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April 9, 2024

43rd Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

vol. A

Hansard Transcripts

vol. B

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcript 2024-Apr-09 vol. A (PDF)

L142A - Tue 9 Apr 2024 / Mar 9 avr 2024

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 9 April 2024 Mardi 9 avril 2024

Orders of the Day

Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024 / Loi de 2024 visant à bâtir un Ontario meilleur (mesures budgétaires)

Wearing of pins

Members’ Statements

Health care post-secondary education

Beyond the Streets

Napanee Beaver

Gender-based violence

Giving Spoon fundraiser

Energy policies

Housing

Ramadan and Eid-Ul-Fitr

Health care post-secondary education

Battle of Vimy Ridge

Introduction of Visitors

Legislative pages

House sittings

Roland “Roy” McMurtry

Question Period

Affordable housing

Health care funding

Health care

Taxation

Tenant protection

Taxation

Executive compensation / Public transit

Public sector compensation

Taxation

Long-term care

Tenant protection

Small business

Consumer protection

Taxation

Tenant protection

Visitors

Introduction of Visitors

Reports by Committees

Standing Committee on Social Policy

Standing Committee on Social Policy

Introduction of Bills

Supporting Mobility, Affordability and Reliable Transportation in Ontario Act, 2024 / Loi de 2024 pour une mobilité accrue, des prix plus abordables et des transports plus fiables en Ontario

Statements by the Ministry and Responses

Vimy Ridge Day

Petitions

Supportive housing

Social assistance

Programmes d’alimentation scolaire / School nutrition programs

Assistive devices

Mental health services

Anti-vaping initiatives for youth

OPP detachment

Labour legislation

Adoption disclosure

Subventions aux résidents du Nord pour frais de transport à des fins médicales

Social assistance

Visitors

Orders of the Day

Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024 / Loi de 2024 visant à bâtir un Ontario meilleur (mesures budgétaires)

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024 / Loi de 2024 visant à bâtir un Ontario meilleur (mesures budgétaires)

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 8, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 180,

An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): When the House last debated Bill 180, the member for Hamilton Mountain had the floor, and she still has some time left on the clock. I recognize the member for Hamilton Mountain.

Miss Monique Taylor: Good morning, everyone. I’m happy to have the opportunity to have a few more moments on the budget bill and to bring up a very serious issue that’s happening right now within Hamilton and the way that naloxone kits are distributed in our community.

I believe it was on February 9, this executive officer order notice was put out with no consultation to the community, and quite frankly, one of our pharmacies, who has been doing brilliant work, found out by chance on I believe it was February 21. So there was no direct notice to him, who was doing this program and really saving lives within the Hamilton community. What this did was it stopped him from being able to do training unless people went directly into his pharmacy. He used to provide full training on naloxone kits and all the tools necessary to our community-based organizations.

There is a program for community-based organizations, but many of the organizations with Hamilton had not set up that practice, because we did have a practice that was working really well. All the rules were being followed. Nobody was doing anything wrong, except doing the hard, heavy lifting in the grassroots of our community and truly saving lives, making sure that naloxone kits were available and that training was widespread. He was doing workplaces. He was doing work with First Nations in the north. That’s how good this Faisal is at doing this job. But due to this executive order, he has literally been cut off and not been able to do this work.

We have many organizations who are not able to get that quick response. I know our Hamilton public health is doing everything they can. But when you change something without proper notice, something that actually saves lives and was a major pillar in our community, it does nothing but hurt people.

I’ve sent a letter to the minister previously, but nobody has heard anything. I’m calling on the government today to ensure that this program is relooked at quickly and readily to ensure that Faisal and the pharmacy that he works within can continue the work of our community, whether it’s a temporary measure until they find another plan, another way around it, whatever it takes. I just plead with the government to please make sure that this is looked at immediately.

I will send another letter to the Premier and to the minister, ensuring that all information is readily available and that we can continue to save people’s lives in Hamilton.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): We’re going to go to questions for the member.

Mr. Andrew Dowie: I want to thank the member opposite for her speech both last night and today. Certainly, I took back the passion for helping those in the community, and I know certainly the people in my community want access to health care for their constituents as much as possible, just as I’m sure the residents of Hamilton Mountain do.

That’s why I was happy to see in this budget many investments in health care. This includes $2 billion over three years for home and community care that ensures that people get the care they need when they need it, right at home. And also, the hospitals have said very clearly to me that they’re excited about the 4% increase in hospital funding so that they can fund more support for critical care for the people of Ontario. And the new medical school is going to go a tremendous way to improving the number of medical students in our province focused on training family doctors.

Speaker, my question is this: The government is making historic investments in health care to help Ontarians. Will you support budget 2024, to join with us in providing better health care for Ontarians?

Miss Monique Taylor: What we see in health care is actually only 1.3% going to health care of what was necessary. It’s not near enough to keep up with inflation. It may be historic numbers, but we are in historic days. Let’s not forget this.

We still have 2.2 million patients in Ontario without a family doctor. We have great programs, like the Hamilton health program, which very clearly put together an amazing plan and asked for $20 million to be able to implement that plan to ensure that 55,000 Hamilton residents had access to a family doctor. This government didn’t see fit to ensure that that program was in place. Instead, they gave them $2.2 million, which is not near enough to ensure that we can do the programs that we know are necessary.

Regardless of the talking points of the members opposite, we know in our communities that the health care system is falling short and privatization is not the answer out of this. We need actual real investments in health care and proactive work.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question?

Ms. Peggy Sattler: I want to thank my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain for her remarks on the budget.

One of the things that I hear about the most—and I think everybody in this chamber shares this in their constituency offices. It’s hearing from people who don’t have access to a family doctor. I had a telephone town hall recently. I want to thank Dr. Andrew Park, who is a London West constituent and also president of the OMA, who participated in that town hall meeting.

I heard the people who logged on to the call. More than one quarter didn’t have access to a family doctor. Almost 90% said someone close to them didn’t have access to a family doctor. So I wondered if the member could comment on whether the measures that were included in this budget are sufficient to address the dire shortage of family physicians in the province.

Miss Monique Taylor: Thank you to the member from London West. As I was just saying, the Greater Hamilton Health Network had put together a full 72-page plan to ensure that family doctors in Hamilton, and I’m sure that across the province each health network—that’s why they were put in place: to know and understand our communities. We put together a full proposal; that was not easy work. Like I said, we asked for that $20 million to ensure that we gave access to 55,000 Hamiltonians. I’m sure that in the member’s riding, they’re also doing that same kind of work.

But by not funding them and only giving them $2.2 million out of a $20-million ask, you cannot expect the changes that our communities truly need to be able to be healthy and to be able to succeed and have a good, strong health care system.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question?

Mr. Terence Kernaghan: The Royal Bank of Canada’s research recently warned that the housing crisis is going to get even worse if governments don’t act. This government, because of their measures, have only created 8% of the housing that they promised will be created by 2025. In fact, since 2018, their measures have only created 1,100 units of affordable housing. RBC has indicated this: that drastic measures need to be taken right now by government.

So my question for the member from Hamilton Mountain is: Should the government return to its historic responsibility, do the heavy lifting, pick up their shovels and actually build the affordable housing that Ontarians need right now?

Miss Monique Taylor: Thank you to the member from London North Centre. Absolutely, there should be nothing more important than ensuring that people are housed. When you have safe, affordable housing, you’re then able to make your way into getting that job or being able to go to your job and be fresh, and not put yourself in danger in a job.

When someone isn’t housed, they find themselves in a precarious position. There’s food insecurity. There’s the ability to—just self-maintenance. All of those things go so far into making sure that people are able to live a healthy lifestyle. And when you have a government that actually takes money from municipalities instead of invests in municipalities so that they can have that affordable housing route, then we have people living in tents across our city, which we see each and every day. And it’s growing and growing.

This government, in all of their talk about all these housing plans—we’re literally seeing nothing happen, and people are continuing to fall through the cracks further and further.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question.

Since the government keeps investing in education, is the member going to support this budget so that we can move forward with the public education sector?

Miss Monique Taylor: I’m glad that this member asked me about education, because we’re seeing so many children in our schools with not enough supports. We have over 67,000 children on wait-lists for autism services, and all of those kids are fed into the schools. They don’t have enough supports. There are not enough EAs, and schools, quite frankly, are in distress.

We’re hearing, each and every day, they’re six years under inflation, and they were given 2.7%—not near enough when we know that families are struggling. If they want to talk about a big increase into education, is that to make up for the pay wages that they took from educational workers in Bill 124? That’s where that money is going. It’s making up for their errors.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): The last question?

Ms. Peggy Sattler: I know that my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain has some outstanding post-secondary institutions in her riding. There’s Mohawk College, McMaster University. The post-secondary sector is really in a state of crisis right now in terms of the financial stability of the sector.

The government made an announcement in February; nothing additional was announced in this budget. Can the member comment on whether the path that this government is on is going to ensure the stability that our post-secondary institutions need?

Miss Monique Taylor: Thank you to the member from London West once again. Yes, we have seen a terrible cut, year over year, to post-secondary in this province, which has left colleges and universities in a precarious position, where they were, then, counting on international students to able to make up that budget. Because let’s not mince words: They’re businesses. They have to be able to keep their doors open. They have to be able to keep the lights on. They have to be able to pay educators to provide these.

If they don’t have the funding to do that and they’re not able to increase tuition, which nobody wants—because we need young people to be able to flourish and to be able to be our next generation of nurses, doctors, lawyers and caregivers. But by not funding post-secondary education, you’re failing.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): We’re going to move to further debate.

Mr. Mike Schreiner: It’s an honour to rise today to speak to Bill 180, the government’s budget measures act. Speaker, I think it’s important when you talk about the budget to contextualize the challenges that people of Ontario are facing right now.

What if I told you that in Ontario right now 16,000 people were sleeping rough and unhoused, where a one-bedroom apartment costs $2,200 a month on average, and it takes the average person 22 years to save up for a down payment to buy a home? And yet in the budget, housing starts go down, not up.

What if I told you that the wait-list for social housing is longer than the number of social housing spaces available?

What if I told you, Speaker, that last year, 700 forest fires destroyed one million acres of forest and the health care costs associated with the toxic air that that produced cost our health care system $1.28 billion in just four days due to increased hospital admissions?

What if I told you that our electricity sector grid has gone from being 90% clean to 80% clean, getting dirtier each and every year, and the government plans to make it dirtier?

What if I told you that 2.3 million people right now in the province of Ontario do not have access to a family doctor, where last year we had an unprecedented number of emergency department closures, where hallway medicine is the norm in hospitals across this province, and we have hospitals actually taking out lines of credit to be able to keep the doors open?

What if I told you, Speaker, that a third of secondary schools in the province right now are experiencing teacher shortages and a difficulty educating students, where the repair backlog in our education system is $16.8 billion?

What if I told you that 60,000 young people are on a wait-list to access autism services, and 30,000 children were on a wait-list to access mental health services that can be as long as two years, where organizations who provide services for people with developmental disabilities have told me their budgets have been frozen and they’re struggling to not have to cut programs for people in need? What if I told you that 717,000 people in Ontario right now are forced to live in legislated poverty?

That’s the Ontario we live in today. So then the question we have to ask the people of Ontario and the government is: Did the budget meet the moment? Did it meet the moment to address the real challenges that so many people in this province are facing? And Speaker, I would say no.

I want to start with housing. We have a government that has housing starts going down, not up. And the Premier, instead of saying, “Let’s legalize housing. Let’s make fourplexes legal across the province, so we can quickly build homes in a fast and low-cost way that people can actually afford in the communities they know and love without having to pave over our farmlands, our forests and our wetlands”—the government said no to that.

What if we had a government that actually sat down and read the Scotiabank report? Scotiabank—nothing too radical here: Over the next decade, Ontario needs to build 250,000 deeply affordable, non-profit and co-op housing spaces just to keep up—just to keep up, Speaker. And yet the government has built 1,188 of those spaces in the six years they’ve been in government.

There was nothing in the budget that talked about actually putting some money on the table so that Ontario once again could start building homes that people can afford so we can address chronic homelessness. The government had an opportunity with this budget—and I will, again, later today, when my colleague the MPP for Kitchener Centre brings forward a private member’s bill to actually bring in protections for renters in this budget, at a time when there is no city in Ontario where a minimum wage worker working full time can afford the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment.

The housing crisis is getting worse, the dream of home ownership is getting further and further away, and thousands of people are struggling to pay the rent. And while I appreciate the government providing some funding for permanent supportive housing in my riding of Guelph, which was highlighted in the budget, the budget fails to meet the moment of the housing crisis we’re facing, which is the number one driver of the affordability crisis. The Premier has been talking about bags at the LCBO, but let’s talk about what’s really driving up costs for people, and that is the housing crisis.

Speaker, I want to move to the climate crisis, because we’re already seeing an early start to the fire season in western Canada, and we have numerous experts predicting that we could have a historic fire season here in Ontario after the historic season that we experienced last year. So what I was hoping to see in the budget were two things: one, a firefighter protection preparedness plan that actually takes and gives wildland firefighters the dignity they need to be able to be treated as firefighters and the resources they need to ensure that we are prepared in Ontario after what we went through last year.

The other thing I wanted to see was an actual, dedicated funding stream for municipalities to ensure that they can be climate ready.

According to the Financial Accountability Officer, the additional cost to public infrastructure in the next seven years will be $26.2 billion in the province of Ontario due to the impact of the increasing frequency and severity of climate-fuelled extreme weather events: floods, droughts, fires, extreme heat. It costs our economy when communities don’t have access to electricity for two, three weeks or longer due to a climate-fuelled extreme weather event, which we had last year in Ontario—nothing in the budget that actually prepares our communities or our economy for that.

As a matter of fact, I stepped out of committee. Right now, the government is going to ask people to pay more on their gas bills to subsidize Enbridge to expand gas services in the province. Instead, they could have brought in a climate affordability plan in this budget, making access to heat pumps, which reduce climate pollution, operate more efficiently, and save people money—save people money—rather than having people pay more money to expand gas infrastructure in the province.

They could have brought in a climate affordability plan that helped people completely disconnect from the pumps and give them rebates to be able to afford the electric vehicles that we want to build in this province, or a rebate to buy an electric bike for those who live in urban areas so we can actually lower our cost of transportation in this province.

Speaker, my time is limited, so I want to close with health care and poverty. The budget could have brought in funding to address the fact that 2.3 million people don’t have access to a doctor. The budget failed to do that. And they could have taken pressure off the health care system by ending legislated poverty by more than doubling social assistance rates, because we know that poverty costs the province $33 billion a year, primarily putting additional pressure on our health care system, and the budget failed to do that.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): We’re going to go to questions for the member. I recognize the member for Whitby.

Mr. Lorne Coe: Thank you, Speaker. You will know that, in the budget, there is a new $200-million investment in the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, which is intended to help build new recreation, sport and community centres in ridings across the province, including my colleague opposite in Guelph. It’s intended to revitalize older ones, but also to get upgrades that they need to continue to bring health to our communities and also joy for hard-working families, including Guelph.

Will the member opposite be voting against our budget measures to build and revitalize more community infrastructure?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate the member opposite’s question. I do think we need more funding for recreational facilities, and I think that’s a good measure in the budget.

But, Speaker, what municipalities also need is to ensure that those facilities are built in a way that withstands the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events, fuelled by the climate crisis. We’re already spending billions more in insurance costs and to deal with the uninsured losses due to the increasing frequency of climate-fuelled extreme weather events. The Financial Accountability Officer has shown that just public infrastructure alone will face additional costs of $26.2 billion this decade—I think I said seven years. Actually, it’s 2024 now; it’s six years.

The budget didn’t meet that moment. When we build these facilities, we have to make sure they’re ready for extreme rain, heat and freeze-thaw cycles, and there’s nothing in the budget that provides a dedicated funding stream for that—

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Thank you.

Next question?

Ms. Jessica Bell: When I look at this budget, my first impression is that it doesn’t make it much easier for people to get a doctor. It doesn’t make it easier for our kids to get a good education. It doesn’t make it easier for people to rent or buy a home that they can afford.

To the member for Guelph: When you’re looking at how this budget is going to impact the residents of Guelph, what’s missing?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate the member’s question. So, first of all, I would say funding for our health care system is a huge miss in this budget. If you talk to any hospital CEO—and I meet with mine regularly, and they’re doing a fantastic job at Guelph General, but they’re barely hanging on right now between the extreme wait times in the emergency rooms, hallway medicine and the incredible financial pressures they’re facing. They need funding that is with inflation and population growth, and we didn’t see that for health care in this budget.

Secondly, I can’t not answer that question without talking about post-secondary education because the University of Guelph, like many universities, is facing incredible financial pressures, because the province of Ontario is dead last when it comes to funding colleges and universities. I was meeting with a plant scientist who was telling me that two of her colleagues will be leaving and won’t be able to be replaced, which is going to have a direct impact on our agricultural economy, because of the research they do, let alone the students.

So I just want to close with, I know I’m out of time—

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Thank you.

One last question?

Ms. Laura Smith: Through you, Speaker, I know the member and every member in this room is concerned about the cost of living, but support for seniors is such an important issue. And I’m sure the member realizes that we all have people in our communities that need help and deserve our support as they grow older.

So, there are many ways, for crucial parts of the communities, we need to be there to provide for that. My question to the member is simple. Will you support the government’s expansion of the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income System program to provide more support to our seniors?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate the member’s question. I absolutely support the expansion of GAINS. I think it’s an effective anti-poverty measure, and I wish the government would take the same approach when it comes to dealing with people on Ontario disability support and Ontario Works.

It’s impossible for somebody to live on $1,300 a month or $731 a month, so let’s more than double that. Let’s bring them up to the low-income cut-off level to help eliminate poverty in this province.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

Hon. Doug Downey: I’m very pleased to rise and continue the debate on our government’s historic 2024 budget, Building a Better Ontario which, as Minister Bethlenfalvy stated previously when he introduced it a few weeks ago, is our road map and our blueprint to rebuilding Ontario’s economy.

As part of budget 2024, the Ministry of the Attorney General is continuing to do its part to realize this goal. A significant part of our plan to create a more prosperous Ontario is by ensuring we have strong, resilient and safe communities. I can assure you that the Ministry of the Attorney General is doing its part to create a better, more responsive justice sector for people across Ontario.

I’ll start, Madam Speaker, with how our government is working very diligently to ensure the justice system and its laws meet the needs of the 21st century. In recognizing that, let me take a moment to discuss an issue that is impacting families and people right across the province. As you know, auto theft is on the rise. This is deeply concerning.

I just want to stop there for a moment. We’re talking about auto theft. This isn’t somebody who, when you’re in the mall, is taking your car. These are individuals who break into homes, who assault people, who commandeer the keys and then, of course, take the vehicle. It’s very personal. It’s in people’s homes; it’s in people’s personal spaces. Of course, this is happening as well at shopping malls, where people are being ambushed. This is very, very serious stuff.

Mr. Kerzner and the Premier and I and our entire government remain steadfast in our advocacy to the federal government to do more to combat organized auto thieves. Across the province, particularly in the GTA, we see the issue worsening and it concerns me, it concerns the Premier and I know it concerns everyone at home. That’s why we’re taking pointed steps to combat the rise in auto theft, because drivers and families need peace of mind.

So far this year, to use Toronto as an example, there has been over a 100% increase in auto thefts compared to the same time in 2023. In response, the OPP are expanding vehicle theft investigations, which means there will be more cases for specialized prosecutors to review and pursue, and more hours in court. Myself, Minister Kerzner and the Premier have listened to the concerns around this issue from law enforcement here in Ontario, and we’re ready to support them in stopping these crimes.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Only a strong, coordinated approach across the sector will stop the rise in auto theft. We’ll continue to take action to ensure thieves are held to account and keep drivers and families safe. We’re taking this extremely seriously. This is why our government is ensuring the court system has the capacity to hear and prosecute the influx of cases. It’s why, over the last year alone, our government has invested in new measures to help police identify and dismantle organized crime networks and put the thieves behind bars.

Last year, I joined Premier Ford and Minister Kerzner to announce that we’re creating a major auto theft prosecution response team to include dedicated legal and prosecutorial support to the Ontario Provincial Police. A $6-million investment this year in the specialized prosecution teams will help prevent violent vehicle thefts and identify, disrupt and dismantle organized criminal networks that are involved. This team will provide permanent, dedicated prosecutors at priority courthouses in areas facing the highest rates of auto theft, such as Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and London, and we’re structuring the team so prosecutors can provide support in other areas if expertise is required.

Our investment in the coming year also includes $1.7 million for court staff and judicial resources. We’re adding more court staff, and we’ve already appointed an additional judge to the Ontario Court of Justice specifically to address the anticipated increase in cases. Work is well under way to appoint remaining judicial positions related to this priority. We hear you loud and clear. Ontario will continue to do its part to keep communities safe.

When it comes to protecting our communities, we’re also working to improve our aging institutions, including courthouses. It is a fact that the average age of a Ministry of the Attorney General building is 65 years old. It’s why we’re working to modernize the system with key investments right across the board.

I’ll stop, Madam Speaker, from my notes to say I was recently speaking with justice officials in Dublin, in Ireland, and I was telling them about the age of my buildings and how difficult it was to modernize those buildings when the minister of justice stopped me and said, “You realize you’re sitting in a 250-year-old building.” So, we have our challenges; they have their challenges. But we do have to modernize because people expect that, and we have to make sure that we’re working in a proper forum.

But we’re working to modernize across the system with key investments, something I know Premier Ford and our government are excited about. We’re modernizing public infrastructure, making our courthouses safer, more secure and efficient while improving access to justice in our growing communities across Ontario. We’re using new and existing technology to our advantage by putting it to use to support those on the front lines—all so more people can benefit.

Just over a year ago, we opened the new Ontario courthouse in Toronto, not too far down the street. It’s an award-winning courthouse that brings together six different court locations into an accessible and inclusive state-of-the-art courthouse.

I’m proud to share that the courthouse was just recognized by the Ontario Association of Architects with their 2024 Design Excellence Award. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the partners and leaders who came together and supported our vision and made this unique space a reality.

Now, let me tell you about the courthouse itself. If you haven’t been there, I encourage you to go. This new courthouse has technology that allows for virtual and hybrid hearings in every one of the building’s 63 courtrooms and 10 conference settlement rooms. It has state-of-the-art security features and accommodates the unique needs of drug treatment, Gladue, youth and mental health courts, as well as supports for victims.

By building, upgrading and modernizing courthouses across Ontario, as well as the ways we deliver justice, we’re ensuring Ontario is built to last both today and for the future generations—a key tenet in this year’s budget.

I also want to note that Renzo Piano was the architect of the new Toronto courthouse. Renzo Piano—if you don’t know him, grab your phone and google him—is a renowned architect, internationally. He was the architect for the Shard—if that’s a reference point for people. It really is a magnificent building, well-designed, well-executed and now it’s being well-used.

Part of modernizing the justice system also means supporting more victims of crime, something I’m very passionate about. The 2024 budget includes significant and meaningful investments in victim services—a critical pillar in strengthening public safety in communities and our justice system.

Our government remains focused on increasing access to justice for more victims of crime. Budget 2024 builds on that commitment, and recent unanimous support in this Legislature—and I thank all parties and all members for their support of Bill 157, the Enhancing Access to Justice Act. This legislation recently received royal assent, became law and will support even more victims of crime.

In collaboration with our partners, we’re supporting victims, local organizations and people who keep our communities safe—and we’ll continue to be there to make those critical investments, because a responsive and agile justice system is one that works to keep people safe, especially the most vulnerable.

Now, Madam Speaker, as you read the budget, as you look through the budget, you’ll see that we’re investing more than $2 million per year over the next three to expand those supports for victims of crime in Ontario. This new funding will help to sustain and expand the Child Victim/Witness Program, which helps reduce the trauma of testifying in court for children and youth victims right across—and witnesses in fact, not just victims but victims as well.

Madam Speaker, I’m going to talk a little bit more about those children victim/witness programs. They really are unique, and they really are impactful. Right now, this program is delivered by seven community-based organizations in eight areas across the province. The new funding will allow my ministry to explore ways to expand this important service into additional communities across the province. The additional investment also includes funding to support improvements in Ontario’s independent legal advice program for victims of sexual assault. Demand for the program, unfortunately, has increased tremendously since it was first piloted in 2016.

How does it work? Victims of sexual assault receive up to four hours of free, independent and confidential legal advice, no matter how much time has passed. The independent legal advice program is delivered by a roster of independent lawyers, as well as the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic—that was once a community clinic—here in Toronto, an organization dedicated to showing support for victims of violence. They’re among the many heroes in our justice system who work tirelessly to support victims of crime and advocate to make our communities safer for everyone.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the Child Victim/Witness Program and the CYACs that exist in many of our communities across the province. They are a vital tool for children, whether they be victims or witnesses to incidents or caught up in some of the nastier parts of what happens in our communities. These locations are always supported by police. You can imagine a child victim or a child witness, who is already in a form of trauma, having to go to a foreign place like a police station to be among the busyness that is there and the confusion that happens. It’s a very intimidating way to potentially tell your story. We know that that isn’t the best way for things to happen.

The CYACs in my area—there’s one in Orillia, in Minister Dunlop’s riding, that also has a location in Barrie in my riding. I was around when it was first set up. I was just a member of the community; I wasn’t elected. I can tell you the impact these organizations have is absolutely phenomenal.

You come in the front door and in my area, in my case, there’s a COPE service dog. It’s a service dog that is there for comfort. I came to learn that if a dog is lying down when you enter a room and it doesn’t get up, it actually reduces your blood pressure, because if the dog’s not fussed, you’re not as fussed. So there’s a lot of science that goes behind what they’re doing and how they’re providing care and treatment, but also helping these young victims tell their stories.

These are victims, whether it be of domestic abuse or human trafficking or any number of heinous scenarios, and it really is a wonderful service that is being provided in the toughest times of life for some of these individuals. So I am thrilled to be able to not only fund, but potentially expand across the province so that we have even more services for the victims that we know that exist, Madam Speaker.

Now, that’s pretty heavy stuff and it’s important stuff. It’s very dear to me. My mother was a crisis councillor and she was one of the founding directors for the York Region Abuse Program, so it’s important to me that we’re providing the services for things that have been going on for a very long time, when services weren’t there for these children and for these youth. They’re not all children, quite frankly; they’ve had to grow up much faster than their chronological years.

On a different note, Madam Speaker, this budget covers everything from victims to how the government operates to the investments that we need to make. Another exciting investment for me—and you hear us talk about it—is the transportation infrastructure. When I was a kid riding my bike out to the 400 to see it back up, and that was some time ago, there was one GO train that went to Bradford. That was the end of the line. That one GO train would take commuters in in the morning and take commuters back at night, and that was as good as the service got.

The Northlander was running at the time. It was a very popular train. It was well-used. It opened up parts of Ontario that you couldn’t get to otherwise. I had the privilege of getting to ride those trains, because my father was an engineer. I’m not sure that you would be allowed today to bring your kids on the engine, but that’s what happened. I’d get on the GO train in the morning and we would go to Toronto. We would go to the bunkhouse and they “cook up,” as they say. You do what you do during the day, and then get on the train and ride it back. It was a pretty neat job. There is a lot of pride by the engineers in doing that.

The Northlander, as well, opening up through the north: I remember taking that train, again, as a kid, up through areas that I had never heard of, and I can rhyme them off now. I know Hornepayne and Wawa and a lot of the small towns up through there. That came to serve me well later on, when I had a summer job at a company that was a road company. They had operations in New Liskeard and different parts of Ontario. I said, “I know where that is; I’ve been through there.” It’s really a wonderful part about Ontario.

But for reasons that I don’t understand, previous governments let it wither. They didn’t do the investments that needed to happen to keep the north open. So I’m really proud, in this budget, that we’re moving forward, that we’re acquiring the machinery, that we’re acquiring the engines. We’re getting things done to make sure that the north is being opened up again.

We know the tremendous value in the north, not just from a lifestyle—I don’t know anybody who has gone to the north—and when I say “north,” I mean the north. If you look on a map, Sudbury is in the middle of Ontario. Sudbury is not the north. I’m talking about the north.

My friend in the back there—if you go up and have a visit, he will show you some of really northern Ontario. It’s a part of Ontario that had been neglected for way too long, until this government got elected. We have some very strong members from the north making sure that everything from highway expansions from Kenora, Thunder Bay is getting significant attention, and of course, the Ring of Fire.

The Ring of Fire—my goodness, I love it. When I hear President Biden get up and talk about the domestic minerals needed for manufacturing, I turn to my friends and say, “He’s talking about our minerals.” He doesn’t have any domestic minerals. They’re ours, and we’re going to make the best of it.

I grew up listening to economics professors, listening to professors in political science and others say, “Oh, it’s”—gnashing of teeth that we’re not manufacturing our own resources. “Why don’t we build furniture when we have the wood? Why don’t we do the metal when we have the inputs?”

I can tell you, Madam Speaker, we are in a state where we have the critical minerals, and we have a plan to not only use those critical minerals, in partnership with First Nations and others—to make sure that we’re getting the minerals out, to make sure that we’re putting them to use, and we’re manufacturing them domestically. That is something that, really, people complained about for decades and decades and decades. This government has figured it out, and we’re putting the resources in place. They’re in the budget.

It’s really important that we’re extracting the possibilities for Ontario and putting Ontarians to work, to make sure that we’re world leaders—and we are, in fact, world leaders. That’s why Minister Fedeli is attracting businesses, talking to businesses, that are setting up in Ontario. That’s why we’ve created 700,000 jobs, after Ontario had lost 300,000 jobs. It is quite a swing. It’s really incredible—the potential of Ontario. But it’s not going to happen on its own. And that’s why the Liberals took us down 300,000 jobs—because what we do matters. What we put in the budget matters. Where we invest and how we help really, really matters.

We can talk about infrastructure right across the board, but if we don’t plan for the future—as they say, a failure to plan is planning to fail. So we are planning for the future, whether it be some of the things I’ve talked about—the Northlander, the GO trains, the subways.

The investments we’re making are the largest in North America, if not the world.

I haven’t even talked about highways yet. The Bradford Bypass—my goodness. I grew up hearing about this Bradford Bypass. I didn’t know what it was as a kid. I used to play hockey in Bradford. I went to high school in Bradford. They don’t own it now, so I don’t have any conflict of interest on this, but my brother-in-law’s family owned a farm a little bit on the 10th, just north of Bradford, which is now affected, but it was long sold. So it’s incredible that it’s coming to be. The people who are producing the vegetables—the Holland Marsh is the vegetable basket of the country.

I talk to friends there and they say, “Yes, we need this bypass. We need to move our goods. We need to get things out.” This is going to help with affordability, with helping to keep costs down, by moving the product that is grown in Ontario—not just across Ontario, but we will move it to other markets. Just that one road alone is going to have a huge impact.

I could talk about the 413, but I don’t want to get the opposition all exercised. It is before the final stages in the courts, so I won’t talk about that. But it’s that kind of thing that we have to do, and we have to do it today, because it takes a long time to bring these things into being.

I couldn’t be prouder. The Minister of Finance, Minister Bethlenfalvy, has crafted investments in every sector of life, as you go through the budget. We are getting the job done. We’re going to make sure that we get Ontario built and we get Ontario’s economy going.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): We’re going to go to questions for the minister.

Mr. Jeff Burch: Thank you to the member from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte. He talked a lot about victims and it reminded me of an issue with EMS workers across the province.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at a rally for CUPE 911 EMS workers in Niagara and they face the same problems that emergency workers all over the province do with lack of funding, lack of staffing. Those are costs that are shared with municipalities, but if the government cares so much about victims, why are they not providing more support for EMS workers across the province who are calling out for support for ambulance attendants and dispatchers and folks who are really struggling with code blacks and not enough staff in their departments?

Hon. Doug Downey: I appreciate it’s a very specific question and it sort of allows me to give some specific answers.

Of course, we can always do more and we work with our partners to do that. As you go through the budget, I think you’ll see our continued focus on front-line services, whether it be the police, the firefighters, continuing to work with EMS—and it’s not always about money, Madam Speaker. Sometimes, it’s about operations.

I did a tour of the London Health Sciences Centre last Thursday. What a world-class hospital that is. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, the leadership team is top notch, but they’re working on how they interact with EMS, how they interact with the front-line services to make things more efficient and to make sure that the capacity is built so that we can serve the people of Ontario as well as we can, Madam Speaker.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question.

Ms. Laura Smith: I was kind of moved by the member’s statement on building system and supports and infrastructure, and the fact that his mother was a crisis counsellor.

So I used to work under the child protection act, and he talked about the independent legal clinics and the CYAC, which protect our most vulnerable. I was just wondering what these investments and the supports and the improvements to the court will have on the future generations of those victims?

Hon. Doug Downey: We know that when there’s intervention early for a child, their resilience is exponential. We can’t take away that they’re a victim; we can’t turn back time. But we can work with the children to make sure that they get a chance to tell their story in an appropriate setting, to make sure that their story is received in a credible way so that the perpetrators are held to account. We help the children—the crisis counsellors and children and youth advocacy centres and Barbra Schlifer and the others. There are so many phenomenal individuals. We can help them help the children.

By the way, I brought back Attorney General’s victim services awards, and all members get an opportunity to nominate people or have people nominated. I can tell you, the work that’s done—it’s absolutely stunning, the work that is done across Ontario by these individuals. So, thank you for that.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question.

Mr. Sol Mamakwa: I was listening to the member from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte talking about auto theft and his concerns and also the investments that they’re making into trying to address that issue. But I know that up in Kiiwetinoong, there are other concerns, other issues that we are facing.

Right today, I have 14 long-term boil-water advisories. One of the First Nations, Neskantaga, is on its 30th year of a boil-water advisory.

I’m just wondering, with regard to the budget, how is this government addressing to make sure that everyone in Ontario has access to clean drinking water?

Hon. Doug Downey: I’ll tell you. I think the Prime Minister came in with very clear commitments in terms of boil-water advisories. As far as I can tell, he’s failed every one of those commitments, Madam Speaker.

But I’m going to talk about what I am doing to help those communities. We’ve put Starlink in each of the fly-in reserves that the court has held and that’s so we are not dislocating communities.

It was surprising to me, when I became the Attorney General, to think of a six-seater plane that had on it the victim, the accused, some witnesses, all—I don’t know if you’ve been on a six-seater plane, but it’s a pretty intimate adventure. And to fly them out of their community into Sioux Lookout, and then potentially even drive to Kenora, and then what’s happening back at home over that extended time when you’re dislocating family—it didn’t make any sense. So we’ve invested in those communities, in justice services, and we’re working very hard.

And we’re working collaboratively with our federal counterparts to try to arrive at better systems that are more effective for those in those communities.

So I can’t give you a direct answer on the boil-water, but I can tell you that we’re very focused on making sure that services are enhanced.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): Next question?

Mr. Billy Pang: I’m proud to see that our government is acknowledging the disturbing rise in crime we are watching unfold across our communities. In my own community of Markham–Unionville, my constituents have come to me countless times to share their concern of the safety of their neighbours, their families and their fellow Ontarians. Saying that safety is paramount is something I think all members of this House can agree on. It is something that I hope my NDP and Liberal colleagues will consider supporting in this budget.

So, through you, Madam Speaker, I ask the minister to please tell us what our government’s 2024 budget does to keep our streets safe and protect our communities.

Hon. Doug Downey: The budget does part of what we need to do, because we have constraints in terms of jurisdiction. The federal government needs to do its part as well. What we’re doing is we’re putting front-line resources in place. We’re putting court resources in place. We’re putting specialized prosecutors. We’re putting victim services. We’re funding helicopters, you saw, Madam Speaker—four helicopters, which will aid in some of this. We’re dealing with organized crime. We’re not dealing with a 15-year-old neighbour who got themselves into trouble. We’re dealing with sophisticated individuals who are wreaking havoc in our communities.

Now, we’re doing our part. What the federal government needs to do is potentially look at legislative change. Grand theft auto isn’t just a video game; it’s actually a charge in the States. So we need to do something about that. We need to make sure that they’re checking at the ports. They only check 1% of the cargo containers, Madam Speaker. It’s just ridiculous.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): The next question.

Mr. Chris Glover: I appreciate the Attorney General’s comments today. One of my biggest concerns about this government, in terms of its legacy, its continued attacks on our democratic rights: They’ve passed three bills that use the “notwithstanding” clause to strip Ontarians of their charter rights, and more recently, the Attorney General was actually caught interviewing candidates for the Chief Justice of Ontario position. When I asked him about this a couple of weeks ago, he said, and I quote, “Politics never came up” in those interviews. It would be inappropriate. “It would be crossing a line.”

A week after I asked that question, the Premier spoke to the media and said that he wanted to appoint Conservative judges; he didn’t want the Attorney General appointing Liberal or NDP candidates. The Attorney General has directly contradicted what the Premier has said. So, will the Attorney General stand up in the House today and tell the Premier that his comments were inappropriate and he crossed the line in demanding politically motivated appointments of judges?

Hon. Doug Downey: I look forward to seeing that clip and what I’m about to say on Twitter, as I saw the last one, Madam Speaker.

They’re trying to do “gotcha” politics. There’s no got-caught nonsense. It’s my obligation to appoint the Chief Justice, and I of course asked what is protocol, what is normal. It’s my obligation to appoint the Chief Justice. So of course I’m going to do an interview and make decisions, Madam Speaker. I’m not going to willy-nilly appoint somebody without even talking to the individual in an interview.

Now, we’re talking about the importance of making sure that the justice system is as solid as possible to protect people, keep our communities safe. That’s what this budget does. That’s what we’re working towards, and that’s what this budget does. The “gotcha” politics is nonsense. We’re getting the job done. We’re building highways. We’re building subways. We’re making sure the infrastructure is there, and we’re building the justice system.

The Acting Speaker (M me Lucille Collard): We’re going to move to further debate.

Ms. Chandra Pasma: It’s always an honour to rise on behalf of the members of Ottawa West–Nepean and to be their voice in the House. This morning, I’m speaking about the government’s budget implementation act.

Last week, I spent time door-knocking in Ottawa West–Nepean and I heard from my constituents that this is a really difficult moment in Ontario right now. People are struggling to afford their rent or find a decent place to live. They can’t afford to put food on the table. They don’t have a family doctor. They’re waiting 12 hours or more at the hospital for emergency care. Their children can’t get the supports that they need in school. And yet this government is running ads using their taxpayer dollars telling people everything is fine in Ontario.

It reminds me of that meme of the dog sitting drinking coffee while the flames are rising around him, saying, “This is fine. Everything is fine.” The government wants people in Ontario to believe that everything is fine as things are crumbling around them and they’re struggling.

What we really needed, Speaker, was a budget that met the moment that we are living in, a budget that showed that the government actually gets what people are experiencing right now, when people are in desperate need of a government that gets it. Instead, we have a budget that completely misses the moment.

I attended the pre-budget hearings in eastern Ontario, and we heard loud and clear from witness after witness that people are struggling, and the government is more focused on talking points than actually doing something about their struggles. The organizations that provide care to people and that fill in the gaps are struggling because they are so underfunded that they can’t keep up. Demand is growing for their services, but these organizations are losing staff and having to cut back on services because they do not have the funds they need to keep operating.

We also heard about the incredible waste that is happening on this government’s watch and because of this government’s poor decisions. There are people in hospitals—and hospital care costs $720 a day on average—because home and community care, which costs only $36 a day, isn’t available. And why isn’t it available? Because the government will not fund it. There are people who are in hospitals today because there is no place for them in a home for people with developmental disabilities, so when their parents can no longer provide care at home, a hospital bed is the only place for them.

The government has frozen funding to the developmental disability sector for over 10 years. There’s 1,200 people on a wait-list for this care and yet the government has offered them no support at all.

The government is also downloading costs onto the individuals in our province who can least afford it. We see this in education, where children with disabilities and learning exceptionalities are being forced to pay for this government’s cuts to education. They just cannot receive the supports and services they need in order to be able to learn, but also to be able to be safe at school.

There are seniors who have lived in their own homes for decades who are seeing their property taxes go up and up because the provincial government keeps downloading costs onto municipalities, refusing to invest in the kind of infrastructure that people need in order to live in their homes but also to be safe in their communities. We see aging parents struggling to provide care for their child with developmental disabilities, unsure of what will happen to them because there is no space available for them.

It was very clear from these presentations that this government is incredibly bad at managing money, Speaker.

Doris Grinspun, the head of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, used a phrase at the Belleville hearing which has stayed with me ever since, which was “waste through poor planning.” And we see example after example after example from this government of waste through poor planning, where we are spending more because the government is failing to make the important decisions that we need, the systematic decisions that would actually provide the people of Ontario with the supports that they need but also save us money in the end.

The lack of investments in primary care is a perfect example of that, where when we don’t provide primary care and address a problem before it becomes an emergency, then people end up in the emergency room; they end up having a problem addressed only once it’s become much more severe. And, again, that hospital visit is $722 a day, when a primary care visit is much less expensive, Speaker. So we are making foolish decisions in the province that are costing the taxpayers of Ontario more.

But we also heard from the witnesses at the pre-budget hearings that there are solutions in place.

There’s incredibly good work happening in eastern Ontario in health care, housing and community supports, and I saw this with the leader of the official opposition in Ottawa when she came recently and we met with the Pinecrest-Queensway Community Health Centre, the Centretown Community Health Centre, CHEO, Ottawa Community Housing, that there is incredibly innovative programming happening, usually held together by a shoestring budget and lots of goodwill, and the government is failing to support these organizations in delivering these solutions, refusing to invest in the kind of care and supports that we desperately need.

A great example of this is Counselling Connect. So 30 health care organizations, community support organizations in Ottawa came together during the pandemic to form Counselling Connect, where there’s one number, there’s one website. Anybody can go there, no matter what your age, no matter what your challenge is, and you can select an appointment with a counsellor that will happen within a matter of days, and you can receive a counselling appointment that provides you with immediate care and they will also make a referral on to other support services.

It only costs half a million dollars to provide this care in Ottawa, yet their funding is about to run out. When they came and testified at the pre-budget hearings, they received nothing but praise from government members and, in fact, government members were saying, “This is amazing. How can we scale this model across Ontario?” And yet, there’s no funding for Counselling Connect in the budget.

Only half a million dollars to provide counselling to over 27,000 people a year in Ottawa and yet, there’s no funding here, and so these people end up on wait-lists for other forms of mental health care while their problem becomes more serious and they need more care, instead of just investing in these kinds of innovative solutions. And half a million dollars is less than a rounding error in the government’s health budget. These kinds of decisions just make no sense.

We’re also seeing record demand for food banks right now. In my riding they’ve had to extend into evening and weekend hours to serve those who are employed full-time but still need to use a food bank.

Last Monday, I was at the Ottawa Mission serving Easter meals. This year, the Ottawa Mission served a record 17,400 meals across Ottawa between two food trucks, plus the Easter meals served at the Mission on Easter Monday. This is just an incredible expansion of the demand for food within Ottawa.

When I was knocking on doors last week, affordability was the number one issue that I heard about. People are not able to make their rent, let alone being able to pay for food. I spoke to one woman who is deeply upset that she can no longer afford the apartment where she lives but she doesn’t know where else she will go because everything else is even more expensive.

I’ve heard from Sharon, a senior living on a pension, who in the last eight years has seen her rent increase by more than the guideline seven times. The Landlord and Tenant Board keeps approving the increase even when it’s being imposed because of repairs, which aren’t supposed to qualify, so Sharon, who’s living on a pension, is now looking for a roommate or a new place to live because she can’t afford her housing. And what did this government offer people like Sharon in the budget, the people lined up at food banks who are working and still need the food banks, the many folks eating Easter dinner at the Mission? Nothing.

There are no measures to address rental affordability, no increase to ODSP or Ontario Works. They promised to raise minimum wage in October of this year but there’s no funding in the budget to support that, and even their increase in the minimum wage falls $4 short of a living wage in Ottawa so it’s still going to be difficult for people to afford housing, which is why so many people who are employed are going to food banks. There was no crackdown on price gouging, and in fact, the government is allowing people to be gouged by private, for-profit health care providers.

Let’s talk about that lack of access to primary care. Connie, who is one of my constituents in Ottawa West–Nepean, says:

“We are both 68 years old in very good health. We do everything to protect our health—we eat well, we exercise regularly, we see our dentist regularly, we are active in our community and have a good circle of friends and family. We live in our own home and hope to remain independent as long as possible.

“We’ve signed up with the Ontario government site that promises to match us with a doctor. We’ve approached several medical offices and clinics to ask if they’re taking new patients. We’ve networked with friends and relatives. We have a niece who is a nurse practitioner and have sought, and followed, her advice. At this time, we are on one waiting list and were warned it was likely at least a three-year wait.

“The thing that baffles me is how we got to this place. Surely you understand that every year we remain healthy, independent and living in our own home is a win for Ontario and our collective budget. The cost of the occasional GP visit to maintain our health, versus the cost of an extended hospital stay to treat a complicated illness—well, there is just no comparison.”

And Connie is right. This makes no sense. It is wasteful. It is absolutely short-sighted. The only explanation is that it is deliberate.

Some 2.3 million people have no family doctor, like Connie and her husband. The NDP offered a plan that would provide primary care coverage for almost all of them and the government voted against it. The budget offers funding to provide primary care coverage for only one quarter of them by the end of three years. Yet the Ontario College of Family Physicians is saying that by 2026, 4.4 million people will have no family doctor. This is literally fiddling while Rome burns, Speaker.

And what happens when people have no family doctor? A few weeks ago, one of my constituents, Angela, cut her finger so badly that she needed stitches, but she didn’t have time to wait 10 hours in the ER. She initially wanted to go to a local Appletree clinic but she was told she would be charged $69 to see a nurse practitioner, so in the end she had a roommate who was trained in first aid stitch her finger. That’s what we’ve come to in Ontario, Speaker: roommates stitching wounds.

And let’s talk about those wait times at hospitals, because the government recently cut funding to the Queensway Carleton Hospital for the ER, so the Queensway Carleton is down 10 physician-hours per day, every single day. Earlier this year, one of my constituents who was experiencing extreme pain went to the ER. She couldn’t move, yet she sat for 15 hours before finally seeing a doctor. Here’s what she said:

“I was not the only person who had waited 15-plus hours to be seen, and if it had not been for the encouragement and advice from other patients in the waiting room, I believe that I would have gone home without care. Many people left as they could not handle the wait.”

It’s not just our patients who are sitting in primary-care waiting rooms and ER waiting rooms who are suffering. We’re also seeing incredibly important services to people with developmental disabilities—residential and day programming—being cut or being put in jeopardy by this government’s underfunding.

As I mentioned, the funding for this sector has been frozen for over a decade. So L’Arche, which operates a number of homes in Ottawa West–Nepean, has made the incredibly painful decision to close one of their homes. The other organizations, like the Ottawa-Carleton Association for Persons with Developmental Disabilities; TCE, Total Communication Environment; and Tamir are also having to face incredibly painful financial choices. And Christopher, one of my constituents, talked about what closing a TCE home would mean for his brother Jamie:

“For somebody like my brother Jamie, who has an intellectual disability, to then have to change where he’s lived for over 20 years would be devastating for him. He’s very high-needs, and he has his same routine every day and has his house set up in a way that supports his needs—and it’s everything that TCE has done with the eye of” being “person-centred. His needs are always at the forefront, and everything that we do is to ensure that his needs are taken care of. So to upend him like that, to have to close a home and to move him into a home where his needs might not be met would be very devastating for him. He’s very immobile, so he needs a place that’s accessible.”

I have another constituent whose son has been on a wait-list for supportive housing for 15 years, and he’s currently in a hospital bed because there is no place for him.

This is truly waste through poor planning. The sector asked for a 5% increase so that they could continue to support people with developmental disabilities, and this budget gave them nothing. Who even are we as a society if we cannot provide care for the most vulnerable members of our society?

And speaking of the most vulnerable members of our society, Speaker, we need to talk about education, because what this government is doing to education funding is appalling. The minister’s favourite word is “unprecedented.” In fact, when his term as a minister comes to an end, I’m probably going to give him a plaque that says “unprecedented” so he can stare at it every single day.

But let’s look at what actually is unprecedented in education. The levels of violence are unprecedented. The mental health crisis is unprecedented. The shortage of teachers and education workers is unprecedented. In fact, we are seeing teachers leaving, retiring and resigning in the middle of the year, some of them in September, because they just can’t take it anymore—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): It being 10:15, I have to interrupt the member and ask for members’ statements.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

Wearing of pins

Mr. Nolan Quinn: Speaker, point of order.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Point of order: the member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

Mr. Nolan Quinn: Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow all members to wear pins in recognition of April being the Canadian Cancer Society’s daffodil campaign.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry is seeking the unanimous consent of the House to allow members to wear pins in recognition of April being the Canadian Cancer Society’s daffodil campaign. Agreed? Agreed.

Members’ Statements

Health care post-secondary education

I firmly believe that nurturing a new generation of primary care physicians will not only serve to strengthen our communities but also contribute sustainably to the overall health and well-being of Ontarians.

I would like to commend the university for its unwavering dedication to addressing the health care needs of underserved regions.

Furthermore, I am enthusiastic about the forthcoming opening of York University’s Markham campus this spring. This strategic move will embed the university in the vibrant heart of Markham–Unionville, one of the most diverse and dynamic urban communities in our province and country.

As MPP for Markham–Unionville, I pledge my full support to York University’s endeavours in nurturing talent for our province and nation, and I remain committed to advocating for their continued success.

Beyond the Streets

Mr. Jeff Burch: I’ve spoken many times in this House about Beyond the Streets, a volunteer-run organization in Welland that connects those without a home to community services and basic necessities.

This winter, Beyond the Streets created and operated an emergency shelter in partnership with Holy Trinity church in downtown Welland. They started this shelter after they saw people nearly die of hypothermia on the streets earlier this winter and because other shelters were completely full. Unfortunately, their shelter closed last week due to an end to a city grant that lasted to the end of March.

In the words of the organizers, “What we can say from all this, is that the need is greater than even we expected. Our friends need a permanent place to go to until they can find a place to call home. Living on the streets isn’t a life for anyone. It doesn’t allow for anyone to better themselves because they are always in survival mode.

“So we guess the next question is ...

“Do we give people a fighting chance?”

Speaker, access to housing is a human right. No person should be living on the streets, fighting for their survival through the bitterly cold winter months. A fighting chance means housing, food and medical attention as well as livable assistance rates.

My heartfelt thanks go out to the dedicated volunteers from Beyond the Streets, Holy Trinity church and the citizens of Welland for stepping up and making this emergency shelter happen when other levels of government failed.

Napanee Beaver

Mr. Ric Bresee: Good morning. Speaker, I want to share about the legacy of local news reporting in Hastings–Lennox and Addington. Founded in the back of a Newburgh, Ontario, store in January of 1870 by Cephas Beeman, the Addington Beaver newspaper shared local news on a four-page, six-column weekly paper. Shortly after creating the paper, he then sold it to his brother George Beeman and his partner William Templeton, moving it to Napanee, calling it the Ontario Beaver, and then shortly thereafter the Napanee Beaver, and it has remained a family-owned business.

In 1892, George Beeman sold his portion of the paper to Templeton who remained the sole owner of that newspaper until his death in 1908, when his wife took over that paper. For several generations, the family ran the paper until 1953 when they sold the paper to a local family: Earl and Jean Morrison. Then, after Earl’s death in 1978, Jean continued that tradition of the Napanee Beaver. The Morrison family led that paper for more than 30 years.

But just recently, the Napanee Beaver has been sold to Adam Prudhomme. Adam has actually been a resident of Napanee and an employee since 2008 and has been the managing editor since 2019.

Throughout its existence, the Napanee Beaver has won numerous awards, both from the Ontario and Canadian newspaper associations, and I’m delighted to see the tradition of community-owned local news still alive here in Ontario.

Gender-based violence

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: On Tuesday, June 28, 2022, the jury recommendations from the Renfrew inquest into the deaths of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam were presented. Eighty-six recommendations for change were made, most of them directed to the provincial government.

The very first recommendation from that inquest was for the provincial government to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic—a simple, yet incredibly important and impactful step that this Conservative government rejected. The government is terribly wrong to reject or resist this recommendation, and tomorrow they have an opportunity to do the right thing by passing Bill 173, the Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act.

From Windsor across Essex county to Toronto, from Hamilton to Milton and Oshawa, from Niagara, Lanark to Renfrew, from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie and Timmins, from Mississauga to Sudbury and Thunder Bay, from Sarnia, Brantford, London to Brampton, just to name a few, 94 municipalities have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic, yet the Conservatives refuse to.

We must call this gender-based violence what it is: an epidemic. The Conservative government claimed intimate partner violence is not an epidemic because that term is reserved for the spread of infectious or communicable disease. That is simply semantics, Speaker. Not only dictionary

definitions but data proves otherwise, and unfortunately this epidemic continues to claim lives.

We need to use every tool available to make a difference. There is one we have right here at our fingertips, and I call on every member of the Legislature, including the Premier, to do the right thing and pass Bill 173 tomorrow.

Giving Spoon fundraiser

Mr. Trevor Jones: Good morning, Speaker. This past weekend, I was proud to work alongside a team of 70 volunteers at the Bridge Youth Resource Centre in Leamington to participate in an exciting fundraiser led by my friend who operates the Giving Spoon, a local non-profit charity. The event featured a wide array of fresh homemade soups donated by local families and organizations to raise funds and awareness for youth programs and access to attainable housing.

The weekend showcased an impressive lineup: 18 cauldrons each day of unique varieties of soup served by volunteers, myself included, to hundreds of people from our community who lined up to enjoy the fresh soup and fellowship while raising important funds for the Bridge Youth Resource Centre. In my non-scientific observation, I would say that the cream of potato and bacon was the most popular.

The Bridge Youth Resource Centre is an organization supporting youth, ages 14 to 24, through collaborative programming with multiple community partners to address education, job support, mental health and addiction, social inclusion and general life skills. The facility also supports youth experiencing homelessness or housing instability and actually partnered with Habitat for Humanity and researchers from the U of Windsor’s department of civil engineering and environmental engineering to design and build 3-D homes, the first printed in Canada.

Congratulations to my friends at the Bridge and the Giving Spoon for another great event.

Energy policies

Ms. Chandra Pasma: In the past few years, Ottawa has experienced multiple severe storms that have taken out power for multiple days. Every time this happens, people on fixed incomes have to throw out a fridge or freezer’s worth of food, food that they can’t afford to replace. Seniors and people living with disabilities who live in multi-storey apartment or condo buildings are being trapped in their own homes without access to food, water or medical care. Those who need life-saving devices struggle to find power sources.

We’ve been incredibly lucky, so far, that every one of these storms has been followed by reasonably temperate weather, but it’s only a matter of time until we have freezing cold or severe heat while the power is out, putting lives at risk.

Thankfully, there is a way to address the risks of power outages while also fighting climate change and making life more affordable. Bill 172, the Affordable Energy Act, would save Ontario residents on their hydro bills by investing in deep retrofits, reducing the amount of electricity needed to power a home. It would also oversee the creation of community energy sources, known as distributed energy; such as solar panels on roofs or over parking lots. These would provide energy credits to the owners of the solar panels while offering a cost-effective source of power to the grid.

These community sources of energy would also mean that homes and communities will have a local power supply when the grid is down, keeping the lights and heat on for residents of Ottawa.

The Affordable Energy Act will be up for debate on Thursday, and I hope that all MPPs, regardless of party, will vote to support this plan for more affordable, climate-friendly and resilient electricity in Ontario.

Housing

Ms. Donna Skelly: It’s my pleasure to rise today to highlight Ontario’s efforts to address the current housing crisis.

In August of last year, our government announced a new, three-year, $1.2-billion program that provides significant funding for municipalities that are on track to meet provincial housing targets by 2031. In order to achieve Ontario’s goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, municipalities have agreed to housing targets to assist in meeting the goal. The Building Faster Fund encourages municipalities to meet these housing targets. Municipalities that reach at least 80% of their annual target receive a share of the $1.2-billion program, and for those that exceed their targets, even more funding is granted.

My community of Hamilton will receive over $17.5 million for exceeding its 2023 target and for breaking ground on a total of 4,142 new housing units last year.

I am pleased to recognize the hard work of the city of Hamilton and other communities across the province that have made housing a priority.

Ensuring that every resident has an affordable place to call home is our government’s top priority, and I am hopeful that with the support of these provincial funds, there will be even more housing starts in the year ahead.

Ramadan and Eid-Ul-Fitr

Ms. Mary-Margaret McMahon: Tonight, at sundown, Muslims around the world and across Ontario will begin celebrating Eid-Ul-Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan.

For Ramadan 2024, the moon was sighted on the night of Sunday, March 10. Since then, Muslims who observe Ramadan have taken

part in the holy tradition, with sunrise-to-sunset fasting for the entire month, praying, giving, and spending time with family. When the month of fasting is over, though, it’s time to celebrate.

In my riding of beautiful Beaches–East York, many will be gathering tomorrow morning for Eid prayers at Dentonia Park, and I have the honour of joining them for that blessed event. I am always so proud to attend Eid prayers and connect with my constituents as they observe this important and sacred event.

Dentonia Park is nestled in the heart of Crescent Town and Bangla Town. Not only can you find the best Bangladeshi food, probably in all of Canada, there, but it is truly a neighborhood of warmth and camaraderie, where community members look out for one another and lend a helping hand in times of need. Bangla Town and Crescent Town are a testament to the rich cultural heritage that thrives within Beaches–East York and the beautiful energy that the Bangladeshi Muslim community brings to Toronto and Canada.

To Muslims around the world and in Beaches–East York, I wish you peace, hope, amazing meals, and time with loved ones this Eid.

I look forward to seeing familiar faces tomorrow morning for prayers in Dentonia Park.

Eid Mubarak.

Health care post-secondary education

Ms. Laura Smith: Last week, I had the great privilege of standing with the Premier and my York region caucus colleagues to announce a brand new medical school just north of Thornhill, in the city of Vaughan. This school will be the first medical school to focus on primary care physicians—so important. It will include up to 80 undergraduate and 102 post-graduate seats starting in September 2028, with up to 240 undergraduate and 293 post-graduate seats on an annual basis once operating at full capacity.

This project is in partnership with York University and will be situated beside the state-of-the-art Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital and the soon-to-be-built long-term-care home. Together, these projects will significantly improve the quality of care our families and seniors have, bringing health care closer to home.

Speaker, our government is launching the largest expansion of Ontario’s medical education system in more than a decade. Parents, students, grandmothers, grandfathers, bubbes and zaydes, this is so exciting because our students will now have more opportunities to attend medical school locally, just a few minutes north in the city of Vaughan, a little bit north of Thornhill, and that is such positive news.

I want to thank my friend and colleague the member for King–Vaughan for being a strong champion for this project and a great advocate for the people of Thornhill and Ontario.

Battle of Vimy Ridge

Ms. Laurie Scott: Over a century ago, on the 9th of April, 1917, the Canadian Expeditionary Force embarked on a mission to capture Vimy Ridge. This endeavour mobilized over 170,000 Canadians from coast to coast and all segments of society, engaging them in a battle that spanned four days and would eternally etch itself into the annals of our history.

The Vimy offensive epitomized a uniquely Canadian venture, serving as a testament to the Dominion of Canada’s stature as an integral component of the Allied forces. That day, Canadians demonstrated their mettle, securing our enduring reputation as valiant fighters and steadfast allies.

Among those who answered the call were numerous individuals from Victoria and Haliburton counties and my own hometown of Kinmount. They were part of the 109th battalion. My grandfather Wallace Scott stood among these brave souls. He was one of the gallant Canadians who charged at Vimy on April 9, sustaining serious injuries. Despite his wounds, like many of his fellow servicemen, he healed and rejoined the battlefront, remaining until the war’s conclusion.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge emerged as a pivotal

chapter in our nation’s story, igniting a new-found sense of national pride. Today, we collectively honour the memory and sacrifice of those who fought at Vimy Ridge and in subsequent conflicts, commemorating a significant milestone in our nation’s journey. We will remember them. Lest we forget.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you very much. That concludes our members’ statements for this morning.

I understand the member for Ottawa–Vanier has a point of order she wishes to raise.

M me Lucille Collard: Mr. Speaker, I do have a unanimous consent request. I seek unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak during private members’ public business today.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Ms. Collard is seeking the unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak during private members’ public business today. Agreed? I heard a no.

Introduction of Visitors

Ms. Bhutila Karpoche: It is my honour to welcome to Queen’s Park the president of the Central Tibetan Administration, the honourable Sikyong Penpa Tsering. Joining him are Namgyal Choedup, representative of his Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Office of Tibet in Washington, DC; and Mr. Sherap Therchin, executive director of the Canada Tibet Committee. Welcome.

Mr. Will Bouma: I couldn’t help but notice that the Mayor of Norfolk is here today. Mayor Amy Martin, welcome to the people’s House.

Mr. Guy Bourgouin: I’m pleased to welcome members of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association and the Ontario Asphalt Pavement Council at Queen’s Park today. I’d like to especially thank Mark Mallett and Graziela Girardi. We met this morning to discuss northern development and necessary built-road access. Thank you. Welcome.

Mr. John Fraser: It’s my honour to introduce my former boss and, most importantly, my seatmate for four years, who made my life so much easier and enjoyable, the 25th Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne.

Mr. Kevin Holland: I’d like to welcome, from the Ontario Provincial Council of the Catholic Women’s League of Canada, four representatives, one from Thunder Bay. Welcome to Colleen Martin and her colleagues Linda Squarzolo, Wilma Vanderzwaag and Mary Capobianco. Welcome to your House.

MPP Jamie West: I want to welcome, all the way from sunny Sudbury, Linda Squarzolo, from the Catholic Women’s League. She’s the Ontario Provincial Council president. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Ted Hsu: I wanted to just take this quick opportunity to introduce a page, Duncan Venditti, from my riding of Kingston and the Islands, of precocious knowledge and interest in all things government and politics. If we had more young citizens like him, our democracy would be in good hands.

Ms. Goldie Ghamari: From the village of Greely in the great riding of Carleton, I’d like to welcome page Simon Valentini and his mother Miranda Valentini. Welcome to your Ontario Legislature.

Ms. Catherine Fife: It’s my pleasure to welcome farmers from Wilmot township here in the House today: Mark Reusser, Alfred Lowrick and Steve Bottoms. Welcome to your House.

Mr. Rick Byers: It’s my pleasure to welcome a number of visitors here to support page Bella-Sitara Soares—the first page from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound while I’ve been an MPP—many here in-person or supporting from elsewhere: Monica Singh Soares, the great councillor from the municipality of Southgate; Joey Soares; Ryker Soares; Maria Soares; Zachary Bhachu; Baljeet Bhachu; Kamaljeet Singh; Jaspreet Singh; Bhagat Singh Bhachu; and Akash Bhachu. Welcome to your House.

M me France Gélinas: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Linda Squarzolo from Nickel Belt, representing the Catholic Women’s League of Canada. Thank you for coming, Linda.

Ms. Mary-Margaret McMahon: I would like to introduce an extremely charismatic man you all know well. Former member for beautiful Beaches–East York Mr. Arthur Potts is in the chamber today. Welcome.

Hon. Vijay Thanigasalam: I would like to welcome my friend and volunteer Mr. Kenny to the Ontario Legislature. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Aislinn Clancy: I also would like to welcome our awesome farmers from Wilmot township in Waterloo region.

I’d also like to welcome the Ontario Road Builders’ Association and Ontario Asphalt Pavement Council to Queen’s Park, who have over 200 members and 56,000 workers they represent across the province.

And finally, I’d like to welcome constituents and renters from my riding of Kitchener Centre who are here at Queen’s Park to advocate for tenants’ rights for all Ontarians: Leonard Shushan and Karolina Kruk. Thank you so much to all of you for coming, and welcome to your House.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): If there are no objections, I’d like to continue with the introduction of guests.

Mr. Ric Bresee: In my new role as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation, I’d like to welcome the Ontario Road Builders’ Association and the Ontario Asphalt Pavement Council to Queen’s Park today. Specifically, I’d like to welcome Walid Abou-Hamde, Andrew Weltz, Malcolm Croskery, Mark Mallett and Graziela Girardi.

Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady: I, too, would like to welcome to the House one of the mayors from my riding of Haldimand–Norfolk, mayor of Norfolk county, Amy Martin, who is here to present to the committee of the interior this afternoon. Welcome.

Mr. Stephen Crawford: I’d like to welcome the McMurtry family to Queen’s Park, in particular, a good friend of mine, chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society of Toronto, Andrew McMurtry.

Hon. Doug Downey: I’ll begin with Shelley Sarin, who is the mother of page Aura Sarin from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte.

In addition to that, we heard Andrew McMurtry is here, but so are many of the other family members: Michael McMurtry, his son; Jeannie McMurtry, his daughter; Erin McMurtry, his daughter; Patti Moran, daughter-in-law; Chris Deacon, daughter-in-law; Kaia McMurtry-Moran, granddaughter; Aidan McNab, grandson; Matthew McMurtry, grandson; Tim Armstrong, his friend; Kate Lee, his daughter and caretaker of Mr. Armstrong; Robert Alan Eagleson, former MPP for Lakeshore during the 27th Parliament; William Sutton, caretaker of Mr.

Eagleson; David Warner, Speaker during the 35th Parliament; of course, Kathleen Wynne, MPP for Don Valley West during the 38th to 42nd Parliaments; and Steve Gilchrist, former MPP for Scarborough East during the 36th and 37th Parliaments.

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: I have the privilege of welcoming to the Legislature a constituent from Niagara West, Andrew Weltz, who is here with the Ontario Road Builders’ Association. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Michael S. Kerzner: I’m delighted to welcome my city councillor, James Pasternak, councillor from the city of Toronto in ward 6 from York Centre. Welcome to the Ontario Legislature.

Hon. Todd J. McCarthy: I’d like to welcome to the House today a member of the other branch of government, my brother, the Honourable Mr. Justice John Raymond McCarthy.

Mr. Tom Rakocevic: I also want to welcome the Catholic Women’s League. I thank them for their meeting this morning and all the important work they do.

Hon. Graydon Smith: I want to welcome Aislyn Doyle, a page that’s here from Parry Sound–Muskoka joining us for the next few weeks, and her parents, Sonya Doyle and John Doyle, and her sister Rowan Doyle joining us today here at Queen’s Park. Welcome.

Hon. Michael D. Ford: Good morning. Just on behalf of the government side of the House, I would also like to welcome the Tibet delegation here to Ontario. It was a wonderful bilateral, bipartisan meeting we had this morning.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I am very pleased to recognize two special guests who are with us in the members’ gallery: Juergen Klingohr and his wife, Anita Klingohr, of Pickering. Mr. Klingohr served the people of Ontario for 28 years in the Ministry of Transportation, working as a full-time chauffeur with the executive transportation services of the minister. He twice received the ministry’s Beacon Award for service excellence in 2009 and 2016. He retired from the ministry in 2020 after a distinguished career marked by exceptional day-to-day dedication.

I consider Mr. Juergen Klingohr a good friend and he has earned our sincere gratitude. I would ask you to join me in welcoming him and Mrs. Klingohr here today.

Legislative pages

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I am going to now ask the pages to assemble.

It is my honour and pleasure to introduce this group of legislative pages: from the riding of Brampton East, Armaan Bagarhy; from London North Centre, Jerome Bow Pearce; from the riding of Kitchener Centre, Lyra Cooper; from Niagara West, Jack Cunningham; from Parry Sound–Muskoka, Aislyn Doyle; from Kitchener–Conestoga, Ryder Harris; from Don Valley West, Audrey Lo; from Etobicoke Centre, Ruby Madden; from Kitchener South–Hespeler, Shivanshee Patel; from Mississauga East–Cooksville, Mariam Rasheed; from Haldimand–Norfolk, Emirson Ricker; from Hamilton Centre, Nate Rochwerg; from Dufferin–Caledon, Shylah Sandhu; from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte, Aura Sarin; from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, Bella-Sitara Soares; from the riding of Milton, Shiara Sribalan; from Carleton, Simon Valentini; from Kingston and the Islands, Duncan Venditti; from Cambridge, Brayden Vermet; from Richmond Hill, Erwin Wang; from Newmarket–Aurora, Manha Yusuf; and from the riding of York–Simcoe, Malcolm Yusuff.

Please join me in welcoming this fine group of Legislative pages.

Applause.

House sittings

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 9(g), the Clerk has received written notice from the government House leader indicating that a temporary change in the weekly meeting

schedule of the House is required, and therefore, the afternoon routine on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, shall commence at 1 p.m.

Roland “Roy” McMurtry

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I will now recognize the government House leader on a point of order.

Hon. Paul Calandra: Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow members to make statements in remembrance for the late Mr. Roland McMurtry, MPP for Eglinton, with five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s loyal opposition, five minutes allotted to the independent members as a group and five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s government.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Agreed? Agreed.

Today, we are honoured to remember and pay tribute to a former member of our provincial Legislature, the late Mr. Roy McMurtry, who was the MPP for Eglinton during the 30th, 31st and 32nd Parliaments. Joining us in the Speaker’s gallery are Mr. McMurtry’s family and friends: his children and their spouses Michael McMurtry, Jeannie McMurtry, Erin McMurtry, Patti Moran and Chris Deacon; his grandchildren Kaia McMurtry-Moran, Aidan McNab and Matthew McMurtry; his cousin Andrew McMurtry; and his friend Tim Armstrong.

Also in the gallery are Kathleen Wynne, the MPP for Don Valley West during the 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st and 42nd Parliaments; David Warner, Speaker during the 35th Parliament; Steve Gilchrist, MPP for Scarborough East during the 36th and 37th Parliaments; Alan Eagleson, MPP for Lakeshore during the 27th Parliament; and Arthur Potts, the MPP for Beaches–East York in the 41st Parliament.

MPP Lise Vaugeois: First, I want to welcome the many family members and friends of Roy McMurtry to the House today. It’s an honour to speak to you and to members of this House about Roy and his remarkable legacy.

There are many examples that show what kind of a person Roy was. For example, in the 1950s, he started taking legal aid cases when the plan didn’t actually pay any money. In fact, it didn’t pay anything until 1968, which was 18 years later. When Roy became Attorney General, however, he used his position to boost legal aid clinics so that people with limited means would be entitled to legal representation.

Roy ordered bilingualism in the courts, over the reluctance of his own party, creating an extremely important change in access to justice, in their own language, for Franco-Ontarians. As Attorney General, he pushed for tougher sentences for drunk driving, took on racism, made the use of seat belts compulsory, and launched a move to criminalize violence in hockey. We might take the legitimacy of these positions for granted now—that drinking and driving causes terrible harm, that wearing seat belts saves lives, that violence in professional hockey can be deadly and diminishes the game—but addressing these issues met with tremendous resistance at the time.

Roy took a lot of flak for his attempts to call out and reduce the levels of violence in professional hockey, for example. As Jeff Gray wrote, “The hockey world rebelled at his intrusion into on-ice violence.” It’s fair to say that these battles are not over, but I think about what courage it took to speak out against violence in professional hockey at the time, because fights were not only expected, they were encouraged. Many people here will remember that as late as 2004, Don Cherry of CBC’s Coach’s Corner was ridiculing and questioning the masculinity of players who chose to wear visors.

That Roy McMurtry was challenging these attitudes and behaviours in the 1970s and 1980s is something that we can look on with respect and admiration.

Roy also pushed to prosecute racial hatred, provoking a response in 1977 from the American Ku Klux Klan accusing him of anti-white activities. He received a letter, which he proudly framed and put in his office.

He mentored people in the law, including racialized women and men, opening doors to people who otherwise faced enormous barriers trying to gain entry as legal professionals into the halls of justice.

Now, I want to point out that these changes didn’t occur in a vacuum. Since the beginnings of Canada, racialized people, Indigenous, Black and brown people have been fighting for justice and equality. Without these movements, the impetus to change the laws would not have been there. But if we think back to the work it took for the initial group of white middle-class women to get the vote, it took men with power and a strong sense of justice to bring about changes in the law, and Roy McMurtry is one of those men who used his power and position to open doors where they had previously been closed.

Importantly, that also included opening doors for people with disabilities, by pushing against his own caucus to include disabilities as a right enshrined in the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982.

I want to use the little time I have left to talk about why Roy McMurtry has such a place of honour in queer history. It was a long road of movement activism to get here, but in 2003, Roy took the bold step to uphold the legality of same-sex marriage. This ruling has changed so many people’s lives for the better and is still reverberating around the world today.

We can see the effect of this legal ruling in the history of this Legislature, where in the mid-1980s, we had Attorney General Ian Scott, who was not able to be open about his male life partner until after he retired from politics; and Kathleen Wynne in 2003, who was able to win the Liberal leadership and become Premier of the province of Ontario, and she did this with her same-sex partner at her side.

Today’s official NDP opposition has our first-ever queer caucus, with four out and proud MPPs sitting in this Legislature. For this and so many of the reasons I’ve been able to touch on today, we have so much to thank Roy McMurtry for. He was a model politician and jurist who put fairness and inclusiveness at the forefront of his work.

In the words of lawyer and disability activist David Lepofsky: “May we each be a Roy McMurtry to someone else.” May we each be responsible for opening more doors to make our province more humane and inclusive.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The member for Guelph.

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I’m honoured to rise today to pay tribute to the late Honourable Roy McMurtry. Mr. McMurtry was a giant in the legal profession, serving as Attorney General, Solicitor General and, of course, Chief Justice of Ontario. As Attorney General, he was instrumental in the creation and expansion of the province’s legal aid system, led the effort to reform family law, and started the process to make Ontario’s legal system bilingual and to translate Ontario’s statutes into French.

In addition to being a champion for Franco-Ontarians, he was a steadfast advocate for human rights and he was an ally for the Black community, chairing Ontario’s Cabinet Committee on Race Relations and being steadfast in opening doors and ensuring equality in fighting for the rights and freedoms of all Ontarians, regardless of their background.

Among his many accomplishments, Mr. McMurtry will be most remembered for the late-night kitchen accord with Jean Chrétien and Roy Romanow to broker the deal that achieved the patriation of the Canadian Constitution and the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And I want to be clear: Canadians will be forever grateful for Roy McMurtry’s role in bringing in the Constitution and the charter.

All of us in this House strive to make a difference, but few of us will ever, ever accomplish the achievements that Roy McMurtry accomplished through his courage and his conviction and his passion to public service.

I want to welcome Mr. McMurtry’s family, friends and colleagues to Queen’s Park today. There is no question he was loved and he was cherished by those around him, and I want to thank you for sharing him with us. We’re a better province and we’re a better country because of Roy McMurtry’s service to Canada.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Next, the member for Ottawa South.

Mr. John Fraser: It’s an honour today to rise to pay tribute to Roy McMurtry, member of this Legislature from 1975 to 1985 for the riding of Eglinton. He served as both Attorney General and Solicitor General in the government of Bill Davis.

Serving in this Legislature is only one aspect of a remarkable life and career. He served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League, Chief Justice of the Superior Court—I could go on.

I never met Roy McMurtry, but I’ve read a lot in the last few days—which is always a good thing when you get to do these tributes; you get to know somebody. Here’s the sense I got: You knew when he was in a room, and not in an offensive or obtrusive way, and not just because of his size, but because of his manner. He knew how to bring people together to find a solution.

He was there when we repatriated our Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and he played a pivotal role in getting it done. He was able to build Ontario’s justice system by bringing everybody to the table.

I think he understood the hardest part of politics and life is how you use the power and influence and skills to do the things that need to be done, and to have the courage to do the things that people didn’t understand or believe needed to be done, like the work to make Ontario courts bilingual at a time when our provincial neighbour to the east had elected a separatist government. C’était la bonne chose à faire pour assurer aux Franco-Ontariens un accès approprié à la justice.

And in a landmark decision in 2003, essentially legalizing gay marriage in Ontario—many of us can remember how controversial and how difficult that was. That took courage. Here’s what he said about it, and I like this: “I knew the sky would not fall.” He was right. It didn’t fall.

I was talking to my friend and former Premier Kathleen Wynne about Roy McMurtry. She reminded me about something I think is really important. There are so many things. I could be here for the rest of the morning talking about Roy McMurtry, but I’ll try to keep it short. His efforts to educate youth about Ontario’s justice system and the work he did on the roots of youth violence and understanding the supports that young people need—here’s what Kathleen said: “Roy understood how important it was to keep youth out of the criminal justice system that he knew and served so well.”

Roy McMurtry accomplished so many things, but the thing that hit me the most—I don’t know if people read it, but I saw the family obituary in the Star and it said at the top something like, “All his accomplishments are listed elsewhere.” I thought that was a great thing, because the most important accomplishment was there and it was what they wrote. Here’s what the family wrote: “He was a loving family man ... who delighted in the chaos of frequent family gatherings, especially at our beloved cottage.”

I’d like to finish with something that his son Jim wrote. I mean, if we wanted to say one line about Roy McMurtry, maybe we would all want to have our kids say this about us: “My father fought for rights and freedoms; I was the proudest son.” Thank you for sharing your father with us.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Attorney General.

Hon. Doug Downey: As one of four brothers—we heard from his surviving brother, Robert, at the funeral. To hear of the family and his focus on the family—his accomplishments are many, but his family, he was so proud of. You can tell by the way they speak of him. He had six children, as we know. His wife Ria, through 66 years—all the adventures—just a remarkable partnership. But what we heard at the funeral was about the signing and the dancing and the focus on the grandkids, because that was the most important part to him.

He had many accomplishments. He had many careers. We should all be so lucky. As a youth, he carried water for the Toronto Argonauts, if you read his background, but I’ll say he carried water for nobody else. He was his own man; he had his own convictions.

He spent a lifetime taking care of the disadvantaged, those who needed it the most, and he was at the front end of change in every stage that he served, whether it be as a parliamentarian or as a judge. Even when he was High Commissioner, he did things nobody else did. It is a remarkable career.

But what people don’t actually realize is that he had a successful law career for 17 years before that, a full law career, attached to names like J.J. Robinette and Arthur Maloney, just absolute icons in the legal profession. He took cases from them. He ran about a dozen murder cases. He did high-profile stuff. He did important work. And then he came to politics.

Now, Mr. Speaker, he got involved in politics in 1965. He was helping Dalton Camp in his bid. Historians know how that went. But I didn’t realize the connection; I didn’t realize that he was actually part of the Big Blue Machine, because it had to be through the Dalton Camp experience that he met Norm Atkins.

Norman Atkins was a bit of an upstart in his day. I had the pleasure of working with him on Hugh Segal’s leadership campaign. He called it the “march to nowhere.” We can come back to leadership campaigns. But I didn’t realize—you see, Dalton Camp was Norm Atkins’s brother-in-law, and Norm Atkins was a brilliant political strategist. They learned from John F. Kennedy’s political world, and they came up—and so that’s where Roy must have met Dalton Camp. And, you know, I had never thought of that connection.

There was a leadership in 1971, to be clear, for the Progressive Conservative Party, and Roy took on the job of lawyer for the party in 1970 because his friend Bill Davis was going to run for the leadership. Well, for those who know their political history, in 1971, when Bill Davis ran with Roy at his side, Norm Atkins and his crew were feeling sort of not appreciated in the Bill Davis world, so they ran with Allan Lawrence. And I’ll tell you, Mr. Speaker, that leadership culminated in a vote differential of 44 votes. It was very, very close.

And you know, when it’s that close, it can be very bitter and very acrimonious, but Steve Paikin’s book The Life talks about Roy’s role in bringing those parties together, because he was the link with Norm Atkins and Bill Davis. So it’s a tribute to his ability to bring people together even when they’re deeply divided.

Now, he went on to run in a by-election. That didn’t go so well, but all of us who have lost something along the way know to dig in and go deeper. In 1975 he got elected, and the record shows he was appointed Attorney General before he even took his seat in the Legislature. That’s how well respected he was by Bill Davis. As we’ve heard, he served for nine years, 124 days as Attorney General, and simultaneously four years as Solicitor General. He was a workhorse. There is no doubt he was a workhorse.

He was friendly. He wasn’t shy with the media, I’m told. And as Doug Lewis, my former law partner, describes him, he was always approachable and well thought of.

Now, Mr. Speaker, he was also a solid campaigner. I have not phoned him recently, but John Tory and I have talked about his campaigning. John Tory worked on at least one of his campaigns and has some great stories to tell. And my friend Peter Bethlenfalvy told me on the way in this morning that he in fact worked on his leadership in 1985. So his tentacles are wide, and he really was a model for all of us, Mr. Speaker.

I’m proud to say that although he carried water for the Argonauts, I carried water for him as a page. He sat right where Vic Fedeli is sitting when I was a page like these young individuals. And he was that: He was the guy who would stop and talk to you, ask you how you’re doing. But it’s also a lesson to all of us that they’re watching all of you, and it’s something that he set a model for.

Now, as High Commissioner, it says in the books—I like to read books—that he was often asked to Buckingham Palace and was entertained there. I suspect they asked him to Buckingham Palace because he entertained there. He was a great storyteller. He had an ability, again, to tell stories and bring people together. But this is what he did as High Commissioner: He refused to take the traditional post of the chairman of the 170-year-old Canada Club. Why? It didn’t allow women. That’s pretty remarkable.

Now, the thing that makes me reflect on how we’re doing is 1988, when he stepped down as High Commissioner—at the age of 56. It makes me feel like I’m not doing anything with my life, Mr. Speaker. But shortly thereafter, in 1991, he was appointed Associate Chief Justice by Prime Minister Kim Campbell and shortly after that by his friend Jean Chrétien to Chief Justice, where he served for a long time.

We’ve talked about policy; we’ve heard about policy. But Roy McMurtry is one of the few individuals that I’ve ever seen, ever had the privilege to meet, who spanned all political parties, all partisan positions and was a change leader from the front of the parade. He really was remarkable.

I want to thank the family for sharing him with us. Thank you for being here.

Applause.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): I want to thank the members for those eloquent tributes as this morning we’ve come together to give thanks for the life and public service of Roy McMurtry.

Question Period

Affordable housing

Ms. Marit Stiles: My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, I asked why the government was suddenly ruling out missing-middle housing options like fourplexes and risking losing billions in federal funding in the process. In response, the minister told us that they needed more details—more details before they would decide if they would accept the money.

The research has been done. The studies are clear and there’s no time to waste. So I have to ask again: Why is the Premier risking billions in badly needed federal funding by ruling out higher-density options?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Hon. Paul Calandra: Actually, Speaker, that’s in fact not what I said. What I said is that there were not enough details with respect to the announcements made by the federal government on its infrastructure programs. I also said that we would be working very closely with our municipal partners—AMO; big city mayors; ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—and we will be coming forward with a Team Ontario approach to ensure that we can access as much as of the federal dollars that have been put on the table.

At the same time, I’ve been very clear. The Premier has also been very clear that we don’t think that we’re in the best position to mandate what 444 municipalities should be doing across the province. We want to ensure that we meet our goals of building 1.5 million homes. That is why, of course, the Minister of Infrastructure has brought forward one of the largest infrastructure programs in the history of the province to ensure that we can get sewer and water in the ground. It is also backed up by the Minister of Education, who will be building more schools, and the Minister of Transportation, who is building more roads and transit. We’re building communities, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The supplementary question?

Ms. Marit Stiles: I’ll tell you, Speaker: Team Ontario is about to lose billions because of this government ignoring not just us in the official opposition but ignoring everyone, from grassroots activists to investors at Scotiabank to the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force. Everyone agrees that people need more affordable homes now. The Premier used to agree, but now it seems like he’s joined the chorus of NIMBY fearmongering by ruling out the solutions that we know are needed here in the province of Ontario.

Why is the Premier ignoring the experts, ignoring the people of this province and standing in the way of getting housing built?

Hon. Paul Calandra: Well, look, Mr. Speaker, to be clear, it’s not me ignoring the NDP; it’s pretty much the people of the province of Ontario who have ignored the NDP—for decades, frankly.

The reality is that we want to work with our municipal partners—there are 444 of them—who have very unique circumstances across the province of Ontario. We have set a goal of building 1.5 million homes, and across the province, we have heard one issue constantly gets in the way of building more homes, and that is sewer and water. That is why we brought forward a nation-leading program of $1.8 billion to build sewer, water, roads and bridges across the province of Ontario.

But what also gets in the way are high taxes and regulation. So the high interest rate policies of the federal government because of high inflation, because of overspending and taxation, are stopping people from building homes. They are also stopping people from being able to afford homes. So what we’re going to continue to do is double down on removing red tape, putting sewer and water and infrastructure in the ground, working with our municipal partners to build not only hundreds of homes but millions of homes in communities across—

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Thank you.

Final supplementary?

Ms. Marit Stiles: Speaker, they’re ruling out options. They’re risking billions in funding. It’s no wonder that we are no closer to getting those housing targets met. But don’t worry, they’ve got a plan for that. First, they added long-term-care beds to the count, and now they’re adding dorm rooms—dorm rooms. You can’t even have a microwave in a dorm room. My goodness, that is not a home. What’s next?

Speaker, people don’t want padded housing numbers. They want a decent place to live. If the Premier can’t get housing built, will he at least get out of the way so somebody else can do it?

Hon. Paul Calandra: I think that really highlights the difference between Progressive Conservatives, and Liberal and NDP, right? Student housing shouldn’t count, according to the Leader of the Opposition. It should be no surprise to anybody, because we saw what the federal government did: unilateral cuts to post-secondary education that are putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across this country at risk. When we say we’re going to invest in student housing so that students can have a home, they say it shouldn’t count.

I have talked about the student and the family in my riding. He works at Circle K. He works at the Petro-Canada. He and his family live in a basement apartment miles away from their college. You know what he said to me? He’d like to live closer to the college. He’d like to live on campus. He would like options. For the NDP, he’s a bother; he’s a nuisance. For us, he’s somebody who builds the province of Ontario, and we will stand by him every step of the way.

Health care funding

Ms. Marit Stiles: What are they going to count next? Jail cells? I mean, come on. People need housing. They need homes.

Speaker, every Ontarian should also be able to see a doctor. They should absolutely be able to see a doctor when they need it, but right now, 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family doctor, and that number is expected to nearly double in 2026. That’s going to be more than a quarter of the population in Ontario.

Despite the need, community health clinics haven’t seen a base budget increase in 15 years. They were forgotten in this year’s budget, too. While local clinics are being left to scrape by, the Premier’s budget for his office has somehow doubled since 2018. Does that seem right to the Premier?

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

Mr. Nolan Quinn: I thank the member from the opposition for allowing me to speak about Ontario’s world-class health care system. Our government has taken bold action through the Your Health plan. Ontario is leading the country, with over 90% of Ontarians having a family doctor or primary care provider. Since 2018, we’ve registered over 12,500 new physicians in Ontario, with 10% of those being family physicians. But we do understand more needs to be done.

The NDP, when in office, cut 10% of medical enrolment seats, and the former Liberal Premier in 2015 removed 50 medical residency positions, leaving Ontario with hundreds less physicians practising in our province today.

We also just announced the York University investment, where it will be exclusively towards family physicians. We will continue doing what is needed for the people of Ontario to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Supplementary question.

Ms. Marit Stiles: You’ve got to wonder, Speaker, which of the 48 staffers wrote that response.

This question again is for the Premier. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Canada Health Act, which enshrined into law the principle of universal public health care in this country.

Interjections.

Ms. Marit Stiles: Yes. It is something we can all be very proud of. I would think that today of all days the government would affirm their commitment to preserving the right to access health care based on need, not on the ability to pay. They’ve paid lip service to the Canada Health Act, but their actions show they’re only interested in expanding those private, for-profit clinics.

Can the Premier tell us what directives he has issued to prevent unfair billing for primary care?

Mr. Nolan Quinn: I thank the Leader of the Opposition again for allowing me to speak about Ontario’s world-class health care system.

Our government will not tolerate clinics taking advantage of a loophole created by federal legislation. We need the federal government to take action to ensure all people of Ontario and Canadians can access publicly funded primary care. The ministry reviews all possible violations that come to its attention, to ensure that all OHIP-insured patients who are charged for an insured service are reimbursed in full.

If the NDP is serious about expanding access to primary care, we invite them to vote in favour of our budget that will connect hundreds of thousands of people to primary care in their communities for years to come.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Final supplementary.

Ms. Marit Stiles: Speaker, I’ll tell you what: This government’s platitudes mean nothing to the 2.3 million Ontarians who are struggling to find a family doctor right now, to those standing in line to register for a doctor or those waiting hours and hours in emergency rooms.

Times are tough for Ontarians, and this government is only making it harder by compromising that treasured health care system, that public health care system that we all believe so strongly in. The government is moving at an absolutely glacial pace, approving and funding integrated primary care teams. They either don’t understand the urgency, or they’re hoping they can push everyone into for-profit health care to benefit their corporate friends.

So to the Premier: Which is it? Incompetence or insiders?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Ted Arnott): Members will please take their seats.

The Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Hon. Jill Dunlop: Let’s look at the history of