Last Friday, it was my pleasure to meet with the Saugeen Valley Children’s Safety Village near Hanover, in my great riding of Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound. The safety village hosted a community engagement workshop as its recognition event for receiving a Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund grant. The workshop included many organizations and members of our community focused on health, safety and children. Big Brothers Big Sisters, the food bank, public health, St. John Ambulance, Lions Club, Launch Pad, Keystone, and Women’s House were all there to support the safety village. It was a fabulous show of support and a great demonstration of the community spirit in our Grey Bruce community.

The Saugeen Valley Children’s Safety Village is an interactive educational facility dedicated to aiding in the elimination of preventable childhood injuries and death. Children participate in hands-on safety programs.

Have you prepared your children for a fire emergency? The safety village children practise dropping and moving along the ground, they hear and see a firefighter, they crawl across the floor, and they get out safely. It is a great learning experience.

Thank you to Marilyn Rosner, the volunteer board and the whole team at the safety village for your amazing work and your great contributions to our Grey Bruce community.

We need to invest in our schools. In fact, the lack of support for Ontario school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, in the 2023 education budget is deeply concerning. Our government’s failure to provide reimbursements for pandemic-related expenses not only affects the financial stability of the board, but it also has a direct impact on the education workers who provide vital support to our students.

With the potential cuts to nearly 500 positions, we risk losing the expertise and support of educational assistants, child youth counsellors and administrative staff, who are critical to the success of our students.

Many of my constituents have shared their worries about the already underfunded education system and how further cuts would only make things worse.

A parent in my riding, Bethany Lynn-Rice, shared that her son, who has an IEP and is diagnosed with ASD, hasn’t received adequate support due to staff shortages, leading to an unsettling year. Bethany also shared about her daughter, who has been facing bullying, especially at recess, because there aren’t enough supervising staff to supervise during recess. Bethany and so many other parents are worried that cutting more staff positions will only make things worse for her children and for many children across this province.

We have seen far too many school safety issues over the past year as students transition back into in-person learning.

With these funding cuts, we also risk losing important mental health support staff, who are critical to the well-being of our future generation—

Thank you very much. The next members’ statement.

Speaker, it’s my honour to introduce two London members here today: HMCS Prevost Commander Chief Petty Officer Second Class A. Rooney, coxswain, and HMCS Prevost Lieutenant Commander Paul Hong, commanding officer.

Welcome to the Legislature, and thank you for your service.

Speaker, I’m seeking unanimous consent to allow members to wear a green shirt in the House to mark April 7 as Green Shirt Day, which honours Logan Boulet, who tragically passed away in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, and raises awareness for organ and tissue donation.

I would also like to thank Minister Parsa and Minister Clark, and Minister Clark’s constituent Ethan Bos, for their work on Bill 112, the Green Shirt Day Act.

It is my honour and pleasure to introduce to the Legislature today two bright young students here, alongside a former federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, the Honourable Navdeep Bains. I would like to welcome my friends Alexa Sherer, a grade 11 student from TanenbaumCHAT; and Lachlan Ross, a grade 11 student from Northview Heights Secondary School. Our youth are our future, and we’re happy to keep these seats warm until they’re ready to take our spot.

I also would like to introduce a large group of nurses who are joining us from the Ontario Poison Centre—Crissy Amiana, Jacqueline Burke, Marie-Christine Ceganda, Mailyne Garraz, and my sister Faiza Shamji.

The Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery has a point of order, I believe.

It is now time to say a word of thanks to our legislative pages. Our pages are smart, trustworthy and hard-working. They are indispensable to the effective functioning of this chamber, and we are very fortunate to have had them here.

To our pages: You depart having made many new friends, with a greater understanding of parliamentary democracy and memories that will last a lifetime. Each of you will go home and continue your studies, and no doubt, you will contribute to your communities, your province and your country in significant ways. We expect great things from all of you. Maybe someday some of you will take your seats in this House as members or work here as staff—who knows? We wish you all well.

Please join me in thanking our legislative pages.

Applause.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to welcome Leah Wilson, my new OLIP intern, and Vyssnavi Vaseekaran, my new constituency assistant.

Welcome to the Ontario Legislature today.

I’d like to give a very warm welcome to two of my constituents, Chanel Wallace and Sylvia Smith, who are joining us for question period.

It’s an honour and a privilege to welcome Lieutenant Commander Farley Farn, executive officer with the HMCS Griffon, Thunder Bay.

Welcome, Dawson.

From the Bayview Cummer Neighbourhood Association and father of Willowdale page Evelyn, my friend Paul Yeung—welcome to the Legislature.

This morning I got a little cut off there, so I want to recognize Mohammed, who owns a new bakery in my community. It’s the first time for him, coming to Queen’s Park. He has a Lebanese background, and he has been doing great business in our community. By the way, he’s also a police officer from my area. He has been doing great work out there.

I’d like to also recognize my staff: Omar Farhat, my executive assistant, and Victoria Gangadeen, my constituency assistant.

I welcome them all to Queen’s Park today.

It is my great honour this morning to welcome to Queen’s Park from HMCS Star, Hamilton, Lieutenant Commander Michael Di Berardo, commanding officer. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Speaker, this Conservative government failed to notice $10.8 million being siphoned off by a senior bureaucrat—money that was intended to support families during the worst of the pandemic. And the Liberal government before that failed to notice $36.6 million stolen through a computer consultant scam by the same thief. He could do this, in large part, due to the fact that this government and others are over-relying on expensive, private consulting firms.

To the Premier: Will he cut down on his government’s use of overpriced consultants to protect public money?

Of course, we have been fighting right since the beginning, since 2018, to restore Ontario’s fiscal situation, and we’ve been doing an extraordinary job at that. In fact, not only have we restored fiscal sanity in the province of Ontario, we’ve done it while at the same time cutting taxes for the people of the province of Ontario, reducing costs to our small, medium and large job creators to the tune of over $8 billion, which has seen our income rise by over $50 billion—$50 billion. We’ve done it while stabilizing electricity rates. We’ve done it while investing a record amount in infrastructure—nationwide, a leading amount in infrastructure—while building 58,000 new and upgraded long-term-care beds, while building new schools. We’re seeing thousands of jobs come back to the province, billions of dollars in economic activity. And we’re doing it because we have had a plan since 2018. That plan is working, and today Ontario again led the nation in job creation, something—

Today in the gallery, I’d like to welcome Central Region captain from the Royal Canadian Navy, Sean Batte; Central Region chief representative, Chief Petty Officer Second Class Jason Semenzow.

Welcome to your House.

I know that the rest of you are going to be introduced by your MPPs from your region.

Thank you for coming.

I, too, want to welcome the Royal Canadian Navy reservists, on behalf of Premier Ford and the government of Ontario. Thank you for your service not only to Ontario, to Canada. Thank you for all your support and assistance as we brought forward military reservist leave to support all of our men and women in uniform.

C’est vraiment avec plaisir que je veux souhaiter la bienvenue ici aujourd’hui à Rachel Gouin, qui est directrice générale du CAP, qui est un institut vraiment important à Ottawa–Vanier qui donne des soins de santé mentale et de dépendances—so mental health and addictions. She is accompanied by Linda Godin. Bienvenue à Queen’s Park.

I’d like to introduce the rest of the members of the Royal Canadian Navy reserve. We have Commander Christopher Knowlton; Commander Francois Desjardins; Lieutenant Commander Michelle Moore; Commander Richard Hillier; Lieutenant Commander Chris Elliot; Commander Paul Hong; Commander, Chief Petty Officer Second Class A. Rooney; Lieutenant Commander Michael Di Berardo; Lieutenant Commander Daniel Karpenchuk; Lieutenant Commander Jack ‘tMannetje; and Acting Sub-Lieutenant Diego Ortiz.

Please join me in giving them all a round of applause.

Applause.

Ceux de nous ici, de ce côté de la Chambre, nous le savons très bien que ce gouvernement se présente comme grands admirateurs des consultants—grands admirateurs. Les conservateurs devraient donc certainement être favorables à plus de transparence et de responsabilité en ce qui concerne leurs contrats. Particulièrement puisque ce gouvernement envisage de privatiser encore plus de services publics, comme la santé.

Alors, monsieur le Président, revenons au premier ministre : est-ce que son gouvernement prévoit à mettre en place une liste « sunshine » pour ces consultants surpayés?

Back to the Premier: Does the Premier think that there should be a lesser standard for his own government?

Speaker, I’m here for answers for the people of Ontario, and we’re not getting any on that question, so let’s just try something else here.

To the Premier: Will the government stop stonewalling the release of this document so Ontarians can finally get some answers?

Here’s another fact for you—

Interjections.

Speaker, before last year’s election, the Premier promised up and down that he would not touch the greenbelt. But on November 4, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing broke the Premier’s promise. It’s hard to believe that the minister would betray such a big promise without the Premier’s permission.

Back to the Premier: Did the Premier or anyone acting on his behalf direct or authorize any ministry officials to remove lands from the greenbelt prior to last November 4?

This government is having a lot of trouble following along, so I’m going to make it very, very simple for them: Will the Premier rule out any further removals of land from the greenbelt? Yes or no?