Good morning, Speaker. This government didn’t campaign on a plan to sell off our public health care system. At no point during the campaign did they say they were going to bring in two-tier health care. That’s why, on Friday and Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Ontarians voted in the Ontario Health Coalition’s citizen-run referendum to keep our health care system public. People are making their voices heard because of overwhelming evidence from many other provinces that the government’s plan will worsen services for patients and cost so much more.

Speaker, to the Premier: Will his government listen to the people of Ontario and reverse course on their plan to sell off our public health care system?

This government’s plans for health care are seeing emergency rooms in smaller and rural communities across the province close for hours, for days or even permanently. Last week, I joined residents in Minden as they rallied desperately to save their local emergency room—it’s set to close permanently this Wednesday. They’re worried, Speaker, as anyone would be if the emergency room they relied on was shut down and they were forced to leave their community in a time of crisis.

Back to the Premier: How many communities will see emergency rooms close this summer because of this government’s failure to act?

While you’re busy trying to take more staff out of our system and move them into private, for-profit clinics, the solution is simple: Invest in the staff we need to keep those emergency rooms open.

To the Premier: What will he do today to make sure that this closure in Thessalon is the last ER closure Ontarians will see this summer?

Interjections.

In fact, the problems had gotten even worse. The P3 contractor was “building at risk,” which means the safety of these designs had not been confirmed. It suggests that the deficiencies with the Eglinton Crosstown could be much more serious than the public is being told.

Speaker, why did the minister ignore the problems with the Eglinton Crosstown?

The member for Scarborough–Agincourt.

Do you have a point of order? Point of order: the Premier.

Minister of Health.

We’ll move to the next question.

Just a quick indulgence: I would like to wish the member from St. Catharines, Jennie Stevens, a very happy birthday today.

Continuing the theme of “you never know who Jess will meet on Instagram,” it is my honour to introduce both a dedicated dad and a serving member of the London Police Service. We have Officer Chris Golder in the House today, a former dedicated school resource officer and very proud father of our page Arisa. He will be here all week monitoring her progress.

I’d like to welcome Beth Allison, principal in the London District Catholic School Board. Welcome back to Queen’s Park—a great friend from the London area.

I’m already taken.

Talking about birthdays, it’s our great member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound’s birthday, Rick Byers. Happy birthday. He’s turning 40.

What I would recommend, Mr. Speaker, is the NDP member and the PC member should maybe go out for lunch today and celebrate together.

Interjection: Hey.

We had the opportunity, myself and the Minister of Health—we went to Kensington Health. What a phenomenal facility that is. And I’m just wondering if the NDP wants to close Kensington Health doing 12,000 cataract operations a year. That’s the question for the NDP, because it would be a disaster if we ever close Kensington Health and cancel 12,000 cataract operations.

I would like to introduce and welcome the newest member of my team: Andrew Tadrous. He’s here today for the first time to visit Queen’s Park. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The NDP are satisfied with the status quo. I can tell you that our government is not. We have made many different investments that—to quote Anthony Dale, the president of the Ontario Hospital Association: “We’re rushing to make up for lost time and the government has implemented a wide range of well-designed and very constructive programs to recruit and retain, to incentivize health care workers—and especially nurses—to consider practising in rural and remote communities.”

We’re making that effort. We’re making those investments and we will continue to do that because we understand, as Ontario grows, we need to continue to make the investment in health care—a health care budget that, I might add, is over $80 billion in the province of Ontario. We are investing; we are ensuring the people who want to practise in the province of Ontario have that right through many different programs.

We have now in the province of Ontario, the first across Canada, as-of-right rules under Bill 60, which means that an individual clinician, doctor, nurse who wants to practise in the province of Ontario can do so today, instead of waiting months to get that qualification happen through the college.

We directed the College of Nurses of Ontario and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to quickly deal with the backlog of individual, educated, trained people who are waiting for those licences. We now have, and we saw, a historic number of nurses who were able to pack into that program. We’ll continue—

The minister needs to follow along here. They passed their bill and we are in this situation. It’s done nothing.

Speaker, transit P3s in the United Kingdom experienced repeated lawsuits, insolvencies and bailouts. A £30-billion P3 scheme to upgrade the London Underground fell apart. Costly P3 failures like this are why the UK’s Conservative government abandoned P3 contracts altogether in 2018. Now, Ontario is running into the same costly delays, overruns and deficiencies.

If the Eglinton Crosstown P3 contractor doesn’t get another public bailout, are we going to see the whole thing collapse just like what happened in the UK?

Confidence in Metrolinx and the minister are at an all-time low. So, Speaker, to the minister, why is she appointing her friends to the Metrolinx board instead of fixing the problems with the Eglinton Crosstown?

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. But it is so ironic to hear the leader and members opposite ask about problems that are faced with the Eglinton Crosstown, because we brought forward a bill to this House in 2020 to address a lot of the problems related to a lot of those delays that were created that we saw in the Eglinton Crosstown, Mr. Speaker. It was a bill called the Building Transit Faster Act. It couldn’t have been more clear what the intention of that bill was. And what did the opposition do, Mr. Speaker? They voted against it.

So for the Leader of the Opposition to stand in this House and ask why we’re not building transit faster, I would ask her, why did they vote against that important piece of legislation so that we can avoid a lot of the problems with the Eglinton Crosstown, get shovels in the ground faster and build the transit that the city of Toronto and York region and Hamilton deserve?

And what have we seen? In 2019, the Premier introduced the most ambitious public transit expansion plan anywhere in North America. Since then, Mr. Speaker, we’ve seen shovels in the ground on the new Ontario Line, a line they voted against. We have seen significant progress on tunnelling on the Eglinton Crosstown West extension. The tunnel is halfway done. In Scarborough, we’ve seen significant progress on the Scarborough subway extension, and just a few weeks ago, we announced the RFQ for the Yonge North subway extension.

They claim to believe in and stand up for transit riders and for the people of the city of Toronto, York region and Hamilton, but at the end of the day, the Leader of the Opposition and her party always vote against it.

We’re building public transit. We are supporting it—

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, that member opposite knows full well how important it is to make sure that people who are building a transit system have the time to make sure they do it right. That’s why our government called a public inquiry into what happened at the Ottawa LRT. That’s why, learning the lessons that Justice Hourigan put forth in his report on the problems that plagued the Ottawa LRT, our government is determined to make sure that with respect to the Crosstown we do it right and we make sure that we build this system properly and that it is safe for transit riders, that it’s safe for transit operators, and it will open when it is safe for all.

Supplementary question?

The next question. Start the clock.

To reply, the Minister of Transportation.

Back to the transportation minister: 16 months ago, the transportation minister said she would investigate consultant Brian Guest and his firm, Boxfish. Mr. Guest was a key adviser to Ottawa’s LRT, a former vice-president of Metrolinx and the key leader in most of Toronto’s LRT contracts, including the Eglinton Crosstown. Boxfish earned millions for contracts in LRT systems that are failing or don’t work. The minister at the time said she was “extremely concerned about any perceived or potential conflict of interest” with Mr. Guest and pledged to investigate him and Boxfish.

Speaker, we have done our own investigation, and we have confirmed that Mr. Guest has never been investigated; neither has Boxfish.

If the Minister of Transportation was truly extremely concerned, why did she break her promise to this House and the people of Ontario and fail to investigate Mr. Guest or Boxfish for any of these contracts?

So, very clearly, to the minister: The investigation that she claims to have done—will you make that internal investigation public? Will accountability be brought to the Eglinton Crosstown, to stage 1 of Ottawa’s LRT, and to every other transit project being done under this government?

Interjections.

A few weeks ago, the NDP and I presented evidence of a cash-for-access culture in minor hockey that is letting rich parents buy their children spots on teams, shutting out talented, young athletes in the process. Evidence of not-for-profit teams being bought and sold for millions in private profits—the Minister of Sport shrugged his shoulders.

Since then, a whistle-blower provided the minister with new evidence of this widespread corruption—financial documents and communiqué that suggested this is happening at every level. Do you know what they heard back from the minister? Nothing.

My question to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport: How much more evidence of corruption does he need before he takes complete action?

Speaker, I don’t buy it. The minister says an independent investigation is under way, but it is akin to the GTHL investigating itself. The minister says he has “no authority.” Speaker, that is not accurate at all. His ministry regulates provincial sports organizations. The Ontario Hockey Federation is that organization; the GTHL is its member. The ministry requires these organizations to verify annually that they meet the requirements for this special status. Speaker, the puck is supposed to stop with the Minister of Sport.

Back to him: When will the Minister of Sport do his job and take responsibility by launching an actual investigation to stop this corruption?

Supplementary?

The supplementary question?

My question is for the Minister of Energy. Individuals and families and even businesses in my community, as well as all across Ontario, are looking for relief on their energy bills. When our government was first elected in 2018, we made a commitment to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario. We have to make every effort to deliver on our commitment, and we need to be providing more ways for Ontarians to take control of their energy bills and encourage energy conservation.

Under the previous Liberal government, Ontario witnessed out-of-control energy costs as a result of their failed policies. The people of Ontario expect our government to do all that we can do to reduce these costs.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how our government is providing support to the people of Ontario in helping them save on their energy bills?

It’s encouraging to hear about the many different energy initiatives and supports brought forward by our government to help Ontario’s hard-working families and businesses.

However, affordable energy remains a serious issue for our province. Our government must continue to implement solutions that will bring costs down and provide help to Ontarians, after the previous Liberal government squandered our province’s clean-energy advantage. Our government must continue to show respect for the people of Ontario by implementing programs that offer choice and will help to reduce costs.

Can the minister please share more details about the recently announced Peak Perks energy program and how this will benefit the people of Ontario?

Speaker, the mission to Germany was an opportunity to build on the $25 billion in auto and EV investments that we’ve landed in Ontario in the last two and a half years. We were able to thank the Volkswagen team who we worked with day to day to land this historic $7-billion investment here in Ontario.

It was an opportunity to discuss the nature of the main suppliers they now need to begin operations. Cathode, anode, separator, copper foil, electrolyte, lithium hydroxide: Speaker, these aren’t just words. Each of those are main components needed in a battery and each of those represents a $1-billion-to-$3-billion company coming here to Ontario.

Speaker, we’re also talking about a suppliers’ day to help identify opportunities for their new facility in St. Thomas.

We also took a day trip to Poland to meet with similar companies.

What we heard everywhere was consistent: In this turmoil-filled world—post-pandemic, Russian invasion, Chinese-dominated supply chains—they all look at Ontario as a sea of calm and a stable, reliable, trusted partner. They also view Ontario as a safe jurisdiction, safe for their employees, safe for their families, safe for their executives to visit. We showed them that Ontario is all that and more.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. Last week, the minister was in Germany again to continue meeting with and attracting investments in the automotive and EV sectors. With the recent news of Volkswagen coming to Ontario, there is no question that the province should continue to focus on its manufacturing capabilities and ensure that there are good jobs for families across the province now and into future.

Speaker, can the minister please provide us with an update on his recent trade mission to Germany?

Mr. Speaker, can the minister please elaborate on how companies overseas feel about investing in Ontario, and what they see our competitive edge to be?

Congratulations to the member opposite on his Peterborough Petes winning the OHL Championship last week.

As usual, the member is correct. I know from my time as a critic on that side, Ontarians felt helpless as they watched their hydro bills just skyrocket on a monthly basis.

Then, in 2018, we took office. We began taking steps to reduce the costs and empower customers to lower their costs. We implemented the Ontario Electricity Rebate, the OER, which is lowering the cost of electricity by 12%. We introduced more customer choice. We gave customers the power to take control of their hydro bills with the Green Button standard being implemented right across, possibly saving customers up to 18%. Electricity customers also will soon have the right, and they do in some jurisdictions, to have an ultra-low overnight rate. I’m going to have more to say about the Peak Perks program coming up in my supplementary.

Interjections.