A couple of weeks ago, I was in Brampton to watch the Whitby lacrosse team win its eighth Minto Cup title as the best junior lacrosse team in Canada. They edged out the Edmonton Miners 6-5 in the old Brampton arena for a 2-1 win in the best-of-three Junior A lacrosse champion series final. It ends a long and successful season for the team, but it didn’t come easily. Parker Pipher scored the winning goal with just under 10 minutes to play in the third period. But the real drama came with just 30 seconds to go in the contest, when Edmonton missed on a penalty shot, sealing the title for the Whitby team.

The Minto Cup championship concludes an outstanding season for the Whitby team, who knocked off St. Catharines, Orangeville, and Toronto Beaches in league playoffs on the way to the Minto Cup. Overall, they only lost one game all season—one game.

Congratulations to the team members, coaches and management on becoming Canadian Junior A lacrosse champions for the eighth time.

As a parent or a caregiver, it is always a pleasure to see our children in action. I’d like to welcome Farah Rahim, proud mother of page Zara Hameed, with auntie Israni Coordy, as proud father Azeem Hameed is joining us online. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

Every question period in this Parliament, the official opposition has brought the story of struggling Ontarians: people who waited hours in the emergency room in pain, people who had to leave the hospital without getting the care they needed, people who have waited in agony for urgent surgery. All this because of staff shortages, being made worse every day by this government’s actions.

Why is this government willing to make the waiting worse by expanding private surgical clinics, siphoning more of our staff away from public hospitals?

Why is this government so determined to let this crisis go on and tell us that the only way out is to privatize more of our health care system?

Will the government stop selling more of our health care system to private investors and bring in a staffing strategy that will improve publicly delivered health care?

I have an important announcement. We will have deferred votes after question period, and following those votes, I want to ask all members to remain in their seats for an important emergency briefing from the Sergeant-at-Arms and a subsequent fire drill that will take place.

In my riding, I see first-hand how harmful Ontario’s labour shortage truly is for small businesses. Employers and businesses want to do more, but simply cannot because of the limited supply of workers. The skilled and semi-skilled labour shortage remains one of the main factors limiting business growth. Jobs are waiting to be filled and paycheques are waiting to be collected.

Speaker, my question is straightforward: Will the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development please explain to this Legislature what our government is doing to address Ontario’s historic labour shortage issue?

I am proud of the fact that our five-point plan that we announced last month with the Minister of Long-Term Care has already started to bear fruit. We’ve seen that with a willingness and, frankly, excitement from both the College of Nurses and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario where they are going to expedite. And they’ve brought forward additional ideas on how we can get those internationally educated health care workers here, working in Ontario. We’re doing that because we know we want to have the best health care system in the province of Ontario. We’re doing that by working with our hospital partners, our nursing partners, our paramedics.

You talk about individual situations. We’re actually coming up with ideas. We’re listening to the experts in the field, and we’re acting on those ideas.

It is 739,000 nursing visits. It is 157,000 nursing shift hours. It is 117,000 therapy visits, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology in community. It is 2,118,000 hours of personal support services in community and 236,000 other types of home care visits. It is precisely why we, as a government, have made that investment of $1 billion in community care programs in the province of Ontario.

It is, frankly, disappointing that the member opposite does not see the value of that and did not support it.

Mr. Speaker, we are determined to stand up for the voices of parents in this province who want their kids in class. This Premier and our government have been crystal clear on our intention: It is to ensure that these kids have a more normal, stable and enjoyable return to class, right to June, without disruption. I ask all members of this Legislature to join the government to oppose these types of impacts on kids.

While we agree, Speaker, that we could have a very spirited debate at the negotiating table, what we disagree with is the imposition of a strike on a child after two extraordinary and difficult years. We want them in school. We want them to learn. We want them to be nourished and supported by their educators and their friends.

Speaker, I hope all members of this House will stand with this government to keep kids in school right to June.

Our Premier and our party will continue to invest to ensure a safe, stable and enjoyable return to school for these kids in this province.

On top of all of this, the number one guiding priority of the government when it comes to these negotiations, in contrast with the opposition, is that we’re going to stand up for kids and keep them in school right to June.

My question is to the Premier. Good morning, Premier. You should know that I received an upsetting call regarding a 90-year-old woman in my riding. She’d been living independently at her home, receiving home care three times a week. She recently spent a short while in hospital. When she was discharged, the LHIN and the hospital signed off on her care plan, which was to include home care. When she returned back home, alone, she was informed that it would be at least three weeks just for her to be assessed and that there was no home care available for her. She felt abandoned and frightened, as we all would.

Why is this government punishing our seniors instead of fixing the health care crisis?

When will this government fix our public home care system and stop—please stop—turning your backs on seniors?

I want to thank the member for Markham–Unionville for this very important question.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, our government really understands Ontario is facing a historic labour shortage. In fact, today in the province there are nearly 400,000 jobs going unfilled. We need all hands on deck to build a stronger Ontario. That is why we’re connecting job seekers with the skills and training they need and promoting the lifelong careers that are available in the skilled trades. We’re also making it easier for out-of-province workers and immigrants to fill in-demand jobs, and we’re calling on skilled workers from right across Canada and abroad to come here to Ontario to collect these paycheques that are waiting to be collected.

Mr. Speaker, our government has an ambitious plan to build, and we’re going to get it done.

Good morning, Speaker. My question is to the Premier. After two long years of interruption and remote learning, parents sent their kids off to school this week. They’re looking for peace and stability and supports in the classroom so their kids can finally get back to some sort of normal. Yet, day after day, this Minister of Education is ratcheting up the rhetoric against the people who make our schools work.

Why does this government seem so determined to create conflict in our classrooms?

Parents and teachers remember the PC record of cuts and conflict: mandatory online learning, 10,000 planned layoffs, freezing wages with Bill 124, working with the Liberals to freeze wages with Bill 115.

Does the minister understand that attacking the very people who make our schools work is what puts the school year at risk?

They have clear ideas on how to improve our schools: smaller class sizes, mental health supports, fixing the decades of backlogged capital repairs. Will the minister start implementing these ideas to improve our schools and stop creating conflict in our classrooms?

My question is to the Premier.

Speaker, this government claims that Ontarians are accessing the health care they need when they need it. But a constituent of mine reached out after their partner waited eight hours in an ER after having a stroke—waiting alone, without family, with only the paramedics who brought them in; eight hours.

Is it acceptable to the Premier that anyone should have to suffer like this after having a stroke?

Without nurses available, paramedics had to stay with my constituent even over a shift change. Only by sheer luck, the second massive stroke happened after my constituent was in a bed, and it was caught just in time.

Wait times continue to grow, so the next patient might not be so lucky.

Will this government invest the 1.8-billion health care dollars they hoarded last year and respect health care workers by repealing Bill 124, or will they keep strangling our public system?

The supplementary question?

The member opposite highlights exactly why we have been investing and will continue to invest in our health care system.

To be clear, nine out of 10 high-urgency patients finish their emergency visits within target times, and surgeries are happening at 88% of their pre-pandemic rate.

We’ve already added 3,500 hospital beds. We’ve already added 10,900 new hospital HHR—nurses, PSWs, doctors. We’ll continue to do this work, because we understand that we want to make sure that we have a robust health care system in the province of Ontario—and, most importantly, where people want to be, whether that is needed hospital and acute care during an acute-care crisis, whether that is recovering in their own home, whether that is in a rehab bed in a facility or, indeed, a long-term-care bed. We are doing this work. We are making these investments because we understand it is needed in the province of Ontario to deal with our aging population.

I’ve often spoken about 49 pilot projects that are currently happening in communities across Ontario—911-models-of-care pilot projects, which have borne amazing proof. Indeed, in London-Middlesex we have a success rate of 84% and a satisfaction rate of over 80% where individuals who are able to be cared for by their community paramedics in their community appreciated and understood that this was the most important and the most valuable role they could play.

We’re going to continue to do that work. We’re going to expand those models of care that are working in our community to make sure that every community has an opportunity to fully utilize their paramedics, because, frankly, sir, they have been making a huge difference in our communities.

Thank you again to the member for that very important question.

As a government, we are determined to continue to open doors for young people and help them get the training and financial supports that they need. It’s our mission to give more people a hand up to better jobs and bigger paycheques. That’s why our government is investing billions in innovative training programs that connect workers to these bigger paycheques. Working together with our labour unions, government and business, we’re making Ontario a place where hard work pays off and big dreams come to life.

Thank you, Minister, for that reassuring response.

Speaker, about one in five new jobs in Ontario over the next five years will be related to skilled trades. To tackle the labour shortage, we must address the skills gap and continue promoting the skilled trades. The skilled trades can provide young people access to these incredible, meaningful careers that will keep many of our local industries thriving.

Once again to the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development: What is our government doing to promote the skilled trades in Ontario?

Through you, Mr. Speaker, the Toronto Region Board of Trade estimates that the gridlock adds $400 million to the cost of goods in the region every year. This morning, for example, it took me one hour and 20 minutes to drive 40 kilometres to come to Queen’s Park. This gridlock is resulting in lost productivity and adds strain on physical and mental health. Commuters are losing over three million hours a year sitting in traffic, time that Ontarians should be engaged in what they love to do, working hard to grow and spending quality time with loved ones.

Mr. Speaker, we see first-hand how decades of inaction and underinvestment in transportation infrastructure have hurt Ontarians. In my community, I hear from constituents repeatedly how fed up they are sitting in gridlock.

To the Minister of Transportation: Can you please tell us what this government is doing to tackle the gridlock crisis plaguing Ontario?

Speaker, when the Liberals were in power, they talked a lot about building infrastructure, but at the end of the day, that’s all it was—talk. The fact is, especially when it comes to transportation, Ontario has an infrastructure deficit that the Liberals caused. With the greater Golden Horseshoe attracting two million people every 10 years, we are going to reach 15 million by 2051—more than the people we have in Ontario today. Unless we do something now, the problem we face today will only get worse. When it comes to fighting gridlock, we have heard no solutions from the opposition, except to pretend that all growth can be solved by transit, but we know that we need all hands on deck to address this issue.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Transportation, can she share with the members of this House and my residents the government’s plan to keep Ontarians moving?

Thank you to the member from Mississauga–Malton for the great question. We cannot afford to delay much-needed infrastructure investments. More delays equal more gridlock.

Our Premier is leading an ambitious plan to deliver the right balance of public transit and road infrastructure projects to keep pace with the demands of today and the future. Over the next 10 years, we’re investing more than $25.1 billion to support the planning and construction of highway expansion and rehabilitation projects across the province. As part of these efforts, we’re getting on with the building of new highways, like Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, and we’re finishing long overdue projects like the expansion of Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph and the Highway 3 widening between Windsor and Leamington.

Speaker, it’s not enough just to talk about building a better future. Under our PC government, we are getting it done.

Our government is building both. For every dollar that we are spending on highways, our government is spending three more to build transit. Over the next 10 years, we’re investing more than $61 billion to expand and build new transit alone. This includes the largest plan for subways built in Canadian history and delivering on our government’s mandate on two-way, all-day 15-minute service across core segments of the GO network. Expanding our highway and transit networks together will allow us to pave the way for a future that offers more transportation options and less gridlock for commuters, all while creating thousands of good-paying jobs in communities right here at home.

Speaker, the wheels are in motion. The government is getting it done.

Thanks to the member opposite for the question this morning. What our government is committed to is ensuring that the people of Ontario and the businesses in Ontario have a reliable supply of electricity, that we have an affordable supply of electricity—something that never happened under the previous government’s watch, as a matter of fact, as hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs left our province. They left our country for other jurisdictions because of the Liberal energy policy.

What we have done through the success of our Premier’s strategy and our Minister of Economic Development bringing companies back, repatriating companies to Ontario by electrifying our vehicle fleet, by electrifying our green steel-making process—we need electricity. We have a competitive procurement in place to acquire that electricity—790 megawatts, as a matter of fact, and the most recent procurement at a 30% savings from what was contracted by the previous government.

I know that’s a new member over there and he probably doesn’t remember the policies of the previous Liberal government that forced energy projects on communities without any type of consultation. They didn’t care about a willing host community over there, Mr. Speaker, which is why in 2018 the people of Ontario reduced that party to seven seats. And you know what? The people of Ontario didn’t forget in 2022, because now they’ve got eight seats, largely because of the energy policy.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and our government have committed to working with the municipalities and the Independent Electricity System Operator to make sure there is consultation with municipalities for new energy projects so that we don’t have the mess, the divisiveness and the unaffordable crisis that we saw in Ontario created by the previous Liberal government.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member opposite. I have spent decades as a physician assisting people on ODSP, assisting people to get the services that they need, so I probably have a better understanding than most of what people are going through.

I am very proud of our government’s efforts to make sure that our vulnerable are served. That’s including the historic investment in ODSP that has never been done before in the history of this program, making sure it’s aligned with inflation, working across governments to make sure that we have programs that are available to people when they need it. That’s including working with the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development to get people back into the workforce when they’re able, and looking to support people when they’re not through the many programs we offer that I listed yesterday, as the member would know and would be aware of.

We are working on the transformation with our municipal partners, to put more services into the front, where people can benefit from that when they need expertise in their local communities. This is on top of the historic investment that we’re making in ODSP, and this is an all-of-government approach. This is requiring the labour pool to be addressed, getting people back in the workforce as quickly as possible, understanding the mechanisms that we have to allow people to live in dignity and with respect, purposeful and with meaning.

This is something where we’re working with the Minister of Finance, the Treasury Board and the Ministers of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, Education and Health. This is across the board. It’s something that the previous government never did, that was—