Official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles dialed things up in her second try at going after Premier Doug Ford over developers' attendance at his family's intimate events.
Ford gave only a pair of answers in question period No. 2 of 2023, both of which were in response to Stiles and concerned the government's new bill that'll shift more publicly paid-for medical procedures out of hospitals and into mostly for-profit health facilities.
It was while Government House Leader Paul Calandra was handling Ford's questions for him that Ontario's legislature saw its closest thing to fireworks on Wednesday.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles: I really think that the people of this province deserve answers from the premier. There is a smell around this issue and a cloud over this government.
It goes without saying that when you’re the premier of a province you are held to a higher standard than the average father of the bride, especially when the guest list includes lobbyists and developers who have since received suspiciously favourable changes to the law.
The premier has said his family events have an open-door policy. Why, then, are there reports that some people felt they were being strong-armed into paying to attend? Again, to the premier: did anyone from his office help create the invitation list for this event? Yes or no?
Government House Leader Paul Calandra: Well, I think that question and the way the leader of the opposition has been asking it over the last few days is indicative of where the NDP really is at.
It’s not about the economy. It’s not about building better schools. It’s not about building long-term care. It’s not about changing health care to make it better for the people of the province of Ontario. Forget about the changes that the minister of energy has done to ensure that people can afford to pay their bills. Forget about safe streets. Forget about the students who are going to colleges and universities. The only thing that the NDP care about is bringing down the people of the province of Ontario.
And what are we doing? We’re building back this province, stronger than it was before. We’re cutting taxes for people. We’re building roads. We’re building highways. We’re building transit systems. We’re building 60,000 new long-term-care beds across the province of Ontario. Our minister of agriculture is doing everything that she can to make one of the most important industries in our province prosperous, despite punishing carbon taxes from the federal government.
We’re going to continue to get the job done despite the leader of the opposition.
Interjections.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles: You know what this about? This is about having a government that Ontarians can trust, a responsible government, a government that Ontarians could be part of. That’s what this is about. These are the questions that Ontarians have, and this premier won’t answer them.
Let’s review the timeline, shall we? The stag and doe was in August, the wedding in September. Just two months later, this government broke its promise to the people of Ontario and started carving up the greenbelt.
Now, we find out that some of the very people who attended the premier’s family festivities suddenly had their land value skyrocket due to this government’s decisions—curious. But the premier—or the government house leader, even—can clear this up right now: did the premier share this intentions to open up the greenbelt with developer guests who contributed to this family fundraiser?
Interjection.
Government House Leader Paul Calandra: Again, the integrity commissioner has reviewed this, and I think what he has said is obviously very important.
But look, the people of the province of Ontario made a very important decision in June. What they decided to do was reduce the opposition and to elect more Progressive Conservatives to this chamber to get their priorities done.
They had had enough of the negativity that was coming from the opposition. This is a party who couldn’t even muster enough energy up to have a leadership race; they had to appoint their leader. It’s a party that has been so diminished by the people of the province of Ontario that their newly elected, selected leader won’t even sit in the seat of the opposition leader... But that's not important.
What is important, is building better for the people of the province of Ontario, building more homes so that the next generation can have every bit of optimism that they can afford to have a home, that people can have jobs and opportunity like millions of other Ontarians have had. And the people of Ontario know that only this side and the members of the Conservative caucus on that side will get it done.
Interjections.
Speaker of the House Ted Arnott: Stop the clock. The House will come to order.
Watch the exchange between Stiles and Calandra here, and the rest of question period here.
