With the government voting to <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/04/14/pcs-to-table-budget-on-april-28-days-before-election-call/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adjourn the house until April 28</a>, today's question period was the fifth-to-last remaining in the session before election time.
<h3>Unchuffed with Chatha</h3>
NDP Deputy Leader John Vanthof started off question period with a line of questioning to try and corner the government on its line of appointees to police services boards who keep resigning over scandals. He brought up the chair of the Peel Region Police Services Board, Ron Chatha, who the NDP found out was at a campaign event in Brampton with Premier Doug Ford and the local PC candidate. A day earlier, the NDP had been chasing the government down during question period over a Peterborough Police Services Board appointee who had been caught on video canvassing for the local PC candidate.
“I guess you know you’re coming towards the end of a session when the NDP start to sink even lower,” Government House Leader Paul Calandra said in response, adding that the NDP would rather focus on these issues than talk about the economy, health care or long-term care.
Vanthof tried again, asking why the Peterborough appointee had resigned and the Peel appointee hadn’t.
Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, who on Wednesday acknowledged that the Peterborough appointee had done “something inappropriate” and resigned, took a different tack today.
“I find it frustrating that people who want to serve their public are automatically suggesting by the member opposite that if they support Premier Ford, if they support our government, they should automatically disqualify. Well, guess what? There are a lot of people who support Premier Ford in the province of Ontario,” Jones said after blaming the NDP for not raising the issue during Chatha’s appointment review in the Standing Committee on Government Agencies.
Arguing that the NDP had wanted Chatha to appear in front of the government agencies committee but that the PCs had prevented it, Vanthof said police service appointees should be apolitical and there should be a “definite separation between politics and civilian oversight of the police.”
Calandra answered again, saying he found it “creepy” that the NDP had found out Chatha’s participation at the campaign event through looking at his photos and encouraged the NDP to focus on the province’s economy.
<h3>Our London Family</h3>
NDP Peggy Sattler tried to get an answer out of the government on<a href="https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-2/bill-86" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Bill 86, the Our London Family Act</a>, which the NDP developed with the National Council of Canadian Muslims after a van attack in London killed four members of a Muslim family and injured another. Sattler said the bill was developed to “channel the collective grief, trauma and anger of the Muslim community and all Ontarians into real action against Islamophobic hate.”
“It is our belief that the bill needs more work in order to strengthen it. It is too important,” Calandra responded, and said that a new legislature after the election would ensure a “a strengthened bill, a bill that meets the needs of the community and the spirit of what the community wants.”
Sattler took Calandra’s response as confirmation that the government wouldn’t move on the bill.
“This is a bill that sets out a detailed, concrete plan to tackle Islamophobia, white supremacy and organized hate in our province … We need to move beyond words to meaningful action,” Sattler said.
“It may be good enough for the opposition to pass a bill that does not meet the needs of the communities, that is not strong enough. It is simply not good enough for the government of Ontario,” Calandra responded.
“I don’t know why it is that the opposition assumes that on June 2 we’ll just stop talking about racism in this place, about improving the province of Ontario. I know that on our side of the house it doesn’t stop on June 2.”
<h3>Scheduling sass</h3>
MPP Belinda Karahalios of the New Blue Party asked why Calandra hadn’t given much of a schedule for that week’s sittings and suggested that there had been a debate on <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-2/bill-100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill 100</a> “after hours, without notice to all MPPs” on Wednesday night. She also took the opportunity to take a shot at the Ontario Party MPP Rick Nicholls for “maintaining a very friendly relationship with the same government that he claims his party is challenging.”
Calandra said the debate had “members on all sides of the house” and MPPs had been notified weeks earlier of night sittings.
“It can’t be the government house leader’s job to also do the scheduling for the New Blue Party. It can’t possibly be. If New Blue can’t even schedule their time, how in God’s name do they expect to run a province?” Calandra said, offering to manage the New Blues’ schedule for them.
Shaking Calandra’s sass off, Karahalios moved instead to asking the government on when it intends to table its budget.
“We haven’t had a budget from this government in over a year, as it continues its reckless spending and greater deficits than anything seen by the prior Liberal government,” Karahalios said.
In response, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said it had been “an honour and a privilege to stand in this house," almost as though he were going to announce his retirement, before adding, “I plan to be here for four more years.”
On the budget, Bethlenfalvy gave a cheeky “stay tuned, restez à l’écoute,” and tweeted out shortly after that the government would be tabling its budget on <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/04/14/pcs-to-table-budget-on-april-28-days-before-election-call/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">April 28</a>.

Your question period briefing: Final four

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