I would like to introduce representatives from Queen’s University who are here today: Dr. Patrick Deane, the principal and vice-chancellor; Owen Crawford-Lem, the rector; Craig Leroux, director of government and corporate relations; Dr. Nancy Ross, vice-principal of research; and Ann Tierney, vice-provost and dean of student affairs. Thank you for being here at Queen’s Park.

You know, the weather outside is frightful, but this House is so delightful—well, most days, anyway, which is why I’m pleased to buck up the festive spirit in this place and share some holiday tidings from the great riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore. Before I do that, I want to give a shout-out to my uncle Robert who is watching today, because I know he’s with my mom this week. Thanks for your help, Uncle Robert.

Over these last special weeks we’ve had a tree lighting at the Kingsway BIA.

Next, this past weekend—oh, it was a busy one—on Saturday I walked the 32nd Lakeshore Santa Claus Parade. Thanks to the volunteers and the families who braved the wind and rain—and oh, did it rain—to wait to see Santa Claus.

Next it was off to the Skate with Santa and the Franklin Horner Christmas Market, where I purchased some great gifts; and then off to Great Lakes Brewery for the Hops for Hunger Food Drive and holiday market, where a dollar from each sale of white eggnog stout was generously donated to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Lastly, this holiday message wouldn’t be complete without a shout-out to our great staff in our constituency offices and the team here at Queen’s Park. I would like to mention one staff member in particular, Joe Garisto, who has created Christmas cards, calendars and countless communication pieces for all of the Ontario PC caucus members and our leaders for the past 36 years. Joe, thank you for your dedicated work, your service with a smile. You have always been there when I needed you, even when I show up in your office with that last-minute request. Thank you. You have never let me down. Thank you for your service.

In closing, Mr. Speaker: The season is slowly ending and there’s no election pending. Point of order before I go: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I’d like to welcome today an incredible community leader from beautiful Beaches–East York. He was instrumental in delivering vaccinations when we were in the extreme heat of the pandemic. He was a huge volunteer; an incredible, sensational person: Bruce Pausey.

As a lifelong learner I find it fascinating to listen to the tributes offered by colleagues on behalf of our former members. It’s in this spirit that I want to offer my sincere gratitude to one of our most esteemed past colleagues and living legends, who continues to contribute by sharing his unique experiences and offering sage, relevant advice on a wide variety of topics to many of our members in this House.

Few people have served this province as well and as nobly as the Honourable Darcy McKeough. Born in Chatham on January 31, 1933, he remains active in the community and closely follows politics and current events from his lovely home, Bally McKeough, in beautiful Cedar Springs, Chatham-Kent.

Elected MPP five times between 1963 and 1977, McKeough was mockingly dubbed “the duke of Kent” by opposition members and has worn that title as a badge of honour ever since. As Treasurer of Ontario, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister of Energy during his time in office, McKeough created regional governments to bring more efficient services to our citizens and fought to achieve budget surpluses long before they were fashionable.

I feel fortunate for my friendship with my honourable predecessor and privileged to continue to glean insights from his lived experiences, a gentleman who is so delightful in any social setting and who continues to offer highly relevant solutions to contemporary matters with a level of competence, kindness and charm that I hope to one day aspire to. Thank you, Darcy, for continuing to contribute to our communities.

I’d also like to bring welcome to Jan Westcott, a former page and from Spirits Canada; and Andrew Walasek of the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs. I enjoy both of their products, but not together.

On that note, I’d like to wish a very, very happy birthday to my brother Sean, who is celebrating today. Happy birthday, Sean.

I just wanted to say a special hello to my good friend up in the gallery, Randy Aulbrook. Welcome to the House.

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature today representatives of the Ontario Public Transit Association. They’re here for their advocacy day. I don’t see them yet in the members’ gallery, but I want to welcome: Karen Cameron, president and CEO of OPTA; Rick Leary, CEO, and Kyla Marrin, manager of government relations and policy, of the Toronto Transit Commission; Carla Stout, general manager of the Niagara Transit Commission; Renée Amilcar, general manager of OC Transpo; and Kelly Paleczny, general manager of the London Transit Commission. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I don’t believe she is here yet, but this morning we will be joined by one of my constituents from the great riding of Brampton North: Cheryl Crompton. It is also her birthday today.

I’d like to add my welcome and introductions to my friends and neighbours who are visiting from Queen’s University, located in the great riding of Kingston and the Islands—and I know that there are many alumni of Queen’s here in this chamber. I invite everybody to meet with Queen’s later at the reception, if not in your offices, to understand the contribution of our post-secondary institutions to our society, to our economy, and to find out what they would like to see us do to help them contribute even more.

I see we have a couple of seconds left. I’d like to give a shout-out to my grandson Joey. He is one year old today and he’s celebrating with his other grandparents in Saudi Arabia.

It gives me great honour to acknowledge our page captain today, Alex Vanden Bosch, who is from my riding of Northumberland–Peterborough South, who hails from Grafton. She’s joined in the gallery by her parents, Irina and Justin; and Sue and Tim, her grandparents.

You have an outstanding granddaughter and daughter. Welcome to Queen’s Park. It’s an honour to have you here.

I would like to give a special shout-out to one of our pages from the great riding of Sault Ste. Marie. Grace Curran is with us, and I really want to say a special thank you to her.

Let’s be clear: For the last year, as our public accounts showed, we increased funding to health care by $5.2 billion in base funding. That is the largest increase in the history of this province.

What does that mean? That means that since March of 2020 this province has added over 12,000 health care professionals in Ontario. This year alone, the Ontario college of nurses has registered over 12,800 nurses. This is because the investments that this government is making to shore up our health human resources are working.

We’re going to continue to make those historic and unprecedented investments into health care to ensure that we have the support across this province.

The government wants to thank everyone who provided comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario for our posting related to the greenbelt. As members will know, that posting, at the end of the day, will add over 2,000 acres to the greenbelt while at the same time providing, under very strict criteria, the opportunity to build up to 50,000 homes.

Because his members wouldn’t let me read an excerpt from Mayor Kevin Ashe from the city of Pickering regarding the DRAP, I’ll do it today, Speaker, with your indulgence. Mayor Ashe says, “I would also like to support and thank you and your government for your efforts in proposing the removal of the Cherrywood Area Lands from the greenbelt plan and in proposing to repeal the Central Pickering Development Plan. In light of this planned residential and commercial growth, I am encouraged that your ministry will ultimately augment and strengthen the greenbelt by adding 9,400 acres to it.”

We understand how difficult this fall has been. We’ve inherited a broken system, which has been put under pressure by the triple threat now of RSV, COVID and influenza. But we inherited this system and we intended to take steps to fix it, which is what we’ve been doing to ensure children get the care they need.

Our government is in constant contact with our pediatric hospitals. In fact, our government funded a second pediatric ICU at CHEO for the fall surge, which CHEO has been staffing until now. But now they need a little extra help, and they have asked a small team to come in temporarily from Red Cross to assist them with the second pediatric ICU, but that was certainly part of our planning to make sure we had the care we’d need for pediatric patients at CHEO and other pediatric hospitals.

As Tammy DeGiovanni, the chief nursing officer at CHEO, has said:

“It has been all hands on deck at CHEO this viral season as we have responded to unprecedented volumes” of “RSV, the flu and COVID.... We have redeployed staff and medical staff from surgical and medical care units, added extra beds and workers in our pediatric intensive care and emergency departments as well as in-patient units, and asked non-clinical staff to support clinical teams where possible. Everyone at CHEO has been” doing all they can “to take care of kids and their families.”

Our government applauds the work of our health care workers in making sure that pediatric patients and all patients in our system are getting the care they need.

Interjections.

My question is to the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health has risen in this House countless times over the past few weeks saying that the government had “prepared” for the surge in respiratory illnesses. And yet, just this past weekend, CHEO in Ottawa has had to call in the Red Cross to help. That is not what a well-resourced and prepared health care system looks like, Speaker.

Does the minister think it’s acceptable for a hospital to have to call in the Red Cross?

Ontarians deserve a health care system that provides the care they need when they need it. CHEO has already had to cancel surgeries, open a second pediatric ICU and transfer teenage patients to adult hospitals. It’s now clear that this government hasn’t done enough.

Why didn’t the minister do more to ensure that the province was prepared for the respiratory season?

The FAO has shown that in the first half of the year, the government underspent in health care by nearly a billion dollars. To add insult to injury, the government plans to appeal the ruling on Bill 124, which has already driven countless health care workers out of our system. The government continues to underfund and degrade our publicly funded health care system.

Why is the minister letting the situation in our hospitals get so bad?

Why is the minister betraying the public’s trust by removing these farmland protections and giving away this immensely valuable public investment to powerful land speculators like the De Gasperis family?

The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act was passed in 2005 to reverse this betrayal of public trust. Why is the minister repealing the act and once again betraying the public trust?

The minister is about to remove protections from the preserve, giving billions of dollars’ worth of public wealth to private interests. Why is the minister enabling this betrayal of the public trust?

The member for Eglinton–Lawrence and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

Final supplementary question.

Government House leader to respond.

The member knows that nothing could be further from the truth. We were elected on a very strong platform to ensure that the people of the province of Ontario were well serviced by their government. What that means right now is that the people of the province of Ontario know that we are in a housing crisis. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has brought forward a very thoughtful program that would allow us to work in consultation and in co-operation with the city of Pickering to ensure that we can bring homes to the people of this province.

I look around me at my caucus here and I wonder how many of them are first-generation Canadians whose parents came here with one dream, and that dream was to have a better life for their family and for their kids. Part of that dream, I know from my parents, was to have their first home.

The opposition would take that dream away from the over 500,000 people who are expected to come here each and every year. Mr. Speaker, we won’t do that. We have a responsibility to the people of the province of Ontario to ensure that they can meet their dreams like countless generations have. They want to take that away from people; we’ll make sure that they get it.