Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to pay tribute to Her Worship the late mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion. The word that keeps coming to mind when people remember Hurricane Hazel is “one-of-a-kind.” It is well earned. There has never been a public figure quite like the long-serving mayor of Mississauga, and I doubt there ever will be.

She was a trailblazer, feisty and fearless, beloved by her constituents, respected and feared in equal measure by those she crossed swords with. No Premier had to bestow strong-mayor powers on Hazel McCallion; she simply assumed them through sheer force of will, and for 12 consecutive terms—36 years, into her 94th year—she used them to change the face of her city.

I last spoke with Mayor McCallion in November when our paths crossed at duelling events, and she was very clear about what she thought about my position on the greenbelt. Speaker, there is no doubt I took it squarely on the chin, but despite that, I join my fellow MPPs and countless others in Ontario and across Canada in paying tribute to a remarkable woman and the remarkable life she lived. May we all aspire to Hazel McCallion’s unparalleled commitment to public service and to her community.

She will be missed, but she will never be forgotten, the one-of-a-kind mayor of Mississauga. May she rest in peace.

I rise today to pay tribute to my dear friend Hazel McCallion. My deepest condolences go to her children, Peter, Linda and Paul, and her granddaughter Erika, and everyone who had the pleasure of knowing the one and only Hazel McCallion.

I’ll tell you what Hazel meant to me. Hazel was a mentor, she was an adviser, but most importantly, she was a dear friend.

Hazel was a giant. She was a true leader, in charge of every discussion—even when we had breakfast in the morning, she would take charge—every debate in rooms she entered. There isn’t a single person who met Hazel who didn’t leave in awe of her force of personality throughout her life. Whether on the ice, in the boardroom or on the floor of the council chamber, she was a force to be reckoned with.

She always said what was on her mind, and she was always, always right, because she never lost sight of why she entered public service: to serve the people. No politician in the country understood grassroots better than Hazel did. She was in the malls, she was in the stores and she was on the streets meeting the people and listening to what they need.

She was a champion for the underdog because she believed in them, she saw their potential, and because at one time she was one herself. She grew up in a time when women, like her, were told no, but she didn’t accept that, and she proved the naysayers wrong. That’s what made Hazel such a trailblazer.

She was an icon, a legend. She was Hurricane Hazel, and today we honour her. As I said last week, we honour her 36 years as mayor of Mississauga—the longest-serving mayor in the history of Mississauga. She dedicated her life to building and serving the city she loved so much.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll tell you a story. I had her over and we went out for breakfast, and she sat down and she talked to me about how when she took the chair of mayor in 1978, the population of Mississauga was 281,000 people. Today—and it’s growing—it’s over 716,000 people, the sixth-largest city in the country. That’s a growth of 435,000 people. Just think of that: 435,000 people. She told me in the conversation—as the leader of the Green Party said—about the greenbelt and developing and so on and so forth. She told me that there were cow pastures all throughout Mississauga, and now there are hospitals; there are homes; there are community centres; there are long-term-care centres; there are roads; there are transit systems. She said, “Doug, don’t listen to the naysayers. Don’t listen to no. We have a growing population. Move forward and be the visionary that this province needs to fulfill the needs of the 300,000 people coming to this province.” I think she said that publicly, as well, numerous times.

So I’m going to listen to Hazel McCallion, one of the true leaders in this country. We’re going to make sure that the 300,000 people who come here will have a place to call home; a place that they can put the key in the door, walk through the door, have a family, start a business.

Mississauga, because of her being a visionary, is a better city. Ontario is a better province and Canada is a better country because of the vision that Hazel McCallion had.

I’m so lucky to consider Hazel my dear friend. She was a gift. She was a mentor. May God bless Hazel McCallion.

Applause.

My question is to the Premier.

There’s no question that Ontario’s health care system is in crisis, but make no mistake, this crisis is by design. This government has underfunded our hospitals, held down the wages of our health care workers, and now, after years and years of neglect, the government has tabled a new bill that uses this crisis as an excuse to expand for-profit health care in Ontario.

Hospitals and long-term-care homes are already desperately fighting to retain nurses and doctors in what is really a staffing crisis across the system, and they’re now going to face competition from new two-tier investor-driven clinics. Nothing in this bill prevents that from happening.

Can the Premier guarantee today that these for-profit clinics will not poach staff from our publicly funded hospitals and long-term-care homes?

I want to go back to the Premier again: This bill also includes no actual oversight mechanism to ensure patient safety. The Minister of Health yesterday couldn’t even say which body would be overseeing these clinics to ensure that procedures are done safely—couldn’t even say that.

What concrete guarantees can the Premier make today regarding people’s safety in these for-profit clinics?

And the fact is, Speaker, the government is asking Ontarians to just trust them. But the minister said yesterday that they wouldn’t be able to share some details because of the—and I want to quote her—“business-model nature” of these new clinics. The minister says there are guardrails, but beyond saying people can complain to the Ombudsman, the bill doesn’t guarantee oversight for public funds or public safety.

So again: How will this government ensure that the interest of patients takes precedence over people who just want to make a buck?

Thank you for the question from the Leader of the Opposition.

I’ll tell you, when we took office in 2018, the health care system was an absolute disaster. There was hallway health care. It was just a total, total mess. Since 2018, we’ve hired 60,000—I repeat, 60,000—new nurses, 8,000 new doctors. We’ve put a medical school together that’s going to graduate more doctors. Just last year alone, Mr. Speaker, we hired over 12,000 nurses that came on board. We’ve spent $14 billion more—a record in Canada when it came to health care. We’re building 50 new sites across every single region, community and city, spending over $40 billion making sure they have the infrastructure they need.

I’ll finish on question number 2, there. Thank you.

Just think: You have an elderly mother or an elderly father that’s been in pain for a year because they can’t get a hip replacement. They’re going to be able to get that hip replacement and change their lives every single day.

When it comes to the nurses, there’s 30,000 nurses studying in colleges and universities that are going to join the Ontario health care team.

We will continue building health care to make sure we have the best health care system in the entire world, Mr. Speaker.

The member opposite will continue to protect a small group of individuals who don’t want to change, who don’t want to see change. What we are protecting, what we are advocating for, are patients—patients who are waiting far too long for cataract surgeries, for knee surgeries, for hip replacement. We want those individuals to be able to be back with their families, back in their communities, back in their jobs. We’re doing that by making the investments that we have with your health care Ontario act. I am very, very proud of the work that our stakeholders have done—clinicians, hospital leaders, individuals who are working in the system, who understand that innovation is not a bad word.

We’re making those investments. We’ve ensured, through our investments, like the medical school in the city of Brampton, that we’ll have new graduates and new students starting next September who will be able to have those opportunities here in Ontario in our publicly funded system.

We give thanks for the life and public service of Hazel McCallion.

I think the Premier has answered that on a number of occasions. Equally important, the integrity commissioner has also reviewed that.

What this is obviously about is the inability of the opposition to see what is happening in the province of Ontario—the progress, the prosperity that is happening across our province. We want to build new homes for people. We want the over 300,000 people who are coming to Ontario each and every year to fill the thousands of jobs that are available because of the incredible investments that have been made by this minister, by this Premier, to bring jobs back to Ontario.

And do you know what they want? They want what everybody wants—what my parents wanted, what everybody wants when they come to this country: They want to have the ability to buy their first home. They want to have a community to live in that is prosperous. They want to be able to raise a family, have good schools and safe streets. That is what we’re doing: building a stronger, more prosperous, safer Ontario. They’ll do everything in their power to avoid that happening.

Interjections.

And what are we doing? We’re building back this province, stronger than it was before. We’re cutting taxes for people. We’re building roads. We’re building highways. We’re building transit systems. We’re building 60,000 new long-term-care beds across the province of Ontario. Our Minister of Agriculture is doing everything that she can to make one of the most important industries in our province prosperous, despite punishing carbon taxes from the federal government. We’re going to continue to get the job done despite the Leader of the Opposition.

Interjection.

But look, the people of the province of Ontario made a very important decision in June. What they decided to do was reduce the opposition and elect more Progressive Conservatives to this chamber to get their priorities done. They had had enough of the negativity that was coming from the opposition. This is a party who couldn’t even muster enough energy up to have a leadership race; they had to appoint their leader. It’s a party that has been so diminished by the people of the province of Ontario that their newly elected, selected leader won’t even sit in the seat of the opposition leader, but wants to sit over. But that’s not important.

What is important is building better for the people of the province of Ontario, building more homes so that the next generation can have every bit of optimism that they can afford to have a home, that people can have jobs and opportunity, like millions of other Ontarians have had. The people of Ontario know that only this side and the members of the Conservative caucus on that side will get it—

Interjections.

To respond, the government House leader.

Start the clock. The Leader of the Opposition.

The final supplementary.

Start the clock. The next question.

This government has shown, over and over again, that their interest is in a few people getting very rich, not in Ontarians and their suffering. There is a cloud hanging over this government.

I want to go back to the Premier: Yesterday, the Premier dodged questions about the curious nature of his cozy relationships with developers. We know that developers just happened to receive some oddly specific ministerial zoning orders and access to protected greenbelt land just months after attending a fundraiser for the Premier’s family.

In the interest of transparency, I’m going to ask again: Did anyone in the Premier’s office, past or present, or any other government staff have a role in making the invitation list for his family’s fundraiser?

The Premier has said that his family events have an open-door policy. Why, then, are there reports that some people felt they were being strong-armed into paying to attend? Again to the Premier: Did anyone from his office help create the invitation list for this event? Yes or no?

Let’s review the timeline, shall we? The stag-and-doe was in August, the wedding in September. Just two months later, this government broke its promise to the people of Ontario and started carving up the greenbelt. Now we find out that some of the very people who attended the Premier’s family festivities suddenly had their land value skyrocket due to this government’s decisions—curious.

But the Premier—or the government House leader, even—can clear this up right now: Did the Premier share this intentions to open up the greenbelt with developer guests who contributed to this family fundraiser?

We’re very concerned with some of the things we’re hearing from the mayor and council in Waterloo. Obviously, we’ve had a very good dialogue recently with the big city mayors. I attended their last meeting, and I look forward to continuing the conversation around development charges as we develop the rules around those DC incentives.

We do not believe as a government that non-profits and affordable housing providers should be charged huge, unsustainable fees from municipalities. We believe the best way to incentivize those costs is to directly eliminate or reduce development charges. That’s the policy of the government. We look forward to working with our municipal partners, but we’re very concerned with some of the things that are being discussed around Waterloo regional council.

Yesterday, we made another investment to ensure that publicly funded health care, a system that in Ontario people believe in and want to be there appropriately in their communities, is going to be for generations to come.

Our government, as the Premier mentioned—since 2018, $14 billion of new investment in health care in Ontario. What has that investment given us? It has given us two new medical schools in the works. It has given us an opportunity to actually ensure that people who are practising medicine in other parts of Canada can do that the next day when they come to Ontario.

We have, through Your Health Act, ensured, for generations to come, that a growing population and an aging population will be protected under a publicly funded health care system.

I am incredibly proud of the work that our stakeholders, our clinicians, our hospitals, our physicians have done—and are supporting Your Health Act today.

We have funded three additional expansions to cataract in Windsor, in Kitchener-Waterloo, in Ottawa. We’ve done that, and those clinically funded programs are already in place and already serving more patients in the province of Ontario.

We’ll continue to make those expansions because I do not believe, at my core, that it is appropriate to have people waiting for medically necessary procedures in their community.

It is unfathomable to me that the member opposite doesn’t understand, by expanding what is already in place in the province of Ontario, with over 800 community clinics—that we do not see an opportunity here to serve the patient better.

Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

Yesterday, the minister took a huge step towards the destruction of medicare. The Auditor General, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, the Ontario Health Coalition, Health Quality Ontario, the Canadian Medical Association and Ontarians are all saying the same thing: The minister’s bill will allow corporations to make big profits off the backs of sick people. Yet there is no oversight to protect patients in her bill. Why not?

Why is the minister destroying medicare?

My question is to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development.

Because of the policies of the previous Liberal government, supported strongly by the NDP, jobs were driven out of our province, holding back our full economic potential. Ontario’s northern, remote and Indigenous communities experienced these losses and setbacks most severely.

That is why it’s vital that our government partner with and promote economic development in Indigenous communities to create more opportunities for businesses and jobs throughout the province. Supporting Indigenous economic development furthers reconciliation and creates opportunities to strengthen relationships with Indigenous partners.

Speaker, can the minister please inform the Legislature on how our government plans to increase economic prosperity for Indigenous communities in Ontario?

Stop the clock. I need to remind all members to please make their comments through the Chair, not directly to the public galleries.

Restart the clock. The next question.

We want municipal partners to work with us. For example, I want to applaud the city of London that just recently passed a motion approving the housing pledge that we’ve asked of all the big city mayors. I want to speak to the difference between what we’re hearing from New Democrats and the government. I want to speak specifically to the young people who are in our audience today. Unsustainable fees like we see in the GTA are adding $116,900 to the average cost of—what it means to you is it means another $800 a month on a mortgage over 20 years. What are we seeing? We’re seeing millennials having to save 20 years to be able to put a down payment on a home. That’s unacceptable to our government. We want all three levels of government to be working together. We’ve heard from many municipalities who want to work with us.

Again, I’m very concerned with what I’m hearing from Waterloo. Folks, I want you to know something: We hear you. We want you to realize the dream of home ownership.

Interjections.

The skilled trades are a vital part of our province’s economy, but unfortunately, after 15 years of neglect under the previous NDP-supported Liberal government, we are experiencing critical labour shortages in this sector.

In Barrie–Innisfil, thousands of jobs are being unfilled in the trades sector. These jobs represent opportunities for people, many of them paying good paycheques, with benefits and potential pensions. These are jobs that are valued. They’re important and they’re urgently needed for our province to overcome the housing shortage we are facing and to rebuild vital infrastructure.

Can the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development tell us what our government is doing to address the skills shortage that is currently holding back Ontario from its economic potential?

Thank you to the member from Barrie–Innisfil, who does a great job advocating for the skilled trades in her region of the province.

From day one, our government has known the skilled trades needed more attention and investments. I’m pleased to share with all members the success of our first-ever skilled trades career fairs for students. Over the course of 10 days, more than 13,000 students in five regions had the opportunity to try the skilled trades and learn first-hand about the trades from over 90 exhibitors, including unions, employers and colleges. Later this year, we’ll be bringing these fairs back and expanding them to even more locations right across the province.

Speaker, by giving more students a chance to see for themselves how rewarding and exciting the trades are, we’re setting them up for success. As Premier Ford always says, when you have a career in the skilled trades, you have a career for life.

Furthermore, we also passed legislation that eliminates the requirement for Canadian work experience to work in the skilled trades here in Ontario. We’re welcoming the skilled immigrants we need and breaking down the barriers that newcomers face when arriving here in Ontario.

Speaker, we need all hands on deck to build back a stronger province and a stronger country.

The supplementary question.

There is no doubt that we want to make sure that our most challenged and youngest patients have health care where they need it and when they need it.

I will never, ever talk down SickKids. They are a world-renowned hospital that has been providing exceptional care, including, I might suggest, when we saw a surge in RSV. In fact, it was actually SickKids clinicians, nurses, doctors who stepped up and assisted community hospitals to make sure that they had the same level of knowledge and appreciation of how to deal with children coming into their emergency departments with RSV. When we saw those surges in our sick kids’ hospitals across Ontario, we made immediate investments that have now turned into permanent investments, including pediatric ICUs.

The hospitals themselves—the clinicians, the staff—have stepped up, and we, as a government, will continue to support their work to make sure that our most vulnerable are protected.

As I said, in the fall, when we saw the RSV hitting our pediatric hospitals, in particular, most dramatically, we did a number of things, including making additional investments in ICU beds that have now become permanent. We have more pediatric ICU beds in the province of Ontario today than we did as recently as six months ago. We will continue to make those investments. Premier Ford has made it clear we will not leave our hospital partners behind.

Now, would I have liked to see those investments happen 10 years ago? Absolutely, but we’re getting it done now. We’re fixing a system that frankly was ignored for far too long under previous governments.