Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

This being the first Monday of the month, I will ask everyone to join in the singing of the Canadian national anthem, followed by the royal anthem.

Singing of the national anthem / Chant de l’hymne national.

Singing of the royal anthem / Chant de l’hymne royal.

Mr. Fedeli, on behalf of Mr. Clark, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 63, An Act respecting the adjustment of the boundary between the City of St. Thomas and the Municipality of Central Elgin / Projet de loi 63, Loi concernant la modification des limites territoriales entre la cité de St. Thomas et la municipalité de Central Elgin.

Je suis ravi de prendre la parole encore une fois sur le projet de loi 63. Ce projet de loi vise fondamentalement un résultat simple : créer un site d’emploi pour les Ontariens de toutes générations. C’était crucial d’avoir un site industriel prêt pour achever le succès chez moi à Windsor–Tecumseh, et particulièrement l’usine de batteries pour véhicules électriques de NextStar Energy.

Notre gouvernement connaît bien que nous avons un excellent site industriel à Central Elgin. J’espère bien que ce projet de loi passe par notre Assemblée et que la ville de St. Thomas et la population de la région seront bientôt les bénéficiaires des centaines d’emplois dans le futur proche comme résultat de notre décision.

C’est essentiel que les employeurs majeurs connaissent qu’un choix de s’établir en Ontario non seulement est profitable pour eux et pour les employés, mais porte aussi le moins de risques. Leurs décisions seront prises dans le futur proche quant à savoir si on devrait choisir l’Ontario, et nos décisions ici vont les influencer.

Dans ce gouvernement, nous voulons faire de l’Ontario un choix facile. Nous devons rivaliser contre et vaincre la compétition, parce que les régions qui sont nos compétiteurs sont transfrontalières.

L’Ontario est loin d’être le seul territoire avide d’investissement. Dans tout le Midwest américain, de nombreux États ont vu leurs propres industries se vider. Ils veulent que leurs industries reviennent. Ils compenseront les coûts et le travail interne de l’entreprise pour sceller l’accord.

Les entreprises évaluent les coûts, mais elles évaluent également la complexité pour eux autres. Elles veulent que leurs constructions et leurs opérations soient fluides. Résider dans deux municipalités distinctes ajoute une complexité qui n’est vraiment pas nécessaire.

C’est essentiel pour ces entreprises que leur site d’affaires soit adapté et facile à utiliser. Nos concurrents savent que le calendrier et les coûts de développement associés doivent être facilement connus et rationalisés pour respecter les délais du projet. L’Ontario doit être concurrentiel à cet enjeu.

J’utiliserai comme comparaison la juridiction à l’autre côté de la frontière de ma communauté : le Michigan. L’État du Michigan est en bonne voie avec son propre programme d’amélioration du site. Le programme de préparation des sites stratégiques permet aux municipalités au Michigan de développer des sites prêts à l’investissement. Le programme des fonds stratégiques du Michigan, qui est lancé par le gouvernement de l’État, prend en charge les dépenses de préparation des sites stratégiques et méga-stratégiques pour les investissements, y compris l’acquisition des terrains; la préparation du chantier; le développement des infrastructures; la démolition et construction des bâtiments; l’assainissement environnemental; et soutenir les frais d’architecture, d’ingénierie et professionnels.

Un site stratégique ou méga-stratégique peut appartenir à des intérêts privés ou publics, et peut être utilisé à des fins manufacturières et commerciales.

Le Michigan n’est pas seul. Prêt de 40 juridictions proposent un type de programme de certification de mégasites. D’autres juridictions ont des sites prêts à l’emploi pour le développement. Nous devons les rejoindre ou nous serons laissés pour compte.

Speaker, this bill is fundamentally about one outcome: to create an employment site that will employ Ontarians for generations. Our government created, in November 2019, the Job Site Challenge. It was Canada’s first program to include municipalities, economic development agencies and industrial property owners who put forward large tracts of land of up to 1,500 acres to build an inventory of mega-sites that are investment-ready and could support large-scale manufacturing operations.

My home municipality of Tecumseh was one of the first to sign up for the Job Site Challenge. Mayor Gary McNamara had been advocating for a program of this kind for many, many years during my time on council. I’m quite happy to see that such a program finally came to fruition at the provincial level, and that it was our government who heeded the call.

I will send my apologies to all my colleagues here for being a broken record from our debate on the second reading of the bill, but the point remains relevant for the $5.1-billion NextStar project. They located it on lands within the city of Windsor that were previously annexed from the town of Tecumseh. Windsor was able to establish a market-ready site here. This foresight was a game-changer that landed the NextStar plant. The simplicity of the transaction carried the day.

I will give my thanks to Minister Clark as well for his minister’s zoning order, ensuring that the risk inherent with this project from the planning process, that could have delayed the project and knocked our site out of consideration, was mitigated.

I would also like to thank Minister Smith for his minister’s order to confirm with certainty that the required electrical transmission lines would be brought to Windsor and Essex county as quickly as possible, following many previous years of delay.

During the recent election, there were many commitments to ending MZOs made by political candidates and leaders. This was, quite frankly, an incredibly bold pitch to make in our community: “Vote for us, and we want to end the best shot at prosperity that you have earned in decades.” Thanks to Ontario’s voters and those in Windsor–Tecumseh, I’m delighted that this was never put to the test. Adding risk is just not good business in our efforts to grow employment.

The proof of success is there with NextStar—and Umicore, as well, in Loyalist township. Ontario has demonstrated confidence in the future of our industry, and is instilling that confidence in industry.

The Central Elgin site offers prospective employers 1,200 acres of potential industrial development. When we have a critical shortage of shovel-ready industrial sites here in Ontario, it is vital that we secure sites like those in Central Elgin that are accessible for development quickly. We owe it to our residents to ensure that good employers can have a home here in Ontario and provide benefits to all of its employees. Indeed, it is a lack of shovel-ready mega-sites that keeps Ontario held back. This is not an issue, happily, for the Central Elgin site, and it quite frankly is long past time to make this site work for the benefit of the residents of Elgin county, the city of St. Thomas and the regions surrounding.

We need to get it done for the people of Elgin county and the city of St. Thomas, but also for the people of Ontario. Otherwise, we just risk losing the opportunity to compete for and win these transformative investments. These investments bring hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs with them every time.

Many of the currently planned electric vehicle and EV battery-related investments are expected to come online in the mid-to-late 2020s, meaning that the window of opportunity to secure these investments, which are transformative in Ontario, is right now. Losing these investments to other areas is not acceptable to the people of my riding. We’ve lost enough manufacturing jobs in my riding of Windsor–Tecumseh. It is long past time to start taking back these investments, and our government is doing so.

But we need to have a solid inventory of fully serviced industrial parks and shovel-ready sites. Bill 63 achieves just that for St. Thomas and for Elgin county. The purpose of Bill 63 is a simple land boundary adjustment. The site is in two municipalities, as the minister stated earlier: the city of St. Thomas and the municipality of Central Elgin. We can address unnecessary and burdensome red tape that adds risk to our efforts to land large employers by consolidating all the lands within the regulatory environment of the city of St. Thomas.

But Bill 63 is not an end by any means. We need many, many more of these sites to be developed, and that means beginning with goodwill. The province will work closely with all the impacted municipalities and First Nations communities for this site, and going forward as well, as we identify more large-scale industrial sites.

Speaker, let us keep Ontario as the ideal destination for advanced manufacturing and for EV battery manufacturers, powered by our reliable clean energy, critical mineral resources and, of course, our world-class workforce and research and development ecosystem.