Legislative Assembly of Ontario · House
The official record of the sitting, from Hansard, by section and topic. Passages link to the Assembly’s video of Members’ Statements and Question Period where it is posted.
Read from the beginning of the sitting
The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ric Bresee)
Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
First reading agreed to.
Mr. Mike Schreiner
This bill establishes a moratorium on AI data centres and establishes an advisory committee to prepare legislative amendments designed to ensure that strict environmental and societal guidelines are put in place such that they have limits on noise, electricity use and water use, among other things, and that they are Canadian-owned and -operated and will benefit their local community.
Ms. Chandra Pasma
I am pleased to rise on behalf of my constituents in Ottawa West–Nepean to table a petition entitled “Repeal Bill 5.” Just as a reminder, Bill 5 is the bill that was passed by this government and rammed through the Legislature which creates special economic zones that allow cabinet to set aside any laws within a particular region, whether they’re labour laws, environmental protections, or public health rules. But it also runs roughshod over the duty to consult with First Nations. The First Nations have been very clear that it violates the duty to consult and ignores the requirement of free, prior and informed consent. We are marking treaties week here in Ontario this week, and the member for Kiiwetinoong spoke very movingly this morning about the importance of that treaty relationship and respect—and, quite frankly, the lack of respect that the Ontario government has historically had for the treaty relationship, and the need to rebuild trust and ensure that we are following our obligations. As the member was very clear, Bill 5 does not respect that treaty obligations, and my constituents agree with that. They are calling for the Legislature to repeal Bill 5, to start over again from scratch with full consultation, so that we do development properly in Ontario, in full partnership and with respect for the rights of treaty holders. I wholeheartedly endorse this petition, will add my name to it, and send it to the table with page Jessica.
Mr. Ted Hsu
I have a petition from my constituents entitled “Increase Funding for Staff and Ensure All Students Have the Support They Need at School.” They are asking us to commit to funding to hire more education workers in schools across Ontario, to ensure that students have the supports and schools have the number of adults to ensure that our kids have a proper learning environment. This is the number one thing I hear from teachers, Speaker. They need more help in the classroom to ensure that all of our kids have the environment they need to learn.
Mr. Joseph Racinsky
I have a petition here from my constituents asking the Legislature to pass Bill 119, Protecting Ontario’s Streets and Communities Act. Specifically, this petition is concerned with the expansion of administrative monetary penalties to the municipalities so they can tackle illegal truck yards. It’s a big issue in Halton Hills, and I want to thank the many constituents that continue to sign this petition supporting Bill 119, including the other measures contained in it. I support this petition, I will sign it and hand it to page Marcus to bring to the table.
Mme France Gélinas
I would like to thank the Ontario Nurses’ Association for this petition—more specifically Vanessa Desjardins from Lively in my riding. This petition has thousands of signatures from all over Ontario. The petition is called “Stop Privatization and Support Staffing Ratios.” The petition talks about the understaffing that is negatively impacting the quality of public health available, causing longer wait times, unreliable access to care, unmanageable workload and many more issues. Understaffing causes burnout in our nurses and health care professionals, which drives many of them out of the profession. Did you know, Speaker, that one in five registered nurses with the College of Nurses is non-practising because of burnout and many other reasons? Nurses and health care professional staffing ratios restore our public health care and ensure quality care across the system. The underfunding of our health care system, while the private, for-profit corporations are getting funded, is something that doesn’t sit well with them. The nurse vacancies and burnout decrease in other jurisdictions—if you look at British Columbia or Manitoba, where they are putting forward nursing ratios. They ask the Legislative Assembly to mandate staffing ratios for nurses and health care professionals. We will have an opportunity to debate that bill on November 25. I hope everybody will support it. I support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask the good page Penelope to bring it to the Clerk.
Mr. Ted Hsu
I have a petition—actually, this is an older petition, but it continues to come in. This is a petition which asks the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to expand the Ontario Breast Screening Program to allow women over the age of 74 to self-refer for mammogram screening.
Mr. Dave Smith
I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. We know, back in 2018 when we were first elected, one of the biggest challenges that Ontarians were facing was the cost of electricity and that reliable and affordable electricity is something that is essential for all households. We know that a strong electrical grid is something that our businesses need for our communities to continue growing. We also know that—the NDP opposed it, but having the refurb of the Pickering nuclear plant and ensuring that we have a good, strong base-level nuclear power in Ontario is something that is imperative for a modern electrical infrastructure system like ours to continue to meet the long-term goals and long-term energy needs for Ontario. And we know that, when you’re putting in the largest nuclear reactor in Wesleyville, here in Ontario, this is a project that will employ a significant number of people across all of Ontario: pipefitters, construction workers, skilled labour of all kinds. This is something that is very, very good for the people of the province of Ontario, supporting skilled trade jobs when we know that the Americans, right now, have this tariff war on us which is causing so much havoc with our system. Therefore, we the undersigned petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to pass the 2026 fall economic statement, because this is something that will support all of those workers across Ontario. I fully endorse this petition. I will sign it and give it to page Anne to take it to the table.
Mr. Tom Rakocevic
This important petition is about taking all taxes off food. It came as a huge surprise when the Conservative government voted against a very important NDP bill to remove the tax off of all foods. Members of your communities, our communities, are coming home—the clocks have been rolled back—in pitch darkness after working a long shift and overtime. They don’t have time in some cases to whip together a meal. They go by the grocery store. They just want to buy a prepared meal like a chicken, and guess what? They get slapped around with taxes on this. This is what we tried to remove, and this petition is the people of Ontario calling on this government to take the taxes off all foods. It’s time. Do the right thing. I’m absolutely supporting this petition, and I’m giving it to page Penelope.
Mr. Ted Hsu
This is a petition entitled “Municipal Integrity.” They are petitioning the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to pass legislation requiring all candidates seeking municipal office to submit a criminal background check and to introduce eligibility criteria prohibiting individuals recently convicted of serious criminal offences from running for municipal office for a fixed period of time afterwards.
Mr. Mike Schreiner
I have a petition from over 200 individuals raising concerns about the threats of unregulated AI data centres in their communities. The petitioners raise concerns about the negative impacts, including how much water they use, how much energy they consume, how few jobs they create and how much noise they make. They’re also concerned that tech billionaires are benefiting more than communities and local everyday folks. As a result of that, these petitioners are asking the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to implement a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centres until their effects on water, power, health and jobs are studied, regulated and made public. I fully support this petition. I will sign it and ask page Kate to bring it to the table.
Ms. Jennifer K. French
I am very pleased to present this petition. As you may or may not know, I used to be a teacher. Old habits die hard, so I’m very pleased to be able to bring the voices from across Durham region. This is a petition to the Ontario Legislative Assembly to reduce class sizes in our public elementary schools. The signatures were gathered from across the Durham District School Board. I’m sure many of us have been hearing from teachers and education workers about the need to invest in our schools for so many reasons. Some of those reasons are that this government is not investing what is needed to keep up with the costs. We’re looking at about $6.35 billion that has been cut since 2018 from public education. But what that means is we see larger class sizes and inadequate special education and mental health supports for students. Larger class sizes have a negative impact on the quality of education. It reduces access to the teaching resources, significantly diminishes the teacher-student interactions and also the education worker and student interactions. That’s so detrimental to the students who really need that support. The vast majority of parents, of education workers, educators, students—really, everybody—recognizes that smaller class sizes are better, and they want what’s best for all of our students in our public education system. I would say, Speaker, everybody except this government. So here we are, calling on them to recognize—our school system has always been internationally recognized, but in order for that to continue, we have to invest. We have to respect it. This petition is calling on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to commit to making the necessary investments in public education to lower class sizes, increase student supports and ensure students have the schools that they need. Their learning environment is the working environment, and they all deserve respect and investment. So, of course, I support this. I will affix my signature and send it to the table with page Jessica.
Ms. Chandra Pasma
It’s my pleasure to rise to present a petition on behalf of Dr. Sally Palmer—the tireless Dr. Sally Palmer—entitled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.” We know that there’s a real challenge in the cost of living. We’re hearing more and more from people who are struggling to put food on the table on top of paying for housing. We know that one in four households in Ottawa is now food insecure, and we’re seeing record use of food banks. But there’s no doubt that the people who are among the poorest residents of Ontario are those who are receiving ODSP and Ontario Works, both of which are pegged so far below what it actually costs to pay for even a basic apartment that we are leaving these people cruelly struggling to survive in Ontario. We saw, with the basic income pilot, that when we actually invest in income security, people have better health outcomes; they’re actually able to go back to school; they’re actually able to find employment. What we’re doing is making it impossible for people to lead healthy lives where they’re able to get back on their feet, to be able to live a life of basic human dignity. More than 230 organizations have signed a letter to the Premier and his cabinet asking that social assistance rates be doubled. We also saw with the CERB program during the pandemic how important that level of financial security was for people, and how quickly we could flow it out. I wholeheartedly endorse this petition calling for the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates. I will add my name to it and send it to the table with page Oliver.
Mme France Gélinas
I’m proud to present this petition called “Let’s Fix the Northern Health Travel Grant” and thank Mrs. Shirley Vezina, who lives in Foleyet, a little community in the north of my riding, for this petition. Basically, the Northern Health Travel Grant exists because we don’t have the same health care services in northern Ontario that exist in southern Ontario. We don’t have organ transplants, and we don’t have many services. People have to travel. In order to gain access to those services, we use the Northern Health Travel Grant. The Northern Health Travel Grant has not kept up with the pace of change: the price of gas or the price of renting a hotel room in Toronto. There have been some changes done in the right direction, but people would like to be able to have a committee where they would sit with the minister to talk about how it’s just as hard to go to the dentist, because none of the communities in my riding have dentists; it’s just as hard to go see an optometrist. It would be good to be able to support people from northern Ontario to gain access to dentists, optometrists and many other health services that are not available in small communities in the north. I have hundreds and hundreds of people that have signed the petition. They ask for a Northern Health Travel Grant advisory committee that would bring together health care providers in the north, as well as recipients of the Northern Health Travel Grant, to make recommendations to the Minister of Health that would improve access to health care to the people who live in northern Ontario, like myself and the people that I represent. I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask page Sarvesh to bring it to the Clerk.
Resuming the debate adjourned on November 3, 2026, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:
Bill 143, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 143, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.
Mr. Deepak Anand
I am pleased to continue my remarks. As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister for Seniors and Accessibility, I want to speak about the important work our ministry is doing. At its heart, the ministry has a simple but powerful purpose: According to provincial projections, Ontario had approximately 3.1 million seniors in 2025, a number expected to reach 4.6 million by 2051, including me and hopefully you too, Mr. Leardi. Statistics Canada also identified approximately 3.2 million Ontarians aged 15 and older living with disabilities in 2022. Speaker, these are more than statistics; these numbers are the people that represent our parents, neighbours, friends and those who helped build the Ontario we know today. They remind us that the province’s strength must be measured not only by its prosperity but by the opportunities it creates for its people. For 2027, in the FES, our ministry’s expenditures are estimated at $178 million in operating spending to support programs that promote independence, strengthen communities and remove barriers. Let’s take a look at it: —$100.2 million for the Ontario Seniors Care at Home Tax Credit to help low- and moderate-income seniors with eligible medical expenses, providing up to $1,500 annually—every single year—per eligible senior family and expected to support over 200,000 families; —$22.9 million for seniors active living centres—and there are 416 such centres in our province of Ontario—to help older adults remain physically active, mentally healthy, independent and socially connected to live independently with dignity; and —$7 million for seniors community grants, supporting approximately 325 community projects in 2026-27, with grants of up to $25,000 for local organizations. Behind these figures are people—a senior seeking connection, a caregiver balancing responsibilities and a person with a disability seeking to work and travel without barriers. We are also providing $2.4 million for the seniors safety line, elder abuse prevention and the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, including 24/7 confidential support in over 150 languages and assistance for seniors living with dementia and their caregivers. Speaker, accessibility is equally central to our mandate. Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, our ministry works to identify, prevent and remove barriers to participation. Let’s look at the initiatives that we do: —$15.6 million for the Home and Vehicle Modifications Program, delivered through March of Dimes Canada—if you know anyone, they can get help—up to $15,000 for home modifications and an additional $15,000 for vehicle modifications every 10 years, including ramps, stairlifts or accessible bathrooms. These are the ways we’re making sure that our community has the care that they need; —$2.25 million for the Enhancing Access to Spaces for Everyone program, providing up to $60,000 per project for accessible ramps, washrooms, pathways and community improvements to some of the organizations that are helping our seniors and people with disabilities. Our ministry is small, but it has a big impact. Whether helping seniors remain connected to their communities or enabling people with disabilities to overcome barriers, under the leadership of Premier Ford, our responsibility is clear: to build an Ontario where every individual has the opportunity to thrive. As parliamentary assistant, I look forward to working alongside the minister, community partners and members across this House to advance these priorities. I encourage all members: Look at the list of grants and other programs available for seniors, look at the active-senior areas that are in your riding and reach out to seniors and people with disabilities, especially during the Christmas period. That is the time when we can stand with them and celebrate our province and our prosperity. As parliamentary assistants, PA Daisy Wai and I are available to assist wherever and with whatever is needed. Speaker, moving on to infrastructure, health care and the next-generation part of the FES: The strongest investments are the ones that make daily life better today and open doors for tomorrow. Let’s look at what we’re doing here. We’re making sure Ontario’s $210-billion capital plan includes highways, transit, hospitals, schools and other critical infrastructure. Road improvement mean less time in traffic; more reliable transit means getting to work on time; a new hospital or school means greater confidence in the future of a growing community. Infrastructure is not only concrete and steel; it is the time returned to a parent, access created for a person with a disability, opportunity brought closer to home. Health care is deeply personal to me. Speaker, as you know, my daughter, Suvidhi Anand, is training to be a nurse, and my son, Shrey Anand, is working in medical clinic fields. It is important that we serve our communities. When a child becomes sick, a parent wants help, when somebody is living with a chronic condition, they want continuity. When a loved one grows older, a family wants to know that the care is accessible and compassionate. That is why this government is making sure we are making investments through a four-year primary care action plan that commits $3.4 billion toward connecting more people to primary care. The minister’s broader economic plan also emphasizes continued investment in hospitals and essential public services. These are the commitments that require sustained implementation. I want to see our young Ontarians believe that their efforts will lead somewhere. Whether their path is in skilled trades, technology, health care, engineering or entrepreneurship, they should have the chance to develop their abilities and contribute to our province. That is why, Speaker, compassion and responsibility must go together. We know today we’re going through a tough time, and I always believe a tough time is a test time. This is the time to be financially prudent while making required investments. Let’s look at Ontario’s projected net debt-to-GDP ratio: Last year, it was 37.7%; today, it is 37.4%. It may look like a number, but what it does is it tells that there is progress. By the way, this number also includes additional contingency funding and reserves to help the province respond to economic risks. As we know, fiscal discipline is not the opposite of compassion; it is one of the ways we preserve our ability to act when people need us most. And investment is not an end in itself; it is the value found in the job it supports, the care it makes possible and the opportunities it creates along the way. This is the choice before us: to meet uncertainty with fear and delay, or prepare ourselves with confidence and determination. Bill 143 and the fall economic statement reflect our government’s approach to helping workers and businesses, the job creators, face immediate pressure while strengthening Ontario’s foundation for future growth. The goal is straightforward: Let’s keep people working. Let’s help job creators invest. Let’s make daily life more affordable. Let’s build the infrastructure communities need and ensure that seniors and people with disabilities are supported. In today’s digital world, uncertainty is the only thing that’s certain. We can only hope that the world may become predictable soon—probably after this mid-term. Meanwhile, we can stay focused and take challenges seriously to prioritize what matters to us and to keep working for the people who have placed their trust in us. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister of Finance, his PA and his entire team for their leadership and for presenting the 2026 fall economic statement. Going forward, we are going into budget consultations, which will be happening soon. This is the time for all Ontarians to come forward, work with the government and come to those consultations. They will be going city to city, the minister and the PA, along with committee, listening to people’s needs, helping them, working with them and making sure all those suggestions are documented, listened to and worked with. As I come to my closing remarks, I look forward to supporting the bill, and I look forward to all the members: If you believe in a better, stronger Ontario, if you believe that we are in an uncertain time and we need to stand up, fight back and build an even stronger Ontario, I urge each one of you to support our fall economic statement. Let’s continue to work together to build a better, stronger Ontario.
Mme France Gélinas
The fall economic statement makes reference to Highway 69 briefly. Bill 143, the bill we’re debating, an act to implement budget measures, has two schedules—Building Ontario Fund Act under schedule 3, and schedule 7, Capital Investment Plan Act—where the government could have said how much money will be going towards Highway 69, when it will start, when it will end and how long the project will take. The Minister of Transportation has talked about cutting the project into six sections. Four of them are supposed to go forward—he had said last time he was in Sudbury—to tender this fall, with shovels in the ground next year, 2027. I was rather surprised that not a mention of Highway 69 is included in Bill 143. Is Highway 69 a priority or not?
Mr. Deepak Anand
Anything that supports our province is always a priority. That is why, when it comes to building infrastructure, our government is delivering the largest capital plan in Ontario’s history. We’re talking about $210 billion in planned investments over the next decade, and this plan is helping us to build highways, transit systems, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure. Speaker, these projects are supporting our economic growth, improving connectivity and creating communities with skilled workers across Ontario. We’re making sure communities are safe and progressing, and that is what we’re doing through this. I’m looking forward to members on all sides supporting this fall economic statement so that we can build a better, stronger Ontario.
Mr. Lorne Coe
Speaker, you’ll know that in the fall economic statement, our government announced the Ontario Competitiveness Tax Cut, which will provide $8 billion in provincial tax relief to help businesses, whether they’re in Whitby or other parts of the region of Durham, to lower the cost of investing in machinery, equipment and other capital assets. This measure is part of the government’s broader plan to strengthen Ontario’s competitiveness and encourage long-term economic growth. Speaker, through you, I’d like the member for Mississauga–Malton to explain how this tax cut will help local businesses in his riding invest, expand and create good-paying jobs.
Mr. Deepak Anand
Speaker, first of all, I want to recognize the wonderful member for Whitby, who has always been a champion for his community. To the member from Whitby: Not only for my riding of Mississauga–Malton but your riding of Whitby and all along everywhere else, our government understands that Ontario must remain competitive to attract investment and create good-paying jobs. As we all know, Speaker, it’s like any other vicious cycle. If we are competitive, investors are going to come. When they’re going to invest, we’re going to create jobs. When we’re going to create jobs, we will bring the prosperity. When we bring the prosperity, more investors will come. And that’s what we’re doing through this bill. Speaker, we announced the Ontario Competitiveness Tax Cut, which would provide $8 billion in provincial tax relief to lower the cost of business investment. The measure will allow businesses to write off 100% of the value of a wide range of eligible capital assets. So, Speaker, I’m saying this to all the people looking to invest—
MPP Jamie West
Thank you to my colleague from Mississauga–Malton. I know he’s also the PA for seniors and accessibility, and so, Speaker, I’m very happy to share, especially because it’s a week from Remembrance Day and one month from the 100th anniversary of my Legion—the Dr. Fred Starr Branch 76 Legion. It’s my Legion, my dad’s Legion. They’ll be 100 years old this year on December 2. They’ve been a staple in the community in Sudbury for 100 years, and 54 of them in the location they have right now. I just think it’s a great thing to share with everybody to be able to celebrate that. As well, Speaker, I spoke with the Solicitor General. He’s going to help me out in helping them to celebrate, and that’s a great thing. I just wonder if my colleague had anything he’d want to share about the fall economic statement that would be helpful for seniors and for veterans?
Mr. Deepak Anand
Thank you for that wonderful question and congratulations. Speaker, talking about the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility—something which I have recently joined, and I’m looking forward to all the wonderful work we’re doing within this ministry—we are making sure during even this tough time, we’re not reducing. We’re actually making sure there’s enough money for people—for our seniors and for those with disabilities. We’re making sure there is $178 million, which will be invested and will continue to be invested through this fall economic statement. I’m looking forward to all members—let’s take care of those who took care of us, our seniors, and let’s work with them. Especially, the Christmas season is coming—I encourage everyone to reach out to the local seniors centre and meet your seniors during this Christmas season.
Mr. Ted Hsu
I wanted to return to the subject of my honourable colleague from Whitby’s question about the productivity mega deduction, and I am actually quite happy that this government has followed the lead of the federal government to put in the productivity mega deduction. In Canada, we have under-invested; we have been lagging in business expenditure on research and development. It’s a stat that Statistics Canada keeps. But it is one thing to have investment in equipment and buildings. It is another thing to have the key people to convert those things into innovation and competitiveness and good jobs. I think one thing that we’re missing here is support for training those key people, for finding those key people. Why isn’t the government, at the same time, funding universities at the amount recommended by their own blue-ribbon panel?
Mr. Deepak Anand
The question is about funding in universities. We have a wonderful PA, we have a wonderful minister who’s been helping our universities. And in fact, Speaker, we have recently made investments in the universities to the tune of $6.4 billion in additional funding, bringing annual operating funding to $7 billion, the highest level in the province’s history. Speaker, this is not just money. What matters most is our young professionals, our youth leaders for the future. We want to be in line with their needs. That’s why this funding also includes support for 70,000 more seats for in-demand programs like STEM, health care, education and—
Mr. Mike Schreiner
I was looking and the Daily Bread Food Bank released their hunger report today. I found it particularly disturbing that one in eight children in Toronto rely on a food bank in order to be fed. I was thinking, where in the fall economic statement—especially since I’ve participated in events of the food bank where all parties have participated—is there a specific policy program targeting ending this hunger of so many young children in our communities?
Mr. Deepak Anand
First of all, I want to say thank you to the member opposite for asking that question, something that is very dear to me. I’ll tell you the reason why it is very dear to me. My wife, Aruna Anand, runs a program called Fueling Healthy Minds. As we know, in my riding of Mississauga–Malton, two out of five children come to school without breakfast. There was a tweet that came out that said, “What’s going to happen during COVID because there’s no school open? Where are these kids going to go? Where are they going to get their breakfast?” Speaker, rather than just listening or reading that tweet, she actually acted on it. The government cannot do everything. She believes it is the community’s responsibility to come together, to work together. That’s why she started a program, where she reached out to local businesses and picked up their surplus food. Every single Friday, she packs the food for a week for these students. These students are from the Peel school board and the Catholic school board. I think it’s a great example. If we all come together as a community, we can work to alleviate all these pressures.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ric Bresee)
I don’t think there’s enough time left. We’ll move to further debate. Further debate?
Mme France Gélinas
I’m happy to have a few minutes to talk about the fall economic statement as well as Bill 143, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes. I would like to start with page 96. Page 96 is called, “Building highways for northern Ontario”—something that is dear and near to my heart. I travel northern highways all the time. I have a highway—Highway 144, 300 kilometres from Sudbury to Timmins—that starts in my riding and ends in my riding. Many highways are in need of support, but the one that I want to focus on is the 68 kilometres of Highway 69 that is still a two-lane road. I want to bring up page 96 because on page 96, the government goes through an entire page of projects that they intend to do. There’s nothing wrong with projects. The number one they talk about is the Little Current Swing Bridge. If you’ve ever gone to Manitoulin Island to see the swing bridge, it’s something that needs to be seen—really, really cool. But they also need a bridge that is there throughout the winter and everything else. They talk about the passing opportunity with the 2+1 highway. They talk about expanding Highway 17 from Thunder Bay to Nipigon. They talk about Kenora to the Manitoulin border. They talk about the permanent bridge in Pikangikum. They talk about the $81.3 million in Geraldton. And then they talk about Highway 69. I will read for you what is written: “Advancing the widening of Highway 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury from two to four lanes by introducing legislation to speed up permitting and approvals and get shovels in the ground up to five years earlier.” When people in northern Ontario read this, Speaker, it’s not well received. Why is it that we have the amount of money that goes to other highway infrastructure, but we don’t have a penny allocated to Highway 69? Why is it that the others have a starting time, a time where it will go out for tender and how long the work will take, but not when it comes to Highway 69? For Highway 69, all we get is that they’re introducing legislation to speed up permitting, when this legislation already exists in Ontario. They passed that legislation about two years ago to fast-track the 413 and others. All they had to do was take that legislation, put a new regulation in place and add Highway 69 to it, and voila, case closed—it’s done. Speaker, there are so, so many people who have lost loved ones on Highway 69, whose families’ lives have been changed forever because of serious accidents that leave people seriously handicapped. I will tell you that even the paramedics who work that stretch of highway, many of them have PTSD. They know that when they get a call for that stretch of highway, it’s going to be brutal. It’s going to be people badly hurt. It’s going to be a head-on collision, and more than likely with a big truck, where people will die, where people will be severely injured. The Minister of Transportation came to Sudbury three times in the last four months to talk about how important it was to them. When we started the session back last Tuesday, one of the first questions—the Premier was there; he answered the question. Within 90 minutes of Parliament being back on, they were talking about Highway 69 and how important it was. But when it comes to allocating money to it—because we’re talking about an economic statement here—when it comes to actually setting a starting date, length of construction, how things are going to go, how long it will take—nothing. We get, “Advancing the widening of Highway 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury from two to four lanes by introducing legislation.” If you’re a northerner and you read this, Speaker, it doesn’t fly. It’s not acceptable. The other projects have money allocated to them; tell us that there’s money allocated to Highway 69. Other projects have dates where tenders will be started; tell us when things will go out to tender. The six sections—I have no problem with dividing it in sections. When the six sections are divided, let us know. Where do they start? Where do they end? Which one will go forward? Give people a sense that it is an important project, that you understand that if you want the minerals, if you want all the resources that are in northern Ontario, you need a road to get there and you need a road to get back home. Right now, Highway 69 is way too dangerous. When you have an entire page dedicated to advancing highways in northern Ontario and you don’t have a single date, a single penny, a single anything allocated to it, it’s not acceptable. But I’ll move on. I’m now on page 119. It talks about expanding primary health care teams. This is something good that has been happening in our province. More and more, interdisciplinary primary health care teams are receiving money to be able to hire more staff so that they can provide access to more people. The thing is that what they provide is attachment, not necessarily access. We all know that the Ontario Medical Association was here at Queen’s Park yesterday. They came, talked to anybody who would listen to them and basically said—their research is there—50% of family physicians intend to take retirement in the next five years. Where is the plan to make sure that we will be able to give access? It’s one thing to be attached—it’s great. You’re attached to a new primary health care team, a community health centre, a family health team, a nurse practitioner health clinic, an Indigenous primary health care team; that’s great. But what happens when 50% of primary care physicians retire? You’re attached, but you have no access. To be attached to a family health team and the next available appointment is in three months is not that hopeful or that useful. So I would like the ministry to not only focus on attachment but also focus on access. People need access. There has to be same-day appointments for some urgent problems that arise. There has to be next-day appointments in every interdisciplinary health care team so that people get the access that they need. None of that is in there. One thing that I found really interesting—and I will quote again—is they’re “calling for fair and sustainable federal funding for health care.” They talk about that the “temporary extension is a positive first step, sustainable and predictable federal funding is essential to sustaining public services.” Funny, because you can go to any health care provider—so the Ontario Hospital Association has asked for exactly what they want: sustainable and predictable funding coming from the provincial government. But it never comes. It’s always the same. You see the budget. Their fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31. In September, they will get their budget, and then in December, if they’re lucky, some of the money put aside will be floating to a hospital. That’s not what they want. They need to be able to plan. They want to be able to plan three years in advance. In northern Ontario, you cannot hire a new physician or a new nurse or a new lab tech—you can’t do this in three months’ time; you need to give them time to plan so that they can deliver the care that we expect them to deliver. The government asked for this and hoped to be listened to, but I can tell you that the health care providers in Ontario asked the government to do the exact same thing, but the government is not willing to do what they’re asking for. There’s a bit of a disconnect here. Then we go to page 123, “building and expanding hospitals,” where they go through the fact that the government is investing $64 billion in health care infrastructure, including $50 billion in capital grants over the next 10 years. So for the next 10 years, we have $50 billion to build hospitals and we have about 50 hospital projects in the waiting queue. But let me tell you, Speaker, that the new Ottawa Hospital will cost us about $10 billion. The last hospital that was just built under the progressive P3 system that the government has put in place cost $14 billion. I’m strong in math. If a hospital costs us $10 billion and we have $50 billion for the next 10 years, that means in the next 10 years, we’ll build—if we’re lucky—five hospitals. There are 50 of them—50 hospitals. We have 142 hospital corporations. Fifty hospitals need to be rebuilt or expanded, including Health Sciences North. Health Sciences North is the name of the hospital in Sudbury. It was renovated in 2001. We used to have four hospitals in Sudbury: the memorial hospital, the general hospital—anyway, we used to have four; we now have one. They’ve all been consolidated under what is called now Health Sciences North, Horizon Santé-Nord. It was built too small; it is still too small. We are in 2026, 25 years later, and we are at section 1C, I think, in the building of a new hospital project. The government can say, “Oh, we have $50 billion over 10 years,” but the new progressive P3 that the government has put into place has hospitals coming out—as I say, Ottawa Hospital: $10 billion; the last hospital before that: $14 billion. It doesn’t leave too much money for too many new hospitals; although $50 billion seems to me like such a huge amount of money. The Auditor General told the government about the progressive P3 that they have put into place, that it was supposed to increase the number of different companies who had an opportunity to bid on the different jobs. The exact opposite has happened. Only one bidder came forward, and it’s a bidder who—I don’t know why, but they’re very, very generous with making donations to the Conservative Party, but they also happen to be the one and only bidder that answered the call for proposals and they got the contract. What we thought would cost maybe up to $2.8 billion at the time—nobody could believe that: “It’s $2.8 billion for the Ottawa Hospital? No, no, no; the P3 will save you money. You’ll see. We have a new progressive system in place. It will be way cheaper.” And now the reality hits us that what we thought was impossible before—how could it cost $2.8 billion?—well, no, it now costs $10 billion under the new financing scheme that the government has put into place. There are many hospitals that are in need of expansion. The government has a goal of 3,000 new hospital beds. If they continue down this path, there is zero chance that we will ever get there. I’m now on page 125. Page 125 talks about the new emergency department action team to shorten wait times. The Ontario nurse practitioners’ association was at Queen’s Park. I think it was the first day we were back; they were here with us. I’m sure if you took the time to listen to what they had to say you would remember that they need to be at the table. The new emergency department action team—is it something good? Yes, absolutely. We need to do something about our emergency departments. It makes no sense that people go to the emergency department because they’re sick, because they’re ill, because they need care, and they sit and wait for 18 hours—in my neck of the woods, 36 hours. You will run out of diapers with your baby before your baby is seen. What? Does it need to change? Yes. Are there strategies out there that exist to decrease wait times in emergency departments? Yes, there are best practices that exist elsewhere. The NDP has put forward many ideas as to how you do this. So the government has put an emergency department action team—you have to realize that nurse practitioners are a huge part of the solution, and they need to be at the table; they need to be considered at every table that Ontario Health puts together. How can we have a primary care action team with no nurse practitioner sitting at that table, no nurse practitioner at Ontario Health? That makes no sense. Things have to change—and I just realized that time goes by really quickly. The dentists are here at Queen’s Park. Their recommendation—they have four recommendations for change.
Mme France Gélinas
They want to make it easier to get dental assistants, to make it easier so that, if you are a dental assistant in Manitoba or Quebec, if you want to come to Ontario, to make it easier. Right now, they have to redo their entire course. As well as look at what happened with—the great majority of dental assistants get their training through private career colleges, and now most of them have been stopped. So there’s already a huge shortage of dental assistants. What’s happening with our career colleges is going to make that shortage even worse. It has to change. The same thing with—the suggestion that was made by the Ontario Medical Association yesterday to centralize referral systems. This is something that decreased the amount of time that people have to wait. When your family physician sends a referral to a specialist, the specialist has two weeks to answer back to your family physician whether he or she is able to see that patient or not. So two weeks later, you get the response: “No, I can’t see your patient.” You send another referral to another specialist who has two weeks to answer to you and says no. Sometimes months will go by before you can find a specialist who’s able to take on your patient. A centralized referral system changes all of this. Why we don’t have that in Ontario—other provinces do it. We do it for some specialties but not for all. This has to change. It’s not in the budget. It wouldn’t cost a whole lot of money, but it needs to happen. J’aimerais dire quelques mots en français également. En ce moment, au département de la culture, il y a eu des coupes au niveau de l’argent qui est disponible pour les artistes visuels francophones en Ontario—massives. On parle de près de 30 % de coupures, comparé à ce qui s’est fait dans les années précédentes. Si tu regardes du côté anglophone, on n’a pas vu de coupures, mais du côté francophone, on en voit beaucoup. Même chose avec l’Université de Toronto. L’Université de Toronto offre un programme pour préparer des enseignants qui vont travailler dans les universités pour enseigner aux étudiants comment devenir professeur. Donc ils offrent des cours de maîtrise et de doctorat en français pour les gens qui vont devenir professeurs dans nos facultés d’éducation pour enseigner aux professeurs. Ce programme-là se fait couper. C’est le seul programme qui existe en Ontario. Ils ont de beaux partenariats qui ont été faits avec l’Université de l’Ontario français, etc. Tout ça est en train de se faire couper. On ne sait pas pourquoi, mais on voit que les coupures aux programmes francophones ont tendance à être difficiles à justifier mais se font faire de toute façon. Il y a beaucoup d’autres choses que j’aurais aimé voir. There are many other things that I would have liked to have seen in this budget: bringing in pharmacare for people with diabetes and for birth control medication. We see the huge difference it has made in British Columbia, in Manitoba, in Prince Edward Island when people have access to diabetes medication. Diabetes is treatable, but if you don’t manage it well there are many, many risks to your health. The great majority of people with foot amputations are diabetic. All of this changes. There are many things that should have been in there that are not, but thank you, Speaker, for allowing me a few minutes to talk about the fall economic statement.
Mr. Ted Hsu
I want to thank my honourable colleague from Nickel Belt for talking about dental assistants, because I did have the Ontario Dental Association visit my office this morning. The dentist who came has their office right next door to Trillium College, in the mall in Kingston. They would hire the dental assistant students, who are just one class away from starting their placements. They’ve been hiring students from Trillium College for a while. They just, for the life of them, cannot understand why this government chose to use a sledgehammer to cut off OSAP from all private colleges when they have this relationship with Trillium College training dental assistants. They’re short of dental assistants. The whole dental sector needs more assistants to provide better care. I want to invite my colleague from Nickel Belt to expand on her remarks regarding dental assistants.
Mme France Gélinas
Thank you for the question. The Ontario Dental Association is here at Queen’s Park. If you haven’t had a chance to talk to them, please do. They would be more than happy to accommodate a meeting with you. They were there at lunch; they’re there tonight also, if you can. But at the end of the day, there are more people that have access to dentists now because of the Canadian dental program that has become available to millions of Ontarians. The demand on dental services has increased; the demand for dental assistants has increased, but unfortunately, the government decided to cut all of the career colleges, and that includes dental assistants, that includes PSWs, that includes paramedics. A lot of private colleges that were doing good work are now closed, and dental assistants that were days away from practising are—
M. Andrew Dowie
Alors, question pour la députée de Nickel Belt—merci pour votre discours. Je vois, chez moi, même les entreprises les plus solides peuvent faire face à d’importantes difficultés dans leur trésorerie lorsque les tarifs douaniers perturbent les commandes, les investissements et les chaînes d’approvisionnement. Les relations, ça compte pour beaucoup entre les compagnies, et on ne sait jamais si une compagnie, un client est plus nationaliste ou non. C’est pourquoi le programme de financement pour la protection de l’Ontario met jusqu’à 1 milliard de dollars en prêts de fonds de roulement à la disposition des entreprises admissibles. Alors, ma question pour la députée, c’est si elle appuie cette mesure pour protéger les emplois et soutenir les employeurs dans sa circonscription.
Mme France Gélinas
Ce sont des pas dans la bonne direction. Je vous dirais que vous devriez essayer d’augmenter ceux qui sont admissibles à ces fonds-là, parce que si tu regardes du côté médical, il y a beaucoup de petites et de grosses entreprises qui fonctionnent dans cette partie-là de notre économie qui, elles, n’y ont pas accès. Par contre, ce qui se passe aux États-Unis a un gros impact sur tout ce qui a rapport au système de santé. Mais eux, même s’ils doivent laisser aller des employés, même s’ils perdent des contrats, ils n’y ont pas accès. Donc, pour les entreprises qui ont accès à ce fonds-là, oui, absolument. Ce qui se passe avec nos amis du Sud, on doit le prendre sérieusement, mais on doit admettre plus de différentes entreprises à ce fonds-là.
MPP Jamie West
Thank you to my colleague from Nickel Belt for talking about the fall economic statement, and I too ripped open the book and was looking for Highway 69, as you’d mentioned. There’s a whole section on highways, and if I can just read the part on Highway 69—it is a couple of pages in. The good side, Speaker, is that I didn’t have to use a lot of highlighter on it because it’s only two sentences—one sentence, sorry; it’s just long: “Advancing the widening of Highway 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury from two to four lanes by introducing legislation to speed up permitting and approvals and get shovels in the ground up to five years earlier.” It’s a good step forward, because in the past, they wouldn’t even say, “Highway 69.” Then, they wouldn’t say the amount the entire budget was in Highway 69—so what does it mean in northern Ontario, when people are dying on these highways, that there aren’t dollar amounts or start dates or completion dates?
Mme France Gélinas
We are all human beings. When you lose a loved one on the highway, when people that you know are severely hurt or become handicapped, there’s a level of stress that comes with this. This level of stress is felt throughout northern Ontario, throughout the people who use Highway 69. So when they see a government where all they have is two lanes, no amount of money, no start date—the amount of stress goes up, and it goes from being stressed to being anxious to being angry. We are really, really feeling it in our community, that people are becoming more and more angry at the government for not taking this issue seriously enough. We need to four-lane Highway 69.
Mr. Lorne Coe
Part of the discussion of the economic statement focused on Ontario steel and automotive industries because they support good-paying jobs and entire communities that are now facing pressure from US tariffs—not unlike mine, with Gerdau Steel. Our government has partnered with the federal government on an $8.7-billion action plan supporting steel, automotive and critical minerals industries. Speaker, through you, to the member for Nickel Belt: Will the member support this partnership to protect workers and strengthen the steel, automotive and critical minerals sectors?
Mme France Gélinas
Those are important parts of our industry, for sure. Do I support protecting workers? Every single day, I will. But there are many workers right now losing their jobs. I attended a press conference last week: 1,877 nurses have received layoff notices in Ontario right here, right now. Those jobs need to be protected also. The wait times in our emergency rooms, the wait times in our hospitals: All of this is not going to improve when 1,877 nurses—those workers also need to be protected. The steelworkers who lost their jobs, there’s a good chance it will affect their mental health. There’s a good chance—I don’t wish harm upon anybody—they will reach out to our health care system. The health care workers also need to be protected so that they are there when people need them, and none of that is in that fall economic statement.
Ms. Jennifer K. French
I appreciate the very thoughtful comments from the member from Nickel Belt, who has served as our shadow Minister of Health for a long time. I have been the critic for infrastructure, and at estimates recently, we took the minister to task about the government’s stubborn refusal to switch from P3s, which are always so expensive. We are seeing that $10 billion for the Ottawa hospital, as you mentioned, the over $14 billion for the Mississauga hospital. I know that, in Durham region, we have our hopes up for the Whitby hospital—a lot of my colleagues are looking forward to that investment in their community. How many hospitals are going to be built in the province of Ontario in our lifetime when the government cannot get costs under control?
Mme France Gélinas
Well, I hope you live a long life. This way, it will give you the opportunity to maybe see more than five new hospitals. But right now, the budget is clear: We have $50 billion—that’s a huge amount of money—for the next 10 years to build hospitals. But if every hospital comes in—Mississauga at $14 billion; Ottawa at $10 billion—then do the math: $50 billion divided—that’s five hospitals, if we’re lucky. Is yours going to be one of the lucky five? I don’t know. There are 50 hospitals right now in the lineup for big investments and expansions. The government promises 3,000 new beds. Will yours be one of them? Will the one in Sudbury be one of the four? Who knows?
Mr. Ted Hsu
As I thought about how to talk about the fall economic statement and Bill 143, it was very hard to avoid thinking about the election in the United States today. It is very consequential, and what’s happening in the United States has influenced much of the policy focus that we’ve been talking about in the last while here in Ontario. I just wanted to take a moment to remember that we do have some allies in the United States who share our values, and many are working hard at this very moment on getting out the vote today, and I want to salute them. We are at a critical time, Speaker, because of this global situation, and yet I find that this government doesn’t have a long-term plan or a broad vision for this province. I know that we’re just talking about an update in the fall economic statement, but we are now, since the budget, in a full-blown tariff war with the United States. As a nation, Canada is standing up to Donald Trump and taking the pain instead of going down this slippery slope of doing another deal. The fall economic statement was an opportunity to lay out this longer-term plan and a broader vision. I’m going to point out a bit later some ways in which we missed an opportunity to do that, but first I want to talk about some policy changes in the fall economic statement—some I will call technical corrections. But I want to acknowledge them before I talk about this government’s lack of broader vision, because there are some things that I agree about. There were more details for the reporting of beneficial ownership in the fall economic statement. Historically, that’s been weak in Ontario and in Canada. It’s hard to trace the ultimate owner if you want to root out conflicts of interest or people trying to hide behind this complicated “companies owning companies owning companies.” I know that the government wants to make sure that we have some sort of control over foreign ownership of agricultural land, so these kinds of improved reporting requirements are going to be needed. I think that’s a good idea. The development of a standardized truck driver training curriculum, I think, is important. It’s welcome as a part of reform in the training and regulation of truck drivers. I’ve heard complaints about that as much as I’ve heard complaints about the need to upgrade the Trans-Canada Highway in northern Ontario. More regulation is therefore welcome. I just want to mention that in October 2025, the chairman of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario told the House of Commons that certain carriers have bought or influenced schools to fast-track them through bare-bones programs, undermined the provincial licensing standards and shift the training liability away from those carriers. So more training to make our roads safer is always a good thing. I will likely support schedule 2 of the bill. This is an educational property tax exemption for university student housing. I definitely think that’s something we need more help with. Next week, I’m going to attend a session at an open house at Queen’s University to ask—you know, we’re creating some extra STEM seats in universities, but I want to ask where they are going to live, because that’s an ongoing issue in Kingston. Buy Ontario: I think it’s a good thing to think about. That’s going to be extended to municipal procurement, fleet vehicles and how we design infrastructure projects. I will just mention one thing, which is that we are not succeeding in getting companies who use cold-rolled aluminum to use cold-rolled aluminum that’s made in Canada. They buy it from the United States. They buy it from China. Hopefully there will be some measures to encourage—I don’t want to force companies to do something that will increase costs by too much, but I do hope that there will be some measures to incentivize companies to diversify their supply chains in cold-rolled aluminum, because we do make it in Canada, but a lot of consumers do not buy it from a Canadian source. I do agree with the changes in the Ontario Electricity Rebate. Starting in May of next year, the Ontario Electricity Rebate will be limited to the first 1,200 kilowatt hours consumed monthly, and farms and small businesses are going to be excluded. This is what costs $3 billion in subsidies every year. I had an exchange with the Minister of Energy in committee at the estimates, and I think we both agree that it’s not sustainable. I asked in estimates about means testing, like, “Why do wealthy people need this Ontario Electricity Rebate, this subsidy?” I know it’s hard, because introducing figuring out what people’s wealth or income is and then coordinating that with the utility bill can be hard. So I’m glad to see this 1,200 kilowatt-hour cap in the Ontario Electricity Rebate. I think it’s a good proxy because it’s simple for a means-tested rebate. I think it’s good to try it. Now, one thing that is not explained—that I can’t find the explanation for yet—is how multi-unit dwellings without individual metering will be treated. That is still to come. Maybe it’s 1,200 kilowatt hours multiplied by the number of units, but I’d like to see that stated very clearly. Another thing that happened in the fall economic statement is something that seems to happen over and over again with this government. I’ll just give you some numbers, Speaker. In the 2023 Ontario budget, they had a projected year of budget balance of 2024-25. In the budget the next year, the 2024 Ontario budget, this was pushed back to 2026-27. In the 2025 Ontario budget, the projected year of budget balance was pushed back again to 2027-28. And in 2026, the next budget, that projected year of balance was pushed back yet another year to 2028-29. And in the fall economic statement we just got, the year of budget balance was pushed back yet another year to 2029-30. This is a pattern I just want to point out for the people of Ontario: The government seems to have this phantom, ephemeral projection of budget balance, because they never reach it. It keeps going back further—in fact, it goes further into the future faster than we’re going further into the future. We have to watch out for that. The biggest policy change in the budget, I would say, is that the province is following the lead of the federal government in introducing this so-called productivity mega deduction. I think this is a good idea to try out, because Canada, historically, has been a laggard in what’s called business expenditure on research and development. It’s a statistic that’s compiled by StatsCan, and it’s something where Canada is a laggard compared to other countries. It’s a key reason why the productivity of our workers has lagged behind those of other countries, and that’s directly connected to long-term affordability, cost of living and standard of living. It’s a key ingredient of productivity growth and long-term economic and social benefits. One thing that’s missing, I would say, in this government’s way of looking at things is how to have an overall strategy. The funding for graduate programs in STEM is still far below what was recommended by this government’s own blue-ribbon panel. I know that they’ve created some STEM seats, but that actually doesn’t affect the funding for graduate programs. What that means is the key people that you often need to turn business investment in equipment or buildings, to turn that into what we really want, which is innovation, competitiveness, entry into new markets, increased sales, profits and good jobs for Ontarians—often you need those key people to turn money into the final success. You have to have a strategy, and I think the strategy should include making sure that we are producing those key people in Canada to turn business expenditure in research and development into a stronger economy. This is something that is an example of how the province doesn’t have a clear strategy. I want to talk now about what a vision for Ontario could be based on, and I want to look at it from the point of view of young people, which is something I would recommend to this government. I was very fortunate to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s, a time of great prosperity in Canada. I had many opportunities. It’s like saying previous generations, like my generation, we got a ladder. There were ladders all over the place. We had a lot of opportunities. Today, young people don’t seem to have a ladder. What they’re being handed is the bill for everything that we’ve accumulated, a lot of debts that we’ve accumulated—financial, environmental, social. So today there’s a lot of intergenerational unfairness, and it’s very much related to the economic and social challenges we are facing. I believe that the government should be targeting a plan for Ontario, a vision which makes us stronger and addresses the unfairness to younger Ontarians. What sort of things does that entail? Young people’s education was disrupted by the pandemic. We should be making sure that we have a world-class education system, but this doesn’t seem to be a priority of this government. The first rung of the employment ladder, that first job that gets you into the workforce, is getting hard to reach. Youth unemployment still hasn’t recovered to what it was before the pandemic. Housing costs aren’t merely preventing home ownership; they’re delaying independence. So 40% of young adults between the ages of 20 and 34 in Ontario were still living with at least one parent after the pandemic. Today, the economy is facing a big transition with artificial intelligence and automation, and young people are bearing most of the risk of these technological changes. AI and automation may ultimately boost productivity, but right now, if you are an entry-level worker lacking experience, lacking training, you’re not going to benefit from AI and automation; you can’t make use of it. If you’re an experienced worker, an established worker in whatever place you work, you’re in a really good position to make use of AI and automation to increase your own productivity first. So a lot of entry-level jobs are at risk, and that’s what young people are facing. We have record historical levels of debt-to-GDP, so young people will inherit less fiscal flexibility to solve their problems. Young people are inheriting an environment where inflation is back like it was in the 1970s. Young people are also inheriting a big public infrastructure deficit that will require an enormous catch-up investment that they will have to pay for during their working lives: everything from housing infrastructure, roads, bridges, transit, hospitals—which we just talked about in this debate—schools, electricity infrastructure and climate adaptation. All of these things young people have to pay for, but we should be thinking about them in a long-term plan and a broader vision for Ontario. Young people are not only facing climate change, but the world they are inheriting is less safe. They are coming of age in an era when liberal democratic institutions around the world have been damaged. Autocratic governments are rising, and this long period after World War II of relative peace, international co-operation and shared prosperity seems to be coming to an end. I believe that we owe it to young people to make the sacrifices so that they can have opportunities equal to what we, the older generations, were able to have decades ago. I want to turn now to the bill, Bill 143, and I’m just going to talk about some of the schedules. It’s got a lot of schedules, so I can’t talk about all of them, but I’ll talk about a couple that I wanted to draw the attention of this House to. Schedule 23, the Securities Act: I agree with this schedule. Canada has provincial and territorial securities regulators, a whole bunch of them rather than a single national securities regulator.
Mr. Ted Hsu
That means that when a company is raising money, an investment firm seeking registration or maybe some sort of financial institution operating internationally, they face all sorts of different requirements from different regulators. What’s been set up is a regulatory passport system for Canada, and this schedule makes it easier for Ontario to participate in this regulatory passport system. Access to capital is very important. It’s important for prosperity. I know that for technology start-ups, it often happens that the second-best technology, maybe even the second-best people win, and they win because they have better access to capital. From what I understand, there are a lot of examples of this, and Ontario cannot afford to have self-inflicted barriers to capital. Suppose a Kingston technology company wants to raise investment from funds in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. That often happens because you need to search far and wide for capital because the expertise and understanding, the experience needed to de-risk a new venture is often geographically dispersed. You’ve got to go travel to find it. If you need to travel to different jurisdictions in Canada, under a fragmented system, which we would have without the passport, a company faces all sorts of separate regulatory filings, wait times and processes. This regulatory passport system is going to be really important. It’s going to result in lower legal costs, less administrative work and also faster access to financing. The speed of getting financing is a critical factor in the success of businesses, especially new businesses. I want to talk about schedule 18, the land transfer tax exemption. Now, this is just a technical exemption from the land transfer tax when the crown acquires beneficial ownership of land without an official registration of ownership transfer. But I want to discuss something related to this, which is something that the government could do right away to help build affordable housing without spending any money, and that is to grant an exemption to the land transfer tax when land is bought or sold, or when there’s a lease of 50 years or longer that would ordinarily trigger the land transfer tax. If we had an exemption to that, we would have more money available for affordable housing. There’s a great example in my riding in Providence Village, which is the legacy of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul. They want to build affordable housing. They have to pay this land transfer tax because of the ownership structure of this land, but if they didn’t have to pay—because they have to pay the land transfer tax, they’re going to be much less competitive when it comes to getting funding from the CMHC and so they may not be able to build affordable housing at this site. It would be a shame. I hope the government will reconsider the idea of giving a land transfer tax exemption when a transaction occurs for the purposes of building affordable housing. Last thing I want to talk about it schedule 7 and that gives more retroactive freedom-of-information exemptions and this time, it’s to the CEO of the Ontario Financing Authority. The Ontario Financing Authority are the people that take care of Ontario’s debt; the debt that we take on when we have a budget deficit. The activities of the Ontario Financing Authority are rather technical. You don’t hear, in the public discourse, debates about what’s the average maturity of Ontario’s debt, but I think it needs more scrutiny. It would be disappointing if freedom of information were limited for the Ontario Financing Authority. I would like the minister to tell us why this is needed because I think it’s important. During the pandemic, I asked myself that question—I made a video on social media—“Why don’t we extend the maturity of our debt as long as we can because interest rates are so low?” And right now, a lot of governments around the world are selling less long-term debt and financing short-term. How should we adjust our debt profile in the face of that global market condition? There should be a debate about that, and so I don’t see why we should be shutting off freedom-of-information requests.
Mme France Gélinas
I heard the member talk about the 1,200 kilowatt hours monthly limit on an electrical rebate cap. I wanted to share with him that I represent 33 small northern communities. In most of the communities, including where I live, there is no natural gas; propane or oil furnaces are a no-go because the winter roads are not good enough for the big trucks to come and deliver through the winter. For many people in Nickel Belt, the only way to heat your home is to have an electrical furnace or electrical baseboards and wood. Is it reasonable to ask an 80-year-old to get up twice a night to put wood in the stove so that she stays warm? In the winter months, we all go above the 1,200 kilowatt hours. Does that make the member change his mind?
Mr. Ted Hsu
That’s a very good suggestion for an amendment to this policy. Yes, I know that there are many cases where people heat with electric baseboard heating. I know that there are cases in southern Ontario where they should probably have some incentive to convert, but I think it makes sense in certain areas, defined by climate, to change the numbers. The government has proposed 1,200 kilowatt hours for all of Ontario. Looking at my own electricity bill, it makes a lot of sense in southern Ontario, but I do understand that in places where heating is primarily with baseboard heating or other electric means, not heat pumps, that we should perhaps have a different number for northern Ontario.
MPP Stephanie Smyth
I heard my colleague from Kingston and the Islands talk about how this bill doesn’t have vision, it doesn’t have a view for young people and how young people have been handed the bill for our debts and intergenerational unfairness, as he called it. What do you think this government could have done—some ideas to have made this more of a level playing field, more fairness. You talk about education being disrupted by the pandemic. That’s not a priority. They’re missing that first rung on the ladder of the job—youth unemployment hasn’t recovered—so ways you think that could have been more inclusive and boosting the futures for young people in the province.
Mr. Ted Hsu
Well, we know that today’s young people are going to be paying throughout their whole working lives. They’re going to be paying more for flood protection. They’re going to be paying more for wildfire suppression. They’re going to be paying more for disaster recovery. They’re going to be paying higher insurance costs, because insurance companies are not stupid; they know what the real risks are from climate change, and they will charge accordingly. The young people today are going to be paying more for adapting our electricity system to climate change, and they’re going to be paying more for stranded infrastructure, because we can’t keep burning fossil fuels at the rate we are now for the rest of the 21st century. So what I would say is that any kind of plan should recognize that we should be paying more for that now and not forcing young people to pay for all those things later on.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ric Bresee)
I recognize the member from Wellington–Halton Hills.
Mr. Joseph Racinsky
Thank you to the member for Kingston and the Islands for his remarks on the fall economic statement this afternoon, and I want to thank the member for mentioning some of the things he supported in the bill at the beginning of his remarks. But I was interested by his comment about record debt-to-GDP. Last year, we had a 13-year low in debt-to-GDP, and it was under the previous Liberal government in 2014-15 where we saw net debt-to-GDP of over 40%. That’s actually one of the reasons why I got involved in Conservative politics: because I was concerned about young people, our future and the debt. It’s very important to me. That’s why our government is attracting record investment to this province to create jobs. That’s why we’re expanding transit. That’s why we’re cutting the HST and development charges on housing. That’s why we are having skilled trades funding, like Landscape Ontario in my riding, to train up young people to have the good-paying jobs of the future. This is what our government’s plan is; it’s what’s in the fall economic statement. So I just want to ask the member if he supports the fall economic statement.
Mr. Ted Hsu
Thank you for the remarks from my honourable colleague. What I would caution my colleague about is, sometimes there are gimmicky things that make people think that you’re dealing with the cost of living when you’re really not, because you have to pay back that money. I think the best example of that is the $200 per person that this government paid out just before the 2025 election. So forget about the fact that it seemed to be a bribe for votes in 2025, given the timing, but just think about where that $200 per person comes from. It comes from the same people, so you’re just adding to debt and giving people a cheque without thinking, really, about what matters in the long term. If you want to deal with affordability, cost of living, productivity, economic growth in the long term, you’ve got to focus on productivity gains. That’s what we’ve got to focus on going forward.
Mr. Tom Rakocevic
Thank you for your presentation. I feel for the Conservatives in your riding who went out there to the polls to vote and voted for a government that believed balancing the budget and fiscal responsibility was nothing more than a stretch goal. We are at a deficit of $16.9 billion. The debt of this province is approaching half a trillion dollars, and yet this government continues to spend. When you ask the people of your riding, my riding, the ridings here, “What are we getting out of it?”—you mentioned there was that buyback of their own money, where they basically paid people back their own money, $200 a person, and said, “Here you go. Hopefully you’ll remember that and thank us for it.” When you have to console Conservative voters in your riding, what do you have to tell them, considering what has happened?
Mr. Ted Hsu
I don’t know if I would use the words “console conservative voters in my riding.” You know, I serve the conservative voters in my riding, and there are often a lot of things that we work on together. I think what I would say is, if you’re going to spend money, just make sure you’re spending it on something that’s going to give you a positive return in the future. When I talk to small-c conservatives who are very interested in making sure that we don’t waste money, I think there’s a lot of common ground here. I just feel that some of the things that this government has decided to spend money on have not produced a good return. I think the biggest, most recent example would be the money spent on advertising. It’s hard to understand what the return on investment has been for some of this government’s $100-million-plus in advertising this past year.
MPP Stephanie Smyth
I would like to ask my colleague about schedule 7. I’m always intrigued when we’re talking about freedom of information, and the retroactive freedom-of-information exemptions and the Ontario Financing Authority. We were just talking about freedom of information earlier today as it relates to KPMG, a report that we will never see thanks to the freedom-of-information laws passed by this government. I know you’re scratching your head trying to figure out why this is needed. Could you maybe offer up some ideas as to why this is so important that they had to put a schedule in this bill for it?
Mr. Ted Hsu
There are times when you need some secrecy when you’re doing trades in the global market. You don’t want anybody to front-run your trades, so I can see that there needs to be some secrecy when it comes to what operations you’re going to do in the capital markets. But the freedom-of-information process is so slow, I cannot believe that anybody could be front-running or taking advantage of that kind of information that comes from the FOI process, to make money off knowing what the government of Ontario is going to do in the capital markets. So it has got to be something else, then. So I would like the finance minister to tell us what kind of information needs to be protected and why, because I don’t get it, and we haven’t needed to do that until now. It was working in the past.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ric Bresee)
There is no more time for question and answers. I will move to further debate. I recognize the member from Guelph.
Mr. Mike Schreiner
It’s an honour to rise today to debate Bill 143, the government’s implementation of the fall economic statement. It comes at a time that’s critical for so many families in Ontario who simply can’t afford to live in Ontario. People are struggling: homes not affordable, a whole generation of young people wondering if they’ll afford a home, groceries through the roof. We shouldn’t be surprised today when we learn that one in eight kids in Toronto go to a food bank to access food. Hospitals are overflowing and wait times are at unprecedented levels: 2,000 people a day now in Ontario experiencing hallway medicine. Kids are crammed into crowded classrooms. In special education, students are being sent home because schools can’t serve them. OSAP cuts: I have single moms reaching out to me right now due to the freeze in OSAP, wondering how they’re going to pay November rent and continue their studies. People with disabilities are forced to live in legislated poverty. It probably doesn’t surprise us today that we learned one in four food bank users in Ontario pay 100%—think about that; 100%—of their income just on rent. Electricity prices are going up. You think of all that pain, and the government is still going to have a budget deficit of $16.9 billion. Everyday people are struggling. The rich are getting richer, but everyday people are struggling. It’s not fair; it’s not sustainable. People are asking themselves, “How can they pile up so much debt and we get so little?” Speaker, I’m going to give you one answer: That is exactly why the fall economic statement should have contained a wealth tax on the super-rich in this province, so we would have the financial resources to actually make life more affordable and easier for people. We could raise $26 billion with a one-time wealth tax of 5% on wealth over $100 million and 10% on wealth over $1 billion. Think about that, Speaker. What would $26 billion allow us to do? We could reduce the deficit, and we could actually start building homes people could afford. We could afford to invest in health care and education and reverse the cuts to OSAP. We could make life more affordable and easier for people. I’m going to say that if you look at this government’s spending pattern since 2018, almost every government category has failed to keep up with the rate of inflation. As a matter of fact, post-secondary education has actually seen real cuts, even in this year’s budget. But there is one item that has gone up by 63.2%. Do you know what that is? Interest on debt. If we asked the rich to pay their fair share, we could reverse that and actually invest in the things people need. And that starts with housing. I have a lot of respect for the housing minister over here, but I’ve got to tell you, housing starts are actually going to go down again next year, according to the fall economic statement. This is exactly why we need to legalize multiplexes and mid-rises in Ontario. That’s why I appreciate that the housing minister came to Guelph and toured a building site that took 15 single-family homes and turned that into 280 homes for people through a mid-rise development, multiplexes, stacked townhouses and single-family homes. Those are the kinds of developments we need in Ontario, so people can have homes they can afford in the communities they know and love. Speaker, we now have over 62% of hospitals in the province of Ontario taking out a line of credit just to meet day-to-day operational needs—think about that—and we have a $16.9-billion budget deficit. Imagine what a $26-billion revenue from a wealth tax on the super-rich would allow us to do to reverse that and actually improve health care. We could also reverse the $6.5-billion cut to education, so we could actually, properly fund special education, so students could learn in classes that are not overcrowded. If we had a tax on the super-rich, we could actually start investing in made-in-Ontario, low-cost, renewable energy and attract our share of the $2.3 trillion that are being deployed in the green energy transition to help lower people’s energy bills, create generational jobs and make Ontario a global leader in the fastest-growing sector of the global economy. But the government will tell you, “We don’t have the money to do that.” They will tell you, “We don’t have the money to do that.” Well, I’m going to tell you, we are a wealthy province. We have wealthy people in this province, and I appreciate their contribution to our society. But by gosh, they should pay their fair share in taxes, so everyday people can afford to live in this province.
Mr. Andrew Dowie
I want to thank the member from Guelph for his statement. I just wanted to better understand some of the position on taxes. I understand the income tax proposal put forward, but we at home—certainly back home in Windsor and Tecumseth—many of us rely on our vehicles to get to work, take our kids to school and attend appointments. So our government is proposing to make gas and fuel tax cuts permanent and reduce those costs on businesses transporting goods. I’m wondering if the member opposite plans to commit to those tax breaks for those that live in rural and urban communities alike.
Mr. Mike Schreiner
I appreciate the member opposite’s question and love to have conversations about how to make life affordable for people. Do you know how we can really make transportation affordable for most people in this province? Help them afford to drive an electric vehicle, which saves them, on average, $3,000 a year in fuel costs. I will compliment this government for their investments in a mining-to-manufacturing EV supply chain in Ontario. I support that. I support the government doing that. What the government has failed to do is make electric vehicles affordable for urban and rural people or to have the charging infrastructure we need so people can rely on them so they can save, on average, $3,000 a year in their fuel costs.
Ms. Chandra Pasma
Thank you to the member for Guelph for his comments on the fall economic statement. The member mentioned special education. We know that the Auditor General tabled a report in the spring saying that there are shortcomings in the special education system, that school boards are spending hundreds of millions of dollars more than what they’re actually getting from this government to pay the costs of special education, that there are many children who are waiting a year or more for assessments. Does the member feel like this fall economic statement adequately responded to the concerns that were raised by the Auditor General?
Mr. Mike Schreiner
I appreciate the member’s question. The short answer is no. The longer answer is, it breaks my heart meeting with so many parents and students who come into my constituency office—and I assume all of our constituency offices—who know their schools do not have the resources to adequately fund special education and as a result their children are not getting the education they deserve. Due to lack of funding in our schools, the disruptions that happen, especially by students who aren’t getting the services and supports they need, affect the quality of education for everyone. And we know that if we’re going to be successful economically, we need an educated workforce, and our children deserve better.
Mr. Guy Bourgouin
You talked about the 2,000 people who are in corridors or in hallways. In fact, I was one of them about a year ago when I had appendicitis. I can tell you it’s not pleasant to be in a corridor. In the middle of the night, you hear the guy washing the floors, you hear people coming in and screaming. If that’s dignity, I don’t know—if they consider that dignified, for government to accept 2,000 people a day in hallways. I want to hear your perspective, because you talked about it real quick. I want to give you the opportunity to expand on this.
Mr. Mike Schreiner
I appreciate the member’s question. It’s tough to walk through the hallways of our hospitals and see people in beds in hallways. I remember when I was elected in 2018, the CEO of Guelph General Hospital told me that she was done with hallway medicine—no more in this hospital. Now we’re in a situation where in Guelph, like many other communities across Ontario, they’ve made hallway medicine a permanent feature of the hospital, where the room is literally some bedsheets covering up somebody. They have trouble sleeping, they don’t have privacy, they don’t have an opportunity for their families to come visit them. We’re a wealthy province. People deserve better than this. That’s exactly why the super-rich in this province need to pay their fair share: so everybody in this province can afford to live and receive the services they need—
Hon. George Pirie
I am pleased to rise today in support of our government’s fall economic statement. This update arrives at a very important time. Around the world, economies are facing uncertainty. Trade relationships have been upended. Supply chains have been disrupted. At times like these, governments face a choice: They can wait and hope conditions improve or act with confidence and work towards solutions. Ontario will continue to move forward. This fall economic statement focuses on the future—a future that we know will be prosperous if we strengthen the assets that make Ontario unique. From my perspective and, I am sure, from many other members’, few assets give us more strength than those in northern Ontario. I may be biased, Speaker—in fact, I am biased—but I believe that northern Ontario has some of the most valuable real estate in the world. That is because the north has what the world wants and needs. I have spent my life in northern Ontario. I have seen communities overcome challenges and grow. I have seen industries adapt and evolve. I have seen what is possible when governments, communities and businesses work together. For generations, northern Ontario has helped build this province. Our mines powered industrial growth. Our forests built communities. Our workers helped make Ontario the economic engine of Canada. In today’s world of uncertainty, we are continuing to build on our strengths. Our allies are looking for secure supply chains and reliable partners. Investors are looking for jurisdictions that can provide certainty, stability and opportunity. I say, look to Ontario and look to the north. Our resources are second to none. Our people are second to none. And together, they are helping build Ontario’s future. Speaker, when people think about Ontario’s economy, they often think first about our largest urban centres. Advanced manufacturing, financial services, technology, health science—we are the leaders in all these fields, but many of these things that make them successful begin in northern Ontario: the minerals used in advanced manufacturing, the resources that support construction, the energy that helps power our economy and the workers and communities who have supplied them for generations For too long, governments viewed northern Ontario as an afterthought. Today, Ontario has a government that values the strengths of the north—the north that is home to so many world-class mining operations. If there is a project that demonstrates the economic potential of our province, it is the Ring of Fire. For decades, people talked about the opportunity. Studies were written. Reports were commissioned. Promises were made. Our government is focused on delivering. The Ring of Fire contains some of the most significant critical mineral deposits anywhere in North America and, I would argue, significant mineral deposits anywhere in the world, not just North America—minerals essential for batteries, for advanced manufacturing and for the technologies that will drive the global economy into the future. The world needs these resources, and our government is committed to ensuring they are developed responsibly—not only for today’s economy, but for the next generation across this province. This is not simply a northern Ontario opportunity. This is an Ontario opportunity; this is a Canadian opportunity, a nation-building opportunity and, increasingly, it is an opportunity the world is paying attention to. Across the north, we are seeing growing interest from investors. Exploration activity is increasing. Communities are preparing for growth. That means jobs for workers and contracts for local businesses. It means a chance to build domestic supply chains and strengthen Canada’s economic sovereignty. The question before us is whether we are prepared to develop these resources and seize the opportunity. Our government believes the answer is yes, because resources that remain in the ground create no jobs. They create no business opportunities. They generate no economic growth. Responsible development creates those opportunities. It supports workers, it supports communities and it helps ensure Ontario remains competitive in a rapidly changing world. Speaker, for young people looking for exciting careers, I encourage them to look at the opportunities that we have in the north. When future generations look back at this moment, I believe they will see a turning point, a moment when Ontario chose to build and a moment when Ontario chose to unlock the potential that exists in the north. But none of this happens without strong partnerships. None of this happens without working alongside the Indigenous communities. Nothing will happen without the Indigenous communities’ partnership across the north. Speaker, Indigenous communities are leaders in this economic transformation. One of the things I hear most often when I travel across northern Ontario is that communities want to be part of the opportunities being created around them. They want local jobs. They want local businesses to succeed. They want young people to stay in the north and families to build a future close to home. They want to know that the prosperity being generated is shared by the people who live there. That is why our government is committed to ensuring that the benefits of growth are shared broadly through workers, businesses, municipalities and Indigenous communities. When communities are true partners in development, projects move forward more successfully, opportunities are shared more broadly and long-term prosperity becomes possible. The success of the north will depend on the relationships we build today—relationships built on respect, relationships built on trust and relationships built on shared opportunity. Speaker, as trade uncertainty continues to affect markets around the world, we must do everything possible to strengthen Ontario’s economic resilience. Ontario has shown that uncertainty is not a reason to stop investing; it is a reason to invest wisely. It’s a reason to strengthen our economic foundations. The answer to uncertainty cannot be standing still. The answer must be growth. The answer must be investment. Our government has consistently believed that economic growth comes from creating the conditions for investment, job creation and business expansion. Since 2018, we have not raised any taxes. Instead, we have focused on making Ontario a more competitive place to invest, create jobs and do business because prosperity is not created by asking families and businesses to carry a heavier burden; prosperity is created when people have the confidence to invest, build, hire and grow. That approach continues to guide the decisions contained in this fall economic statement. Our government will continue investing in infrastructure, in resource development, in energy and in the services that support our communities. In times like these, governments have a responsibility to provide confidence—confidence that Ontario remains open for business, confidence that Ontario remains competitive and confidence that we are prepared for the challenges ahead. That begins with a clear economic plan—a plan that supports investment, a plan that supports job creation. Speaker, the reality is simple: Opportunity without infrastructure remains only potential. That is why our government is making historic investments in roads, highways and energy infrastructure. Projects like the Webequie supply road are about far more than transportation. They’re about connecting communities. They’re about unlocking economic opportunity. They’re about ensuring future development can move forward. When communities are connected, businesses can grow. When businesses grow, jobs are created. And when jobs are created, families and communities prosper. The same is true for the Greenstone transmission line. Reliable energy is essential for economic growth. Manufacturing depends on it. Mining depends on it. Communities depend on it. Investment follows it. Investments in roads, bridges and transmission lines may not always generate headlines, but they do build up Ontario. Without them, nothing happens. These critical pieces of infrastructure also support sovereign supply chains. At the end of the day, this is all about sovereignty. As you know, as we pivot quickly to reduce dependence on US markets, we know that sovereignty is really what this is all about: preserving northern Ontario, preserving Ontario, preserving Canada. Every action in the fall economic statement is all about preserving our sovereignty. Through this fall economic statement, our government is continuing to make these investments needed to keep Ontario competitive: investments in infrastructure, investments that help communities grow, investments that support workers and attract new opportunities to our province. I’ll go back to the Ring of Fire. A billion dollars has already been committed by the province to build that infrastructure around that historical opportunity in the mineral belts in the Ring of Fire, and they were joined last week with the federal government that matched that billion dollars. Both levels of government are fully committed to develop that region, because they know it means growth, it means jobs, it means opportunities for generations, investments that support workers and attract new opportunities to our province. These investments are not simply about today’s global economic uncertainty. They are so we can stand strong in the face of future uncertainty as well. We know that we’ve been battered in the forestry sector by tariffs. We know that we’ve been battered in the automobile sector by these tariffs. So we’re building a future that will be tariff-proof by these investments in infrastructure. This is what Canada must do through northern Ontario to ensure that we remain sovereign. The decisions we make now will determine whether future projects can proceed, whether future investments come to Ontario and whether future generations are able to benefit from the opportunities being created—because economic growth is not built overnight; it is built one investment at a time, one project at a time and one community at a time. This is all about Canada. It’s all about our sovereignty. Speaker, the fall economic statement recognizes a reality that has become increasingly clear. The resources, energy, talent and opportunity needed to strengthen Ontario’s economy are already here, and we know that. They’ve been here for generations. And now is the time to crystallize the opportunities that exist in northern Ontario. We know we’re well endowed with precious metals. We know that we’re well endowed with base metal assets. But we know also that we’ve got the rare earths. We know we’ve got scandium in Kapuskasing. We’ve got cesium just west of Lake Abitibi. We know that we have the rare earths that Canada Nickel is going to use to build specialty steels. And we know that scandium matched with speciality steels mean that we’ve got the opportunity to build world-class steel—specialty steel—right here in northern Ontario. Scandium that’s been discovered in Kap Minerals will be used with aluminum foam, and aluminum foam with scandium—they will put it underneath the tanks that are being used in battlefields to protect the armed forces in those tanks. That’s what scandium can do: Scandium strengthens aluminum. We know that we’ve got what the world wants right now for the aerospace and the space industry and the defence industry right here in northern Ontario, across the north, from Kenora to Kirkland Lake, from Winisk to Windsor. They’re all here. They’re in our backyard. Ontario has and northern Ontario has what the world needs right now, and the fall economic statement will realize and capitalize on that wealth. The question is whether we are prepared to invest in them. Our government believes we must. We must build infrastructure that connects and supports communities.
Hon. George Pirie
We must develop the critical minerals that power modern industries. We must strengthen partnerships with Indigenous communities—we know already that we have got phenomenal partnerships with the Indigenous communities. All across the north, we have got willing partnerships with all of the new projects across northern Ontario. The relationships are there; we have to grow on them. And we must ensure Ontario remains one of the most competitive places in the world to do business and invest. We know capital is mobile. We know that it will go to the next best opportunity. We know that there’s a global fight between the US and China for these very resources, and we know Canada has what the world wants. Now, are we prepared to seize the day? By building a strong economy, we can generate far more opportunity, far more investment and ultimately far more revenues than raising taxes ever could. Our government believes in growth. It does not believe in taxes. It believes in creating the table so that the investment capital can be mobilized across the world into the wealth projects in Ontario—especially in northern Ontario, because that’s what the world is looking for: the rare earths, the critical minerals that are here in northern Ontario. This is exactly what this fall economic statement aims to accomplish. This is a statement that will build confidence: confidence in our workers, confidence in our communities and confidence in the future of our province. Because if you’re not growing, you’re dying, and our province will never die. We’re committed to growing. We’re committed to the future. We’re committed to our sovereignty. We know that Ontario is the source of Canada’s economic power, and we’ll ensure that it always will be because of the resources we have in the ground. I am proud to support the fall economic statement and encourage all members of this House to do the same.
Mr. Sol Mamakwa
Meegwetch, Speaker. I was listening to the minister talking about resources, about the minerals. But what I heard in there is “our minerals,” “our resources.” Can the minister elaborate on what that means?
Hon. George Pirie
When I say “our,” I mean everybody, every citizen of Ontario. These are our resources, Canada’s resources. That’s what we’ve been doing, and that is what this statement is all about: to ensure that these resources are developed responsibly, ethically, morally and economically so Canada grows, Ontario grows and northern Ontario grows by capitalizing our resources that are in the ground to be developed for all of Canada.
MPP Susan Lahey
Ontario’s forestry sector is an important economic driver that supports thousands of workers, families and communities, particularly across northern Ontario. With ongoing trade uncertainty and increasing global competition, our government recognizes the importance of protecting this industry and supporting its long-term success. The 2026 fall economic statement highlights more than $90 million in investments to strengthen forestry competitiveness and innovation, alongside over $86 million to support forest biomass projects and improve wood utilization. Can the minister explain how our government’s investments are helping Ontario’s forestry sector remain competitive, protect jobs and create new economic opportunities?
Hon. George Pirie
Thank you very much for that question. I’m very confident in the future of the forest sector. The forest sector that we have in Ontario is, by definition, the largest single asset the government owns—by definition. By definition, that forest across the northern stretches of Canada is Canada’s largest asset. I’m very confident about the future of the fibre basket in northern Ontario because it’s the best fibre basket in the world. By that, I mean it’s the strongest fibre basket in the world. It is the best fibre basket to create tissues. So yes, I’m very confident in the future of the forest basket here in northern Ontario.
Mr. John Vanthof
I listened intently to the minister—he’s my neighbour—and I respect his knowledge of the mining industry, 100%, but the mining industry has a long legacy, as he knows, and not all of it good. In my riding, we have the Cobalt refinery, which still has a licence, which the Ministry of the Environment has acknowledged there are toxins migrating off the site, and the reason no action is being taken is because the ministry doesn’t think it’s harming anyone. Does the minister think that’s a good demonstration of the legacy that mining could leave?
Hon. George Pirie
You know my background. My dad was born in 1920, and I was behind the mill. I’m old enough to have seen and experienced every single mistake done by the mining industries across the north, but we have learned from every single one of those mistakes because now we are the best mining people in the world. Our discharge water is cleaner than the intake water. There is nothing better than that. Take a look at the Victoria mine in Sudbury and see what they’re doing. The water is so clean they have to add impurities to it because it’s so clean. That’s the type of legacy that we have: best in the world.
Hon. Todd J. McCarthy
This question is for the minister. I appreciate his remarks in this House—very capably delivered with passion and experience. He’s a minister of the crown, a member of provincial Parliament elected twice, a mayor of Timmins and had a long career in the private sector. We often hear the Premier talk about creating the conditions for success. Governments don’t create jobs; governments don’t build mines. Government creates the conditions for success in that regard to get the critical minerals out of the ground. What would be the most important aspects of this fall economic statement that help to further the conditions for success in mining in northern Ontario?
Hon. George Pirie
A successful future in the mining industry in northern Ontario that’s demonstrated in the fall economic statement is all about one thing: attracting capital. If you can’t attract capital, you can’t grow. You can’t build the mines. You can’t build the resources. You can’t get the minerals out of the ground. That’s what this statement does: It reduces taxes. It invests in infrastructure to ensure that the workers, the families and the companies can get into those reaches in the province to ensure that those resources get out of the ground.
Mme France Gélinas
There are lots of mines in my riding. You’ll remember that Elliot Lake had uranium mines. The dump for the mine is in between my riding and his riding actually. The Canadian nuclear industry has told us that, since 2016, there are high levels of nuclear radioactive radiation coming out of that dump. There are people in my riding who are sick and wondering if it’s because they had a trapline, they camped etc. The provincial government is responsible for that mine dump, yet since 2016, they have not fixed the cover. There are three areas of that mine dump that are radiating radioactive radiation, and it has not been fixed. What do you figure that does to the confidence of the people of northern Ontario about nuclear energy?
Hon. George Pirie
Thank you very much for the question. I’m very familiar with the Elliot Lake mines that were a real triumph for the province at the time that they were built. You talk about levels of radiation in the tailings. I would like to check your facts on that. The Canadian Nuclear Society has got the highest regulations associated with those types of emissions. I would like to check the facts of what you said. There was a solution, and it was to move the tailings from an old deposit close to Lake Nipissing, and it was going to cover the ground in Elliot Lake. Your communities refused that solution.