Before I start, I want to note as well that I’m sharing the time remaining with my colleague from Scarborough Southwest.

I also have to say that it is a privilege, it’s an honour, to rise to speak today, as the interim leader of the NDP, to talk to the speech from the throne, to talk to the budget.

But before I get into that substance—Speaker, first of all, welcome back and congratulations, and to all of you in this chamber who have come back or arrived here new. I disagree with a lot of people, and I’m sure a lot of you will disagree with me. But you don’t get here by sitting on a couch; you get here by doing work, and whatever your opinion or your perspective, you deserve respect for that. So to all of you, congratulations.

That said, back to business.

Interjection.

I am privileged to stand here, as the leader of the official occupation, with my colleagues. We’re here, each of us, because we think that this province has extraordinary promise. It has the potential to make for extraordinary lives for people across this whole territory. It’s a place of opportunity and, frankly, it is a province of plenty. It’s extraordinarily rich—rich soil, rich minerals and richness in the people who live here. People come here because they understand the quality of life and the opportunities that are presented. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect—far from it. But the potential and the promise are extraordinary, and we have a responsibility, I think, to live up to that potential, to make use of that promise.

Since this government first tabled its budget in April, things have changed, things have moved on. We’re seeing inflation at over 8%. My colleague from Kitchener-Waterloo has spoken to this quite eloquently, quite movingly, if I may say. That’s having a huge impact on people’s lives, and it needs to be taken into account in the planning that this government engages in, going forward.

I think most of you in this chamber will have constituents who are having a very hard time. I would say it’s not just low-income constituents; I’ve talked to my middle-income constituents who feel that they’re treading water, that they can’t get ahead, that they’re constantly being knocked back by higher prices and more difficult situations. It means—that more-than-8% inflation—that their purchasing power has been reduced by almost a tenth. That’s an extraordinary impact on people’s ability to live, to provide for themselves and their families, to have hope for the future. It means a number of people are using their credit cards to balance out their finances. That, as you’re well aware, Speaker, is not a sustainable way to go forward. It doesn’t work. It means that people are making really tough choices about whether or not kids will go to summer camp or even go to the CNE. People in my riding are facing a very tough time about paying rent or buying groceries.

As I’ve seen on Cosburn, as I’ve seen on Gerrard, outside the food banks and the churches on those streets, the lineups get longer and longer. People are pressed to their limit.

Frankly, in a number of places—I’m talking about rent—people are having to bring in roommates to make things work.

Again, as my colleague from Kitchener-Waterloo was saying, our neighbours on Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program were already living in legislated poverty. They were having a very tough time.

It was interesting to me, even just going to public events, wherever there was any barbecue set up by a politician, the rate at which food would be consumed. It is not a theoretical, distant or rhetorical thing to talk about; it is a very real need and very real desperation. This government absolutely has the power to change that.

As my colleague was saying, the Minister of Finance, who is an intelligent guy, by the way—people have talked with him; he’s no slouch—was asked repeatedly if he could live on $1,200 a month in Toronto. He’s an intelligent guy. He knew that there was no answer to that that wasn’t no, so he dodged the question. But that’s the reality—1,200 bucks a month. That’s barely a room, let alone groceries, let alone medication, let alone transportation. When you talk to people who are trying to live on those sorts of amounts, there is a desperation that is very real that has not been addressed by this budget. The 5% increase does not address that. Connecting the rates to inflation is not going to correct that.

There is no good reason, in this extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily powerful province, that people should regularly be going hungry—no reason at all. It is within our power to correct that. This government can correct that. This government should correct that. But for the moment, Speaker, that is not in their budget, and I have to say that is something that they have to correct.

I also have to note that since April, the strains and the stresses on the health care system have become so much more paramount, so much deeper. We had three representatives from the Ontario Nurses’ Association here today listening to questions about health care, shocked and staggered by the answers they were getting.

I used to work for the Ontario Nurses’ Association back in the 1990s, and I had a chance at that time to talk to nurses. Nurses have a very dark sense of humour, and I think you need it to get through some of what they see. Unfortunately, that very dark sense of humour is still there, because when you say to people that they have to try to make an emergency department work or an intensive care unit work and there are not enough people to do it—and the ones who are there got the message clear, they got it loud, that they don’t matter. Sweet words are one thing, but actually clearing out the obstacles to giving them proper income is not something this government will do. I hear it all the time: “We’re doing everything we can.” What about getting rid of Bill 124? Silence.

I think if you want to send a message out to health care workers, education workers, public sector workers across Ontario that, in the end, they don’t matter, Bill 124 is one of the most effective tools I’m aware of.

If you actually want to have retention of nurses, if you want to have retention of health care workers, if you want to end the demoralization, abolishing that bill—and we would be willing to sit through the weekend; we would be willing to sit through the night. If you wanted to do that, we would do that. That would send a tremendous signal.

Speaker, there are 5,400 fewer health care and social service workers in Ontario today compared to just one year ago.

I asked a question today about all those places where emergency rooms have been closed. They have been forced to close in Red Lake, Perth, Clinton, Listowel, Seaforth, Wingham and other communities. Hospitals in Toronto have been on the brink of ER closures and have issued bed alerts for their ICUs. Hotel Dieu urgent care centre in Kingston has been forced to cap the number of patients it can see and turn everyone else away. Twenty-five hospitals were impacted by August long weekend closures.

Our health care system has not seen this kind of crisis in generations, and it’s not just because of COVID, although COVID is a factor. It’s not because of a lack of beds, because, physically, beds are easy to make and put in a room. It’s because of beds without nurses, beds where we don’t have doctors. It’s because of a lack of staff.

It’s quite correct to say that we can’t get 10,000 new nurses tomorrow, but I’ll tell you, if we continue to discourage and demoralize the nurses who are there, the health care workers who are there, then the crisis we see today could be far worse in the near future. Frankly, that demoralization and that driving people out of the health care system that we’re seeing in Ontario right now is something the government could work on immediately and is not. It is not addressed in the speech from the throne. It’s not addressed in the budget. It’s not addressed in response to questions that we’ve asked, and it’s not addressed in response to questions that are posed by reporters.

What I do hear is, “We’re going to build more hospitals.” Putting up a shiny, well-stocked new building that’s empty is not going to solve the health care crisis in any community in Ontario. This government needs to both recognize that and act. It’s scary to think that if you needed an emergency room, you would go there and it would be closed, locked, lights off—absolutely not something that we want to see.

Since the government tabled its budget in April, inflation has gone up and health care has gone down the tubes. People want a sense that there is hope. They want to see even a flicker of light at the end of that tunnel. As long as the government is not acting on those twin crises of health care and inflation, they aren’t seeing that hope. They deserve to see it. They need to see it.

Speaker, just last month, there were 3,400 more workers in health care and social services—just a month ago. These are big losses. They need to be addressed. The government can address them. It must address them.

Health care experts and experts such as Cathryn Hoy of the Ontario Nurses’ Association say Ontario is 30,000 nurses short of what it needs to actually function—30,000. That is a lot of nurses. That didn’t happen overnight, but I have to say, in the last four years, it got a lot worse. Government needs to take steps now to correct that.

We’ve been seeing cuts in education. My colleague from Davenport can speak about that extensively and in depth. That makes a huge difference in terms of what happens to our children. They have gone through one of the most brutal two-year periods of their lives. Many have fallen far behind in school. I talk to teachers who recognize that, for a lot of kids, they lost two years, and I talk to parents who are worried about those children. We’re not seeing the investment in schools; we’re not seeing the investment in smaller classes that are needed to actually make that right, to help those children get the education they need. That is a dereliction of duty, because we have a responsibility to that next generation. We have a responsibility to give them the best possible start so that this society will actually be able to function. You cannot function in this society without a well-educated population. You can’t function as an individual without a good education.

One of the things that’s frustrating about inflation is the failure on the part of the government to take on gougers. When we talk about inflation, we have to recognize that there are companies that are surfing on top of inflation and taking maximum advantage. My colleagues from northern Ontario can talk about how much it costs them to get around, because they get around in vehicles that burn gasoline.

I just want to note, some companies—ExxonMobil earned US$18 billion in the second quarter of this year; Chevron: C$15 billion; Shell: $22 billion. BP oil just saw its biggest profits in 14 years. All of those companies more than tripled their profit from a year ago. And when we say, “You should be regulating gasoline and fuel oil the way we regulate natural gas or regulate electricity,” the performance of these companies says—and it screams it—“They’re making a fortune, you’re getting beat up, you’re getting your wallet emptied, and these companies need to be brought to heel.” This government has the legal power to do that if it wants to do it, and if it doesn’t have all the legal power it needs, it can enact legislation. It needs to act.

People need the support from this government to protect them against gouging and to help ensure that they can live their lives without being in want.

Does this budget, does this throne speech actually stand up to profiteers and gougers? No. I remember during one of the periods in the pandemic that the Premier said that he wouldn’t stand for gouging. I look forward to being corrected, but I don’t remember there actually being any action that followed those words. No, I suspect there was no action that followed those words. Well, you’ve got a second chance. You’ve got a budget before us. You can amend that budget so that there’s a focus on dealing with gouging and a focus on protecting people. The Premier should be standing with the people of Ontario; he’s not.

Speaker, I also want to talk about the impact that this budget has on our action to deal with the climate crisis. I know many people talk about the future for our children and our grandchildren, and we should, because I’d say that things are looking pretty rough. But the crisis is not distant. The crisis is here. The member from Ottawa West–Nepean, the member from Ottawa Centre—they can talk about the lights out in Ottawa after the line of thunderstorms that went through in May. The head of Ottawa hydro said that they—well, I think the figure was that storm snapped off hydro poles at an unprecedented level. They had never before had to deal with this. Well, I think that’s the reality we’re facing.

Every day, we’re seeing extreme weather events that put us in a situation where we get to spend our time in the dark, where people’s lives are threatened by floods, are threatened by heat waves, are threatened by wildfires, and frankly, their food sources are threatened by droughts. And yet, this government is not taking the action to actually reduce our emissions—is not happening. If we want to protect ourselves from flooding, from blackouts, from heat waves, it needs to act, and I’m not seeing it in this budget.

We are paying a very high price for the climate crisis today; we are going to pay a staggeringly higher price in the future. The government has to act. It should have been in the speech from the throne. It should be in the budget. You don’t call it a climate crisis because it’s a minor item; it is, in fact, a crisis. It’s affecting food prices, and it’s causing people to have to move away from their homes because they are no longer viable places to live.

The budget that came forward in April was not acceptable. The budget that’s before us now just replicates the problems that we had before and fails to deal with the larger crises of affordability in health care today. So, Speaker, we want this budget to take action, to help end the hospitals crisis. And there are a few things that could be done—I’ve said it before: scrapping Bill 124; lifting up wages; making sure that nurses and health care workers know the investments are going to be made; fixing working conditions. The idea that you go into work and you fear violence from the patients who come in and there is no program to actually deal with that—that’s crazy. No wonder people leave. Why would you put up with that?

Obviously, the accreditation of internationally trained professionals in the health care field needs to be accelerated—there’s no getting around it—but you’re going to have to put the money into it. You’re going to have to make the openings for people. We’re not seeing that in this. We need a blitz to retain people. We need a blitz to pull them back into health care. We need a blitz to bring new people in, but I’m not seeing it. I’m hearing a lot of talk. But I’m not seeing it in terms of budgets or the throne speech, and that is a profound failing.

Speaker, I also want to talk briefly about COVID, because we’ve had a very tough time, and the Ontario science table has expressed concern about what’s coming in the fall. I’m not seeing the push to expand vaccination. I don’t know about other people—maybe I missed something—but I’m not seeing the push that’s needed. I’m not seeing the push to bring in ventilation in schools, hospitals and public buildings.

We know what it costs when the COVID pandemic gets running really strong, and we don’t want to go through that, so we need the action now, and we need the statement clearly in the speech from the throne. We need it clearly in terms of the allocation of resources to up vaccinations dramatically, to change the ventilation systems, to have smaller classes so that kids can be distanced.

Speaker, I’m going to give my remaining time to my colleague, but I want to say this now: This government is in power at a very difficult and risky point in the history of the province. It could, with proper action, make a huge improvement in people’s lives, but if it doesn’t do that, the consequences will be disastrous for everyone.