I want to wish a warm welcome to my executive assistant from my constituency office, who is here today in the members’ gallery, Idan Yakobovitch, with his family visiting from Israel: Zvi and Orit, and his sister Anat Yakobovitch. Thank you very much for coming.

It is Niagara Week, and I want to extend a warm welcome to Jim Bradley, chair of the Niagara region, and all my friends who are here with us today from the region. I know that you’ll be having great discussions about how we can work together to better grow Ontario and Niagara. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to introduce two guests from my riding today: Jenna Craig and Anniston Deleary. They are grade 12 students from Chippewas of Rama First Nation and youth council members. Thank you for being here today and joining me.

It’s my pleasure today to introduce some of my constituency staff, some of whom have never been here before. I’ll start with Tiffany Lloyd, Jamie-Lynn McGarvey, Lixy Rolston and my long-suffering constituency manager Anita Ramski. Welcome to the House.

The Women’s Multicultural Resource and Counselling Centre of Durham celebrated its 30th anniversary this past Saturday at its inspiring hope and rebuilding lives gala. I was joined at the gala by MPP Patrice Barnes from Ajax and the Honourable Charmaine Williams, Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity.

Speaker, over the years, the counselling centre has served thousands of women across the region of Durham. Our government is pleased to be able to fund the Women’s Multicultural Resource and Counselling Centre of Durham so that executive director Esther Enyolu, the board of directors and staff are able to assist women in the Durham region who have experienced social and economic barriers to access services and develop the skills needed to gain financial security and live safely with a greater sense of security.

Congratulations to the counselling centre on 30 years of service to Durham region, lifting up women and their families in Durham region. Thank you for your dedication to supporting women in crisis.

It’s my pleasure today to introduce Lisa, Brian and Brayden Vermet sitting over here. They’re family members of legislative page Olivia from St. Brigid Catholic school in Cambridge.

Today is Peterborough Day at Queen’s Park, so I have the entire contingency up in the public gallery. I won’t name everyone, but I will name a few: Warden Bonnie Clark, Mayor Sherry Senis, Deputy Mayor Ron Black, Mayor Heather Watson, Mayor Jim Martin, Mayor Terry Lambshead, former member and mayor of the city of Peterborough Jeff Leal and Deputy Mayor Gary Baldwin. From my office I also have, in the Speaker’s gallery, Andrea Dodsworth, Jenna DePaiva, Sally Carson and Halle Kunjal.

It’s Niagara Week, and we’re very excited. I’d like to give a warm welcome to some of our elected representatives from Niagara who are here today. We’ve already met Regional Chair Jim Bradley, who I was looking for on this side; he’s over there, so I apologize for that. Also, I’d like to welcome the mayor of the town of Fort Erie, Wayne Redekop, the Lord Mayor—and the only Lord Mayor in the province of Ontario—from the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Gary Zalepa, and the mayor of the city Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati.

I’d also like to welcome my two staff members who are here today, Quinn and Gillian. Gillian is a student who has been working in our office for the last six weeks, and she’s now going on to university. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

It’s my pleasure to welcome members of the Ontario Greenhouse Alliance to the Legislature today. Please join us, our advocates for fresh floral and fresh Ontario-grown produce, tonight in the legislative dining room at 5 p.m.

I’ve heard loud and clear from families in my riding of Brampton East and across the province about their concerns regarding the rise in violence and criminal activity over the last year. To better serve our constituents, our government has implemented several new measures to reassure Ontarians and safeguard families.

Our government is taking bold action to address this matter with our recent announcement of investing $51 million to crack down on auto theft and organized crime. A few short weeks ago, we moved a motion calling on the federal government to reform the Criminal Code of Canada and implement meaningful bail reform. Last July, we announced $75 million in funding for police forces to crack down on guns, gangs and violence. Since then, we’ve seen significant arrests, like the $10 million of stolen vehicles seized in Peel or the $3.1 million of drugs seized in Sarnia by the OPP and the RCMP.

I’d like to thank police officers across the province for the commendable work they do putting their lives on the line to serve and protect our communities and our families. I would like to commend the Peel Regional Police for working diligently in collaboration with the OPP to combat auto theft, which has been a growing concern for many residents, especially mine, those in Brampton.

Speaker, our government has heard from the residents, and we are taking bold action. We’ll always do whatever it takes to ensure the safety and protection of all families across Ontario.

We have a special guest with us in the members’ gallery today, a former member who was the representative of the riding of St. Catharines from the 31st to the 41st provincial Parliament and is now the chair of the regional municipality of Niagara. Jim Bradley is with us today. Welcome back.

Government House leader.

Thank you, Speaker. I didn’t think there would be any objections.

Let me welcome Rafael Morales, Julie Reaume and Rosemary Chalmers, who are the parents and grandmother of page Maya from Markham–Stouffville.

Good morning, Speaker. This question is for the Premier.

Ontario’s greenbelt includes over two million acres of protected land, including some of the most fertile agricultural land in the country. The greenbelt generates nearly $9.6 billion in annual economic activity, and supports over 177,000 jobs. It also provides $3.2 billion a year in services like flood protection, water purification and stormwater management.

Speaker, does the Premier really think this is all a big scam?

Speaker, let’s talk about scams. How about the one where developers with close ties to the Conservatives somehow knew to buy protected land in the greenbelt long before the change was made? To the Premier: How did these developers get advance notice of his government’s intentions to carve up the greenbelt?

Let’s get this straight: They won’t tell us who shared information about the greenbelt carve-up in advance of the November 2022 announcement. They won’t acknowledge that developers who benefited from this were at private family fundraisers of the Premier. They won’t release the records of who in the Premier’s office was sharing this information. And now, they’re trying to distract by saying that the greenbelt is not a thing.

Speaker, the Premier owes Ontarians a straight answer: Is he planning to open up more sections of the greenbelt for his developer friends, yes or no?

Speaker, through you, to the Minister of Health: Between 2021 and 2022, Niagara experienced a 55% increase in EMS off-load delays, and in the latter half of 2022, a total of over $1.7 million of the regional levy was spent to address the record number of EMS calls. In 2022, Niagara EMS incurred almost 34,000 off-load delay hours, which is equivalent to 24 paramedics for 365 days. Will the minister commit to reimbursing the over $1.7 million spent on additional off-load delays and ensure that Niagara is funded for an additional health team to help address the underlying causes of our EMS crisis, as requested by Niagara’s municipal leaders?

Thank you to the member opposite for the question, because it is an important one. We know that the status quo is not acceptable. Having said that, of course, our government does fund ambulance partnerships with our municipal partners. But I want to go specifically to what we have done, because we know the status quo is not acceptable.

We’re returning ambulances to communities faster through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program, and through that program, we’ve actually increased ambulance availability by over 600,000 hours. These are individuals whose patients are being directly passed over and looked after by the local hospitals and, equally important, we’re having paramedics who can now go back into community faster to make sure that we deal with these wait times and off-load delays. We’re providing timely and appropriate care in the community through the expansion of a patient care model that allows paramedics to actually provide community-based care to some 911 patients. These are concrete, specific examples of what we have done as a government to assist and make sure that status quo—

We’ve also increased non-ambulance transportation for medically stable patients. All of these things together are ensuring that we continue to train and hire more paramedics in community, because, of course, the Learn and Stay program also has a component for our ambulance operators and our paramedics. So we’re doing this work and we’re getting the job done because it has been sorely ignored for too long.

That concludes our introduction of visitors for this morning.

I understand the member for Ottawa–Vanier has a point of order.

The next question.

In fact, no, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it was a Progressive Conservative government, you will recall, that brought in the Oak Ridges Moraine Green Planning Act back in 2000. It was a federal Conservative government that brought in the Rouge National Urban Park back in 2014, despite the fact that the NDP voted against that. It was a Progressive Conservative government here at Queen’s Park that expanded the greenbelt. It was a Liberal government, supported by the NDP, that reopened the greenbelt 17 times without expanding the greenbelt. That is the record of Progressive Conservative government when it comes to protecting the greenbelt, when it comes to protecting the environment.

But at the same time, Mr. Speaker, we understand that it is very, very important right now, the fact that there is a housing crisis—we have to do everything in our power to remove obstacles so that we can build more homes for the people of the province of Ontario. There are over 500,000 people coming to Ontario to participate in what is the economic revival of this province. They need a place to live and to call home, and we’re going to do that.

It’s not just them here; it’s their federal cousins in Ottawa. They held the balance of power in Ottawa, like they did here, and they’re not talking in Ottawa about removing obstacles to build more homes, just like the NDP didn’t when they held the balance of power here.

So, Mr. Speaker, let me be clear to the Leader of the Opposition: We on this side of the House, Progressive Conservatives, don’t believe that the people of the province of Ontario should be reliant only on the government. We believe that the people should be given the tools to succeed, because when they are given the tools to succeed, that is when Ontario prospers most. In order to do that, we are bringing more jobs and opportunity to the province of Ontario.

But it is also completely unacceptable that young Canadians, young Ontarians, should be offering 10, 15, 21 times in one instance to buy a home and not be successful. That’s not Ontario, and we’re going to rectify that.

But the job isn’t done, Mr. Speaker. We have to continue to do more. As I said in my first answer, it is unacceptable that we have young Ontarians offering 16, 17, and in one instance, 21 times—a grandparent called me and said 21 times—for a home that they didn’t get. That is unacceptable. So we’re going to remove obstacles. We know that they like obstacles, but you know what that has resulted in, Mr. Speaker? In April 2023, this past April, we reached an annual rate of housing starts of over 110,664. That is one of the highest levels in decades. And do you know how we’re doing that? We’re doing it by removing obstacles so that we can get more homes in the ground, so that people have the opportunity and so that all Ontarians can share in the same dream that all of us here have, Mr. Speaker—

Back to the Premier: Those stats should be concerning to any government, and it’s the result of a health care crisis. This crisis, fuelled by the government’s disrespect of front-line health care workers, has created those significant off-load delays in our hospital. Niagara deserves to be refunded the $1.7 million of taxpayer dollars that have gone into the off-load delays. We can’t continue to go down this road. Three of Niagara’s hospitals consistently rank in the bottom quarter of off-load times.

Speaker, with the local leaders from Niagara here today, will the Premier listen to their solutions and commit to ensuring long-term solutions to EMS off-load delays immediately?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do.

I am seeking unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 40(e), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to respond during statements by the ministry and responses today.