I’d like to welcome Andrea Hatala from the Ontario ODSP Action Coalition and to thank her for joining us in this morning’s press conference.

Not exactly an introduction, but I want to wish our grandson—Julius Birch Colucci was two years old on September 4. Happy birthday, Julius.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back. I have two special groups to introduce today. One is my terrific team at Queen’s Park, so marvelous Marietta Fox, my executive assistant, right there; effusive Ellen Pisani, my very competent constituency assistant; and magnificent Maisie Harrison, my legislative assistant. I’m looking forward to building a better world with all of you.

My second special group is the west coast contingent, all the way here from beautiful BC: my super sister-in-law Pamella Mulek; my charismatic and sensational son, Liam McMahon, hopefully following in political footsteps; my dynamite, charming daughter, Rebecca McMahon, from BC as well; and last but never least, my oldest brother, Michael, the most positive and exuberant person on the planet. In my inaugural speech last week, which I’m sure you were all glued to, I said we need a safety warning with this guy, he’s so exuberant. And it’s his birthday—a big birthday—today. I don’t know if we sing in the chamber, but happy birthday.

That concludes our members’ statements for this morning.

Members will please rise.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Today, our hearts and prayers are with those connected to James Smith Cree Nation, in what we now call Saskatchewan, as we struggle with the loss of life to so many this past weekend and the accompanying community trauma.

I seek unanimous consent of the House for a moment of silence in honour of the victims of this tragedy.

I just want to say thank you to the local Pakistan-Canada association in Kingston and the Islands. This past weekend, at the intercultural festival in Kingston, we were very much active in trying to get people to learn about what’s happening in Pakistan with the flooding, and to raise money that will be matched by our federal government to help all the flooding victims in Pakistan. This is something, unfortunately, that I think is going to be repeated in the years to come as our climate changes, and we will have more of these sorts of weather-related disasters. It’s really important for people around the world to help each other, because when one part of the world will suffer some weather event, the other parts of the world have to step in and help.

I want to just express congratulations to the Pakistani community in Kingston who are working very hard to try to raise a little bit of money to help contribute to the flood relief efforts in Pakistan.

Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

Can the Minister of Health provide an update on how many hospital emergency rooms were closed over the long weekend due to staff shortages?

To quote one ER doctor, “We are playing a game of Russian roulette with people’s lives.” It is “an indictment of the Minister of Health” and her failure “to understand the breadth of the crisis.”

Does the minister admit it is a crisis and that her government’s response to date has failed us?

At a time when the government should be building our health care system, this government froze nurses’ wages. They threatened seniors with massive fees if they refused to move to substandard, for-profit facilities far away from their families. Doctors and health care executives have come forward to call this plan “morally wrong,” “deeply disturbing,” and likely to “worsen our health care crisis.”

Will the minister take action today—first, repeal Bill 124; then, Bill 7—and start respecting the nurses we so desperately need?

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.

This is a great opportunity for me to once again highlight the plans that we have in place. Of course, we’ve already done a lot of things in terms of short-, medium- and long-term goals. First of all, we have 3,500 hospital beds that are operating in the province of Ontario that were not as short as three years ago. We have 10,900 new health care professionals working in the province of Ontario today.

We will continue to work with our hospital partners to make sure that when short-term emergency department closures happen, whether that is for an hour, four hours, a shift or a weekend—we ensure, with Ontario Health, that, when possible, locums come in. We make sure that those partners and the people in those communities have appropriate health care as quickly as we can.

I highlight 400 physicians in the province of Ontario who are practising and supporting workers in northern and rural Ontario, like the member opposite’s own communities. We’re working with the college of physicians and surgeons and we’re working with the college of nurses to make sure that those internationally educated graduates are able to practise in Ontario now, in our communities.

Supplementary question.

The member for Davenport has the right to place her question. I’d ask the government side to allow me to hear it.

Interjections.

Start the clock. The member for Davenport.

My question is for the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. This summer, over 230 community and social service organizations wrote to the government calling for them to double the social assistance rates. Rates for Ontario Works and ODSP have been frozen for four years, and inflation is at a 40-year high. The government’s 5% increase to ODSP and nothing for Ontario Works recipients won’t even be close enough to cover the cost of rising basic needs.

Will the government recognize that more needs to be done to support social assistance recipients and double the rates for ODSP and Ontario Works today?

In fact, what Bill 7 seeks to do is improve the quality of care for our seniors who are in hospital. It is very, very clear that—

Interjection.

What the bill actually does is provide a better quality of care—the right care in the right place at the right time. I think we would all agree that, for our seniors, they deserve the best quality of care possible. That is why, in particular when he talks about the north, we have made so many investments in long-term care in the north, because we want to ensure that the discrepancies that existed for far too long between north and south, urban and rural, are no longer part of the fabric of the Ontario health care system. That is why we’ve also partnered with First Nations to ensure that there are bed allocations specifically for First Nation communities, and we will continue to do it.

Bill 7 is a positive step in helping us reform our health care system once and for all, and we’re on our way.

What we are doing with Bill 7 is ensuring that our seniors who are waiting for long-term care have access to that quality of care while they wait for their preferred home of choice.

I will let the opposition continue to fantasize about what we are doing in Bill 7, but what we are finally doing is putting our health care system, and ALC in particular, on the right path. It’s because of the investments that we’ve made; we’re improving health care and we’re getting it done for seniors in the north and the—

Since the Premier thinks his historic increase is so great, I invite him to try living on it. Today, my colleagues and I are beginning a two-week advocacy effort, living on an approximate social assistance grocery budget of $95.21. We are undertaking this effort in solidarity with the thousands of social assistance recipients and community organizations that have been imploring this government for years to raise the rates.

Will the Premier and the Minister of Community and Social Services join us in this solidarity effort with social assistance recipients?

Remarks in Oji-Cree. Good morning, Speaker. My question is to the Premier.

Bill 7 is not an appropriate solution for northern Ontario. Elders like Garnet Angeconeb, who is directly impacted, have reached out to my office. Garnet is an Indian residential school survivor who is now at the end of his life and he is being institutionalized again by Bill 7. This is not right.

My question is: How is moving elders away from their families a human solution?

What is this government doing to ensure Bill 7 has real accountability so that rural and northern health care equity is not forgotten?

I want to thank the opposition for the question. We’ll always be there for the most vulnerable, always have been. The previous government ignored ODSP for 15 years. One of the first things we did when we took office: We increased ODSP. And now we’re doing it again. We’re increasing it by 5%. This is the largest increase in over a decade. As the NDP and Liberals stood there and starved these people, we increased it by 5%—the largest in a full decade.

We’ll always fight for the people that need our help. That’s the reason we lowered the taxes for 1.7 million lower-income people. They aren’t going to have the burden of the tax that the previous government put on. We lowered the gas tax by 5.7 cents, on top of the 4.3 cents and—

The Premier.

Interjections.

Supplementary question? The member for Ottawa West–Nepean.

Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Our government is continuing to support those who need it most, whether it’s people who need job re-skilling and retraining or people who are unable to work. That’s exactly why we increased the ODSP rate to a historic 5% and aligned it with inflation: because we know that high inflationary times are troublesome and make it that much more difficult for people.

We’ve also got the discretionary benefit. We’ve created the LIFT and the CARE tax credits. We increased the rates at the very beginning. If you look at our track record throughout the years that we’ve been here, we started with an increase that the Liberals never did, and then we created the social services relief fund of a billion dollars for people during a very difficult time. All the while, we created programs to help people: the micro-credentialing, the energy and property tax relief, the Ontario Trillium fund. The list goes on. We are continuing to work on this. We know that people need support, and we’re continuing to do just that.

Yesterday was Labour Day, a day set out to recognize the sacrifice and dedication of this province’s hard-working women and men. Unfortunately, many have come to view it only as a day off that marks the unofficial end of summer.

The economic strength of this province is built upon the sacrifice of our carpenters, electricians, plumbers and the full array of blue-collar skilled trades workers. Our economic success has only been made possible by the hard-working men and women of this province helping to build and maintain the infrastructure that keeps us safe and secure each and every day. Because of that sacrifice of those on the front line, our province was able to emerge out of the worst of the COVID pandemic.

Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development: What is our government doing to support all workers of this province? What are we going to do to recognize and thank them?

Once again, my question is for the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. What is our government doing to support and partner with our workers as they help us to become a powerhouse once again?

I want to thank the member from Sarnia–Lambton for that question, but more importantly, I want to thank him for his leadership on the ground in Sarnia. The MPP from Sarnia–Lambton really is why we’re doing a lot of the work we’re doing. He was a union member, and also on the management side. So to the member: Thank you for everything that you’ve done.

Our government stands with working people right across Ontario. They are our everyday heroes. On Monday, members of our government and myself had the great honour of marching shoulder to shoulder with union leaders and workers at Labour Day celebrations across Ontario. Together, we are working for workers. We’re leading the way in Canada and right across North America with common-sense measures that support hard-working people and their families. And, Mr. Speaker, we’re just getting started. Our government is on a mission to make Ontario the greatest place in the world to live, work and raise a family.

Mr. Speaker, we’re rolling up our sleeves and getting things done for the workers of Ontario.