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.

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.

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.