Thank you to the member from Mississauga–Malton for the question. I’ve outlined in my presentation the things that this bill does well, but I think there are a great many things this bill is missing. There are so many opportunities within this bill to make improvements. I believe that there needs to be broader stakeholder engagement. I’ve mentioned a number of different voices which you need to be listening to, to make sure that you’re actually adequately standing up for animals, for their protection here in the province.

As well, I’m hoping that the government members will have listened to my appeal for funding for the Humane Society London and Middlesex and their new location at 1414 Dundas Street. It’s a brilliant plan. I’ve invited the minister there. I’ve spoken and sent letters to the finance minister as well. I hope that you will engage with them and make sure that they get the funding that they have requested, which was $1.5 million.

So the government should know that they have a problem, that there is not enough enforcement, that they’re not looking after animals in a really solid, thorough way. But part of this, I strongly believe, as well, is knowing where those puppy mills are and making sure that they are licensed, making sure that there are inspections, making sure that we’re going in proactively to make sure that bad things aren’t happening. Really, the government should have learned its lesson with long-term care, where they cancelled inspections and were only going in and doing spot inspections prior to the pandemic, and we see what happened to our treasured seniors.

Only this government could open up almost all of the laws in Ontario and fail to address the challenges that so many Ontarians face. It’s deeply ironic, Speaker, that the minister, the parliamentary assistant and this government have the audacity to speak of modernity and outdated legislation and then go backwards on animal welfare.

In 1997, under the Harris government, this House was united in support of Bill 139, which stopped training and trialing areas from getting new licences or transferring licences. A letter from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, the Animal Alliance of Canada, Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters, World Wildlife Fund and the Bear Alliance all supported this Bill 139.

Will this government listen to the people of Ontario, remove schedule 14 and listen to all stakeholders before moving backwards on animal welfare?

In my time as an educator, I remember when we would hear over the PA system a code yellow. A code yellow is when the teachers are meant to lock their doors because there is a threat in the hallway. Then, what every student in those classes would hear is a child being dragged from the school, kicking and screaming and swearing and yelling. It was not that child’s fault. That child was clearly not getting the assistance they needed. However, it affected everyone in the school.

Schools are places where there should be a social worker who can deal with folks. Kids need help, and we need to make sure they get it when and where they need it. Part of that solution is in schools. For this government to wash its hands and to claim that there are going to be services in the community is yet another finger-pointing exercise where this government does not want to fund education properly.

Yesterday, the member from Burlington talked about all of the mental health care workers in school. I would suggest to the associate minister that they talk to their own member, and make sure that they get that clarity of message and actually deliver what they promise.

But the government can also travel and discuss with relevant stakeholders. In fact, we discussed the pre-budget submissions with the government. The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs travelled the province. We heard from many education stakeholders who talked about the violence in the classroom. They talked about the cuts in funding that have been experienced under this Ford government.

Quite frankly, it’s disturbing to see how this government has turned a blind eye to all of the cuts they have made, all while patting themselves on the back for the shell game of federal funding in the form of child care, as the member from Parkdale–High Park has pointed out. It’s really disturbing that this government has really shortchanged Ontario families and Ontario students. Students are worth it. Education is an investment, not a cost.

But what I want to get into this government’s ear—and I want them to listen to it, and I would hope that they understand, Speaker—is the problem with the funding formula. The funding formula in this province distributes money as if students are the same. It’s a cookie-cutter model whereby they all receive the same amount of money, and then purses of money are given to school boards with the hope that they’re going to be spent on special education. Even if they are spent on a student, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be spent in a developmentally appropriate way. There are no guarantees.

The NDP has long advocated for an overhaul of the funding formula, such that this government does the right thing, is accountable, is responsible and makes sure that that funding gets out the door to that student, who needs it, in a way that is appropriate. That’s on the government.

In terms of mental health funding, OECTA has pointed out that in the 2022-23 GSN documents, they “indicate a $38-million increase in the Mental Health and Well-Being Grant over the previous year’s total,” but that figure, as they state, “is deceptive. In reality, $25 million (or 65%) of this increase is not new funding—the government has simply moved into the GSNs monies that had previously been allocated under Priorities and Partnership Funding....”

Again, we see this government taking credit for other people’s money or pretending old money is new money. It’s a shell game. It’s deceptive. It’s not fair to students. I urge the government to actually listen to the Auditor General and the Financial Accountability Office—

It’s an honour for me to rise today and provide the voices of the great people of London North Centre, as well as offer to debate many of the submissions to our pre-budget consultations that this government has chosen to ignore. I had the opportunity to travel the province with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, hearing many of the stories that affect Ontarians the most, and what we see, unfortunately, with this budget is a budget that has missed the moment. It’s a budget that could have been truly progressive. It could have been forward-thinking. It could have shown that this government has listened to stakeholders across the province. And yet, we see a budget that shows this government is only listening to certain groups.

People are feeling the crunch at this time, and the government has done scarce little to address the affordability crisis and the stresses on families, seniors, people living with disabilities and students.

We often hear words in this chamber such as “transparency” and “accountability,” yet this budget really seems to lack those aspects.

Transparency is a matter of being open. It’s a matter of being frank. It’s a matter of being clear and being less subject to interpretation. This government would like to use folksy, homespun language, and yet that does not mean their actions are transparent.

In terms of accountability—it should show that one can easily understand and explain what is happening within this budget. This government instead engages in pretense. They engage in a very complicated shell game in order to hide where they are cutting as opposed to where they’re pretending to invest.

Within municipal affairs and housing, they have cut $124 million, yet on the other hand, they talk about the money that they are investing in supportive housing. When we had the opportunity to travel to Kingston, the mayor of Kingston explained how the municipality had a very forward-thinking approach to the model of supportive housing that they provided within their city. That city spent $18 million in one year to provide that continuum, that wraparound model of supports. And yet, this government would pat themselves on the back for investing scarce little across the province in supportive housing.

I’d also like to turn my comments to education.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to question the Minister of Education about why this budget did not mention violence in schools. Curiously—with this lack of transparency and lack of accountability—my question was not addressed in a really logical or fulsome way. Instead, the minister decided to talk about federal responsibilities on bail reform. Again, even in his answer, he never mentioned school violence and never mentioned why it was absent from the budget.

In my area, the ETFO Thames Valley Teacher Local reported that in June 2022, there were 463 reported acts of violence; in September 2022, 687; in October 2022, 982; in November 2022, 693; in December 2022, 490; and in January 2023, 502. And this government has chosen to ignore it.

It’s shocking to think of the lack of investment that we have seen within schools. Again, with this very complicated shell game that this government would play, they’re claiming to invest in schools while they’re hiding the fact that what they are calling their investments is actually federal money in terms of child care.

I wanted to add the voices in the pre-budget submission of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. They recommended that there would be an update to the Grants for Student Needs, that there would be funding that reflects the specialized needs of students who receive special education services. We know that the funding model has been broken for a number of years. We know that it is a mathematical model based on enrolment, not based on student needs. The government had the opportunity to stand up for families, to stand up for students living with disabilities, and they chose not to. Instead, in terms of the funding model—as I said, it is a statistical model whereby the government provides an arbitrary amount of money to school boards with the hope that they spend it on students who need it, yet there are no guarantees within this. There is no guarantee that school boards will (1) spend the money on students who need it, and (2), even if they do spend it on students who need it, there’s no guarantee that it will be spent in a way that is developmentally appropriate or addresses their needs properly. They’ve chosen not to do it.

What we also see in this budget is an increasing focus on privatization. We see the funneling of public money for publicly delivered services into the hands of private, for-profit health care providers.

I wanted to add the voices of OPSEU, who recommended ending privatization: “Public services and privatization simply don’t mix. That’s because public services are based on the core principles of equality, accessibility, transparency, and fairness. These principles stand in stark contrast to the goals of privatization—namely the ability to reward shareholders with profits by selling services only to those who can pay. Not only are quality and accessibility harmed, privatization costs more—especially in terms of the greater cost of borrowing and corporate profits.”

And yet, this government has ideologically tied their star to the concept of privatization, and it is going to erode our services across the province.

No one was in support of this government’s wage-suppression, humiliating legislation, Bill 124, yet this government is still engaged in the costly appeal. They had the opportunity within the budget of 2023 to step back, to admit they were wrong, to follow the courts and admit that they are going to continue to lose. I think it’s up to 14 or 15 cases that this government has lost in court now, and yet they are blindly and blissfully spending public money to appeal their losing court case.

Within the budget, we also saw submissions from community support services, who indicate—they do wonderful work. They are to be understood as also separate from home and community care. They cite that in 2020, the province estimated that it would cost $103 per day to provide care for a long-term-care equivalent client at home with home and community care. This contrasts with $201 per day to provide comparable service in long-term care and $730 per day to support ALC patients in hospitals. I don’t see the investment.

We heard from folks from Meals on Wheels, from the Alzheimer’s Society, and from folks with hospices.

We don’t see any funding where it needs to be to keep people in their homes, where they’re happiest, where they’re healthiest, and where it is the best place for them to be. Instead, we see funneling into private, for-profit enterprises.

As well, we see this government which has really neglected and rejected seniors. We see that they are going to provide $1,000 more per year per senior, which is nowhere near enough. If you divide that out over 12 months, that is not nearly enough money that seniors need in order to address the cost-of-living escalation.

They’re also withdrawing money from the unhoused, claiming that they are no longer going to provide them with health care services and a funding program that the government says is no longer necessary. It’s as though the unhoused and their health care needs and people who are new to Canada only counted because of COVID, and now the government is prepared to simply ignore them.

What about seniors, who are going to have to wait 18 months in order to get an eye exam? It’s reprehensible.

This government talks a lot about respecting seniors, about respecting students—and yet this budget fails to do so.

I wanted to add the voice of professor emeritus of public management at the University of Toronto, Sandford Borins. Sandford was talking about the budget consultation survey that was available online. He wrote:

“What is Missing.

“What is most remarkable about the choices” within that public survey “is that they never include the following words or phrases: climate change, environment, renewable, sustainable, conservation, green, or greenbelt. The environment is not the only priority that isn’t mentioned. The word culture also doesn’t appear, not even in the question about making Ontario an attractive destination. Higher education appears only in that question, but not in questions about improving health care, filling labour shortages, or improving community services.”

Sandford went on to talk about plausible deniability. He said, “The Ford government has often been secretive, for example”—

It gives me great pleasure to rise as the official opposition critic for economic development, job creation and trade to add my thoughts about Bill 71, the Building More Mines Act.

As I start my comments, I think it’s important that members on the other side, on the government benches, recognize that this is a bill that the official opposition will be supporting at second reading, but we do very much rely on this government to travel the bill, to travel the bill properly and to listen to as many stakeholders as wish to appear at committee to make sure that this is a strong bill, a robust bill and one that has been built with public consultation. Because when we see many pieces of legislation that are brought forward in this chamber, much is left lacking, and that is perhaps intentional on the part of this government, to omit things which are very glaring in their absence.

I’d like to also start by saying this government’s track record on relationships and partnerships with Indigenous peoples is abysmal. As well, their record on enhancing and maintaining environmental protections is similarly abysmal. In 2018, when this government first assumed power, in their throne speech, they started it without an Indigenous land recognition—a horrible omission. And then, one of their first acts was to cancel the Indigenous curriculum-writing sessions while people were already in attendance. They were either already on their way or they had arrived and they were told to go home. Now, as well, we’ve heard and seen an ideological obsession to not declare September 30 a provincial holiday to recognize truth and reconciliation, which is truly bizarre.

But as I move my comments towards mining, mining is an excellent industry here in the province of Ontario. It’s a great and strong industry. It provides good-paying jobs, those union jobs with benefits, with a pension. I know members across the aisle are probably going to plug their ears and shriek, but it actually provides paid sick days. Imagine that. I know they’re very upset about that concept, but that is something that is provided with more union membership.

Mining also has a history in the province and it has moved away from that history. I believe our House leader, the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane, mentioned how, in the past, there were not closure plans, there was not the same sort of responsibility that has now been placed and that the mining industry has welcomed and is something that they’ve worked very hard to make sure that they are good corporate partners, good global citizens. They’ve brought up the industry. They’ve made sure that they are not only looking after the now but they’re looking after the eventualities of their industry within the province, which is excellent.

This is a huge financial risk, not only for the industry itself but also for the province, and we want to make sure that it’s one where we look after our environment for generations to come.

I’d like to also turn to what is known as “a dish with one spoon” teachings. I’d like to thank Dan and Mary Lou Smoke, some wonderful people from my riding, who have taught me about what that concept actually means and what that teaching means. Frequently, it is a covenant that was engaged in between Indigenous peoples to indicate a shared responsibility, an agreement. Sometimes you might refer to it as a truce as it were so that they can share within the wealth in Mother Earth.

When we take a look—it’s called “a dish with one spoon”—the dish refers to the land, and it’s meant to be shared peacefully; it’s meant to be shared equally; it’s meant to be shared among all people for their benefit, and the spoon is what refers to the individuals living on that land. But what it actually means at the heart of it, as Dan and Mary Lou have indicated to me, is that there is enough when we share with one another. There is enough when we take good care of the earth.

“A dish with one spoon” also has resonance with extracted economies: that we don’t pillage the earth; we don’t take too much from the earth—and if we do take from the earth, we make sure we take in moderation and we make sure we do not destroy what’s left for future generations to come.

This has resonance in many other places in the world and many other disciplines. For instance, in Tao Te Ching there is a writing that says “the person who knows when enough is enough will always have enough.” When we share with one another, when we don’t hurt the earth too much, we will have a good environment for generations to come.

I also think of the words of Bishop Terry Dance. We live in a world right now where there’s this singular focus on what he calls “unbridled acquisitiveness.” There is this rampant greed where people are more interested in what they themselves can obtain and what they can take than there is about how we should look after one another, and that’s something I believe we have to be very cognizant of and very careful of. If we look after one another, we all win. If we look after the environment for generations to come, those generations will also win. We need to take the selfishness out of many of these equations.

As I look at this legislation itself, there are some deep concerns, one of which would be that, in Bill 71, it replaces the “director of mine rehabilitation” anywhere in the Mining Act with “minister.” We know from this government that their track record on environmental protections is abysmal. They’ve ripped out those charging stations that were already paid for—it was a bad business. Not only were they paying to destroy something, but they were paying to destroy something they had already paid for. So if they could have taken money and thrown it in the toilet, it seems this Conservative government would have done so in their ideological battle against environmental protections.

But we’ve also seen Bill 23, which is the commodification of the greenbelt for a few very well-connected backroom insiders, under the disguise and the weak cloak of calling this a bill for affordable housing. So when we see this consequential change of the “director of mine rehabilitation” being replaced with “minister,” it doesn’t exactly inspire trust on behalf of the official opposition, or really anyone in the province, because nobody believes this government on their track record of environmental protections.

Also, we see that there is the elimination of the reference to the director of mine rehabilitation altogether—the person who’s going to be looking after this in the future. And why is that eliminated? You know, MiningWatch Canada’s Jamie Kneen has said, “Undoing safeguards and making the process more streamlined and less accountable is really just, I think, a recipe for disaster.”

Kate Kempton, an Indigenous rights lawyer, has said, “Ford is proposing to strip the closure plan approval process and First Nations engagement in it to a bare minimum, which was—it’s basically taking of the last thread of protection that we have.”

Kneen goes on to say, “This (Pirie’s reassurances of continued environmental safety and Indigenous consultations) is coming from a government that has shown no consistent respect for either of those things, so it’s really hard to take that seriously.”

In this bill, as well, the rehabilitation will be changed to a different use or condition that the minister determines. Again, I’m not so sure that we can trust the minister. And the minister becomes the locus of control, as they will look at the land and they will deem it suitable for future use or a site determined by the minister.

Now, I also want to make sure that we add in the record that the mining industry has really raised the standard. They have made sure that they have financial security, they have closure plans. This government is really tinkering with these closure plans, which is very concerning. They also are very curiously, where there is a closure plan, weakening that in a very strange way. This bill allows the applicant, who may not meet all the existing criteria for a mine closure plan, to nonetheless submit a claim. Is this a workaround? That’s a good question that we have.

Further, the bill sets out that the minister shall file a closure plan within 45 days of it being submitted or return the applicant for resubmission if it misses one of their parameters as set out in the act. Why is there this contradiction? We’re not sure. This needs to be answered by this government.

I also want to highlight what we heard as we travelled with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, which was the concept of tailings. MIRARCO, who submitted a presentation for the committee, also said they have the Centre for Mine Waste Biotechnology, the first of its kind in Canada, which will take a look after those tailing ponds, which grow exponentially year after year after year and the dams are just made higher and higher. We know and we’ve heard from the member from Sudbury about the crisis that happened in Brazil, where hundreds of people died. But this company has a great way to extract some of the things that are being left there as waste.

I just want to point out some of the statistics that they shared with us at committee. They felt that there’s between $8 billion to $10 billion of nickel contained in the Sudbury mine—