Speaker, through you to the Premier: One year ago this week, downtown Wheatley exploded, likely as a result of an old abandoned gas well that had leaked.

According to the Globe and Mail, months after the explosion the Chatham-Kent fire chief warned the provincial government of gas leaks and repeatedly begged for help, but the province evidently decided this was the municipality’s problem, not the province’s. There are an estimated 15,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in rural southwestern Ontario. Experts say another Wheatley is just a matter of time.

Will the provincial government take action to prevent another explosion, or will the Premier abandon rural communities to deal with this danger on their own?

The government is keenly aware of the problem with the homeowners and tenants in Wheatley. Obviously, we were on the ground very early, both the Premier and Minister Rickford. On March 4, 2022, the province extended the Wheatley Residents Assistance Program to the end of the year. Wheatley residents who have not been able to return home can receive assistance costs until December 31, 2022.

So far, the honourable member should know that we’ve paid over $823,000 to help evacuated households, and additional payments are being made on an ongoing basis.

To the Premier: The explosion in Wheatley flattened the downtown core and many people were hospitalized. About a year before the Wheatley explosion, there was another explosion just 10 kilometres away near Leamington. That explosion took the lives of a retired couple. Experts believe that a leaky oil and gas well may have been the cause of that explosion as well. People have died, and yet when Chatham-Kent detected a gas leak in downtown Wheatley and begged the province for help, the province dithered.

Past provincial governments have allowed oil and gas companies to walk away from their responsibilities when they abandon these wells. When will your government take action to prevent another deadly explosion like we are seeing in the province of Ontario?

In an answer to one of my colleagues earlier in question period, the Minister of Long-Term Care confirmed that no patient in hospital will be discharged into a long-term-care home against their will, and that he understands the importance of keeping someone in long-term care close to family and friends. However, the opposition are suggesting that as part of the solution to the decades-long challenges in acute care, seniors are being forced back into four-bed ward rooms. These ward rooms were singled out by the long-term-care commission as being a serious part of the problem in the initial waves of COVID-19.

Can the minister confirm if he is considering this as part of the solution, and if so, what evidence does he have that they are now safer?

The minister has stated that long-term care is able to be part of the solution. Can the minister explain what additional resources are provided to improve residents’ quality of care?

My question is to the Minister of Long-Term Care. Last Thursday, the minister introduced legislation in this House that critics have suggested will see seniors discharged from hospitals and moved into long-term-care homes in communities far from their family and friends, and against their will.

We all know how difficult it was during the initial waves of COVID-19 when family could not visit or participate in caring for their loved one in a long-term-care home.

Is the minister doing this, as critics have suggested, and ignoring the lessons of the pandemic and forcing seniors to live alone, isolated from family?

Very specifically, who will the minister be consulting in advance of establishing a regulation? How long will Ontario families wait before the minister delivers the regulations implementing the legislation?

I would like to thank the member for Whitby for the question and the obvious passion which he brings to the file. I can assure the member that, of course, no such action will be taken. Consent will still be required.

Ultimately, we do understand how important it is that loved ones—family, friends, spouses, partners—are close to their loved ones in long-term care, not only because they provide assistance with day-to-day activities but because of the emotional support that comes with having a loved one nearby.

But it also reflects that the best care for somebody who has been discharged from a hospital is not in a hospital. It is in a long-term-care home. As the parliamentary assistant said, we want to turn people from patients into residents. We have the ability to do so. I’m very proud of the fact that long-term care can be part of the solution.

Specific to the question, assuming that this Legislature passes this bill, we will quickly present regulations no later than one week following the passage of the bill.

Frankly, we are working with our partners at all levels—municipal and the federal government—to not only identify these wells but to cap them. As I said, funding has been put in place to ensure that happens. At the same time, through the good work of the member for Chatham-Kent and, of course, the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, local businesses that were impacted by that are being supported.

More work needs to be done, but we’re well on our way to ensuring all communities are safe.

But very specific to her question, despite what the opposition critic is tweeting out and press releases, four-bedroom ward rooms will not be used as part of this solution.

Ma question est pour le Premier Ministre. The Northern Health Travel Grant has not been revised in years. With the rate of inflation this program does not even cover the cost of gas, let alone a hotel room to travel, for residents in northern Ontario. Patients are left paying out of pocket for their expenses or racking up credit card bills. Sadly, some people must cancel their appointments because they simply cannot afford it. What is this government going to do to help offset the costs of important medical travel and ease the financial burden for residents of northern Ontario?

These medical appointments are booked because they’re necessary. How are seniors and low-income patients supposed to cover these costs? Will the government stop dragging their feet and implement a new, revised reimbursement formula for this program?

I thank the member opposite for his question and was pleased to join him with members of Ottawa city council to discuss climate change and the commitments that this government is taking to address and improve adaptation and resiliency through the province’s first-ever climate change impact assessment. I know my colleague will address some specifics in the supplemental, but I’d like to lead by saying that this is the first-ever climate change impact assessment this province has ever undertaken. It was welcome news by the city of Ottawa and will help build our resiliency.

To add to that, Speaker, we’ve made critical investments in stormwater and waste water infrastructure upgrades after years of neglect by the previous government, where we saw sewage spills leeching into Lake Ontario, where infrastructure was crumbling and not able to meet extreme weather events. Under this government, we’ve increased OCIF, a critical funding instrument for rural municipalities. We’ve increased funding for sewage and water to address overflow issues. We’ve launched the first-ever climate change impact assessment and we’ll continue to work with municipal partners to address this.

I’d like to thank the incredible staff at Hydro One for the work that they’ve done to address these outages—

Interjections.

You know, we recognize that the residents in northern Ontario face some unique challenges because of the distances between accessing health care, particularly specialty services. The Northern Health Travel Grant is continuously upgrading quality improvement opportunities. In fact, in the 2021-22 allocation, it was $48.2 million. And most importantly for me, 96.2% of those applications were approved.

We have done things like making sure that people who have to use the northern Ontario health travel grant have the opportunity, if they so choose, to be able to have direct deposit. So if you are using the service on a regular basis, you have the ability to receive that payment back sooner as opposed to waiting for a cheque. It is an optional program, but I think it speaks to how we always want to see where there are opportunities for improvement, and we will act as a government.

Thank you again to the member. I understand why she’s asking this question, because it is something that she worked on for four years as the parliamentary assistant on the strategic long-term-care advisory table.

What we are doing is adding $37 million in additional resources right now, and over $60 million ongoing. What this will do is look at homes and retrofit them. It’s a community partnership that we’re doing. So a patient discharged from hospital who needs dialysis: We will make sure that the home where they may go to actually has dialysis available. But we’re doing a bit more than that, too. We’re partnering up with Baycrest, which offers leading-edge behavioural services. We’re doing that, and we’re providing additional supports for behavioural services in Ontario to deal with or to assist in those instances where patients leaving hospital with dementia are in a home and require additional resources in order to deal with it.

It is really, in all honesty, thanks to the hard work of the member for Oakville North–Burlington and, of course, my predecessor the minister who undertook a lot of this work in advance of me even getting there.

Ministry teams have been working with local officials since the May 21 storm event in the province. We deployed 19 provincial disaster assessment teams to assess damage both in southern and eastern Ontario.

People who were affected by the storm: Because the disaster relief assistance program for Ontarians isn’t a replacement for insurance, we obviously want to continue to encourage residents to meet with their insurance company to talk about the assessment. And we’ll continue to work with local officials.

I, like all members of this House, celebrated the work that our hydro workers have done. We’ve got a tremendous amount of municipal staff and hydro staff that have been on the ground since that May 21 event. We applaud the work that they do and we’ll continue to work with our municipal partners moving forward.

Climate change is wreaking havoc around the globe: fires, windstorms, floods all happening with a ferocity and a frequency that we haven’t seen before. Ottawa has seen two floods and three major windstorms in the last five years. That’s once-in-a-generation storms happening every single year, Mr. Speaker. But Ontario has failed to invest in infrastructure adaptation or the modernization of disaster relief programs to address the new reality.

In May, the derecho, with winds up to 190 kilometres an hour, swept across the city. There were 180,000 residents without power, some for days, many for weeks. Residents were isolated at the upper levels of apartment buildings without fresh water. The emergency response to the storm has cost the city and Hydro Ottawa up to $50 million. Three months later, despite promises from the Premier, there has still been no provincial support to the city or Hydro Ottawa.

When will the government step up, fulfill its commitments to the residents of Ottawa and compensate the city and Hydro Ottawa for the cost of this storm?

These families have worked for generations, not only producing food but giving back to the community. Whether it’s leading the Navan Fair, which is vital to the village; whether it’s volunteer firefighting; whether it’s Hay West, these families have been contributing to their community, helping all of us for years.

During one of their darkest hours of need, when will this government step up and provide disaster relief to these families? When will their government be there for them?

My question follows up on the previous two questions from my colleagues to the Minister of Long-Term Care. While I appreciate that no senior will be discharged from the hospital into a home against their will and no patient will be separated by great distance from family and friends, I am concerned about the resources being available. I’m not talking about additional funding that will be part of this, but more the availability of staff in homes that receive a senior discharge from a hospital.

Given the staffing challenge faced across the sector, how will the minister ensure that no senior discharged from a hospital becomes a resident of a home that is understaffed? What exactly would be the point of reducing stress in the acute care sector only to add it to the long-term-care sector and put residents at risk?

The auto industry helped make this province an economic and manufacturing powerhouse for decades. Yet we saw the damage the previous Liberal government’s policies did to this sector. We all remember the warning from the former CEO of Fiat Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, who said that the Liberals’ carbon tax policy risked toppling Ontario’s competitive position in the auto industry.

Today, we see the threat that buy-American policies like the US EV tax credit have on Ontario’s auto sector. My constituents are worried about the economic impacts this will have for Ontarians and the auto sector. What is this government doing to protect the auto industry in Ontario?

Mr. Speaker, we remember when the previous Liberal government sent businesses running from Ontario with their costly policies. We can’t afford to lose businesses once again. We need to increase production here in our province. We need to show the world that Ontario is open for business and that we are an auto industry leader once again. The communities of Oshawa, Windsor, Brampton, Oakville, Ingersoll, St. Thomas are all leaders when it comes to auto production. We know that we can compete with the rest of the world and succeed, but this is not the case with Liberal and NDP policies.

My constituents want greater assurance that Ontario’s auto sector will be protected going forward and the new buy-America rules won’t impact our EV sector. Can the minister outline how the government is ensuring the stability of the auto manufacturing industry in the province?

The Premier and our team spent considerable time with US lawmakers, and we made a very solid case for what we call a buy-North America stance. And this ended with a personal visit to Washington to visit with Canada’s ambassador, Kirsten Hillman. Now we can proudly say that our team efforts paid off, as the US-only EV program is now the North American vehicle credit.

This is yet another reason that automakers and those in the supply chain will continue to invest billions of dollars in Ontario’s emerging world-class EV sector. By reversing the damage the Liberals and the NDP caused over more than a decade, we’ve reduced the cost of doing business in Ontario by $7 billion annually. And Speaker, it’s no wonder that we’ve already attracted $16 billion in EV investments and thousands of jobs over the last 20 months.

Ontario’s automotive sector is in a stronger position today than it ever was under the previous government; $16 billion in transformative EV investments in 20 months did not happen by accident. This is a new era for the province and our autoworkers. We’re bringing jobs back. We’re bringing investments to communities the Liberals neglected, like Loyalist in the east, Cobalt in the north and Windsor in the west. That’s how we’re driving prosperity. Ontario’s auto is back.

My constituent Andrew reached out to me saying, “I make decent money as an engineer but there is no way I will be able to afford a house in the next 10 years. It makes me want to leave. Many believe that zoning and supply are the issues, but demand is artificially generated by those who are rich enough to speculate and pay cash. Their greed will never run out.”

Speaker, every housing expert notes that supply alone didn’t create the housing crisis; speculators with insider connections did.

What is this government doing to stop the rampant speculation taking home ownership out of reach for young families and tenants?

Speaker, while encampments grow in every Ontario city, why is this government worsening inflation by allowing a historic rent increase?

I thank my honourable colleague for the question.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to housing, supply is absolutely the issue in this House, and I’m not sure why my colleagues in opposition continuously fight that.

As a result of inaction by the previous government, we are in a housing crisis in Ontario right now and every single person in this province is feeling it, which is why, under the leadership of this minister and this Premier and this government, we are making a difference.

Last year alone, 100,000 starts started right here in this province. That’s over—

Interjections.

When we are talking about helping Ontarians, we’re talking about housing across for every single province.

Speaker, every single initiative that we’ve put forward, the opposition has voted against. They have let the people of this province down. We’re going to fight for them every single day to make sure that life is more affordable and everyone has a safe and loving home to go to.

The Minister of Long-Term Care to respond.

I thank the member for the question. It’s a very good question, because we have heard some discrepancies on how this will work.

One of the reasons why we need to be able to work with families is so that we can assess what homes are available in and around the patient’s preferred choice. Does the home, as part of the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, provide the resources that are needed? Does it require the extra resources, and does it have the staffing and the care available for a patient who might be discharged? That is what this act allows us to do that it didn’t allow us to do. Again, as you know, as part of the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, nobody can be discharged into a home that does not have the appropriate level of care for the person who is becoming a resident of that home.

What the policy allows us to do is reflect on the fact that vaccinations have made such a difference in long-term-care homes across the province of Ontario. Fully 81% of our eligible residents have received a fourth dose. What we are doing, of course, is that there are currently 2,000 beds that have been set aside for isolation purposes. This policy will take about 1,000 of those beds and make them available for the acute care system, leaving in place over a thousand beds for isolation purposes. Of course, homes still have to provide an emergency plan.

To the specific question on outbreaks: There are still 167 homes, down from 197 homes, that are in outbreak. To put it into context, 34% of those are asymptomatic cases; 10% of the homes in outbreak have absolutely no resident cases, and 60% of the homes that are considered in outbreak have between one and 10 cases.

So a lot of work has been done to ensure our seniors are safe in long-term care.