I absolutely, categorically support increased protections for tenants. It’s a little bit hypocritical to hear from the other side that they support those protections when they have, for example, done away with rent control and implemented policies that have resulted in unprecedented economic hardship for my constituents in Don Valley East.

I’m proud to stand here on behalf of those same constituents to hold this government to account, to point out that they have made life more difficult for tenants, more difficult for renters, more expensive for renters, and to point out that, unfortunately, to call these piecemeal efforts that are unclear—it’s inappropriate to do so.

I was just in St. Catharines and in the Niagara region within the last few days. I’ve heard from your constituents—who thank you for your advocacy, by the way—but who point out that housing is out of control for them, that rent is out of control for them and that this government, the present government, hasn’t done anything for them in order to make that issue go away. This bill certainly won’t.

My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, this government presented a plan for health care that inspired zero confidence that it would protect patients or ensure fair, equitable, timely access in our province. It avoided the root causes of our crisis and made a series of promises that we have no reason to believe will be acted upon.

I mean, why should we? This government promised they wouldn’t touch the greenbelt, and then they carved it up. They promised they would sign up 8,000 children to the Ontario Autism Program this year, and instead they just let the wait-list balloon and stopped reporting data. They told us there wasn’t a crisis in health care, even as at least 158 emergency departments closed across our province.

And now, the government is presenting a superficial plan for health care that makes vague promises about guardrails for some of the very same problems they have been consistently ignoring since they came into power. Mr. Speaker, why should anyone trust anything this Premier and government have to say?

We have already seen the poisonous effects of profits in long-term care, in which seniors died in droves. This government did nothing except introduce legislation to protect the most negligent operators and then award them more contracts. Now this government is enabling for-profit operators to siphon health care workers out of our public health care system. As Bill 124 pushes them out, temporary nursing agencies are pulling them out.

Many of these agencies engage in unscrupulous recruiting practices, like hiring out of parking lots, or they institute harmful contractual obligations that stop nurses from working in the location of their choice. Others engage in rampant price gouging, allowing hospitals to be charged three or four times the normal rates.

Will this government explain why they have not fulfilled their promise to take action on temporary, for-profit nursing agencies?