I want to welcome a great Ontarian, someone who loves his province: the Honourable Justice Jack Grossman, retired from the Ontario Court of Justice of North York.

I first met this visitor about 10 years ago on my first-ever PC election day that I volunteered on. Please join me in welcoming former Queen’s Park staffer and long-time PC activist Brooke Timpson.

I want to recognize a few special guests in the Legislature this morning. The winners of the future builders scholarship powered by Scottie Barnes from the Skilled Trades College of Canada are with us here today. I want to welcome Serjenka Paul, Malik D’Cruz, Alden Patterson, Abrahan Belisario.

Congratulations on starting your exciting careers in the skilled trades, and welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m very excited to introduce some special guests to the House. We’ve got some long-time New Democrats, dedicated volunteers and leaders and community builders in the House today.

Please welcome Dan Danielson, Bob Spencer, Ian Roberts, Paula Masterson, and Reshad Ahmed to the House.

I also have Tejas Dhebana, a wonderful intern who has joined us in our office.

Welcome to your House.

It’s my pleasure to introduce Darah Wiens and her two children, Deacon and Daytona, from Chippawa, Niagara Falls; Danielle Randall and her daughter Kennedy, from Fort Erie; and Jaena Randall.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m also pleased to welcome the Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts to the chamber today, and members of Football Toronto and Football Ontario. There will be a reception in 228 at 11:45. Come by and see what I believe is the oldest professional trophy in the land on display.

It’s my pleasure to welcome Dana McKiel and representatives from Football Canada, Football Toronto and the Toronto Argonauts.

Dana, to you and your colleagues: It’s so good to see you here today.

I’d like to welcome students here today from Central Peel Secondary School in Brampton. These remarkable students took part in an international space competition at NASA. Out of 26,000 participants, these two teams from Central Peel placed first in their respective categories, and they’re the only Canadian teams to be recognized this year.

I’d like to introduce the students, up on my right: Kashyap Patel, Mashraful Choudhury, Ruhaim Ali, Mehtab Cheema, Anant Duggal, Tanvir Gahunia, Kushal Patel, Pragalva Sharma, Mahimn Patel, Deep Patel, Rehan Jaffar, and Neel Pathak.

They’re joined by their teachers: Kiranbir Sahota, Harbinder Sahota, and Simona Matei.

Congratulations and well done, guys.

Randall Marsh from Port Colborne is page captain today and has very proud family and friends from Niagara visiting in the members’ gallery: Scott and Deonna Marsh, Randall’s parents; Randall’s aunt Darah Wiens and her two children, Deacon and Daytona; his aunt Danielle Randall and her daughter Kennedy, from Fort Erie; and his cousin Jaena.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The member for Peterborough–Kawartha on a point of order.

It’s my honour and pleasure today to announce Joan Fisk, who is the executive officer for United Way Waterloo Region Communities and currently the chair of the college of business and economics advisory board at the University of Guelph. She has done wonderful things for our community, and I thank her for it.

I would like to welcome Manny and Roslyn from my office.

You’re not leaving today, but I’m glad that you’re part of our team. Welcome.

I will highlight what the Auditor General’s report on outpatient surgeries in Ontario emphasized—that the experience in other Canadian jurisdictions is that community surgical centres can treat 20% to 30% more patients within the same amount of time. Why are other Canadian jurisdictions doing it, and why is Ontario doing it more? Because we want people to get access to surgery and not sit in wait lines.

I want to give a big shout-out to the students from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School. These amazing students, part of Beaverworx, FRC team 2609, were the champions at the FIRST Robotics world championship in Texas—the only Canadian team to compete in the finals.

Congratulations. You’ve made us proud.

Speaker, I’d like to welcome the CEO of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, Nicole Bonnie, and CEO of the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada, Valerie McMurtry, to the Legislature this morning.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to Van, Rose, Samuel, Kaygan, Byanka, Troy, and Aidan, who were all part of the OACAS #ForgetMeNot campaign.

Welcome to Queen’s Park. I look forward to meeting you all later on this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, last night, my Peterborough Petes defeated the North Bay Battalion and are the Bobby Orr cup champions for the eastern conference of the OHL. So I seek unanimous consent for the member for North Bay to wear the Peterborough Petes jersey today in the chamber.

Yesterday, we kicked off National Nursing Week. Doesn’t it say so much that just yesterday, this Conservative government passed a law that’s going to sell off our health care system to corporations that can make money off the backs of sick people? I want to remind everyone here that this is something that the nurses of this province deeply oppose.

The Conservatives are going down a path that both Quebec and British Columbia already found was a dead end. It cost everyone more—the government, individual patients. It worsened health outcomes. In the end, it made it harder as well on health care workers.

To the Premier: How will you stop the hemorrhaging of nurses out of our public health care system when there was nothing in the legislation to prevent it?

I’m so happy to welcome my hard-working EA Sarah Bokhari. She’s also celebrating a milestone birthday today.

I would like to welcome Kevin Goa, a grade 9 student at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute.

Welcome to the Legislature. Thank you for coming.

Nipissing.