This question coming from a member who would have closed schools the entire school year—they have no credibility.

But where this government—what we seek to follow is the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, who said just last week, “I am confident that this school year will be just that: safe and healthy.”

Mr. Speaker, I joined the member from Mississauga Centre this morning at a brand new school built and funded by our Premier in Mississauga. To see these kids smile again, to see them share with their educators, get a hug from their teacher, high-five their friends—it was everything. It’s what we’re here to do in education: to inspire these kids to believe again in a publicly funded education and to actually be kids with their friends.

This school year is going to be more normal, it’s going to be more stable and it’s going be much more enjoyable. As the Minister of Health noted, the extracurriculars and sports, the mental health lift, the tutoring investments—all of this is designed to get these kids back on track.

Mr. Speaker, we’re excited for these kids. This is why we’re here: to get them on track with their studies after two years of difficulty, and we owe it to all of them as a Parliament to come together to ensure that they stay in school without interruption right to June.

I do want to thank the member from Sault Ste. Marie for being an exceptional member, a proud father and someone who, like our government, believes in public education. When we saw these students return to school this morning—and more will return tomorrow—it underscores what we’re here to do in the first place, which is ensure children learn the necessary skills to help them succeed in life.

This year, children will be returning to a modernized curriculum that is actually in line with the labour markets, that when they graduate, they can get a good-paying job: a new science curriculum and a new math curriculum that focus on the transferrable skill sets that are going to help them get from the classroom to the boardroom to the shop floor.

The full experience of learning that we envision for kids starts with them staying in school, and we’re going to fight to ensure kids stay in uninterrupted, in-person learning right to June.

Speaker, the problem though, in working with the member from Kitchener–Conestoga, the Minister of Transportation and others, is that we know there are literally hundreds and hundreds of drivers a day blowing past a school bus that is stopped, violating the law. It puts so many children at risk, and we’ve seen this in all of our communities. So the province of Ontario has moved forward with the Safer School Buses Act, which ensures that all school buses in the province now have the new eight-lamp amber-red warning system, designed to create more awareness, more caution and ultimately more safety for our kids and for the drivers themselves.

This is positive progress. It builds on a $1.1-billion investment through transportation that is with the aim of getting kids to school, so that they can stay in school right to June.