I would like to welcome Kristie Kennedy to the House. She’s a fantastic parent from our community of Toronto–St. Paul’s. Kristie is also the parent to a trans child, and she is here today as an advocate, supporting our gender-affirming health care act.

Thank you, Kristie, for being here in your House.

I’d like to welcome to the House this morning two very distinguished groups. From Thunder Bay in northern Ontario, with the Ontario Native Women’s Association: Coralee McGuire-Cyrette, executive director; Cheryl Bagnall, director of community services; and Andre Morriseau, communications manager. And from Lazio, some people who are here doing documentary work on Ontario and on Toronto: Iolanda Russo and Mikaela Tatangelo. Welcome to our House.

I want to welcome Ontario Trillium Foundation board member and Parry Sound–Muskoka business owner and great friend Andy Blenkarn to Queen’s Park. Welcome, and thank you for the work you do.

I’d like to welcome members who are here today from the Ontario Native Women’s Association in Thunder Bay. I know the minister has already introduced them, but I just want to acknowledge Coralee, Cheryl and Andre. They’re doing fantastic work on important issues in Thunder Bay.

I thank you for what you’re doing.

I’m happy and very proud to rise today to acknowledge some esteemed guests who’ve joined our House for Trans Awareness Week and also to support the gender-affirming health care advisory act: Stefanie Pest from the riding of Essex; Heath Salazar and Kristie Kennedy from Toronto–St. Paul’s; Lisa Delcol from University–Rosedale; Monika Gontarska from Scarborough–Guildwood; and Anne Creighton from Toronto–Danforth.

I also want to also acknowledge three members of my esteemed team who are here from Toronto Centre: Vharshaa Punithechelvan, Tara Bijan and Doga Koroglu. Two of them are interns from TMU University, and one of them is from the Toronto Centre riding association.

Welcome, Catherine.

I have the honour to welcome the consul general of Morocco in Toronto, His Excellency Mr. Rachid Zein, as well as Ms. Leila Fateh and Mr. Abdellah Messaoudi from the Moroccan Association of Toronto.

The independence day of Morocco was celebrated this week, and there will be a flag-raising at 3. You are all welcome.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m happy to introduce my dream team of staff, who I have taken time to select, to form a strong team to support me. I’m happy to introduce Amanda McFarlane, executive assistant and office manager from our constituency office; Jason Leung, a legislative assistant working with me at Queen’s Park; Nicole Wang, community relations officer, working at the constituency office; and Tarun Saroya, executive assistant for my position as parliamentary assistant to the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

That concludes our members’ statements for this morning.

It is now clear that the Premier has decided to ignore his medical officer of health and his advice to address the health care crisis faced by our children. That decision is clear to anyone who has seen him every day since the public health officials in this province urged adults to wear masks indoors to protect children.

Without saying a thing, the Premier has told parents that they’re on their own and they can only hope that the overstretched doctors, nurses and health care workers can protect their children as we go through this hospital crisis.

When did the Premier decide that the children of Ontario were expendable?

Will the Premier finally speak up and tell us how he can possibly defend this mismanagement?

As we’ve said many times, the difficult and complex fall that was predicted has materialized, and we have three viral threats. It’s changing with every wave. Initially, we had personal protective equipment, adult ICUs and adult ward beds that needed attention; now it is pediatric ICUs—and, frankly, it is not because of COVID, but because of RSV and influenza. That is why we planned for that. We’ve said this many times. We made investments in the NICU units. We made investments in pediatric hospitals. And we expanded our health human resources and beds, across the board, in hospitals.

As Dr. Simpson noted, it’s not unusual for 14- and 16-year-old patients to be looked after in adult ICU beds. That is commonly done. That is what is happening now.

We’re making sure that we have the resources for our children and that they get the best care possible, and we know our health care workers will deliver it.

As Dr. Simpson also noted, “What is important to emphasize is that all pediatric patients will be seen when they come to a hospital. If they require admission, then we will look after them.”

Like Dr. Simpson said, I have great faith and confidence in our health care providers across the province. They are expertly trained to support all of our health care needs and will do whatever it takes to make sure our children get the care that they need.

What I can confirm to the member opposite is that under our Progressive Conservative government we have hired nearly 7,000 additional education workers, supporting our kids within our schools—and not only have we hired more, but we pledged to continue funding 1,800 additional education workers and 800 teachers, who will support our kids within our schools, as part of our program before the union.

Mr. Speaker, we fulfilled our end of the bargain—we said we would repeal Bill 28, and that was the biggest barrier to getting a deal, and then 48 hours after us doing so in good faith, they announced a strike notice. We said we would increase pay—335 million more dollars this week compared to last week, a material improvement for every worker, especially for the lowest-paid—and they’ve still rejected the offer. We have now moved to a flat rate, a demand of the union—not to differentiate wages for lower and higher incomes—and we still don’t have a deal.

It is abundantly clear what the fault line is preventing the union from accepting a deal; it is a desire for higher wages.

Our kids should be in school on Monday.

This is what’s becoming a casual invocation of a strike notice every few weeks in this province—every few years. That’s not acceptable.

The NDP wants to normalize strikes because they were standing with the union when kids were out of school. They should be standing up for parents.

Stand with this government. Let’s get a deal. Let’s keep kids in class.

Interjections.

We have significantly increased the pay—$335 million more in a week. We provided a flat rate. We are maintaining the best benefits and pensions and sick leave—and even still, the never-ending, moving yardstick and goalpost of CUPE.

Accept the deal before us, and make sure kids in this province stay in school every single day.

I just have to say, I thought the opposition was trying to ask questions about what is going on in hospitals today, not some fantasy that they think might be happening in the future.

Let’s just talk about what’s happening in our health care system and what has happened in the past.

In the 2012 Auditor General’s report on health human resources, it was revealed that northern Ontario had a shortage of 200 physicians or 40,000 hours of care, and yet little was done. Who held the balance of power at that time? I think that was these guys, the opposition, the NDP.

The former Premier admitted that she was freezing hospital spending for years, and in 2015 she eliminated 50 medical residency positions from Ontario. They defended that decision, when 800,000 Ontarians were without a family doctor, by saying, “We are scaling back to make better use of our health care dollars.” This reduction came in the same year when 250 nurses were being laid off. You supported them every step of the way.

We’re fixing the system—

My question is for the Minister of Education. I’ll get the page to pass over these CUPE education support workers forms to him as well.

Students deserve an ECE in every classroom.

Parents need an EA for every student who needs personal care to attend school.

People across Ontario depend on custodians and cleaners to protect the health of our children.

Instead of money for ECEs in every classroom or additional funds for EAs, the government passes the burden to parents to hunt down scarce private resources.

Why doesn’t the Conservative government think that it’s worth properly investing in the people and the public school supports that parents already have available in our schools to help their children catch up and be successful?

Sean and Julia are the parents of two children with autism in my riding. They reached out to my office to express how much our education support workers mean to them and to their children:

“These workers keep June and Chaz safe. They help them to learn and be successful and happy at school each and every day.

“More support workers are needed to help support kids like ours to integrate into mainstream classes. When schools don’t have the staff, parents like us have to pay ABA staff out of pocket or our kids can’t go to mainstream class to work on integration.

“When your family relies on education support workers for the well-being and safety of your child and this government creates conditions that drive them from the profession it’s really scary.

“These workers are truly essential.”

This is not about money. This is about knowing that the workers that children get to know, workers that parents trust and depend on, will not only be here for their kids today but will continue to be there for the kids in the future.

My question is, when will the Premier admit that wanting kids with exceptional needs to have support for the entire school day—not just a fraction of the day—is not about money but it’s about kids?

Interjections.

The minister says there have been 2,246 lost days since 1988, but in terms of school years, that’s 11 and a half years—

Interjections.

The minister has been saying there have been 2,246 lost days since 1988; in terms of school years, that would be 11 and a half years. Nobody is buying the spin.

People are tired of the minister’s games. Parents saw through what the Conservatives did last time.

My question is, when will the Conservative government take the time and energy they waste on spin and just sit down and negotiate a fair deal that will put education support workers in every class and keep them there?

I’d like to know why Jeff Burch doesn’t support a great parliamentarian like Jim Bradley.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: Yesterday, in a move no one asked for or recommended, this government, with absolutely no consultation, tabled a bill that would allow them to appoint regional chairs in Niagara, York and Peel. Just four years ago, in the middle of the municipal election campaign, this government cancelled regional chair elections in these regions—elections in which citizens were electing their chairs-at-large. They didn’t trust citizens with free and fair elections. Now they don’t even trust democratically elected councillors to choose a chair. Now the Premier is going to hand-pick who he wants to rule in his stead, as he hands them additional powers to do his bidding.

Why is the Premier showing such disdain for municipalities and turning local democracy into his own personal sandbox?

Member for Eglinton–Lawrence.

The next question.

I’m just going to remind the House that we’re not going to ask the pages to deliver notes during question period anymore.

Start the clock.

Minister of Education.

Final supplementary.

Start the clock.

The member for Sudbury has the floor.

Interjection.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

The member for Sudbury still has some time.

Once again, I’m going to ask the minister to refer to members by their riding names—the same courtesy that each of us would expect of each other.

Interjections.

Supplementary question.

My question is to the Premier.

Do you remember when the Premier promised up and down that he would never touch the greenbelt? I do, too.

Yesterday this government tabled a bill to repeal the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. This repeal will end the protection of 4,500 acres of prime greenbelt farmland in Durham. About one third of this land is reportedly owned or controlled by the powerful landowner Silvio DeGasperis, who acquired these farm properties for next to nothing two decades ago. Mr. DeGasperis has donated boatloads to the PC Party since the Premier’s election, including to the Premier’s leadership campaign and his riding association. The only thing standing in the way of Mr. DeGasperis’s ability to make untold millions of dollars is the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, and the Premier’s government just made that go away. Mr. DeGasperis is about to get much, much richer from land that until yesterday was protected in perpetuity. Does the Premier understand how shady this looks?

The damning articles from the Toronto Star and the Narwhal highlight just how rotten things have gotten.

In addition to the Durham agricultural lands, Mr. DeGasperis and his well-connected family are poised to profit immensely from other lands that are also being removed from the greenbelt. According to the CBC, the DeGasperis family owns three parcels of land in Richmond Hill that the Premier wants to remove from the greenbelt. And just last year, a company controlled by the DeGasperis family bought greenbelt land in Vaughan that is also being removed—remarkably lucky timing.

This Premier has frequently accused the previous government of political corruption.

So my question is, what does the Premier think we should make of these questionable greenbelt deals?

Premier Ford made it crystal clear to Ontarians that the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act was just the start, that we wanted to ensure that by the time those two new mayors were sworn in in Ontario’s two largest cities, Toronto and Ottawa—he made it crystal clear that that was the start.

The announcement yesterday, in Bill 39, which it’s pretty obvious New Democrats don’t support—just to add to the litany of housing initiatives this government has done; we’ve done over 90 since 2018. And every single time we try to increase housing supply and actually provide an opportunity for a young person to realize the dream of home ownership, New Democrats vote against it. So it’s no surprise that this member and their party, under the leadership of Marit Stiles, is going to not support—

We’re going to stand up for the dream of home ownership.

Speaker, in the supplementary, I will talk about the significance of that minimum of 50,000 homes in relationship to our 1.5 million homes.