Speaker, as you know, Ontario is one of the largest automotive producers in North America, home to world-leading vehicle assembly plants, parts manufacturers and research centres that have been meeting the needs of international customers for more than 100 years. Ontario is the only place in North America where five major automakers build their vehicles, including Honda, Toyota, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis and, soon to be added, Volkswagen’s first overseas battery manufacturing plant.

Canada’s auto sector supports nearly 500,000 workers, contributes $16 billion annually to Canada’s GDP, and is one of the country’s largest exporters. Ontario’s auto supply chain is comprised of over 700 parts firms, over 500 tool, die and mould makers, and over 300 connecting and autonomous companies. This is why, with a bright future ahead for our provincial automotive sector, thanks to the leadership of Premier Ford, I am pleased to make a members’ statement celebrating Ontario’s automotive heritage.

One of my constituents, William Armstrong, is the Ontario director of the National Association of Automobile Clubs of Canada. He’s championing an effort to declare the month of July as automotive heritage month in Ontario, and July 14 as collector car appreciation day.

Whether we’re looking back to Ontario’s rich automotive industry or ahead to new investments today, including the recent announcement that GM will build the next generation of EV motors in St. Catharines, let’s celebrate our important automotive sector and recognize July as automotive heritage month.

I’m very glad today to be able to stand in the Legislature and present a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario which reads as follows:

“Whereas to address the current staffing shortages in the health care sector, the Ontario government has proposed an investment of $200 million in 2023-24 to address immediate staffing shortages; and

“Whereas to grow the workforce for years to come, this includes:

“—offering up to 6,000 health care students training opportunities to work in hospitals providing care and gaining practical experience as they continue their education through the Enhanced Extern Program. This program has offered these opportunities to over 5,000 health care students; and

“—supporting up to 3,150 internationally educated nurses to become accredited nurses in Ontario through the Supervised Practice Experience Partnership Program; and

“Whereas more than 2,000 internationally educated nurses have enrolled in this program and over 1,300 of them are already fully registered and practising in Ontario; and

“Whereas Ontario is continuing to hire more health care workers to ensure everyone can see a trained professional when they need to; and

“Whereas key new investments in 2023-24 to build the health care workforce include:

“—$22 million to hire up to 200 hospital preceptors to provide mentorship;

“—$15 million to keep 100 mid-to-late career nurses in the workforce; and

“—$4.3 million to help at least 50 internationally trained physicians get licensed in Ontario;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the passage of the Ontario budget bill, Bill 85, Building a Stronger Ontario.”

Speaker, I do indeed also support this petition today. I’m going to be affixing my signature to it and passing it to page Liam, who will be providing it to the table for our record.

My thanks to the member for University–Rosedale for her participation today in debate, I listened with interest to her contributions this afternoon, and one of the pieces that I thought was fairly interesting was her commentary around BC, and specifically—I know you mentioned Burnaby and what they’re doing. “We support Burnaby’s plan,” I think was what you were saying. You said there’s a lot of building happening there.

I think that’s great. I think it’s really important, as legislators, that we’re looking at other jurisdictions who are bringing forward ideas. I think there’s always more that can be done. I think there’s a lot that’s good in this bill, that’s moving things forward to help tenants and to build more housing stock.

But I’m wondering if she could elaborate a bit further as to what she is seeing in Burnaby, where, as she mentioned, a lot of housing is being built and a lot of progress is being made. What is she seeing there that she believes could be learned here, as well, in future housing bills?