TORONTO—Michael Coteau, MPP for Don Valley East, issued the following statement behalf of the Ontario Liberal Caucus:
“Premier Doug Ford needs to remove Lisa MacLeod as a cabinet minister and suspend the Minister from caucus.
For the past number of months, Minister MacLeod has come under routine criticism regarding conduct. From alleged threats against autism therapists to a refusal to speak accurately about funding levels for autism services, to callous comments by the Minister and her former chief of staff related to the autism file—now, it’s an alleged profane tirade against an NHL team owner at a public event.
It shouldn’t take an NHL owner to point out this behaviour is wrong. For months now, parents, professionals and concerned citizens have warned the Minister’s conduct is inappropriate and unbecoming of a cabinet minister. It’s clear the conduct is not changing. My concern is that parents, kids and others who are impacted by the Minister’s decisions don’t have the same platform to express their concerns as Eugene Melnyk.
Premier Ford has suspended a member of his caucus for saying ‘yada, yada, yada.’ Surely he can see that Minister MacLeod’s pattern of behaviour is much worse than an offside comment.
For this reason, on behalf of our caucus, I call on Premier Ford to remove Minister MacLeod from the cabinet entirely and to suspend the MPP from caucus pending any remedial human-resources training the Premier’s Office can implement.
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