I just want to talk for a moment this morning; I’m looking forward to speaking a bit about our health care system, because we in Ontario cherish our public health care system. The right to health care for everyone regardless of income or where they live is part of our identity as Canadians. So it’s no surprise Ontarians are reacting to this government’s recent attack on public health care and seniors’ care with growing fear and anxiety.

I want to take the few moments that I have here this morning to speak to something very specific, which is this government’s decision to table a time allocation motion on their government bill, Bill 7, on long-term care. This is the bill that would deny seniors and their families the right to consent to where they want to be sent for long-term care. I wanted to raise that because the government has tabled a time allocation motion that would prevent committee hearings, prevent this bill from going to committee, which means that the people of this province who care about these issues, which are most Ontarians, will not have an opportunity to speak, to present and, frankly, to outline their concerns or arguments around this legislation.

I think it’s really unfortunate. I think that we need to do better here in this place. This government was elected with a majority. They can do whatever they want, pretty much, at this point. I encourage them, please, to provide an opportunity for people to speak to this bill, for experts to come and express their concerns, and maybe we can actually create some good legislation in this place.

I would like to welcome to Queen’s Park Michael Elliot. Mike started in my constituency office in Norwood, banged on probably more doors than I did, the only person in the 2018 campaign—he is now working for the Minister of Health in Saskatchewan. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Mike.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and to introduce Elya Keren-Sagiv, a legislative page from my riding of York Centre. Today is her last day as part of the program. Congratulations and all the best on your journey ahead.

I would like to recognize one of our long-time constituents, triOS College, on celebrating their 30th anniversary this summer.

Speaker, triOS began and are still headquartered in my riding of Mississauga–Streetsville. They began 30 years ago by offering network operating systems training to computer resellers and corporations.

In the 1990s, they expanded into career training of unemployed adults, acquired a five-city chain of career colleges, and became triOS College of Information Technology.

After the dot-com meltdown of 2001, they pivoted from IT to offering business, health care, law, and supply chain programs.

They’ve since expanded to eight campuses in Ontario, plus four more locations in the Maritimes as Eastern College.

In the past two years, they’ve launched an online college and partnered with Sault College and Mohawk College as their GTA training partner.

Speaker, triOS College employs over 700 staff and faculty, trains over 5,000 students daily and has graduated over 60,000 adults into meaningful jobs, including thousands—yes, thousands—of PSWs.

Speaker, triOS has been recognized as one of Canada’s best-managed companies for the past 12 years.

Please recognize their co-founder and CEO, Frank Gerencser, together with his team, John Cruickshank and Massimo Noce, who are in the members’ gallery today. Welcome.

I seek unanimous consent to move a motion to allow an emergency debate on the health care crisis this afternoon during orders of the day.

It’s a great pleasure to have three very special people with me in the members’ gallery today: my wife, Margot Byers; my mother, Mary Byers; and my lovely daughter-in-law, Teresa Silva-Byers. Thank you very much for being here, and welcome.

I’m now going to ask our pages to assemble so that we can thank them.

Our pages are smart, trustworthy and hard-working. They are indispensable to the effective functioning of the chamber. They have cheerfully and efficiently delivered notes, ran errands, transported important documents throughout the precinct, and have made sure that our water glasses are always full. We have been indeed fortunate to have them here during this special summer sitting of the Legislature.

They depart having made many new friends, with a greater understanding of parliamentary democracy and memories that will last a lifetime. Each of them will go home and carry on, resume school in the fall, continue their studies and will, no doubt, contribute to their communities, their province and their country in important ways in the coming years.

We expect great things from all of you. Maybe some of you will someday take your seats in this House as members or work here as staff. We wish you very, very well.

Please join me in thanking and expressing our appreciation to our legislative pages.

Applause.

I’d like to recognize several special guests of mine from the great riding of Windsor–Tecumseh. In the west members’ gallery are my lovely and amazing wife, Mary; my mother, Mary Jo; my exceptional campaign manager and executive assistant, Paul Synnott; and my tremendous, hard-working constituency assistant, Rachel Haddad, who excels in helping people, day in and day out, those in need. Thank you so much for being here, to all my special guests, for their first visit and certainly not the last visit.

I am pleased to have in the gallery my new legislative assistant, Tanner Zelenko; one of Ontario’s top educators, Beth Allison; and the one and only, my wife, Denise Flack. Welcome.

I’d like to introduce and welcome today to the House Jacqueline Pizzimenti, the daughter of a very good friend of mine who just completed her psychology degree and is on her way to Windsor to study and do her master’s in social work. I welcome her to the House—her first opportunity to see the place in action.

Today is the last day for our pages. Daunte Hillen is a page from Hamilton Mountain. I know he’s missing all of his baseball games, but he’s really happy to be here, supporting us.

Thank you, Daunte. Thank you to all the pages. We’ll miss you, again.

I would also like to give a big shout-out to Tanisha Hossain from Scarborough Southwest, who has been a wonderful page and has come back for a second time to help us out. I know her parents are very proud. Thank you, Tanisha, and thank you to all the pages who have been helping us. Thank you very, very much.

I’d like to introduce the Mazzucco family from my riding: Mark, Michael and Madina. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

It brings me great honour to introduce Neal and Debbie Roberts, the parents of Andrew Roberts. He’s very hard-working. He’s a bright star and a part of our team who works with the Premier, so welcome. You must be very proud of your son because all of us rely on him every day. Thank you.

I want to introduce guests from Vancouver: Mr. Phil Laird, the vice-president of Trinity Western University, and Mr. Michael Shao, the CEO of Tresor Solutions. They are going to open a new campus in my riding of Don Valley North. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to introduce Robert Morales. He is a constituent from Simcoe–Grey and he has recently joined my office as my legislative assistant.

I truly don’t think the opposition understand what we are trying to accomplish here. The Premier just highlighted the fact that there are some 6,000 people who are in ALC across this province. The impact that has on hospitals all over the province is of a magnitude that I don’t think the opposition understands.

What we are saying is that long-term care can be part of the solution. For the first time in decades, because of the investments that this government has made in new and upgraded long-term-care beds, in four hours of care, in 27,000 additional health care workers, we can be part of the solution. I appreciate that the opposition always want to tear down what is being built up, but we will not stop, Mr. Speaker, because we cannot. As the Premier has said, as the health minister has said, the status quo is just simply not an option any longer, and there is nobody who would suggest that somebody who is on the long-term-care wait-list should wait in a hospital as opposed to being in a long-term-care home.

Better math scores. We have more teachers in schools. Our students finally—finally—are doing better in STEM, Mr. Speaker. When you combine that with the investments that the Minister of Colleges and Universities has made, when you combine that with the great work of the Minister of Labour to bring the skilled trades back into the schools, we are building an education system that works for all Ontarians and we’re doing it faster and better than anybody could have ever imagined with higher investments than any other government in the history of this province.

Look at the record of this government. We took over from a Liberal-NDP coalition that almost bankrupted the province of Ontario. They didn’t build long-term-care homes, they didn’t invest in hospitals, they didn’t build schools. In fact, they closed schools. Together they laid off thousands of nurses.

What have we done? We have been working to create thousands of jobs in the province of Ontario, not by government jobs, but by bringing back policies that bring back companies to the province of Ontario—300,000 lost jobs under them; thousands of jobs because of the work of this government.

We brought back the auto industry. The Minister of Labour brought back the skilled trades to support all of the new building that is happening with the Minister of Transportation.

Subways: How long did people wait for subways? Under that crew, nothing got done. Under us, Ontario is moving forward. We will build and we won’t let them tear down the progress we made.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, we can’t keep doing the same old thing over and over again, pouring billions of dollars into the health system, and expect a different result. We need new solutions to old problems that the Liberals and NDP created. The opposition will always find reasons to say no. They will keep defending the status quo, saying no for the sake of saying no. We refuse to accept the status quo. The opposition want people who should be in long-term care in hospital beds. Hospital beds weren’t made for long-term-care patients. And what’s happening is it’s clogging up the emergency departments, delaying surgeries. These problems are decades in the making, created by years of refusal to act under the Liberals and NDP. The Liberals and NDP, who caused the problem, are now complaining about the solution. Their solution is to do absolutely nothing, to change nothing.

The opposition will always say no to building more hospitals, no to hiring more nurses, no to building more hospital beds. They will say no to shorter surgery wait times, no to making the system better. The Liberals and NDP built 611 long-term-care beds. We’re building 31,000 new long-term-care beds, investing $4.9 billion, hiring more than 27,000 long-term-care staff—

I have said it before and I will say it again: In the province of Ontario, we use our OHIP card to pay for health care in Ontario when people need those services.

Our five-point plan to remain open includes many investments in many different areas to preserve our hospital capacity, to provide the right care in the right place. It’s exactly what we need today in the province of Ontario. We’re making those investments. I only wish that the people across the aisle in the NDP caucus would understand that we need to make these innovations. We need to encourage them. We need to allow hospitals, health care providers, long-term care, primary care physicians to do what they do best, which is look after people with your OHIP card.