Grief is an expression of love. If we don’t love, we don’t grieve. My grandmother Patricia Cunningham passed away last spring in Windsor, Ontario. She was 95. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a wife to her first husband, Ken Wood, and her second husband, Colonel Roger Cunningham.

My grandmother was an artist. She loved to find good trouble throughout her life, right up to the retirement home stage. She loved animals, music and, for some unknown reason, devilled eggs. One of my favourite memories with her is visiting Ontario Place. A lifelong resident of Windsor, she loved all genres of music and was a talented artist whose paintings grace homes worldwide, including my own Queen’s Park office.

She will be missed by her children, Allan, Laurie, Laine and Brent, and her stepdaughters, Sheila, Alexis and Martha, their spouses, and some pretty awesome grandchildren, plus family and friends.

She reminded me of Mary Tyler Moore. She was strong, creative, intelligent, independent.

Former MPP and CBC reporter Percy Hatfield told me that he used to hang out in Pat’s office waiting for the “scoop” when she was a hospital administrator. She was thrilled when he delivered a 90th birthday scroll.

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask the government to honour their promise of Alzheimer’s funding. It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. Alzheimer patients require leadership. It is a cruel disease.

I feel fortunate to have called her my Nanny Pat. She was a good person who loved us and was loved.

My question is to the Premier.

Speaker, I’d like to take a moment to catch everyone up on the Ontario Place saga. In 2021, this government announced that their friends at Therme were building an elite, luxury spa on public parkland. Cut to March of this year, and a city report shows a long list of problems with the plan. The spa? Too big. The $450-million taxpayer-funded parking garage? It violates even this government’s own policies.

Yet the Minister of Infrastructure pressed on. They told us they signed a “standard commercial lease” for the spa that just happened to be for 95 years—but not so standard, that it must be kept secret. There is no business case for a 95-year lease. Ontarians already feel cheated on the 407—by the last Conservative government.

Speaker, to the Premier: If the lease is a standard commercial lease, when will this government release it, and why are you keeping it a secret?

To the Premier: When will he release the business case on the science centre move?

Ontarians are shocked to find out that their government has signed a 95-year lease with an Austrian corporate conglomerate to build a massive, seven-storey private luxury spa on public parkland, a century-long lease that this government insists must be kept secret. Yet, in 1999, the last Conservative government handed over a 99-year lease for Highway 407 for $3.1 billion. That’s about $4.4 billion in today’s numbers. Today, Highway 407 is worth $40 billion, a nearly 1,200% increase in just 24 years. What will it be worth when the lease finally ends in 75 years?

This government is making the same mistakes the last Conservative government did and it is costing Ontarians millions of dollars. The people of this province have a right to know the terms of the lease and the business case for these decisions. Release the lease, if you’re so proud of it.