It’s a pleasure to stand and speak to Bill 63—and we often say that, but we don’t always mean it, I don’t think. But in this case, I think this is a bill that everyone in the Legislature would support. It’s a very simple bill that essentially takes land from one municipality and puts it into another to create a mega site of about 1,500 acres, to attract the kind of manufacturing jobs that I think many folks are excited for us to get.

We know that the Canadian government has been really pushing in the EV industry. We know the federal minister has been to Germany pushing Volkswagen and other investment.

Certainly, on all sides of the House, good-paying manufacturing jobs are something that we all want to see come to Canada and come to Ontario, as well.

I’m going to make my remarks fairly brief for a lead.

I want to talk a little bit about the land itself. After announcing in June that St. Thomas had bought 800 acres to attract manufacturing investment, with an eye to a possible electric vehicle battery plant, the city took another 700 acres of adjacent land under contract, which was expected to close soon. I can understand the urgency. We want potential investors to look at Ontario and look at Canada—and these municipalities who are working out this assembly of land to attract investment in a positive light. So that’s what this investment is all about. The change will mean the site can be developed faster, with permits and site assessments done by just one local government—and any of us who have been in municipal government understand what that means, with what we sometimes call red tape or permits. It’s much easier to deal with one municipality. This is something that governments have been doing for a long, long time. I’m not sure it has happened quite on the scale that we see it happening with the assembly of these mega sites across Canada.

I can remember, as a councillor, I had the privilege of attending the auto city mayors’ meetings. When the mayor of my municipality couldn’t make it, I kind of subbed in for him. We’d meet at the Ford plant in Oakville. All of the mayors from cities where their auto manufacturing sector was active in their cities would meet. There were two things at the time that they were discussing, and one was assembling land; the other was, of course, an auto strategy, which I’m not sure we ever fully got, but we’re far enough down the road now.

We are making what they used to call turnkey plots. What that means is that the land is assembled, all the permits are already done. As in this case, perhaps they’ve assembled the land under one municipality to make it attractive to investors. So that’s what’s happening here. It has been happening for a long time. It’s great to see all levels of government co-operating to try to cash in on electric vehicle battery manufacturing jobs and other manufacturing jobs.

A lot of the credit, I think—it’s natural for the government to want to talk about its accomplishments and even to blame some of the bad things on past governments. That’s fair game. But I think what we really need to do is congratulate these municipalities and their economic development officers. I’ve had the pleasure of working with a lot of economic development officers in different municipalities in Niagara and elsewhere. They’re very important jobs. They’re the people who kind of work behind the scenes and get a lot of this done in advance of approaching levels of government, like provincial or municipal or even federal governments. Clearly, they’ve done a good job and they’re in the hunt, as many newspaper articles have reported, for the what has been suggested is up to 2,500 jobs.

A lot of us have personal stories about this. Mine is, my dad worked at General Motors in St. Catharines, so I’m the product of a family that was supported with good, unionized manufacturing jobs. I can remember, back when I was about five years old, when my dad got the job at General Motors, and it was a big change for our family. I wasn’t all that happy about it, at the age of five, because my dad was working as a milkman, so I got to go around on his milk truck, which was a lot of fun. So I was a little bit upset about it, but I learned to like it later when we got good family vacations and a nicer house and all the benefits that come along with good-paying manufacturing jobs. So that’s something that I think we obviously need more of.

St. Thomas was one of those areas in Ontario that was devastated when we lost manufacturing jobs, especially in the 1990s. Most of us can remember those times. I know in St. Catharines, GM, at one time, was up to 11,000 or 12,000 manufacturing jobs; now we’re just down to a couple of thousand. Places like St. Thomas lost their share of jobs too, and there was a lot of suffering at the time. We can talk all we want about the causes for that. I could stand up here and talk about free trade forever and probably disagree with a lot of folks on the other side about what the NAFTA agreement did back at that time. But the fact is, we lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. It’s great to see the possibility of getting some of that back across Canada and the prosperity that hopefully will bring to many folks.

There are times when we’re going to disagree on things in this House, and there are other times when it’s incumbent on us to put the partisanship aside and recognize that—folks are going to take credit from all levels of government, and a lot of that credit is due, but we all want to see these jobs coming to Ontario. Certainly, on this side of the House, we’re right there supporting the promotion of good-paying, unionized manufacturing employment.

I should say that—my friend from Niagara Falls brought it up the other day—we have to give some of the credit not only to the municipal, provincial and federal governments, but to the unions as well, who went through very difficult times with thousands of their members losing jobs. They went to the bargaining table—and there are times for confrontation, but there are also times to work together, between industry and the unions, because everyone benefits when these jobs come to Canada and come to Ontario. So I think we have to give some credit where credit is due to unions like Unifor and the Steelworkers and others who have gone to the bargaining table and worked with the government and with the industry to try to create the conditions to bring some of these jobs back.

I just want to wrap up by saying that, on this side of the House, we want to work to get this through as quickly as possible. We understand the urgency. By the way, this is something the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing already had the power to do under the Municipal Act, but this expedites that process. We want investors who are looking at coming to Canada and coming to Ontario to see us working together, between levels of government, to be a place where those jobs can come.

I’m happy to stand here and support this bill. We will be voting in favour of it.

I look forward to any questions that the government has.

My question is to the Premier. Access to information is essential for the success of Ontario businesses, students and residents, yet there is an incredible inequity in access to information that libraries across the province raised during the pre-budget hearings. Library systems in big cities can afford to buy licences for online resources, but towns, villages and remote communities cannot afford these licences. This means that Ontarians in rural communities cannot access up-to-date research, videos and other online resources that are available to residents in bigger cities.

In this budget, will your government be investing in the Ontario Digital Library so that Ontarians in every part of the province have equitable access to these licensed online resources?

I’m actually quite excited; the NDP want to make investments. Now, here’s the thing. We know that they’ve talked a lot about investments they want to make, right? We know that when we make these investments, historically, since 2018, they’ve voted against every single one of those investments. When we’ve put more money into arts and culture, they have voted against it. When we put $4 billion into infrastructure, they have voted against it.

Now, of course we need to do more to ensure that all parts of this province are connected, that all parts of this province have access to information, so that we can continue to grow the economy. It’s not just the hard work of the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, who has seen $18 billion worth of investment come back to the province of Ontario. It is why we’re making so many investments in small communities across the province, so that our small business partners, as you referenced, can ensure that they participate in the amazing growth that we are seeing across the province of Ontario. That is why thousands of jobs are being created. Welcome to the—

We know that the economic effects of the pandemic are still affecting people, and we must get people out of poverty now more than ever. That’s why we have numerous parts—and we’re working across ministries, across governments, across layers of government to make life better for people.

With the impacts of COVID-19 still having an effect, we’ve launched the micro-credential strategy. We’re improving mental health with the Roadmap to Wellness: $3.8 billion over 10 years for mental health supports. We’ve committed $1 billion to build thousands of new child care spaces. We launched $1.2 billion last year for the Ontario Child Benefit. We’re investing $90 million to provide dental care to low-income seniors. We’ve got the CARE tax credit, which will provide about 300,000 families with up to 75% of their eligible child care expenses. We’ve got the low-income individuals and families tax credit, the Ontario Jobs Training Tax Credit, the Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit.

We’ve got the minimum wage increase. We’ve raised ODSP rates. I could go on—

My question is for the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery. As we all know, under the previous Liberal government, access to vital services for drivers’ licences, health cards and birth certificates was not provided in an easy and convenient manner. This process made wait lines at ServiceOntario access longer and more burdensome.

In my riding, as in many others across this province, it can require many miles of travel to get to ServiceOntario. It should have been more efficient and respectful to our individuals, families and our front-line employees. More needs to be done to create a system that better serves and effectively supports individual needs. Accessing government services online is preferred by many and should not be complicated.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what our government is doing to make improvements to ServiceOntario?

My constituents in Hastings-Lennox and Addington increasingly expect access to services online from the comfort of their own homes. As I noted, in rural areas, this is vitally important. We must keep pace with technology so that individuals can access information and book appointments at ServiceOntario from a digital device of their own choosing. We can’t afford to be an off-line government in an online world.

We’ve heard the minister say that our government supports modernization and innovation to improve the services that we offer. Will the minister please elaborate on how this recent announcement will make life easier for the people of Ontario?

My question is for the Premier. It would be nice if the Premier answered instead of enrolling in the minister protection program, but I won’t hold my breath—

Interjections.

The Centretown Community Health Centre is integral to a caring and strong community in Ottawa Centre. Will this government ensure that their budget is not cut?

I’ll be sharing my time today with the honourable member in front of me, from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

I spoke last week to Bill 63, the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act. My hope is to share with the House today the amazing potential this mega site opportunity really does bring to southwestern Ontario.

To remain competitive, Ontario has to position itself as the most attractive place to grow. To accomplish this, we must work with our municipal partners to create the best possible environment for new investment to come our way.

Before us today is a game-changer opportunity—game-changing in the sense that we can create shovel-ready mega sites that are the envy of North America.

This legislation would allow the city of St. Thomas and the province to proceed with speed and efficiency with respect to permitting and preparing the site to meet potential investors’ timelines. Speed is of the essence.

As I think everybody knows, there is a shortage of mega sites available in Ontario. With the introduction of the Job Site Challenge in 2019, this government cast a wide net throughout Ontario municipalities to assemble mega site opportunities from 500 to 1,500 acres. The challenge has been met, and Elgin county will have the most advantageous site in North America if this legislation is passed and passed quickly. It’s advantageous in these ways: First of all, it’s a large industrial site. It’s got close proximity to major transit routes, highway and air; serviceability of infrastructure, with electricity, gas, water and waste water; access to the largest market in the world, the United States of America; clean energy—and let’s not forget this important point: Clean energy is key, I believe, going forward, to our future success. But most importantly, it’s advantageous because of people—and that’s what this project is ultimately about. It’s about jobs. It’s about innovation. It’s about innovative, hard-working Ontarians ready to enjoy and take on good-paying jobs with benefits and pensions.

As I said last week, Ontario is in fierce competition with close to 40 jurisdictions in the United States—competing for these major investors. All of them are shovel-ready. In fact, as Minister Fedeli said earlier this week, they have 19 to 51 certified sites in inventory in the US competing against each other and Ontario, and they are aggressively targeting the potential investors we are targeting as well. We need to be ready, and that is why, again, I say speed is of the essence. We will be ready to act, and we will be ready to win.

Minister Fedeli has spoken in this House about discussions currently taking place in this province and with various investors—with close to $20 billion in projects that require large-scale sites. Will we get every one of these deals? Likely not. But if we get our fair share, I think we will benefit. The people of Ontario will benefit, indeed. Having the ability to assemble industrial sites, shovel-ready and investor-ready, is obviously key to closing our fair share of these economy-building opportunities throughout the province—not just in Elgin–Middlesex–London, but throughout the province, as we have already announced and already displayed and already closed.

Allow me, Speaker, to move to a key part of this legislation and why it’s important that fairness prevails if and when Bill 63 is passed. The city of St. Thomas, the municipality of Central Elgin and the entire county of Elgin will all share in the economic prosperity and success of any future investment, if and when it comes. I am confident, at the end of the day, that with this project, we will be the envy of Ontario.

Throughout my nearly 40 years of living in my region, which includes Elgin county, Middlesex county and the city of London, I have witnessed the demise of good-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector. Company after company after company closed or moved elsewhere because it was too expensive to survive in Ontario. Simply put, we were not competitive. We are now competitive. We were not competitive, for sure, and we paid the price with the loss of jobs and the loss of these employees—and remember, you have good companies, and there’s tertiary spinoff to go with it. We lost it all.

In the last number of decades—and we all have heard this: that the service sector, while important, is the future of work in Ontario. Under the previous government—their long-term report on the economy stated: “The structure of the Ontario economy will continue to shift from goods-producing to service-producing sectors,” and this will result in “shifting employment from goods-producing industries, in particular manufacturing, to service-sector industries.” While that’s important, it just simply was not good enough.

I can state that this Premier, his cabinet and caucus have said loud and clear that an attitude of failure was not good enough. It was not good enough for Ontario workers now, nor a number of years ago, and it was not good enough for the long-term success of this province.

That is why Minister Fedeli, Minister Clark and the entire government here have worked so hard throughout this province to attract investment—“Come back home to Ontario. Think about how Ontario used to be.”

Post-, or throughout the industrial revolution—we were part of a major automotive industry sector. In fact, I believe—the minister said this earlier—that we closed $17 billion of deals in the last number of years, which is simply amazing, when you think about it. For so many years, I believe, so many people gave up on the manufacturing sector, which is so important to southwestern Ontario.

Also, I’d like to say that we’re here to cut some red tape. It’s important to cut red tape. It’s important to cut costs in government. It’s important to be efficient. In business, if you’re not competitive, you’re not in business. You have to be competitive. But cutting your way to prosperity is never the total answer. If you’re going to grow, you have to do it by growing the economy. And how are we going to do that? We create jobs. When we create jobs, we can create economic wealth—people come, people invest. That’s how you grow an economy. When we grow the economy, we’re going to generate provincial revenues, and the treasury will be filled with dollars that we can invest back into hospitals, into our schools, into our health care providers, into our teachers and ultimately get the services we need funded well and into the future.

As we’ve said before in this House, there are two million to three million more people coming to this province in the next 10 years. We need to find a home for them to work. We also need to make sure that those workers are trained and skilled up so that they can meet the available opportunities that exist. I believe that will happen, ultimately, on this project.

On this project, I also want to point out that, yes, there’s a potential for a mega site or a mega industry to invest, but think of the tertiary spinoff we’re going to get—the sub-manufacturing jobs, the supply chain that comes into these businesses and these industries. That really is the magic of what these big investments do. It’s what happened in the auto industry for years in southwestern Ontario—many of which are still in business and many of which, unfortunately, have got out of business.

Speaker, I will conclude by saying that I thoroughly support this bill. I’m excited about the opportunity that it presents. I’m excited for the people in southwestern Ontario. I think this is going to be a great example of what we can accomplish not only as a region—but set an example for the entire province and, in fact, all of Canada. The challenge of change is before us. The challenge of the Job Site Challenge was met and has succeeded. The opportunity for changing municipal boundaries is before us here in Elgin county, and the challenge of closing a deal—which I’m sure, at some point in time, will happen and bring economic growth to southwestern Ontario—is at our doorstep. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to make Ontario much more prosperous.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, my friend, for the question. I did ask that question the other day, and I learned that there is some facilitation that’s going to go on between St. Thomas and Central Elgin, which is a common way to resolve any kind of issues. I think that those municipalities will put the prospect of getting thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs ahead of their own issues, and I would expect they would come to some kind of an arrangement. The only dispute I would be aware of is whether they can share tax revenue. I trust that they will be able to get together to resolve those issues.

I can remember, growing up, when my dad started working at General Motors—10,000 or 12,000 jobs. He started out in the forge and worked his way through the plants. And to see those jobs leaving through the 1990s—very, very painful. It had a ripple effect through the whole community. I was active in my dad’s union, CAW 199, which my friend from Niagara Falls was president of—and just the money that that union local gave to local charities and seeing that dry up as a proportion of the membership was painful to watch.

This will have the opposite effect of a positive ripple effect through the community.

All levels of government and all political parties have to get together to bring these jobs. We’re going to have disagreements, even on economic issues, when it comes to attracting investment. There are all kinds of issues. My friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane might talk about having a way to track how much farmland we’re using and things like that. But at the end of the day, we need these jobs to come back, and I think there’s enough credit for everyone to take.

Questions to the member for Niagara Centre?

I want to thank the member from Niagara Centre for his presentation.

Getting back those manufacturing jobs is something central to the NDP, certainly—in Ontario and across this country. It’s a real pleasure to know the member for Niagara Centre on a personal level because we’ve had conversations, and I know how important it is for him, and it’s something he does talk about. I want him to once again reiterate why it’s so important to bring those jobs back that have been lost year after year in the past.

I want to thank the member from Niagara Centre today.

As you know, I worked for Ford Motor Co. The 1990s was a difficult time in the automotive industry.

With the previous government, we lost 350,000 manufacturing jobs here in the province of Ontario.

Our government has been attracting jobs at a rate of $17 billion here in Ontario, an investment in the automotive industry—like Ford Motor Co. with $500 million, and other companies across the province—and attracting more automotive manufacturing here in the province of Ontario.

Can the opposition agree that this government has been successful in attracting billions of dollars in investment for the future of manufacturing in Ontario, and will you support us on these types of bills moving forward?

Further debate?

Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 63 this afternoon here in the Legislature.

I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Elgin–Middlesex–London for his leadership on this issue as well. As you know, the boundaries that we’re talking about—his riding encompasses all of this, and he has shown tremendous leadership in making sure that his region is working together to bring prosperity not only to the people from St. Thomas and area, but, indeed, prosperity to our great province.

I listen sometimes—not all the time, but I do hear the members of the opposition, and we have a competing vision for Ontario. But it’s not really a fair competition, because their vision is not backed up with any real action. Their vision for Ontario is to leave things the way they are and not make the necessary changes.

I just heard the member from Niagara Centre talking about—we all want to see jobs created, we all want to see prosperity, but wanting and getting it done require two different steps. The NDP, on the other side, may want jobs and prosperity for the people of Ontario, but they are absolutely not willing to take the necessary steps that will actually make that happen. They would rather sit back and say, “Oh, no, we can’t do that, because that might cause this, and some of our supporters might get upset”—or the lobbyists who love to talk to the NDP and write cheques to the NDP won’t like that.

We were elected in 2018 on this premise: Ontario is open for business. And since that day, we have maintained that as a founding principle of this government. Ontario is open for business.

Think about where we are today with respect to where we were when the Liberals, those folks over there who just about destroyed the manufacturing sector in Ontario—where we were in 2018. Because of the commitment of this Premier, this government, the world has changed in Ontario. We are seeing a renaissance in the auto industry here in Ontario.

In his address the other day, Minister Fedeli talked about the investments—$15 billion to $18 billion, if I recall—coming into Ontario, into our auto sector; Ontario being the only jurisdiction in the world that has manufacturing facilities for General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Honda and Toyota all in this jurisdiction—the only jurisdiction anywhere that has manufacturing facilities for all of those companies. Why? Why are they showing a willingness to continue to invest—or should I say, to actually re-prime the pump of investment—here in Ontario? It’s because of the leadership and the vision of this government—this government that has said to manufacturers and companies around the world, “Come back to Ontario. We’re waiting for you. We’re ready for you. Do you know what we’re going to do in addition to welcoming you? We’re going to make the environment work for you.”

So what are we going to do?

When I was a kid—some people say I still am, and that’s a matter of opinion. When I was younger, let’s just say, in the 1970s—do you remember, in the 1970s, when all of these towns were opening up what they called their industrial parks, because they were all recognizing that they wanted to take part in the industrial growth and the growth of manufacturing? It was small manufacturing in smaller places, big manufacturing in bigger places, but they all were opening up these lands that we would call our local industrial parks. It was designed to send the message to people of “We’re here and we’re ready to work with you.”

Well, things started to change after the 1970s. We had the recession in the 1980s. We had the big meltdown in the 2000s, with the tech meltdown and stuff like that—and we lost. Then we had the unfortunate culmination of those two forces meeting at the same time—we had the Liberal government, supported by the NDP every step of the way, who wanted to stifle our manufacturing sector here in Ontario, who wanted to shut it down—

Interjection.

Further debate?

As much as I would like to [inaudible] the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke about the difference between hearing “yes, yes, yes” and turning that into “no, no, no,” or his misapprehensions about the values and plans of the NDP, my question is to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London. I know you’re from the area, so I’m sure you will be able to answer this question well. I understand that Central Elgin, at one point, wanted a different piece of property to be used and wanted to protect farmland, and I think the property that’s being used may have some element of farmland on it. I’m just wondering if you can explain to us—because I’m an outsider to this project—why that particular piece of land is the one that was chosen. I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for it.

My friend from Sarnia said they wanted to choke it. I’m not sure if it was quite that serious, but maybe if they had got another term, they might have done it. But in 2018, our government said no.

So what are we doing now? We’re recognizing that we have to change the ground rules somewhat so that these people have a chance. And what are we doing? Minister Fedeli along with Minister Clark, Minister Piccini and others are making sure that not only the “welcome” sign is out, but that the actions we’re taking are clear, delineated measures that send the message that we’re not only saying we’re open for business; we’re doing the things that allow us to be open for business.

My friend from Elgin–Middlesex–London mentioned that we’ve got two million to three million people coming to this province. You’ve got to bring them to this province, but where are they going to work? We’ve got to make sure that we have the jobs for them. We’ve got 124 members here. We can’t have 25,000 members of this Legislature. We’ve got to give them a real job, I say to my friend from Mississauga. And where are we going to give them those real jobs?

Well, we’re going to start in places like this mega site in St. Thomas and Elgin county. But how do we make that simpler, so that they’re working with one jurisdiction and they’re only working on one set of rules, so it’s not, “Well, Elgin likes it this way, and St. Thomas”—wait a minute. My friend from Elgin–Middlesex–London and Minister Clark said, “Well, we have a solution. Let’s put that land under one jurisdiction so that when people are coming to this new mega site with a hope of being successful in this, the greatest place in the world to work, play, and raise a family, here in Ontario—we’d like it to be simpler.” Isn’t that one of the things I say to my friend from Richmond Hill? We’ve always said, too, “How do you get people to buy into what you want them to be a partner in with you?” Well, make it simple. Let’s not make it complicated.

We have a red tape minister. What are we doing? We’re eliminating burdens. We’re eliminating red tape, unnecessary red tape, while we still protect the people and the environment here in the province of Ontario. We can walk and chew gum at the same time on this side of the House—over there, it’s one or the other. But here, we recognize that in order to be able to provide for the prosperity of the future, we’ve got to start taking care of the present. That’s what we’re doing in this province, with this government.

Those 2.3 million people who are coming here—obviously, some will be at a stage where they’re not working, but most of them will be working, will be raising families, and it would be nice to have a place to live. Well, this is all part and parcel of what we’re doing as a government. We’re bringing more people to Ontario because we’re going to be able to offer them a job. But what good is a job if you haven’t got a place to stay? If you haven’t got a roof over your head and a pillow to put your head on, what’s the point?

We don’t just have this narrow-minded thing about, “Well, let’s do this and everything will be fine.” No. In this province, in this government, we’re saying we have to have that holistic approach to the future—and we’re not looking at the next three years, five years; we’re looking at the next 50 years, because that’s what we’ve got to start thinking about, in those kinds of increments. I’m not saying we can do everything at one time, but we’ve got to start somewhere. What was that—“a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”? I didn’t write that poem, but I think it’s a good one. We’re looking at this whole picture, and we’re saying we’re going to bring all of these things together, so that we’re doing things one, two, three, four, five; five, four, three, two, one; one, two, three, four, five—they’re all working together.

And do you know what the result of this is and what I’m so confident about? The best thing is that those folks over there continue to stand in the way of everything we want to do—no matter what we do, “No, no, no, no, no, it’s a bad idea,” is what they say. But I am absolutely confident that everything we’re doing, when we take it to the people of Ontario in 2026—because by that time, they’re already going to see the manifestation of our commitment and our actions. We know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we’re already starting on the foundations, and we’re going to get it done. By the time 2026 rolls around, this government, because of the leadership it has shown and where Ontario will be as a result, will be re-elected in a resounding way because we never gave up, no matter what they said on the other side.

Further debate?

It’s always an honour to speak in this House—today, on Bill 63, the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act. And it’s always a pleasure to speak in the House and listen to the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke. We disagree on many things, but he is one of my favourite speakers.

In his speech, he took a few potshots at the NDP, and I’ll give him his due—but a lot of people misunderstand the NDP. Sometimes when I talk to business people, the chamber of commerce, they say, “John, what’s with you and the NDP?” And I say, “Well, do you know what?”—a very famous member of the NDP passed—it was the anniversary of Tommy Douglas’s passing a few days ago. I usually say, “Do you want to know what kind of NDP I am? I’m a Tommy Douglas NDP.”

What’s the first thing that Tommy Douglas did when he became Premier of Saskatchewan? He balanced the budget, because he knew that to progress as the leader of his province, he needed to have a solid financial foundation.

What’s the second thing that Tommy Douglas did as Premier of Saskatchewan? No takers? He electrified Saskatchewan. He made sure that the people on the rural roads of Saskatchewan—because Saskatchewan is an agricultural province. He knew that farmers needed access to the most modern technology available at the time to make their economy flourish, and at that time, it was electricity. As a former dairy farmer, I can imagine the huge advancement—it went from milking cows by hand to milking cows with a machine, or actually having a cooler to cool the milk. Tommy Douglas knew that.

The third thing that Tommy Douglas did as Premier of Saskatchewan, and what he is most renowned for—Saskatchewan was the first province in this country to have publicly funded, publicly delivered medicare. When he became a federal member of Parliament, he drove that, so that we have it right across this country. And every day, we have to fight to protect it. We’re in that fight right now with Bill 60.

When people ask me what kind of New Democrat I am—I’m a Tommy Douglas New Democrat. I said this yesterday in the House, and I’ll say it again: Some people see me as a small-c conservative—not the current group of Conservatives, but a small-c—very socially progressive, but careful with funds, because you have to invest your money or the funds of the people wisely. As a businessperson, you always invest your own funds wisely, too.

Back to the bill: Just to be clear, I announced that on second reading we were going to support this bill. We are going to support it on third reading as well, and for several reasons—

Thank you very much to my colleague for the question. He hit the nail on the head, as my colleague from Elgin–Middlesex–London did—shovel-ready. This mega site that encompasses a part today of east Elgin—is it east Elgin or Central Elgin?

It’s shovel-ready. So when Minister Fedeli talked about the competitiveness around the world—all of these manufacturers like what they see in Ontario. They like the skill of our workforce. They like our transportation network. They like an awful lot about Ontario. But if they’re going to make this jump—“How soon can we actually be into production? How soon can we actually be providing those jobs”—not the construction jobs, but the manufacturing jobs that are so vitally important for the long-term health. To have a piece of land that is ready to go, shovel-ready—we’ve got it here, in St. Thomas.

The north is going to be a tremendous beneficiary of what this government is doing with regard to the largest EV battery plant anywhere in the world, which is going to be built in the Windsor area, and the critical minerals that will be coming out of the north in order to service that plant as we transition into more and more of an electric vehicle province.

They’re great opportunities for Ontario—great opportunities for Sudbury and the north.

Our transportation strategy and our long-term planning here in the province of Ontario pay complete attention to the needs. We’re doing it every year. If you look at what we’re doing every year with the highway-building program here in Ontario—it’s number one in the world, including if you look at what’s invested in the north.

I say to my colleague from Mushkegowuk–James Bay that I realize he’d like to see six-lane highways going through every part of the north.

But if you look at what the investments of this government are doing in the north to ensure highway safety in the north, we’re far ahead of any previous government, because our commitment to the north is not just about mining, it’s not just about forestry; it’s to the people of the north—and that includes highways.