That concludes our members’ statements for this morning.

I feel the obligation to remind the members that the members’ statements are 90 seconds in length, not two minutes, and remind them as much as possible to adhere to the time that the standing orders provide. I’m reluctant to interrupt members who are concluding a good statement, but we have to keep in mind the standing orders.

Applause.

I rise once again to share some great news from the amazing riding of Hastings–Lennox and Addington. I want to highlight a wonderful event. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join with four different branches of the international Lions Club to welcome a group of European Lions members as they ran over 1,000 kilometres across two countries, from Chicago to Montreal, in support of advocacy, awareness and fundraising for the people of Ukraine. Their motto, modified from the international Lions Club’s, is “We Run, We Serve” and, in 2022, “We Serve the Ukraine.”

I want to express my gratitude to the Bath and District Lions Club, the Madoc Lions Club, the Amherstview Lions Club and the Odessa Lions Club for their invitation to join this event and for their support of this amazing effort. Of course, I want to thank the runners themselves for their dedication to service.

The Lions Clubs across this country and around the world provide a fantastic opportunity for local people to come out and serve their communities.

I’m happy to introduce my friends from Germany: Zhou Jing and her husband, Bernd Wohlfart, and her daughter Melanie Rose Wohlfart. Welcome to Queen’s Park, and enjoy your trip in Canada.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome my compatriot and good friend His Excellency Vít Koziak, ambassador of the Slovak Republic, who is here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Slovakian constitution.

I would like to invite all members to join us for the flag-raising today at noon.

I’d like to welcome Derek Fox from Bearskin Lake First Nation and Melinda Meekis from Deer Lake First Nation. Derek Fox is Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation—and also, his assistant. Meegwetch for coming. Thank you.

I want to welcome Josh Young to Queen’s Park today. Josh has been an intern in our office at the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. He is attending law school in Dundee, Scotland, this month. I wish him all the best and thank him for serving working people in this province.

This question is for the Premier. Students are going back to school next week, to what we all hope is going to be a more normal school year. Experts have been clear that addressing the impacts on their learning and their well-being is going to require serious interventions. But instead of a serious plan backed up with real investment, this government is shifting millions away from schools and into direct, one-time payments, forcing parents to buy their own supports.

Since there have been no further details of this new voucher-style program, will the Premier commit instead to investing that $225 million into our schools where it can do the most good?

We can do even better, Speaker. We can increase it by $689 million for this September, for publicly funded schools, to ensure kids get back on track with a learning recovery plan that actually gets them on track.

But in addition to increasing investments in publicly funded schools—yes, we do believe, as Conservatives, that we need to help parents through this economic difficulty. That should be the default position of every single one of us. For whatever reason, the NDP and the Liberals have continued to oppose $1.6 billion in direct financial relief. We did it with a $200 payment. We doubled it to $400. And now we’re providing an additional $225 million to parents directly to help them with this economic challenge.

All of us agree that there’s economic instability, and we want to help families through it. In addition to supporting parents, we have a plan, Speaker, to help these kids catch up. It starts with them being in school this September. Normal and stable and more enjoyable: That is our vision. It is our priority, and we will do whatever it takes to ensure your kids stay in school right to June.

That is our commitment: to keep them in school, to help them learn and recover from this pandemic, and focus on the life and the job skills that are going to set them up for success when it comes to getting those jobs of the future. We have a vision for these kids to be ambitious and bold, and it starts with stability in schools, with a full learning experience—the life and the job skills that come with that as well, through clubs, sports, extracurriculars—the leadership we want in the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders.

We have a plan. We have invested over $175 million in tutoring expansion. When it comes to mental health, as the member opposite noted, we have increased investments from when the former Liberals were in power by 420%, underscoring our commitment to the health and safety of all children in this province.

The only part that I will agree with the member opposite: It is concerning when an emergency room closes temporarily, whether that is for an hour, a shift or, in fact, over a weekend, which is why Ontario Health works so closely with our hospitals to make sure that individuals who could perhaps do a locum are matched with a hospital that is facing a short-term closure. We’re doing that work. We have done a lot of work with Ontario Health to make sure that those matches are done, and frankly we avoid many closures as a result of that work. That work will continue.

But I also want to remind the member opposite: You talk about the shortage of health care workers. It was actually under the NDP government, when Bob Rae was Premier, that you cut residency spaces for doctors in the province of Ontario. So I will take no lessons from the member opposite or the NDP on how to better provide health care services in the province of Ontario.

I’d also like to introduce two more sets of groups, so just really quickly. I’d like to recognize Jagjit Dhillon, a police officer from the Toronto police 23 Division; I would like to welcome Mejor Natt, a local community businessman who always gives back to the community; Amarjit Rai, a local, well-known news media personality in the Punjabi community; and I’d also like to introduce my father, Jagdish Singh Grewal.

On Monday, I gave a member’s statement that recognized the community of the Bayridge Block Party. I shared in my member’s statement last Monday that they, just on their street, fundraised over $10,000 for SickKids Hospital. All the young boys and girls are here with us today in the public gallery, just above me, so please join me in welcoming them all to Queen’s Park today.

Supplementary question.

I wanted to introduce this morning page Liliana Commisso, who comes from Vaughan–Woodbridge and is attending St. Gregory the Great Catholic Academy. Welcome to Queen’s Park, and I hope you enjoy your time here with us.

That’s the exact reason we have to move the patients into long-term care: because of the staffing crisis, because of the backlogged surgeries, because of the long waits in the emergency departments. That’s the exact reason.

Mr. Speaker, there isn’t a CEO of any hospital that has disagreed. As a matter of fact, I got a message from a CEO this morning: “Thank you so much for making this move.” They’re sending me messages non-stop.

This is about taking care of the public, taking care of seniors; making sure that we reduce the wait times when they go into the emergency room; making sure we get rid of the backlog when it comes to surgeries. That’s the reason we’re doing it, Mr. Speaker.

We’re going to continue building on the success that we’ve seen by putting additions and building brand new hospitals in over 50 areas. There’s going to be 50 new hospitals, or with additions on top of that, spending over $40 billion.

There’s no government in the history—not of just Ontario, of Canada—that has put more money into the health care system than this government has.

I hope the member opposite, when she has an opportunity to vote for a billion-dollar investment in community care, will think carefully about what that actually means in our communities. It means 739,000 additional nursing visits. It means 157,000 nursing shift additional hours. It means 117,000 therapy visits, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology. It means 2,118,000 hours of personal support workers—two million, Speaker. It means 236,000 other types of home care visits.

I absolutely agree that we can do better to make sure that people are safe in their homes, but the member opposite needs to think carefully about that when we vote on today’s budget.

Speaker, the Bradford community’s economic potential is incumbent upon the success of this road project’s expansion. This road project will not only benefit residents and travellers, it’s pretty much the key to their downtown success—and that is so crucial. The people of Bradford deserve to have certainty when it comes to delivering on this project.

We have seen the Liberal track record regarding road expansion like the Bradford Bypass: broken dreams and delayed potential.

Speaker, to the Minister of Transportation, can she tell us how this project will help spur economic growth in York–Simcoe and beyond?

But what did the Liberal government do over the years? They delayed and cancelled. In 1986, the then David Peterson Liberal government cancelled the proposed project. It was brought back once more only to be cancelled by the then Dalton McGuinty-Kathleen Wynne Liberal government.

Our community desperately needs this road expansion project to be completed. Speaker, to the Minister of Transportation: Can she please elaborate on the public support we have seen for getting this project done?

Ma question est pour le premier ministre. The government is attacking seniors’ fundamental right to consent, forcing them into long-term-care facilities far away from their circle of care, from their families, but they continue to ignore the failures of our home care system. Most alternate-level-of-care patients in our hospitals are not waiting for a long-term-care bed; they are waiting for home care. But the wait-lists have tripled under this Ford government.

Why has the government not made any improvements to our home care system that would allow frail, elderly people to stay in their homes safely and respectfully?

Speaker, 90% of elderly people want to age at home, not in a long-term-care home. This government could bring tens of thousands of home care workers back to the job they love by mandating home care providers to offer 70% permanent, full-time jobs—well-paid, with benefits, sick days and a pension plan. But this government is standing by while private, for-profit home care agencies fail more and more frail, elderly people each and every day. Why is that?

The final supplementary?

Minister of Education.

Thank you to the member from Newmarket–Aurora for the great question.

Speaker, I have spoken at length in this House about the urgent need to get this project done, to fill the infrastructure gap that is crippling drivers. But building the Bradford Bypass is so much more than just about relief from gridlock. This new link will provide Ontario with the economic boost that it needs.

We have the heart of agricultural production right here in our backyard. The Holland Marsh grows over 56% of the province’s share of root vegetables and is the second largest grower of carrots in North America. But if our transport trucks are trapped in gridlock, this prevents those goods from getting to market quickly, and it stops us from realizing Ontario’s economic potential.

Speaker, our government is the only government building towards a brighter future for our province and we will get the Bradford Bypass done.

But even as these calls have intensified over the years, successive Liberal governments just refused to listen. Our PC government, under the leadership of our Premier, is finally answering the call and delivering the Bradford Bypass.

Speaker, I am so pleased about the resounding support this project has received, including from York region’s chairman and CEO Wayne Emmerson, who has said, “Projects, like the Bradford Bypass, will make life easier for people by alleviating gridlock that already exists on our roads and highways.” And Bradford West Gwillimbury’s mayor, Rob Keffer, has applauded our government’s plan for this much-needed piece of infrastructure.

Speaker, make no mistake: Building the Bradford Bypass is a priority for our government and we are delivering.

I’d like to know where these phantom staff are. Where are these mystery public health nurses who are supposed to be in our schools? You show me one of those. They sure as hell aren’t in our schools.

Speaker, this minister oversaw the longest school closures of any province or territory in this country—in North America. It’s a terrible track record. Instead of correcting that with the investments in our students, this government has shortchanged them at every opportunity.

The Premier can ensure a strong start to the new school year by investing and hiring more staff, bringing in more mental health supports and funding smaller classrooms. Will he do it?