As my friend from Oakville just said, this is a discussion that we have to have and the member from London West has said it very clearly: The government made a decision in 2019, through Metrolinx, to cancel the project. I remember the early days of this government. To those of us who were here, it was like, “anything Liberal, Hulk smash.” It was just this impulse to destroy anything that the previous-to-them government had done.

I had a lot of criticisms of that government, but Metrolinx made a terrible decision. You don’t build charging stations—member, I’m asking you to react to this—in 2019 to pilot them and think about them—it was a three-year pilot—in a single year. There are people who lived close to those charging stations, not just people using the GO stations. There are communities that we want to hub around them. Having four or five chargers at ONroute stations doesn’t meet the need.

Member, don’t you think we need mandatory changes to the building code to get condominium buildings to put in EV chargers? We need EV chargers in communities. We need them to be affordable and accessible to support the cars this government wants to build. I’m just wondering if you could elaborate on that for my friend over there.

I was very proud of our party’s initiative in the last election to launch the Green New Democratic Deal. This was a bold, ambitious, detailed plan to bring jobs and protect climate in our province and get us where we need to be, with a 50% reduction by 2050.

We do support an electric vehicle strategy. That was a big piece of our Green New Democratic Deal. One of the things that we are committed to is a financial rebate for consumers to purchase electric vehicles. We know from other jurisdictions that financial assistance to purchase not the Teslas, not the luxury EVs, but the growing number of mid-range electric vehicles that are coming onto the market—if we want to really jump-start that market, we have to provide the financial assistance to consumers to purchase those vehicles.

Further questions?

It’s great to be here in the Legislature this afternoon. I would like to point out to the member opposite—she mentioned electric vehicle charging stations being taken out of GO stations, and the member from Ottawa Centre, I believe, mentioned as well what the government is going to do to build the infrastructure for electric charging. I agree with you; what are we doing?

I just wanted to clarify for the member opposite that that was a failed experiment that the previous Liberal government did in putting charging stations into GO stations where commuters drive for the full day. They go downtown for the full day and their car is sitting there for 12 hours. It didn’t make sense. What our government has done is put charging stations in places where they make sense, like the ONroute stations, so driving to Montreal or Ottawa you can charge your vehicle, rather than have a commuter sit all day at a GO station.

We certainly want to build the infrastructure around that. My question to the member opposite is, do you support us in building this infrastructure for green vehicles throughout the province?

Speaker, my riding has just lost a significant number of jobs—in the hundreds, actually. Industries change. We heard the minister this morning talking about how the majority of states south of the border are ahead of the game and already have certified mega-site programs in place to attract these investments. The fact is, we must do everything in our power to ensure they come to Ontario.

This bill is about creating a mega-site. Does the member opposite agree that we need to move quickly?

I’m delighted to speak today in support of Bill 63, the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act. As the member of provincial Parliament for Windsor–Tecumseh, how can I not support this bill, given the terrific developments that we have had the privilege to welcome in our riding as a result of similar circumstances?

Central Elgin is truly a gem for Ontario, with some of the most scenic and beautiful communities in the southwest: Port Stanley, Belmont, Dexter, Lawton’s Corners, Lyndale, Lynhurst, Mapleton, New Sarum, Norman, Sparta, Union, Whites and Yarmouth Centre.

St. Thomas is truly the Railway City—and being an engineer, I love railways—and the place where the Canada Southern, the London and Port Stanley, the Grand Trunk, the Pere Marquette and the Canadian Pacific railways rolled right through. While we do try to somewhat compete on the number of railway crossings and railway delays in Windsor–Tecumseh, the sheer number of systems present in St. Thomas certainly exceeds ours.

The St. Thomas area, particularly Southwold, was home to the Ford St. Thomas assembly plant, where the Ford Crown Victoria, the Lincoln Town Car and the Mercury Grand Marquis were rolled off the lines by its industrious employees until 2011. Those Crown Victoria vehicles were a mainstay of the Ontario Provincial Police fleet. Residents of St. Thomas and Central Elgin could look at the work that they produced with sincere pride throughout Ontario any time that they travelled.

We in Windsor-Tecumseh truly know the devastating loss that St. Thomas and Central Elgin went through when Ford was lost in the industrial change. Just within my life-time, I’ve seen the elimination of the GM trim and transmission plant, the Ford Nemak Essex aluminum plant, the Ford casting plant and Windsor engine plant, and the Chrysler Pillette van plant, all just within my riding. Directly adjacent, we had the Ford Nemak Windsor aluminum plant and Windsor casting plant. The Ford Essex engine plant had a happier end, in that it closed but then it reopened, and it continues to operate to this day.

Why is this important and vital? Automotive jobs are good jobs, and for every job in an auto plant, there are 18 others supported by it. When good jobs are lost, it’s not just the local economy that suffers. It leads to displacement of family members. Our populations decline as people move to find work, and in turn, with reduced demand for goods and services, even more job loss.

It’s hard to fathom this here in the vicinity of Queen’s Park. You look outside, and construction is all around us. You visibly see people working, especially right next door at the MacDonald Block. There are cranes here. There are construction barriers. There is excavation. There are closures on the 401, although that seems to be three decades plus in the making, as the province demolishes narrow overpasses and constructs collector lanes to address demand. And really, an economically viable Toronto with vitality is the only Toronto that I’ve ever known. Whether in a period of economic growth or a period of recession, the building and improving here never seems to stop.

But that’s not our reality in southwestern Ontario. Years will go by where our communities will never see a crane. A crane is a sign of growth; it’s a sign of hope and delivering upon promise of hope and optimism for a better future, of revitalization. It brings forward a beneficial community impact that I could not do any justice in trying to describe. Bill 63 will dramatically support and accelerate economic revitalization for the people of St. Thomas, of Central Elgin and of Elgin county.

My riding of Windsor–Tecumseh is now home to the NextStar Energy electric vehicle battery plant, Canada’s largest automotive investment in its history, an investment of over $5 billion. We have experienced first-hand the benefits of the hope and promise of this facility already, and it is just getting built out of the ground as we speak, with an opening anticipated in the next two years. NextStar is not just a new plant, but a new lease on life for our existing manufacturing facilities in the city. NextStar on its own, separate from any other impacts, will create over 2,500 direct jobs to start. NextStar truly means that our largest industrial employers will continue to operate in our community for a new generation and will grow their workforce.

The NextStar development was no accidental event or stroke of luck to land this development. My own hometown of Tecumseh faced a remarkably comparable situation to what is being described in the bill, although with some differences. The city of Windsor had prepared a land use needs report in 1996; it showed more industrial land was needed to meet future growth. Collaboratively, the three municipalities—Windsor, Tecumseh, and the county of Essex—agreed to a boundary adjustment which transferred approximately 6,500 acres of land from the town of Tecumseh to the city of Windsor.

Undoubtedly, the decision to transfer jurisdiction over these lands was not entirely beloved. There were political consequences, but it was the right thing to do. Interestingly enough, while the specific lands around the Banwell Road corridor were not envisioned for this annexation at the front end of it, Windsor had the infrastructure, service capacity and fiscal capacity to service the land immediately. As a much smaller municipality, Tecumseh did not. This boundary agreement between Tecumseh, Windsor and Essex county took effect over 20 years ago now, on January 1, 2003.

The 2008 recession was devastating for our local manufacturing economy. The Windsor region is the first to experience the effects of an economic downturn and the last to return to prosperity, but in a roundabout way this paved the way for what was to come with NextStar. NextStar landed there because the land was available and was serviced. The boundary adjustment completed years before meant that the complexity of the project on the site was lessened dramatically. The NextStar site is located in that Banwell Road corridor. It’s located on Banwell Road at the E.C. Row Expressway, right at the boundary of Windsor and Tecumseh.

The city of Windsor, the province of Ontario and the government of Canada collaborated on incentives to help make the business case for the NextStar site, including land assembly by the city of Windsor. NextStar officials only required consultation with one municipality instead of two. Having few complications and all partners on the same page is very much a determining factor made by a company in where to site a plant.

NextStar coming to Windsor was never a sure thing. For one, the site was smaller than desired; it’s about 800 acres. There was intense competition to land this once-in-a-lifetime investment. So with Bill 63, St. Thomas and Central Elgin can cross that potential complication off of their list. The consolidated industrial site that is the subject of this bill is large enough to meet virtually any company’s needs. It is a site that has the incredible potential to create thousands of new jobs for St. Thomas and for Central Elgin and for our province; a shovel-ready site with railway access, electrical and sewer services and an easy connection to Highway 401 via Highbury Avenue.

This proposed legislation reduces the red tape that would have otherwise existed here. The government is proposing a change in the municipal boundary so that the site lies in one single municipality—the city of St. Thomas—to make site improvements and make any future construction faster and more efficient. By reducing the number of affected municipalities to one, it accelerates decision-making and approvals, ensuring the site is shovel-ready for investment.

The same laws and regulations will continue to apply; the same assets and advantages are present; the same approvals to build on this site are still needed. They will occur. The only difference is the removal of the duplication which would be corrected by this legislation.

The proposed actions show that the government is ready and willing to take the steps necessary to compete for the types of global, game-changing investments needed to create good-paying jobs in Ontario and to rebuild our economy.

Speaker, we know that in our region, there’s truly a critical shortage of shovel-ready industrial mega-sites, and I’ve heard that in my own consultations across Ontario. This is not just an issue local to my region. We need to think innovatively. It means that to compete, municipalities may need to do exactly what our nearby neighbours are doing across the American border and have been doing so for many, many years.

Ontario is in fierce competition with other areas for these once-in-a-generation investments in manufacturing and industrial operations. There are close to 40 US areas, including Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Missouri and Tennessee—all great vacation spots, but also only located within a few hours drive of us. That means they can be suppliers to everything that exists in our manu-facturing footprint, and these jurisdictions offer certified site programs. Our competitors for these investments have shovel-ready sites, and it is now a widespread expectation that potential investors have of governments like ours and across North America who want to secure the investments that these shovel-ready sites be available.

In 2019, our government developed the Driving Prosperity plan that helped lead to the NextStar Energy electric vehicle battery plant. A Reuters analysis noted that car companies plan to spend $300 billion globally on EVs, and Canada at the time had zero of that investment. That is why our government is laser-focused on securing these large-scale anchor projects, including in the auto and EV space. What we learned was critical to securing these new investment opportunities: It’s having a suitable site ready to go, where timing and costs of development are readily known, and where the owner knows that they can meet project timelines.

The Job Site Challenge program began in November 2019 and was Canada’s first challenge where municipalities, economic development agencies and industrial property owners put forward large tracts of land of 500 to 1,500 acres to support large-scale manufacturing operations. Looking at the St. Thomas-Central Elgin site, it is 1,250 acres. That’s pretty close to the top end of what the industry is looking for. It reflects, relative to the whole of Central Elgin, 1.8% of the land and 0.27% of the land in the county of Elgin.

As mentioned earlier, NextStar isn’t the only demonstrated success. Umicore in Loyalist township is a transformative investment for eastern Ontario. The benefits are not simply direct. As my good friend MPP Bresee noted, for the first time, the people of Millhaven will see public transit service near their community. And as a result of recent successes like NextStar and Umicore, there is significant demand for shovel-ready sites.

In my role as parliamentary assistant, I have seen ample opportunity to witness Minister Fedeli in action. Ontario is truly in good hands to secure more than $20 billion in projects, but many of them require large-scale sites. Premier Ford and Minister Fedeli deliver investor confidence in industry, and it is helping us land these investments in the most competitive investment environment that we have seen in our history.

The shortage that we have of large, industrial sites is real. It puts Ontario at a significant disadvantage. While our communities make every effort to compete for these high-value projects, often our sites can have missing ingredients to them. This could be access to services or access to transportation infrastructure. By assembling and confirming the St. Thomas site and the governance of local regulations, it provides crystal-clear assurance to any companies locating on the site of what they need to do.

Economic developments do have uncertainty and risk, and on occasion, quick action by government is needed. Bill 63 is an example of that. It simplifies the complexity of developing the St. Thomas-Central Elgin site. Passage of the bill will make this parcel ready faster and stronger. There is no need to risk losing this opportunity to compete for and win when these companies are looking for a home. There is a lot of competition out there. Let us not give potential companies any reason to doubt our viability or our ability to deliver to them a great and sustainable business for generations to come.

For Ontario, for St. Thomas and for Central Elgin, it’s an opportunity to create thousands of jobs and to build stronger communities together. We are ready for business. I ask all members of the Legislature to support Bill 63 and to ensure that St. Thomas, Central Elgin and the county of Elgin gain all of the economic opportunities and development that the region can support for its people.

I’d like to thank the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for his presentation on Bill 63.

You mentioned the importance of Windsor–Tecumseh in terms of the auto sector. With the Ambassador Bridge, that’s a vital trade corridor. I wondered about the length of time it took for the Premier to act upon the Windsor Ambassador Bridge blockade. Flavio Volpe said it was “‘the single most disruptive event’ of the last 20 years for the automotive sector.” Transport Canada said that $2.3 billion in trade was put on hold while this government failed to act. Most damning, though, was the reputational damage to Canada and Ontario as a reliable trading partner.

My question for the member is, should the Premier not have acted faster to declare a state of emergency and protect Ontario’s reputation?

Thank you to the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for that wonderful presentation.

Madam Speaker, I’m very pleased to see our government is continuing to take the economy seriously. I was listening to the ministers this morning and their statistics, and our achievement is really mind-blowing. The amount of investment, the billions of dollars pouring into Ontario, is really mind-blowing. I’d like to thank the ministers and our government for bringing so many investments. That means creating a lot of job opportunity for Ontarians, especially for the younger generation. I’m really thankful for that.

My question to the member: Elaborate on why the government is choosing to introduce the legislation now. What is the urgency to doing this bill?

Questions?

To the member of Windsor–Tecumseh: The government acted very swiftly when it comes to the three municipalities to create a mega-site in order to bring jobs to southwestern Ontario. There are workers who, when you bring them to a territory, are going to need child care, housing, transit—all those things you talked about.

There was an announcement in the spring about moving the WSIB location from Toronto to London. I’d like to know why the government hasn’t acted swiftly in that and if he knows if there are any plans to make that announcement so those workers can plan for those things when they get their job here in London.

Thank you so much to the member for his remarks. It’s always great to hear from the communities, and particularly Windsor–Tecumseh, who are a great example—and, of course, the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London as well. These communities had such great industrial development back decades ago, before Ontario was hollowed out, and now, what we’re seeing is the reindustrialization of Ontario. It’s very exciting, and this bill is very much a part of it.

I wonder if the member could outline the on-the-ground impacts for the community in terms of jobs and the resulting benefits that that will bring. You’ve seen it before. And what’s the vision for your community and those around from this exciting announcement through Bill 63?

I was listening to the remarks from the member for Windsor–Tecumseh and I wondered if he could provide any background information on the mega-site initiative. We understand that the province announced it in 2019 and then last year, or I guess in 2021, the government hired a consulting firm, Newmark, to oversee the site selection process. However, there has not been any release of the findings from Newmark, which would help us understand why this particular site was selected.

Can the member tell us why the government has not disclosed the report from that consulting firm that was overseeing the site selection process?

We’ve been listening to the opposition for much of the afternoon speaking about a number of concerns—the daycare, the agency location that was just mentioned, the Ambassador Bridge—none of which are actually relevant to this particular piece of legislation. They are imagining things that might go wrong, that might be negative. They are being relatively pessimistic, in my opinion. This government has been optimistic. We are optimistic about our future and the future of our children.

Through the Speaker, I ask the member if he would comment on whether this bill represents a positive step forward, a positive vision for St. Thomas and Elgin county.

It’s always an honour to be able to stand in this House—I believe it’s the first time since the break that I’ve been able to speak—and to start the debate, or my portion of the debate, on Bill 63, An Act respecting the adjustment of the boundary between the City of St. Thomas and the Municipality of Central Elgin.

I listened all day to the debate, particularly to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, but before I talk about what’s inside the bill, I’d like to talk just for a few minutes, in my role as House leader, about the process of the bill. The bill was dropped yesterday in the House—fine. That’s the first time we saw it. Then, last night, it’s up for debate. I don’t know how long the government has been looking at it. I take it that they’ve been looking at this for a long time, and I appreciate that, but in my years of business, when you’re burned a couple times, you get shy.

If you’ll remember, a bill went through this House that you needed to use the “notwithstanding” clause to get something done, and you clapped and you hit each other on the back. You were so happy. And this had to be done right away. And a week later—it was the shortest life in history; it was the Men in Black bill—you rescinded the whole thing. It had to go so quickly.

If you will remember another bill, a bill about broadband, which I completely supported except for the middle part that had the MZO in—the minister of the crown at the time, when I asked him a question, said, “Well, if you don’t like that part, just rip it out and pretend it’s not there.” Now, in my personal career in business, if somebody did that to me twice, you know what? I wouldn’t do business with them the third time, and I think every business person here would have the same opinion. So forgive us if we’re a bit reluctant, when it’s dropped, no briefing—so we’re expected now to debate this bill. And it’s our job as the official opposition, yes, to be critical, but also we are proud Ontarians. We want this province to move forward just as much as you do, believe it or not—just as much. The government can’t even produce a briefing before this bill is likely going to get to second reading. So I hope with the businesses you’re working with to secure these contracts, that you know how to do business with them better than you know how to do the business in this House, honestly.

It is really hard to do that. It’s really hard. And notwithstanding that, when you get a bill—and I will give credit where credit is due on this bill. At least this bill is on one subject, right? We’ve had a few hours to look through it, haven’t even had a full day, and it’s on one subject.

So the first thing we do is you have to look for the poison pill in the few hours we’re getting, and when you only get a few hours, you get suspicious right away, right? The bill is dropped, and then the next day, a full day of debate. Well, then you get suspicious: What are we missing. What are we missing? That’s where it starts. So forgive us for being critical and a bit less than trusting of what the government is reporting. That’s where we’re starting from.

And just for future reference, if the way—and I’m going to sound like I’ve been here way too long, and maybe I have; there are lots of people trying to end that. In days of yore, a bill could drop and you might have a week or two weeks to be able to do your research, to call the people who were involved in the bill, so you could actually have a fulsome debate. That hasn’t occurred with this government, and it also hurts this government. It hurts your government because if you think that when you have to rescind a bill after a week—if you think that was a proud moment, then you are sadly mistaken, sadly mistaken. Every one of you could have stood in your place and said, “Oh, no, no. We shouldn’t do the ‘notwithstanding’ clause,” and you sat—oh no, you didn’t. You cheered, until a week later, I didn’t see any cheering. And that’s hurting yourself. And I—

I listened intently to the Minister of Municipal Affairs this morning, a minister who I try to work with. I don’t agree with everything philosophically; often we disagree philosophically, but he’s a good minister to work with.

Coming from municipal government, as many of us do, his explanation of having a big project—and this is a mega-site for, obviously, a big project; we don’t know what exactly. And I fully understand that in business there are certain commercial things we can’t make public. I also understand, as a business, you want to deal with one municipality. As a former councillor, I understand that. That makes perfect sense to me. That explanation I don’t have a problem with. You want a business, regardless of size, but the bigger they get—they want to be able to deal with one municipality. If you’re dealing with rules—and I always go back to my own personal business; I had farms in a couple of townships, and even that was difficult sometimes. So I can only imagine what it is like when you’re dealing with a huge business.

One part, as a farmer, and as someone who is very conscious of loss of agricultural land—there will be some loss of agricultural land here, and that is somewhat contentious. But as you will recall, the official opposition, under my name—we proposed something called an agri-cultural impact assessment. The government voted against it and said it was too much red tape. But I would put forward, just in my mind, how this would have worked on this project—yes, there’s going to be agricultural land lost, but there is also, on one side, a huge benefit. So is there a bigger benefit for this project as a whole compared to the production capacity that’s lost? And I think I don’t have purview to everything that we’re looking at, but the proximity to the 401, the proximity to the town, the size of the project, the land that is needed, in my mind, the way I would see that process going, it wouldn’t take years, it wouldn’t take—it would—well, click, click, click, yes.

So there is going to be some opposition regarding the loss of land, but I think that the benefits of this project, if it is for batteries for electric vehicles—we all know where the car manufacturing sector is going. We all want the car manufacturing sector to succeed, regardless of where we are in the province.

Questions?

Point of order.

Obviously, we are in a very competitive environment and, really, when there are issues with sites that need to be corrected, let’s do that without it being seen by all of our competition. The reviews give an opportunity for the municipalities to go and bolster their sites and make sure that they become ready in the long term.

That is predominantly the competitive nature of our industry, and we need to protect Ontario’s competitiveness as we go forward and bring more sites online.

Yes, we do. The Minister of the Environment questions that, but believe it or not, we all want this province to succeed.

So if you take that, the benefits, I think, would—knowing what we know now, after 20-some hours, the benefits would likely outweigh the loss of agricultural land. I’m saying that—I don’t know, because I haven’t had that long look at the bill, but that’s where I am and that’s where I think we are.

Having said that—and we’ve had a few comments about where we stand on this bill. I’m going to go way out on a limb here. We’re going to support this bill on second reading.

Interjection: Oh, that is way out.

Interjections.

We need to make sure that they have confidence in them, but they also have to have confidence in how this place works, and the way this place is supposed to work is you have some time to look at the bill before second reading, which we didn’t have; you have some time during committee to look at the finer points of the bill; and then you have a final debate on third reading. And the bill doesn’t actually pass into law until royal assent.

But this bill warrants second reading based on what we’ve seen. Much of the reluctance on this bill is the way other bills have been presented in the past and the way this bill was presented now.

So I’m not going to veer off the topic of the bill, but I am going to veer a little bit to the car industry. This hasn’t been the case lately, because now the car industry is starting to come back with electric cars, but the car industry has had some tough times, St. Thomas especially. I know a little bit about that part of the world; I have some relatives there. Other members here who are from northern Ontario will have heard this refrain: “If only we had a car plant in wherever we were, things would be great.” Well, do you know what? When the auto sector wasn’t doing that well, things weren’t that great.

The mining sector—and the Minister of Mines will know this very well—is, I’d say, booming. There are lots of discoveries, and much of that is going to be working into the car sector—the nickel. Also, in the processing—in my riding, the Electra Battery Materials Corp. is going to be refining. It is encouraging that northern Ontario is going to play a role in the electric vehicle industry. Northern Ontario always played a role in the car industry—a lot of iron and steel came from northern Ontario—but now we’re going to play, hopefully, a bigger role.

So please don’t think that those of us who don’t come from southwestern Ontario don’t care what happens in southwestern Ontario, because we do. Because it impacts everyone in this province, in this country—it does.

I’ve got five minutes. In closing, I think this part bears repeating—I can repeat myself; the deputy House leader is going to knock me down again. We get along, but she’s doing her job. If we could do one thing better in working together—we oppose each other philosophically. That’s the great thing about this province: We can get along personally and oppose each other philosophically. Actually, I’m pretty sure that even in our respective parties, there are philosophical differences on various issues. But this would work much better if everyone had more time—and not to hold the process up, because I think the fact they’re trying to rush through things sometimes actually makes things go slower than if we gave everyone the respect to have the time to look at the thing.

So I hope that when this bill passes second reading that we don’t slow things down, but we actually have the respect of the Legislature, the respect to get this done correctly, to have it go to committee and make sure—not everyone’s going to be happy but that everyone is heard.

I think the biggest thing, the biggest aspect of our democratic system that we have to be cognizant of is that everyone has to feel that they’re heard, and sometimes that doesn’t happen. And when that doesn’t happen, people become much more polarized. No one in this room who has worked so hard to be able to sit in this House wants that to happen.

I’d just like to repeat, we are going to vote for this on second reading. It’s something we need to be competitive in this province, and everyone on all sides knows that. We all diminish ourselves when we really push the one side. We have philosophical differences, but if we really want to say, “This one side that we know, you know nothing about this”—that’s not my style. It’s not our style.

We are in favour of it, in principle, on second reading. Hopefully we’ll have a good committee process, and hopefully we can attract generational businesses, green generational businesses, green generational systems, so that our kids and our grandkids and our great-grandkids can benefit from living in this great place as well and we can protect our natural resources.

In my closing two minutes, I’m going to go back to, we do need to have some kind of system in Ontario to recognize the gift we have of farmland, to recognize that you can’t put a moratorium on it. You can’t put a moratorium: “Thou shalt not ever build on farmland.” That won’t work. But you have to realize that farmland is a resource that we just can’t squander, and there’s a difference. There is a difference. Until we have a process like that, we are going to keep losing it, and our kids, our grandkids and our great-grandkids that I spoke of just a minute ago when we were all talking about generational industries—agriculture is a generational industry too. No matter how we do it, we’re going to need the soil. And we are going to lose some with this. We have to be cognizant of that, and we have to be careful.

With that, I thank you very much for your indulgence. I thank the deputy House leader. You’re our deputy House leader still, right?

Do you?