My question is to the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services.

Last week I told the minister about the unacceptable conditions for children and youth in the child welfare system. I told her about how kids in for-profit group home Hatts Off are being overmedicated, chemically restrained; how kids are regularly being prescribed psychotropic medication after only five- to 10-minute-long doctor appointments, medication that sometimes made them feel “heavily suicidal” or “like zombies.” I told her about how vulnerable kids receive punitive punishments. I asked her to investigate these serious allegations of neglect and mistreatment. She dodged the question.

Speaker, I’ll ask again: Will the ministry acknowledge how bad the system is for kids in their care and commit to a full investigation into Hatts Off?

Ongoing supply chain disruptions continue to adversely affect the global economy. This geopolitical instability has only reinforced the importance that our government should place on ensuring the security of our critical minerals and natural resources.

Northern Ontario can be a worldwide supplier of critical minerals, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, all essential minerals required to construct new electric and green technology. Speaker, can the Minister of Mines please expand on our government’s most recent announcement about the new investments in the critical mineral sector?

This is why our government must show leadership by partnering in good faith with companies that are at the forefront of critical mineral innovation. Speaker, can the minister please tell us how the mining and business community has responded to our government’s new critical innovation fund?

I want to thank the member, my neighbour, for that important question. In my welcoming remarks at the Northern Ontario Tourism Summit, there was a palpable excitement around the idea not only that we could be live at the forum but that we could share and celebrate in the incredible opportunities emerging from a post-COVID world—no doubt that the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund was there, to the Northern Ontario Recovery Program. We used words like “planning,” “renovating,” “enhancing,” “repairing,” “refurbishing” and “reopening, Mr. Speaker: an expanded partnership with Indigenous Tourism Ontario and a commitment to tourist operators that, at every step of the way in a post-COVID world, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, the Ministry of Northern Development and this government would stand with tourist operators in northern Ontario.

These are all small, in some respects, but very important announcements for those communities as they open their doors back up to all the people who want to come and celebrate what we already know what’s great about northern Ontario.

Speaker, that’s exactly why we want to have some consistency and work with a great chair like Jim Bradley in Niagara to ensure that the extension of strong-mayor powers is smoothly done at the regional level and, as well, that we ensure that all of those regional governments that we’ll be dealing with have the opportunity to meet our provincial priorities and get shovels in the ground. At the end of the day, this is all about building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years and having that consistency at the regional level while we’re working through the strong-mayor powers is so very important.

Again, Speaker, it’s a bit rich from this member who served municipally to be calling into question our motive in ensuring that Jim Bradley works with us. Shame on you.

We need to ensure that we give those mayors the tools they need to be able to ensure that our provincial priorities are met. We’ve had great conversations with Mayor Tory. Unlike the NDP, we support our great mayor here in the city of Toronto, Mayor Tory. We want to work with him, and we’re glad that he wants to help meet those provincial priorities for building more housing.

I think the biggest question is why the member opposite and her party and her group did nothing and sat on this for decades. Our government is taking action. We want every child and youth to have a safe and loving home. That’s why we’re redesigning the child welfare system. That’s why we’ve boosted the number of inspections at licensed group homes since January 2022. It’s why we’ve added 20 new staff to support enhanced inspections of children’s residential services. It’s why we released the children and young persons’ rights resource in youth-friendly language to help children, youth and young persons understand their rights and use their voices. And we’ve backed up this important work with significant investments.

Our government is fixing a long-standing issue that the previous government, supported by the NDP, never bothered to.

Supplementary question.

The one concrete action that this minister could take today is to launch an investigation into Hatts Off.

The problems aren’t limited to Hatts Off; it’s an issue across the entire for-profit group-home system. For-profit homes make up a quarter of all operators, over half of all serious occurrence reports and 83% of all instances of the use of physical restraints. Companies looking to make a profit off vulnerable children have no place in our province’s child welfare system.

The minister keeps touting the government’s welfare redesign. So I’ll ask the minister this question right now. It’s a yes or no answer: Will the minister commit to abolishing the for-profit child welfare system model and putting the care of children above corporate profit?

My question is to the Premier. We understand the urgency of getting affordable housing built in Ontario. Families are struggling to pay their rent and find an affordable home. However, folks in Niagara and across this province are perplexed by this government’s move to address this crisis by allowing the Premier to hand-pick and install regional chairs, whenever he pleases, to do his bidding.

In Niagara, Regional Councillor Wayne Redekop recently said, “This is the second election in a row that this government interfered with the election of the chair.... In 2018,” they “revoked the right of the residents of Niagara to elect the chair directly. Now in 2022,” they are “revoking the right of the elected representatives of the residents to select the chair.”

Why won’t this government work collaboratively to address the affordable housing crisis and stop this ham-fisted and insulting power grab?

Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all others. Why do the Premier and John Tory prefer the other ones?

Experts predict that Ontario’s population is expected to increase by 30% over the next two decades. With this growing population, our infrastructure must grow with it. Modernizing our public infrastructure and building a seamless transportation network will help Ontario meet our current and future demands and will help strengthen the economy. Unfortunately, under the previous Liberal government, supported by the NDP, the people of my riding endured years of delay and neglect when it came to building essential projects.

Can the Minister of Infrastructure please update the House on our government’s progress in addressing our infrastructure needs?

When building for today and the future, we can’t allow the mistakes made by the previous Liberal government to impact us as we move forward. Under the previous Liberal government, they delayed, neglected and closed critical infrastructure, when we needed investments to be made.

Can the minister please share with the House what our government is doing to deliver effective and resilient infrastructure for all Ontarians?

The Speaker is standing.

Supplementary question?

Interjections.

Start the clock. Member for Don Valley East.

The Minister of Health, to reply.

The next question.

My question is for the Premier. During question period, the parliamentary assistant for health said that she was “tired of listening to people trying” to instill fear “by using words and expressions like ‘the worst crisis in generations’....” I’m wondering if she’s including health care workers like Pam. Pam is a CUPE nurse in Oshawa emergency. Pam says that this is the worst crisis in generations. Pam has been a nurse for 36 years and told me that she can’t do this anymore. She said, “This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know why we’re still here. I guess it’s because we love the people who need us. It’s not because of how the government treats us.”

My question is, why does the Conservative government think they know better than health care workers like Pam?

I am proud to talk about the innovation and the changes we have made because, bluntly, our health care system was not looked after during the previous administration—15 years of ignoring Auditor General reports talking about a lack of family physicians that will be needed in northern Ontario. What did we do? We have initiated two new medical schools in the province of Ontario, historic investments in health care.

The member opposite has a lot of audacity, when his party was the one that cut residencies in the province of Ontario. What has our government done? We’ve increased those positions. We’ve made sure that there are opportunities for people who want to practise medicine in the province of Ontario to have those opportunities. We will continue to do that and we will proudly communicate that message.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

There is no doubt that our health care workers in the province of Ontario have gone above and beyond in the last three years, which is why our government will continue to go above and beyond to make sure they have the appropriate workforce, the appropriate workplaces, safe workplaces, to continue to do this important work.

My question today is for the Minister of Health—

Interjection.

We’ve heard this government crow about restarting the CPSO’s practice-ready assessment program—the same program they cancelled in 2018. We’ve seen them pat each other on the back for asking hospitals to make surge plans—the same surge plans all hospitals make every year, whether a minister asks them to or not. We’ve heard them celebrate being in a position so dire that they have to ask SickKids staff to train nurses in community hospitals outside of their scope of practice. And we’ve heard them claim they’re keeping students in school, even though tens of thousands of them miss class every day because of respiratory illnesses. All the while, ER wait times get worse and worse.

Will the Minister of Health admit that this crisis has slipped out of the government’s hands, and instead present a real plan?

Next, I’d like to remark to the Minister of Health that—

Interjections.

Interjections.

I’m still struggling to understand how this government continues to cherry-pick their stats to defend the state of our health care system. They brag about starting two new medical schools, even though they haven’t moved beyond the planning stages for either. Why should we believe they can deliver on those when they can’t even deliver on licence plates? They also talk about their—

Our government’s capital plan is one of the most ambitious in the province’s history. We’re building Ontario like never before. We’ve dedicated over $159 billion in the next 10 years to support priority projects such as transit, highways, schools, hospitals and long-term care. In fact, this quarter’s listing includes 39 projects in active procurement and pre-procurement. By building these projects, we will finally build a subway system that will help residents travel across the city more easily and affordably. By building more highways, we will ease congestion and help with the delivery of goods, and address capacity challenges faced by our health care and long-term-care sectors.

As the member mentioned, the people of Ontario gave our government a strong mandate to build Ontario, and that is exactly what we will do.

Mr. Speaker, we are building faster, smarter and better because the people of this great province are depending on us.

Supplementary question?

My question is for the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services.

As we know, the Ontario Disability Support Program was not a priority for the previous Liberal government. Unfortunately, because of their inaction, the most vulnerable in our province were forced to deal with an outdated system. Ontarians that rely on this program deserve better.

In our recent fall economic statement, our government has implemented a modernized approach to better address and support individuals who receive support through this program. Speaker, can the minister please update the House on how our government is transforming social assistance and what the reaction has been?

It is exactly the health care workers who we are listening to when we put forward programs like the dedicated offload nursing program, to make sure that our community care paramedics, our paramedicine experts can go in, have that dedicated offload nurse help to stabilize the patient and have that paramedic turnaround.

It is exactly why we are listening to paramedics when they say, “We can do things differently if you only change a few policies,” and we’ve done that with the 911 change, where instead of always having to go to an emergency department, they can, with the patient’s approval, take them to a long-term-care home, a mental health facility, other opportunities. We are listening to the experts in the field, the experts on the front line, to make sure that we provide better care.

I want to reinforce that this is an agreement that was reached with the Ontario Medical Association—voted upon by their members—and it will ensure that while virtual care continues, it will be appropriate. We don’t want to replace in-person care with 100% virtual care. We’ve seen that there is value in virtual care in the province of Ontario, but we also need to make sure that there is a balance—to have individuals access their primary care physicians. That’s what the OMA agreement has done.

I very much resent the suggestion that virtual care is appropriate in 100% of cases. We need to make sure that that balance is there. We need to make sure that we have individuals having access to their family care physicians, their primary care physicians, nurse practitioners—all of those organizations that are providing care in our community. That work will continue.

Virtual care in the province of Ontario will continue. What changes is an agreement that was reached with the Ontario Medical Association, voted on by their members and supported by their members—a historic agreement that did not have to go to arbitration. That never happened under the Liberals and the NDP.

I want to thank the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for that question and all the work he’s doing to bring the concerns of the people of Windsor to Queen’s Park.

Auto workers are the backbone of Windsor and Ontario’s economy. These are good-paying union jobs, with pensions and benefits. These are jobs where you can buy a home with a two-car garage, raise your family and take your kids to hockey practice at the end of your shift.

Speaker, when our automotive industry suffers, we all suffer. Last week, I joined the member for Essex in standing shoulder to shoulder with Unifor Local 444 president, Dave Cassidy, in Windsor. Together, we announced more than $550,000 for employment action centres to support more than 800 auto workers and their families. We’re leaving no one behind.

I’ll share more in our supplemental.

To build a stronger Ontario that works for everyone, labour, business and government must work together. That’s why I was honoured to stand with our partners to announce employment action centres for their workers. Working with Unifor Local 444 and Local 195, our action centres are supporting affected workers by hosting job-searching sessions, organizing individually tailored career planning, providing one-to-one peer counselling and mental health supports, and supporting resumé and cover letter writing. All of these services are focused on helping workers to re-enter the workforce quickly.

Mr. Speaker, it’s this government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, that has the backs of our auto workers. We’re helping them find new good jobs today and preparing them for better jobs and bigger paycheques tomorrow.

To build Ontario, we need all hands on deck.