I want to welcome our newest Thornhill OLIP intern, Ms. Sharon Lee.

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature a friend of mine, Tina Beaudry-Mellor. She was the Minister of Advanced Education with the government of Saskatchewan and now is a pioneer for women in cyber security working at Deloitte. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Tina.

I am pleased to welcome Women’s Brain Health Initiative president, Lynn Posluns, and the executive director, Joanne Korten, to the Legislature today. Today, they are having their advocacy day at Queen’s Park, so MPPs, please look out and meet with them. They will also be having a reception tonight at 5 p.m. in room 228.

It is my privilege to introduce members of Innovative Medicines Canada—Susan Baker, Berkeley Vincent, Nadia Yee, Kiersten Combs, Frank Stramaglia—who are visiting Queen’s Park today. Innovative medicine companies employ thousands of Ontarians, many of whom work in all of our ridings and develop life-saving medicines and treatments that patients rely on. IMC will be meeting with MPPs over the course of the day and they are hosting a reception in 230 this evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome John Taylor and his team from the Ontario Mutuals to Queen’s Park today. They will be hosting a reception for everyone. You’re all welcome in room 228 and 230 over the noon hour.

There have been no answers from the government—no transparency. Thank goodness we have some accountability, because this morning, the Patient Ombudsman released their annual report. They received more than 3,000 complaints last year with one common theme: a lack of staffing and a lack of access to care.

Hospitals are struggling under this government’s staffing crisis, and, worse, the ombudsman is warning that this government’s expensive, ideological push toward two-tier health care is only going to prolong the issue.

My question is to the Premier. Will you stop taking nurses to court, get the lights back on in public operating rooms and get Ontarians the health care they need?

Speaker, it gets worse. Yesterday, we heard from experts in the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health at public accounts committee. They acknowledged that the lights are off in public hospital operating rooms while this government hands million-dollar contracts to for-profit clinics.

As our health critic asked multiple times yesterday, I want to also ask the Premier: Why are you denying public hospitals the opportunity you’re giving to for-profit companies for additional surgeries and diagnostic imaging?

The thing is, Speaker, this government’s plan, this two-tier plan, is unnecessary, it’s time-consuming and it’s totally wasteful. We already have the infrastructure we need to shorten the wait times. But because of this government’s staffing crisis, one third of Ontario’s operating rooms aren’t running at full capacity.

Speaker, to the Premier again: Will this government fund public hospitals to properly use existing OR space instead of giving those funds to for-profit clinics?

While our kids are struggling without adequate supports, teachers and education workers are burning out from working short-staffed and our school boards are so underfunded that they’re talking about closing schools, this government is not even spending the funds they promised to. The Financial Accountability Office reported last week that the government has underspent on schools by $432 million so far this year. Just think how many schools $432 million could keep open, or how many EAs that could pay for.

Why is this government failing to invest in our kids?

Let’s put this underfunding in concrete terms, Speaker. The Toronto District School Board is in a precarious financial situation because, like many school boards, they were forced to pay $70 million out of their own reserves for the government’s COVID measures. You heard that right—despite the government having billions in unspent COVID relief funds, they made underfunded local school boards foot the bill.

Now, with their reserves depleted and not enough funding from this government, the TDSB is looking at cutting 485.5 staff positions in order to balance their budget—485 teachers, EAs, child and youth workers, ECEs and custodians gone when kids are already not getting the help they need.

Will the Minister of Education commit today to repaying school boards for their COVID expenditures and giving them the resources they need to provide kids with more supports, not less?

Mr. Speaker, I will give the sheer facts: since 2018, over 60,000—60,000—nurses and 8,000 new doctors registered here in Ontario, more than ever in the history of our province—and I want to thank the college of nurses for bringing on 12,000 new nurses last year. As they said—not us—that was a record. But even better, Mr. Speaker, we have 30,000 nurses in our colleges and universities being trained to get into the field. That’s what we’re doing.

First of all, I’d like to thank the Patient Ombudsman. Since the Office of the Patient Ombudsman has been in existence, they’ve been a valuable tool to assess where we need to make improvements.

There is no doubt that the investments that we have made in terms of the Learn and Stay program at colleges and universities to allow nurses, lab technicians and paramedics in northern Ontario to be able to have their tuition and books covered are making a difference in terms of ensuring that we have sufficient health human resources.

I have to point out a very successful partnership that we have with the College of Nurses of Ontario, where in the summer we directed them to ensure that individuals who are internationally educated had their applications assessed and ultimately approved and licensed in the province of Ontario. Historic—7,000 new nurses in the province of Ontario are practising today that wouldn’t have been there without that work.

But we are not stopping there because this is not an either-or, this is an and. We can also expand our community surgical, and we’ve done that in Windsor, in Kitchener–Waterloo and in Ottawa through the expansion of existing infrastructure in community care that is now allowing more people access to cataract surgery. We’re getting the work done.

We are investing an additional $680 million this school year alone because we are committed to helping kids catch up after a global pandemic that has set so many children back in this province and around the world.

When it comes to mental health, we’ve increased funding by 400%—$90 million; for special education, that funding is up to the highest levels in the history of Ontario at $3.2 billion—$90 million more. When it comes to building schools, we have a $14-billion capital commitment over the next decade to build, modernize and renew our publicly funded schools after a decade of darkness under the former Liberal government.

We are going to continue to invest in each and every budget to get these kids back on track.

Under this party, under our Premier, we are investing in more staffing, in more resources, in a tutoring program that never existed in this country, the largest ever—$175 million to allow hundreds of thousands of kids get small group tutoring. We expanded investments because we know we need to lift the standards when it comes to reading, writing and math, getting back to the basics, helping these kids succeed.

We will continue in every single year to increase the investments in our children.

I’ll remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The Deputy Premier and Minister of Health to reply.

Thank you to the member from Niagara West for his question. I want to assure everyone listening today that the Ontario agri-food sector continues to be a number one priority for our government.

I’m very pleased to share that we created, through a federal-provincial-territorial initiative in the fall of 2021 in Guelph, a Guelph statement that provided the framework for a negotiation to realize greater investments through a federal-provincial partnership. And the member from Niagara West just witnessed, last week, a historic signing whereby Minister Bibeau, federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and myself, signed a $1.77-billion agreement to deliver for Ontario’s agri-food sector—programs like the suite of business risk management, stewardship initiatives and investment in strategic priorities, will be realized because of this historic agreement. The future is bright for Ontario.

The future is bright. I am so very proud of how our commodity organizations are working with our government here in Ontario to make sure—

Thank you to the minister for his answer. There is no doubt that Ontario’s booming life sciences sector has contributed to the province’s economic prosperity, but in order to continue attracting game-changing investments, Ontario needs to demonstrate that it is able to compete with other jurisdictions and show that we are open for business.

Speaker, will the minister please share how this government is ensuring that Ontario is a top-tier global jurisdiction for life sciences innovation?

You know, when I heard about that story—devastating news for the family and the friends of that individual. But I want to be clear: That was not as a result of hospital capacity issues. That was a result of someone who was going to a hospital that needed a much higher level of care.

Now, if we look at the investments that our government is making: over 50 new capital projects in our hospital systems; new hospitals in Brampton; new hospitals in Windsor, in Ottawa, in Niagara—we are investing to ensure that hospitals have the expansion plans. We have done that through, again, 50 different capital builds that are now approved in the province of Ontario.

For that individual and that family—absolutely devastating, without a doubt, but the care that was needed and necessary for that individual was in another hospital and they were being taken there, of course, by Ornge, when, unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries.

To the Minister of Health: Last week, I talked to Ms. Gulnar Visanji, who is constituent of mine. She called me because she suffers debilitating spinal pain and her pain specialist said, “You need surgery.” She tells me she has not been able to even get on a waiting list with an orthopedic surgeon. Surgeons tell her they have waiting lists two years long and there’s no point in taking her name.

Why won’t the minister help her and others to avoid this kind of unnecessary suffering?

Last week, we were thrilled to welcome Novartis as they opened a brand new office in downtown Toronto. There are now more than 150 Ontario employees working for Novartis, including 50 in that brand new state-of-the-art office in the MaRS building. This investment from Novartis is creating more well-paying, high-skill jobs while strengthening Ontario’s world-class life sciences sector.

This comes on the heels of last week’s announcement from AstraZeneca, who are creating 500 well-paying jobs at their Canadian R&D hub in Mississauga. These back-to-back investments in Ontario are a vote of confidence for our thriving life sciences sector, and it is a strong signal to the rest of the world that Ontario is the best place to invest and grow.

Speaker, we have attracted nearly $3 billion in life sciences investments in just the last 24 months. That put 70,000 skilled employees working in more than 1,900 life sciences firms, because Ontario has the formula for success and everything global companies need to survive and to thrive.

Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Speaker, since the government took power, they have talked a whole lot about the overcrowding problem in our hospitals. Unfortunately, last week in Collingwood, a 32-year-old father was seriously injured at work. It took almost eight long hours until they were able to find a hospital with a vacant ICU bed to meet his needs.

What does the government have to say to families who are victims of the overcrowding problem they promised to fix five years ago?

How many more families will be broken before the government addresses the health care worker crisis in our overcrowded hospitals?

And the supplementary question?

The next question.

My question is for the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Ontario’s agri-food sector is vital to the economic success of our province, yet high cost of inputs, supply chain challenges, inflation, geopolitics and volatility in the markets continue to impact Ontario farmers and the important work they do. For our farmers to succeed, they need to know that the government will supply them with the investments they need to improve their productivity, competitiveness and resilience.

Our farmers and agri-food partners expect governments of all stripes and all levels to work together to ensure that Ontario remains a leader in food production and food security. Speaker, could the minister please explain what measures this government is taking to support this crucial sector?

I’m proud of the contributions that farmers in Niagara and across the rest of this province make to our great province. I know that we all see and value their hard work and sacrifice.

I know this agreement represents a positive measure to support growers and farm families in my riding and in so many ridings across this great province, but our farmers know, and our government knows, that more can always be done.

Ontario has many different agri-food partners and many different producers. Each of these various agricultural groups has unique needs, concerns and face different challenges. Speaker, how will this new agreement benefit and support our various sector partners—could the minister tell this House?