Good morning, everyone. What do you think of when you imagine holiday dinner? Golden turkey with fluffy mashed potatoes and gravy, latkes with sour cream and apple sauce? Unfortunately, food won’t make it to the tables of all Ontarians for the holidays this year: 16.1% of Ontarian households face food insecurity, and that number is, sadly, only growing.

This problem has only accelerated in recent years. In beautiful Beaches–East York, the crisis has many turning to food banks, which have been seeing a record number of people coming out to use their services. More than ever, food banks need our help so they can serve our communities best. I’m proud to showcase some of the organizations in my riding:

—Grant AME Church provides food hampers to over 250 families in need every Christmas and is currently accepting donations of food, personal care items, diapers, toys, gift cards and monetary donations.

—Community Centre 55’s Share a Christmas program serves over 100 families. This year, they are looking for new and unwrapped toys, monetary donations, and gift cards for teens.

—Grace Pascoe Care Centre at Cavalry Baptist Church has been operating for over 60 years and is accepting food and monetary donations for hampers.

During this season and all year round, we must choose compassion and show kindness to others. My team and I will be volunteering at and making donations to food banks in our neighbourhood over the break, and we welcome you to do so too with your teams. Thank you and happy holidays, and thanks for listening so intently.

I know that the members opposite will do anything—they’re like a leak, right? You know when you have a leak in your house and you want to find out where the leak is before it does too much damage, right? Of course, the people of Ontario know what happens if you don’t find that leak. By consequence, we didn’t find it in 1990 to 1995 and the NDP almost bankrupted the province.

But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, we have a situation in the province of Ontario where we are in a housing crisis. The NDP are going to do and say everything they possibly can to stop hundreds of thousands and millions of Ontarians from having the same dream that millions have. Put your hand up in this caucus or over there if you’re a first-generation or if your parents came here. Look at the hands that are going up.

Interjections.

When my parents came here impoverished from Italy, they came here to have a better life for their kids. And the number one dream is the value of a home. They got it and look where they—

Interjections.

But more importantly, what you’re seeing day in and day out, colleagues, is the NDP who refuse to acknowledge that in the province of Ontario there is a housing crisis. That housing crisis was created by policies that they helped support.

We know that in the province of Ontario we want to continue to welcome people from all over the world to help us build a better and more prosperous Ontario, just like my parents did. When my parents came in the late 1950s and early 1960s, all of them, the brothers and their sisters—six of them lived in one house. Some lived upstairs; some lived in the basement. And one by one they managed to have the dream of a brand new home right here in the province of Ontario. That was the dream when they came. They wanted their kids to have a better future than they had. That’s why millions of people came here, struggled, and helped build the province of Ontario.

They want to take that dream away from people. This Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said no. That is a dream that countless generations had—

There is a tremendous amount of resources that have been put not only into northern communities but across the province of Ontario to ensure that we are prepared to meet the challenges of natural disasters, both in southern and northern Ontario, in urban and rural communities. That means working very closely with our municipalities, who have expertise on the ground.

The important thing, when we talk about the north, is that we have to create those partnerships, because it is so important. That’s why we are bringing, of course, more roads and transportation networks to northern Ontario. I know the Minister of Mines has been working very hard with First Nations partners and with our mining partners to ensure that we can unleash the power of the north. I know the Minister of Energy last week just talked about how we finally were able to get hydroelectricity to some parts of northern Ontario—I know the honourable gentleman was there as well—finally taking them off diesel generators.

Look, the north is an important part of the economic prosperity to the province of Ontario, as he talked about, and that’s why we’re working so closely with our partners to mitigate that.

So, here’s what we know, Speaker: Our per capita housing supply lags behind our G7 and our Canadian peers, who we compete with for jobs and investment. Today, our province is nearly 1.3 million homes, rented or owned, short of that G7 average. That’s why we’re in the middle of a housing crisis.

The University of Ottawa-based smart prosperity centre found that Ontario’s pre-existing shortage is already 471,000 homes in 2021. We need over an additional million homes just to get to that average of other G7 countries and our Canadian peers. And then, as has been noted this morning, we already know that we’re going to have an influx of new immigration who we want to welcome to our province—probably 60% of that half a million new Canadians are going to come here. That’s why we’re putting forward policies, procedures, bills, regulations to get shovels in the ground.

I am not going to stand here like the member for Guelph, the leader of the Green Party, and defend the status quo. He opposes building homes, he opposes getting things done and he opposes the realization of the dream of home ownership for a generation of Ontarians.

I’d like to thank the member for Thunder Bay–Atikokan for that excellent question. He’s right: Too often we hear this false choice. Environmental protection and economic development go hand in hand, and that’s a belief of this government. In fact, that worrying false dichotomy presents a fundamental lack of belief in Ontarians and in the potential of the men and women in the north.

Speaker, there is no net-zero without mining. In the north, the corridor to prosperity means the critical minerals we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

Just this past week, I approved, with my powers under the Environmental Assessment Act, Generation PGM’s Marathon mine project. This approval is a guarantee that this vital project will go forward for the people of northern Ontario.

Ontario is leading Canada, showing that by working with businesses, not taxing them, we can realize the potential of the north, work hand in hand with Indigenous partners, and ensure that Ontario is at the forefront of decarbonization.

Thank you, Speaker. I’m just going to repeat the question.

This government should remember that the last time they tried to trample on the rights of Ontarians, the people were united. They fought back, and the government was embarrassingly forced to repeal their unconstitutional bill at that time, in less than a week.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: Will the government withdraw Bill 39 before they’re forced to repeal it?

I’ve had the opportunity to visit and meet with businesses in my riding of Ajax. I consistently hear the same message, that under the previous Liberal government, it was challenging to start and grow a business in Ontario. Hard-working innovators and small businesses struggled to navigate unnecessary, redundant and outdated regulations. Businesses in my community and across all of Ontario suffered from legislative barriers and the largest red tape burden in the country.

Ontarians expect their government to support them and to implement measures to increase our province’s competitiveness, productivity and economic potential. Speaker, can the Minister of Red Tape Reduction please share how our government supports small businesses across Ontario?

The historic progress achieved by our government to modernize processes and reduce red tape is helping businesses save time and money. Business owners, and all Ontarians, expect their government to focus on measures that make government services easier to access and interact with.

Speaker, can the Minister of Red Tape Reduction please explain the positive outcomes that have been achieved for the people of Ontario by cutting unnecessary red tape?

Thank you, Speaker. I will also be sharing my time with the great member from Niagara West, who gave me a resounding round of applause there, as well.

It’s my honour to rise today to speak to some of the critical investments our government is making under our fall economic statement. Whether it’s our plan to build, expanding our investments in the skilled trades, or being there for our most vulnerable, our government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, is taking historic steps to ensure Ontario is kept on the right path.

Speaker, let’s not forget it was just over four years ago that Ontario was holding on by a thread. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were being lost, hydro rates were skyrocketing, and Ontarians were losing hope. Since then, our government has pushed forward with the real priorities of Ontarians, standing strong throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now taking the necessary steps to recover and grow.

Our progress report on our budget measures highlights our resolve and determination to get things done for Ontarians on all fronts.

Ontario is not the only jurisdiction facing labour shortages, a housing crisis and cost-of-living strains, but our government is making every effort to ensure that we’re among the first to overcome these challenges through a variety of tax relief initiatives, infrastructure investments and digital innovations.

First and foremost, our government understands and values and respects the needs of our taxpayers. We are managing the provincial debt in a responsible and respectful manner. Just this past September, our government announced the deficit for the 2021-22 fiscal year had been eliminated, and while it may not always be the case going forward with each passing year, our government will always remain steadfast as we look to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are spent wisely.

Our plan to build hinges on the connectivity of people, communities and businesses across Ontario. Our government’s plan highlights $25 billion over the next decade to support planning and construction of highways and rehabilitation projects like Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass, the QEW Garden City Skyway and many others—including in my own riding of Perth–Wellington, $1.4 million for Highway 89 in Mount Forest and $1.3 million on Ontario Street in Stratford. And I want to apologize to my constituents—there’s a joke that there are two seasons in Ontario, construction season and winter, and it really felt this way in my riding this summer. But it’s great to see the provincial government making these investments, as outlined in the fall economic statement.

Beyond this, our government is allocating $61 billion over the next 10 years towards public transit, connecting people across a variety of different communities and allowing them to engage in broader local, regional and provincial economies. More specifically, this will support even larger-scale transit projects such as the Ontario Line to the Ontario Science Centre, connecting over 40 transit hubs including GO train lines, TTC lines and the Eglinton Crosstown light-rail transit line, and including, through the Community Transportation Grant Program system under Minister Mulroney, transportation in my riding of Perth–Wellington. We are including transportation in rural Ontario, which is something that unfortunately has been lost in previous governments in this place. These transit funds will also support GO train expansion outside of the GTA—nothing against my great GTA colleagues, but we do need to expand the GO train beyond the greater Golden Horseshoe, to communities such as Stratford and St. Marys. These investments will reduce emissions, cut commuting times, and allow families to spend more time together.

Speaker, the opposition never wastes an opportunity to call for more transit investments, which is why I’m calling on all opposition MPPs here today to join our government in advancing this important shared priority, and to show that they’re really fighting for their constituents and not just counting political points.

However, with or without our opposition colleagues, our government is fully aware of what Ontarians are looking for from us. We heard it loud and clear this past June, when people right across the province gave this government a mandate to build more infrastructure, invest in our health care and schools, and keep costs down for families and businesses.

Our government has committed more than $40 billion over the next 10 years in hospital infrastructure, supporting more than 50 additional major hospital projects—a historic investment—and community health care centres, adding 3,000 new beds over that time period.

And in light of the financial pressures on families and businesses across the province that they have been facing over the last few years, our government is making sure that we take every step to ensure families can live comfortably and businesses can thrive.

In spring 2022, recognizing the effects of inflation and geopolitical circumstances, our government cut the provincial gas tax by 5.7 cents per litre. Statistics Canada has shown that this cut has contributed significantly to the decline in gas prices across Ontario and has helped lower the consumer price index. We’re proposing, under the fall economic statement, to extend that to the end of 2023.

Furthermore, our government has continued to take leadership in streamlining business operations and reducing costs for complying with regulations, saving businesses, not-for-profits, municipalities, universities, colleges, hospitals and school boards $576 million per year. The integrated impacts of these cost-saving measures are reflected by an increase in total real business investment in Ontario by $9.7 billion between the second quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2022. More than just that, our government has overseen a 5.2% increase over the same time period in investments by Ontario businesses in real intellectual property rights, ranking the highest in the nation for the portion of small and medium enterprises reporting ownership of IP.

Speaker, when we look back at where we were as a province just four and a half years ago, it’s amazing to see how well this government has been able to turn around our economy, while steering us through such unprecedented times. All of these indicators reflect the important strategic advantages our government is putting in place for businesses across the province, across a variety of sectors, to succeed not only on a regional and national level, but on an international level. Our government has full faith that we as a government are willing and able to create the right business environment, with a balance of market freedoms and regulations, and Ontario businesses will thrive. That is precisely what this progress report indicates.

Expanding on this, our government’s plan to build will naturally support the expansion of skilled trades throughout this province, further promoting lucrative and fulfilling job opportunities for young Ontarians. We have lifted the minimum wage, invested in dual-credit programs and expanded the Skills Development Fund. Our government has made significant strides in addressing our labour shortage, ensuring that Ontarians can play an important role in the growth and development of our great province.

As outlined in the fall economic statement, we are investing an additional $40 million in 2022-23 for a total of $145 million for the latest round of the Skills Development Fund. I know many organizations in my riding take advantage of this. The Technical Training Group, for example, does amazing work to encourage young people and people who have also gone on to post-secondary but want to get into the trades, which is very key. There are thousands and thousands of jobs in the skilled trades, and we need people to join us in building Ontario, and this investment will do just that.

We’re also investing—which I am personally very excited about—an additional $4.8 million in the Dual Credit Program. We have heard over and over that we need more ECEs in our province, and this investment will help us expand that over the next two years and will help us realize a $10-a-day child care agreement which we signed with the federal government earlier this year.

Speaker, we’re constantly looking to improve and expand opportunities for all Ontarians, and we’re also ensuring no one gets left behind. Whether it’s low-income workers and families, individuals with disabilities, or seniors who have given so much to our communities, our government has made it clear that we will continue to support these groups as we grow Ontario for everyone. And in doing so, our government is making significant investments and changes to allow persons with disabilities on the ODSP program to keep more of their money, further increasing the monthly exemptions from $200 per month to $1,000 per month. These proposed changes will allow approximately 25,000 individuals currently in the workforce to keep more of their earnings and encourage as many as 25,000 more individuals to participate in the workforce, which is vitally needed. Since proposing these changes, we’ve heard from numerous partners in the non-profit sector applauding these changes and the positive outcomes this will create for Ontarians. I think it shows our government’s compassionate leadership in being willing to grow our economy but to also support those who are most vulnerable in society.

With that, Speaker, I want to pass it over to my great colleague from Niagara West.