I want to thank the member from Sault St. Marie. He does a fantastic job in that city, making sure that industry in Sault St. Marie is on the cutting edge—that’s exactly what these kinds of announcements are focused on.

The computer numerical control lathe is like no other. Its accuracy and timing consumption factor—it sounds kind of technical, but basically it allows them to do more work on larger-scale projects, including building much-needed locomotive trains, putting northern Ontario into a sector more actively than it has ever been. This is the kind of technology that isn’t just protecting jobs; it’s creating new, high-tech jobs in the manufacturing sector in northern Ontario—that walked out the door under the previous government.

We’re back. We’ve got a great member from Sault St. Marie who is protecting and creating jobs in his city, and we couldn’t be more pleased to support him.

We also supported a company called Apex Cranes. Apex Cranes was able to leverage our investment to purchase an Alliance 38M concrete pumper truck. This will provide new vertical and horizontal reach for larger-scale construction projects. That’s twice I’ve said that about Sault St. Marie—larger-scale construction projects.

As it repositions itself to be a world-class steel manufacturer and centre of mining processing, we’re making sure Sault St. Marie is in the best position possible to realize its optimal value.

Thank you for the question from my colleague who works non-stop for his riding.

Mr. Speaker, we are building a supply chain from critical minerals to manufacturing electric vehicles that will create jobs and economic opportunities across the province, but it all starts with mining. We launched the Critical Minerals Strategy that attacks challenges in our sector through investing and cutting red tape. Our strategic investments in exploration and innovation help the brilliant people in our workforce find the mines of the future and solve mining challenges.

We won’t stop there. That’s why I introduced the Building More Mines Act that, if passed, would reduce regulatory burdens to save companies time and money. This would create business certainty and draw in more investment to the sector. We were happy to see the opposition support this bill at second reading, and we encourage them to continue to do so, to do what is right for this province by continuing—

I recently visited Glencore’s world-class Kidd Creek Mine with my colleague the Associate Minister of Transportation. This critical minerals mine is a world-class operation. It is over 10,000 feet deep and is the closest you can get to the earth’s core anywhere in the world, right in Timmins. I spoke to management at Glencore, and they told us how much they appreciated having a government that solves problems to keep this sector competitive.

Listen to what Peter Xavier, a vice-president at Glencore, had to say about our bill: “The improvement of processes within the Ministry of Mines will strengthen our Ontario operations and facilitate their expansion.” That means more jobs in ridings across the north, including those being represented by the members opposite.

We encourage all members of this House to support our bill, because it cannot take 15 years to build a mine if we are going to secure the supply chain for critical minerals.

There’s a lot in that question.

On the housing side, we have a housing supply action plan which we brought in, starting in 2018, and the opposition is, of course, not in favour of that. We’ve spent weeks talking about how we want to build more homes across the province of Ontario, and then the NDP asks one question at the beginning of question period to suggest we should stop building homes, and then towards the end of question period asks another one if we can build more homes. So I’m not sure what it is that they actually want at this point.

Here’s the thing that we are doing: We are going to build more homes for all of the people of the province of Ontario.

The second part of the question was with respect to health care and health care resources. I can tell you that, because of the extraordinary work of the Minister of Colleges and Universities, we have more people entering the health care field than at any time in our province’s history, and it’s so needed because of the massive amount of investments that we’re making in health care. In long-term care, I need 27,000 additional health care workers. And thanks to the Minister of Colleges and Universities, we’re getting it done.