It is, of course, very disturbing when medical doctors, for workload or for retirement, have to make that difficult decision and share with their patients that they are decreasing or retiring in the practice.

However, as a government, we have been investing. We have an additional 400 doctors practising in the province of Ontario now that we did not have. We have worked with the College of Physicians and Surgeons to say, “If there are internationally trained doctors who want to practise in the province of Ontario, let’s expedite those licences.” We’re doing the work here to make sure that individuals have access to the appropriate care where they need it.

I hope the member opposite would have ensured that their constituent is aware of Health Care Connect, to make sure that the matching between patients and doctors has already occurred. But there are opportunities through community health clinics, through family health clinics, that they make sure that those assets and resources are in their constituents’ hands.

Again, I want to thank the member for a great question. He’s absolutely right: Demand is going to continue to grow as we continue to see these tremendous, unprecedented investments made in our province.

That’s why we have the SMR project, enough to power 300,000 homes with one small modular reactor. It’s why we’ve gone through this competitive procurement process for new electricity generation.

The member is absolutely right: Under the Liberal government, the price of electricity went up and up and up. But under these competitive procurements that we’ve been able to secure electricity for the future, we’ve seen the price go down, down, down, saving ratepayers in our province 30% under these new contracts.

We also have 55 companies from around the world that have submitted to provide energy to our province, many in the battery storage area.

We’re working with the Independent Electricity System Operator to ensure we have the power that we need, when we need it. Like the previous Liberal government did—they helped out their friends; we’re providing on the experts to give us the advice we need to—

Thank you to the member for the question. We are taking it very seriously. This government wants to ensure that everyone in this province has access to a family physician, whether you are living in northern Ontario, rural Ontario or underserved areas within the GTA. That’s why we are taking measures to ensure that we are training more and more doctors by opening the new Brampton medical school, the Scarborough integrated medical school, as well as expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge Health centre. These are all measures we are taking to ensure we have more doctors for the future.

We’re also expanding the medical seats in this province. This is the first time this has been done in over a decade. There will be 160 undergraduate seats and 295 postgraduate seats.

This government takes this very seriously. We want to ensure every Ontarian has access to doctors and proper health care resources across this province. We will continue to work together with this and ensure that everyone has access to these resources.

My visitors, I think, are just coming in; I will still introduce them. I’m very pleased to welcome some wonderful volunteers from my riding of Scarborough Southwest. Please welcome Paul Gingrich, Alison Hayford, Noshin Talukdar, Safiya Tasdeem, Lydia McPherson, Rina Alam, Dayan Moshe and Zoya Moshe to the House today. Thank you so much, and welcome to the House.

Thank you to the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for the question. Our government’s progress to support those who depend on social assistance has been consistent throughout our time in office. We raised ODSP and OW rates in our first year in government, and we’ve introduced programs like the LIFT and CARE tax credits that put money back in the pockets of 1.7 million people, including people on social assistance.

Today, our government is supporting those who need it most by making the largest increase to ODSP rates in decades. On top of that, we’re going to index ODSP rates to inflation so that vulnerable people get more support to pay for life’s essentials, especially during times of high inflation. This investment means more money in the pockets of people who need it most to spend on the essentials of life.

The opposition parties said no when they had the chance to help vulnerable people in our society. Our government is saying yes. Our government is getting it done. These investments back up our transformation of social assistance to build a more—

Interjections.

I move that, pursuant to standing order 50 and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to Bill 2, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes and Bill 7, An Act to amend the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021, with respect to patients requiring an alternate level of care and other matters and to make a consequential amendment to the Health Care Consent Act, 1996, when Bill 2 and Bill 7 are next called as government orders, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bills, without further debate or amendment, and at such time the bills shall be ordered for third reading, which orders may be called at the same time; and

That, when the orders for third reading of the bills are called, two hours of debate shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bills, with 50 minutes apportioned to the members of Her Majesty’s government, 50 minutes to the members of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, and 20 minutes to the independent members as a group. At the end of this time, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of each bill, without further debate or amendment.

In my riding alone, Speaker, we were able to build 256 new beds at what’s going to be the Lang Yi home and community care model in Innisfil. We also have 64 new and 66 upgraded beds at IOOF Seniors Homes in Barrie, and there are more in Simcoe county. This is us getting it done for the residents not only in my riding of Barrie–Innisfil but across this province.

While we say yes to building long-term-care beds, we keep hearing no from the opposition—supported by the NDP.

While we say yes to building up our great health care system so that people don’t have to wait in long lines and are getting those needs that they want—the opposition, supported by the Liberals, say no.

While we say yes to expanding nurses being able to practise and learn at colleges, like Georgian College in my riding—we say yes to these types of programs all across the province of Ontario, but the opposition, supported by the Liberals, say no.

And we don’t just stop there.

We continue to say yes to building core infrastructure for health care, like building new hospitals. We hadn’t seen new hospitals built in this province for decades. Finally, this government is saying yes and getting those hospitals done. Unfortunately, the opposition continue to say no, supported again by the Liberals.

Speaker, this motion is very much about saying yes to delivering results for the people of Ontario, who put their trust and confidence in the strong, stable majority government that we have on this side. I don’t know how much confidence they have in the opposition these days. But, definitely, we have a strong mandate to be able to get things done. They sent a clear message: They can’t wait for delays. They have loved ones who need the care now. By not supporting this motion, what kind of message are we sending to residents?

I spoke with Doris Fulkenstein in my riding. We spent so much time speaking about long-term care. She’s in a long-term-care facility now. She went from living very well in a retirement home, when she was taking care of her husband, who was in a long-term-care facility—now she has succumbed to dementia, and she’s living in the same home with her husband. I remember, before Doris was even a resident of long-term care, what she said. She said how broken the system was. She tried—governments after governments—to get things done. She made a lot of great suggestions, many of which we’re doing, like quality of care—four hours of hands-on care, a national-leading standard across this country here in Ontario, a made-in-Ontario solution to help seniors get better care. This was something she spoke much about. She was also, in her working days, a care provider, a nurse, so she saw first-hand the fixes that needed to be done. When she was taking care of her husband, Ollie, who was in a long-term-care facility—and he’s still there; they’re at Victoria Village—she spoke about just knowing the resident. You can’t know your resident unless you’re spending that time with them. She said if you are able to increase the level of care with that individual, the people working in the home will get to know that person; they’ll know their eating habits; they’ll know their dressing habits. That’s building a relationship. Again, the opposition talk about trust. That’s going to build trust with that particular resident in the home so that that personal support worker or that nurse will know the needs of that resident. They’ll know when they are able to take their meds. They’ll know what kind of food they’re able to eat—like we experienced with Doris’s husband, Ollie. He was very particular. Unless a nurse or a PSW spent a lot of time with him—they were not always going to get their way. He was going to be very stubborn with them. So it was really getting to know that individual.

That’s what we’re doing—we’re doing so much good. No matter how much good, no matter how much progress we make along the way, we keep getting resistance. I don’t know why they’re so resistant to progress in this province.

I’m a, I’d say, very young elected MPP. Some of these acts we’re amending came well before I was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Technology and everything has advanced. We’ve moved on. We’ve progressed as a society. But there are still these archaic, dinosaur-legacy models that need to be updated—and this is exactly what we’re doing, so folks like Doris and Ollie can tell their kids that things are getting better. Then, when they get the services and the help they need in their care facility, they can expect a better level of care.

When I talked to Doris’s son, he said she didn’t want to be in a hospital.

When we talk about this bill, we talk about alternate-level-of-care beds. I heard it time and time again from our local hospital in Barrie, Royal Victoria hospital—every time we’d have a meeting with them, they would say, “Here’s how many alternate-level-of-care patients we have.” They’d say, “Andrea and Doug Downey”—my counterpart in the area—“we just can’t support these patients. They no longer need to be there. We need to clear out beds for other patients who need to be there.” So they came with an idea. They said, “Can the government help us with this concept where we’re going to take some alternate-level-of-care patients and we’re going to bring them to IOOF Seniors Homes”—which is actually a not-for-profit seniors’ home, if we’re going to get into specifics; I know the opposition love to get into specifics. The pilot worked. We were able to off-load about 100 patients from Royal Victoria hospital and bring them to IOOF, where they’re getting the care they need—because, frankly, they did not want to stay in the hospital, just like Doris told me she didn’t want to stay in the hospital. In her case, she was already at the long-term-care facility. They transferred her to the hospital, the last place she wanted to be, and she had to fight to get back into the home. That’s where she wanted to be. When we talk about consent and people’s free will—well, her free will was going against it, because she wanted to go back and no one would let her back in. These are people who, in her situation, had a long career of taking care of other people, so she had expected, when she got to that age, that other people would take care of her. She was let down, and that’s unacceptable. When I stand up in this House and I support bills like we’re doing with long-term care and I support moving along and not dilly-dallying on these matters and getting them done quickly, it’s for people like her, because she deserves it. She worked hard. She played by the rules. She did everything she could to make patient care better when she was in the health care system as a worker—and she deserves the same level of care.

Time and again, governments did not invest in health care. Thankfully, in my shoes—I wish we got elected earlier, because four years went by very quickly. We did as much as we could, but we ran out of runway. Luckily, we got a strong mandate to do even more. The health care system was broken, and we saw it. Speaking with individuals like her—it’s day and night. Time and time again, not the right investments were made, not enough investments were made.

So here we are as a government, and we’re investing in training nurses, training personal support workers, utilizing new Canadians who are coming to Canada so that, instead of being underemployed, they’re well employed. They’re getting a good, high-quality job that comes with benefits so that they can help support their families. And we’re allowing colleges to train more of these professionals. We’re improving the system. We’re giving more people access to the system.

We have a publicly funded health care system. That means there should be access to it, but time and time again, there wasn’t, because we didn’t have the right infrastructure. We didn’t have the right investments. We were short on ICU beds. So when someone goes to the hospital, they say, “Great. I have publicly funded health care. I’m giving them my OHIP card.” And then, all of a sudden, they’re told, “Sorry. There’s no bed available.” How is that possible? Well, again, it was year after year of underfunding the system, not putting in the right investments, and not utilizing our beds in the hospital as they should be utilized.

In this bill, you see it—ALC beds: This change is a game-changer. It doesn’t mean that, overnight, we’re going to get rid of our ALC beds in a hospital. Yes, they may still exist, but not at the level they do now. It’s freeing up beds for a lot of patients who need them now. It may free up 2,500 beds because of this policy, which is huge for these hospitals.

We talk about wait times. Guess why there are long wait times? Those people are in the waiting room because they don’t have a bed to be in to get the care they need. And do you know who suffers? The residents of Ontario, because they end up in a hallway.

I’ve seen this. I was raised by my grandparents. They obviously have aged much faster than my parents. My grandpa had a stroke. He was in a hallway bed. He has a history of heart issues. He was not able to get into a room, in a bed, to be plugged into a heart monitor. When he went in with flu-like symptoms, which could possibly be a stroke, they weren’t sure, so he was just waiting to be seen by someone. In that time of waiting to be seen, he had a stroke in the hospital, and no one knew because he wasn’t hooked up to the equipment that they needed, because there was no bed available.

I don’t want to see this story repeated for other Ontarians, because it’s heartbreaking. That means that individual has to go through learning how to walk again, learning how to speak again. They now need extra supports. They come home and can’t use their house because there are stairs and they can’t walk up the stairs. They can’t shower, because most homes are built with showers on the second floor. So it would be much easier for the residents of all of Ontario to know that that family member is getting the care they need in a long-term-care home while they’re waiting to basically change their whole life and their home so that family member can be there.

These are the changes that we need to move forward. We can’t wait—because we have a lot of experience of getting elected and why we got elected, and we have our own families, and that gives us our experience. Every day, Ontarians are going through the system, and they want a public health system that is available for them. We hear it on our side of the House—that the status quo is not enough. Anyone who has gone through an emergency room situation lately or been a caretaker for their family members—status quo is not acceptable. We need to do better, and Ontarians expect us to do better.

The cost of living is going up. There are a lot of expectations for that one dollar. So every time this government invests a dollar—whether it’s home care, whether it’s a PSW, whether it’s a nurse, we have to stretch those dollars and ask people to do a little bit more. We’re trying to do that on this side of the House, because we can’t mortgage the next generation’s future either.

It’s a balancing act, Speaker. We’re doing it quite well, and Ontarians are quite happy. I would say that the resounding majority government that we were mandated to govern with is a strong testament to the work that we’ve done.

We hit the ground running from day one when it came to improving the health care system. One of the first bills we introduced was fixing our health care system, because we knew, whether it’s home care, whether it’s our PSWs, whether it’s our hospitals—that whole infrastructure, we need to fix. And here we are, debating a fix to long-term care, and we want to move it forward.

So I really do hope that we can make progress and we can tell those individuals about how many more beds they can expect and the better care they can get, so I can go to Georgian Manor and say, “Yes, those 19 new beds you’re getting are going to be built,” and I can go to the Villa Care Centre—they’re going to be getting five new and 109 upgraded beds. Again, this is in Simcoe county.

In addition to that, we can talk to the residents and to the family members in Simcoe county and say, “There is hope, because there are going to be 68 new and 60 upgraded beds at Sara Vista.”

In addition to that, Victoria Village Manor—the same Victoria Village Manor I was telling you about earlier in my speech, Speaker, where Ollie and Doris Fulkenstein currently reside—is getting 128 new beds. This is a great facility. They take care of their residents. They give them activities. They really try to provide the best care they can—and I think all homes strive to do that, but as we know, we need to train more nurses and PSWs to help those long-term-care facilities achieve many of their goals.

But it’s not just those places; it’s places like Grove Park, which is also getting two new and 62 upgraded beds. Schlegel Villages in Barrie is getting 80 new and 112 upgraded beds. Simcoe Manor and Simcoe Village in Beeton are getting 34 new beds, and we know that Beeton needs them, given what has happened over the last few months. Collingwood Nursing Home—I know my colleague in that area is delighted to see this—is getting 36 new and 600 upgraded beds. Oak Terrace is doing a redevelopment, and they’re getting 34 new and 94 upgraded beds. And there are more in Simcoe county. It’s a growing community, and we need to keep up with the demand.

Not only are we building these long-term-care beds in the area of Simcoe county, but Innisfil is getting a new hospital. Again, we haven’t built new hospitals in this province in decades. People aren’t getting any younger, and we’re getting new generations of families who are moving up to these areas that are underserved, who need those services. We’re getting it done—so I really hope that we can finally get moving on this stuff.

It’s the summer, and a lot of families worked hard so they can enjoy their summer months. They’re going to get back in the fall, with the kids in school, and they’re going to say, “What has the government been doing?”—and when I say that, it’s everyone in this Legislature. What have we been doing to better the lives of these individuals? I can proudly go to my riding and say, “Well, we spent the summer continuously improving our health care scenario and improving the budget of the province to help put more money in the pockets of hard-working Ontarians so they can get the support they need for their kids, so they can get the support they need to and from work or to their kids’ activities.”

We’re bringing down the cost of gas. We helped stabilize electricity rates. We’re helping with the LIFT tax credit for those who need a little more of a hand up. We’re increasing ODSP rates; we’re bringing it to the cost of inflation. We’re getting daycare delivered for residents so they can go to work, whether they work in a long-term-care home or a hospital, so they can have the daycare spaces that are affordable, when and where they need them the most. And we’re building on that by focusing on our economy, so that we can put the economy on a good footing, so we can continue making these health care investments. We’re continuing to make investments in our long-term care—by improving what Ontario can not just export, but our entire economic sector, whether it’s manufacturing, whether we’re exporting or building new cars here, both good for good, high-paying jobs, but also great for our environment and, again, building those skilled-trades jobs that we’re also working on, so we can build these hospitals, because someone is going to have to build them.

All these things are being done, and I’m proud that I can go to my riding and say, “These are the things we’re getting done.” We hit the ground running when they gave us a strong majority mandate.

I do hope that the opposition joins us and passes this motion.

The bill enacts the Northern Health Travel Grant Advisory Committee Act, 2022. The act requires the Ministry of Health to establish an advisory committee. The committee’s mandate is to make recommendations for improving the facilitation of reasonable access to health care services for people in northern Ontario by means of reasonable, realistic and efficient reimbursement for travel costs. The committee is required to consult with all relevant stakeholders, including, at minimum, the stakeholders specified in this bill. The committee is required to report its recommendations to the minister. The minister is required to inform the assembly of the recommendations that the minister will implement.

Speaker, it’s always an honour to stand in my place on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin. This is actually, since we’ve returned, the first time that I’ve had that opportunity, where I’m going to be able to share some context and some comments on behalf of how people are impacted with this, but also other things that this government is moving forward.

We’re dealing with, again, the time allocation—a custom that has become a habit for this government to move issues forward according to their agenda. It tickles me when the government says “if this bill passes.” Of course, they have the majority and the bill will pass. They have many levers at their disposal to move things along and to move their agenda.

I just want to start by congratulating you and the other Speakers who have been granted the opportunity to serve us all in this chamber.

I want to also thank the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin for returning me here. It is a privilege and an honour to take my seat each and every day in this House on your behalf. Whether you voted for me or not, I’m always listening and I will always take your comments and your issues here to the floor of the Legislature. I immensely thank you for giving me that privilege to be here.

When we look at this bill, Bill 7, and the member who just spoke, a lot of her comments—she shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I agree. I really enjoyed her sharing her personal story.

I want to take the time to share a personal story with yourselves, as well—to see it from a different lens as far as how individuals are being impacted through this process.

I agree with you that the status quo needs to change. We need to reinvest in our health care system. We need to make sure that those who are working on the front line—PSWs, dietitians—the individuals we rely on, day in and day out, in our long-term-care facilities are there, fully staffed, paid properly. The other thing that is missing from this bill and from this government is concrete steps toward paying those individuals good wages, full-time wages, pensions and benefits, so that they can do what they went to school for and what they’re so proud to do. Whether it’s through home care or through a long-term-care facility, this is a calling for a lot of those individuals. Unfortunately—and we’ve been repeating it from this side of the House—Bill 124 has hindered that process. People have walked away from a trade, a love, a passion that they’ve had in the health care sector because they’re tired, they’re disrespected, and they feel that they are not being provided with all the tools and the assets they need to perform their job to the best of their ability.

When you look at the context of the bill, the government spends a lot of time talking about things that are—I call it window dressing. They’re not particularly in the bill, but they’re all over the place. But when you look at this bill, and when I hear the previous member talking about, “Why won’t you support this?”—there are a lot of things that we need to do. She and I could have discussions at great length, and we’re going to find common areas where we can agree on the things that need to be done.

However, there is one thing that I just cannot agree to. It is a fundamental thing. When you are withdrawing, removing, the ability of an individual to provide their consent, and go over that—remove that out of this bill and we will have another conversation. But because you are actually using your ability to remove consent from those seniors in those centres, that is a place I will not permit myself to go.

I refer to these changes—and I’ve often taken my place in this House and I’ve stood and talked about different pieces of legislation—and this would be the poison pill of this bill. The government spends, again, an enormous amount of time indicating how, in this opposition party, we oppose, oppose, oppose. Well, they continue to insert these poison pills into legislation, which they know we’re going to oppose. They say that we never support anything, and they say things like “if it passes.” Well, you know that it’s not going to be supported, and you know the bill is going to pass anyway.

I want to take the time to explain that because it brings me to another point: We are dealing with a time allocation motion. You would think that something that impacts our seniors so much and the future of our long-term-care facilities—you would think that this is something that would go out to the public. The reason why it would go out to the public is to engage and to have some discussions. So you would think that they would want to hear from stakeholders, individuals, seniors who are in long-term-care homes, organizations that are out there or organizations that represent those who work in this field.

Again, the government spends a lot of time taking their place and saying how we oppose every single thing. But I want to bring to the floor some of the comments that have been brought forward not just by us; they are being brought by numerous individuals. The comments are quite severe.

The Ontario Health Coalition states: “The bottom line is the Ford government is using the health care crisis to privatize Ontario’s public hospital services and to push seniors out to fill long-term-care beds in the worst nursing homes that no one wants to go to because they have terrible reputations, most of them for-profit. It is all couched in very carefully selected and manipulative language, but the actual policy changes they are proposing are clear and they clearly benefit for-profit companies at the expense of patients, particularly seniors.”

We talk in this House and we think that people outside of this House know exactly what we’re talking about. That’s false. One time, I think it was a previous member who was here—and it came to my attention this week by one of our colleagues. They said that we have to use Canadian Tire language so that we can communicate with people outside of this Legislature. I want to try that right now.

When we use terms like “privatize,” many people outside of this chamber—some do understand, but some don’t. Basically, what that means is, when you use public dollars to provide a service, a lot of our public facilities—as a Legislature, we make sure we go through the processes that they have and the actual dollars in order to function. Some of those services that are needed are paid with our health card. Some of those services are part of why we have our schools that are open—we provide that public service to our children who go to our schools. But when the government is looking to privatize, that same dollar that we use to pay a PSW or to pay a doctor inside of our hospitals is being changed; the envelope is not going there anymore.

The government is good at saying, “We’re putting tons of money back into the health care sector”—and they are putting money into the health care sector. But at the same time, they are promoting—and some of those dollars are actually going towards the private sector. In the public sector, the shareholders are us; they’re investing in us. We’re holding this government accountable to make sure that every public dollar goes towards our services—our roads, our schools, our hospitals, and so on. We want to make sure that it’s there.

I don’t know if I’ll have enough time today, but I may get into the scenario of what happened with the previous Liberal government and the boondoggle that they did with the privatization of Hydro One. Everybody has felt the negative impact of the privatization of the hydro system, and that will be the connect for people when I’m talking about the impact of privatization.

In this case, when we’re looking at our health care dollars, we’re looking at dollars that are going to go to the private sector. At the end of the day, that same doctor who is performing that surgery or that anesthesiologist who is in the operating room with that doctor or the nurse or the PSW—when they perform that same service in the private sector, that dollar has now multiplied to $3. That’s what it costs us. It costs us $3 to $4, if not more. So we ask the question: If they’re doing the same service, why does it cost more? Well, at the end of the day, we hold the government to account to make sure that every public dollar is paid into the public spaces and the services we need, but when it goes to the private sector, the public is out of it, and then the question is, “How much of that dollar can we make sure goes to stakeholders, to shareholders, to make sure they get their profits? If there is an investment, we’ve got to make sure that we get our dollars out of it.” So those are some of the questions that a lot of people are asking when we’re raising these issues inside the House.

When it comes to long-term-care beds, we’ve seen that the Canadian military actually exposed this government and what they did during the initial days of COVID. We’ve seen the deplorable conditions that seniors were left in. It broke everybody’s heart inside of this room and across this country. Those particular long-term-care homes now are without residents; they can’t get them because their reputations have been tarnished. So this piece of legislation was designed by this government in order to make sure that they can refill those beds in the private sector. Essentially, this is what is being done.

This bill is called Bill 7, More Beds, Better Care Act. I re-identified it as “more profits, better return for shareholders.” That’s how I looked at it.

It is frightening to hear this government, day after day, get up and say that the opposition wants to just do nothing and accept the status quo. Well, we agree with you that things need to change. We agree that, prior to you coming into government four years ago, there were a lot of poor decisions, poor management that was done by the then Liberal government. But this is not the fix to that issue.

When I stand here and say that it’s impossible for me to stand here and accept that we’re going to take away consent from our seniors, from their decision and their families’ responsibilities, and remove that—I just can’t stand and accept that as a bill. I cannot stand here on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin and vote in favour of this type of legislation.

The legislation will pass. This government has a majority government.

It just baffles me, again—I know I stated it earlier: Why aren’t we going out to the public? Why aren’t we talking to the organizations so that we can attempt to make this legislation stronger, so that we can look at ways that we can actually address some of the issues that are out there?

The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly said, “We oppose” the “proposed amendments ... revoking the right of seniors in hospital to consent to” long-term care “which will result in them being moved far from supportive family & community, again attempting to ‘fix’ health care to the detriment of seniors.”

The Ontario Long Term Care Association said, “Long-term-care homes are experiencing staffing challenges with registered nurses, registered practical nurses, personal support workers, and other important supportive roles such as dietary staff. In many communities, this has reached a crisis point.”

We’ve been trying to push this government to have a discussion on the health care crisis in this province. The member from Nickel Belt has been rising daily trying to bring that to the floor of this Legislature, and to no avail, because this government has turned down that opportunity to have this discussion.

Doctors, nurses, health care workers and advocates are voicing strong opposition online, calling the government’s plan “morally reprehensible.” That’s some pretty tough language there. You would think that we would want to go out and have that discussion with individuals.

I said earlier in my comments that I want to talk about a personal friend of mine in my riding and to bring his story and how it relates to what we’re discussing here today. I was actually at his funeral on Sunday, in Blind River. My good friend Russell Clearwater, and his wife Vera—beautiful people. Russell was a proud veteran, a proud legionnaire. He was very firm on processes. If there was going to be a parade or a ceremony, he made sure that proper protocol was followed. He was described as a burnt marshmallow at the celebration of life, because he was a little bit rough and dirty on the outside but on the inside he was really “smushy.” That’s the way they described him.

Russell’s health deteriorated very quickly due to Alzheimer’s. He had suffered a little bit of a leg injury, and he was going in and out of the hospital. Something got triggered, and Alzheimer’s set in. Vera could no longer take care of him at home. They tried, but she just couldn’t. So he ended up in the ALC portion of the hospital, and they were looking to off-load him to make room for somebody else to come in. There was just no other room. There was nothing that was actually available, so they wanted to send him back home. So they sent him back home, but it was for a very short period of time.

He had another incident. He was trying to have a shower. Those old houses, as you indicated, are narrow—you can’t get in. They’re both at an age where it’s physically challenging. Russell was a big, burly boy, and poor Vera just couldn’t manoeuvre him through the narrow door. The toilet is right there, and you’ve got to lift your feet to get into the tub. I know it sounds very simple to all of us in this House, but it’s a huge challenge for an individual who has restrictions. He ended up coming out of the shower, and he fell again. He ended up back in the hospital.

While he was in the hospital, the family noticed the impact this was having on Vera. Vera was now exhausted. Vera contacted me at my office. She said, “Mikey, I need you to come over. I need to have a chat with you.” So I went over and had a chat with her. We had a coffee, and she said, “I can’t no more. They’re trying to push him on me—and I can’t. It would be one thing if he were here and we’d get the proper home care for him at home, but we’re not even getting that.”

You have to remember that although Russell was suffering from Alzheimer’s, he was a very crafty fella too. He knew exactly what to tell the assessors so that he could give them some type of comfort level to get him released from the hospital to go home. The wits were still there. He was still sharp, and he knew exactly what to say: “Oh, no, I can cook, and I will help Vera to do dishes”—but he couldn’t. He just didn’t have those abilities.

What Vera explained to me, and what I saw in her eyes—she was so desperate to try to get a message to the doctors, to tell them, “If you send him back home to me, the next time he comes here, I’ll be in the bed next to him, because I’m going to end up here as well.” Can you imagine? Poor Vera is probably about 140 pounds soaking wet, and Russell was a good 220. If Russell lost his balance and fell over her—there’s a hip, there’s an arm, there’s something that’s breaking, and they’re both in the hospital, and that’s not helping anyone.

We had to wait and wait until that bed finally opened up in the long-term-care home, but then it was just—how do we get him there, how does he become eligible? The only way was to really work on the doctor and say, “Hey, Doc, if you don’t do this, if this is not the case that happens—if they’re not assessed in a way that makes him eligible to get into that home, he’s going to end up again with Vera, and they’re both going to end up here.” We were successful. Everybody was successful.

Russell was okay with the idea of going to the long-term-care home—because, at the end of the day, it’s still the choice of the patient. The patient still has to give that consent. Initially, Russell was fighting it because he wanted to go back home. He’s an independent guy. He wanted to go back home. But he knew, after having a very lengthy heart-to-heart talk with Vera, that that’s where he belonged. He ended up going there.

His health deteriorated very quickly, and to the day—it was a Saturday afternoon. I was coming back from an event up north in my riding, and I got a text message from Vera telling me that Russell had passed away. We had a celebration of life on Sunday.

That was his experience with what we’re experiencing and the problems we’re seeing in our hospitals and the problems we’re seeing in our long-term-care homes. I wanted to bring that to the floor here and to say that we acknowledge that there are problems that we have there and that the status quo just does not fit today’s times. There are challenges that we have.

Going out and providing an opportunity for stakeholders—not closing doors or ears; listening to what is out there—reinvesting in our hospitals, reinvesting into the public sector, making sure that home care is there for individuals, and making a huge, strategic development with resources available in home care will also be a huge step in the right direction to preventing and opening up beds in hospitals and freeing up spaces in long-term-care homes.

People want to stay at home. That same person we’re paying for over at the hospital or in a long-term-care home—it’s much cheaper when we provide it at home, where they can stay and enjoy a very lengthy, fulfilling life and remain with their family, because we know that where people are happiest is in their home, and that’s where they’re going to care for each other that much more.

Having said that, Speaker, I’d like to move an amendment to the bill.

I move that the motion be amended by deleting the text “the bills shall be ordered for third reading, which orders may be called that same day” and replacing with the words:

“Bill 2 shall be ordered referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs and Bill 7 shall be ordered referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy; and

“That the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs be authorized to meet to arrange committee proceedings for Bill 2 and the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Social Policy be authorized to meet to arrange committee proceedings for Bill 7; and”.

Speaker, did you want me to read what the new motion would read? No? All right.

Again, this is to provide that opportunity for the government to actually take the time to travel this bill, get it out to the organizations and get some input, so that we can get it right. I know from previous years in this House that when bills are travelled, when we actually go out and do the people’s work, when we actually go out and listen and take the time to get it right, there are often suggestions, ideas, points of view, new versions that can be brought into a particular bill that will make it successful. There are many pieces of legislation that have stood the test of time in this Legislature, and that’s why they’re still good law—because we haven’t had to change them, because we’ve taken the time. We’ve engaged with the general public. We’ve listened. We responded. We’ve given and taken on these issues—it’s not just “government knows best.” There are good ideas that come from the opposition, and there are opportunities where we can actually work together. It means so much to those who are outside of this chamber when they have a Legislature that is working towards common goals, that makes good policy changes.

With that, I want to thank the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin for having again sent me here. It is a pleasure to stand in my place. But I just cannot stand in this place and accept the fact that we’re going to be removing the consent of individuals—the right to consent—with any relocation under this particular bill.

The member for Algoma–Manitoulin has moved that the motion be amended by deleting the text “the bills shall be ordered for third reading, which orders may be called that same day” and replacing with the words:

“Bill 2 shall be ordered referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs and Bill 7 shall be ordered referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy; and

“That the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs be authorized to meet to arrange committee proceedings for Bill 2 and the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Social Policy be authorized to meet to arrange committee proceedings for Bill 7; and”.

Back to the member for further debate.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak again today on this very important motion. The deputy House leader, of course, already did a very wonderful job of outlining why it was so important that we move forward this motion.

It is curious, I will say from the outset, before I start getting into some of the other more salient points of my discussion, that now, all of a sudden—and I know colleagues will probably agree with me—the NDP want to travel a bill. They actually didn’t even want to serve on committees earlier in the week, and now they want to send the bill to committee. That is what we’re going to see from the NDP for a number of weeks and months in this place—it will be, of course, the old NDP adage of delay and obfuscate and “How can you tear down walls?” But ultimately, what the member is asking us to do is to delay passage of a bill that is so important to the people of the province of Ontario.

Interjection.

So, to the people of Ontario who hear this: Why is it that the NDP want to delay? Why is it important that we vote against an amendment to the amendment that the NDP have put forward?

If I could, Madam Speaker, I’d just have one of the pages bring me a copy of the amendment. That would also be very helpful.

Interjection.

Under the guise of wanting consultation and wanting to hear more, the NDP have put a motion forward. Forget that there’s an opportunity in question period to talk about things and question the government on things. That didn’t really happen today. There was not much discussion on these items. Forget the fact that, when it comes to the budget, we went to an election and the people of the province of Ontario were put the budget that we had passed beforehand on the table, and we asked them to review the budget and pass judgment on the government, and they did, by sending us back with a larger majority and, of course, reducing the NDP to a rump in the House.

The crux of the motion that you have in front of you here, colleagues, is that the NDP want to send the budget to committee. The member for Algoma–Manitoulin wants to hear from people—“We should go around and hear from people on the budget.” We did actually go around and hear from people. We introduced the budget in April. We then travelled around the province. We all went back into our ridings. At the time, when we went back into our ridings, there were 41 NDP members and 70 Conservative members. We consulted with people at that time, day after day after day. It came back, after that consultation was completed, that this side of the House became so large that we actually had to occupy that side of the House as well. In fact, this side of the House, the Conservatives, were returned with such a large majority after the consultations that the NDP were made much smaller. In fact—not to digress too much, but I will, just a little bit—they remained so small that the Leader of the Opposition could no longer sit in the Leader of the Opposition’s chair. He had to move over a few seats because their caucus was too small—to actually sit where the leader is supposed to sit—so they went to a corner.

I would submit to the opposition that the biggest consultation that a province can ever undertake is an election. The motion is about consultation. In his own words, the member was talking about consulting people, hearing from people. If I’m to address how we consult with people and why I think this motion is not worthy of being accepted by us, I think that we have to talk about how those initial consultations went. It’s important for me, it’s important as a caucus and as a government—because the motion that is put forward might be an indication that we haven’t consulted with people and that is why this motion was put forward. If that is the case, if that is the argument the member is making—and one would assume that that is what they have done here, because that’s kind of what their motion is, and that’s what the member said in his remarks to this—then it’s strange.

I’ll speak to the long-term-care part of the motion in the last 20 minutes of my remarks. The motion that he puts forward and the consultations that he talks about—I think the strange thing about it is that you will remember, those colleagues who were here in the last Parliament, that when the budget was introduced, they were saying that we should go to the people and let the people decide on the budget. This was what we would hear from the NDP. All colleagues will remember this: “Go let the people decide.” And then we would hear the refrain: “Because after June 2, when we’re over there, we’re going to introduce a brand new budget, and it will be a budget for the people,” and so on and so forth, and blah, blah, blah.

But after that consultation was completed, which, again, was the largest consultation that a province can have, the people actually did return and they came back with a very resounding supportive and—really, not just supportive. Not only did they send us back with a larger majority—it’s the first time a government, elected with a majority, was returned with a larger majority, I think, in over 50 years. I think that is also something that is worth mentioning. I think that is an important part.

Again, though, let’s think about earlier in the week. Why would I be against this motion? And why am I suggesting that my colleagues vote against this motion? Because I think when one compares this amendment to the points of order that were raised by the opposition earlier in the week—and for clarity, because I’ll bring it all around, I think it’s important to look at what we are talking about, why I’m referencing that.

In the motion earlier in the week, the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane mentioned that one of the reasons the NDP couldn’t support a motion that we brought forward, which was ostensibly about committee membership as well as the roles of the Deputy Speakers—and you will remember, Madam Speaker, and the House will remember, that they actually voted against that—was that we, as a government, put members on committees without asking them. I think it’s an important point. You’ll see as I bring it around. We didn’t ask them for permission and we put members on committees. Again, remember that after the election—because they were so diminished in size, because the people returned them as a much smaller caucus, because many of their members were defeated and replaced by Conservative members—they weren’t entitled to a large amount of people on committees. They’re entitled to two, but we thought there should be three. They were against that because they didn’t think that—well, actually, I don’t really know what they thought. They didn’t think committees were important, so they didn’t want to send people on.

The Speaker ruled that in fact that motion was in order, but then the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane went on to talk about how we didn’t put the member for Waterloo on a specific committee, which was troubling since she was the finance critic—and colleagues will remember that we actually had to force the opposition to put their finance critic on the finance committee. So it didn’t matter to them earlier in the week. Committees were unimportant earlier in the week. They didn’t care whether their finance critic was on a committee earlier in the week.

But when it comes to delaying important business of the people of the province of Ontario, then, colleagues, it becomes really, really important to the NDP. Why would that not be something that a government wants to do? As the member for Barrie–Innisfil talked about, both of the bills that have been brought forward are, in fact, important pieces of legislation—one that was introduced prior to the last election, and the other which was just introduced.

I had the great honour of being able to introduce the amendments to the Fixing Long-Term Care Act. It’s a small bill, colleagues. It’s not a big bill. It is really just three pages long. When you take the explanatory note out, it’s a one-page bill.

Again, just for colleagues who are new, the NDP will, at some point in time, claim that this is an omnibus bill—because anything that’s over two paragraphs long, the NDP usually claim is an omnibus bill, that it’s too big and needs to be separated. But I digress. I just wanted to clarify, because there are so many new Conservative members who weren’t here in the last Parliament. There are so many of them that I think, when we deal with motions like this, we also have to take the opportunity to explain—because this place is so much about precedent and what has happened before—why things happen the way they do. So that’s important.

I believe that debate collapsed on the first two motions that we had put forward. So despite the fact that they are against their members serving on committee—and I’m told, actually, that really, although they have the entitlement to three, they’re only sending one person to committee anyway; there’s not a lot of participation.

Having said that, when it comes to the budget, consultation happened riding by riding by riding—done. We heard the voices of the people.

Colleagues will know we’ve talked about this a lot already—and I believe that’s what’s important in this motion. The NDP will try to do, through process and procedure, what the people of Ontario will never let them do. The people of the province of Ontario will never let them govern—they tried it once and it was a disaster, and they’ve never let them govern again. Because they can’t win the confidence of the people, they come here, they obfuscate, they try to delay things, because for the NDP, delay is victory. Destroying what’s built—

The government House leader will withdraw.

Absolutely, I withdraw.

For the NDP, delay means that they can avoid constructively helping the government build and improve, and in some strange way, there is a belief that that might help. I believe that perhaps there is a feeling that if a government falls or fails to fix things, that the people of the province of Ontario might look at things differently when the next election comes. It hasn’t worked for a lot of years, but anyway, that’s what it’s at.

One would wonder why you would want to send the finance bill—and I’ll get to the Fixing Long-Term Care Act in my last 20 minutes. Let’s look at the finance bill. There are a number of really important measures in the finance bill. All colleagues will know this, and you’ll know this because we campaigned on it and the people returned us in larger numbers than when we left.

They didn’t want their finance critic to be on that committee, but now they want to hear from the people of the province of Ontario, when it was made very clear—I would say the finance minister was very, very clear on this point prior to the election—that when we came back to this House after securing another majority government, we would be reintroducing the same budget and we would be passing that budget.

The only change in that budget, of course, is that we have increased ODSP rates for the first time in many, many, many years. That’s an improvement.

Interjection.

They would like to delay that, and we think that that shouldn’t be delayed, that that’s something that should go forward. I know how hard the minister has worked on this file. We think that that measure needs to go forward.

I just want to get to a part—I don’t have my reading glasses with me, so just bear with me. Somebody has reading glasses. Oh, are those yours, Madam Speaker? Thank you. I appreciate that. There we go. See, that’s help. That’s the process when you help each other out, and that’s a lot of what happens in this place. Yes, it’s as I thought—and I’ll just have one of the pages bring those glasses back to you.

Why is it so important—before I get to the Fixing Long-Term Care Act portion of it—that we go forward with budget measures right away? Because that is really the crux of it.

We believe that this bill has been debated. We believe that this bill has gone to the people of the province of Ontario. The bill has been debated in terms of the throne speech; commitments were made in the throne speech. We believe the people passed judgment.

There were leaders’ debates with the former leader of the NDP, who I’m told now, colleagues, is actually very supportive of all of the things that we have done. I don’t know how this happened, but even the former leader of the NDP, the former member for Hamilton Centre, now has come out in favour of the things that are in this budget and apparently now supports development, supports building houses, supports transit and transportation, and even is using the slogan that we used—“Getting It Done”—as her campaign slogan. It was just a mistake, all of those years that she was opposed to everything we’re doing—but now she has seen the light.

So for the member who is now running to be the mayor of Hamilton, the former leader of the NDP—what would that candidate, Andrea Horwath—I can say it now because she’s no longer an MPP, a member, so I’m allowed to. What would Andrea Horwath, the former leader of the NDP, think of a motion that seeks to delay what she is campaigning on in the city of Hamilton? What would Andrea Horwath, the former leader of that party up until June—up until a few weeks, June 3, 4, or whatever it is—say to this blatant attempt to delay all of the good things that are happening in Hamilton? I think, given that she’s using the “Get It Done” slogan, that she would be very, very upset if we delayed further and didn’t move things on. I don’t know if colleagues would agree with me on this or not; maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t. But I know that the members we have from Hamilton—the new member from Hamilton—

East.

I’m going to stray for one second, Madam Speaker, but you’ll see the connection. I know that sometimes the table gets a bit worried that the connections aren’t there. But the connections really are there. We’re connecting the former leader of the NDP, who, until very recently, was a member of this House, who was unsupportive for 10 or 12 or 13 years, as leader of the NDP, particularly in the last four years, of measures that were—transit and transportation: didn’t like it; building homes: didn’t like it. Anti-development—that was the leader. Two weeks after leaving office, running for mayor—well, all just a misunderstanding; people really didn’t understand her.

Interjection.

But what we understand now is, we’ve got to get it done.

Again, I stray a bit far, because the member for Hamilton East, of course, Madam Speaker—and it will come around, I promise you—has a magnificent track record in his community; it goes without saying. The member for Hamilton East is a community builder. He helps build that community. And I will say—I know he will forgive me—there were a lot of people who probably said before the last election, “Conservatives will never elect a member for Hamilton East.” I know they said that.

Interjections.

Could I seek unanimous consent now to speak for an extra hour, Madam Speaker? I’ve only got 22 minutes. So I’ll do it right now.

I seek unanimous consent to extend my remarks by another 60 minutes.

I think that highlights why we can’t support the motion—because it’s not about being heard, because they shot down an opportunity to be heard. It’s not about the government being heard. It’s not about the people being heard. It’s only about what they want.

So, given that the NDP don’t want people to be heard, it makes this whole amendment to the motion irrelevant. Given that they don’t want to be heard, I move the adjournment of the debate.

It’s not often that a House leader has an entire party vote against him and is happy about it—because they did what always happens with Conservative parties: They lifted me up so that we can continue the hard work for the people of the province of Ontario, and again, I thank them for it. We couldn’t get any of this done if we didn’t work together as a team.

As I look across the vast expanse of Conservatives on this side of the House, on that side of the House, where used to sit NDP now sit Conservatives—that’s a majority caucus on that side of the House, over there, and they want to be heard on the budget. They’ve been talking about the great budget that was presented, as I talked about, by the Minister of Finance before the last election.

We’re not going to delay making things better for the people of the province of Ontario—because they wanted to shut down me, they wanted to shut down all of you. We said no. And we came in massive numbers, just like the people of the province of Ontario did on June 2—and in return, a strong, stable Conservative majority government for the province of Ontario. Why did they do that? Because they knew that progress could not be stopped. They said, “There is no way we are going to stop the progress that is made.”

A budget that includes transit and transportation initiatives—we talked about this earlier. When we allowed the NDP-Liberal coalition that almost destroyed the province of Ontario for so many years, they couldn’t come up with a subway. We heard it over and over and over again. I talked about this when I was a federal member. I announced the Sheppard subway and the Scarborough subway four different times, and by the last time, it was like—“Holy mackerel. We’re not coming back out until you guys figure out what you want to do.” And in the first year of our mandate, what did we get done? We got a subway in Toronto. We got a subway into York region. And let me tell you, Madam Speaker—where are the member for Richmond Hill and the minister from Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill? These two drove the York subway extension, and it’s for them. They said, “We need a subway in York region,” and they fought for it. For so long, Liberal politicians failed. But we got it done. We’re getting it done.

For those colleagues who really were so instrumental in saying, “Get out there and talk about the things that are important. Don’t let them shut you down,” I referenced earlier in debate—for some of you who were so intense in reading your files, I wanted to refresh you on how the former leader of the NDP now wants us to pass our budget. Her slogan for mayor of Hamilton is “Get It Done.” Andrea Horwath, the former leader of the NDP, now running for the mayor of Hamilton, supports everything we’re doing.

Look at my Mississauga caucus that was returned to the House—Mississauga–Streetsville, Mississauga Centre, Mississauga–Erin Mills, Mississauga East–Cooksville, Mississauga–Lakeshore, Mississauga–Malton. Are you telling me there are Conservatives in all of Mississauga yet again? Is that what you’re saying to me? Why are there Conservatives in all of Mississauga? Because you’re getting it done.

We talked about the member for Hamilton East, but let’s talk about the member for York South–Weston. When was the last time a Conservative held the seat in York South–Weston? I think it was 75, 76 years ago. They all said, “It’s not going to happen,” but we got it done.

There’s just so much. Where does it end?

There was a very good member in this House—I enjoyed working with him. I’m going to be honest. He was a member for a very, very long time. He is a good, decent man—the member for Timmins, Gilles Bisson. Everybody said, “You’re not going to beat Gilles Bisson.” He’s a good guy. Don’t get me wrong; he accomplished a lot in his time in office. Everybody said, “You can’t do it. You’re not going to win the north. It’s not going to happen for Conservatives.” Well, guess what? George is here.

Interjections.

We heard that before. The member for Sault Ste. Marie said, “Conservatives are never going to win Sault Ste. Marie,” but we got that one done even before the last election.

Then, in North Bay, they said you couldn’t do that, but we still maintain North Bay,

In Thunder Bay—“You’re never going win a seat in Thunder Bay. It’s not going to happen.” But did it happen? It happened.

It’s all about getting things done. That’s why we don’t want to delay the budget. Why would we want to delay the budget, a budget that returned so many Conservatives?

Let’s think for a second, for the new colleagues, about what it was like in this place before the last election. I’m going to share a little story, Madam Speaker, through you, to the colleagues who are new. You will remember, because you’re a veteran of the place, how time after time after time we would talk about things that were important to Brampton. We would talk about things that were important to Brampton, and they said, “Well, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You guys don’t understand the people of Brampton.” We would talk about transit: “You don’t get them.” We would talk about a highway: “They don’t want a highway.” We would talk about health care: “They don’t need health care.” They said, we are going to take them—and actually, the leader of the federal NDP, his brother was one of the members who was in that area. The deputy leader of the NDP was also there. And do you know what?

Help me—Brampton Centre is a Conservative. Is it Brampton East—

Interjection.

Interjections.

I know what all colleagues are thinking. They’re thinking it can’t get any better than that. “Holy mackerel. Does it get any better than that?” I think, yes, it does get better than that, because there were two ridings—Essex and Windsor–Tecumseh. Windsor–Tecumseh—94 years between Conservative—

Interjections.

Perhaps colleagues can help me. Is there a Conservative in Windsor–Tecumseh?

People will remember the former member for Essex. He did a good job for the job that he had to do. I actually like him. He’s a decent guy, but it’s tough to find a more negative take on our—a good guy. He’s a very positive guy—but it’s hard to find a more negative take on the things that we were accomplishing as government. But guess what? Is the member for Essex a Conservative, colleagues? Yes—right there.

Glengarry–Prescott–Russell—“Conservatives don’t win in francophone ridings. That doesn’t happen.” Is the member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell here? Is he a Conservative? Yes, he is—right there, colleagues.

Across the board, that is what Conservatives do—they get things done.

The NDP bring a motion to the floor of this House, colleagues, and what do they want to do? They want to delay, and how—think about this: We want to continue debate. You all convinced me we’ve got to continue debate and we won’t be silenced. But who was silenced this afternoon? Who didn’t even stand and vote? It was the opposition NDP. They didn’t even have the temerity to get out of their seats on the last vote and be heard by the people of the province of Ontario. It really proves, colleagues, that it’s all about games. That’s all they care about.

Well, we care about getting things done for the people of the province of Ontario.

We want to reform health care in the province of Ontario. That’s why we’re not going to delay. That’s why we’re not going to go for an amendment to a motion—colleagues, you know we brought forward a motion because we want to pass the budget, which the people of the province of Ontario massively approved in an election. We said we won’t delay it. We also brought to this floor a piece of legislation that will help improve health care for millions of people in the province of Ontario. They want us to delay it. They want us to delay any changes—like somehow it makes it better to delay. Well, that’s what they did.

We saw what NDP policies were—you remember this. When they did have the one chance to govern, they almost bankrupted us—an $11-billion deficit in 1995. They closed down—well, colleagues, what did they do? They actually fired nurses, laid off doctors. They then did something called a Rae Day—they made you take 10 days off without getting paid. They closed floors of hospitals, shuttered floors of hospitals—but don’t worry, because then they got together in a room, created a song and sang a song at a piano, “We’re all in this together,” and that was supposed to make everything better, but it didn’t. It took a Mike Harris government to put Ontario back on track—and we got it done.

Madam Speaker, I think it is very clear why we want to continue working for the people of the province of Ontario; why we aren’t going to play the games of the opposition; why I, as the House leader, am going to take the advice of my colleagues and use all of the tools at my disposal to make sure that these two important pieces of legislation pass quickly. Because of that and because I want to get these bills done and passed, I move the adjournment of the House.

East.

Del Duca on roads.

I am proud to rise today in this great place among my distinguished colleagues in this House.

First, Speaker, I wish you a sincere congratulations on your own re-election in this past campaign. I grew up learning quite a bit about you on CHCH television when I could tune in with my rabbit ears. It’s truly an honour and privilege to have the opportunity to serve side by side with you and all 124 members of this House who represent their communities.

I want to begin by taking this moment to wholeheartedly thank the voters of Windsor–Tecumseh. I am grateful to each person who gave me this privilege to serve them. The community told me that this is the government that, when it mattered, supported our community. The delivery of real, tangible results from this government stood out for my constituents.

Les actions de ce gouvernement sont transformatrices pour ma communauté. C’est ce gouvernement qui a fait possible l’avancement de l’hôpital régional de soins aigus de Windsor-Essex. C’est ce gouvernement qui termine enfin l’élargissement à quatre voies de l’autoroute 3 à travers Windsor et le comté d’Essex, un projet autrement suspendu depuis 2011. C’est ce gouvernement qui investit des centaines de millions de dollars en soutien financier pour la fabrication de pointe dans notre région, comme l’usine d’assemblage de batteries de véhicules électriques NextStar Energy, le Centre d’innovation pour les batteries Flex-Ion et le réoutillage de l’usine d’assemblage de Stellantis à Windsor.

The ayes are 0; the nays are 69.

Speaker, I would not be here without those who put their heart and soul into helping me, and many are in the gallery today:

My loving wife, Mary, with her heart of gold, put everything aside to support me in the election and beyond. I hope that Mary forgives me for complicating our wedding plans with an election campaign.

My mother, Mary Jo, who, as a retired Catholic elementary teacher, put herself well outside of her comfort zone as a PC canvasser, but has been so supportive of me and a continued champion for me for my whole life.

My campaign manager and executive assistant, Paul Synnott, who, after 20 years of working hard to help the people he believes in, truly earned a significant win that is reflective of the impact that he brings to a campaign.

And I wish a warm welcome to my constituency assistant Rachel Haddad, here in the gallery, who’s worked with sincere passion and has delivered tremendous results for the betterment of our community since she joined our office.

To all my loyal and hard-working campaign volunteers: I can’t thank you enough. Your support and your devotion, especially for something that wasn’t a sure thing, will never be forgotten.

My journey here really began with Scouts Canada, as a member of the 35th Tecumseh Scout Group. I joined scouting 35 years ago. Today, I proudly serve as the group commissioner. Scouting is where I learned the importance of citizenship, of values and of ethics. Our scout law is a reliable guide every single day to be helpful and trustworthy, kind and cheerful, considerate and clean and wise in the use of all resources. Scouting is also where I learned the importance of teamwork, to pitch in and to share the load, whether it is chairing the jamboree or cleaning the kybo. Every task is an essential one, and there’s often unpleasant work to be done. But the values I’ve learned from scouting have never let me down.

Speaker, I also come to the House armed with a significant career in government, working both as a member of the civil service and as an elected official in my own right. For almost 20 years, I’ve been a civil engineer employed by the city of Windsor. The city of Windsor is home to three quarters of my constituents. It is a city built on grit, of standing up for yourself for what is right and what is just. It is a city that reflects resilience, and a populace that comes together in times of need. Windsor’s history is tailor-made for a movie script. From rum-running to railroads, from a strong Indigenous and colonial history to industrial progress, Windsor is one of a kind. It’s been a privilege to serve the residents of Windsor every day of my professional career and to work to improve our neighbourhoods and their services. I thank Mayor Drew Dilkens for his support, and as my employer that he and the city granted me a leave to have the opportunity to serve here in the Ontario Legislature.

One highlight of working in Windsor was my time spent with former mayor Eddie Francis. He was an incredible salesperson for the city of Windsor. I worked with Mayor Francis for two and a half years on economic development files for the betterment of our community. He showed me exactly why the work that we do here on a policy basis is meaningful and rewarding.

My experience being a civil servant enticed me to apply my skills in new ways. The municipal council of the town of Tecumseh, led by mayor Gary McNamara, took a chance on me by appointing me to the committee of adjustment, the Essex County Library Board and the Property Standards Committee. I’m grateful for the eight years that I served with those citizen appointments.

By 2014, armed with my experience working with Mayor Francis, I ran for municipal council, knowing I could offer the best possible understanding of how government works and how to achieve results; how to apply the problem-solving skills I developed as a civil engineer. In spite of having no profile to speak of whatsoever, the residents of my ward elected me in 2014 and, four years later, in 2018, returned me to council by acclamation. I remain incredibly grateful that most of the residents of Tecumseh chose to continue to support me for a third time in the recent provincial election. I would equally like to thank my colleagues from the town of Tecumseh council, led by Mayor McNamara, who unanimously supported my candidacy for this election across party lines.

I’d like to make a special thanks to councillor Brian Houston, who gave me hundreds of hours of help on this campaign and delivered in spades as my get-out-the-vote chair—and a sincere congratulations on his own acclamation for a third term to Tecumseh council.

Professional Engineers Ontario has noted that I’m the only professional engineer to be elected serving in this House in the 43rd Ontario Legislature. My actions here must reflect the highest level of ethics and of a duty to the public. I pledge to make my fellow engineers proud of the service that I deliver in this Legislature.

Being from Windsor–Tecumseh means that many generations of my family work in or have worked in the auto industry, and this brings forward a set of rivalries that might not be as pronounced elsewhere in Ontario. Speaker, I will let you be the judge as to whether my mom’s Plymouth Horizon or my dad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera was the better vehicle. But my family, like so many others in Windsor–Tecumseh, is ingrained in the auto industry. On my father’s side, it was Newham Chev-Olds in Chatham-Kent–Leamington, in Merlin, Ontario. On my mother’s side were countless relatives working at the Windsor assembly plant. So when family Christmas was hosted every year in Riverside, it just would not be right to stoke the fires of the Chrysler versus GM versus Ford debate. Usually those debates were initiated by my father, and I don’t quite take after him in that sense, but he sure made things fun.

But in Windsor–Tecumseh, the auto industry is who we are. It is our pride. I’m proud of my brother Jim, who continued this legacy as a mould-maker, skilled in what he does in supporting the development of vehicle parts in one of Oldcastle’s world-class advanced manufacturing companies, Crest Mold Technology.

We are home to so much more. We are home to Hiram Walker and Sons Ltd., home of Canadian Club, J.P. Wiser’s, Polar Ice and McGuinness. We’re home to two of Ford Motor Company of Canada’s engine plants. We’re home to Bonduelle, who package many of the frozen vegetables that you buy at the grocery store. And we’re home to Jamieson Wellness, one of Canada’s leaders in natural health product manufacturing.

Nous avons ainsi à Windsor–Tecumseh un fort patrimoine franco-ontarien. Dans ma circonscription, c’est facile de retrouver toute évidence de ça : les chemins Pierre, Lacasse, Lesperance, Lauzon, Drouillard, St. Pierre, Labute, Wyandotte. Cette histoire demeure très importante, et la communauté franco-ontarienne fait grand effort à se faire inclure chez moi.

J’ai eu la chance d’apprendre le français grâce à notre réseau des écoles francophones. Il en existe quatre dans mon quartier propre où les anglophones comme moi peuvent devenir francophiles et partager la culture franco-ontarienne. Mon école secondaire, L’Essor, était même le sujet d’un débat ici dans la 31^e Assemblée. Le projet de loi 3 était une loi obligeant le conseil scolaire du comté d’Essex à fournir une école secondaire de langue française. C’était en 1977. Aux députés qui avaient supporté ce projet de loi, merci. J’ai appris la langue française grâce à vos efforts.

J’ai continué mon éducation à l’Université d’Ottawa. C’était important pour moi de ne pas perdre mon bilinguisme. J’ai complété deux baccalauréats avec une éducation dans la langue française ici en Ontario. Il y a très peu d’autres endroits où c’est même possible, et j’apprécie bien que c’est grâce à la politique provinciale que je peux m’exprimer en français.

One of the best parts of coming home to Windsor–Tecumseh is the immersion in our community of generosity, tolerance and respect for one another—and did the community ever consider trying a new approach on June 2. Speaker, there’s not much precedent for my hometown electing a PC candidate. The people of the town of Tecumseh have not been represented by either a Conservative MPP or a Tecumseh resident since our community’s beloved first mayor and hero from World War I, Colonel Paul Poisson, who served in this House from 1926 to 1934. It is an incredible privilege to be able to follow in Colonel Poisson’s footsteps.

But what is certainly with precedent is a history and a record of good representation, no matter the political stripe. My hometown has been represented by some of the most respected members of this House: Dave Cooke—who I thank very much for watching my speech from his home today; I truly appreciate it—Wayne Lessard, Dwight Duncan and my predecessor in this riding, Percy Hatfield, who remains a giant in our community. Percy was our community’s go-to for politics. He was the host of Percy’s Panel on the CBC Windsor evening news, and is a consummate professional in every sense of the word.

As a municipal staff member, I watched as Percy provided an exemplary demonstration of class and nobility as a city councillor. He did not tolerate disrespect of process or of the people involved. He demonstrated to me and to the civil service that our contributions were appreciated.

Percy clearly had a sincere appreciation for the political process, no matter who was involved. A few years ago, he was one of the attendees for a PC leaders’ debate hosted in my neighbourhood at the Lakeshore Imagine Cinemas, and I was quite happy to see that Percy had secured one of the best seats in the house for that one.

Shortly after I was elected to town council in 2014, I attended the Professional Engineers Ontario Queen’s Park day reception right here at the Ontario Legislature. Percy showed me this beautiful building and the hidden gems in his office, and he also left me with a parting reflection, that at some point in the distant future, he will need to have a worthy successor. I will do my utmost to give justice to the role given to me and to offer the same level of respect and dignity that Percy gave to this role for the many years that he served.

As I know Percy is also likely watching as well, I want to say a sincere thank you to Percy Hatfield for his tremendous service to our community, for his friendship over many years and for the tremendous efforts of him and his staff to transition our constituency office.

I would like to thank Premier Ford and everyone at the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario for believing in me and for supporting my candidacy despite our riding’s electoral history. The truism in politics is typically that you fish where the fish are. But the English philosopher Thomas Paine might have coined it best in this case: “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Speaker, I would like to close in recognizing my father, James Dowie. He worked seven days a week, usually beginning at 5 a.m., and had a difficult job as an insurance adjustor. He often gave people news that they would be unhappy with and witnessed the aftermath of countless tragedies. He knew the importance of balance, though. On weekends, he was both the president and the garbage collector at Rochester Place Resort.

One of the last things he was able to tell me before he passed away in 2017 was this: that he would regret very much not having had the opportunity to see me become mayor some day. I told him not to worry, that it was not destined to happen. If only he could see me now, being given the tremendous privilege of serving the people of Windsor–Tecumseh and the people of Ontario.

I look forward to working with all members of this House to move Ontario forward and appreciate the opportunity to listen and learn from every one of you over the next four years.

The government House leader is seeking unanimous consent to extend the debate for one hour.

Interjection: His speaking time.

I hear a no.

All those in favour of the motion, say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion, say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

Call in the members. This is a 30-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1417 to 1447.

All those in favour of the motion, please rise and remain standing to be counted by the Clerk.

All those opposed to the motion, please rise and remain standing to be counted by the Clerk.

We now return to the government House leader to continue debate.

All those in favour of the motion, say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion, say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

Call in the members. This is a 30-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1503 to 1533.

All those in favour of the motion, please rise and remain standing to be counted by the Clerks.

All those opposed to the motion, please rise and remain standing to be counted by the Clerks.

Pursuant to standing order 50(b), I am now required to put the question.

Mr. Mantha has moved an amendment to government notice of motion number 4 relating to allocation of time on Bill 2, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes, and Bill 7, An Act to amend the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021 with respect to patients requiring an alternate level of care and other matters and to make a consequential amendment to the Health Care Consent Act, 1996. Is it the pleasure of the House that the amendment carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

Resuming the debate adjourned on August 25, 2022, on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

The member from Windsor–Tecumseh can continue.