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What Issues Will Dominate Queen's Park This Fall?

October 29, 20260 comments♥ 0
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00:45 Private jets and luxury hotel rooms on the taxpayers dime. Why do Ontarians have to keep paying the price for this Premier's scandals and background deals? That's right. The Ontario legislature is back in session. That was NDP leader Marit Stiles during question period yesterday, the first since Queen's Park went on break 21 weeks ago. And Doug Ford was quick to respond. People really look at what we're doing and protecting communities, protecting jobs, fighting against that tyrant, President Trump. Now, we are going to see a lot of this before MPPs break again for winter.
01:22 After all, a lot has happened since June. We've had alleged OSAP fraud, cuts to nursing jobs, and of course, the trade war with the U.S. U.S. And there's more on the horizon. Teachers' unions are gearing up for strike votes next month. So what can we expect to dominate debate and what surprises could we be in store for? We're going to break down what you need to know now that the legislature is back in session. I'm Jay and Jagan-Odalen, and this is the rundown. Whenever we talk provincial politics, we always like to bring in our resident expert,
01:54 John Michael. We're going to talk about Queen Spark. Why do you think the government waited until almost November and after municipal elections to return to the legislature. So as you mentioned, they are bringing the legislature back after municipal elections. I should give the government as due and say that formally they say this prevents provincial affairs from interfering with all of the conduct of municipal elections. That is a convenient excuse and not one that they have used in prior years necessarily.
02:22 This government has really enjoyed shortened legislative sittings. It is a way of giving more power to the government. which of course controls the legislative agenda. You shorten the amount of time that there are for debates of important bills. They, of course, like to use bills that do lots of different things. They cram as many measures as they can into a handful of very important government bills. And that really does give the opposition less time to question the government during bills. And, of course, it gives the fewer opportunities that question period where most of the attention is paid.
02:57 We'll talk debate and opposition a little later. But first I want to know, You know, Debtford is really big on personal relationships with Ontario mayors, but there were a lot of upsets in this municipal election. He did mention yesterday that he was going to spend the afternoon making some calls to some of those new mayors, congratulate them. How much work does this government have to do to build those new relationships? You know, for a different government, I would say this would not be as big a deal as it is.
03:22 But this particular premier really does work with personal relationships, you know, a man to man to woman level much more than other premiers have. I look at Toronto where, despite the obvious political differences, this premier was pretty clear that he preferred Olivia Chow to Brad Bradford. Perhaps an accident's endorsement throughout the campaign, but yes. Relatively clear what his preferences were. And I think the same is true in a lot of cities around Ontario, where the premier really did have these personal relationships with very specific
03:58 We could also point to Windsor where Drew Dilkins lost. It was one of the premier's chosen favorites. And so now he has to go and build new relationships with these mayors. And it's important, right? The mayor in any particularly large municipality ends up being really the conduit between the municipal sector and the province. And of course, municipalities have lots of demands of the province, right? If a school is being built or a hospital, any kind of
04:28 major change in that community, not to mention all of, you know, the provincial policies that affect them otherwise. It's the mayor who is really the point person who goes to Queens Park. Let's talk money. Ontario will release its fall fiscal update tomorrow. Are Ontario's fortunes better or worse since the spring budget? Probably not much worse than the spring budget, but the spring budget wasn't great news. The government is looking at really persistent deficits in the, let's say, 10 to 13 billion dollar range. we will see what the specific number is with this fall update. The way it usually works with the provincial government is that, you know,
05:07 they always make a pretty grim prediction, and then over the course of the fiscal year, the numbers get a little bit better. We do know some of the measures that are going to be announced in the fall economic statement. The finance minister has already said that the province will be matching the federal rules that will be intended to incentivize more investment. investment, that's going to cost about $8 billion over five years. That's a pretty big commitment. And, you know, the question of how the government will pay for measures like that while not increasing taxes, as they have promised not to do, and not touching health care spending, which they have also
05:46 promised not to do, that remains the big question of the next few years, because if you rule out tax increases and you rule out the single biggest line item in the budget, that means that any cuts that do occur are going to happen in other places that are maybe more visible, and education is the big one. Okay. Let's talk opposition. What issues do you think Mart Stiles will be focusing on during the session? Well, we've already seen one question period already, and I think it's fair to say that Marad Stiles used some of the government's greatest hits over the last several months,
06:19 which is to say, you know, some of the scandals, including the NPP use of expenses and, you know, the government's general, let's say, the alleged lack of accountability, and also the policy on private career colleges, where the government has halted all OSEP access for these colleges, even though the problems were concentrated in a relatively small number of colleges. This is really causing problems across the sector in a way that a more precise policy approach probably would not have. A lot of ground to cover for the opposition in a very short period of time. Yes, absolutely. John Michael, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. So it's clear the government has issues it wants to focus on, but so did the NDP, the liberals, and the Greens.
07:15 What kinds of things could dominate the agenda during this 23-day session? Jessica Smith-Cross, Richard Southern, great to have you joining us from Toronto. Ahmed Al-Buymi. Great to have you in our studios of as well. We've assembled the experts of Queens Park here for the rundown, so I'm excited to chat about this. I'm going to come to you. Before yesterday, the government had not sat in the legislature for 147 days, and they will only sit for about 23 days, after which they will break again until about March. So help me understand why do you think the government's made this decision? Well, the official line from the government is that they were trying to avoid interfering in
07:52 municipal elections. The Premier, you know, obviously had weighed in some elections, and in Saga in Toronto, although he says that he didn't in Toronto, but, you know, he wanted to stay away. But this also had been a very difficult summer for this government. And we know that, you know, the Premier likes to be on the road rather than being in the house, rather than, you know, attending question period. And so I would say it was a way to be far away from reporters, be far away from the opposition, to avoid the questions about, you know, the different issues that took place over the summer, the hotel expenses, the private jet, etc. That's, I would say, what we were seeing from this government.
08:36 Jessica, I'm going to imagine it was refreshing to see the MPPs yesterday. So help me understand why do you think the government made that decision to, you know, have an abbreviated session this time around? Yeah, it's completely right. There are lots of reasons to sit longer, to take longer, to consider bills that going to pass. The government has decided to not do that because they're sitting so briefly, they're going to need to rush things through if they're going to want to get anything done. So that means we might see again as they have in the past skipping committee meetings,
09:11 having late nights sittings. This has caused them some trouble. They've had to redo some bills, though they haven't done quite right before. The hotel expenses scandal that we just prefer to came up in a large part because they had all these late night sitting sitting plans trying to rush bills through. So in an effort to sort of spend time where the media isn't and where the opposition parties isn't, they're having the short sitting that could cause some problems down the road. Richard, we were talking scandals, but I want to talk priorities. Do you have a sense of what the government's priorities will be in the short period of time? Yeah, the Premier has come out in the last week or two and has talked about what he says is going to be an ambitious slate of legislation,
09:50 really focused around the trade war with the United States and, you know, protecting Ontario, protecting Ontario workers. That's really been the message the government's been wanting to focus on for the better part of a year and a half. And, you know, we're starting to see some of what that's going to look like. The government yesterday unveiled a red tape reduction bill to help get things built faster. Just this morning, they're talking about some tax cuts for corporations to help them amid this environment. That's what the government wants to focus on. The opposition, though, they're looking to sort of derail that message. They're looking to talk about affordability. That's, you know, the number one issue right now. And I think the real question going forward in this
10:30 short session is going to be, is the government going to present something to Ontarians to help tackle that big issue of affordability? I mean, they've done things in the past like cut the gas tax and, you know, make transit a little bit more affordable with this one fair. But those are like old measures. What's new to help the average Ontario who goes to the grocery store and sees these insane prices. So that's going to be the challenge for the government. Can they tackle that big affordability issue this session while, you know, trying to stay on message
11:01 and on their Protect Ontario message? It's going to be a bit of a challenge. Keep in mind that this is a government that came to power in the last election on the notion, the narrative of Protect Ontario. And it is very difficult when a government is in their third term to actually stick on that message, to stick on the, you know,
11:20 the framing in which they were elected. In an eighth year government, it's also when governments start to wear out. And so I think it's also, it'll be interesting to see, I'm told from the various sources that I've spoken with that this will be a tame session. The Premier says it'll be ambitious, but it'll be a tame session. They have three or four policy priorities that we're going to see them rush through over the next couple of weeks. Also, because, as we're going to talk, I believe, they're expecting the teacher contracts to heat up.
11:50 And a government that wants to focus on, you know, the tariffs and the trade war doesn't want to really, you know, have people pay attention elsewhere. All right. Jessica, I want to get you in there. Tame, potentially, maybe not if you're the opposition here. But when we talk about government's priorities, is there anything that we're missing that Richard or Ahmed haven't mentioned? We do have a big red tape bill, Richard mentioned. And we're going through it now. This was something that was tabled late yesterday. And it's showing how to try to get a lot of things done at once.
12:20 there's some interesting things in it. One of the first stories from it is they're removing municipalities' ability to object to having like garbage landfills in their area because we have this pressure from the U.S. that's going to tear up the exporting of garbage to the United States. So that's something that's on message for this government. They like to talk about, you know, standing up Donald Trump. But I think that small thing is actually going to be quite controversial in a lot of places where there have been plans for landfill
12:49 where people don't want, nobody wants a landfill in their backyard. Richard, I want to talk a little bit about the municipal election. Of course, a lot of incumbent mayors lost their election on Monday. How much of this will influence the government's ability to get things
13:05 done in the months? And years ahead, as we know, this Premier loves his relations with his mayors. He had mentioned that he went and called the mayors to congratulate them. He's lost some key allies as well. So how much does that play into what we'll get done? I don't think it's going to stop whatever the Ford government wants to do. I mean, you were talking about, you know, rationale for
13:27 keeping the legislature out until after the municipal election and the government's saying, hey, we didn't want to get in the way of that. Well, this is a government that has shown that it's more than willing to get in the middle of municipal affairs. It shrunk the size of Toronto City Council. It's ripping up bike lanes in the city of Toronto. It's more than willing to kind of run roughshod over municipalities. So I don't think some of those mayors going down, board friendly mayors is going to disrupt the government's agenda in any way. You got to wonder, though, if it's kind of a canary in the coal mine where a lot of these mayors that did lose were feeling the heat from voters at the ballot box over their handling of the trade war with the United States. And you got to wonder if voters
14:07 might start looking at the premier and wondering whether his sort of protect Ontario message and stance is actually working. Ahmed, I want to come to you to, because I want to talk, you had close eyes on the appeal mayoral race in Mississauga, specifically. We're going to talk regional and chair appointments. That's something that we should probably be hearing in the next couple of days. Will we see some familiar faces in that? Well, we'll see.
14:33 The Premier, the Minister of Housing has said that, you know, the appointments will come within the next couple of weeks. But I think we are going to see the province try to put friends, faces in these positions because keep in mind these positions will wield significant power. Friendly to the government. Friendly to the government. They want people who are going to be there to advance priorities to, you know, tighten budgets to, you know, be there as, you know, a representative for the government. So we've, we've reported, Polycorner's reported that Scott Acheson is likely going to get the appointment in Muscoca, the former, soon to be former conservative MP,
15:09 a big housing advocate and, you know, policy wonk. But we'll see Carolyn Parrish in Mississauga has said that she's open to taking on the position in Peel after she lost the mayoral contest. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but it's interesting. I would be very interested to see if the government is now looking at possibly the former friendly mayor's who lost elections to see if they can put them in these positions. Okay, Jessica, is that something that's on your radar as well when we talk about some of these regional chair appointments in the next couple days? Yeah, I mean, this is a big deal. This isn't the way it's really worked before. The government isn't just appointing all of the chairs.
15:49 They're giving them strong chair powers, ways that they can override the views of the democratically elected politicians. It's a big deal and it's a controversial deal. If they do decide to make some choices like appointing somebody such as Carolyn Parrish or none of the other mayors who was defeated in the elections this week, what does that say about how they're viewing voters' chance to express themselves? here. I think it would be a controversial move, and I'm not sure if they're going to go there or not. Richard, let's talk money. The fall fiscal update will be released tomorrow in the 26th budget. The spring, the government expected a 600 million surplus in 2028, 2029. But that projection seems a bit outdated. So what will you be looking for in this fiscal update? As we know today, we got a little
16:32 bit of a taste in terms of what we can expect. But what are you going to be looking for? Yeah, the money thing, and this is the real interesting thing. I mean, this is a government that was swept to power more than eight years ago, promising to tackle the spending of the wind government, but, you know, has gone on to spend way more. The finance minister kind of telegraphed a little bit about where we are fiscally last week. He was speaking to a business crowd downtown, and he said the deficit is going to top $13.6 billion. Of course, we already know the debt is approaching half a trillion. Look, this is a government that has spent a ton of money. And it's money that's kind of wrapped up in projects that Ontarians really haven't seen come to fruition yet. You know, they're building the
17:12 Ontario line, which is great. You know, we need transit in in Toronto. But the cost of that has ballooned now to 34 billion. There's more than 30 billion wrapped up in highway and other infrastructure projects. And it's costing more than 17 billion just to service the debt every year. I mean, they're spending more to service the debt than they are on teacher salaries and benefits every year. So, you know, now that the trade wars come along and, maybe the government's going to be taking in less money. They're facing, it seems like a bit of a fiscal crunchier. And it's interesting to see the finance minister out in the last couple of weeks in the
17:47 premier two kind of signaling what we might see as far as cutbacks. I mean, they've kind of drawn this line in the sand and John Michael McGrath alluded to it. They say, we're not going to hike taxes. We're not going to cut health care spending. But it kind of sounds like everything else might be on the table. The finance minister last week saying, we're going to take a look at headcount reductions, maybe signaling layoffs in the Ontario public sector for civil servants there, and maybe some targeted spending cuts too, as the government tries to get a hold of this fiscal
18:16 situation that maybe has gotten away from them a little bit. Jessica? Yeah, healthcare is going to be the big budget French problem. The Ontario nurses were just out saying, talking about all the nurses that had been cut back and lost nursing hours that has meant for patients. We had a story out showing that hallway health care, so patients who should be admitted to the hospital but are stuck on stretchers in hallways or storage closets or other unconventional spaces, that's been a problem in Ontario for years. But what used to be sort of the highs of hallway health care, the part of the year where there's flu going around and it's really bad, those are the new lows. It's gotten worse.
18:58 The government promised to come to power to fix hallway health care to end it and it and it's worse. but what they're facing is they're still spending more money on health care than before, but the population is growing and the population is aging. And health care in some ways is getting very much more expensive. There are new wonderful treatments out there that cost a lot of money for the patients who need them. It's a problem for their budget. And it's a problem for the patients who are struggling to get care in places in Ontario right now. All right, Ahmed, we've talked to health care.
19:28 We've talked about spending and long-term projects here. but what will you be watching for in this fiscal update? OSAP. This has been an issue that the government has had to deal with over the last couple of weeks. And yesterday we saw, after question period, reporters were speaking to the minister. OSAP is an issue, in my opinion, that combines two things that has the potential of becoming a lightning rod for this government. Affordability and accountability. On one hand, affordability, this is a government that has now taken OSAP back from private post-secondary. because a few bad actors in the sector have misused the program.
20:07 But at the same time, they are penalizing some, you know, the Premier said, the good students for that. But on the other hand, this is the question of why did the government, why did it take the government so long to find out that there was this apparently a systemic misuse of OSAP funding? So between the question of affordability and how students will be able to afford, students who, who were, you know, promised this money, will be able to afford their education and accountability, why the province took so long and why they couldn't find it. You know, the province has ways to audit these types of programs. Why it took them so long to actually discover that there was a systemic issue,
20:48 I'll be taking a look at that this session. All right, let's talk education. Ontario teachers across five provincial unions have been without a contract since August. What can you tell us about those negotiations, whether the risk of teacher strike is growing, I should mention that TVO is a part of the Ministry of Education, but is there concern that teachers will be hitting the picket line? Yeah, so a few years ago, all three of us, I guess,
21:12 we're covering the last teacher right here in Ontario. Look, the negotiations really haven't begun yet. There's still talking about the parameters for them. So we're not there yet. There's no imminent strike happening. But all the teacher unions, or most of them, have voted to hold strike votes. So we're going to see those votes coming up. this is something that they could come to ahead in the next couple of months.
21:34 I'm not convinced that we're going to see a replay of what we saw a few years ago, what teachers did walk off the job. But certainly this is a government that has been willing to go up against these unions. So it's going to be interesting to see what plays out in the next couple of months with this, because teachers have been without a contract now since August. Jessica, I've seen you nodding your head. You agree with Richard there? Yeah, he's absolutely right that we're not there yet.
22:00 So there are strike votes planned. And this comes after they're waiting for a ruling on exactly what is going to be negotiated where. It's kind of complex, but it means that things are in a holding pattern for now. There's going to be a strike vote. That part is actually kind of routine. But there are huge pressures on the education system right now that I would say increase the possibility of disruption. There's a lot of pressure on the removal of trustees and a lot of boards. There's a lot of pressure on rising class sizes on underfunding for special needs and support for kids with special needs.
22:35 We've got the education minister out there musing about making big changes to how kids with special people are accommodated in schools. He's mused about the way that they are currently included in classes in many cases is not working. There's a lot of pressure there. He's talked about how maybe we should like maybe this whole system needs changing. He's talked about not wanting to add more funding to support kids being included in classrooms if it isn't working. He's making a lot of big changes that aren't necessarily going over well with teachers and with some parents. Some may like them, but it all means that it's very frothy. A lot is going on.
23:14 And I think that increases the possibility that where things and it's a more difficult negotiation process than it usually is. and it's not you. Ahmed? Yeah, I think that teachers' unions will tell you that this has been an increasingly difficult minister to deal with, different than past relationships that they've had with other ministers. I don't think that they are at a point where they will strike.
23:41 I also think that striking is always the last resort for teachers' unions, or they want it to be because that's kind of when public sentiment starts to shift. So I don't think we're close to. to labor action in Ontario schools. But I definitely think that it is a card that these unions will play, especially if contract talks go sideways. Jessica, you've been writing a lot about the Greenbelt scandal.
24:07 It seems like a long time ago, but the file is still open. Can you give us the latest there? Yeah, it's the RC&P, and they've been investigating for over three years now. We ended up in the position of getting some new information. After doing some reporting on this, a source came from, forward with a report. So this was an investigative report on that found that he'd done some illegal law broken, broken Ontario's lobbying law. But it contains some information about what happened when the Greenbelt removals that has never been made public before. So there's been like
24:42 tidbits that are mostly colored. We had a story about how government officials and a developer and lobbyists who are involved in one of the Greenbelt removals mingled in a private box and they a private box at a leaf game, leaf game on the day that cabinet signed off in the green ballot removals. We've got information about how one of the senior minister's office staffers involved said some things in our interview with the Integrity Commissioner that were contradicted by evidence such as her own text messages later on. We have a few more stories coming out on this that are kind of spicy, but I won't spoil right here and now. The point is that this is all still going on. The RC&P are still investigating after more than three years. We don't talk about it on the day-to-day
25:32 because aside from this new bit of information that we've got in our putting out there, there hasn't been a lot of news. But it does come up when you talk to people about this government, it comes up when the opposition's trying to criticize them, and there's still the possibility of there being charges at some point, vote or possibility that one day the RCMP could come out and say actually the case closed. There's a lot of things, if I could just jump in, that are kind of waiting in the wings.
26:00 There is that RCNP investigation. What's going to happen with that? There's also this, the Integrity Commissioner is investigating the handling of the Skills Development Fund. You know, this was a political staff fast-tracking these grants to allegedly unqualified companies who had ties to conservative lobbyists or alleged ties to then labormen. Mr. David Puccini. That's an integrity commissioner report that could come out literally any day, which could really derail the government's message. So there's these things waiting in the wings that could really hurt the government's message if and when they come to fruition. I do want to jump back quickly on the green belt as well. Do you think that's still top of mind
26:39 for members of the public, or have we moved on here? I mean, the Premier doesn't think it is. Whenever he gets asked about it now, he says, oh, the Ontarians don't care about it. Our polling shows they don't care about it. There are, I mean, this is the thing. Does any scandal stick to this government? And just in the last couple of months, they faced their share of really easy to understand scandals. The Premier buying a private jet for big money. He has many of his MPP staying in Toronto hotel rooms when they live in Toronto and billing taxpayers for it. None of it seems to really stick to the Premier.
27:12 And maybe that's a problem of the opposition. Can they really land these attacks? You know, legislature came back yesterday for the first time in 147 days. And with all the scandal going on, you have the opposition leader standing up and leading off with kind of a generic question talking about how she traveled around the province and then saying, Premier, have you kind of forgot who you've been fighting for? Maybe lacking that sort of knockout jab that you might expect with everything that's going on. So the real question is, are these scandals sticking to the government?
27:44 You look at some of the polling numbers. and it might suggest they're not. Ahmed, I'm giving you the last word here. What issues do you think the opposition will focus in on the session? Seems that we've covered a few there. Is there anything that's missing? Yeah, I think all of those. But I just want to add to what Richard was saying.
27:57 The government doesn't seem to think that they're sticking. And an example of that is Stan Cho. Stan Show was, he was, the Premier now says he was fired from cabinet over the misuse of expenses or funding that MPPs receive an allowance for hotels when there are night sittings or when there are emergencies. they're allowed to use these allowances, and Stan Cho misused them for, he now says, family convenience purposes.
28:22 But, you know, Stan Show was out of cabinet, and now he's back as a parliamentary assistant. And with that comes a pay raise. And so does that show that the government thinks that, you know, people are talking about these scandals? No, because he would not be getting a pay raise if people had forgotten. I should mention that, Stan, did pay back those fees.
28:44 Yes. But we will continue to follow the story. I want to thank you all three. It's very rare and hard to get three reporters from Queens Park to sit down together with the chat. So I appreciate you taking the time. Ahmed, Jessica, Richard, great to have you on the program. Good to be here. Thanks for having it.
29:05 So what do you think Ontario legislator should focus on before they break in December? Is there one issue that should be top priority? Let us know. Send us an email to rundown at tbO.org. Or as always, you can drop us a comment on our YouTube page. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. Starting this year, grade 10 students must complete the financial literacy graduation requirement to earn their Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Need little help getting started?
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