I also welcome all members of the RNAO here into your House, but especially, I want to acknowledge Dr. Claudette Holloway, president, and of course, Dr. Doris Grinspun, CEO.

I also want to acknowledge a former member of Parliament for Beaches–East York, Matthew Kellway, who is here in the gallery.

Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you all today.

Can the Premier explain to Ontarians why he doesn’t deem their communities worthy of the investments his government promised?

Now people from Oshawa to Thunder Bay are facing massive increases in their property taxes as municipalities are scrambling to make up for that lost funding. In Waterloo region alone, taxes are going up 8.55% at a time when people are already hurting.

Go out there and talk to homeowners. Their heating bills are up. Their grocery bills are through the roof. Can this Premier explain why he’s making everyday Ontarians pay his developer friends’ bills?

Ça me fait honneur de saluer mes collègues de la fédération des étudiants de l’Ontario.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario section. I had the pleasure to meet with Navya, Alistair, Gishleine, Reeon, who are with us in the members’ gallery, and Andrew.

Also, props and thanks to the folks from RNAO. It’s great to see you here this morning.

I would like to welcome to the House the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, including those nurses I met this morning: Kathy Moreland, Michelle Heyer, Josalyn Radcliffe, Linda Sheiban Taucar, Simon Donato-Woodger. Thank you so much for all of the work that you’ve done to keep us all healthy through the pandemic.

As the members all know, the RNAO is visiting us today. It is an honour to welcome president Claudette Holloway and, of course, a friend of all, Doris Grinspun, RNAO CEO. Please join me in welcoming them to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to introduce Rohan Goel from the great riding of Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill, who is today’s page captain. I’d also like to welcome his family to the Legislature: his mother, Veenu Goel; his father, Vinay Goel; and his siblings, Rishabh and Roshni Goel. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Thank you—Mr. Speaker, through you to the member opposite—for that question. I’ve got the fall economic statement here. I’ve got the budget from last April that we took to the people.

As I go around, and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing goes around, and the Premier and the Deputy Premier, we talk to big-city mayors. We talk to rural mayors. We talk to all kinds of mayors. And do you know what they keep telling us? Thank you for the investments that we’re making in their communities.

What do I hear? Maybe you should get out and listen a little bit. You know what I hear? Thank you to the Minister of Infrastructure for investments in broadband, which is so critical to many of our communities.

Do you know what else we hear? Thank you for the investments in the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund so they can upgrade their water and their sewage, which we doubled to $2 billion.

Just recently, at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, they said thank you for the—

I would like to welcome members from the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, and in particular, Sarah Lynne Myllyaho, Tanis Banovsky and Duncan McWaters, who travelled here from Thunder Bay. I appreciate so much the effort you took to come. Thank you and welcome.

Good morning. I’d like to welcome all the nurses who travelled down from Niagara from the RNAO.

As well, I would like to welcome Clare Flynn. She has been in my office, shadowing me around for the past couple of weeks. Welcome to your House, Clare, and thank you for all of your hard work.

I would like to welcome students, volunteers and teachers from Markham–Unionville’s Lincoln Alexander Public School. There are more than 70 of them.

I’d like to welcome nurses from Kingston today, Debra Lefebvre, Heather Hamilton and Daria Hope, and also somebody who grew up in Kingston, a former colleague in the House of Commons, Matthew Kellway.

Premier, if you actually loved and supported nurses, you wouldn’t be fighting them in court over Bill 124.

My question is to the Premier. In my riding, Windsor Salt workers, members of Unifor Locals 1959 and 240, have been on strike for weeks now to stop the contracting out of good-paying union jobs. They’re fighting an attempt at union busting. The owners of Windsor Salt, Stone Canyon Industries, have tried to break the picket line and resume production.

Will the Premier finally support workers in this province—these workers in particular—pass anti-scab legislation, and fight back against the outsourcing of union jobs?

I’m going to ask the minister to withdraw.

Interjections.

Start the clock. Leader of the Opposition.

Again to the Leader of the Opposition: What she’s really saying is, she’s against non-profit housing providers, like Habitat for Humanity, from getting deferred development charges.

Many of the opposition members, when they were on local councils, voted in favour of deferring or eliminating development charges for non-profit housing and other groups like Habitat for Humanity. So when they were municipal councillors, they were in favour of this type of policy, but now that they’re part of the NIMBY party, they’re going to be against it. When it comes to the NDP, their housing policy has no merit.

Mr. Speaker, do you know what helps workers? I’ll tell you what helps workers. When we took office in 2018, the NDP and the Liberals ran 300,000 jobs out of this province. As we stand here today, there are 600,000 more people being able to pay rent, pay a mortgage, buy a home, get a car—and an electric vehicle car. Because we’re creating the environment and the conditions for companies to come here and thrive and prosper and grow, and when they thrive, prosper and grow, Mr. Speaker, the people that work at those companies thrive, prosper and grow.

It puts more money into their pockets, more job security. This is an employee’s market right now. We’re short 380,000 people to fill the jobs. Our GDP is at $1 trillion now—eighteenth largest in the entire world, right here in Ontario. That’s what helps people.

We’re going to continue hiring nurses. There are 30,000 nurses in our colleges and universities ready to serve. We’re grateful and we think the world of our nurses.

Do you know what they’re teaching in Waterloo, Speaker? They’re teaching quantum physics in Waterloo.

Look, this is about this government giving their insider developer friends a free ride. Municipal governments keep doing more with less, but at every turn they’re met with nothing but disdain and blame from this Premier.

Some municipalities are estimating that by limiting their ability to charge developer fees, this government is bilking them out of tens of millions of dollars over the next five years. Toronto alone is anticipating $2.3 billion in lost revenue. Local governments run the buses people take to work. They maintain our local roads, and they try to build the affordable housing units we so desperately need.

When is this government going to commit to stop off-loading their costs onto municipalities and partner with them to build stronger, more caring communities?

Interjections.

Back in 2018, one of the first things this government did was take away permanent paid sick days from working people. What a cruel way to start their term, and terrible public policy too. People should not have to choose between putting their co-workers, customers and community at risk or losing a day’s pay. We have tabled three times now, since then, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. It would give people 10 permanent paid sick days, but you vote it down every time.

Will this government give workers the time they need to recover and keep people safe by backing the NDP plan for 10 permanent paid sick days?

The Conservative members must be hearing the same stories that we are from people in communities all across this province who are exhausted. They feel abandoned by this government, parents living in constant fear that if they or their kid gets sick, they won’t be able to pay their rent or afford the groceries. And the Premier can stay home when he gets sick.

Why do these workers deserve anything less? Will this government finally side with working people and make sure everyone has access to 10 permanent paid sick days?

Speaker, it took COVID for this government to give even anyone the three paid sick days. Only for COVID, only for the first time you get COVID, and even that ends at the end of March. Get out there and listen to people in communities across this province—they are struggling—people like parents who can’t take time off because they need to put food on the table. It is not a laughing matter; it is not something you should be applauding yourselves for.

Government could do something about this. Will you give them the paid sick days that they need?

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what kind of math they’re teaching in Waterloo, but that just isn’t the truth in terms of actually understanding—

When we go to places like the Waterloo region, do you know what they say? They say thank you for the investments in infrastructure right across this whole province. They say thank you for helping us with building highways—not just the 413 and the Bradford Bypass but Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph. That’s what they’re talking about. They’re talking about the widening of Highway 17 all the way from Arnprior to Renfrew. They’re talking about the Timmins connecting link.

They’re talking about moving people and goods so that the hard-working people of this province can take their kids to school, that they can take their goods to market. That’s what we’re doing in this province.

Mr. Speaker, we were the first province in Canada to bring in paid sick days during the pandemic to support those workers, Mr. Speaker. We were the first province in the country to bring in job-protected leave to ensure that when those workers stayed home, they couldn’t be fired from their job.

We’re working for workers every single day. I’ll remind the Leader of the Opposition that she voted against our plan to hire 100 more health and safety inspectors in this province to bring the inspectorate to the highest in provincial history.

This is an NDP party that has abandoned workers in this province. But under the leadership of Premier Ford, we’ll work for our workers every single day.

I’m obviously aware of the situation down in Windsor.

Mr. Speaker, we always encourage employers, labour—workers—to sit down and get a deal at the table. We’re proud of our labour relations in this province; 99% of deals are done at the table.

We’re working every single day to ensure that workers in Ontario have better jobs and bigger paycheques. I think of the Windsor-Essex region and the amount of young people getting into the skilled trades, joining those unions down in Windsor to build better lives for themselves and their families. We’ll continue, every day, putting forward worker-friendly policies so they earn better jobs and bigger paycheques.

We believe that government, labour and business have to work together. That’s how we’re going to improve the lives of people in this province and build stronger communities.

That’s why I’m proud to say that under the leadership of Premier Ford, we introduced the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act. We introduced the Working for Workers legislation that ensured that gig workers, for the first time in history, get minimum wage—that we increase fines to those companies that are breaking the law, that we ensure that there are naloxone kits in workplaces. The opposition NDP voted against these measures in Working for Workers.

We’ll take no lessons from a party that, years ago, abandoned the working people of this province.

That’s why we elect Progressive Conservatives in Windsor-Essex.

This question gives me an opportunity to highlight some of the things that our government has been doing to deal with surgical backlogs that, I might remind the member, existed prior to the pandemic.

We have, as a government, invested with our hospital partners over $800 million for surgical recovery to deal with exactly that: the surgical backlog that resulted as a result of the pandemic.

I can tell you that there are some innovative models that are happening in the province of Ontario that are leading to successes. This is not an either/or. This is an expansion. This is an opportunity for people who have been waiting far too long to get those necessary surgeries to happen in community and in a timely manner so that they can go back to work, back in their community and back with their families. It is a good-news story, and we will continue to invest in those innovative models.