we see this government is hell-bent on continuing to take public money and put it into shareholders’ pockets, put it into the pockets of insiders. It’s truly frightening. For-profit homes spend 24% less per year on care. That should be obvious. We have a government that talks a good game about finances and conservation of wealth and spending money in a wise, frugal way. This should be clear and it should be very obvious: If the money is not going towards its intended purpose, then it should not be spent. If we wanted seniors to be cared for correctly, then we would have publicly funded, not-for-profit long-term care. It’s obvious.

We also want to look towards how these private, for-profit long-term-care corporations and businesses are able to funnel that money away. Do you know how that is, Speaker? It’s because they pay their staff less money. They work their staff in ridiculous ways—they have part-time jobs without benefits, without respect—and they pay them far less. They hire, in fact, most times, casual staff, part-time staff. They rely on these very same agencies I mentioned earlier to keep their doors open—not just keep their doors open, but keep the pockets of their few investors full.

We should be expanding home care and making sure it is publicly delivered and publicly funded, instead of it going into agency pockets. If we look at how much the home care companies are paid with public funds for a nurse, it’s between $58 and $70 per hour—this was from 2015, mind you. How much do those companies actually pay the staff, pay that nurse, from that $58 to $70? They pay them about $30 an hour. That’s hefty profit—for a PSW, it’s between $30 to $50. That’s how much money they get from the government, yet they pass on less than half of that: $15 per hour for a PSW. That’s a shame, and that should be stopped. That is a very inappropriate and ineffective expenditure. It’s an unwise way to spend our public money.

Speaker, we also need to take a look at a government that needs to build affordable and supportive housing. Throughout my community, we have a really amazing organization, the Forgotten 519. Jenna Rose Sands, Dan Oudshoorn and Dr. Andrea Sereda came together to really show the plight of what’s happening to people who are losing their lives; people who have hopes, people who have dreams; people who have families who are dying on the street in front of our eyes. Yet this government is not funding social assistance well; they’re not building affordable housing. This is the problem. We need to make sure that people are housed, that people are safe, and then and only then can they build back their lives. Frequently, whenever I’ve brought this issue to the House before, we’ve heard this government talk about wraparound services, yet they don’t provide those wraparound services. They are not funding mental health support. They aren’t funding things correctly. We can fix that.

As I look back on this throne speech, we see that this was an opportunity. I had hoped, through all the different iterations of the pandemic and all the different waves, that this government would have learned and that it would have looked at how it did not create an iron ring around long-term care; how it failed working people in Ontario by waiting so long to finally provide sick days, the paltry few that they did, and finally looked towards the future by providing 10 paid sick days—like the member from London West has brought forward once again.

We also have opportunities to make sure we expedite the credentials of foreign-trained nurses, like the member from Scarborough Southwest—the excellent legislation she has brought forward. There was an opportunity back then, and yet we only hear the government making noises about this now.

There is so much more we can do. I look forward to working with this government to make sure we find—that we show what has been missing from this throne speech and what actually needs to be done here in the province of Ontario.