This petition pertains to growing the health care workforce for years to come.

“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’ll put my name to this petition and provide it to Felicity.

Thank you to the minister for his presentation—very dynamic. I appreciate your comments regarding the OEB’s authority and how this bill will allow innovation. I also loved your comment about the cleanest technology in the world. I think that’s so important, and we should be really marketing that, so to speak.

My question to you, Minister: Can you provide an example of how giving the OEB the authority to waive licensing requirements for pilot projects could encourage greater customer participation in the energy sector?

Thank you to the member for her presentation. In this Bill 91, we actually talked about updating the Services and Supports to Promote the Social Inclusion of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act, 2008.

You just mentioned in your response to my colleague that you want to be focused on people and ODSP. So my question to you is, in reforming this plan, it will make Ontario’s developmental services system more responsive and directly linked to people’s needs. I would have to think the member would want to support that. Can we count on your vote?