To the member: Listen, when you go home tonight, just take a moment for Justin Trudeau and just thank that he’s there so that you can talk about him and his carbon tax. Please do that. Take a moment to do that.

And I want the member, after he leaves, to go back and say to his team, “Guys, you know what? We’re doing stuff here, okay? We’re actually doing some stuff”—I’m not going to say it’s great. “We’re doing other things. Can we just ask one carbon tax question in the morning so that we could talk about something else?” Because all we hear about from this government, by and large, is just beer and carbon tax. And then, when it’s not about the carbon tax, it’s beer, and then it’s more carbon tax on top of it.

Please. There are probably millions of people watching the legislative network. We know that, right? And they’re getting tired of hearing the same things. It’s almost as if the government of Ontario is doing nothing but complaining about carbon tax—

I thank my friend and colleague for her speech. Of course, there’s not a lot of time left to say—but any kind of legislation we have here to talk about housing has to include tenants, because the reality is, this government shows little to no interest at all. They talk about—they brag, in fact, saying that they’re leading in terms of rental housing starts, but I think it’s really patently obvious why that would even happen. It has nothing to do with them; it’s more of a chicken or an egg thing, because if the average cost of rent is $2,500, $3,000 a month, all of a sudden, a landlord can make tons and tons of money doing that, building more rental units that nobody can afford. The relief addressed by supply and demand might be a correction in five, 10, 15, 20 years, but it doesn’t bring relief to tenants who are being evicted right now in this affordability crisis.

On the subject of the affordability crisis, this government is not interested whatsoever in that. I’ll tell you what they’re interested in: beer. They’re interested in beer. I couldn’t get my head around it, why the common theme in the last six years—every once in a while, we would be debating beer. First, it was tailgate parties at football games. It was a buck-a-beer that never happened.

I’ll give an example of where I think it really comes from, because if you can’t fix a person’s problems—and this government really can’t; in fact, they’re making problems worse every day with legislation they continue to introduce here—what can you do? Well, I can think of something: Get them drunk. Get everyone drunk. We’ll put them to sleep with a good glass of wine on a hot Sunday afternoon. You might want to go to sleep after that.

So how do we get people drinking? Well, imagine going to the grocery stores. You’re trying to purchase things. You’re like, “Oh, my God, look at the price of this. I can’t afford this. I can’t afford that. Oh, look, there’s beer here. That’s new. Oh, my God—a bottle of wine. You know what? I’ll just take this home and have a drink.” And guess what? Forgot about the problem of groceries. But it’s not enough, because people start to wake up and they say, “Oh, my God, it’s really—it’s unaffordable.” What do we do? Well, let’s bring beer a little closer. Let’s put it in the convenience stores, and you know, we’ve got lots of convenience stores around the province. So now you’re going in there to do what you needed to do, because you couldn’t make it to the grocery store. Guess what? There’s beer there.

What’s it going to cost the taxpayers? A billion dollars, a year early? I mean, this contract is ending anyway. What’s the rush to take $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to put beer in corner stores? How is this a priority for this government?

The final thing I have in the last minute is this carbon tax. Do you know what? I finally heard a minister get up today. Do you know he said? “I’m sick of talking about the carbon tax.” Hi. I mean, half of every question period is about the carbon tax. You want to get them to talk about other federal issues, like, I don’t know, talk to auto manufacturers about making cars harder to steal. “No, we can’t talk about that.” But 30 minutes every morning about the carbon tax. Do one question, man—one question. We get it. Everyone gets it. The penguins in the Antarctic get it. Martians get it. We get it. You can’t change it. Talk about something else. You say you’re proud of doing things to change the province of Ontario, but all you want to do is talk about the same thing.

I’m commiserating with you. I know it’s hard. It was really good to hear the minister say that. I wanted to give him a hug after, because I know it’s not easy to meet your hundred-times-a-day quota. But, look, you have more to offer. I know you do. You’ve got fabulous members over there. I want to hear about something else, okay?

Thank you very much, Speaker. Have a wonderful afternoon, everybody.

Speaker, every budget has good and bad. And if you’re going to ask the official opposition to support a budget, then consult us and make the budget as perfect as it can be.

We are sitting in a moment, right now, when there are over two million Ontarians who lack a family doctor today.

Solutions in the far future are not going to help the people of today.

The fact that this government is spending a billion dollars to hire agency nurses at three times the cost that it would be to just respect and pay public nurses the money they deserve is not fixing health care in this province. There are things that this budget is doing that are an improvement, but this is not the change that Ontarians deserve and need to fix health care in this province.

Even before this period of hyperinflation, our most vulnerable Ontarians were suffering, and now they are living in such dire need that it’s unimaginable what many of their lives are like, and to not support them is going to lead to even more problems—more problems for them and more problems for this government and, ultimately, more spending in the end if you don’t address proactively problems that people are facing.

If a person has a big bank account, if they’re a company like a major company or a big money interest, they have a direct line to the people closest to the leadership of this party. But if you are one of the most vulnerable people in the province of Ontario, good luck in trying to get that phone call, good luck in trying to get someone to listen to your dire needs because ultimately, for the most part, they are not going answered by this budget.

As I said, there are gong to be elements of the budget that are positive.

But the reality is, Ontario students pay the highest tuition, and Ontario universities are being forced to make tough decisions on how and what they spend their money on, under this government.

Here and there, they’ll give a little money—a little bit here, a little bit there—but at the end of the day, they are underfunding post-secondary education in this province, just like they’re underfunding education in this province. So much more needs to be done, and they’re just not willing to do it.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

It might come as a surprise to many, but conservation authorities were first established by Conservatives generations ago in this province. I think a round of applause for them, right? Yes. Now, generations later, we’ve got this.

My question to either of you is simply this: What do you trust more: the results of an environmental assessment or the advice of a Tory Minister of the Environment?

Thank you to the member for his speech. I appreciate that this legislation does talk about and refer to price gouging as something unconscionable. In essence, it defines price gouging as taking, let’s say, a product and comparing the price of the product to the other competitors and then looking at the range. One of the problems or challenges that I see with that is, how do you address industry-wide problems? So if a particular thing that’s being sold by an entire industry, we feel, is too expensive, how do you suggest or would you be willing to look into ways to bring down gouging across entire industries as opposed to punishing individual businesses?

Everyone in Ontario deserves a safe and affordable place to call home, but the cost of rent in Ontario is not affordable. In fact, in Toronto, the average cost of rent is approaching $3,000 a month. The cost of rent has increased to more than 50% of take-home income for many Ontario households.

When businesses upcharge people for essential items, we call that gouging. What’s happening to tenants in Ontario right now is no different. Housing is a human right.

To pay their rent, many individuals and families are being forced to take on a second or third job. To pay their rent, people are having to cut back on groceries and all other spending. Still others are being forced to move farther and farther away from their families, their jobs, their children’s schools.

This is making the affordability crisis even worse. People are barely treading water. Many are drowning. But when we, the NDP, raise these concerns here, the government responds with insults and jokes.

The government knows this problem isn’t just about supply and demand; it’s much more than that. They know it. They know that there’s more that can be done to help tenants right now, more that can be done today.

I want to remind the minister that Toronto has led North America in construction cranes for years before they took office. After five years of Conservative government, rent has never been so high.

Families don’t have years to wait for a market adjustment. Many don’t even have months. They need relief now. The status quo is destroying families and leading some landlords into bad-faith evictions to charge even more. There are families out there right now who don’t have time to wait. They need us. They need you to act right now, and that means implementing real rent control.

Again, under this government, rents are by far the highest they’ve ever been, with no immediate relief on the horizon. You can’t just sit on your hands. Do the right thing. Support this NDP motion to bring in rent control and give tenants across this province the relief they need, the relief they deserve. They are counting on all of us to help them, so do it. Support this motion.

Thank you so much to my friend and colleague for her excellent presentation. I really appreciated that she talked about legal aid.

I think we should all agree in this House that finances shouldn’t be a barrier to justice, but of course there were cuts to legal aid that happened—by this government, in their last session of Parliament.

Can you tell us why it’s really important that access to legal aid is something that this government should be striving for and reversing these cuts should be a priority?

Thank you for your excellent presentation.

Since we are talking about justice and there are elements of justice being dealt with in this bill, I just want to bring back an issue that was talked about a lot in the last session.

Do you believe that if the government is contemplating justice, we need to talk about repealing the cuts to legal aid? Do you believe, in this system, that there is pure access to justice in a way that’s accessible to all, or do you still believe that there are barriers? If we’re talking about justice, shouldn’t we be talking about some of that stuff too?

[Inaudible] a single vote that the mayor of Toronto has not won, not a single vote. Mayors I have read out from the city of Toronto, who represent half of the last 50 years, have spoken against it, and here you are citing the board of trade. The mayor already has the control to be able to do what it needs to do. The city of Toronto has 43% of all cranes in North America and approves, year after year, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new housing units that they carefully consider with all parameters.

We have already demonstrated that this, other than the title, has nothing to do with housing. It is about giving more power to already powerful mayors. I have noted in the speeches made by government members that they tend not to group the words “affordable” and “housing” together. What they have said a lot of is “market housing,” and we are facing an affordable housing situation. Governments have the ability to create non-profit housing, co-operative housing—there are many solutions to this, like implementing rent control. They are not interested in any of those. Not at all. Not one.

What I’m going to say—and I’m going to say it again: This is a government obsessed with control, not just of its own members, not just of everything that happens here, obviously, in the province of Ontario or here in this House; this is a government of control that extends all the way down to municipalities. They are tabling legislation where—we already have mayors who have power through appointments and other ways. We have a mayor in the city of Toronto who has not lost a single important vote. These mayors have not asked for this legislation whatsoever.

We’ve reviewed the legislation, and it shows nothing to do with building new homes. I’ve shown that the city of Toronto builds thousands of new homes. We have 43% of all the cranes in North America here.

What exactly is this legislation about if it is not rewarding mayors who listen to your bidding?

There is no interest by this government to give any sort of power to those who dissent from them. They’re not interested in consultation. They’re interested in affirmation of everything they do. That is the interest of this government. We saw it for the last four years, and at some point it has got to stop.

Last session, we saw member after member leave this government. We had probably one of the largest groups of independents because they could not take the amount of control imposed even internally on them. And they’re now trying to control all the municipalities in Ontario. It has to stop.

The mayor of Toronto has lots of power and has won every single vote. That’s just simply the facts. Don’t take it from me; take it from the many mayors I read in my submission today.