SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2023 09:00AM
  • Feb/27/23 10:00:00 a.m.

I appreciate the question from the member. Really, we have seen tremendous investment. I mentioned the NextStar Energy and Umicore investments to start, but we also have tremendous other opportunities that are in the pipeline.

As the minister noted, not all of them will come to fruition. However, think of the $2 billion in investments by global biomanufacturers—Sanofi, Resilience and Roche pharmaceuticals—and $17 billion in investments by automakers and suppliers of EV batteries and battery material. You’ve heard of LG Energy Solution, Stellantis, General Motors, Honda, Ford, Umicore, Magna, Nokia—$340 million investment to build in Ottawa. So the investments are coming in thanks to the government’s proactive efforts to attract investment. I thank you for the question.

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  • Feb/27/23 10:50:00 a.m.

I do appreciate the question from the member opposite. It is a very serious question affecting Canadian youth and children around the world—the increase of mental health needs in our province.

Mr. Speaker, we have in this province, every single year since coming to office, increased funding for mental health. We started with a nearly $18-million investment at the peak of spending under the former Liberals. Today, that investment is at $90 million—a 400% increase in investments, Speaker.

Year over year, we’ve hired 9% more mental health workers, professionals working directly with our kids—psychologists and psychotherapists; 7,000 more education workers, which includes social workers and child and youth workers. We recognize the demands are rising. It’s why we’ve increased funding this school year by an additional $10 million.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to our schools, many parents will get their kids access to treatment in their community. Working with the Ministry of Health, we’ve increased funding through the Roadmap to Wellness by $130 million, particularly for kids, and created 14 youth mental health hubs to ensure they have the services and the supports they deserve.

In addition to in-school supports—the hiring of more psychologists, psychotherapists and mental health workers—we also have stepped up support in community. There’s $130 million dedicated specifically for children and youth. We created, under our government with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, 14 youth hubs to create integrated services for children in rural, remote and urban communities. We’ll continue to work together to meet the needs of our kids.

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  • Feb/27/23 11:30:00 a.m.

Our government will continue to make historic and unprecedented investments into the health sector across this province. Just last year, we invested an additional $5.2 billion to support the delivery of health care services all across this province. That included investing and making sure that we increased or actually opened up additional medical seats for those in the north to ensure that there was better care for residents across all parts of this province.

We’re continuing to ensure that we make the necessary investments in health human resources: over 12,000 nurses were registered, a record year in this province. We will continue to make sure that those investments are being made all across this province.

Mr. Speaker, our government will continue to make these historic and unprecedented investments across this province. We ask the members opposite to stop voting against many of those measures that we have put up, including this historic investment of over $5 billion in additional support, and join our government in increasing investments in health care across this province.

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