The Green Plan

The climate crisis is impacting our lives more and more every day. It’s making life less affordable, flooding our basements, and harming our health. Climate change is already costing Canadian households over $700 annually, with that number expected to rise every year. Extreme weather events like Toronto’s flooding in summer 2024 cost $4 billion from just three hours of intense rainfall—that’s $1.3 billion per hour.

Meanwhile, big polluting companies and fossil fuel giants like Enbridge continue to rake in record profits at your expense. We have a provincial government that prioritizes billionaire CEOs and wealthy land speculators over you. Whether it’s paving over prime farmland to build Highway 413 or overturning an independent energy board decision that would have protected you from energy bill increases to benefit Enbridge, Doug Ford continues to put excessive corporate profits over everyday people. It’s not fair.

Unlike the current government, we’ll protect the people and places we love in Ontario. Fortunately, many of the things that will make your life more affordable will also help reduce climate pollution: providing you with more affordable transportation options like public transit, EVs, and cycling means more affordable choices to get around your community. More affordable options to heat your home beyond expensive oil and gas means a lower energy bill. These are the kind of changes we can make immediately with the right political priorities.

We can create a more affordable Ontario where we’re ready to handle the worsening impacts of climate change, and where the wellbeing of the people and places we love comes first. We understand the anxiety that many are feeling around the worsening climate crisis. That’s why we need to take action.

Putting people before oil & gas profits

Doug Ford is in the pocket of fossil fuel giants. He has repeatedly put fossil fuel corporations like Enbridge before the people of this province. These are the very same companies that are ripping you off on your energy bill, and Doug Ford isn’t just letting them get away with it – he’s actively helping them. In 2024 he overturned an independent energy board decision that would have protected you from energy bill increases. It’s not fair that the most polluting companies are the ones profiting off you as the climate crisis worsens. Greens will get Big Oil & Gas out of our wallets for good and make them pay their fair share.

Here’s how we’ll do it:

• End taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuel companies
• Make big industrial polluters pay their fair share with a rising price on large industrial emissions
• Pass the No Free Ride for Fossil Fuels Act to charge fossil fuel companies for using public land.
• Reverse the Ford government’s subsidy for Enbridge’s gas hookups.
• Pay people, not gas monopolies, for flexible power through energy conservation and efficiency, smart systems that shift demand and optimize energy use, net metering for local solar generation and home battery storage to meet peak demand.
• Return natural gas cost protection by renewing the independence of the OEB.

Lowering your energy bills

By putting people before big oil & gas profits, we can help you save money by saving energy. There are so many options that will help lower your energy bill, including heat pumps that transfer heating and cooling in a highly efficient way, and retrofits that reduce the amount of heat lost through poor home insulation. These options are getting cheaper everyday, but we need to make them affordable for all Ontarians. Unfortunately, the current provincial government’s approach has been to subsidise these options in a way that benefits the wealthiest families. We’ll take a different approach. Everyone, but especially middle and lower income households, should have the option to save money on their energy bill.

Here’s how we’ll help you save money by saving energy:

• Provide a free heat pump for households with incomes under $100,000 and zero interest loans for households over $100,000.
• Remove HST on heat pumps, heat pump hot water heating, solar panels, EV chargers and energy retrofits
• Implement a zero interest loan program for energy efficiency building retrofits for households with incomes over $100,000, and a $10,000 grant and upfront zero interest loan programs for energy efficiency building retrofits for households with incomes under $100,000.
• Create a grant program for coops, non-profit and public housing to retrofit buildings.
• Institute energy labeling of homes and multi-residential buildings.
• Support municipalities, schools and institutions to create renewable energy projects through 0% loans

More affordable choices to get around

Along with making it more affordable to heat your home by making it easier to get off of expensive fossil fuels, we’ll make it more affordable to get around by increasing access to affordable transportation options, including public transit, e-bikes, cycling and EVs. We’re committed to increasing the availability of affordable options, because we believe people should have a range of choices in the way they get around, instead of being locked into expensive commutes as their only option.

Here’s how we’ll increase the availability of affordable transportation options so it’s less expensive for you to get around:

• Expand all-day, 2-way GO service to leave every 15 minutes during peak periods and every 30 minutes off peak, including weekend service. Offer at least one express service each way during weekday peak periods.
• Establish a clean, affordable, accessible intercity electric bus service to connect communities across the province, ensuring connections in small, rural communities and dedicated bus lanes.
• Make EVs affordable through a $7,500 clean vehicle rebate for new EVs under $75,000, a $3,000 clean vehicle rebate on pre-owned EVs and new E-Bikes
• Expand the EV charging network across the province
• Increase supply of EVs in Ontario by establishing a provincial Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) standard that matches those in BC and Quebec
• Amend the building code so that all new homes and multi-residential buildings are EV charging ready
• Create dedicated truck lanes on Highway 407 to reduce congestion and the need for more highways; Remove Hwy 407 tolls for transport trucks.
• Create a predictable, annual Infrastructure fund for safe walking, cycling and accessible mobility devices for municipalities. Stop the province from interfering with municipal transit plans like bike lanes.

Make Ontario’s grid cleaner and more affordable

Ontario once had one of the cleanest grids in the world. Unfortunately, since Doug Ford took office, he’s been focused on scrapping renewable energy contracts and increasing the use of fossil gas, undoing much of the positive progress made by the coal phaseout earlier this century. When the current provincial government took office, the grid was 96% clean. It is now down to 87% and getting dirtier. Renewables continue to be the most affordable form of energy, and they are only getting cheaper. In addition to being cost competitive today, costs are expected to further decline by an additional 40% by 2035, compared to relatively flat costs for new fossil gas deployments. By investing in renewable energy like wind, solar and storage, we can make electricity more affordable, make the air cleaner, and reduce climate pollution.

Here’s how we’ll do it:

• Remove red tape to make it easier for people, farmers and businesses to connect renewable energy to the grid and to make virtual net metering possible
• Ensure grid capacity and low cost grid connections for renewable energy generation
• Invest in smart grid implementation and innovations such as bi-directional EV charging, peak demand programs and storage
• Phase out expensive fossil gas plants by 2035
• Direct IESO to have an open, competitive bid process for the lowest cost emission-free sources of electricity generation
• End the moratorium on off-shore wind energy
• Ensure community and individual monetary benefit agreements for people who live near wind farms
• Maintain existing nuclear generation at Bruce and Darlington

Protecting your home from flooding

In addition to supporting farmers by stopping the paving of prime farmland, we’ll also protect your basement from flooding by stopping the paving of wetlands. Wetlands act as a critical buffer to protect our homes from flooding, absorbing rainwater during intense storms that are only increasing in intensity, frequency and cost due to climate change. Unfortunately, Doug Ford’s approach of destroying wetlands with wasteful projects like Highway 413, and his attack on Conservation Authorities, is increasing the risk of your home flooding in the next big storm. In addition to protecting wetlands, we’ll make it easier for families to flood-proof their basements with zero-interest loans, and support cities to spruce up their roads, bridges and buildings to be ready for the next torrential downpour.

Here’s how we’ll protect your home from flooding:

• Prohibit 400 series highways in the Greenbelt, starting with canceling HW 413 and the Bradford Bypass
• Implement a predictable multi year-fund for municipalities to build climate-resilient infrastructure
• Create a Safe Home Fund with zero interest loans for home renovations to protect homes from climate-fueled unsafe weather events.
• Expand the Greenbelt to include a Bluebelt of protected waterways
• Reverse the Ford government’s attack on Conservation Authorities, Environmental Assessments, wetland and species protection
• Adopt a provide-wide net-gain wetland policy to increase protections for wetlands and reverse Ontario Wetland Evaluation System (OWES) changes; update and implement Ontario’s 2017 Wetland Strategy.

Protecting the nature that protects us

In addition to the wetlands that directly protect our homes from flooding, there are many natural areas in Ontario that play a crucial role in slowing climate change and weakening its impacts. These natural areas are also home to many rare and endangered species, and protecting them is critical to slowing biodiversity loss, which is accelerating at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, Doug Ford has done serious damage, hollowing out the Endangered Species Act entirely, and removing crucial protections for 250 species at-risk. Protecting nature will help protect us from the most severe impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss, but we need to take urgent action.

Here’s how we’ll get to work, today:

• Work with the federal 2030 Nature Strategy to protect and restore biodiversity in Canada by protecting 30% of Ontario’s land and waters by 2030 and restoring 30% of all degraded ecosystems – in addition to the targets in the Ontario Biodiversity Strategy
• Restore and enhance the integrity of the Endangered Species Act — including cancellation of the pay-to-slay fund, restoration of science-based decision making at COSSARO, and Ministerial oversight of assessments — and ensure its effective implementation by reversing recent changes that have increased exemptions and weakened protections.
• Properly recognize the value of natural areas, particularly forests, wetlands, and peatlands, for climate control. Create mechanisms to enhance protection and restoration.
• Amend provincial legislation to recognize and permanently protect Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and appropriately support other Indigenous-led conservation and climate efforts.
• Reduce the introduction of invasive alien species by 50% and minimize their impact by more effectively coordinating government responses
• Support the Mushkegowuk National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) proposal to protect the Hudson Bay Lowlands to conserve biodiversity and mitigate climate change while supporting Indigenous self-determination.
• Restore the independence and capacity of the Greenbelt Council and Niagara Escarpment Commission to enable decision-making consistent with the goals and objectives of those provincial plans.
• Strengthen and uphold the Environmental Bill of Rights.

Reduce Waste and Cost by Building a Circular Economy

• Expand the federal government’s list of banned single-use plastics to include water bottles, coffee cups and other unnecessary packaging. Expand Deposit Return to non-alcoholic beverage containers.
• Ban food waste from landfills or incinerators and expand food waste collection to all municipalities across the province
• Set required minimum use of recycled aggregates in infrastructure projects as well as providing research and education funding to ensure that all reclaimed concrete material can be re-engineered and re-used as effectively as possible.
• Lower costs and reduce waste with a Circular Economy Act to support reuse, repair and recycling jobs and businesses
• Create a community fund to support tool sharing libraries and repair programs to help people save money and reduce waste

Animal protections

• Add more transparency to Ontario’s Animal Welfare Services
• Ensure that the remaining animals at Marineland are humanely relocated to appropriate accommodations that meet the health and wellbeing of the animals
• Ban dog train and trial areas (often referred to as penned dog hunting).
• Ensure the new Ontario puppy mill regulations include a licensing and registration system
• End cosmetic surgery on companion animals including tail docking and ear cropping
• Allow non-profit corporations to own and operate veterinary clinics to support affordable care without profit-driven motives
• Ban fur farming in Ontario to help decrease the health risks associated with them
• Ban roadside zoos in Ontario that exploit exotic animals.

Strengthening Ontario’s economy

Solving climate change is about protecting the people and places we love, but it’s also a monumental opportunity to strengthen our economy and create good, green jobs. Ontario has all the talent, resources, and people to be a world-leading economy. At a time when we are under threat from a trade war with the USA, strengthening our economy and boosting self-sufficiency has never been more important. We can create and protect jobs in the green economy and agriculture sectors, grow our own food, and make Ontario’s economy the envy of the world.

Protecting our economy against tariff threats

We need a Team Ontario approach that puts people before partisan politics to protect Ontario workers, jobs and companies from the threat of tariffs. Ontario’s overreliance on the USA as a trading partner has put our economy in a vulnerable position. As we work to protect and support the businesses and jobs most at-risk from tariffs, we need to rapidly shift our supply chains to focus within the province and country, and with more diverse trade partners.

Here’s how we’ll put your job first:

• Immediately create a ‘tariff taskforce’ that works across party, jurisdictional and sectoral lines to negotiate with the United States on trade
• Create an investment tax credit to unlock business investments in Ontario
• Develop a “Buy Ontario” strategy and implement public procurement rules that support Ontario businesses and farmers
• Create a Protect Ontario Fund for businesses disproportionately impacted by tariffs and make the investments needed to build new supply chains
• Immediately move to aggressively diversify our trade partners
• Work with other provinces to finally remove interprovincial trade barriers
• Provide $2B per year for capital spending for municipalities to build resilient infrastructure through a dedicated Climate Adaptation Fund

Create good, green jobs

In addition to making energy more affordable and the air cleaner, investing in renewables will create new opportunities for jobs right here in Ontario. The climate crisis is a massive threat, but it is also an opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of good, green jobs. If Ontario wants to attract jobs and investment in the $2 trillion global clean economy, we need to show that we’re a province that takes climate change seriously. We can create jobs retrofitting our buildings, manufacturing EVs, and creating low-carbon products and technologies. Ontario has the innovative businesses, natural resources, geography, and workforce to be a leader in the clean economy and create new jobs in your community.

Here’s how we’ll make it happen:

• Invest in an Ontario strategy to create more jobs and prosperity by making Ontario a global leader in the $2 trillion green economy
• Create hundreds of thousands of new jobs by retrofitting 40% of existing homes and workplaces to net zero by 2035, and 100% by 2045.
• Give 60,000 people the skills and experience to work in the green economy through a year of free college tuition plus a year long apprenticeship when they graduate.
• Implement a Green Hydrogen and Ammonia strategy
• Implement tax credits for investments to decarbonize businesses and industry
• Create an industrial efficiency support program that provides collaboration opportunities with local clean technology and green energy companies to allow emissions reductions for heavy emitting industries.
• Create a fund to support green tech start ups
• Fund colleges appropriately so that they can offer programs for training in the trades

Supporting local food and farming

In addition to creating new green jobs, we can support existing ones by investing in the $50 billion food and farming sector. The sector is an economic engine for the province and already employs over 875,000 people, bringing prosperity to rural and urban communities and supporting our economy. Farmers are our food security. We have some of the best farmland in the world, which under the stewardship of Ontario farmers delivers high-quality, healthy and locally grown food to people in our province. Unfortunately, the current provincial government wants to pave over this very farmland that creates so many jobs and so much food.

Over 300 acres of farmland are lost per day in Ontario.

As the impacts of climate change intensify, and global politics and economics continue to be unpredictable, including the threat of US tariffs, ensuring Ontario can feed itself has never been more important. But this chronic farmland loss threatens our food security.

Here’s how we will support local food and farmers and strengthen our food security:

• Create an Ontario Foodbelt to permanently protect prime farmland from being lost to non-agricultural uses, such as urban sprawl, highways, and gravel mining
• Invest in local food hubs to support local farmers, supply chains and businesses.
• Provide tax incentives for local food and beverage manufacturers who purchase inputs grown by Ontario farmers.
• Increase funding, remove the cap and expand business risk management programs
• Establish a food processing infrastructure fund to support investments by Ontario-based companies in food processing facilities.
• Increase provincial investment in AgTech to support innovation in the food and farming sector including research into low-carbon grain drying and greenhouse heating solutions
• Support supply management and defend Ontario food and farmers in trade negotiations
• Prioritize Ontario-grown food by developing local, sustainable procurement guidelines for public institutions.
• Introduce a provincial program to pay farmers for environmental goods and services by working with organizations such as Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS).
• Ensure the existing Federal-Provincial-Territorial grocery retailer code of conduct is mandatory, enforceable, transparent, and benefits both customers and farmers.
• Eliminate property tax penalties for farmers with small-scale, value-added production facilities on farms.
• Promote training in specialty programs that focus on sustainable practices and soil-health within agricultural schools and extension services.

Supporting small businesses and entrepreneurship

Small businesses are the backbone of our local economies. They create good jobs, provide our communities with essential products and services, and make our mainstreets thrive. All too often, however, local small businesses are priced out and boxed out by red tape and unfair legislation that favours big box stores.

Here’s how we’ll help small businesses survive, and thrive, on our mainstreets:

• Increase the Employer Health Tax exemption to $1.5 million for small businesses
• Implement a Commercial Renter’s Bill of Rights to protect small businesses from unexpected cost increases and ensure business stability and continuity.
• Create standardised leases to ensure fairness and transparency and ensure that priority is given to existing tenants when leases are up for renewal.
• Work with insurance providers to develop an affordable commercial insurance program for small businesses.
• Improve opportunities for small local businesses and nonprofits to work with local governments by decreasing current financial and informational barriers.
• Undertake a review of regulations in order to weed out red tape and costs that disproportionately affect small businesses.
• Support new buyers or employees to purchase existing small businesses upon the owner’s retirement by simplifying employee ownership trusts and corporation to worker co-op conversions. Establish a NextGen Ownership Fund to assist aspiring entrepreneurs with business purchases
• Remove the beer can tax
• Support tech start-ups to build stronger partnerships between industry, academia, and government to increase their success and help support them to remain in our communities.

Tackle the mental health and addictions crisis

While the climate crisis continues to worsen, there is another, deeper crisis at play—a crisis of caring. Doug Ford’s government has abandoned so many people who need help because it just doesn’t care. And nowhere is this more evident than with mental health and addictions.

We are living in anxious times. People are struggling to pay the bills, afford groceries, and find an affordable place to live. Geopolitics are unpredictable and unstable. Climate anxiety among young people is on the rise, with six in 10 young people aged 16 to 25 ‘very’ or ‘extremely worried’ about climate change. The social, mental and emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are still lingering. Many people feel like things just won’t get better. Everything is not okay. That’s why you should be able to get the mental health care you need—when and where you need it. Unfortunately, the current provincial government sees mental health care as a luxury, keeping it out of reach for so many.

Young people in particular are feeling this burden – as many as one in five children and youth in Ontario will experience some form of mental health problem, but five out of six of those kids will not receive the treatment they need due to severe gaps in the system.

When it comes to addictions, this government’s negligence has had tragic consequences. In 2023, an average of seven Ontarians per day died from opioid-related causes, an increase of 292% over the past 10 years.

The drug poisoning crisis is a tragedy demanding urgent action, and it disproportionately impacts marginalized, northern and Indigenous communities. Unfortunately, as drug poisonings continue to rise, often with tragic outcomes, the government has decided that more policing is the solution. We believe the solution to these challenges is more care.

Affordable mental health care where and when you need it

Mental health care should not be a luxury that’s reserved for those who can afford it. It should be accessible and affordable to everyone. You shouldn’t have to pull out your credit card to pay for a therapist or hope that your employer-provided insurance can foot the bill. But it’s not enough for mental health care to be affordable, it needs to be accessible and convenient. Imagine being able to access affordable mental health care in your neighbourhood, at your school, or near work—when and where you need it.

Here’s how we’ll make that happen:

• Cover mental health and addiction care for all under OHIP
• Increase base funding for community mental health services
• Ensure retention and recruitment of workers in the community mental health sector by bringing wages up to par with other providers in the sector.
• Integrate mental health and addictions services into expanded Family Health Teams and walk-in clinics to improve early intervention.
• Improve access to care by providing virtual care options in rural and remote regions.
• Implement a wait time reduction strategy for mental health services that sets targets, tracks wait times, and makes the information publicly available.
• Immediately make the investments in frontline mental health to reduce wait times to 30 days or less for children and youth.
• Invest in emergency mental health supports including crisis centres and outreach workers, and have social workers in emergency rooms during peak hours to divert their needs.
• Increase investment in Youth Wellness Hubs province-wide as a one-stop shop for employment, health, addiction, education, recreation and housing support.
• Ensure adequate mental health supports are available for first responders

Addressing addictions challenges with care

Addiction and substance use challenges impact all of us—either directly or through our friends and loved ones. We need to address addictions challenges with care, not with harsh penalties. Unfortunately we have a provincial government that sees addictions as something that should be politicized, policed and criminalized, which only makes things worse and less safe—both for those suffering and those in their community.

Here’s how we’ll support people with care and compassion:

• Address substance use through a health and human rights framework, not a criminal justice framework.
• Build 60,000 new supportive housing spaces with fully funded wrap-around services.
• Reopen the safe consumption and treatment sites closed by the Ford government and expand the number of sites across the province, prioritizing areas with high opioid deaths like the North.
• Integrate paid peer support workers with lived experience into the planning and organisation of all substance use programming.
• Invest in the creation and expansion of permanent 24/7 mobile crisis response teams where mental health care workers are deployed when people are experiencing a mental health or substance related crisis, as well as rapid access addiction medicine clinics.
• Increase access to publicly funded treatment beds.

Healthcare

The crisis of caring extends into Ontario’s healthcare system. What was once a standard-setter for public healthcare globally is now a system on the brink of collapse. People used to be drawn to Ontario in part because of its world-class public healthcare system. Now, the opposite is true. People are lining up around the block overnight just to register for a family doctor. Emergency departments are overflowing or even closed. Hallway health care, which was supposed to be a top priority for the current government, has only gotten worse after its seven years in office—up 25% from June 2018. These challenges are heightened in rural communities, which are losing primary care providers at four times the rate of urban centres.

Unfortunately, the current provincial government’s response to the collapse of the healthcare system is to increase privatisation, locking out the majority of Ontarians from receiving the care they need. Access to healthcare should not be tied to your income, full-stop.

With the lowest healthcare funding per capita of any province in Canada, Ontarians deserve better. We will put people first and re-establish an accessible, equitable and integrated healthcare system that is publicly funded and publicly delivered—shifting back to non-profit and government-provided care and away from profit-driven privatization.

More doctors, nurses and PSWs

Ensuring everyone has access to a family doctor and the care they need starts with immediately hiring more doctors and healthcare workers, including nurses and personal support workers (PSWs). But it’s not enough to just increase hiring. Hiring without improving working conditions and pay will result in a revolving door of overworked and underpaid healthcare professionals that does not address the underlying shortages limiting patient access. Working conditions for healthcare workers have become dire, including Doug Ford’s Bill 124, which froze wages for many workers. This crisis came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many frontline healthcare workers burnt out due to poor working conditions and low pay, with many leaving the profession entirely. We need to care for the people that care for us. The quality of working conditions directly impacts the quality of care you receive as a patient. Investing in our healthcare workers means shorter lines in the ER, more family doctors, and better treatment for everyone.

Here’s how we’ll do it:

• Recruit 3,500 more doctors in Ontario through more medical school positions and more residency opportunities for international medical graduates so that every person has a primary care provider within 3-4 years.
• Work with primary care providers to dramatically decrease administrative demands on doctors, and move to electronic prescriptions to allow them to spend more time caring for patients
• Pay healthcare workers fairly by harmonizing wages across the healthcare system to ensure retention of experienced staff and good community health supports. Ensure wages are equitable and internationally competitive for Doctors, Registered Nurses (RNs), Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs), and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) across all healthcare settings.
• Increase nursing student enrolments by 10% per year for the next 5 years. Increase nurse practitioners by 2,500 by 2030.
• Address retention and recruitment issues so that we can meet the need of at least 6,800 new PSWs by 2028
• Increase fast-tracked credential approvals for international healthcare workers, including nurses and doctors.

Healthcare for all – where and when you need it

Immediately hiring and retaining more doctors, nurses and PSWs and improving working conditions will help reduce patient backlogs. But without ensuring resources are available in all communities across the province, many Ontarians will continue to go without access to the care they need close to home. This is especially true for rural and northern communities. Almost 700,000 Ontarians live more than 50 kilometres from their family doctor, and 130,000 live more than 200km away.

Here’s how we’ll ensure that you can access healthcare where and when you need it:

• Expand and provide start-up funding for family health teams across the province with a wider variety of care available (social workers, addictions care, physio, etc.)
• Increase funding to expand access to publicly funded and publicly provided 24/7 non urgent clinics like community health clinics and nurse practitioner led clinics to reduce pressure on emergency rooms
• Stop charging doctors and removing patients from rosters if they visit a walk-in clinic
• Better integrate long-term care, homecare, and caregiver services within family health teams to properly provide for the complex needs of residents.
• Ensure a robust home care and community care system that is anchored within primary care
• Reduce the backlog in surgeries, imaging, and diagnostic tests through the creation of a centralized intake and referral system to connect primary care providers with specialists and create specialized care teams to reduce surgery wait times.

Put people over healthcare profits and stop privatization

Doug Ford’s privatization of Ontario’s healthcare system is a deeply concerning trend that would lock out the majority of Ontarians from receiving the care they need. Access to healthcare should not be tied to your income, or be about whether you were born into a wealthy family or not.

Here’s how we’ll put people over big healthcare profits and stop healthcare privatization so everyone can get the care they need:

• Stop future investor-driven privatization and reverse Ford’s efforts to privatize our healthcare system
• Shift away from our reliance on agency nurses and decrease the financial burden on hospitals by capping licenced agencies fees and restricting agency nurses from working in the hospital of previous employment for 6 months
• Partner with the federal government in its implementation of the universal pharmacare program. As an immediate measure, publicly fund take-home cancer and rare disease medications.

Prevent illnesses by addressing the social and environmental determinants of health

The best care is the kind that keeps you out of the emergency room in the first place. That’s why we prioritize a preventative approach to healthcare—our vision is to try to solve problems before they begin. This means helping people access healthy food and a place to call home, and keeping our air and water clean. It’s also about early detection and treatment of illnesses in community clinics in your neighbourhood whenever possible, rather than the hallway of a hospital.

Here’s how we’ll take a preventative approach to health:

• Increase upstream investments in the social determinants of health, such as reducing social isolation, housing insecurity, and poverty to prevent substantial, long-term healthcare costs and severe disease.
• Support and promote healthy behaviours to prevent disease and reduce risk factors such as poor nutrition and smoking. These early investments will lead to better long-term health outcomes and reduce stress on the system.
• Improve environmental determinants of health by prioritising clean air, clean water, and access to healthy local food in all communities.
• Increase core funding for community-based mental and physical health supports in racialized, newcomer, and other communities that have traditionally been underserved.
• Mitigate the health risks to people from heat, wildfire smoke, flooding, and drought
• Establish stricter monitoring and enforcement standards for air and water pollution in areas where communities are exposed to potential health risks from multiple industries.

Tackling rural healthcare shortages

Rural communities are disproportionately feeling the effects of the healthcare crisis. According to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA), rural Ontarians are losing primary care providers at a rate of 12% per year—that’s four times faster than people in urban centres. Approximately 525,000 rural residents lack a primary care provider, leading to people lining up around the block in winter storms just to get on the registration list for a family doctor. While the current government has abandoned rural communities, Ontario Greens will address the unique challenges they’re facing. Here’s how we’ll do it:

• Increase provincial funding for rural hospitals and cut their local cost share for funding new hospitals in half
• Expand scope of practice for community healthcare providers like nurses, nurse practitioners and paramedics.
• Create a new and integrated framework to deploy healthcare providers more effectively in rural areas, and to help shift demand from emergency rooms.
• Fix the staffing shortage by providing equal pay for nurses, doctors and PSWs across all communities and healthcare settings in Ontario to increase capacity in rural and remote communities, and compensate healthcare workers fairly for their travel to treat patients at home
• Create a centralised and coordinated program for fill-in physicians to provide relief and prevention of ER closures and for family practices that prioritizes local solutions

Caring for Seniors

As Doug Ford pushes forward with a healthcare model that puts profits before people, seniors’ care in the province is becoming increasingly privatised. For-profit homes spend 24% less per year on care for each resident than for non-profit homes. COVID-19 tragically highlighted the massive gaps between private and non-profit care homes in how seniors are treated. COVID death rates in for-profit homes were a staggering five times greater than those of publicly owned homes, and double those of non-profits.

In the next few years, one in five people in this country will be over the age of 65. We have a plan to improve care in long term care and ensure that our elders are treated with the respect they deserve – not as a revenue stream. We will help seniors age with dignity and create more caring communities to age in—whether it’s in a care home, or in your own home with loved ones.

Prioritize care at home so you can age in place

Aging in place should be an option for everyone who wants it. But it requires investing in the caregivers who provide quality care to make that a possibility. In addition to investing in home care workers, there needs to be a concerted effort to fix the shortage of home care medical supplies, which has left people, including palliative patients, without critical items needed for their care.

Here’s how we’ll make aging in place a reality for everyone who wants it:

• Support local communities to enable the development of Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities with planning and project funding through an Age-Friendly Communities grant program
• Mandate that nurses and personal support workers are paid appropriately across workplaces and for their travel time between visits.
• Repeal laws that would prohibit or create barriers to cohousing and coliving.
• Increase funding for our community health sector to address the staffing crisis and to ensure timely, safe and quality care
• Increase supports for people who care for loved ones who are ill or elderly

Build and fund good, healthy homes for seniors

Care homes for seniors should be treated as homes, and not another investment stream for private profits. Waitlists for LTC homes doubled between 2014 and 2024 from just over 20,000 to almost 48,000 people. As a result, half of the seniors waiting for a long-term care bed are stuck in a painful, uncertain limbo for more than six months. According to the Ontario Long Term Care Home Association, Ontario has roughly 76,000 long-term care beds and urgently needs another 30,000 new spaces to meet current demands. By 2029, an extra 48,000 spaces are needed. We desperately need to build more LTC homes, but they need to be good, healthy homes, not just facilities for the elderly.

Here’s what we’ll do:

• Build 48,000 non profit long-term care spaces by 2029 to meet growing demand. Phase out for profit care.
• Create more Indigenous-led, rural and remote long-term care homes in their communities, and allocate a portion of the new beds to these homes.
• Prioritize and enhance capital support for the expansion of not for profit long term care.
• Create a plan to build small,person-centred homes, like the butterfly model, and to transition current institutional settings to the new model
• Ensure homes offer culturally appropriate services and care.
• Instantly create thousands of additional seniors supportive housing units by adding healthcare and social services supports into existing non-profit seniors housing buildings.

Improve resident care at LTC homes

You shouldn’t have to worry about whether your loved ones in LTC homes are getting the care they need. Unfortunately, this is all too common for families across Ontario. All seniors in care homes deserve access to consistent, reliable care, healthy food, and to be close to loved ones. We’ll prioritize the wellbeing of residents in LTC homes. Improving quality of care means improving quality of work for care providers to address burnout and increase retention among PSWs. We’ll work hard to ensure LTC homes have the means to increase staffing levels and working conditions for care providers.

Here’s how we’ll prioritize the wellbeing of residents in LTC homes and ensure they’re receiving the quality of care they deserve:

• Pay fairly to retain staff so that we can ensure 4 hours per day of care
• Legislate staffing in long-term care facilities to include a minimum of one nurse practitioner for every 120 residents and a staff composition that includes a minimum of 20% registered nurses and 25% registered practical nurses, and an additional 55% personal support workers.
• Increase long-term care resident access to allied health professionals, such as dieticians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and social workers.
• Mandate continued professional development for staff on geriatric care, culturally sensitive care practices for caring for residents with dementia, and palliative and end-of-life care.
• Prioritize healthy, quality local food as an important component of resident wellbeing
• Ensure the right of residents to have accommodations made for themselves and their spouse or life partner so they can continue to live together in long-term care.
• Remove rules that force residents into LTC homes far away from their communities and families to avoid fines.
• Increase random inspections and ensure homes with infractions face the legislated consequences.
• Better integrate long-term care, homecare, and caregiver services within the healthcare system to properly provide for the complex needs of residents.

Caring for kids and students

Many parents feel abandoned and let down by the current government’s failure to invest in our kids’ childcare and education. In particular, parents of children with autism and other special needs are struggling as waitlists and wait times for care continue to rise. We refuse to give up on our children’s future. Greens have a plan to invest in kids and students to deliver the care they need to thrive.

Invest in our children’s future by funding schools and educators

The number one way to invest in our children’s future is by properly funding schools, teachers and education workers. Unfortunately, the opposite has been happening under the current provincial government. Doug Ford has cut education funding by a staggering $3.1 billion since 2018—that’s $1,500 per student. Adjusted for inflation, it’s the lowest per pupil funding in over 10 years. This government has abandoned educators in this province, and as a result has abandoned our children. Almost a quarter of elementary and 35% of secondary schools have daily shortages of teachers. Classrooms are overcrowded, leading to poor learning conditions for students and poor working conditions for teachers. And almost 40% of schools across the province are below a state of good repair. A healthy environment for students – both physically and mentally – is essential for optimal learning outcomes and social development.

Here’s how we’ll invest in our children’s future:

• Immediately increase per-student funding by $1,500 to make up for the $3.1 billion in cuts by the Ford government since 2018
• Establish an independent review of Ontario’s education funding formula so it adequately reflects student needs, and review the formula every five years.
• Ensure the updated formula includes adequate funding for special education assistants, counsellors, social workers, ESL teachers, and other supports to provide equitable access to learning and school activities for all students.
• Fund staffing models with adequate qualified educators to reduce class sizes and provide necessary student supports.
• Provide enhanced funding for de-streaming, including reduced class sizes, dedicated education workers, training, planning time, and resources.
• Ensure the updated funding formula takes into account the unique needs of remote and rural schools.
• Speed up reducing the repair backlog for Ontario public schools and work in consultation with school boards to adopt a Standard of Good Repair.
• Cap grades 4 to 8 class sizes to, at most, 24 students and kindergarten to, at most, 26 students and ensure the class is staffed with a full-time certified teacher and a designated early childhood educator.
• Eliminate EQAO standardised testing.
• Remove the requirement for students to have 2 eLearning credits to graduate highschool
• Bring allocated time for physical education up to recommendations outlined by Physical Health Education Canada.
• Ensure the Arts are regularly included in curricula.
• Immediately double the number of students that can access the Student Nutrition Programs and expand it to be province-wide by 2030
• Invest in “ready for kindergarten programs” to provide school readiness to alleviate the challenges schools and families face in transitioning to school
• To address the growing issue of violence in schools:
• Create a multi-stakeholder Safety and Wellbeing at School Action Table mandated to develop a comprehensive Plan
• Expand funding and eligibility for safe school grants to allow school boards to hire additional qualified staff such as professional student support personnel, educational assistants, and other education workers into the public education system
• Create a sector-specific regulation for the education sector under the Occupational Health and Safety Act that considers and addresses the unique nature of education workplaces.
• Implement a dedicated tuition waiver to attract students into post-secondary education programs to earn degrees in careers experiencing shortages.
• Invest in increased, quality professional development opportunities for educators
• Provide funding to school boards to ensure students and educators have access to mental health supports, when and where they need it.
• Establish an Education Task Force that includes education workers and students. The task force will provide input on education policy and funding models, and help to address critical issues, such as staff shortages and the design of special education supports and programs.

Affordable Child Care for every family that needs it

As the education system continues to face shortages and underfunding, so too does the child care system. Every family in the province that needs affordable child care should be able to access it. But today, that is not a reality. There is a 53% lack of access in Ontario, and that number increases every day. Many communities in Ontario are considered child care deserts. And with the highest average cost per year of full time care of any province in Canada (about $1,000 higher than the next highest province), many families are locked out of the system.

Affordable child care is about caring for our kids, but it’s also about equity. According to a 2022 Financial Accountability Office report, $10-a-day childcare could mean that nearly 100,000 more women return to the labour force by 2027. This is an important step to addressing the labour market gap for mothers that is more than four times the gender gap for workers without children.

Here’s how we’ll ensure every family in Ontario that needs it can access affordable child care:

• Work with the federal government to ensure adequate continued funding for universal access to high-quality, $10-a-day childcare in all communities
• Address the critical shortage and retention of early childhood educators by immediately increasing wages for child care workers through the implementation of a publicly funded wage grid that ensures child care providers have the funds available to pay fair, equitable wages, benefits and pensions while also being able to provide quality care.
• Accelerate program expansion through access to funding and planning grants for non-profit centres that wish to expand in regions in which more care is needed
• Create a province-wide child care plan that is proactive, publicly managed, predictable and integrated that provides targeted investments and expansions in areas without adequate care that includes clear goals and timelines, especially for underserved communities
• Cancel the planned cut of $85.5 million and cost-share changes imposed on municipalities.
• Provide adequate funding to ensure the survival of before and after school care, including added supports for children with special needs

Children in Care

There are thousands of children who are experiencing abuse and neglect living in out-of-home care homes across the province.These children are in extremely vulnerable situations and deserve the best care possible. But years of underfunding and privatization have led to the inexcusable situation where dozens of children are left sleeping in motels, hotels, and other short-term rentals, because there aren’t enough foster beds or care home spaces. Here’s how we’ll care for the most vulnerable children:

• End for-profit care and introduce provincewide licensing of group homes to ensure our services place children at the centre of care
• Develop an updated funding formula that brings greater financial stability to the sector and prioritizes the delivery of non-profit high-quality, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, community-based care that empowers children and youth
• Ensure children’s aid societies have access to the complex care, housing and financial supports needed to support families to be successful
• Ensure access to affirming and inclusive care for those with complex needs by sufficiently funding community-based organizations and service providers to deliver highly specialized, intensive and licensed out-of-home care
• Create a strategy to recruit, train and retain foster families and spaces for respite. Prioritize family- and community-based placements by ensuring kin and alternate caregivers receive adequate financial assistance and have timely access to local supports, services, and treatment
• Shift the Ready, Set, Go to a readiness-based system with no aging out, ensuring adequate integrated and individualised transition supports are available

Support children with autism

There are currently over 73,000 children on the waitlist for core autism services, enough to fill the Rogers Centre almost 1.5 times over. This is a powerful and painful image that highlights the dire state of the Ontario Autism Program. Unfortunately, the waitlist continues to grow, leaving children with autism and their families behind. Families deserve a needs-based autism program that serves all children regardless of age. Here are the steps we’ll take to support children and their families:

• Address the growing waitlist for the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) core services by building the capacity of autism providers, and increasing funding to the OAP to bring families into the program as rapidly as possible.
• Tie OAP funding to inflation and registration increases every year
• Establish an ultimate wait time benchmark for diagnosis and access to core services once registered in the program.
• Work with the federal government and other provinces in finalising the creation of a National Autism Strategy to develop standards and a funding model to provide supports and services for autistic people of all ages.
• Strengthen the cross-sector collaboration between the Ministries of Education, Health, and Children, Community & Social Services in program development.

Addressing the gaps in post-secondary education

Facing increasing affordability challenges, so many university and college students are already struggling to get by and pay the bills. Paying for tuition should not be another stressful burden on top of that. We’ll immediately reverse Doug Ford’s cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) to support the students that need financial support the most, and ensure universities are adequately funded to provide better learning environments:

• Immediately reverse the Ford government’s cuts to OSAP by converting loans to grants for low and middle income students and eliminating interest charges on student debt.
• Replace the faulty performance-based university funding model and restore the more stable and equitable enrolment-based funding model.
• Ensure consistent and fair labour standards and working conditions for all faculty, including contract faculty. Remove wage constraints and pay equal wages for equal work.
• Immediately increase per-student university and college funding by 20% and commit to ongoing annual increases matching inflation.
• Modernize funding models for colleges to incentivize part-time enrolment so that more students can learn and upskill our workforce, and continue the expanded funding for the Small, Northern and Rural Grant

Our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous communities

The provincial government has a legal and moral obligation to work with Indigenous communities with full partnership, participation, and respect. It is not enough to offer platitudes—what’s needed is meaningful, deliberate action. Reconciliation with Indigenous communities is essential and includes acknowledging the role of traditional knowledge and systems. But it starts with accepting the discrimination that Indigenous people continue to face today.

A key step in this direction will be to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). We acknowledge that centuries of colonialism and broken promises have made building trust difficult. We will come to the table with funding for Indigenous-led initiatives in stewardship, healthcare and housing, with the understanding that deep inequality continues to exist for Indigenous people in all areas of life. For example, despite making up just 3% of Ontario’s population, the Indigenous representation among chronically homeless populations is 45% in Northern regions and 14% in the rest of Ontario. As we do the hard work to decolonize the systems that enable this inequality, here’s the meaningful steps we’ll take:

Work in partnership with Indigenous communities

Too often the work that the provincial government does is one sided, continuing the colonial practice of imposing decisions on Indigenous communities. First and foremost, all decisions need to recognize Indigenous communities’ right to self-determination. We will work in partnership with Indigenous communities in a way that recognizes and respects their way of life, including establishing Indigenous-led co-governance and stewardship models for decisions that impact Indigenous lands.

Here’s how we’ll work in partnership with Indigenous communities:

• Implement UNDRIP to ensure equity for Indigenous peoples.
• Establish true nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples.
• Recognise First Nations’ right to self-determination and establish a co-management stewardship model for the development of provincial resources with fair revenue sharing.
• Recognise and integrate Indigenous laws and legal traditions in the negotiation and implementation processes involving treaties, land claims, and other constructive agreements.
• Establish Indigenous-led co-governance processes for natural resources and energy projects and land-use planning.
• Support Indigenous-led child welfare and protection services to ensure they can address the unique needs of the children in their care, and keep children in their communities. Produce annual reports on the number and proportion of Indigenous children who are in care.
• Create a fair, open and independent land claims process for land to be restored to Indigenous treaty holders and support Indigenous land defenders in asserting their treaty rights and actions taken to confront threats to their traditional lands.

Address the horrific legacy of colonialism and residential schools

The horrific legacy of colonialism and residential schools is a stain on the legacy of Ontario and Canada. We need more than just words to address the horrors of residential schools. The search for those who never returned home from the residential schools must continue. The trauma of colonialism is real, and ongoing healing is needed to build a better future for present and future generations.

Here’s the action we’ll take towards Truth and Reconciliation:

• Fast-track implementation of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
• Make the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a statutory holiday.
• Work with Indigenous educators and community leaders to develop more curriculum offerings in Indigenous studies and colonialism
• Work with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to identify, collect, and provide copies of all rec­ords relevant to the history and legacy of the residential school system in Ontario.

Fix the Indigenous healthcare gap

While the public healthcare system crumbles across the province, Indigenous communities are feeling the impacts the most severely, with over one-quarter of Indigenous people having unmet health care needs. here is a stark healthcare gap that Indigenous communities experience, and we need an urgent, proactive response. This healthcare crisis extends into mental health and addictions. Indigenous youth in particular, experience negative mental health impacts disproportionately, with suicide rates an estimated six times higher for First Nations youth compared to non-Indigenous youth in Canada. The opioid crisis disproportionately hurts Indigenous communities – First Nations people are 7 times more likely to die from drug poisoning than non-First Nations people. We will work in partnership with Indigenous communities to fix the healthcare gap so Indigenous people can receive the care they need.

Here’s the steps we will immediately take:

• Work with the federal government and Indigenous communities to identify and close the gap in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
• Increase the number of Indigenous professionals working in healthcare through training and mentorship opportunities and ensure their retention in Indigenous communities, particularly in northern and remote communities.
• Increase the number of Indigenous-led health centres and healing centres, youth programming, crisis support teams, and support suicide-prevention training.
• Provide properly funded Indigenous-led supports for survivors of residential school trauma.
• Publish annual progress reports and assess long-term trends and indicators in areas such as suicide, mental health, chronic diseases, and availability of appropriate health services to ensure equity in access to care.
• Work with Indigenous communities to fill gaps in seniors care and maternal care, including clinics and long term care spaces that are small, person-centred, trauma informed and culturally responsive

Fund an Indigenous-led housing strategy

In addition to a healthcare gap, there is also a massive housing gap. Despite making up just 3% of Ontario’s population, the Indigenous representation among chronically homeless populations is 45% in Northern regions and 14% in the rest of Ontario. To address this, we will fund an Indigenous-led housing strategy:

• Fund 22,000 Indigenous-owned and operated permanent homes under an Urban and Rural Indigenous Housing Strategy. The strategy and implementation would be led by Indigenous communities to create homes for Indigenous peoples living in Ontario.
• Address the disproportionate overrepresentation of chronic homelessness among Indigenous people with holistic, culturally appropriate, community and land based supports

End environmental racism in Indigenous communities

We are committed to ending the environmental racism that impacts Indigenous communities. Successive provincial governments have turned a blind eye to the pollution and poisoning in communities like Grassy Narrows, Wabaseemoong and Aamjiwnaang First Nation and allowed it to continue. Allowing this kind of environmental racism to persist in our province is absolutely shameful, and it must come to an end immediately. As the original stewards of the land, Indigenous communities should be supported in leading their own conservation efforts with their own governance structures.

Here’s how we’ll work to end the environmental racism impacting Indigenous communities:

• Work with the federal government to immediately end all remaining boil water advisories and ensure adequate funding and training opportunities for First Nations Water Authority to own and operate their own water and wastewater utilities.
• Work to repair the damage at Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong ensuring strict, robust environmental protections, fair compensation and transparent and open communication.
• Restore provincial funding for source water protection and expand drinking water source protection to Northern, remote and Indigenous communities.
• Support Indigenous climate leadership including Indigenous protected and conserved areas, in which Indigenous governments play the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems through Indigenous laws, governance and knowledge systems.
• Work collaboratively with the Aamjiwnaang First Nation to address environmental racism and toxic pollution affecting their community including through stricter emissions regulations and prevention measures, improved oversight, thorough investigation into contamination impacts and addressing the issues that have already been identified by the Sarnia Area Environmental Health Project

A more equitable Ontario

To build a fairer Ontario we need to be intentional about building a more equitable Ontario that leaves no one behind. Unfortunately, under the current government we are heading in the wrong direction. Inequality is increasing. People living in the poorest neighbourhoods in Ontario account for nearly twice the total number of visits to the emergency department for a mental illness or addiction compared to people living in the richest neighbourhoods.

Racialised communities, women, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with disabilities face disproportionately more barriers in accessing health care, housing, economic opportunities, and within the justice system.

Here’s how we’ll build a more equitable Ontario so no one is left behind:

Improve quality of life for people living with a disability

Living with a disability shouldn’t mean living in poverty and facing barriers. But for many of the three million Ontarians living with disabilities, that is the reality they face. Additionally, many people living with disabilities are unable to access essential services like housing due to a lack of accessibility. This needs to change, urgently. The Ford government has now passed the January 1, 2025 deadline to make the province accessible, and unfortunately the goal seems further and further away.

Here’s how we’ll support people with disabilities and make Ontario accessible:

• Double Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates as a first step to implementing a Basic Income, and tie future increases to inflation.
• Improve the Assistive Devices Program to better meet the needs of those requiring assistive tools, including more up-to-date devices, training, and fewer barriers to access as well as ensuring appropriate standards for repair of devices.
• Ensure that new affordable housing stock is accessible, and require affordable housing retrofits to meet the same standards.
• Commit to fulfilling all commitments in the Accessible Ontario Pledge by the AODA Alliance.
• Immediately increase funding for community living agencies across Ontario, including the Passport and Special Services at Home programs, in line with both cost of living and the needs of developmentally delayed adults,
• Ensure supports for housecleaning and other needs for people with disabilities

Gender equity

While the hourly wage gap has narrowed six percentage points since 1998, women still make only 87 cents on average per hour for every dollar made by a man. This gap is intensified for racialized women, women who are newcomers, women with disabilities, Indigenous women, and trans women. To build a more equitable Ontario, we need to take an intersectional lens to addressing gender equity. Here’s what we’ll do:

• Require a minimum proportion of women on public corporations’ boards and executive level positions, with a goal to achieve gender parity.
• Re-enact the Pay Transparency Act, a vital tool for addressing the gender pay gap in this province, which was repealed by this government
• Expand access to sexual health and reproductive care to improve women’s health
• Apply a gender-based analysis to all government legislation and programming to advise on how gender equity can be better achieved.
• Enact The Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act, 2024 into law. Support survivors of gender-based violence by increasing funding for Sexual Assault Centres, emergency shelters, transitional housing, safe centre hubs, and legal supports.
• Develop a Framework to End Violence Against Women, aligned with the 2007 report by the Ontario Native Women’s Association and the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres as mandated by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report.

Fight to eradicate systemic racism

All the daily challenges facing Ontarians are further compounded for those experiencing racism in their everyday life. As we work to eradicate systemic racism in the province, here are the actions we’ll take:

• Strengthen the Anti-Racism Directorate to more ambitiously address systemic racism in education, child welfare, health and justice sectors through increased funding, more objective goals, and improved reporting on data outcomes
• Create an oversight body to advise the province to prevent systemic racism in new policy and programs
• Commit to the elimination of racism and discrimination within the Ontario Public Service ensuring this includes conducting random external audits, data collection and reporting, and establishing a safe harassment and discrimination reporting system for staff.
• Bolster the Human Rights Tribunal to ensure that they have adequate resources to address each concern in a timely and effective way.
• Pass the Our London Family Act to change the way we address Islamophobia in Ontario.

Support and improve rights for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities

People from 2SLGBTQIA+ communities continue to face discrimination and hate in Ontario. While significant progress has been made, there has been a concerning recent trend of backsliding, in particular with hate against trans youth. Here’s the steps we’ll take to stop hate and support 2SLGBTQIA+ communities:

• Create a comprehensive strategy to ensure equitable, inclusive and affirming access to care and treatment for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities within our healthcare system including gender affirming procedures and medications.
• Dedicate resources and funding to directly support 2SLGBTQIA+ youth groups and wellness hubs.
• Require ongoing educational training about 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, gender and sexuality, and examine prejudice, assumptions, and privilege that builds awareness of homo/bi/transphobia and racism for those providing publicly funded services.
• Mandate standards to have safe, accessible, all-gender washrooms in all public spaces in Ontario.

A more fair justice system

A fair justice system is essential to a fair and equitable society. Indigenous, Black and racialised people are overrepresented in the justice system. We will take immediate steps to address the problems with the bail system and listen to the growing chorus of experts calling for changes to how we help people in mental distress. Here’s how we’ll create a more fair justice system in Ontario:

• Reform the current bail system to ensure the 80% of people in jail awaiting trial have access to fair and fast trials and to prevent the overcrowding of prisons.
• Reform the justice system to reduce the disproportionate representation of Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, and destroy all data collected from carding.
• Ensure that court mental health workers are available in all regions of Ontario to divert more individuals living with a mental health issue and/or substance use concern out of the justice system and into mental health and addictions services and supports.
• Restore adequate funding to Legal Aid by boosting their base budget and develop a long-term, structurally stable funding plan.
• Fulfill the right of Ontarians to access expert, fair and effective justice at our provincial tribunals

Improving equity through language access

Ontario is extremely linguistically diverse, with over 200 languages spoken throughout the province, including a rich history of Franco-Ontarians. All Ontarians should be able to access publicly funded services, regardless of what language they speak. Greens will:

• Restore the independent office of the French Language Services Commissioner.
• Ensure that interpreters, translators, or multilingual written materials are available in publicly funded services. Improve awareness of their availability.
• Provide tools for nonprofit organizations to have French language resources.
• Create incentives to increase the number of french-speaking individuals in teachers college programs.

A People-first Democracy

Across the world, democracy is under threat. Even here in Ontario there are concerning trends towards a government that puts big money before people. Blatant corruption, including the Greenbelt scandal, the increasing frequency of cash-for-access political events, and the doubling of campaign donation limits are all clear signs that the province’s democracy is heading in the wrong direction. Here are the steps we’ll take to create a fairer Ontario government that puts people before partisan politics, where all Ontarians’ voices are heard:

Democratic reform and voter rights

If we want our democracy to be representative of the people it serves, we need to get big money out of politics. Unfortunately, Doug Ford’s government has been doing the opposite, and doubled annual donation limits in 2021, increasing the outsized influence the wealthiest can have on our political system. We also need to think critically about the current first-past-the-post voting system, and conduct a Citizens Assembly on electoral reform to ensure every vote counts. Here’s how we’ll make Ontario’s democracy more fair:

• Create a diverse, randomly selected Citizens Assembly on electoral reform with a mandate to provide binding recommendations on modernising Ontario’s electoral system to ensure that every vote counts and that the legislature reflects the democratic will of the people.
• Allow municipalities the option to use a ranked ballot voting system for elections.
• Reduce donation limits for municipal elections and provincial political parties, candidates, and constituency associations to $1000 per year per person.
• Restore Auditor General oversight of government advertising.
• Require a five year cooling off period before MPPs and government advisors can register as lobbyists.
• Remove strong mayor powers.
• Increase the number of mobile polls at hospitals, seniors’ residences, and for people with accessibility issues which prohibit them from easily leaving their homes.
• Enforce strict accessibility standards at voting stations.

Make politics more collaborative and inclusive

Ontario politics continues to be disproportionately white and male And while positive steps have been made, the Ontario legislature does not look like the province it is supposed to represent. Here’s how we’ll work to make Ontario politics more collaborative and inclusive:

• Make funding available for non-profit organisations that provide additional training and mentorship opportunities for women, Black, Indigenous, racialised, and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals who are considering running for political office.
• Reduce the voting age to 16 years old.
• Increase the quality and quantity of local public input in provincial decision-making by creating new channels to give citizens a voice, both through MPPs and ministries.
• Allow the introduction of electronic petitions to the Ontario Legislature.