I’m very happy to rise today to acknowledge the recent municipal election. As many of you know, there are 18 lower-tier municipalities in my riding of Hastings–Lennox and Addington. Of course, once again, the municipal clerks, acting as the returning officers for these elections, have done an outstanding job in ensuring that the elections operated with tremendous professionalism. I would like to publicly thank them for their role in this vital democratic institution.

As everyone in this House knows, elections are a challenging time and can be very difficult, especially in these days of social media attacks. I would like to show my appreciation for all those who stepped forward and offered their ideas, their time and their dedication to support their communities.

This election saw the return of many mayors in my riding, including Paul Jenkins in Bancroft, Tom Deline in Centre Hastings, Dennis Purcell in Faraday, Loyde Blackburn in Madoc township, Jan O’Neill in Marmora and Lake, Bob Mullin in Stirling Rawdon, Neil Ellis in Belleville and Henry Hogg in Addington Highlands.

It also brought us some new heads of council, with Randy Wallace in Carlow-Mayo, Tony Fitzgerald in Hasting Highlands, Kim Carson in Limerick, Dave Hederson in Tudor and Cashel, Don DeGenova in Tweed, Claire Kennelly in Tyendinaga, Michael Fuerth in Wollaston, Terry Richardson in Napanee, John Wise in Stone Mills. And in Loyalist township, my former deputy mayor is now mayor: Jim Hegadorn.

For those who are new to these positions, I welcome them to their new governance roles. And for those who are returning, I thank you for continuing to show your dedication to your community and to your neighbours.

As these new councils begin to gather to learn the procedures and gain a fuller understanding of how their municipalities work, I look forward to working with them as partners to improve the permitting and planning processes to ensure that we can all work together to build homes in communities across the province. It takes all levels of government to do something that we’ve never done before: adding 1.5 million homes in this province. It’s vitally necessary and we will get it done, making sure that the dream of home ownership is viable for the next generation.