I rise today to recognize a great Canadian and Taiwanese hero, Dr. George Leslie Mackay. This year would have marked his 179th birthday, and all these years later he’s still remembered and celebrated in both Canada and Taiwan.

George Leslie Mackay was born and raised near Embro, in Oxford county.

As a young Presbyterian missionary, Mackay travelled to Formosa, now known as Taiwan, and founded a mission in the town of Tamsui. While on that first mission, he fell in love with the island and its people, embracing it as his adopted homeland. He married a local Formosan named Minnie, started a family there, and set about helping people in any way he could, including practising dentistry as a method of outreach.

During his almost 30 years on the island, he built several schools, including the first school for girls, and Oxford College, and a hospital. He advocated for women’s rights and public medical care, and he fought against discrimination.

Today, Mackay’s legacy lives on in the schools that he founded, the cutting-edge Taiwanese health care system, and strong friendships between Taiwan and Ontario. In fact, Oxford county is now twinned with the Tamsui district.

I know that the black-bearded barbarian—as Mackay was often called—would be proud of the vibrant, pluralistic democracy that Taiwan is today.

May we continue to share a special bond and advance the values he championed.

I’m glad the Leader of the Opposition heard me yesterday, because that’s the truth. I talked to people who were in the room. They sat there with a big map and they literally got highlighters—a bunch of staffers joking around, going up and down the roads. We know that’s true. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? The Liberals changed it 17 times. They decreased the greenbelt; we increased it by over 2,000 acres. Some land shouldn’t be in the greenbelt, and some should be in the greenbelt, and we’re expanding the areas that we feel should be in the greenbelt.

When we looked at the map—it’s butt up against existing communities. As a matter of fact, one piece of field, I’ll call it, about 10 acres, had housing all around all four corners—in an empty field with weeds in it. They call that the greenbelt? That’s not the greenbelt. That’s just a field with a bunch of weeds, and people around that neighbourhood all want it to be developed.

It’s my great pleasure to introduce a delegation here today from Ducks Unlimited who are having a reception here tonight, in the legislative dining room, at 5:30. I’d like to wish a warm welcome today to Joanne Barbazza, Jessica Whyte, Kimberley Kerr, Phil Holst, Sean Rootham, and Mike Williams. Welcome.

Mr. Speaker, we have a delegation in the gallery today from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office: Director General Jin-Ling Chen; Edward Chung of the Canadian Mackay Committee; and members and friends of the Taiwanese community.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Incidentally, they came here to hear the statement I just made.

Yesterday, the Premier said there was no rhyme or reason to how lands were selected to be protected as part of the greenbelt. He said the greenbelt was formed by “a bunch of staffers in a room with crayons and highlighters and randomly just went on a map.”

If the Premier thinks the greenbelt wasn’t formed using a proper process, well, can he finally share his process for removing lands from the greenbelt?

Again to the Premier: How did the government decide which parcels of land would be removed from the greenbelt?

The Conservatives’ greenbelt grab is not about housing. If this government cared about investing in Ontario’s housing stock, we’d see investment in public housing and in building homes that everyday Ontarians could actually afford to live in; not luxury mansions, on sprawl. Ontarians are following the money. They know it’s not about housing. It’s about insiders with connections to the Conservatives buying up land super cheap and then selling it off, developing it, for incredible profit.

Once again to the Premier, one more chance: Who was holding the crayons when the government decided to sell off the greenbelt?

Interjections.

I’d like to give a very warm welcome to the Girls’ Government group from Parkdale–High Park. We have, from Annette Street public school and High Park alternative school: students Olivia Walli, Ryo Kumar, Amelia Wallis, Maya Jordan, Vesper Johnson, Jo Connors-Robertson, Soleece McBrien; teachers Kelly Iggers and Christine Rowe Quinn; parent Jeanhy Shim; and from Humbercrest Public School: students Kayden Rankin-Goodman, Maya Witty, Clara Winders-d’Eon, Ella Kemper, Nesiah Craig-Williams, Evelyn Dinis, Ava Macklin; and teacher Jessica Bailey.

Welcome, and thank you for being here.

I’m very delighted to welcome two grade 5 classes from St. Agatha Catholic School who are here with us today, with teachers Shannon Murphy, Deirdre Moloney-Sciberras, Hyacinth Fernandes, Kathleen Dillon, and Theresa Moulds.

We also have with us trustee Nancy Crawford in the House.

Welcome to your House.

I’d like to welcome some guests from the township of Stirling-Rawdon. On behalf of myself and MPP Bresee, we’d like to welcome: Dean Graff, one of the councillors there; Caroline Smith, also a councillor; and their guest, Karen West.

Caroline Smith ran the Stirling theatre for years, and it’s great that she has the opportunity to see some political theatre here this morning.

I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to welcome not one but two constituents from Ottawa West–Nepean today. We have with us Melodie Gondek, who is with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ District 25 and does great work on behalf of students in Ottawa, and Maria Sardelis, who is an advocate for seniors and people with disabilities. Welcome.

They’re not here in the House, but I know they’re watching this morning. I welcome them to Toronto—my grandson Greyson Uhryn as well as Chase Uhryn.

Thanks for the cookies and milk this morning.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome, from the Access to Seniors and Disabled advocacy group, Maria Sardelis from Ottawa and Cherie Vandevenne from Chatham. Thank you for coming.

I would also like to welcome, from Congress of Union Retirees of Canada, Lance Livingstone and Ron Vanderwalker.

Thank you so much for your advocacy.

The supplementary question.

If I were the opposition, this is probably not a path I would walk down, and the reason is, because you have voted against every single measure we have taken to help the people of Ontario.

Let’s take a look at what the government of Ontario has done to help the people of Ontario. We have reduced energy costs so families can afford reliable energy. We have kept transit affordable by removing doubling fares and extending fare integration. We are supporting parents with 46,000 new child care spaces since we took office, saving parents, on average, $8,500. We are also helping post-secondary students with a 10% tuition freeze, which the opposition has opposed. Importantly, we’ve also brought in the most important tax credit in the history of Ontario: the LIFT tax credit, lowering taxes for lower-income individuals.

Where was the opposition when we brought these proposals forward?

However, we have made initiatives to help the people of Ontario. We put through a gas tax cut just last year and extended it through this year, for 5.7 cents a litre. Again, if I recall, the opposition voted against that. That is helping every single family in this province, every single business lower costs—bring inflation down, and help people to be able to feed their families, and help those businesses.

We’ve also, in this most recent budget, helped low-income seniors by expanding the GAINS program.

We’ve also increased ODSP payments by 5%—as well as expanding the number of people who are eligible for this program.

We will continue supporting the people of Ontario.

We’re seeing record employment growth, record business investment, and the people of Ontario are on a good trajectory right now.

I thank the honourable member for the important question.

The Student Nutrition Program that the member is referring to is receiving annual funding of $27.9 million.

We’ve said from the beginning that we will make sure that student and youth who deserve all of the supports get it in every way, shape or form.

If you look at the support that we provided to the municipalities, the $1.2 billion, that helped them with food, with housing, with shelter—the $8 million towards Feed Ontario; and then $83 million towards the Ontario Trillium Foundation, to provide grants to help food banks across the province.

Once again, we will be there for children, for youth and families across this province, and we will not let them down—every day.

Back to the minister: Let’s be crystal clear—here are the numbers from the border to Beamsville: 16 schools have closed their nutrition program, 30 more are projected to close, and 49 have been affected. We are facing a $400,000 shortfall.

We all know food prices are going up and affordability is down, but this is not an excuse to let children go hungry.

I need a response from the minister that puts these children first. I need to hear these words: “This is not okay. I am going to look into it.”

To the minister: Will you commit to assessing this program, and will you commit to emergency funding so children in Niagara do not go hungry?

My question is to the Premier.

Children in Niagara are going hungry at school under this government’s watch. Niagara Nutrition Partners, which provides breakfast, snacks and lunches to students, have been forced to close nutrition programs at 16 schools, with nearly 50 more being affected. They face a significant funding gap from the province as food prices soar. Students can’t learn and thrive when hungry. They have gone from feeding 17,000 kids to 24,000 kids a day. It’s shameful that this government will allow such a reality for children in the province.

Will the Premier follow the lead of other provinces across the country and provide the necessary emergency funding so that children in Niagara don’t go hungry?

I also should have highlighted yesterday—and the member from Sudbury would know this—that earlier this year, we actually gave that particular hospice over $2 million. Why? Because we saw the need. We saw the excellent work that they were doing. We saw the pressures that they were under as a result of ongoing commitments that they have within their community to ensure that that hospice can continue to provide excellent service.

Speaker, in our health document, we actually talk about expansions to hospice and palliative care. We, as a government, have made that commitment and will continue to make that commitment, because we understand and appreciate how important palliative and hospice are in our province, and continue to be.

Another fable by the New Democratic Party is being told in the Legislature this morning.

Through you, Speaker: She talks about public commitment for housing. Well, Minister Bethlenfalvy, under the leadership of Premier Ford, tabled a wonderful budget—

We added $202 million to our Homelessness Prevention Program. And I want to thank members from both sides of the House for doing some great announcements last week—in fact, one of the ones was the member for Niagara West, who made a fantastic announcement that the member for Niagara Falls was pleased to attend. So some of her own members are celebrating the public commitment this government has made to ending homelessness by adding that additional $202 million. I don’t know about the Leader of the Opposition, but some of her members have got with the program.

Members will please take their seats.

To reply, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

To reply, the parliamentary assistant and member for Oakville.

And I’ll remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The response?