I have got to be honest with you, all I can see is a whole bunch of superficial commitments, none of which actually address the things that workers are coming to me and telling me that they actually want to see to improve their retention, for example in health care, in the construction trades and places like that.

To your question: I didn’t see it in my review. Did you? I don’t think any of us did, and yet again it is just the latest in a series of examples of press releases that are put out by the government professing to change the world and commit to all sorts of things. When the rubber hits the pavement, they’re never able to deliver and, frankly, never willing to deliver.

I want to be really clear: This is not about standing with the government, standing with the opposition or anything like that. Let’s get beyond the rhetoric. This is about standing with workers. When I stand here and I point out the many shortcomings, it is with a view towards helping all members in this House on all sides make this legislation actually work for as many people as possible.

I want the constituents in Windsor–Tecumseh to have a large, well-functioning, modern, up-to-date hospital, and I want that hospital to have the skilled trades workers in order to be able to do that. I have the same problem in my riding. We need desperately to upgrade our hospital. We need the funding for that. But this bill, I regret to say, isn’t going to be enough to get your constituents and my constituents what they want and need.

So in answer to your question: No, I do not see anything in this legislation that addresses—

It’s an honour to rise in the House today to discuss the latest iteration of the government’s Working for Workers Act. I think it is particularly timely that we’re having this conversation. I would like to point out that this week we are celebrating Personal Support Worker Week, a profession that has been very much on the front lines in health care, home care and community care that far too often is forgotten, that for far too long has not been treated with the dignity nor given the support that it deserves. I think back to the challenges that our community and our province faced during the pandemic. Our personal support workers rose to that challenge—those personal support workers who deserve our genuine respect, our gratitude and our support in all of its forms.

As we think about how we can work for workers, I want to encourage all members in the House to think about how we can work for those personal support workers, because as I look at the measures that have been proposed in this legislation, at face value there certainly are good things. But to me, what is most conspicuous are the many things that have been left out and, even more conspicuous, the many actions that have been taken by this government that actually work against workers. In the midst of Personal Support Worker Week, I reflect on a few of those, the first being lack of real wage increases. We know there have been proposed increases, but they only apply for front-line care. If you’re a PSW who drives from home to home, then your wage plummets. We have a lack of wage parity amongst the home care, community care and acute care sector.

If we were working for workers, those things would be in this legislation. If we were working for workers, this government wouldn’t have voted down the opportunity to ensure that PSWs and DSWs get WSIB coverage if they work in a retirement home. Let’s get moving and “get it done” for all workers instead of just looking at it in a superficial manner.

We can take a step back from just PSWs. When I reflect on the record of this government—when I think about Bill 124 and the impact that it has had on education workers and on health care workers; when I think about Bill 28, this government’s attempt at overriding collective bargaining rights of education workers; when I think of the fact that this government does not have, or even speak about, a health care worker retention plan; when I think about the data that was released just last week that said we’re short more than 50,000 nurses and PSWs, and that PSWs have an attrition rate from their profession of 25% per year, and then the Minister of Health has the audacity to say she’s not concerned about it—that makes me think, despite what we have on this piece of paper, that we categorically do not have a government that is working for workers.

But let’s dive into what is on this piece of paper, because that’s what I’m here to do. That’s what we’re all here to do today. It’s superficial, it’s vague, too much is left to the regulations and too little of it can be enforced.

Looking to schedule 1, for example, building opportunities in the skilled trades: There is a requirement for satisfying prescribed academic standards in the skilled trades, and that requirement is removed. It allows alternative criteria to take its place. Madam Speaker, what are those alternative criteria? I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anyone in this House who knows. As is often the case with this government, the specifics are left to be prescribed in the regulations.

For as much as we’ve heard a variety of campaign slogans by government members on the other side—“For the People”; “Get it Done”—I am convinced, at this point in my short political career, that their next campaign slogan should very much be “Prescribed in the Regulations,” because everything is left to the regulations and almost always, nothing is in the legislation. This bill is no different.

I am the critic for housing. I know how badly we need to make the skilled trades accessible. We need to jump-start the sector. We need to create that pipeline of skilled workers, whether they’re ironworkers, electricians, masons, carpenters, bricklayers, journeymen, plumbers and more to build the homes that Ontario needs. But don’t you think that the next generation, the workers who will be working with them, deserve to know what this government means by “alternative criteria” in terms of qualifications before voting for this bill? I’d certainly like to know, and I think they would, too.

I recently called on the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to consider returning to a one-year teaching degree for seasoned skilled trades workers looking to become vocational instructors. It’s a good way to catalyze and accelerate a skilled pipeline of workers. I see nothing like that in this bill. Instead of making it easier for seasoned professionals to become instructors, instead of making it easier to teach the next generation of skilled trades workers, this government is just moving the goal posts for qualifying to be one.

Now, I want to move to something that I have personal experience with which is in schedule 2, the amendment that removes sick notes. I’ll be honest with you, of course, it’s a good move, but I can’t believe that we’re still talking about this. When the government first announced this a few weeks ago, I was asked by media what I thought about it. The truth is, I was confused. I was confused that we’re still having a conversation about this because the reality is that sick notes were banned before this government was elected. And as with so many other walk-backs and reversals, the Premier came in and removed the ban on sick notes. As though that wasn’t bad enough, when COVID-19 happened, he came in and he reversed that again. Then, he reversed it again; that’s a fourth time. Here is one last reversal, hopefully the last time we ever have to talk about removing sick notes.

The reality is that I was working in the emergency department last week. Let me paint a picture for you. There were 50 patients waiting to be seen. Our on-call doctor had been brought in. I picked up the chart, and it was a patient here for a doctor’s note.

Is it a good thing that we’re removing this requirement? Of course it is. But six years into this government’s mandate, why is it still here? Why is it only coming up now? It should have been gone long ago. In fact, it was gone before this government came into power.

Whether it is the greenbelt, whether it is urban boundary changes, whether it is development charges, whether it’s Bill 28, Bill 124, it seems as though every single thing that this government does is characterized by a lack of doing any homework, a lack of consultation—except for the Housing Affordability Task Force. There, all this government does is consultation. But everything else, no consultation, no action, no homework and walk-back after reversal after mistake.

Of course, looking at this legislation, there are some measures that can be applauded. I’m glad to see the definition of workplace harassment and sexual harassment get expanded to include virtual forms of harassment. I would have preferred it if the legislation that was supposed to be debated on Wednesday was actually debated, as opposed to getting fast-tracked into committee, where I have no doubt no further action will be taken.

But there is something here: legislating clean bathrooms. Who could possibly argue against that? The only thing that I can argue is that enforcement must be more of a priority when this government drafts legislation, especially when it actually has ideas that many of us can get on board with.

As I have reviewed this legislation, as I have reflected upon it and its potential to improve the work environment for workers, I have to say, of course, at face value, there are decent things in it, but it leaves a lot to be desired and was a wasted opportunity by this government.

It’s always a pleasure and an honour to rise in this august chamber to discuss the issues and the challenges that are facing Ontarians that they are struggling with the most. Many will know that I come from a clinical background. I’m an emergency doctor, but for many years, I’ve also had a number of leadership roles in homeless shelters here in the city of Toronto. And so, I’ve seen first-hand the critical importance of addressing housing affordability, making sure that we’ve got supportive housing environments and ensuring that we do everything possible to get housing right in this province, lest people end up having no choice but to turn to shelters.

Over the course of my remarks this afternoon, I’m going to touch a little bit on the scale of our crisis right now, what we really needed and were looking for in this legislation, what we actually got, my reaction to that and then where to go from there.

Currently, as I alluded, we have a housing and homelessness crisis. The scale of the suffering is difficult to describe. We have people sleeping in tents. We have fully employed personal support workers who cannot afford rent or a home to call their own, so they go to sleep in shelters. We have hospitals that have gone into the game of development because as they try to attract nurses, they don’t have anywhere for them to live. In our colleges and universities, we’ve got students living 25 people to a home because they can’t find anywhere else to live. And we have a massive out-migration from our province because young people cannot afford to live here after they finish their education.

Now, amidst that background, we have a government that purports to be ambitious. It says it will build 1.5 million homes by 2031. My first question is, is that even the right number? Mike Moffatt came out last week with a study saying we actually need 1.7 million homes. Regardless, even if we accept that “1.5 million homes” number as gospel, the government is failing even to keep up with that number. They’re falling thousands of homes behind on an annual basis, so much so that they’re forced to scramble to redefine what a house is in order to save face. We’ve got dorms and long-term-care beds now that are getting redefined as new housing construction—anything to distract from mismanagement and to pad the numbers.

Call it incompetence, call it self-interest, call it cowardice—call it what you want, but at the end of the day, housing starts have declined for the last three years in a row, missing provincial targets by 70,000 in 2022 alone. For six years now, we have had a government that has been driving in reverse. What we have needed is one that takes serious action. Instead, this is what we got.

Every few months, this government comes out with a new piece of housing legislation that usually walks back something that was in the last piece of legislation. Take it for the greenbelt, urban boundary expansion, development charges, and then, outside of housing, even looking at Bill 124 and Bill 28. Even if some of those ideas were good—and to be clear, there have been many bad ideas that have deserved to be walked back—within the context of housing, how are builders and municipalities supposed to have any confidence or ability to plan their construction whatsoever?

And so, with so much incompetence and inaction, you can imagine my excitement when a new housing minister was announced. Some of you may not know, but last time, the housing minister stepped down as a result of the greenbelt scandal.

The Premier tasked a single staffer, who quickly and quietly started removing lands from the greenbelt owned by his developer friends, and the housing minister—the last one—says he didn’t notice. So now he faces an RCMP criminal investigation, and that housing minister was forced to resign.

Now, thankfully, with this greenbelt giveaway, the people of Ontario were able to stop that. They looked at the evidence. The evidence showed they could build the homes that were needed without threatening our greenbelt, and here we are. So, a greenbelt flip-flop—with so many other flip-flops and failures, we have been left billions of dollars in the hole and years behind.

Anyway, thankfully, we have a new housing minister, and I am genuinely very excited. This was an opportunity to right some wrongs, to get things right. But regrettably, we have been let down. This bill could have been a shining debut, a moment to introduce landmark legislation to leave an indelible mark on the future of our province. But instead of courage, we have cowardice; instead of ambition, we have apathy; and instead of foresight, we see failure.

This is the kind of bill that could have been forgiven if it was in year 1 of this government’s mandate, not year 6. For all the talk about housing supply actions plans, this is being touted as a red tape reduction bill, and that’s not surprising because this government has never been about action. Two years—two years—after their own Housing Affordability Task Force report came out, they’re still talking, essentially kicking the can down the road so that they can say they’re doing something without actually.

I’m going to take some time now to reflect on the bill within the broader context of many of the other housing announcements that have come at the same time. I want this government to be successful because my constituents in Don Valley East and Ontarians across the province need it to work.

This bill purports to cover four areas, euphemistically titled as follows: building homes at a lower cost; prioritizing infrastructure for-ready-to-go housing projects; improved consultation and greater certainty to get homes built faster; and building more types of homes for more people.

I’ll dive into each of those four pillars, if you will.

Let’s start with building homes at a lower cost. This section includes things that indicate just how out of touch the government actually is. For example, it purports to remove minimum parking restrictions around major station transit areas. But if you listen carefully to municipalities and the building and developer network, the question that they’re asking isn’t about minimum parking requirements. The question they’re asking is, how much density can go around an MTSA? There is no answer.

Now, I understand that the minister will say that he’s consulting and will refer me to the draft provincial planning statement. But why are we still looking at consulting two years after the Housing Affordability Task Force already answered the question of density around MTSAs? And to make things even more infuriating, the government has already been consulting on that recommendation for the last two years as well with municipalities. So yet again, we’re repeating an announcement, kicking the can down the road to create the impression of action when none has been taken and there is no intention of doing so.

But on this, on these repeated talks of announcements that have already been getting announced, already getting consulted upon, this is where life really begins to get even more bizarre.

In related announcements, the government has said they will allow mass-timber construction up to 18 stories. All right, it’s not a bad idea. It’s good for supporting our forestry sector in our province, allows for more housing options, great, but the development community isn’t asking for 18 storeys for timber construction on that kind of construction. Instead, they are clamouring for clarity around restrictions that make it difficult to build that, like guidance around angular planes. None of that is in this legislation.

Similarly, there’s a promise to consult fire safety stakeholders about single-exit stairs in small residential buildings, but this was something the last housing minister said he was consulting on two years ago, around the time of Bill 109. So yet again, we’re announcing more consultations on things that were deemed to be a priority literally years ago.

The second pillar of this housing ambition was around prioritizing infrastructure for ready-to-go housing projects, and this is where I really begin to feel bad for builders, developers and municipalities: The lack of foresight, planning, and courage of this government has led to an environment in which no one can plan and no one can build.

First, development charges were off the table, throwing municipalities province-wide into chaos, causing property taxes to skyrocket and resulting in developers adjusting their construction accordingly; now, an unexpected walk-back with no warning whatsoever.

This government is introducing a complete and utter lack of confidence through precisely the kind of circular thinking that leads the housing community to have zero confidence in this government. When hundreds of millions of dollars are on the table, and people don’t know what they can expect next month, they cannot get in the business of constructing.

The third pillar of this is improved consultation and greater certainty for more homes built faster. Where do I even start? As I’ve mentioned, we’ve already been consulting. The government has already been consulting for the past two years and seems caught up in it as a way of delaying, but they certainly don’t consult with these stakeholders when it counts, on things like development charges or whether they’re going to walk back on that.

One of the most worrisome elements of all of this is that the bill institutes a near-universal ban on third-party appeals. That is heavy-handed. Make no mistake about it. We do see abuse of the Ontario Land Tribunal. We do see that there are long wait times—of course, it’s infected by political appointments—but a blanket ban that ignores the root causes of the appeals process in the Ontario Land Tribunal? That is heavy-handed, and what we need is a nuanced and calculated approach, and the Housing Affordability Task Force gave us that approach. Whereas this government is taking a machete when a scalpel is needed, the Housing Affordability Task Force made some great recommendations to prevent abuse of the land tribunal, like waving appeals on affordable housing, like having to show merit in a case that is intended to be brought to the tribunal, and increasing filing fees.

I want to take a moment to explain why banning all third-party appeals is dangerous. Sometimes developers appeal other developers because one plan can actually stop them from building even more housing. So we need to be careful that appeals, which can absolutely be important—we need to make sure that they are allowed to function in a reasonable manner and, if done so, we can protect our environment and actually increase the number of houses that we have in our province.

And finally, the fourth pillar of this intended legislation and plan is to build more types of homes for more people. And here, one of the landmark elements of that is to exempt universities from the Planning Act to accelerate student housing and put them on a level playing field with publicly assisted colleges. But here’s the thing: Colleges are suffering too, and putting them on a level playing field doesn’t necessarily solve the problem for universities nor for colleges. What might actually help is funding them properly.

There is much more to be said, but with my time waning and only 90 seconds left, I will reflect briefly on what others have said.

John Michael McGrath points out that this legislation is “broad but shallow, covering many different areas but not pushing too hard in any one place. It does not enough of too much.”

Martin Regg Cohn from the Star points out this collection of anti-climactic legislative proposals made news only because it “codifies a series of climbdowns over screw-ups of the past.”

So how could it have been better? Because I believe firmly we must be, on our side, a group of proposition, not just opposition. Well, in keeping with the legislation I introduced weeks ago, this government could have allowed construction of at least four units and buildings on any residential lot—by-right, province-wide multiplexes, exactly as the Housing Affordability Task Force recommended; introduce minimum height and density requirements around MTSAs; invest in the Landlord and Tenant Board; and require home builders to include at least 20% long-term affordable units as a condition of sale of all provincial surplus lands for housing development, but none of these things.

It saddens me that we have a government so allergic to the concept of real action on housing and on gentle density that they are willing to forgo billions of dollars from the federal government because they are ideologically opposed to fourplexes. We are in a housing affordability crisis. The current situation demands strong leadership and courage, but this government is flying by the seat of its pants. We deserved a bill that would solve our crisis, and we didn’t get it.

I thank you for the question because I think it’s particularly prescient. When you talk to international students, they know that they are the piggy bank that is funding colleges and universities. It’s heartbreaking to hear from them that they were sold on a dream and a promise from faraway lands that they would be able to come here, settle and start a new life with hope for prosperity in the future. When they come here and realize that their tuition is orders of magnitude higher than domestic students and that the promise that was made to them can’t be delivered upon, it tells them that their individual dignity does not count; it tells them that they count for nothing more than what’s in their bank accounts.

The only thing that they should be focusing on is their education and how they can settle their roots here and give back to our country and our economy.

From the post-secondary sector, I’d like to welcome the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance as well as the delegation from Western University, my alma mater.

I would also like to welcome the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, who I’ll be meeting with later this afternoon.

Finally, from a health care perspective, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Home Care Ontario as well as the Carion Fenn Foundation, which hosted a great reception this morning.

I rise on a point of order to correct my record. In my supplemental response, I made the comment that the government hadn’t done anything to keep ERs closed, but of course I meant they haven’t done anything to keep ERs open.

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 151, An Act to amend various statutes regarding infrastructure / Projet de loi 151, Loi modifiant diverses lois relatives aux infrastructures.

None of these things have done anything to keep ERs closed and have ignored entirely the root causes of what we’re facing, because right now patients cannot get access to primary care. They can’t get access to family doctors and family health teams. When they try to get out to nurse practitioners, many of them can only be accessed by paying $400 mandatory subscription fees.

This is about doing things like dropping the appeal of Bill 124 and putting in the work to retain health care workers with proper wages, benefits and mental health supports. This means regulating temporary nursing agencies. It means investing the billions of dollars this government is instead stashing away in contingency funds. We cannot afford to fail on this.

In September, three teens were stabbed at a house party in the middle the night. Rushed to the nearest emergency department, they found that it was closed. In the last month, there was a 10-day period where the emergency department in Chesley, Ontario, was open for only 10 hours.

What does the Minister of Health say to the people Ontario who live with the anxiety of not having an emergency room open in their times of crisis?

This morning, I would like to welcome the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario and my friend Krystal Fox.

I’d also like to welcome the Canadian Cancer Survivor Network, Lung Cancer Canada and the Lung Health Foundation—specifically, Jessica Buckley, CEO; Jess Rogers, VP of programs, research and public affairs; and Riley Sanders, manager of public affairs.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Well, that’s a bullet point on a leadership commitment; that is not a full-out bill.

When I asked ministry officials to explain how they were going to deliver on those business power words, they couldn’t tell me.

And while we’re talking about the things that have or not been done, let’s talk about what this government has accomplished. It has accomplished 2.2 million Ontarians without a family doctor. It has accomplished a backlog of medical services that exceeds 22 million. It has accomplished rampant ER closures in almost every community across this province, including in the Minister of Health’s own riding. That’s not a track record to be proud of.

Madam Speaker, through you: I would invite members of the government to tell me exactly how they propose to actually deliver integrated connected care, apart from just listing bullet points and finding things off websites.

I’d like to say good morning and welcome to all the members of the Arthritis Society of Canada, notably the volunteers, the backbone of any organization, but also to Trish Barbato, president and CEO; Sian Bevan, chief science officer; Andrew Branion, vice-chair, national board of directors; Vas Rao, board of directors; Kelly Gorman, senior director for public policy and government affairs; and finally, Joanne Di Nardo, senior director for public policy and government affairs. I welcome you to the House today.

My question is for the Premier. It seems that every time the Premier makes a major public policy decision, wealthy well-connected insiders always seem to come out on top. We saw it with the greenbelt, where a small group of insiders became billionaires overnight. Are we really supposed to believe that this decision was about 1.5 million homes and not about $8.3 billion? Accordingly, when it comes to the Premier’s expansion of private, for-profit health care, can we blame Ontarians for wondering where his priorities truly lie?

Mr. Speaker, this week, a walk-in clinic in Ottawa is operating that will charge patients desperate for primary care $400 a year just to have the privilege of paying for visits. We know that’s not the only one of these kinds of clinics popping up in Ontario.

To the Premier: While cash-for-access arrangements may be commonplace within this government, is it fair that he expects the people of Ontario to count this as the norm within their own health care system?

But I’d like to remind the Premier of a saying he has burned into the minds of Ontarians this year. He said, “All you need is your OHIP card—never your credit card.” It kind of reminds me of that famous video where he promised not to touch the greenbelt, and then he did.

History is repeating itself. Walk-in clinics like the one in Ottawa are just the beginning. Bill 60, which was executed swiftly just like the greenbelt, was said to be about clearing the surgical backlog, but it’s just another cash cow. It opens the floodgates for private clinics to profiteer on publicly funded surgeries, meaning the people of Ontario will be bankrolling clinics that have a financial incentive to provide the lowest-quality care possible.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier said that real leadership is about being able to admit when you’ve made a mistake. Will he reverse his decision on private, for-profit health care, the same way he reversed his decision on the greenbelt?

This morning I’d like to welcome to the House Emerson Maxwell from OPSEU, who works at the Ontario Science Centre, and Jason Ash and Shakhlo Sharipova, both community leaders from my riding.

I present a petition similarly related to the closure of the Chesley hospital.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Chesley and District Memorial Hospital, originally donated to the town with funds provided by the local Kinsmen Club, was dedicated as a tribute to those local residents injured or killed during the Second World War. This hospital has served the needs of the community of Arran-Elderslie for 79 years with strong support at all times from the residents of the town and other communities in the area as well as from the county and local municipal government;

“Whereas three times—in 1976, 1978 and 1992—provincial governments have attempted to close the doors of this hospital. In each case, local residents protested these moves and each time through their efforts the government backed down and the hospital was saved. Now, with the current cancellation and/or reduction of ER services, there is yet another threat to the continued existence of our hospital;

“Whereas the ER in Chesley hospital serves an area with a total population of 6,900 people. It delivers emergency medical care for the whole constituency of Arran-Elderslie township including the towns of Chesley, Tara, Paisley and Dobbinton. It also provides services for those living in the nearby villages of Desboro and Elmwood and in the former townships of Brant, Sullivan and Bentinck. A large number of the residents are seniors and the area also includes a large population of Amish and Mennonite families. Many of these residents do not have access to a private automobile and are disadvantaged in the effort to reach health centres in large communities by the long distance and lack of a public transportation system. They require close proximity to ER and hospital services and that proximity is best served by the Chesley hospital;

“Whereas the physician recruitment committee has advised that without a fully functioning ER, it is difficult to recruit and retain doctors and nurses who are interested in maintaining and increasing their skills and who are dependent upon ER duties to support or supplement their income;

“Whereas Arran-Elderslie council sent a letter addressed to the Premier and the Minister of Health dated October 31, 2022, requesting action to address this situation, and that letter remains unacknowledged and unanswered at this time;

“Therefore we, the undersigned citizens of Arran-Elderslie and surrounding community, call on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to keep our emergency department at the Chesley hospital open 24/7 by ensuring sufficient funding and fair compensation for nurses and physicians and to address the ongoing operational and labour issues that are impacting our vital emergency department service.”

I agree with this petition, affix my signature and hand it to page Sophie.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—

As elected officials, we have an obligation to protect Ontario’s communities, and that is what this motion seeks to do. That is why I support it.

The federal government needs to hear from us, this Legislature, that the people of Ontario want to feel safe in public. They want to feel safe on their streets, on public transit and in their communities. But there are trade-offs, and there are always trade-offs, so let’s talk about them.

We all remember just a few months ago when Constable Greg Pierzchala was shot and killed by a repeat offender out on bail. In that situation, there was a trade-off: Someone known to be a repeat violent offender was let go. We can’t allow this to happen again. We must take seriously the thought that the Criminal Code should be amended for those most likely to reoffend.

When it comes to this issue, the public has skin in the game. Their safety is on the other side and on the line. That is why we have to make it harder for these kinds of offenders to get out on bail. Reversing the onus, requiring the most serious and violent criminals—those who are most likely to reoffend—to prove why their detention isn’t justified is a fail-safe. It creates a legal framework in which the justice system can keep the most dangerous people in custody until their trial.

But this alone is not enough. This is just one piece of the puzzle. For example, why doesn’t the provincial government require bail hearings for the most serious offences to be heard by the provincial court rather than a justice of the peace? Why doesn’t this government spend some of that contingency fund on the justice system, which desperately needs additional resources to complete its bail hearings on time? And why haven’t we responded to the recent wave of TTC violence with increased mental health and addictions funding?

These are all questions we need to consider in concert with this motion. Bail reform cannot make our communities safe on its own. It can make them safer, but not nearly safe enough.

It’s an honour to rise in this august chamber, and specifically as the member for Don Valley West glares at me. I’m very pleased that I’ll be sharing and splitting my time with her over the next, roughly, 12 minutes.

I also want to thank the member from Don Valley West for the outstanding work she does for the members of her riding and specifically for her outstanding leadership on analyzing and guiding us through this budget, which I sadly must admit is thoroughly underwhelming.

As has been articulated before, this is a budget, sadly, that very clearly tells Ontarians that they’re on their own, that this government does not have their backs, and that for the things which matter most to all of us, the things that matter most to Ontarians, they should just figure it out themselves. Unfortunately, this does not come as any surprise. As a young child, I was taught in my family to do what you say. If you promise something, then you have to deliver on it, and this is something, sadly, that this government struggles with.

For example, this government said all fall that they would accelerate the credentialing of foreign-trained family doctors, and we’re still waiting. I have no confidence whatsoever that this bill will or can deliver on the unambitious promises that it makes. You have to do what you say.

The recent reports from the Financial Accountability Office do nothing to reassure me that this government will do otherwise. In successive quarters, we have seen consistent underspending across all of the major ministries: $1.3 billion less in health than promised, $844 million less in education, $175 million less in post-secondary education and $458 million less in children and social services—the funding that goes to deliver services to those who need our help the most. Do what you say. This budget simply inspires no confidence, because the members haven’t even delivered on their last budget.

But there’s more to it than that, Madam Speaker. You don’t just have to do what you say; you have to say what you do. This government has consistently committed to doing one thing, only to actually do another. For example, this government is funding a housing plan, but they promised in the process that they wouldn’t touch the greenbelt, and now they’re carving it up. They promised that they would protect our public health care system, and are now funding a plan that is so poorly conceived that it will lead to the corporatization and profitization of our health care. And so, as much as I am underwhelmed by this bill, I’m also concerned about just how much it is not talking about.

In health care, for example, the budget mentions nothing about eliminating hospital surge funding for COVID, even though it is getting eliminated tomorrow. It mentions nothing about access to hospital care for our most vulnerable and marginalized uninsured patients in Ontario, even though that also is getting eliminated tomorrow. Say what you’re going to do.

The government has also made a profoundly short-sighted decision in eliminating paid sick days, which will actually hurt our businesses and economy when sick people are forced to come to work and infect entire workplaces.

Most upsetting of all, there is no attention whatsoever to health care worker retention, even as this remains one of the biggest challenges that we face in health care right now. Say what you do. Not only is there no mention of health care worker retention, outside of this chamber this government is pursuing avenues to fight courts that have told this government that Bill 124 is unconstitutional legislation that infringes on charter and worker rights.

On Indigenous issues, I am most disturbed at the growing chorus of Indigenous people and communities who say they have not been adequately consulted on so many of the proposed changes in the budget. I have heard from Indigenous stakeholders, for example, that the government’s plan for integrated community health services centres is being implemented without their input. And we all witnessed yesterday how Indigenous people share their concerns about the Ring of Fire. We must listen to Indigenous people, particularly the ones who are most at stake.

I have more I could say, but in the spirit of respecting the time of my colleague, I will simply mention that on the challenge of education, this government has dropped the ball, focusing upon things like infrastructure, like buildings, instead of supporting teachers by making sure that they are adequately funded. On this issue, along with so many more, the bill is very clear: People in Ontario are on their own. They don’t matter, and this government does not have their backs.

With that, I turn it to the member for Don Valley West.

I’m delighted to welcome a group of political science students from the University of Toronto today. They are our future, and I’m delighted that they’re here to witness democracy in action.

I want to welcome representatives from OSSTF, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, to Queen’s Park today. Specifically, we have vice-president, Martha Hradowy, and executive officer, Colin Matthew. They’re here today to ensure that education is a priority in this upcoming budget for the sake of our students and our educators. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

In this chamber, we have the monumental responsibility of serving 15 million people across our great province. I will never forget that the people of Don Valley East have put their trust in me to be their champion and fight for them every single day. Even though Ontarians can hold us to account during elections every four years, the reality is that we are accountable every day, and my bill upholds that commitment.

The Publication of Mandate Letters Act sets out to define what mandate letters are and outlines the expectation that all letters to—