I have a very special guest to present today. I would like to introduce Currie Dixon, the member of the Legislative Assembly for Copperbelt North—and he is the leader of the Yukon Party—and his chief of staff, Danny Macdonald. They’ve come a long way. We’re so happy they’re here.

It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today and acknowledge an extremely worthwhile organization in my riding: Harvest Hands.

Speaker, did you know that close to 50% of all food produced in this country is wasted or lost to landfills? It’s a staggering and unfortunate reality.

That is exactly why Jim and Jacintha Collins founded Harvest Hands in St. Thomas in 2020. Their mission is to rescue surplus food from retailers, bakers and growers to help feed families. Nutritious, bountiful and perfectly edible food is rescued from landfills. Fresh produce, frozen food, packaged and canned goods all end up in homes throughout southwestern Ontario.

As a non-profit food distribution bank, Harvest Hands’s purpose is to help agencies gain access to good food. Funded entirely by donations and volunteer-driven, Harvest Hands provides food that feeds over 24,000 families a year in southwestern Ontario. Since its inception, Harvest Hands has delivered over $8 million—$8 million—of food from Windsor through to Oshawa. The distribution network that Harvest Hands serves is comprised of more than 80 agencies.

With Christmas fast approaching, many food banks across this province will face an even greater need for volunteers and food donations to meet increased holiday demand.

Waste not, want not.

Thank you, Harvest Hands, for a job well done.

Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for coming to Queen’s Park.

I’ll remind everyone there is a reception tonight in the dining room.

Mr. Speaker, we’re continuing to work for workers every single day in Ontario.

That’s why we partnered with private sector unions, employers and tradespeople to bring in the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, to get tens of thousands of people into well-paying jobs in the province.

That’s why we brought in historic legislation in Working for Workers 1 and Working for Workers 2 to ensure that workers have the right to disconnect, and that, for the first time in Canadian history, we’re recognizing international credentials, so when newcomers come to this province they can work in professions that they’ve studied.

We became the first in Canada to give truck drivers access to washroom facilities across this province.

And we are the first in North America to move forward with expanding portable benefits so millions of workers who don’t have health and dental benefits today are going to get those benefits under Premier Ford.

I do have a point of order, Speaker. I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 40(e), five minutes be allotted to the independents as a group to respond to the ministerial statement by the Minister of Labour regarding McIntyre Powder this afternoon.

Speaker, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice threw out Bill 124 in its entirety, ruling it absolutely null and void. Justice Koehnen found that Ontario was not facing an economic situation that “justified an infringement of charter rights,” and that the law was “substantial interference” with the constitutionally protected bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of workers.

Bill 124 has been bad for workers in Ontario—period. It should never have seen the light of day in the first place.

Speaker, it’s long past time the government started showing workers the respect they deserved from day one.

With the cost of living skyrocketing, my question is, will the government get out of its own way, get out of the way of workers’ protected right to freely bargain a fair wage and finally respect this decision?

I think the member opposite knows that we’re reviewing the decision. We intend to appeal, so I can’t comment further. Pas de commentaire.

I beg to inform the House that the following document has been tabled: the 2022 annual report from the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.

Mr. Tabuns is seeking the unanimous consent of the House on a motion calling on the Ford government to respect yesterday’s ruling by the courts that found Bill 124 to be unconstitutional. Agreed? I heard some noes.

Thanks for the question.

The other side likes to talk about what could happen, might happen.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll tell you what will happen: We’re going to continue to protect wetlands here in Ontario. We’ve got a plan to build 1.5 million homes in this province over the next 10 years and keep a robust ecological footprint. Home builders will still go through a process. Species at risk—there’s legislation to cover to that. Wetlands are disappearing; we’ve heard that. We’ve got an opportunity to not only preserve them but expand them, and a plan to do that as well.

Don’t believe the hype. Wetlands are here to stay in Ontario.

The Niagara Escarpment is an arm’s-length body that does great work—and we know the Niagara Escarpment is a beautiful and wonderful area in Ontario that we want to protect. We get feedback from the escarpment folks all the time, and we talk with them constantly about what can be done to make things better. We’ll continue to speak with them. But, again, they’re their own body—they make their own decisions, and we respect those decisions.

That’s why I was so excited to see the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry step up their game over the years. Go to Water Street and see the facilities that are there to ensure that Ontarians are protected against flooding. It is amazing. They’re doing an amazing job.

Conservation authorities: We’re asking them to focus on flooding in hazard lands to keep people safe. That’s the focus and the priority.

Build homes, keep people safe, build Ontario—that’s what we’re going to do.

As the Attorney General said, we are reviewing this decision. Our intention is to appeal.

But we will speak to our investments in health care, especially in health human resources.

Since March 2020, we have added over 12,000 health care professionals to the system.

Just this year alone, the Ontario College of Nurses has registered over 12,800 nurses—and we still have two months to go.

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to make these historic investments to support health care workers and the delivery of health care services all across this province.

My question is to Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Over the past few weeks, this government has been dealing with some issues regarding insider information and plans to open up the greenbelt and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, with certain parcels purchased just weeks before the government’s announcement.

Some of the Premier’s most loyal developer friends—the De Gasperis family—own 20 properties on the land this government is opening up for development.

Just this week, we learned that TACC Developments, controlled by Silvio De Gasperis and members of his family, borrowed $100 million at an interest rate of 21% annually to purchase greenbelt land, of all things, in 2021.

In the minister’s experience, is a 21% interest rate on $100 million a good deal?

Did the minister or any other government or PC Party official share with any landowner or developer or any of their lobbyists or representatives information about the government’s plan for removing lands from the greenbelt before it became public on November 4?

While I have a great deal of respect for the Auditor General, on this, I cannot agree with her. The numbers show that we have done an incredible job protecting our most vulnerable, through a vaccine rollout that is second to only Japan across the world.

The member speaks about things that we can look at and point to as successes—GO-VAXX buses that were going into communities that had lower vaccine uptake; Operation Remote Immunity, where we partnered with Ornge air ambulance to make sure, at the very beginning of the pandemic, when we had limited supplies of vaccines—that they were going in with our partners at Ornge to vaccinate remote and fly-in communities; other opportunities that, frankly, other provinces looked at and wanted to emulate, because Ontario was leading in ensuring that our most vulnerable, that our individuals who were at highest risk, were getting access to those vaccines as quickly as possible.

We have led the world, because we ensured that we had mass vaccination clinics; we had clinics in businesses, in manufacturing facilities. We had GO-VAXX buses going around to higher-risk neighbourhoods to make sure that they understood the value and had those conversations. We had SickKids hospital open up a phone line to talk to parents and caregivers about the questions that they had when we had vaccines available to children.

I will not apologize for our vaccine rollout. We have a lot to be proud of, and the numbers prove that out.

I want to thank the member from Burlington for the wonderful question and her continued focus on young people and their success.

Mr. Speaker, under our government, we have undertaken a focus on helping young people graduate and get access to good-paying jobs. From a modern curriculum to modern schools to merit-based hiring of our educators—we are overhauling our curriculum, with a focus on increasing outcomes, graduation rates, results and better jobs for the young people we represent. It’s why we have reformed our curriculum—labour market-aligned for the first time—including mandatory learning on financial literacy, on coding, on real-life application, on learning about the importance of balanced budgets—because we know, on this side of the House, that budgets do not balance themselves. We also know about the costs of debt and inflation and paying taxes. We’re teaching kids about problem-solving skills and leadership development.

We’re investing to build modern schools, with over $500 million every year.

And we’re ensuring the best educator gets hired in a meritocracy, so that the best leaders are in front of children in this province.

It’s why we signed a better deal, with three billion more dollars and an additional year of investment on the table to ensure every parent—for-profit and non-profit parents, which would have been excluded by the New Democrats and Liberals—that they have access to the financial relief of roughly $10,000 by the end of this year alone.

Four times, our government has stepped up with direct financial relief to parents. We just rolled out another catch-up payment which is going to deliver $1.6 billion in total into parents’ pockets, where we know they need it, to face the rising costs.

We’re also standing up against the federal Liberal carbon tax, which has raised the cost of home heating, of baby supplies, of food, and making clear this regressive tax hurts the most vulnerable within our communities.

We are standing up for affordability. And we’ll continue, under our Premier’s leadership, to make life more affordable and child care more accessible for Ontario parents.

Order.

Stop the clock.

The House will come to order.

Start the clock.

The member for Nickel Belt has the floor.

Speaker, parents in my riding of Burlington want to know that their children are well-positioned for success. They want assurances that their children are being taught a modern curriculum by the most qualified educators, in schools that are technologically connected and safe.

I’m proud that our government is determined to support our children by ensuring they have all the necessary learning tools.

Everyone wants to see our students succeed in and outside of the classroom.

Can the Minister of Education please provide an update on how our government is taking the right steps to ensure our students have everything they need for a successful and fulfilling education?

Child care has long been a significant expense for working parents who want to ensure that their children receive top-quality care while they’re at work.

We know that under the previous Liberal government, child care costs became too expensive and inaccessible for many. This was unacceptable and created a tremendous burden on individuals and families.

To the Minister of Education: What is our government doing to provide much-needed relief for our working families across the province?

The government has been very clear in our postings on what our intention is regarding the property. We’ve been open, clear and transparent, and we look forward to receiving comments from the public.

Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Today’s Auditor General’s report put in writing what we already knew: Ontario’s vaccine rollout was sloppy and uncoordinated. The government didn’t listen to public health experts and let 3.4 million vaccine—

Interjections.

Why did the government not listen to public health experts during the vaccine rollout?

Why did the government undermine public confidence in COVID-19 vaccination?

Supplementary?

No personal attacks in the House.

Conclude your question.

Member for Waterloo, conclude the question.

Interjections.

The member for Kitchener–Conestoga will come to order. The member for Waterloo will come to order. The Minister of Municipal Affairs will come to order.

Start the clock.

Next question.

I want to thank the member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke for that very challenging question this morning.

Our government, from day one, has been on a mission to train more workers, so they can build better lives for themselves and fill the jobs that families and businesses across Ontario rely on.

That is why we are reinventing our programs so that welfare and disability support recipients are no longer left on their own. Instead, the changes we’re making are providing tailored solutions—like workboots to get them started, and a transit pass to get them to their first shift.

Mr. Speaker, our message is clear: For anyone looking to find well-paying and meaningful work, our government will give you a hand up.

Mr. Speaker, under the previous government, only 1% of people on social assistance were finding employment each year. That might be good enough for those across the aisle, but it’s not good enough for us.

In the parts of Ontario where we’ve started our new approach, the results are outstanding: 79% of job seekers are working at least 20 hours per week, and 55,700 people are now on a path to finding employment.

This is how we lift people up, and this is how we’re going to achieve our ambitious plan to build Ontario.

My question is for the Premier.

Municipalities are reeling from the alarming passage of Bill 23 on Monday. The lack of consultation and the absence of respect and facts have resulted in a deeply flawed piece of legislation that will undermine housing affordability, increase homelessness, and compromise the integrity of the greenbelt ecosystem.

Last week, the member for Kitchener–Conestoga claimed that seven Waterloo region municipalities were “sitting on over $200 million ... of reserve funds from development charges that have already been collected.” Specifically, he went on to say that the township of Woolwich was sitting on $6.5 million of DC charges that they didn’t know about. In fact, all of the DC reserve funds are allocated and are in the municipal five-year economic forecast. You just have to learn how to read, I guess.

The drastic reduction in development charges will—

Interjections.

The drastic reduction—

Interjection.

Why is the government implying that these funds are not being used and that municipalities are negligent in their duties?

Woolwich Mayor Shantz set the record straight:

“Based on the pace of our growth ... we will actually require additional funding to be able to do all of the forecasted work. We are staying with the best practice approach that, as much as possible, growth should pay for itself.

“We do not want existing taxpayers to pay that heavy burden. That’s neither fair or appropriate.”

Mayor Crombie herself said that Mississauga will lose $885 million over 10 years in development charges because of Bill 23. She said that it’s equal to losing 20% of their capital budget.

Why is this government undermining municipalities and their ability to facilitate affordable housing?