I’d to introduce to the Legislative Assembly Geoff Quirt, who was at one time an assistant deputy minister of long-term care and the Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat.

Geoff, thank you for your service to the province.

That concludes our members’ statements for this morning.

Joining us in the Speaker’s gallery is the delegation from Quebec. La délégation québécoise est avec nous aujourd’hui dans la tribune du Président :

—M^me Nathalie Roy, Présidente de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec;

—M^me Suzanne Tremblay, députée de Hull;

—M^me Marie-Belle Gendron, députée de Châteauguay;

—M^me Brigitte B. Garceau, députée de Robert-Baldwin; et

—M. Siegfried Peters, secrétaire général de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec.

Please join me in warmly welcoming our guests to the Legislature today.

Applause.

I would like to acknowledge page Liam Gunning, from my community of Newmarket–Aurora, who is serving as page captain today. Also joining us are Liam’s mom, Jen Gunning, and his little sister Isla Gunning, as well as his grandfather Geoff Quirt, who is a retired member of the OPS.

Liam, thank you for your service.

I’d like to introduce a number of visitors to the chamber this morning.

First, I’d like to introduce Michau Van Speyk, an important autism and mental health advocate.

I’d like to introduce Rameez and Sana Mufti, who are the siblings of my outstanding OLIP intern, Alia Mufti.

Finally, I would like to introduce the following people from the community of Chesley and the Ontario Health Coalition: Brenda Scott, Ian Scott, Hazel Pratt, Jennifer Shaw, Faye Bell McClure, Sharon Burley, Doug Walsh, Audrey Walsh, Isobel Bell, and Natalie Mehra.

Welcome to the chamber.

It’s an honour to introduce the people of Garden River First Nation, who are here at Queen’s Park with their chief, council and elders. Please welcome Chief Andy Rickard, Darwin Belleau, Cindy Belleau-Jones, Brandi Nolan, Trevor Solomon, Chris Thibodeau, Dan Tice, Albert Williams, Terry Belleau, Nevaeh Pine, and Darrell Boissoneau.

I’d also like to recognize, from the Anishinabek Nation, regional Deputy Grand Council Chief Travis Boissoneau as well as the CAO of Garden River, Jauvonne Kitto.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

From Faith Baptist Church in Huntsville in the great riding of Parry Sound–Muskoka, we have Associate Pastor Harry Toews. And from the outreach team and church family at large, joining him are: Rodger Flemming, Bill Frankland, Doug Graves, Andrew Hall, Carolann Page, Bob Switzer, Mary Switzer, Rosemary Toews, and Mike Zammit.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Meegwetch, Speaker. Remarks in Anishininiimowin. This morning—it’s a good morning—I’m going to speak a little bit of my language, our Creator-given language.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin.

I say thank you to the community of Garden River First Nation, the Ojibways. It’s not every day that we get to speak our language in this place. This morning, I was gifted with this eagle feather, and then for me to speak a little bit of my language in this place—meegwetch.

I would like to introduce a group of residents from Chesley: Faye Bell McClure, Brenda Scott, Ian Scott, Hazel Pratt, Jennifer Shaw, and Isobel Bell, as well as the CEO of the Ontario Health Coalition, Natalie Mehra.

Welcome to your House.

I have another group to introduce—and it is our powerful page Lazo Kasekas. His family is here today in the chamber: Kate, Konst, Vanna, and Eleanor Kasekas.

Welcome.

I have a number of people here today with the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce. They’re here for meetings with various members. We have Hugo Chesshire, Mishka Balsom, Grady Peller, John Peller, Del Rollo, Richard Linley, Debbie Zimmerman, Aaron Dobbin, Paul Speck, and Carolyn Hurst.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Please welcome a dear friend of mine from law school, Michael Sullivan, and his son J.J. Sullivan.

It’s shocking, Mr. Speaker, that somebody was talking about building a new hospital in York region—the new Southlake hospital.

In fact, we were actually talking about building a new Southlake hospital before the last election. It has been no secret; we’ve never made a secret of the fact that the people of York region, especially Southlake, need it to be rebuilt. I just don’t understand how it is that the Leader of the Opposition is not aware of this, because we’ve not tried to hide the fact.

In fact, we went into an election telling the people of the province of Ontario that we were going to make $50 billion worth of investments in health care because we had to rebuild a health care system that was left so sorely lacking by the Liberal and NDP coalition, which ignored health care for 15 years.

It is no secret, but welcome to the party. Perhaps now you will consider voting in favour of this massive investment, now that it’s no longer a secret to—

I would like to recognize the Lung Health Foundation of Canada. Folks are here today advocating in a very good way—CEO Jessica Buckley and policy lead Riley Sander.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Dominic Cadotte, one of our current pages and a constituent of mine. Dominic is one of only a handful of pages to represent Scarborough–Rouge Park during my time in office, so I want to extend my tremendous thanks for his service to the Ontario Legislature.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek 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.

I’m honoured to welcome two of my constituents here to Queen’s Park today: Tim and Kris Sturgeon. Kris is a super volunteer in our community, and Tim is a recently retired OPP officer.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome members from the youth civic engagement initiative organized by the women’s focus group organization. They’ve joined us here today to gain some insight on the functions and structure of our great Legislature. It’s great to see them here—and all the youth they brought with them. They will be hosting a reception for us in room 228, and all are welcome to join.

I would like to introduce—and thank you for coming—wonderful youth from Thornhill: Nicholas Chernyakhovsky, Eric Dobre, Jaian Dhebar, Ethan Ulman, Delan Mete, Denis Averbukh, Noa Fishbain, Jonathan Yagudaev, Abdul Wajid Ishaq, and Alan Annenkov.

I would also very much like to thank a faithful provincial servant from the Ministry of the Attorney General, Mr. Peter Dewar.

I don’t think they’ve made it in the chamber yet, but I want to welcome the member of Parliament for Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, Lianne Rood, as well as one of the staff members, Dalton Holloway, who is going to be here shortly.