I’m happy this morning; I have a team of friends from Richmond Hill and Mississauga. Please join me to welcome presidents and directors from the Dawoodi Bohras of Canada, including the president of the Toronto chapter, Zoeb Galiakotwala; the president of the Mississauga chapter, Behlah Ayman; Mansur Kanchwala; Qusai Kanchwala; Habib Tawawala; Murtaza Abid; Nafeesa Kapacee; and Anwar Bawangaonwala. Welcome to all of them. I am happy they are bringing greetings from His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin. Welcome to the chamber.

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 Ajax for that question. We need to increase the number of doctors and health care workers across the province, and that includes rural and remote communities and communities like hers in the GTA. That is why our government has taken historic action by building new medical schools in Ontario.

The new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton: This is the first new medical school in the GTA since University of Toronto opened in 1843. We’re also creating the University of Toronto academy of medicine and integrated health in Scarborough and expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge Health campus in Oshawa.

But we recognize that more action needs to be done across the province. That is why we also created the first stand-alone medical school in the north through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. We’ve also invested in post-secondary health care programs like Learn and Stay, and we continue to work with the Ministry of Long-Term Care to increase the number of PSWs and nurses in Ontario.

We are working to fill the gaps across the health care system and across the province after 15 years of Liberal mismanagement. By making these investments in post-secondary education today, our expansions will help to serve a growing and aging population in the years and decades to come.

Our government is making record investments in innovative approaches across the health care system—investments that the NDP and Liberals did not make. That’s why earlier this year we announced that we are making historic expansions increasing the number of seats for doctors and health care students. Over the next five years, we are adding 160 undergraduate and 295 post-graduate seats to six medical schools: medical and education expansions at Western, McMaster, the University of Ottawa and others. This will ensure that Ontarians will always be able to have the health care resources they need here when they need them.

Our government is creating concrete ways in which we can increase the number of health care professionals in our province, but as we know, the NDP and Liberals always say no. Speaker, I am proud to say our government is keeping Ontarians safe with a high-quality health care system, supported by high-quality post-secondary education.

Ontario’s young families are being frozen out of the housing market due to a lack of housing supply. Ontario’s population is continuously growing, and our current rate of housing construction isn’t keeping up. Young people are already struggling with inflation and the rising cost of living in Ontario. Over the next 10 years, we expect over one third of the new growth will happen in Toronto and Ottawa.

Housing experts have already warned us that Ontario is falling behind in housing infrastructure investment because of the years of red tape and delays caused by the previous Liberal government. Speaker, can the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing tell us what our government can do to empower our large cities, such as Ottawa and Toronto, to increase the housing supply?

The people of my riding want more housing choices, whether it be rental units, semi-detached houses near their workplace or fully detached houses where young Ontarians can grow and raise their families. Speaker, can the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing elaborate on what other steps our government is taking to ensure that the dream of home ownership is attainable for the people of my riding and all Ontarians?