My question is for the Minister of Long-Term Care. This spring, the minister announced that the Village of Winston Park, a long-term-care home in Kitchener, had opened a new, recently constructed building that will provide more beds for seniors.

Nevertheless, while this is good news for the local community, Ontario’s broader long-term-care sector is being impacted by a rapidly aging population. Despite numerous calls from experts and advocates, the previous Liberal government failed to acknowledge the critical importance of investing in long-term-care facilities and services. This is why it’s so vital that our government continues to plan ahead to address the care needs for our seniors across our province.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how construction projects like this one will support our seniors in Waterloo and the neighbouring area of Cambridge?

In considering the current and future needs for seniors, it is clear that we need to build more long-term-care homes in communities across the province.

Speaker, can the parliamentary assistant please provide an update on measures our government is taking to add more beds to Ontario’s long-term-care system?

Thank you to the member for Cambridge for the question. The expansion of the Village of Winston Park is a game-changing project for the Waterloo and Cambridge area. This state-of-the-art facility now provides 224 safe, modern long-term-care beds along with top-quality care and resources for residents.

Our government is also supporting another 12 projects in Waterloo region, including homes in Cambridge, Wilmot, Woolwich and Kitchener. These are beautiful homes. Together, these projects will provide over 2,400 new and upgraded long-term-care beds built to modern design standards. These investments will also bring many new jobs in the form of construction and health care staff.

This government is investing up to $5 billion for an additional 27,000 new long-term-care staff; that’s something that the Leader of the Opposition might want to put in her review.

That is why our government has provided an increase to the construction funding subsidy designed to encourage long-term-care homes across the province to begin building by August 31, this summer. This will and has enabled the continued development of new long-term-care projects. By building new beds, more seniors will be placed in modern, safe and comfortable new homes. This initiative and commitment by this government will result in shovels in the ground for 11,000 long-term-care beds by August 31. This is all part of our government’s historic $6.4-billion plan to develop over 58,000 new and upgraded long-term-care beds so we can meet the needs of our aging population.