SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
February 21, 2023 10:15AM
  • Feb/21/23 11:20:00 a.m.

Ontario has again become the top auto jurisdiction. To build on this, our government is transforming Ontario’s automotive supply chain to build the cars of the future. We’re doing this because we lowered the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually and, as a result, we have attracted $17 billion in transformative auto investments in two years. Last week, Magna International announced a historic investment of almost half a billion dollars into six of their Ontario plants. With $23.6 million coming from the province of Ontario, Magna is creating more than 1,000 well-paying jobs here in Ontario.

This is how we’re bringing new life to our auto sector, Speaker. There are now 600,000 new jobs created since we first took office.

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  • Feb/21/23 11:20:00 a.m.

With the greatest of respect, a $14-billion increase in health care spending since 2018 suggests quite the opposite: that we have in fact invested in our health care professionals. We are investing in our primary care beds. We are investing in our home care and our hospitals. We are doing that because we understand and appreciate that the status quo is no longer an option.

We will continue to make those investments, and while the negotiations happen with the Ontario Hospital Association and ONA, we will continue to invest, because that is what a government does when they understand the people of Ontario deserve a publicly funded health care system, and they will get that under Premier Ford.

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  • Feb/21/23 11:40:00 a.m.

As I’ve said on a number of occasions, the report is quite clear that the OPP were on the ground and were prepared to assist, and, in fact, were providing information to the Ottawa Police Service. But I think there are some lessons to be learned with respect to how we communicate with each other, be it the OPP, the Parliamentary Protective Service, the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service, in the future.

Again, we are looking forward. We have not stopped doing that, really. We’re building a bigger, better, stronger Ontario for all of the people of the province of Ontario. I look at the investments, in particular, that we are making in Ottawa, the health care investments that the Minister of Health has brought to Ottawa: the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario; the Civic. These are billions of dollars of investments to bring Ottawa’s health care system up to date.

Add on to that the investments that we’re making in long-term care in Ottawa. Go further than that, Mr. Speaker: the investments that the minister of colleges is making, and the fact that we have brought back thousands of jobs in the automotive sector, which means that the high-tech sector of Ottawa can participate in building the cars and vehicles of tomorrow. Good news for Ottawa—

I know many of the opposition members seem to be suggesting that there should be greater debate with respect to who directs the police in times of emergencies, whether it should be politicians or it should be the police themselves. That is a debate that the opposition is welcome to bring forward.

But we are moving forward in building a better Ontario. Many of the people of this province suffered during COVID, and we want to make sure that, as we put COVID behind us, we build a strong economy, where all Ontarians can participate. Whether that is building thousands of new houses so that people can afford to buy their first home, whether it is the work that is being done by economic development—the agriculture minister who, for the first time, is putting agriculture to the top of the list, because we understand—

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