Questions?

I appreciate this opportunity to speak to our Plan to Build Act. But in my first official opportunity outside of question period to speak in this place, Mr. Speaker, I want to express a heartfelt thank you to the people, my constituents, of Kenora–Rainy River for five elections—four of them, I had an opportunity to come to either the other place, the House of Commons in Ottawa, and here now for my second session. I appreciate the support, the confidence that you have put in me.

Standing in this place today, I reflect on the past four years. I would make the observation that it went quite quickly, as these sessions often do. Just getting back from AMO in Ottawa—the seven years that I spent there and the seven years since seem a bit of a blur. But in sitting down with some of my older old colleagues from that other place and looking around this magnificent Legislature, I am struck by the opportunity for renewal—most notably, in this session, the strong, stable majority that the people of Ontario have given the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and some fresh new faces to join us here today, because they rejected out of hand the platforms of the opposition parties and, in particular, if you will, the gaggle of non-affiliates across the way there who used to form the governing party for some 15 years. So if there’s anything to be proud of there, it is the fact that they’ll have an opportunity to sit in this place and take note of the fact that in this legislative session, the people of Ontario have sent a strong message that they want our government to continue to build.

I’m going to focus, for the purposes of my remarks, on northern Ontario, where not only did we pick up a few new seats, but we also got a couple of those NDP members out on the doorstep a lot more vigorously than they’re used to, as we replaced a couple of seats in northern Ontario and finished a strong, notable second in every other seat across northern Ontario—a historic finish in and of itself. I want to thank the candidates who ran for us across northern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, from hospitals to highways, from bridges to broadband, we’re committed to building northern Ontario and rebuilding our economy across northern Ontario. In the past four years, several new mines moved to construction or transitioned into electrification only. This isn’t just sound environmental policy; this puts significant demands, positive pressure on our northern communities to ensure that we’re ready and that we continue to be ready, as some northern communities across the province will see exponential growth and therefore requirements for infrastructure and community enhancements moving forward.

We understand the opportunity to ensure that our highways, our modes of transportation, are upgraded. We saw, in print, our budget highlighting a plan to twin Highway 17 from the Manitoba border to Kenora, and hopefully points beyond, as we make a commitment not just based on safety, but based also on the economic opportunity to link our northern communities across some 800,000 square kilometres and ensure, as we move from earth to electric vehicles, from mining to motors, that for the first time we have a fully integrated supply chain in our transportation modalities—most notably buses, transport trucks and electric-powered vehicles—that northern Ontario is part of that integrated supply chain. More importantly, it would start there. So, safe transportation modes, rail into the Far North out in northeastern Ontario, and a plan to link our highways with two-plus-one and/or twinning is a great way to get started.

My colleague the Minister of Mines and I have an extraordinary opportunity to continue on with our growth plan to open up what I’ve referred to as the corridor to prosperity, leveraging what governments do. Let mining companies build those mines; we will be there to support the regulatory pieces, but most notably, to create a highway or road infrastructure to leverage health, social and economic opportunities for those isolated communities in the north. I know a thing or two about that. I spent more than eight years of my life living and working as a nurse in those isolated communities. Retired in that capacity, I also served as a lawyer—I asked my constituents not to hold that part against me—and then as a politician, ensuring and committed that the northern communities—I even got a smile from the Speaker on that one. Lawyers are good people, Mr. Speaker, just for the record—just to ensure that we understand the opportunity to connect our communities.

There has been much discussion about health care. As a former health care provider and someone who has worked with communities across northern Ontario to improve access to health services and programs—we’re investing $142 million, starting in 2022-23, to recruit and retain health care workers in underserved communities. This will start with $81 million, beginning in this fiscal year, to expand the Community Commitment Program for Nurses, which includes compensation and recovery for the cost of full tuition for nurses.

We see at Seven Generations Education Institute in Fort Frances and Kenora an incredible opportunity, as that Indigenous post-secondary education institution, now accessible for all students, is training in paramedicine, PSWs, RPNs and registered nurses.

There is a plan and a relationship to work with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to address one of the greatest opportunities we’ve seen perhaps in a generation, and that is to ensure that students attending northern high schools—and now northern colleges and potentially northern medical schools—will have an opportunity to play out and live out their dream to be educated and then work in their region. As a young man coming from southern Ontario, armed with a diploma in nursing in the very late 1980s, early 1990s, I came there, I settled there, I made it my home, and went on to other things. We need to ensure, moving forward, that as many northern students have that opportunity.

The expansion of these kinds of programs—the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant—will support and attract the retention of a whole host of human resources, health human resources, moving forward. We think that is the right thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a couple of other programs that are highlighted in this bill but that find their importance in the previous session—because this is about building. It’s not just building Ontario as a legislative exercise; it’s about a government building on the previous session.

A couple of those key things for northern Ontario were found in the Northern Energy Advantage Program. This wasn’t just a rebrand. This was a program that replaced the northern industrial energy rebate program. NEAP, as it’s called, is kind of neat, because it provides—now, as opposed to before—large industrial electricity consumers with competitive and predictable electricity rates. This program is now broader in scope and will assist more major and larger operations, through a new investor class, to be competitive. In the forestry sector, margins are razor-thin. Mines are pivoting to full electrification, in some cases, and they need to know that that cost has certainty—unlike from the previous government—and that it’s competitive.

Listen to the names of companies that have rallied behind our government, Mr. Speaker, to support this and access this:

—Algoma Steel, which is now transitioning to an electric arc furnace thanks to the investments that we’re putting into their operations;

—Domtar, one of the most efficient pulp producers across northern Ontario—in fact, in the world—right there in Dryden, in my own riding;

—Evolution Mining;

—Vale Canada in Sudbury;

—Impala Canada;

—GreenFirst Forest Products;

—Pan American Silver; and

—Agnico Eagle.

These have a couple of interesting features. They are anchor tenants and major employers in all our ridings.

Historically, we’ve brought these programs to this legislative floor.

And do you know what, Mr. Speaker? Are you curious?

The Speaker is curious.

They have two features: They were transformative programs, and the members of the NDP, for reasons I don’t understand, voted against them. They have a chance at redemption here today and as we vote moving forward. They’re going to get an opportunity to support these programs. They’re going to get an opportunity to ensure that their constituents, especially the younger ones, have an opportunity to transition out of high school or out of college or other training, Red Seal training, into the industries that have characterized northern Ontario for well over a century. This is a plan to build, but this is a plan for opportunity.

I mentioned transportation modalities earlier in my remarks, and I just want to return to that for a moment. Our government’s efforts in the last session and moving forward, as highlighted in our plan to build, include cutting the gas tax and fuel tax by a combined 11 cents. That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you fuel up jets and my 133-litre tank in my pickup truck, to serve one of the largest ridings in northern Ontario with highway networks.

It’s a commitment to make investments through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, widely acknowledged as one of the most robust efforts to modernize the investments for municipalities and northern businesses moving forward. But it also made investments in airports—the town of Hearst, to replace the René Fontaine Municipal Airport in-ground fuel system; the town of Iroquois Falls, to make improvements to the Iroquois Falls municipal airport; Confederation College, to improve and expand and modernize its aviation programs so pilots can move out across northern Ontario to ensure safe passage across some 800,000 square kilometres of this amazing part of the province; and, of course, closer to home, for my purposes, in the city of Dryden and the town of Fort Frances, improvements to their facilities and terminal buildings.

I’m so pleased to serve with an amazing Premier and a caucus, frankly, who have made sure that every time discussion substantively comes up in caucus or cabinet, it is viewed mandatorily through a northern Ontario lens, and that we continue to understand that through things like the Northern Ontario Resource Development Support Fund, we are ensuring that our towns and cities, where pressures are put on them as a result of the resource sector, are accounted for and are stackable to work with other levels of government, including our own, for meaningful upgrades to their infrastructure that’s targeted towards the impact of resource development.

I’m going to take up the last few minutes to talk about, in my capacity as Minister of Indigenous Affairs, some of the tremendous progress that has been made not just historically but for the purposes of this plan to build.

We sat down with Indigenous business and political leaders to talk about a wealth creation table and a prosperity table. We took our direction from then-Regional Chief RoseAnne Archibald, now the national chief. We took our lead from people like Matt Jamieson, president and CEO of Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corp.; my friend Kevin Eshkawkogan, president and CEO of Indigenous Tourism Ontario; Brenda LaRose, partner and head of the national diversity and Indigenous board practice; Desiree Norwegian—one of my favourites—owner and chief executive officer of Atunda Inc., working in the nuclear sector; and of course, a dear friend of mine, Darren Harper, co-founder and president of Maawandoon Inc. What they know is what we know: the tremendous opportunity for Indigenous communities and businesses to prosper. It’s why we’ve advanced and built on resource revenue-sharing agreements between Indigenous communities in the province. It’s why we have invested in increased funding for Aboriginal financial institutes to access capital. We’re going to have more to say on that as budget 2022 endeavours to address the Indigenous Economic Development Fund highlighted in our plan to build.

This is exciting because this is organic. It comes from Regional Chief Glen Hare’s pen and his adviser Ted Nolan—you will remember him as the coach of the Buffalo Sabres and a former player in the National Hockey League. My only wish is that he had played for my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. But forget all that. For the purposes of this discussion, Ted, who has one of the largest business networks the province over and the country over, with Indigenous partners, has come to the table to advise Regional Chief Hare and create an opportunity to the tune of $25 million.

The Chiefs of Ontario office and their Indigenous leadership, the Grand Chief included, know that access to capital, investing in Indigenous businesses is the right way to go.

Mr. Speaker, finally, on that note and making a quick pivot, Indigenous businesses, now more than ever, under the revamped Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, are seeing exciting opportunities—expanding existing businesses, helping to support the creation of new ones, and, vitally, by virtue of our business programs in the new-look Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, ensuring that they are an essential part of the supply chains.

As I mentioned earlier, not only does northern Ontario count itself in from mines to motors, from the earth to electric vehicles—from some of the most northern communities that you can contemplate, right down to the Stellantis plant in Windsor that we intend to onboard—but we want to include Indigenous communities in that opportunity.

So, Mr. Speaker, already we’re seeing the results in the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund revamp. This budget accounts for an ongoing commitment to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund.

Once again, my NDP colleagues across the way will have an extraordinary opportunity to stand with the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, to focus on the opportunities and support this important bill as we build Ontario and as we build, importantly, for the purposes of my representation, northern Ontario.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you to the member for her always passionate advocacy for the beautiful riding of Scarborough–Guildwood.

We’ve heard over and over again from the government side that the Liberals have done such a terrible job, even though they earned the trust of the people of Ontario for four consecutive mandates.

While, of course, no government can brag of having a perfect record, I want to ask the member: What are the policies or the initiatives from the previous Liberal governments that you are most proud of—and what policies the current government is actually able to build on?

Thank you, Speaker. I appreciate that.

It’s an honour to rise in the Legislature today to announce another important investment in Sarnia–Lambton by the government of Ontario. Recently, I was pleased to share the good news with a number of different organizations in Sarnia–Lambton that our government is investing nearly $550,000 in five different community festivals through the 2022 Reconnect Ontario program.

The Bluewater Health Foundation Block Party, the South Western International Film Festival, the Victoria Playhouse Petrolia, the Bluewater BorderFest Music Festival, and the Revelree Music Festival have all been selected by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport as local Sarnia–Lambton recipients of the Reconnect Ontario program grants that support entertainment and jobs in the tourism, culture and entertainment sectors.

In total, your Ontario government is investing more than $48 million across this great province through the Reconnect Ontario program to help create amazing staycation experiences and boost local economic growth.

By investing more than $500,000 in Sarnia–Lambton, in these festivals and events, our government is delivering much-needed support for local businesses in our community as it continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic. This is great news from the government of Ontario—to ensure that Ontario is making a positive difference in my community.

Unfortunately, there is no further time for questions and comments.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

Thank you, Speaker. It’s great to see you in the chair this morning.

I’m happy to rise in the House today to showcase both a government of Ontario program and a happy recipient in my riding of Brantford–Brant. Through the great work of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, the Reconnect Ontario 2022 program is making an investment of more than $48 million. This program helps festival and event organizers carry out events that encourage people to travel, participate and rediscover the beauty and diversity of all that Ontario communities have to offer.

I was so pleased that the Paris Agricultural Society was successful in their application and that they were awarded $105,000 from this program a few weeks ago. The fair is constantly changing as the agricultural sector evolves, but it never strays from the commitment of over 160 years to bring entertainment and agricultural education to the community.

Agriculture is the single biggest economic sector in Brantford–Brant, and this festival funding for the great folks of the Paris Agricultural Society cannot come at a better time. Learning about agriculture, having fun, and speaking with the men and women who grow the food that is on our dining room tables day in and day out is partly what the Reconnect Ontario program is all about.

Congratulations to the Paris Agricultural Society. And between September 1 and 5, see you all at the Paris fair this year.

Today is the start of the 138th Providence Bay Agricultural Fair. This is a mainstay of Manitoulin Island that brings families from across the province for fun and entertainment.

However, there are concerns going into fair weekend this year, as Highway 542 and Highway 551 leading to Providence Bay remain in a state of disrepair. I was travelling on these highways last weekend, and I can understand why people on Manitoulin Island are frustrated with the government’s quick-fix solutions. Roads are being left in conditions where the pulverizing of the old surface is leaving large chunks of material, causing dangerous driving conditions and damage to windshields, shock absorbers and tires. This has an effect on the cycling and cyclist community as well. This level of work and road resurfacing would not be accepted in the Muskokas. Then why shove it to Manitoulin?

This government needs to step up to the plate and ensure that residents and visitors alike can safely travel on Manitoulin highways.

Speaker, Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world. So I say, on behalf of all Haweaters, do them once, do them right, and pave our highways properly.

As of this moment, the North York General Foundation Radiothon, in partnership with A1 Chinese Radio, is holding an annual major outreach event to raise funds for a landmark new seniors’ care home at North York General Hospital. Among the first designed using insights from the pandemic, the home will be fully integrated with the hospital to provide residents with full access to emergency and specialty services. To better serve the seniors from different cultural backgrounds, the new home will be offering culturally diverse programming, resources and food.

The government is not only adding beds; it is creating long-term-care spaces for seniors in modern, safe and comfortable surroundings where they will feel truly valued and at home.

Speaker, I want to thank North York General Hospital and its leadership team for their commitment to provide the best care and experience for our community. I also want to thank all those involved in this great event. It is your participation that made Ontario a better place that we are all proud of.

Speaker, I’d first like to congratulate you on your re-election and to congratulate all our colleagues—both new and returning, on both sides of the aisle—on being elected to this House.

I’m honoured to be back for another term, representing the people of Mississauga–Lakeshore.

I’m proud of all the progress we’ve made over the last four years, especially in south Mississauga. That includes a multi-billion dollar project to build the largest and most advanced hospital in Canadian history. It includes 1,152 new long-term-care beds, more than any other riding in this province, and the first residential hospice in Mississauga. It includes the new $5-billion Hazel McCallion Line and a new rapid transit corridor along Lakeshore that will support the Lakeview Village and Brightwater communities along the lakefront. We’ve come a long way, and last week the throne speech laid out a plan to ensure the progress continues.

Earlier this week, I joined delegations from Mississauga and the region of Peel at the AMO policy conference in Ottawa, meeting with ministers, focusing on the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, our shared infrastructure priorities, and fixing the housing supply crisis.

I look forward to working together with municipal partners and with all members here to deliver positive results for the people of Ontario over the next four years.

I am proud to join this 43rd Parliament, re-elected for a third term to serve Oshawa. It is an honour and a privilege to come here and stand in my place on behalf of constituents, families and workers across my riding. I’m appreciative of the trust and hope that I bring with me from my community.

Thank you to my staff, who have been working these past eight years to support constituents with compassion and care. The load is heavy, and none of us would be able to do this work without our team.

To the volunteers who spoke to voters, knocked on thousands of doors, raised money and committed their time and heart to our bright, positive, motivating campaign: Thank you.

To my core campaign team, CFO, manager and volunteer coordinators, who put their lives on hold to work tirelessly during the election: Thank you.

To my family, friends and loved ones: I love you, and I appreciate you.

And, Speaker, I am blessed to still have my little grandma in my life. She’s 101 years old and was very proud to vote for her granddaughter.

Applause.

Speaker, all of us in this room heard sincere and heartfelt concerns during the election. We’re still hearing from distraught families and workers—letters and calls from real folks concerned about collapsing health care systems; public education; a lack of safe, affordable and available housing; rising poverty; and the terrible suffering of so many without the addictions and mental health supports they seek. We have vital and important work to do on behalf of real people who have trusted us to listen and serve them well.

I will continue to serve sincerely and be the strong voice I have now three times been elected to be.

Thank you, Oshawa.

I had the chance to listen to the minister this morning talk about her plan to stay open in Ontario, in our health care system. While—

Interjections.

While the thousand beds of isolation opening up are welcome, they are months late. Forcing residents to go to a place outside of their community seems cruel. It really doesn’t reflect the lessons we learned in the pandemic, in long-term care.

The thing that’s most concerning is the minister’s refusal to rule out private, for-profit care—increasing that in our system. Some 25 years ago in this province, a government of the day told us that was our only solution for long-term care. We have all seen the results of that in the pandemic.

This government seems to be set on establishing separate, parallel systems—private, for-profit.

Here’s the challenge: The greatest challenge that exists right now in our health care system is people—having enough people to care for the people we care for most.

Our public system is in crisis, and what this government is proposing is—they are proposing to set up another parallel system that is going to compete for those personnel, to make a profit.

What this government needs to do is to repeal Bill 124, get serious about foreign-trained health care professionals, and actually talk to front-line workers.

Like all Hamiltonians, Speaker, I was heartsick to learn of the massive raw sewage spill into Chedoke Creek and Cootes Paradise. Today I want to share some good news on the progress Hamiltonians are taking to restore this beloved, provincially significant wetland: Step 1 of the remediation activities has begun, with an expected dredging of 11,000 cubic metres of sediment.

Thanks to city staff for the tour of the area, and thanks for sharing your expertise and your obvious pride in playing a role to restore Chedoke Creek.

Why is this area so special? Cootes Paradise is the largest wetland at the western end of Lake Ontario. It is a magnificent example of plant biodiversity and is home to 35 endangered species. This location is also an important migratory bird stopover. One of our more famous inhabitants is our local bald eagle. The return of the endangered bald eagles to this area is a fantastic story. Catching a glimpse of them soaring over Cootes Paradise is truly a remarkable sight.

And in more good news, an incredibly rare Blanding’s turtle was released back into Cootes Paradise to join only two other Blanding’s turtles presently living in Cootes.

Hamiltonians are rightfully proud of our natural areas, and we are taking action. The city of Hamilton and community environmental partners are collaborating on the Biodiversity Action Plan. Partners include Hamilton naturalists, Environment Hamilton, the Royal Botanical Gardens. Their work will protect, enhance and restore biodiversity in Hamilton.

With great gratitude to all of you who stand up to defend our environment, I thank you.

We can’t continue doing the same thing over and over and over again for 15 years that the NDP and the Liberals have done, and expecting a different result. We’re pouring billions and billions of dollars into the health care system. But guess what? The status quo is not working. They feel the status quo is fine. They’d leave everything alone. They’d end up having zero beds.

We’re building thousands and thousands of beds, Mr. Speaker. We’re going to continue focusing on fixing the health care system that they broke for 15 years.

It gives me great pleasure to rise in this chamber today to recognize an outstanding resident from my riding of Durham. Recently, my office had the pleasure to congratulate Mr. Paul Arculus from Port Perry for his 25 years of outstanding service as the president of the Lake Scugog Historical Society and the curator of the Scugog museum.

Paul and Eleanor Arculus settled their family in Cartwright township in 1970 and, for the past 52 years, established themselves as pillars of the community.

In his many roles as teacher, author and renowned storyteller, Paul has shared his love of local history with thousands of residents in working toward the preservation of historical buildings, sites and cemeteries.

Just last year, Port Perry High School renamed a scholarship the Paul Arculus bursary, which is awarded to a local student pursuing post-secondary studies in the field of history.

On behalf of all Ontarians, thank you, Paul, for celebrating our past and honouring those who were a part of building the great province of Ontario.

Speaker, my question is to the Premier.

The government is planning to force ALC patients waiting in hospitals to move to long-term-care beds far from home, without their consent. This is going to tear seniors away from their spouses, their essential caregivers, their grandchildren, and everything that’s familiar to them.

Doctors and nurses rarely need to provide medical care for ALC patients, so this won’t free up nurses or doctors. This government is sacrificing seniors to free up furniture.

Why is the government hurting seniors instead of tackling the hospital staffing crisis?

Why is the government expanding for-profit care and making the staffing crisis in our hospitals even worse?

This scheme doesn’t hire a single nurse. It doesn’t hire a single doctor. It doesn’t keep ERs open this weekend.

Will the government scrap this scheme and instead launch a plan to recruit, retain and return nurses with better pay, better working conditions and the respect that they deserve?

Our plan to safely stay open really focuses on five main points, and it speaks exactly to what we need to do, which is, we need to shore up long-term-care beds. We’ve done that by an unprecedented expansion in the province of Ontario. We need to make sure that community care is available in our homes for our loved ones when they need it, because that’s what they want. They want to be close to home. They want to be in their own home. Our five-point plan speaks to all of those pieces.

Surgical backlogs, absolutely—the COVID pandemic did not stop surgeries. What we need to do is ensure those regularly scheduled surgeries can continue, and we are giving hospitals that expanded opportunity to, in many cases, allow the surgery suites to be open for longer. We’re funding those opportunities because we see that as a way to ensure people get the care they need, when they need it, where they need it.

We will continue to work with our partners to make sure that all opportunities are explored.

We’ve done the work. Now join us and be part of the solution.

When people have the qualifications that we deserve, that we expect in the province of Ontario, there should not be a block to get those people in community. We are doing that. That work has been done.

The ongoing expansion—unprecedented. In Scarborough, in Brampton, we have two new medical schools. We’re doing the short term, we’re doing the medium term, and we’re doing the long term—because we want health care to be in the province of Ontario, wherever you live.

In the Speaker’s gallery today, we have constituents from the riding of Wellington–Halton Hills: John Mann and his daughter Samantha Mann, from Georgetown. I’m pleased to inform the House that Samantha is starting her training for the page program at the Senate of Canada next week. Welcome to the Ontario Legislature.

Speaker, more than a million Ontarians don’t have access to a doctor or a nurse practitioner. People are waiting for hours and hours in pain in emergency rooms, waiting for months and years for surgeries, and more than 1,400 died last year while waiting.

There are over 12,000 internationally trained doctors and thousands more internationally trained nurses in Ontario ready to help fill the gap in primary care.

Why has this government failed to remove the unfair barriers for these doctors and nurses?

Nothing the minister says actually removes the barriers that internationally educated health care workers face in this province. The government says that they’re doing everything they can to work with internationally trained doctors and nurses to address the staffing shortage in health care. And, yet, data from the CPSO shows that only 739 applicants became members in 2020, compared to the 2,074 in 2019.

My question is, why was there a decrease when we’re in the middle of the pandemic and we’re facing a health care crisis?

The practice-ready assessment program, which was standardized, that this government cancelled in 2018, is actually working very well in seven other provinces. The model could have been used to implement a similar or even improved assessment process for doctors and nurses in Ontario. We could have had thousands of health care workers added to the system in as little as 12 weeks. I want everyone in Ontario to listen: In as little as 12 weeks, we could have had more health care workers in this province.

Will this government reverse its cuts? And why is this government dragging their feet in bringing in the solutions that can save lives in Ontario?