My question is to the Premier. Last week, at a private, for-profit long-term-care home in Orillia, a resident who lives with a disability was forced to sit in their own waste for an entire night due to staffing shortages at the home. Staff were unable to assist the resident because they didn’t have any staff. And, according to the resident, it’s not the first time this has happened.

Speaker, when is this government going to put forward an actual plan to address the staffing crisis in long-term care and ensure that residents—our seniors, our parents, our grandparents—are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve?

My question is for the Associate Minister of Housing.

We know we have a housing crisis across the province. Certainly, in my riding of Simcoe–Grey, we’re seeing, with two growth nodes, both in Alliston and Collingwood, that there are incredible pressures there for housing.

But there’s also incredible population growth in our province. For the first time in our history, we exceeded 15 million people last year, and we know we’re going to be growing substantially. We grew by 400,000 new residents in Ontario last year. The federal government is planning to bring in 500,000 immigrants per year.

I’m wondering if the associate minister could please explain how this legislation, if passed, will help us to continue to grow to prepare for future growth and welcome new Ontarians looking to lay down roots in our province.

I know that the mayors have spoken in support of this bill. I used to be a municipal councillor, so I know how you talk to provincial government when you’re a municipality, regardless of what the legislation is. So I’m not sure they had much of a choice in supporting it. I know there are a lot of concerns. I can commit that we will do one of three things: We’ll either support it, oppose it or abstain.

This is a rare situation, a dissolution of a region, and as I said in my speaking, there’s very little detail in this bill to protect residents, certainly not anything to protect workers. I think that’s what is concerning people and that’s what’s leading to issues with public trust in this government.

I just had a quick question for the member. I know this bill also affects my particular area. I talk to a lot of folks in Simcoe county. It’s becoming a very mature region. Certainly, Simcoe county was formed when we had a lot of little, small municipalities and a lot of folks in my region opt in to the county. For example, the city of Barrie isn’t in the county. So they understand that as populations grow, all governments need to be nimble with change.

My question to the member opposite is, would they not be receptive to other areas that are included in this bill that may need to change and get with the times because their population is growing and this is the need that they see may be better for their residents?