I’d like to join the minister in welcoming members of OUSA. From Sudbury, we have Avery Morin, the president of Laurentian University Students’ General Association, and her vice-president, Ana Tremblay. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Good morning to everyone. I’d like to welcome the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, OCUFA. They are here in a very large contingent. They will be meeting a number of MPPs today. They hosted a wonderful breakfast for us. I wanted to specifically name Jenny Ahn, the executive director, as well as Nig Narain.

I have to say hello to my good friend Floyd Laughren, who is part of the reason why Nickel Belt has been represented by the NDP for 55 years—because of your hard work, Floyd. Thank you.

My riding of Hamilton East–Stoney Creek is well represented today, and I’m proud to say so. I’d like to welcome John Hands and Kaitlin Guarasci from Bay Area Health Trust, a Hamilton-based organization that plays a critical role in Ontario’s health care system. And I’d like to welcome Dylan Atack and his dad, Ritch, to Queen’s Park today. I’d also like to echo: Go, Badgers! Welcome.

I am pleased to introduce Mr. Emamul Kabir, a renowned Bangladeshi veteran guitarist, who is here today. A recipient of numerous prestigious awards, he has published over 22 musical notations and released over 50 music albums. He is known for playing Bangladeshi liberation music, even when he was forbidden to do so. He’s here with his daughter, Nahid Kabir, another talented musician in Scarborough, and his granddaughter, Angkita Sarwar. Please welcome them.

In my role as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, it’s my great honour to introduce and welcome Home Care Ontario and their CEO, Sue VanderBent. They’re holding their annual Home Care Ontario awareness day in the Legislature today. Home care providers across the province are here to meet with our MPPs, so welcome to Queen’s Park.

I am pleased to welcome the delegation from OCUFA today, including several faculty members from London: Benjamin Muller is here from King’s and Tom Peace from Huron. Meris Bray from the University of Windsor is also here and Tim Murphy from Brock, as well as Manisha Aggarwal. I had the pleasure of meeting with them this morning and warmly welcome them to this chamber.

From the beautiful riding of Essex and the lovely town of Kingsville, one of our newest pages: Ms. Kalila I’Anson. Please welcome her to the Legislature.

Look, the member will know full well that this government has been taking leadership right from the beginning of the pandemic, even in instances where the members opposite refused to work with the government to ensure that Ontarians’ health and safety was put first. Every single time that we put a measure in place to improve health care in the province of Ontario, they have voted against it. Bringing on new nurses: They voted against it. When we brought on significant funding for our small and medium-sized hospitals, they voted against it. The most rapid buildout of long-term care in the history of this province, if not the entire country: They have voted against it, Mr. Speaker. We have brought forward incredible vaccinations in this province. We have led North America in terms of vaccinations. We have led the entire North America in terms of our battling of COVID, and in every single instance, they have voted against it.

We will continue to work hard, working with the Chief Medical Officer of Health to ensure the health and safety of all the people in the province of Ontario, regardless of whether the Leader of the Opposition wants to work with us or not.

It is now my distinct pleasure to invite the pages to assemble for their introduction.

From the riding of Eglinton–Lawrence, Nicholas Baryliuk; from the riding of University–Rosedale, Joel Bozikovic; from the riding of Peterborough–Kawartha, Isabelle Casselman; from Timiskaming–Cochrane, Kennedy Dabner; from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, Mabel Follis; from the riding of Essex, Kalila I’Anson; from Brampton East, Serena Joseph; from Sudbury, Ema MacAulay; from Niagara West, Camilla Moscato; from Mississauga–Malton, Yusuf Muinuddin; from the riding of Toronto–Danforth, Aiden Perritt; from Willowdale, Oriana Sethi; from the riding of Markham–Thornhill, Eric Sung; from the riding of Mississauga–Erin Mills, Hussain Umar; from the riding of Algoma–Manitoulin, Havana Rose Thibideau Bello; from the riding of Northumberland–Peterborough South, Alexandra Vanden Bosch; from the riding of Pickering–Uxbridge, Max Weatherhead; from Elgin–Middlesex–London, Scarlett Wilson; and from Sault Ste. Marie, Grace Curran.

Welcome to the Legislative Assembly.

Applause.

The final supplementary.

The next question.

My question is to the Premier. Our children’s hospitals are overwhelmed. Parents are worried. They’re anxious about their sick children. Yesterday, the Chief Medical Officer of Health strongly advised all adults to wear masks indoors to protect our children. The Premier said he will take the advice of the medical officer of health. Why is the Premier not taking leadership and wearing a mask to protect our children?

What is it going to take for the Premier to show leadership and actually act on the recommendations of the medical officer of health?

My question is to the Minister of Health. Children’s hospitals are in crisis. At SickKids, care departments are running at 127% to 145% above capacity. And it’s not just SickKids; across Ontario, pediatric hospitals and care units have reached maximum capacity. What is this government’s plan to help children’s hospitals meet the increased demand for care?

Since the beginning of this pandemic, there is nothing that the Premier hasn’t done to protect our children and our most vulnerable. From the very beginning, when we had no vaccines in the province of Ontario or worldwide, we made sure that the initiatives that we did, the programs that we put in place protected our most vulnerable, protected our most senior, protected our children. We will continue to do that as a government because we understand that when you make investments in people, you make investments in community. We’ve done that from the start.

As the House leader mentioned, the investments that we have made in health care in the province of Ontario are truly historic, and yet when we asked members of the opposition to stand with us and work with us, they refused and they voted against our initiatives.

We’ll make the investments. We’ll continue to do what the Chief Medical Officer of Health recommends, because we know it’s the right thing—

When we make the investments, when we make sure that vaccines are available, we see results, and we have. We have seen the numbers of people who stepped up and said, “I want to protect my elderly,” “I want to go visit my senior in a long-term-care home,” “I want to be part of the solution.” Part of the solution, frankly, is making sure that your vaccines are up to date. We’ve done that, we’ve made those investments, and results prove that they have made a difference.

As I said, we will continue to make those investments to ensure that the people of Ontario have vaccines, have boosters, have flu shots when they need them. We’ll do that work. I’m not going to take any lessons from the member opposite, who refuses to support—

Our early efforts—of course, we anticipated a surge in pediatric and took early steps to support the challenging fall virus season. We’ve already done early operational guidance. We’ve provided support fall and winter surge preparedness in pediatric capacity. We saw that in CHEO. We see now SickKids nurses who are doing education to ensure that nurses in other community hospitals know, anticipate and are prepared for an uptake that we have anticipated and we are working towards.

Thank you, Speaker. I want to thank you for the opportunity to rise in the Legislature today to address a really crucial topic. Unfortunately, there have been reports about steady increases in racist incidents within our education system, including a spike in anti-Semitism and racism within our school settings. I know I can speak for everyone in this Legislature in saying that any form of hate should be removed from our classrooms.

There are new findings by Western University and Liberation75 that find that, when it comes to Holocaust education and awareness, there’s a worrisome 42% of students that were surveyed that have unequivocally witnessed an anti-Semitic act or event in their school.

Speaker, can the Minister of Education tell us what else we can do to combat anti-Semitism and stomp out this hate decisively?

Thank you very much, Speaker, and I thank my honourable colleague for the question. Yet again, you will see the NDP find any excuse to object to building houses. After the previous government failed the people of this province, we made a commitment to the people of this province. We will not follow their path. We will not let down the people of this province. We have a shortage of homes here in this province right now. We will have a further shortage if we don’t do something about it. After they failed—they held the balance of power for years. Was housing a priority, colleagues, for this government? Never. It took this Premier, this party to say, “We’re no longer going down that path.”

We will not let down the people of this province. We will build homes for the people. We will build. As newcomers come in, we will build the homes that they need. We will not let them down. We will find ways to make sure that the people of this province have a home to go to every night.

Interjections.

Whether it’s in Niagara, whether it’s east, west, north, in Toronto, the GTA, the people of Ontario will not be let down by this government, Mr. Speaker. We will build homes for them.

At the federal government’s recent announcement, with 500,000 new Canadians coming here—we will not let down the new Canadians that are coming here to look for homes, Mr. Speaker. We will not let down the previous generation.

We will expand the greenbelt. We will build homes in every corner of this province, because that’s what we promised to the people of this province.

Unlike the opposition—it doesn’t matter what the previous government did; they supported them along the way. With us, it’s a little different: We’re actually for housing in this province.

Interjections.

I want to thank the member from Barrie–Innisfil for her exceptional leadership in this space of countering hate in all forms.

Mr. Speaker, democracies and free people around the world have declared, “Never again.” And yet, in this country, according to the study cited by the member from Barrie–Innisfil, one in three students in Canada believe the Holocaust was fabricated or exaggerated, and 42% of students have explicitly seen an anti-Semitic incident in their schools. Mr. Speaker, these are startling data points for any government, and we are absolutely committed to confronting this hate through education, to improve the lives of all citizens and to make sure these kids are in schools where they are respected for their inherent dignity, not because of their difference.

And so I am proud, for the first time in Ontario’s elementary schools, to be mandating mandatory elementary learning on the Holocaust to embed in our schools, to ensure students learn from it and to truly keep every child safe in Ontario.

Minister, SickKids and hospitals don’t just want to imagine; they want the investments so that they can deal with the very serious issues they’re facing right now.

Yesterday, SickKids began cancelling surgeries to cope with surging demand in its ICUs in its emergency department. SickKids already has a surgery wait-list of more than 3,400 children waiting beyond the clinically acceptable time frame. What is this government’s plan to help children get the surgeries they’re waiting for?

The supplementary question.

Start the clock. The next question, the member for Barrie–Innisfil.

Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure and opportunity to table the fall economic statement here yesterday, and our opposition said, “Where’s all the new money for health care?” If they were here in August when I tabled the budget, which was voted on yes by this side and no on that side, they would recognize that there was $5.6 billion of new investments for health care.

It was this government that recognizes that we’re investing in the surgical backlog, we’re investing in home care, we’re investing in community care—in acute care, more beds. We have a plan to stay open. We came back in the Legislature in August to get the job done for the people of Ontario, and we will not rest until the investments that were neglected by the previous government—

Interjections.