Thank you to the member opposite. Mr. Speaker, Infrastructure Ontario is an arm’s-length government agency that is responsible for government procurements. They have internal controls to ensure that there is accountability, fairness and competitive processes. They report to a board that also has accountability and transparency measures. And, of course, they work, like any other agency, with the FAO and the AG.

Mr. Speaker, we had a successful call for development where we had a lot of interest because a lot of people are excited about Ontario Place, as are we, and we will bring it back to life, just like we said back in 2019.

My question is to the Premier. Yesterday during committee hearings, we learned new information about the Ontario Place redevelopment procurement process. Unbelievably, we learned that there was no fairness monitor appointed to verify the integrity of the process.

We also learned that six days before the deadline for bid submissions, the deadline was suddenly extended by three weeks, even though Infrastructure Ontario had already received several bids. One bid that had not yet been received was the bid from Therme, which eventually won the redevelopment rights. So did that deadline extension give Therme an unfair advantage?

My question is for the Minister of Transportation. Like other regions across the province, communities in southwestern Ontario are experiencing population growth and business expansion. But traffic congestion and gridlocked highways through Leamington and Essex are extending travel times for all road users, while delaying vital goods and services from getting to our markets. Urgent action needs to be taken to build the necessary transportation infrastructure to keep our province moving.

Unfortunately, transportation needs in my areas were consistently ignored by the previous NDP-backing-the-Liberals government. The residents of Chatham-Kent–Leamington and people throughout southwestern Ontario deserve better when it comes to our transportation network.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what our government is doing to address the critical need for expanded transportation infrastructure?

My question is to the Minister of Education.

A staffing crisis driven by low wages is threatening the accessibility of child care for families. Programs are limiting capacity, and expansion targets are at risk.

The minister was overwhelmingly told by stakeholders in their consultations that they need to properly compensate child care workers. In spite of years of raising these concerns, the province’s contribution to the child care budget remains flat. Staff have described this current wage floor as an insult.

Will the minister implement recommendations from the experts in the field to keep Ontario’s $10-a-day program on track?

Will the minister commit today to increasing ECE wages immediately, instead of waiting for yet another report?

Interjections.

My question is for the Premier. In 2018, the people of Ontario elected our government with a strong desire for change in order to clean up the mess created after 15 years of mismanagement by the previous Liberal government. Wrong choices and wrong decisions by the Liberal government, supported by the NDP, hurt all Ontarians.

Instead of a government that supported our province’s working women and men, elites and activists lectured the people of Ontario, insisting that they knew better. Instead of a government that worked with businesses and entrepreneurs, we witnessed companies leaving our province and, sadly, hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs. That’s why it is so critical for our government to continue making the right investments to ensure that Ontario remains on a path to prosperity.

Speaker, can the Premier please outline how our government is ensuring that we are getting it done for the people of Ontario by building a stronger province for everyone?

That is why our government must set clear priorities and focus on solutions that will demonstrate our respect for the people of Ontario. We must manage our resources well and implement measures that will continue to strengthen our economy while building up our workforce and ensuring that life is more convenient and affordable.

Speaker, as we look to the future, can the Premier please elaborate on where the people of Ontario can expect to see further leadership by our government that will help to make Ontario stronger?

Thank you. The supplementary question.

Minister of Education.

Thank you to the member for the question. First the member says the parking is for Therme; then the member says the parking is for the science centre. Do you know who the parking is for? It is for everyone. It is for all Ontarians—for the moms who have three kids from Scarborough and Brampton, for the people of northern Ontario who visit Toronto and want a wonderful place to go. That is who the parking is for.

Again to the Premier: This government not only gave Therme a last-minute deadline extension, it’s also giving Therme a $450-million, give or take, parking facility that was not offered to the other Ontario Place bidders. Yesterday, we learned that the government wants to build the relocated Ontario Science Centre on top of this new parking facility. The minister told the CBC she had a business case showing that building a new science centre would be cheaper than making repairs. But yesterday, the minister said she has no idea how much the new parking facility would cost. So, Speaker, it stands to reason she has no idea how much it would cost with a new science centre as the cherry on top.

Will the minister release the business case to the public or admit that she doesn’t have one?

I want to thank our all-star member from Brantford–Brant. You’re doing an incredible job. Thank you.

Friends, our government just took a simple approach when we came into office, when the previous government had the largest sub-sovereign debt in the world, the highest hydro rates, and companies were leaving. We remember those days, Mr. Speaker: high unemployment.

We believe in giving back to the people, putting money back in their pockets, no matter if it was getting rid of the tolls on the 412 or 418 or getting rid of the licence sticker fee or dropping the gas tax by 10 cents. Just imagine if there were 10 cents on top of the buck sixty that everyone is paying already. We believe in putting money back into people’s pockets until they can stir the economy. They can go out there and buy a piece of furniture, maybe go out for dinner, maybe go on a trip somewhere in Ontario.

Other than doing what they did for 15 years—taking money out of people’s pockets, chasing companies out of this province. We have cut the burden of businesses by $8 billion to attract more companies to come here, to create more jobs—

We have more cranes than LA, Chicago, New York, Washington, Boston combined. There’s a reason why people are investing in Ontario; there are reasons why pension funds are investing here—because they know they have a business-friendly government that they haven’t seen in 15 years.

As much as the world is large when it comes to sectors across the world, it’s very small. We’re leading the tech industry in North America. We’re employing—

Thank you to the member for the question. When our government took office, we committed to the people of this province that we would rebuild Ontario. Unlike the previous Liberal government, who left southwestern Ontario behind, our government is investing in this region. Why, Speaker? It’s because we know that when southwestern Ontario is strong, the entire province is strong.

I was proud to have recently joined the Premier and my colleagues to announce our government is moving forward with the widening of Highway 3. We have awarded the contract to design, build and finance the widening of Highway 3 between Essex and Leamington. This investment will improve road safety and will keep people and goods moving.

Speaker, our government is making historic investments in roads and in highways to tackle gridlock, connect communities and build our economy.

Speaker, not only are we moving forward with the widening of Highway 3; our government will also support the city of Windsor to build a new interchange connecting Highway 401 to the Lauzon Parkway. This critical investment will not only support economic development, but it will also help increase trade opportunities across Ontario’s borders.

Mr. Speaker, we’re moving forward with the largest transit expansion plan anywhere in North America, and while we’re building subways and LRTs, we’re also building a strong regional network that is going to bring two-way, all-day service across our entire network, and that is despite the opposition voting against it.

Kitchener-Waterloo is a growing area. That’s why Metrolinx is constantly monitoring service and ridership levels, and that is why, just recently, we announced an increased bus service. While the demand was greater than we even thought, the next day, we added double-decker buses to meet the demand in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Mr. Speaker, we are there to meet the demands of Ontarians. The greater Golden Horseshoe is growing, and we will make sure that our transportation network keeps up and meets that demand.

And with respect to two-way, all-day GO and more frequent service on weekends, we are building towards that. We are working closely with our rail partner CN to make sure that we can deliver the service that we have told Ontarians we will deliver.

Mr. Speaker, we put forward a great plan to get Ontarians home and get Ontarians to work in an easier, more frequent way. But when we do so, the NDP vote against it. The member opposite stands in this House and says she speaks for her constituents. Well, do her constituents know that when we put forward a plan that will actually deliver on the promise of two-way, all-day GO, she votes against it?

I will say that not only are we stepping up, but we have stepped up. We had a top-up of funding directly to Ottawa of $2.6 million through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program. The member opposite knows that I’ve spoken about this program many times because it is something that paramedics and the hospital clinicians see as a real game-changer, ensuring that paramedics can get back out into community and make sure that they have appropriate care within the emergency department.

We’ve done that work. I met with the mayor of Ottawa on Monday, spoke to him again yesterday. I meet regularly and talk regularly to the Ottawa hospitals. We know that they are using effectively the 911 model of care, where paramedics, with the patient’s approval, can take individuals somewhere else other than the emergency department. These are real changes on the ground that are making a difference in the lives of the people of Ontario.

My question is to the Premier. The people of Kitchener and Waterloo are getting left behind by this government. I don’t mean figuratively; I mean literally. There is so much demand for GO service on weekends, when GO trains don’t run, that buses are completely packed with people, especially students, and they are being left behind in Brampton. On Tuesday of this week, Waterloo regional council voted to send a letter to the government urging it to address exactly this.

The people of Waterloo region need and deserve two-way, all-day GO service, including on weekends. When can Kitchener expect a weekend train to get to Kitchener on the Kitchener line?

The level of frustration has reached a tipping point. I was speaking with Justin Fan, a University of Waterloo student, who told the CBC “he wants to use GO Transit regularly, but he gets frustrated when he can’t get on a bus.”

Ian McLean, president and CEO of the KW chamber of commerce, has said that more trains will “deliver, by some estimates, up to 170,000 new jobs, billions in new investment from the private sector.”

Trains are good for business, good for people and good for the environment. Why doesn’t Kitchener-Waterloo deserve a train on the weekend? This is a direct question to the minister: When can they expect it? Because the buses are not getting the people where they need to go.

Interjections.

Thank you to the minister for her genuine leadership. While recent announcements made by our government will certainly address this long-standing and urgent need, these communities look forward to seeing construction get under way as soon as possible. This Highway 3 expansion will dramatically reduce commute times, increase road safety and improve the movement of people and goods.

But a further expansion of this infrastructure is still urgently needed. We’re seeing tremendous growth in the industrial, agricultural, manufacturing and health care sectors in Windsor and throughout Essex county. Population growth, job creation and other major investments are driving the urgency for an expanded transportation network. This is why our government must continue to invest in this infrastructure, to better support increased opportunities for trade through the busy Detroit-Windsor border.

Speaker, can the minister please elaborate on how our investments in critical highway infrastructure and projects throughout southwestern Ontario will support our economy?

My question is for the Premier. Last year, paramedics in Ottawa set a new record, but it’s not a good one: 1,806 times the Ottawa paramedics hit level zero. There were no paramedics available to respond to calls for more than 73,000 minutes. Paramedics spent 93,000 hours at emergency rooms in off-load delay.

The city is requesting provincial funding to help alleviate the off-load delay problem at Ottawa’s backlogged emergency rooms in our hospitals. Will the government step up and provide the funding Ottawa needs to keep more ambulances on the road?

The off-load delay at the Ottawa Hospital means that paramedics are waiting two and a half hours at the emergency room to get back on the road. For two consecutive years now, the Ottawa Paramedic Service has failed to meet the legislated response time of six minutes for sudden cardiac arrest. Last year, they only hit their legislated requirement 48% of the time.

Mr. Speaker, imagine watching your loved one die of a heart attack right in front of you because there’s no ambulance available to come.

Will the government do the right thing and get Ottawa the resources it needs to keep paramedics on the road responding to 911 calls?

The supplementary question.

Minister of Transportation.

My question is for the Solicitor General. Tomorrow, I will be joining parents, faith leaders, elected officials and community members at a community rally on Broadview Avenue in Ottawa Centre. We are, sadly, having to oppose an anti-transgender, anti-queer hate rally that’s happening at the foot of the street.

This same group of people were on Broadview Avenue 17 months ago. One of them, if you can believe it, Speaker, travelled all the way from British Columbia to display homophobic and transphobic placards outside three public schools. But on that day, hundreds of people came to block the visibility of his placards and tomorrow we are going to do it again.

Speaker, I want to know, will my friends in government join us and call out this hate?

As we just heard, this is Pride Month. But sadly, and I’m sure many of us are hearing it, incidents of hate against queer and trans people are on the rise, and some people are fanning the flames. So at home, we’re gathering peacefully but determinedly to show queer and trans youth we are on their side. I’ve heard members from across this House say the same thing.

Speaker, through you, does the government have a public safety message, a guarantee to queer and trans youth in Ottawa Centre and everywhere in this province, that everyone in this House sees them, loves them, values them, and we will not let them be threatened by hate or bigotry ever in the province of Ontario?

It’s without question that Ontario is home to a strong and vibrant 2SLGBTQIA community who helped shape our province and made it into the success it is today. With Pride Month well under way, as my colleague stated, I want to take this opportunity to honour their strength, courage and resilience, as well as to celebrate the important contributions they make to our province each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, I’ve been working with our 2SLGBTQI community and will continue to work with them and all allies and partners to build a stronger, safer, more inclusive Ontario, where people from all walks of life and all backgrounds can call Ontario home.

I want to thank my friend for the question. Let me be clear: Yes, we condemn all forms of hate. We have zero tolerance for hate-based crime. Everyone should feel safe in their own homes and communities.

But, Mr. Speaker, let me say this: For those who do not wish us well, for those who feel we don’t have a right to live in our communities, to raise our children, to pray, to work, and to love who we want and to live how we choose, we will call them out.

The member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Long-Term Care.