The member from Niagara West.

My thanks to the member for Whitby, someone who is a strong advocate for his community and someone who understands the importance of getting it done when we build our economies and the value that that has for families to put food on the table, send their kids to university, have a good life, pay for a home. That really comes down to ensuring that we have a strong economy.

I’m born and raised in the Niagara region. I absolutely love the area that I call home, and I love the people who I have the pleasure and privilege of representing. But I remember for 15 years, when the Liberals were in office, that feeling of hopelessness that often I would encounter when I spoke with young people my age who were worried about being able to get into a good well-paying job, people who said, “I see manufacturing in Niagara leaving. I see high unemployment in the Niagara region,” and they were saying, “Where are we going to go?” Some of them had to perhaps move into the GTA in order to be able to get work.

Speaker, over the past five years, I’ve seen that change. I see people—young people, new Canadians, those who are moving to Niagara because of its opportunity, and that’s directly because of the measures that we’re taking in this legislation and in the nine previous packages.

This legislation is really about reducing the amount of time and energy that people have to spend in being able to do regular business practices. But if the member opposite is interested in bringing forward legislation to decriminalize more drugs—I don’t know about other members in this House; for myself, I think we’ve seen in BC the impact of those policies that the New Democrats brought forward, and we’ve seen the impact of those policies on the streets of downtown Vancouver and the east side of Vancouver. I’m not sure what that has to do with the legislation today.

Today what we’re talking about is legislation to ensure we’re building good jobs, that people have hope and opportunity, that they’re able to put food on the table for their families. That’s what we’re focused on doing.

I appreciate the member speaking about the impact that it has on agriculture, because the member is absolutely right. When you don’t have access to good high-speed Internet, it becomes increasingly difficult to do the work of a farmer in the 21st century, especially with the high-tech requirements that farmers today have and especially when it comes to their ability to update crop data, to be able to have their GPS systems in place and build off that work.

We’re taking actions to reduce the time that it takes to get approvals to get those broadband projects moving, and we’re doing that in collaboration with the Minister of Infrastructure—with our rural municipalities as well, who have been fierce advocates for these kinds of investments. And really what we’re saying is we shouldn’t have to wait months and months and months for the approvals in order to be able to drive that broadband through the ground and to be able to expand it to more areas. So we’re cutting the timelines that are required and associated with that, to make it faster, easier and make sure that we’re getting more people connected when and where they need to be.

Just a few days ago, the regional municipality of Niagara and the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce hosted Niagara Week here at Queen’s Park. We were joined in the chamber by former long-time MPP and chair of the region, Jim Bradley, as well as a number of local mayors and regional councillors, bringing a unified voice of growing better together. My thanks to all members who took the time to sit down with these local leaders from the Niagara region. We know that they were welcomed with open arms by a number of ministers, parliamentary assistants and policy staff, as well as many other members. A highlight of Niagara Week was a key meeting between the Chair and Premier last Monday, together with Minister Clark.

As well, many of you had the opportunity to attend and engage with representatives of the Niagara at the Niagara Week dinner reception, featuring local wine and food. As a grassroots MPP, I pledged I would be first and foremost Niagara’s voice here at Queen’s Park, not Queen’s Park voice to Niagara, and last week, our government opened the door to Niagara as we heard about a number of key issues and priorities for the region, including municipal infrastructure, economic development, housing, the agricultural sector and increased access to transit.

Speaker, our government delivered at the end of Niagara Week when the Premier, Minister Mulroney, Minister Lumsden and Minister Cho all travelled to Niagara to announce the doubling of GO train services between Union Station and Niagara Falls beginning on May 20.

Whether it’s working for Niagara, one of the other 444 municipalities or the rest of the province, our government is working with municipal partners across this province to get the job done.

Thank you very much to the member for Cambridge for that question. During the 15 years of the former Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, we saw job-killing regulation after job-killing regulation brought into this chamber. It led to 300,000 manufacturing jobs leaving this province.

But under the leadership of this Premier and this government, we’re taking a different approach. Today, we started third reading of the Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, which will build Ontario’s businesses by cutting red tape. The Liberals and NDP left businesses in places like Niagara and across small communities in this riding without help when it came to accessing the broadband infrastructure they deserved, but by removing red tape, our government is getting the job done. We’re making that process faster and ensuring that communities like those in Cambridge, like mine in Niagara West, are receiving the services they deserve, when and where they need them.

Thanks to my friend from Niagara Centre. Public transit, particularly in Brampton, biggest and busiest: 115% capacity right now. What is this change going to mean for the good people of Brampton who want well-funded, operationally sound public transit?

I’d like to thank the member from Niagara Centre for his excellent presentation, speaking about how this government likes to move fast and break things. We have seen a Premier that calls the greenbelt a myth, and maybe it’s a matter that the government has sort of missed the mark. They want Ontarians to think that making taxpayers pay more because of their decisions while they’re lining the pockets of insider developers—they want people to think that that is a myth when the facts are clearly in the way of that.

This government also would like to position themselves as pro-worker when, again, those pesky facts keep standing in the way of what they would claim is the truth.

My question to the member: Why has this government not reached out to workers, and what changes would you like to see to make sure that this legislation does take into account the voices of people like CUPE workers?