The member for Ottawa–Vanier.

Members will please rise.

The House observed moment’s silence.

I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize Pride Month in Ontario. This is an opportunity for all Ontarians to come together to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community that has been so important to the cultural fabric and economic prosperity of our province. They’ve brought so much joy, colour and love to the province of Ontario.

Ontario is a place that values and is strengthened by equality, diversity and inclusion. It is a place where people from all walks of life come together to build a society and to build a home that celebrates the uniqueness of each individual. Pride is a shining example of this unity, a celebration that reminds us of the progress that we have made and the work that still lies ahead.

Our government has been helping, protecting and promoting diverse Ontarians since day one and we will continue to do just that. That’s why we’re proud to support so many 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations, not only in Toronto but across the province, such as North Bay Pride, Ottawa Pride and Stratford Pride. I was honoured to be a part of the Pride event in the town of Napanee in Hastings–Lennox and Addington just this last weekend.

Each year, we support the work they do to help empower and celebrate community and foster a more inclusive province. We’re also rolling out additional resources, like the Anti-Racism and Anti-Hate Grant and the anti-hate security grant, which will help protect community spaces for organizations that serve vulnerable communities and the anti-racism movement.

This month, Ontarians will proudly wave our rainbow flags, a symbol of pride and resilience. These colours represent the diversity within the community and the countless struggles that they have faced and overcame. They represent the strength and the courage of individuals who have fought for their rights and paved the way for a more inclusive society.

In honour of the many battles fought and being fought to ensure the acceptance of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and Ontarians, we will continue to celebrate the freedoms that have been earned through the dedication and activism of countless individuals who have fought for justice and equality, many of whom are in this room.

Pride is more than a celebration; it is a reminder of the ongoing journey towards freedom, acceptance and understanding. It is a call to action for all of us to stand up against hate, discrimination and prejudice. It is an opportunity to educate ourselves and others and to build bridges of understanding and empathy.

From arts and culture to politics and business, LGBTQ+ community members have enriched this province in countless ways. They have inspired us with their creativity, leadership, resilience and hope. They have shown us that embracing diversity and inclusion is not just the right thing to do; it is the key to our collective growth and prosperity.

As we come together to celebrate Pride Month in Ontario, let us remember that our work is not done, that all members of this House can agree there is no place for hate in Ontario, and we all must stand up against homophobia, transphobia and all forms of discrimination. Our government will continue to work together with the community to promote equality and inclusivity in our schools, our workplaces and our communities.

So today, let’s take this opportunity to celebrate love, acceptance and pride. Let us cherish the progress we’ve made and look forward to the future with hope, optimism and determination. Together, we can build a stronger Ontario where everyone is welcomed and accepted, regardless of who they are or who they love.

Applause.

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the House to observe a moment of silence in remembrance of the memory of Salman Afzaal; his wife, Madiha Salman; their daughter Yumnah, and her grandmother Talat, who were victims of a senseless act of Islamophobia and terror that took place in London two years ago today.

We are proud to celebrate Pride Month alongside our 2SLGBTQIA+ friends and neighbours. This month and every other month, we have an obligation to uplift our communities that have for too long had their voices diminished.

During Pride Month, we celebrate the strength, achievements and diversity of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. With continued discrimination, it is vital to come together and show the beauty and talent of this community while advocating for a more inclusive future for all. Let’s use Pride Month to ensure that the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is seen and heard, so that our friends in future generations, who too often face barriers in letting their true selves shine, might see themselves represented as leaders and role models in their community. That’s what Pride is all about.

The parades are fantastic and the community spirit is inspiring, but most importantly, it’s a chance for us to make everyone feel welcome. Pride Month is a time to reaffirm our support of the community, which has long been an integral part of who we are. Let’s raise our voices so others might see them and feel safe. To all my friends, happy Pride, be safe, be happy and always be yourself.

Thank you, Speaker, and I’m proud to say Ontario is an internationally recognized leader in wildfire management, and our staff are, of course, currently working all across the province to ensure the safety of people and communities.

Speaker, we know that the investments that we’ve made in increasing spending in wildfire preparedness have been warranted, and we have been increasing spending since we had that opportunity to when we took government. Our aviation and forest fire emergency services crews are in the air with airplanes and water bombers, in the air with helicopters, on the ground with firefighters, and Speaker, I can assure this House that every day, in all locations that we are battling forest fires, they are doing one heck of a job.

Speaker, we’re proud to share our resources with other jurisdictions when needed and we’re proud to ask for assistance from other jurisdictions when needed. We work to ensure the safety of people throughout Ontario with our partners in Canada and internationally.

Speaker, we are definitely invested in keeping Ontarians safe, and I want to thank all the men and women that are doing so right this moment for the people of Ontario.

I think it’s important for the opposition to know exactly how clean and green and reliable our electricity system is in the Ontario jurisdiction. That’s one that’s going to allow us to remove megatons of emissions from our system in the future. By ensuring that we have a clean, reliable system in Ontario, one that only emits about 3% of our total emissions in the province, and by keeping the price reliable and affordable, we are going to see emissions reduced in other parts of our sectors, more emitting parts of our sectors, like our transportation sector.

It’s why we’ve seen multi-billion-dollar investments in our EV manufacturing facilities. It’s why we’re seeing manufacturers now moving to electrifying their processes in Ontario, which is going to remove emissions from our system. It’s why we’re seeing our steelmakers moving to green steelmaking with electric arc furnaces. It’s ensuring that the price of electricity in our province is affordable. That will move more people to electrify their processes, making our environment here in Ontario even cleaner and greener than it is today at 90%.

Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.

To respond, the Minister of Energy.

This question is for the Premier. Speaker, yesterday, the federal government confirmed that Canada is headed into the most severe fire season that our country has ever seen. Here in Ontario, wildfires are raging throughout the province, including in northern and eastern Ontario where the threat to life and property is very real. Centennial Lake, near Calabogie, is the latest area to be evacuated as a fire there grows out of control.

We know that natural resources, staff and local fire crews all around the province are working hard to contain the spread of the fire. Can the Premier update the House on what the government is doing to protect people and communities during this emergency?

Speaker, with the most severe season ever forecasted, does this government recognize the connection between this worsening weather and the climate crisis?

Interjections.

Anyway, my next question is to the Premier. This week, the Toronto Sun reported that Metrolinx has over 30,000 pages of documents that relate “to the issue of whether some rails for the Eglinton Crosstown project were improperly installed and need to be fixed.”

If the Eglinton Crosstown public-private partnership has a defective rail system, that’s about as serious a problem as you get. The minister refuses to take responsibility for the Eglinton Crosstown P3 fiasco, and instead of giving the public the information and the clarity that we deserve, we’ve gotten only finger-pointing and gaslighting. Does the Premier think that’s acceptable?

Speaker, it’s not just Ontarians waiting for the Eglinton Crosstown. People across the GTA are fed up. Once again, last weekend, GO bus riders travelling from Brampton to Waterloo were left behind at Bramalea station because not enough buses were made available to meet demand. The Minister of Transportation has been or should have been aware of this problem for months, but again, the minister refuses to take responsibility for the mess that she has orchestrated.

To the Premier: Why is he allowing this minister to leave dozens of GO riders stranded in Brampton?

My question is to the Premier.

A new report by the National Bank of Canada shows that home affordability in Ontario has reached alarming levels. In Toronto, you need to earn $235,000 to buy a home. In Hamilton, you need to earn $220,000 a year to buy a home.

The Conservatives are not fixing the housing crisis; they’re making it worse. It has never been more expensive to rent or buy a home.

How expensive does housing have to get for the Conservatives to recognize their plan is not working?

Not only has the dream of home ownership gone up in smoke, but Ontarians can’t even find an affordable place to rent. The latest report by rentals.ca has just come out, and rent for available apartments continues to skyrocket. In North York, rent is up 24% year over year; in Scarborough, rent has gone up 30%; in Brampton, it’s up 30%; and in Markham, it’s up 30%. There is nowhere affordable left for people to live.

Once again, this is my question to the Premier: How bad does it have to get for the Conservatives to change course and seriously address the housing affordability crisis that we have in Ontario today?

Interjections.

Stop the clock. The member for Brampton North will come to order. The member for Waterloo will come to order.

Start the clock. Back to the Leader of the Opposition.

The Premier.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Start the clock. The next question.

The Associate Minister of Housing.

Restart the clock.

The supplementary.

My question is to the Premier.

All Ontarians are shocked, angered and deeply disturbed by the recent news that convicted murderer and sex offender Paul Bernardo is being transferred to a medium-security prison. Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, torture and killing of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, as well as admitting to sexually assaulting numerous other women. He truly is the living embodiment of evil.

Justice Patrick LeSage, the judge who convicted Bernardo to life in prison, stated that Bernardo is a dangerous, sexually sadistic psychopath, and should have no right to ever be released. This is why there is something truly troubling in the discovery that Bernardo has been quietly moved from his maximum-security prison to a reported open-campus medium-security prison.

Can the Premier please add his voice and demonstrate strong leadership by standing with all Ontarians and with the families who were victimized by these crimes in raising our concern to the federal government and Correctional Service Canada?

Once again, can the Premier please provide his support and leadership in calling on the federal government and Correctional Service Canada to take the right action, respect the French and Mahaffy families, and hold Bernardo truly accountable for his heinous crimes?

To the Leader of the Opposition: I have total confidence in my minister. I have total confidence that the minister is responsible for building the largest transit project in North America. As you sat on your hands and as the Liberals sat on their hands—spending $30 billion, again, building the largest transit system in North America.

As the minister said, we will take responsibility for the disaster we inherited, but guess what? The Eglinton West is four to six weeks ahead of schedule, on time, on budget. The Yonge North extension is on time, on budget. Scarborough is getting a subway for the first time in the history of this province, and we’re going—

Interjections.

My message to Leslie Mahaffy’s and Kristen French’s families is, our heart breaks for you. Our heart breaks for you that you have to go through this once again, relive an absolute nightmare. And we will always, always have your backs.

As for this scumbag Bernardo, he should rot in hell. He should rot in a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life. This guy doesn’t deserve less restrictions, employment opportunities—believe it or not—or freedom to wander around.

I’m going to quote the correctional services commissioner: “We want Canadians to have confidence in our decisions.”

Well, Commissioner, I’ll tell you, no Canadians have confidence in your decisions. You should step aside, step down or be fired.

Interjections.

Instead of building transit, what this government is building is a legacy of public money wasted on private companies botching a transit system that doesn’t work. If riders don’t have confidence that a bus is going to arrive on schedule to get them to their destination on time, they will not take transit. Confidence in the transit system depends on the Minister of Transportation.

My question is to the Premier, who is sitting right there, and I hope he takes this question. Does the Premier still have confidence in this minister?

Interjections.

I want to thank the member from University–Rosedale for her question. However, the NDP’s fact-free rhetoric does absolutely nothing to help first-time homebuyers actually achieve their dreams. While they complain from the sidelines, it is this government that is taking concrete action. Our government has a bold plan for attacking the housing supply crisis and bringing affordable housing within reach for all Ontarians.

Speaker, our plan is working. We’ve seen record purpose-built rentals in the past two years, and record housing starts. We doubled the adjudicators on the Landlord and Tenant Board.

We’re not going to take any lessons from the NDP, the no-development party, on building houses in this province.

We’re going to continue to work hard for all of the people of Ontario.

The NDP’s sudden concern for housing affordability rings very hollow to us. For years, they did absolutely nothing but talk about these issues from the sidelines. They voted, once again, against the housing supply action plan, which is delivering the highest number of rental units in Ontario’s history. And, surprisingly, they voted against protecting tenants from renovictions and wrongful evictions.

While the NDP proposes more taxes and study after study, our government is going to cut red tape, we’ll build more housing supply, and we’re introducing real solutions that will make a meaningful difference to Ontarians struggling with affordability. We’re not going to be lectured by the party with no credible plan, with a track record of inaction. We’re going to keep working for the people of Ontario. It’s time they stepped up and represented their constituents, as well.

My question is to the Minister of Energy.

Last week, I asked the minister what he was going to do to protect people from the risk of power outages this summer. That same day, hours after the minister told me that everything was fine, wonderful and under control, 8,500 people in Kanata–Carleton lost their power, apparently because the local grid couldn’t handle the heat.

The minister needs to take action now to ensure we don’t face much larger outages this summer as people deal with climate-driven extreme heat events. Will he take action?

I share the member opposite’s deep distress by those vile comments from that public officeholder.

I think one of the messages that was celebrated by all parliamentarians at Pride is the context of words and actions. I think we must hold ourselves to higher standards, because young people and students at our publicly funded schools are looking up to us—particularly our school board trustees.

When this issue arose, I commented on and condemned it, saying, “To draw a parallel to a universally reviled symbol of hate and fascism is disturbing. We need our members, our trustees, our elected officeholders to do better in standing up for human rights for everyone and that includes, most especially, the LGBTQ community who’s facing some of the highest rates of violence and bullying in our schools.”

I have asked every school board in Ontario—public and private, English and French—to celebrate Pride and the universal message of acceptance and love for all, and I expect them to do so this month.

We just heard these remarks from our friends and colleagues across the way. I assure the member in the clearest terms, we have directed and expect publicly funded schools to celebrate Pride meaningfully and symbolically and to stand in solidarity.

Every child must be safe. It is our expectation that every child will be safe in a school, and I’m prepared to work with all members across party lines to ensure that children feel affirmed, respected and safe in a publicly funded school.

Five days ago, a Niagara Catholic District School Board trustee compared the flying of the rainbow flag to that of flying the Nazi flag. This hateful comment was made one day after the Minister of Education suggested to the school boards to “celebrate Pride in a constructive, positive and meaningful way to affirm 2SLGBTQ students.”

My question to the minister is, since the Niagara Catholic board won’t uphold their responsibilities in the Accepting Schools Act, will he now show the leadership that the clergy here are asking for today, who ask that he issue a ministerial order to direct all publicly funded schools in Ontario to raise the rainbow flag for Pride Month?

Today, we are joined by clergy from many Christian denominations who have come here today to share a message of unity and love for the 2SLGBTI community. Their Pride Month unity message has been signed by over 500 clergy and lay leaders in Ontario, representing 70 municipalities. These Christian leaders are asking us to be loud and clear and to take decisive action to ensure that 2SLGBT people, especially students, are safe in schools.

The Premier has boasted about marching in York Pride, yet he won’t take action to mandate safe school environments for 2SLGBTI students, families and teachers.

Does the Premier not realize that by refusing to raise the rainbow flag at all publicly funded schools, his declaration of support in marching in the York Pride parade rings hollow and performative?

Ontario has attracted $25 billion in auto and EV investments in just two and a half years, and now we need to ensure that our future workforce has the skills needed to fill the jobs of the future.

Colleges, like Canadore College in my hometown of North Bay, are opening zero-emission training centres, because soon, you won’t need a mechanic—you’re going to need an EV technician.

We’re also investing $6 million through our Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network, and that will support 14 innovative education projects connecting kids from K to 12 and post-secondary students to the province’s EV sector.

The Future Workforce Program bridges the gap between students and the EV industry while reducing the stigma of skilled trades.

Speaker, as we continue to grow Ontario’s world-class auto supply chain, we’re now going to need the workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

Our plan to build Ontario is working.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

Before our government was elected, sadly—Mr. Speaker, very sadly—our auto and manufacturing sectors were in disarray. Hundreds of thousands of auto and manufacturing jobs fled the province, leaving Ontario unprepared to lead the charge on the future of electric vehicles. Thanks to our government’s efforts, Ontario auto is back, and this next generation of the sector will be a catalyst for economic growth. In order to ensure that this prosperity continues, we will need to focus on training people for the jobs of the future, including those in our growing auto sector.

Will the minister please tell us what our government is doing to introduce students to opportunities in the auto sector and beyond?

We know that our government has demonstrated its ability to attract and land a string of landmark auto manufacturing investments in just a few short years.

And it is great to hear that we are setting the stage for the next generation of Ontario autoworkers. But we need to ensure that there are also current opportunities for the province’s autoworkers. Would the minister explain how our government is creating these types of jobs for the autoworkers in Ontario?