Mindful of the time, very quickly: My colleague from Durham spoke about investments in making sure that we have the right climate for business. I’m wondering if he can speak to the House about how he believes the investment in the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit will benefit our industries.

I’d like to thank the honourable member for the question. I do appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree with the premise.

When we got elected in 2018, we inherited an already-broken health care system, regrettably, because the key investments had not been made by the previous government. As an example, when my colleague from Mississauga–Erin Mills was speaking, in all of the province in the eight-year period prior to us being elected, there were only 611 long-term-care beds built throughout the whole province.

So those investments have been made now. We’re making key investments not only in long-term care, but in hospitals. We’re making them across the board, in order to ensure that we have the hospitals there to take care of particularly what I call the urgent surgeries, and then we’re allowing for community clinics to be able to deal with some of those procedures that can be dealt with in clinic settings. We’re also investing in health-care workers, and ensuring that they’re funded to be able to attend courses that will actually accelerate their graduation from those courses.

The province, in the last few years since 2019, has invested in building 30,000 new long-term-care beds and 28,000 redeveloped beds. This is critical in order to ensure that our seniors have the quality and compassionate care they need. In addition, we’ve put money into being able to hire 27,000 personal support workers and nurses for long-term care in the coming years, and also have committed into law four hours of direct care for each resident in long-term care. Thank you for that wonderful question.

Through you, Speaker: You know that we’ve made significant investments into ODSP. The government increased the support rates and the maximum monthly amount by 5% in 2022. And starting in July 2023, ODSP rates are also going to be adjusted annually to inflation. This is the first time ODSP rates have in fact been adjusted to inflation. We’re making the necessary investments to be able to help our most vulnerable people in our community.

I want to thank the member for St. Paul’s for your passion for those in your riding; I know I certainly have many in mine as well. Last Saturday, I was speaking with the CEO of Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Bill Marra, and he actually had some kind comments about the budget. He said, “The proposed investments in children’s mental health, adult mental health and addictions and supportive housing opportunity is noteworthy. By focusing on early intervention and prevention, the Ontario government’s leadership is demonstrating a commitment to improving health care outcomes for all Ontarians.”

Given the contrast in comments between what you shared and what I’m hearing in my community, I’m wondering if you could elaborate a little bit as to the kinds of investments that you would prefer to see in the budget.