The Welland hospital is a full-service hospital that serves the fastest-growing area of the Niagara region. This hospital would not exist without the endless support from our community. In 1945, the Welland hospital auxiliary formed to help fundraise for the site. Over the years, they’ve continued that work, raising $750,000 to renovate the ICU and $1 million towards a dialysis unit named after them. Countless community organizations, like the Hungarian cultural society, saw the need for this hospital and contributed what they could.

Unfortunately, Niagara Health recently confirmed that services at the Welland hospital will be significantly reduced. As of February 27, emergency surgical services in Welland will be cut in the evenings and on weekends. Families in Welland, Port Colborne, Thorold and Pelham who show up at this hospital and need to be in an operating room within the hour will have to wait for an ambulance to take them to another hospital. Doctors and nurses at the hospital have told us this will create dangerous situations for patients, leading to poor outcomes and unnecessary deaths.

In April 2022, this House passed my motion to maintain full emergency department services and acute-care services in Welland to ensure that there are safe, equitable hospital services throughout the Niagara region. I look forward to working with the minister and this House to ensure the government honours its commitment to maintain these crucial emergency services.

February 21 is International Mother Language Day.

Born and raised in Punjab, Punjabi is my mother tongue—the language in which I uttered my first word. Punjabi is the mother tongue of almost 400,000 residents serving Ontario.

Punjabi Arts Association is one such organization that has been working tirelessly for over 31 years to promote the Punjabi language and its culture through intergenerational platforms of expression where conversations and addressing community issues and concerns are high-lighted through theatre, music and other art forms.

Madam Speaker, art binds and strengthens communities. It helps promote and preserve Canada’s cultural diversity. In Ontario, our government and its granting agencies are the biggest champion of artists and arts organizations.

In 2022, PAA produced seven scripts, held monthly acting workshops, and hosted fun and engaging improv events in Punjabi.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending PAA’s Canadian Punjabi Kavi Darbar, a night of Punjabi poetry. I was impressed to see our Ontario youth tackling social issues with choices of words that were thought-provoking.

Thank you to the board members, volunteers, sponsors and supporters of PAA for serving and promoting mother language. You make us all proud. Remarks in Punjabi. Punjabi Arts Association, my best wishes, always stay in high spirits.

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a wonderful event. I was invited to drop the puck at a local hockey game. In various roles, many times over my municipal career and now as an MPP, I’ve had the chance to drop a puck. It is always an honour, but this one was special.

The young teammates of the Wellington Dukes, including four members of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, decided to make this game have a cultural message as well. They recognized that, for many of us, hockey is a Canadian thing. Young or old, male or female, settler or First Nation, one of the things that almost everyone in this country shares is some level of passion and a knowledge of hockey.

Another common element is the collective heartbreak that we have all felt as the discoveries of graves at residential school sites across the country have occurred.

As a country, we have not done a good job in providing the education and the cultural understanding of the devastating impact of the imposition of the residential school system for multiple generations and the long-term impact of this horrific chapter in our history.

So I was very pleased to see the efforts to bring more awareness to that history. Using hockey to cross all cultures within Canada, and specifically in my area of eastern Ontario, is both very appropriate and should be very effective.

I want to thank the Wellington Dukes, the participants and the audience in attendance. I hope they enjoyed the game, and I hope they will take some time to learn the truth. We need to recognize the past to build a better future for all Indigenous persons and for all of Canada. Thank you, Speaker. Meegwetch.

Good morning, colleagues. It is my pleasure this morning to tell you about something very exciting that happened recently in our Grey-Bruce community. I know many of you would expect me to be telling you about Groundhog Day on February 2. Well, it was indeed a great morning in Wiarton. The fireworks at 7 a.m. were spectacular, and Willie was his usual eloquent self communicating his forecast. As you heard, he said it would be an early spring this year.

But no, colleagues, this morning I want to tell you about something more exciting than Wiarton Willie, and that’s a new school in Markdale. On February 7, I was thrilled to announce that the Bluewater District School Board had been given approval to proceed with the new replacement for the Beavercrest public elementary school in Markdale. This will be an investment of $15.5 million, an increase of $6.9 million. The new school will be an absolute jewel. It will have 328 new student spaces, 39 new child care spaces, two new child care rooms and a two-room EarlyON family centre.

Thank you, Minister Lecce, for your constant support. You have been there from the start for Markdale.

Thank you, Minister Surma, for your great leadership in the government’s infrastructure program.

Thank you, Bill Walker, for your energetic support over the years.

Thank you, Wiarton Willie.

And thanks to this government for your support of Markdale.

I stand today to recognize that it has been one year since the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a nation, we must continue to support Ukrainians as they struggle for peace, freedom and democracy. They have shown the world incredible bravery and resilience as they face unimaginable challenges. I stand today to honour them and the thousands of people who have lost their lives and loved ones to this selfish act of terrorism. In my own community of Oakville North–Burlington, I’ve heard so many tragic stories about displaced Ukrainian families. I stand today for them, for the pain they’ve had to endure, and yet I remain humbled by the remarkable resilience and strength of the human spirit.

At a Christmas celebration with the families at St. Volodymyr’s Ukrainian church, Father Jaroslav told me that Ontario has provided a sense of community and safety that was desperately needed amidst the horrors of the war in Ukraine.

I’m proud of the work we have done by welcoming refugees and providing them with health care, emergency housing, education and other assistance like mental health supports.

We will not waver in our commitment to the people of Ukraine. We will continue to provide them with the support they need to rebuild their lives. We stand with Ukraine.

Let us never forget that the freedom and dignity of every human being is a fundamental right that must be protected at all costs.

Slava Ukraini.

Applause.

I rise today to say it’s an honour to represent the people of Ajax.

February is Black History Month. It’s a recollection of our collective past and present achievements and a celebration of Black excellence.

Earlier this month, I was honoured to be a part of the 16th annual Durham Black History Month event, the largest put on by Cultural Expressions Art Gallery. Esther Forde and her team did an amazing job. Every year, this event presents the Madiba Award, named in honour of Nelson Mandela. This year’s Madiba Award was presented to Adam Brown.

Adam was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disorder that affects peripheral vision, depth perception—and profound night blindness. Adam has led an amazing life despite his vision challenges. He took to TikTok with a lighthearted, self-revealing appeal to the public to join with him to reach out to their local MP to encourage the government to fully fund the treatment which would help thousands of men, woman and children with RP not to go blind over their lifetime. Almost three years later, with over 450,000 likes and 15,000 letters sent to the Ontario government, the gene therapy Luxturna was fully approved.

I would like to personally thank Adam for his advocacy and leadership in trying to make life better for thousands of Ontarians.

There’s no better moment than now to celebrate and remember the numerous ways in which Black people have continued to shape Ontario culture, economics and society.

Speaker, as you know, Ontario has over 1.5 million residents with no access to primary care. They have no family physicians, no nurse practitioners.

In my riding, close to 30,000 people do not have access. In a part of my riding called the Valley, we had three physicians retire in the last year and, sadly, two weeks ago today, a very well-loved physician, Dr. McAlister, passed away quite suddenly, leaving behind thousands more patients, and there’s no physician replacement in sight. But we have solutions. We have nurse practitioners who are willing and able to take on those orphaned patients. All we need is the minister’s signature.

Carol, Dr. McAlister’s widow, called me and asked if I could get a nurse practitioner for her husband’s patients.

The Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic has asked multiple times for $293,000—not millions; $293,000—for an additional nurse practitioner, receptionist and social workers. They will be able to supply primary care to hundreds of additional patients, offer same-day appointments, after-hours appointments, provide mental health services and much more. The Sudbury nurse practitioner clinic also presented a reasonable plan.

We could, in a matter of weeks, change the lives of thousands of people by giving them access to primary care. We could support Dr. McAlister’s orphaned patients.

Minister, the good people of Hanmer and Capreol need you to sign off on more nurse practitioner positions right now. Will you do it?

I’d like to introduce Emily Trudeau. She is the director of research for the NDP caucus. She started as an OLIP intern back in 2016. She went on to be my legislative assistant and executive assistant. She is moving on. Tomorrow is her last day. I just want to say a special thank you. We can’t do the work that we do without our amazing staff.

Today, we are welcoming Centennial Infant and Child Centre straight out of St. Paul’s, where they’re supporting children with complex development challenges and their families through innovative—and fun, I might add—individually designed programs, services and supports. I want to welcome Shemina Ladak, Fatima Mulla, Matthew Lee, Kasia Ziemba, Lorraine Chiarotto, Ali Arshinoff, Brett Balaban, Chris Butler, Grace Lowe, Katherine Newton and Jessica Rotolo—who, by the way, is the winner of the LotsOfSocks design competition; Jessica’s fantastic sock design was selected from hundreds of entries to inspire the #LotsOfSocks design for #WorldDownSyndromeDay2023; rock on, Jessica—Sherene Karmali, Tonia Griffith.

And this cat shirt—Kaleb, you fantastic drag storyteller, this one’s for you.

It has been a rather—I’ll be charitable and say an unimpressive start for the Leader of the Opposition. We have some real challenges that this province is facing. The drive-by smear of the Leader of the Opposition—tried this once; the Integrity Commissioner has said that there was no issue with it. The Premier has answered the question. So let’s try another smear tactic; let’s try bringing the family into it.

What we are going to do instead is continue to focus on the priorities of the people of the province of Ontario—building this province up. While they continue to talk the province down and the achievements that we’re seeing in the province of Ontario, we’re going to do just the opposite—build better roads, build better schools, build better colleges and universities, give our workers more opportunity to succeed in the province of Ontario. Thousands of jobs are being created, billions of dollars in economic activity coming right here to the province of Ontario. We’ll focus on that. She can focus on the drive-by smear, which accomplishes nothing for the people of the province of Ontario.

I would like to welcome two women in the House. We’ve got, from Western University, Tamsen Long and Anaum Farishta.

I would like to welcome to Queen’s Park this week Mark Kaluski. He’s my executive director. He’s also of Ukrainian origin, and I’m grateful for his support this week.

I just want to wish my twins happy birthday. Today is their 11th birthday—the two that threw me over the edge.

I’d like to welcome two wonderful women, Anushka Goswami and Jiya Sahni. They are part of the Women in House program through Western University. It’s always great to have women in the chamber. We need a heck of a lot more of them here.

I’d like to welcome and thank my OLIP intern, Téah U-Ming. Today is her last day, and I want to say a big thank you for all of her work this past term.

I’d also like to welcome Anushka Goswami from the Women in House program here at Queen’s Park. She interned with me, shadowed with me on Tuesday, and we had a great time. Welcome.

J’aimerais dire un gros merci à Thomas Forget, qui a travaillé avec le député Mike Mantha pendant plusieurs années. C’est sa dernière journée aujourd’hui. On apprécie tout ce que tu as fait pour nous, Thomas. Merci.

I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 9(h), the Clerk has received written notice from the government House leader indicating that a temporary change in the weekly meeting schedule of the House is required. Therefore, the House shall commence at 9 a.m. on Monday, February 27, 2023, for the proceedings of orders of the day.

I’m seeking unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak on second reading of private member’s Bill 41.