Thank you to the member for Elgin–Middlesex–London for that important question. He is right. We need to increase health human resources, and that starts with post-secondary education.

Our government, under the leadership of this Premier, is getting it done by taking action to increase health human resources across Ontario through our historic expansion of health care post-secondary education. This includes building the first new medical school in the GTA in over 100 years. Speaker, the last medical school built in the GTA was at the University of Toronto in 1843. We are the government that is building the new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton. We’re also creating the new University of Toronto Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health in Scarborough and expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge Health campus. Earlier this year, we also established the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as the first stand-alone medical school in northern Ontario.

Earlier this year, we also announced our Learn and Stay program, which over the next four years can help 3,000 nurse graduates receive financial supports to cover the cost of tuition in exchange for committing to practise for two years in an underserved community. We want to ensure that everyone has access to health care where they need it, when they need it.

Thank you.

The next question?

Minister of Health.

Opposition come to order.

The next question.

The House recessed from 1142 to 1300.

First reading agreed to.

Mr. Rakocevic moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 12, An Act to amend the Insurance Act to prevent discrimination with respect to automobile insurance rates in the Greater Toronto Area / Projet de loi 12, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les assurances pour empêcher la discrimination en ce qui concerne les taux d’assurance-automobile dans le Grand Toronto.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

The member for Barrie–Innisfil has moved government notice of motion number 4.

I recognize the member for Barrie–Innisfil.

Well, the first thing you do, to the member opposite, is drive 10,000 kilometres during the election. It’s a big riding. It’s a lot of geography. The one thing that I’ve really enjoyed so far about my experience in this provincial Legislature is being here and learning about here. I just wish in these early days we had more time to be at home because I’ve got a lot of people to see and a lot of things to do. We’ve got one constituency office, we’ve got a great team, but it’s really about being out, not sitting in the office. It’s like what I did for a living: Get out, be seen, be heard, listen and learn.

The Royal, folks—I’m serious when I say this—is just a wonderful thing to experience. If you’ve not been to Toronto the first week of November, please go. It’s down at Exhibition Place. You’re going to learn so much. You’re going to appreciate so much about where our food comes from, and the exhibitors. It’s fun. Grandparents are one of the number one exhibitors.

What’s really fun is to just be there, and I said it—the sights, the sounds, the smells. Go be part of it. Take your family. You’re really going to enjoy it—all of it, every little bit of it.

For instance, let’s really encourage further development of our beef sector, of our pork sector. It’s wonderful how this industry continues to produce, but it’s consolidated. When I got into this business, there were nearly 22,000 dairy producers; there are less than 4,000 today. There were 23,000 hog producers; there are less than 400 today. It’s consolidated. We still produce a lot more food and it will continue to grow, but we have to get out of the way of their everyday activities and let them do what they do best and produce food.

That being said, we can’t take our foot off the gas. I think this is a fair stat: OMAFRA calculates that the amount of primary agriculture GDP generated per acre actively farmed has risen 45% since 2016, and 208% since 2001. So it’s been on an escalating curve, as has our population. We just have to continue to make sure that happens.