Suck and blow.

Wow. That is really all I have to say on that.

Thank you so much for voting against bills that would reduce the cost of building things in Ontario.

We are cutting the development charges for not-for-profit housing. Is that not what your question was about? Then you asked, how are we doing that? We’re cutting the development charge in the GTA. In some portions of the GTA, it’s $167,000 for a development charge. Not-for-profits will not have to pay that. That is a significant reduction in the cost per unit—$167,000. What is that in terms of mortgage payments right now, with the interest rates that we have? That is hundreds of dollars per month—close to $500 per month—that is not going to have to be paid for not-for-profit housing builds. That helps.

There is more to the province of Ontario than the city of Toronto, and if you come to any riding outside of the 25 that are in Toronto, they would say that they should also get the same level of respect and that they should get the same benefits as what the Toronto members of the NDP are trying to advocate for Toronto.

In my riding, I know that people are happy about the idea of housing being built; I know that people are happy about the idea of jobs being brought back to the province.

I could go across any single riding of the PC government members, and they would all say the same thing: Ontario is on the right track, because we’re attracting businesses.

VW would not be here if it was not for the work of this government, the leadership of Premier Ford and the leadership of Vic Fedeli—sorry, the member from Nipissing, the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade—

Obviously, the member didn’t actually listen to everything I said, because I did talk about all the things that we were doing to support everyone in Ontario.

The reduction in cost for electricity of $6.5 billion affects every single person, whether they are on Ontario Works, ODSP, or whether they are working someplace, whether they are retired. It makes no difference; it affects every single person in this province in a positive way.

We’ve increased funding to ODSP by 5% and tied it now to inflation so that they’ll never find themselves in a position where they’re falling further behind. This is the first time any government in Ontario has done this—tied it to inflation to make sure that they do not fall behind.

Madam Speaker, this is a fantastic budget, and the opposition needs to stand up and vote in favour of it, because it helps everyone in this province.

The unfortunate part is that I only have 20 minutes. This is such a good budget that I would have loved to have had the 60-minute leadoff to talk about this. There are so many things that we’re doing in this to improve the lives of people in Ontario.

I’ll try to focus as much as I can on my own riding, because I think there are a number of things that this document lays out that will improve the lives of the people in Peterborough–Kawartha.

We know that we have, across Ontario, an addictions crisis. Some people want to refer to it as an opioid crisis, but the reality is, it’s an addictions crisis—it’s not just opioids. It starts with different things, and it leads to a lot of other challenges. Those challenges affect not just the individuals, but their families.

I’ve said before in this House that any person who overdoses and dies is someone’s son or daughter, and could potentially be someone’s mother or father or brother or sister. They are a family member.

We’ve taken this very, very seriously. Almost half a billion dollars is being allocated to it.

What does that mean for communities like mine? We know that in Peterborough, last year, we averaged one overdose death a week; 52 people in a city of 85,000 overdosed and died. The investments that we’re putting into mental health and addictions are things that will make a positive difference. What we’ve done in our community over the last year and a half are things that need to be celebrated. We have a mobile mental health and addictions bus—we actually have two of them; Peterborough is part of the pilot project for this—taking mental health and addictions supports out into the community, where people need the service, when they need the service, paid for by OHIP. It goes out into Peterborough county, Northumberland county, Haliburton, which relieves some of the stress in the city of Peterborough, because the services are coming right out to you. We’re one of the pilots for this; there are three of them across the province. This is something that’s replicable and will make a positive difference, because if we can intervene before it is a crisis, we never develop to that crisis point. We get the supports to the individual, again, when they need it, where they need it.

These are things that are outside-of-the-box thinking. It’s not something that is being done widespread across the province. It’s not something that was widespread across anywhere in Canada. And yet, this government is investing funds specifically for that, and will demonstrate that this is a service that will work. This is a service that will reduce the number of individuals who find themselves in crisis.

But we know that we do have people who are in crisis right now—and that’s where some of these other investments will be. We know that harm reduction is one of those models that is a stopgap. It helps to build trust with an individual. It keeps them alive for a period of time. But it’s not the final solution. The final solution is developing ways to get people to treatment. That’s what this investment will do—create more treatment opportunities, more chances for people to get to treatment.

In my community, in 2020, 82% of the overdose deaths were in their own homes. These are people who would not be going to a consumption and treatment site. These are people who are not on the street. These are people who are not unhoused. These are your neighbours, and we’re providing supports for them, to get them into a better position.

We’ve heard the NDP talk about how heartless we are, as Conservatives—that we don’t do things that they want us to do.

Well, $202 million is being invested in the homelessness prevention fund. That’s an investment to change the narrative, to change the trajectory for some of these people, because we know that if we can get them to stable housing, if we can get them to a point where they feel valued, they will be far more productive.

We also know that one of the best social programs is a job, so we’ve done things in this budget to increase training, to increase the ability to get people to that next stage. Ready, Set, Go—that funding opportunity will provide education opportunities for a number of individuals who have been disadvantaged and get them to the next step, so that they can improve their lives.

But it’s not just about those social programs. We’re investing in job creation—the tax rebates, tax cuts for manufacturing. Manufacturing is something that we drove out of this province in droves for 15 years, when the Liberals were in power. We’re reversing that trend. We’re bringing companies back to Ontario. We’re repatriating a lot of that manufacturing, and we’re providing a tax benefit for companies—small companies—in manufacturing to accelerate that, so that more people have that opportunity for a good-paying job.

We know that by reducing taxes the way we have—over the last few years, we’ve heard repeatedly how horrible it was to put money back into people’s pockets, how horrible we were for not increasing taxes. We’re projecting record revenues for the province by cutting tax, and the reason we’re doing that is, you have more money in your pocket to spend; companies have more money to hire and produce; companies have more money to advertise, market and sell their products. And we’re seeing the benefits of that.

We have a record amount of spending in this province now. This budget is more than $200 billion, and we have a pathway to a balanced budget in a record time. Just last year, we talked about getting to a balanced budget in three years’ time. We’ll be at a balanced budget in a year, because we’re doing the right things. We’re saving people money.

There have been comments that we’re not doing enough to help the average person, that there’s nothing in this budget to help the average person. That is a completely false narrative.

When we were first elected in 2018, hydro rates, electricity rates in Ontario had risen from 2003—the lowest in North America—to 2018, the highest in North America. And if anyone in Ontario believes that you do not pay for electricity—that is a false statement. All of us are paying for electricity. But the relief we have put in there, $6.5 billion in relief on electricity charges, is money right back into the pocket of every single person in this province. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using electricity to turn on the lights or whether you’re using electricity to heat your home. All of us use electricity. The opposition members want us to move to an electrified system, where we have electric cars. Well, guess what? Every single electric car has to be charged. And how do they charge that electric car? By plugging it into the grid. That is savings for every single person in this province. I know it’s a narrative that the NDP doesn’t want. I know it’s a narrative that the Liberals don’t want. They don’t want to talk about the good things we’re doing.

This budget supports every single person in this province. With the GAINS program, at least 100,000 more seniors will have more money back in their pockets because of that.

That’s what this budget does—it puts money back into people’s pockets. It gives them the ability to decide how they’re going to spend it. And that is how government should function.

With that, Madam Speaker, I’m going to turn my time over to the member for Windsor–Tecumseh.