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.