The member from Brantford–Brant.

The member from London–Fanshawe.

Further debate?

I’m particularly interested in schedule 8, where there are four new subsections. They’re very powerful, actually, these new sections that the government has put in:

“(4.4) The minister may appoint a chair of the board of directors from among the members of the board.” That’s the minister appointing them.

“(8) The administrator shall report to the minister as the minister requires....

“(9) The minister may issue directions to the administrator with regard to any matter within the administrator’s jurisdiction, and the administrator shall carry them out.” Shall carry them out, not “may”—“shall.”

So the “minister’s direction,” and then it says here that—

Good morning, Speaker. Good morning, colleagues.

The people of Ottawa and Gatineau are preparing a protest unlike anything you’ve ever seen. We will be using an iconic item you see everywhere in Canadian society, and I’m not talking about hockey sticks. I’m not talking about doughnuts. Speaker, I’m not even talking about duct tape. I’m talking about electrical cords. You heard me right, Speaker: electrical cords. On November 5, the people of Ottawa and Gatineau will gather together with extension cords, electrical cords—the same thing that powers backyard barbecues, Halloween decorations and holiday lights.

Why are we going to be doing that? Because at a time when we need to double Ontario’s electrical capacity, this government has decided to rip up its energy agreement with Quebec. It makes no sense. We could continue to import Quebec power for five cents a kilowatt-hour. It’s affordable and it makes sense, but instead we’re pledging to fire up gas-fired electricity that will cost at least twice as much, balloon our emissions and ruin our attempts to deal with our climate emergency. The only people who win are gas industry executives and lobbyists.

Folks back home are going to show the government, with people power, a different way. We’re going to run extension cords from Quebec to Ontario for a family-friendly event. I invite all members of this House to join me as we celebrate how we bring clean power to Ontario and fight for our kids’ future. Stay tuned for details about the electrical cord protest.

I’d like to take a moment to address the growing challenge of “level zero”—sometimes “code black”—here in Ontario. This is the complete absence of ambulances available to respond to 911 calls.

In 2021, Ottawa paramedics spent more than 49,000 hours in offload delay at area hospitals. This resulted in 750 incidents of level zero. The 90th percentile hospital offload delay was 97 minutes, which far exceeds the 30-minute benchmark. This means that paramedics are waiting for over an hour and a half to transfer their patients to hospital—two paramedics and an ambulance stuck at the hospital because the hospital is too backlogged to take them.

In the first seven months of 2022, the Ottawa Paramedic Service experienced more than 1,125 instances of level zero. In some cases, Ottawa had 11 consecutive level zero hours—11 hours of consecutive level zero, Madam Speaker—and some low-acuity patients waiting seven hours before being transported to hospital.

Level zero isn’t just a problem in Ottawa, of course. It’s happening right across the province. The province and municipalities pay for paramedics to be assisting residents needing urgent medical attention. They do not pay them to wait at the hospital to offload their patients. It’s imperative that the government provides the funding necessary to municipalities, in particular the monies requested by the city of Ottawa, to hire the paramedics needed to end level zero events and better serve our friends and neighbours.

Thank you. It’s time for members’ statements.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

On October 16, I was pleased to hold my very first annual community family barbecue and corn roast. The rain held off and it was a great success. As a new MPP, I was thrilled to host more than 500 of my constituents outside at the Riverwalk Commons in downtown Newmarket. There was live entertainment by the great George St. Kitts, delicious food, face-painting for the kiddies, a photo booth for fun family pictures and some great giveaways.

I must thank my dear friend Teresa Kruze for managing the entire event. With her master event-planning skills at the helm, the residents of Newmarket–Aurora had a fun time for the entire family. Thank you to all the volunteers, including my husband, Ivan, and my son, Robert, as well as my entire constituency staff, along with another 15 volunteers who gave up four hours of their Sunday afternoon to help make my first constituency event a great success. Thank you.

I also would like to thank the many families that came out. It was great to have so many families there, families who came up to speak to me just to thank me, and also to have a conversation. And I would like to thank all the residents who brought a non-perishable food item to the event. I’m pleased to say that we collected 10 full boxes—

It’s great to be back here in the House after a busy and productive month working in our ridings. And it was nice to get out to some fall fairs that took place, especially my favourite, Oktoberfest, which is one big day for Waterloo region and, of course, my riding of Kitchener–Conestoga.

Speaking of promoting local events, we’ve just celebrated Small Business Week here in the province, where I had an opportunity to highlight just a few of the countless local businesses in my community. Over 400,000 small businesses are the backbone of communities across this province, fuelling the economy and employing more than two million people—businesses like Morty’s Pub, Mr. Speaker, a must-stop for wings if you’re in the region; the Maryhill Market for Kawartha Dairy ice cream and homemade sandwiches; as well as the famous St. Jacobs market that is host to a ton of local crafters, artisans, farmers and more.

With the holiday season just around the corner, I want to encourage everyone to support local businesses. It is a great way to get unique gifts and products for yourselves and loved ones—not just at Christmas, but year-round.

Last month, I had the honour of being part of the 25th anniversary Ride for Kayla’s, in support of Kayla’s Children Centre. Kayla’s, or KCC, has deep roots in Thornhill. Known as a place where children of all abilities can shine, Kayla’s mission is to deliver innovative educational, therapeutic and recreational programs for children and youth with disabilities and complex medical needs. This year’s bike ride involved over 200 cyclists who came out to show their support for KCC’s specialized programs—programs that enable children to flourish academically, socially and emotionally, including a licensed daycare and school, on-site therapy centre, adaptive sports, and life skills programs for teens.

KCC offers supports and respite for parents, siblings and grandparents, giving them the much-needed time to run errands or spend time with their other children. One of the organization’s most recent and substantial accomplishments was a state-of-the-art hydrotherapy centre. In the warm waters, children with mobility issues can be independent, flexible and free.

One of the long-standing supporters of the Ride for Kayla’s is Hershy Weinberg, who rides under the team name of Zaidey Hershy. Hershey’s dedication and support along with so many other organizers, including the staff and instructors, have helped build KCC into a state-of-the-art facility. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, “zaidey” is the Yiddish word for “grandfather.”

I want to thank KCC staff for their dedication to the success of every child, providing childhood experiences that otherwise would not exist. In Thornhill, we support our not-for-profits because they support us. I am truly looking forward to next year’s ride.

Interjections.

It’s my pleasure to rise to highlight an organization which is improving the lives of students within my riding of Eglinton–Lawrence and around Ontario and across Canada: Pathways to Education. I fully support Pathways’ mission to help high school students who face barriers to reach their full potential through education.

Pathways focuses on supporting students from low-income households who might otherwise struggle to finish secondary school or even drop out. Pathways provides lots of practical support, even bus tickets, for participants to get to school. Essentially, it provides them with what they need to finish their education so that they can have all the possibilities that that opens.

A few weeks ago, Owen Hinds and the rest of the Pathways team at Lawrence Heights invited me to once again tour their Pathways facilities in my riding. I enjoyed meeting the students, who were busy working on their homework assignments, supported by peers and by other volunteer mentors. Pathways boasts over 800 volunteers, who should be commended for their over 26,000 volunteer hours. With over 19,000 students having benefited from Pathways since 2001 and over 6,000 currently in the program, 78% graduate from school and 69% go on to post-secondary education. It’s a true success story.

Along with the Minister of Colleges and Universities, I attended their grad ball recently, as well, to celebrate with them and continue to support all of their efforts.

Speaker, I’m wearing purple today to show my support for the education workers, the education assistants, custodians, early childhood educators, school secretaries and other school support staff who provide vital supports to students, yet are the lowest-paid workers in the school system.

Parents in London West and across the province know the contributions of these workers to the success and safety of their children, and they want to see them fairly compensated. They also want more supports for struggling students in schools instead of direct payments to parents for an hour or two of tutoring, which won’t do anything to help students catch up and requires parents to try to track down a tutor.

CBC London shared some comments from parents. One said, “You can’t have a government at the table saying we have no money to give education workers, then provide all these random payments to parents.”

Another asked, “Wouldn’t it just be a better decision to take that money and hire EAs? That way, this so-called catch-up plan could be a plan that helps teachers support our students and not put the burden back on parents.”

A third said, “This feels a little bit more like a bribe to parents and families,” and would rather have that money go back into the education system.

Instead of a $365-million catch-up program, why won’t this government invest in the supports that would really help kids catch up—the education workers who support students in our schools?

There’s a frightening crisis in children’s hospitals across Ontario. Children are waiting days in emergency rooms, facing cancelled procedures, and—for what must be every parent’s nightmare—they are being sent across the province to find care beds.

Bruce Squires, who is the president of McMaster Children’s Hospital, is sounding the alarm: “Our pediatric critical care capacity is so limited that critically ill children are having to be transferred outside of their local area to be admitted to an ICU.” This is a situation that he calls “extremely concerning.” Critically ill children from Hamilton have been sent as far away as Ottawa to find a bed in a pediatric unit. As of Thursday, there were 11 patients in the ER who had been admitted to hospital but were still waiting for a bed, some for 30 hours or more.

Grey, who is a four-year-old boy from Ancaster, waited five days for emergency elbow surgery. Now his mom is warning other parents that the system is a disaster and people need to know what to expect.

It should be our highest priority to care for sick, injured or dying children. But instead, hospitals are being slowly starved by this government’s disastrous plan to privatize health care. We need more investments in our struggling health care system, not a profits-over-people approach.

We have the solutions. We need to implement them now to make things better for children across Ontario.

I didn’t want to interrupt the member for Eglinton–Lawrence, but the volume of the private conversations collectively is at a level where it must be difficult for members to concentrate on their presentation, so I would ask members to please quiet them down.

I’d like to introduce the family of page Elliott from my riding of Oakville. In the members’ gallery, we have Audrey Wubbenhorst and Eloise Dixon. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Speaker, 40 days ago, on September 16, 2022, a young 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, was brutally murdered by the morality police of the terrorist and illegitimate Islamic regime in Iran. Since then, the brave people of Iran have been protesting—protesting 43 years of a brutal dictatorship.

This is the same dictatorship that almost three years ago shot down Ukraine flight PS752, killing over 50 Canadians, and I would like to thank Premier Ford for taking swift action back in January 2020 by siding with the people of Iran and announcing scholarships to honour every single Canadian murdered during that plane crash.

Hundreds if not thousands of Iranians have been arrested, murdered, tortured and killed by the brutal and terrorist illegitimate Islamic regime in Iran. For Iranians mourning someone’s passing, the 40th day is incredibly significant. And it’s not just Mahsa Jina Amini’s family that is mourning; all of the people of Iran are mourning. Iranians around the world are mourning, and the world is mourning with them. There are nation-wide strikes happening, and while pro-Islamic regime lobby groups like the Iranian Canadian Congress have tried to apologize for the regime, the world has opened its eyes.

The regime has shut down the Internet to prevent the voices of the people of Iran from being heard. But they are asking the world for one simple thing: to be their voice, to share their stories and to make them heard.

I have several hundred constituents in my riding who, just like me, are of Iranian origin. Today, I want to let the people of Iran know that they are not alone in their fight for freedom and democracy. Here in Canada, we are blessed to live in a free and democratic society. The people of Iran deserve the same.

I have the great honour of introducing my constituency office dream team: Monika MacAlpine, Jenny Yeung, Paul de Roos and, just starting today, my parliamentary and legislative executive assistant, Martin Kasprzak.

I’d like to wish one of the great pages a happy birthday: the nephew to our MPP Dowie, Marshall Dowie. Happy birthday, my friend.

I am once again delighted to welcome proud dad Dr. Collin Clarke, who is here today in support of his daughter, Pearl Clarke, one of our pages, along with proud uncle and aunt Adam and Melody Clarke and proud cousin Emma Clarke. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I am seeking unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), the independent members be permitted to share the five minutes allotted to a single member for the debate on ballot item number 4, standing in the name of the member for Brantford–Brant.

It is my pleasure to introduce some of my executive assistant’s family from Taiwan. Welcome to Mr. Joe Russo and his wife, Agata Chang. Welcome to Queen’s Park.