Ontario MLAs started a new session Monday in the Legislative Assembly and re-elected the Speaker of the House, before the government presents a Speech from the Throne and a new budget on Tuesday.
Ontario MPs were sitting for the first time since Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won a majority second term in the general election in early June.
This unusual summer session comes as the Ford government faces a shortage of health workers, which is straining hospitals, and runaway inflation which has led to calls improve disability benefits for people with disabilities.
The first item on the agenda on Monday was the election for Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Two Tory MPs were vying for the job: Ted Arnott, who had been president for four years, and Nina Tangri, who had been associate minister for small business and red tape reduction for a year.
It was ultimately Mr. Arnott who was reappointed by his peers. His candidacy had not been proposed by his party, but by the NDP. The Progressive Conservatives had instead nominated Nina Tangri, who would have become the first woman to hold this position in Ontario. Mme Tangri is no longer part of the ministerial cabinet formed in June by the prime minister.
Outside parliament on Monday, demonstrators from various unions protested against the Ford government, calling on it to include more investment in public services, health care, wages and furloughs in the next budget. illness paid.
On Tuesday, the Ford government will present a Speech from the Throne, which will outline its new program, but also its budget, which should be largely the same as that presented in the spring, but which could not be adopted at Queen’s Park before the outbreak. of the election campaign.
The only new element that Premier Ford has mentioned so far is a 5% increase in Ontario Disability Support Program disability benefits. These benefits have been frozen since 2018 at a maximum of $1,169 per month for a single person with a disability, to meet basic needs and housing.
Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said Mr Ford should instead double the amount of his benefits, so disabled people don’t have to live in “state poverty”. The Liberals and the NDP opposition have also called on the government to increase these disability benefits.
The three parties have also called on Mr Ford to repeal the law that has capped public sector wage increases for three years, to ease a nursing shortage that led to the temporary closure of wards this summer. emergency in Ontario.
Nurses associations and opposition politicians have called on the government to repeal the law, passed in 2019, which capped salary increases for nurses and other nurses at 1% a year for three years public in Ontario.
The Green Party also wants an end to “exclusionary zoning” in the province and investments in very affordable housing. Environmentalists also want the cancellation of major road projects, such as Mr. Ford’s election promise to build a new highway (the “413”) in the Greater Toronto Area.
It is not yet known if the deputies will sit for a short summer session or if the work will continue until the end of the year holidays. But the Ford government wants to pass a bill before the October municipal elections that would give more powers to the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa.