I have a petition that I will read in.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas to address the budget for seniors, the Ontario government has proposed to make changes to expand the eligibility for Guaranteed Annual Income System (GAINS), starting in July 2024, which would see about 100,000 more low-income seniors receive payments, for a 50% increase in recipients; and proposing to lower the rate at which the benefit is reduced from 50% to 25%, which means a senior can keep more of their benefit as their private income increases; and proposing to adjust the benefit annually to inflation to continually put more money in the pocket of eligible seniors; and

“Whereas investing more than $174 million over two years, starting in 2024-25, to continue the Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care Program. This program leverages the skills of paramedics to provide additional care for seniors in the comfort of their own homes; and

“Whereas Ontario is continuing to make progress on its plan to build modern, safe and comfortable long-term-care homes for seniors and residents; and through planned investments that total a historic $6.4 billion since 2019, Ontario is on track to build more than 31,000 new and over 28,000 upgraded beds across the province by 2028; and the government is helping to increase long-term-care capacity in communities across the province by providing development loans and loan guarantees to select non-municipal not-for-profit homes;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario support the passage of the Ontario budget bill, Bill 85, Building a Stronger Ontario.”

I wholeheartedly support this petition, will sign it and give it to Liam.

I thank the member for the question. I very much agree with her about this program, ODSP, and how important it is and, more particularly, the changes that we have made to make it a much more effective program, particularly three: number one, having increased the overall amount, which hadn’t been increased in a decade or so; number two, pegging it to inflation, starting next year—that is a fundamental change to the program; instead of year-by-year arbitrary changes, we’re pegging it to inflation, so when CPI is rising, that program matches; and number three, a fundamental change to the income test, raising that threshold from $200 to $1,000 a month—it’s such an important structural change to the program; we’ve heard first-hand from employers what a big change that makes.

So there are many, many important and fundamental changes to make this program better.

You’re right; we did hear from committee members across as we were doing our travelling in the lovely months of the winter. One thing that struck me—I think there are two points in response to your question. Again, I get back to the structural change to raise the income threshold from $200 to $1,000. No, that doesn’t affect everybody, but for those who are impacted, it was a fundamental change. But more importantly, on the broader program, ODSP is not the only program, typically, that applies, and we have made so many other changes to the tax system for low-income seniors, for a working tax credit—on and on and on—so that these programs work together.

On the household income point, I take the member’s point. That may be an area we want to look at and see whether we can adjust the program going forward.

I look forward to being in Owen Sound tomorrow and talking about the importance of Georgian College and the role it’s having in the community.

So many of the educational measures begin on page 93 in the budget, and for the health care—it’s too many pages to mention.

What is great, I’d say, and what struck me most when the Georgian College program opened—I mentioned this in my remarks in passing—is the fact that it is attracting local students. One of the biggest challenges we’ve had in rural Ontario for many, many years is that people had to go away to get their education and often they didn’t come back. It was then a hunt to track down these doctors, nurses and PSWs. What’s great about this is that we have local students who will get educated in our community and stay in our community. It’s very, very exciting.

I’ll start with the overall comprehensiveness of the infrastructure spending. As I mentioned in my remarks, sector by sector, it’s a major, major investment, and not only in the near term but in the long term, because this kind of commitment anchors a government’s thinking for many budgets to come. And that’s the perspective I very much like.

I acknowledge the point that the member is making about investments on-reserve.

I think the other thing that I like about how this funding is designed is that we will be listening to communities in the future and sectors in the future to identify their priorities and look forward to dealing with them. So, hopefully, that addresses the member’s comment at some point in time.

The programs and the impact we’re seeing in the community is absolutely extraordinary. Bruce Power management made the—