In 2018, when our government came to power, I can tell you there was hallway health care; the health care system was broken.

Since 2018, we have 60,000 new nurses, 8,000 new doctors who registered to work here in Ontario. In fact, last year we had over 12,000 new nurses registered and ready to work, and in the colleges and universities there are 30,000 new nurses ready to come on board.

We’re putting—these are staggering numbers—$50 billion into building new hospitals on 50 sites right across this province, focusing on the infrastructure, and we’re going to make sure we have the best health care system anywhere in North America.

Thank you to the member for the question. The people of Ontario expect us to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. That is why, yesterday, I introduced Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, 2023, that, if passed, would allow the province to improve the management of real estate which will reduce red tape, optimize office space, enhance fiscal management and save taxpayer dollars.

Currently, Ontario has one of the largest and most complex real estate portfolios in Canada and we have been working towards establishing a more holistic approach to managing provincial agency properties. As part of this legislation, a framework would be established to modify the real estate authority of 14 entities under eight ministries to just the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, we have an obligation to be fiscally prudent when managing government assets. It is my hope that the members opposite will support this legislation.

The Reducing Inefficiencies Act, 2023, if passed, will modernize an almost 50-year-old environmental assessment process that is outdated, slow and costly. We are living in a world with cost escalations. We need to be nimble, responsible and we need to do everything we can to continue to build up this province.

I want to thank the member for the question. The answer is yes, and the answer has been yes for some time now. I’ve spoken to the mayor of Red Lake on a number of occasions, and we stand ready with the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, as we’ve demonstrated across the province, making investments in recreational infrastructure to improve and ensure the quality of life is there for the families that not just live in those communities, but that it serves—in particular, in the instance of Red Lake, a number of Indigenous communities, particularly during the winter, through winter road access.

We’ve made those offers to the mayor of Red Lake. We stand ready to support his application as long as it fits within the parameters of a very generous Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, which is responding to the surge in incredible economic growth in major sectors, including mining, across northern Ontario.

One of the nice things about the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund is its ability to stack. This is widely known for communities across the province, but particularly in northern Ontario, to leverage local investments, to leverage private sector investments, for mining operations—local there—and, as well, for the federal government to be involved in that. In many instances, we work on larger-scale projects with FedNor, a portfolio that I was the minister of in my federal days. It’s easily done.

The mayor of Red Lake is well aware that we stand ready to support him and his community as they set out to build this important piece of recreational infrastructure.

There are countless examples across northern Ontario of where we’ve had this kind of success. We’re going to continue to invest in the quality of life for the communities across northern Ontario.

My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure. My constituents expect to see a government that respects their tax dollars and works hard to be good, strong fiscal stewards. It’s essential that our government continues to demonstrate strong leadership by cutting red tape, implementing projects that boost good jobs in our economy and show overall respect for the taxpayer.

Our government must continue to do all that we can to be prudent fiscal managers, especially during this time of global economic challenge and rising costs.

Speaker, my question to the minister: Could the minister please explain to this House what actions our government is taking to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and appropriately?

But, as a government, we are making the strategic investments necessary to build community infrastructure and ensure that these crucial projects are completed. We’re responsible to ensure that we’re delivering effective and resilient infrastructure that serves the needs of our communities, the needs of our constituents and protects the things that matter most to the people.

Could the minister please elaborate further on how this proposed legislation will ensure that crucial infrastructure projects can move ahead quickly and efficiently?

Roads, highways and other critical infrastructure are vital to ensuring our economy remains strong and productive. Unfortunately, under the previous Liberal government, Ontario’s transportation networks were neglected, especially in growing regions like my riding of Mississauga–Streetsville.

Highway 401 is North America’s busiest and most congested highway. In fact, approximately 180,000 vehicles use this highway daily just from Mississauga to Milton alone. Our government needs to take action today to make sure highways are less congested and more convenient to keep Ontario moving. This will ensure that we’re helping individuals and families get to where they need to go. Together, let’s build the transportation infrastructure needed to keep Ontario strong and prosperous.

Can the Associate Minister of Transportation please share with our government what we are doing to improve our highway network?

Building highways for the people of Mississauga–Streetsville and all Ontarians needs to be a priority of our government. Roads, highways and other critical infrastructure help get goods and services to market faster. Clogged roads and gridlocked highways impact families and their quality of life by preventing busy moms and dads from getting home to their children on time. Road congestion traps transportation trucks from getting goods to business, costing more than $11 billion annually across Ontario’s economy.

Speaker, can the Associate Minister of Transportation elaborate on how our government will deliver on our promised plan for highway improvement?

My in-laws live in that member’s riding, and every time I see them, they tell me what a great job she’s doing for her constituents.

I’m glad to inform that member that, on December 12, just before the holidays, we announced that our government finished expanding Highway 401, with 18 kilometres of spacious new lanes now open from the Credit River in Mississauga to Regional Road 25 in Milton. To break it down, our government has taken the previous six lanes along this portion of the 401 and practically doubled it to include 10 to 12 lanes. In fact, this includes one new median high-occupancy vehicle lane in each direction—a huge game-changer for drivers, a multi-lane expansion that will help fight gridlock and keep goods and people moving across the GTA.

Widening Highway 401 just goes to show that, unlike the NDP and the Liberals, our government is building Ontario and getting it done for drivers.

The people of this province elected our government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, to get critical infrastructure built and grow Ontario’s economy. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

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—

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.

I always enjoy listening to the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke—

With the infrastructure that’s happening—and we know the conditions of our roads up north and what’s going to happen with all these mines being developed. Speaking to the president of the road builders of Ontario—they recognize that our infrastructure is not there, as we stand.

I’d like to hear from the government what they are going to do to make sure that our highways—Highway 11, in particular. With the way that our highways are right now, how are they going to support all this extra travelling on our highways? Right now, we are suffering because, as you know, we have many accidents happening. Some of the roads that are being cleaned still are problematic. I’d like to hear from the government their position on—

That’s a very good question.

When the minister set out the job site challenges, municipalities had a chance to apply. St. Thomas was chosen. Remember, part of the original lands that were acquired butted up against land that St. Thomas already owned. So it just complemented that piece, and the infrastructure that St. Thomas has is going to service that site. That is why. Then, as time moved on, an opportunity presented itself—understanding, as I said earlier, we’re competing with 40 states. Many opportunities and investors presented themselves and, as such, we needed to be shovel-ready, and to do it we needed to act quickly, with speed, to ensure that we could act in a timely manner to meet their specific timelines to close any potential deal now or a year from now. That’s why the added lands, again, butting up to the original lands that were bought were acquired.

At the end of the day, it’s important for us to remember that this is the best site in all of Ontario, and, I might even argue, North America—

I think we’re planting the garden for success. So if we can prove that we can get this done, this legislation passed—and I appreciate the members opposite’s support, and I’ll say that publicly. I take yes as yes. The bottom line is that if we do this well, I think it will set the stage for attracting further investment throughout all areas of Ontario.