I do, Mr. Speaker, thank you.

I do seek unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 40(e), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to respond during statements by the ministry and responses today, which is about Franco-Ontarians.

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the minister that the city of Hamilton did not request that you meddle with our urban plan.

I have been ringing the alarm about this government’s backroom deals for urban sprawl in Hamilton for months now. The Integrity Commissioner’s report revealed that the same developers who successfully influenced the Ford government to remove their land from the greenbelt also benefited from a provincial order to expand the city’s urban boundary.

My question, Mr. Speaker: Did this government give preferential treatment to developers, with shady MZOs and undemocratic changes to our official plan?

Stop the clock.

Interjections.

Restart the clock. The next question: Once again, the Leader of the Opposition.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Restart the clock. The final supplementary?

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Maybe if the Premier had spent more time listening to people this summer—people who have seen their emergency rooms closed; kids who can’t get treatment with the autism program; people who were fighting forest fires all across this province—maybe he would have learned something and he wouldn’t have spent his summer divvying upping the spoils to his friends.

This afternoon, I’m going to be tabling the Greenbelt Restoration Act, the official opposition NDP’s bill to restore and protect all of the lands this government removed from the greenbelt—a solution that the Premier finally agrees is the right thing to do. We must restore integrity to government, Premier. We’re going to be calling for unanimous consent of this House, so, to the Premier: Ontarians will be watching. Will he pass our legislation to restore and protect lands in the greenbelt?

Interjections.

So, back to the Premier: How did these speculators know to give your office the details about the parcels of land to remove from the greenbelt before it was announced to the public? Who tipped them off?

Interjections.

Speaker, back to the Premier: How much is this government’s greenbelt disaster going to cost Ontario’s taxpayers?

Interjections.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: The same favoured insiders who received preferential treatment in the greenbelt decision are also benefiting from shady backroom deals for MZOs, urban boundary expansions and Highway 413.

Will this government stop paving over protected farmland to enrich its friends?

To be very clear, Mr. Speaker: No, we will not be supporting the member’s legislation. Obviously, we’ve not seen the legislation, so we would never provide unanimous consent to something that we have not seen. But, to be very clear, we will be voting against that legislation today.

I will be bringing forward legislation very soon which will not only return the lands but ensure that an additional 7,000 acres of land are put into the greenbelt. And we will go one step further, Mr. Speaker: We will codify in legislation the boundaries of the greenbelt so that it is protected through legislation and not through regulation. So, no, we will not be supporting the member’s legislative piece today because we’re going to go further and we’re going to do what has never been done in this province before: We will protect the greenbelt once and for all.

We have been working for five years to untangle the mess that was the opposition’s policies on housing. In fact, Mr. Speaker, in the member’s own riding, where average income is about $55,000 a year, the average house price is about $1.1 million. It would take somebody $80,000 in mortgage payments just to afford that home, and what does the member opposite do? She continues to support policies that would take all of the people in her riding out of the ability to own a home. We are going to double down on policies that help build houses for people across the province of Ontario. Make no mistake: We’ll get the job done.

Interjections.

Nothing—nothing. We will be presenting a bill later on this week which will ensure that the people of the province of Ontario are focused on what matters to them: building houses for the people of the province of Ontario.

She talks about us adding on to the housing crisis? It’s unbelievable to me. We have seen, because of the policies of this government, housing starts at the highest level in over 30 years—and it’s not just single-family homes; it is purpose-built rentals that, under their policies, came to a halt for over 30 years. This is a party that, with the Liberals, doubled down on increasing taxes for the people of the province of Ontario year after year after year. They think that increasing taxes somehow encourages an economy to grow.

We have shown that by reducing taxes, cutting red tape and investing in priorities of people, 700,000 jobs come back and the economy booms. And now we’re going to get it done in housing as well.

Well, let me tell you this: We are going to build all across the province, because young Ontarians deserve to have that first home; the seniors who want to downsize deserve to have a place that they can downsize to, they deserve to have long-term-care homes; our students deserve to have dormitories. That is what is important.

So to all of those people who are in their parents’ basement right now and want to have a home: We have your back. They continue to do the same thing, and we won’t allow it to happen.

We’ll get the job done for them each and every day.

It is a pleasure to be able to rise and talk about some of the incredible investments we’ve been able to do since 2018. There is no doubt that we were left with a system that Kathleen Wynne, in an exit interview, said, “if we had only, as the Liberal Party, not frozen the health care budget; if we had only not cut those residency positions for physicians.” Imagine where we would be, Speaker. We would have an additional 100 physicians being able to practise in Ontario.

But we have not let that deter us. We have a plan and it is working. There are so many pieces of it. I’m looking forward to talking about some of the innovation that we have able to do working with, for example, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, to make sure that individuals who want to practise in the province of Ontario can do that without additional barriers.

When we brought forward those expansions of cataract surgeries in January—we now have 14,000 people who can read to their grandchildren, who can go back to work, who can volunteer in their community, because those surgeries were done in community, publicly funded, using their OHIP card.

We had an extraordinary opportunity to go visit towns and cities across northern Ontario, to invest in their economies and invest in their local infrastructure. We started out in Sudbury, with the YES Theatre. The Blind River Beavers were celebrating a new roof and dropping the puck against the Elliot Lake Vikings. We weren’t there just to fix the roof; we were there to raise the roof, Mr. Speaker. They went on to win that game.

Making improvements to the Legion in Spanish—and then we swung through Little Current—no pun intended—and announced a brand new two-lane swing bridge, and then off to Echo Bay for a new roof in their arena.

What do they have in common, Mr. Speaker? There was so much enthusiasm about these local infrastructure projects. I had to tell them that their member of provincial Parliament voted against the projects, but they wouldn’t let that rain on their parade. They’re excited about northern Ontario towns, cities and First Nations communities and what our government is doing to invest in them.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

Companies from around the globe are looking to Ontario for their future, and our government must be a champion that will support our industry leaders and innovators. It is essential that we continue to attract new investments that will ensure Ontario’s economy will grow and thrive. This summer, the minister led an international trade and investment mission to South Korea and Japan to strengthen economic partnerships, foster pre-existing relationships and forge new alliances.

Speaker, at a time of economic and geopolitical unrest, can the minister please explain how his leadership in spearheading this investment trade mission is helping to strengthen Ontario’s overall economic environment?

The minister mentioned that he met with companies in an array of sectors. Speaker, can the minister please expand on other companies he met with while on his trade and investment mission and shed light on any news that we can expect following it?

In order for Ontario to be a decisive, confident international leader, we must ensure that every region of our province is thriving economically.

Speaker, can the minister please explain to this House what our government is doing to ensure that northern Ontario businesses and communities can prosper?

Even the Liberal Party, during one of their leadership debates, acknowledged that northern Ontario’s economy is booming because of the actions taken by our government—thank you.

While these are positive developments, we know that during this time of global economic uncertainty, many northern and Indigenous businesses continue to face unforeseen challenges. That is why our government must ensure that we are making meaningful investments that will help create jobs and support opportunities to modernize business practices.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what our government is doing to ensure that Indigenous entrepreneurs can participate in Ontario’s growing economy?

Supplementary question.

Minister of Health.

Our recent sales mission to Asia focused on strengthening relationships with our partners and attracting new investments in key sectors, including electric vehicles, life sciences and tech.

While in South Korea, we joined LSK Investment to announce their new $100-million life sciences fund for Ontario companies. This new fund will support early-stage life sciences companies with a focus on developing new therapeutics. LSK also announced their plans to open the first overseas office worldwide—and their first North American office—here in Toronto. This investment will strengthen Ontario’s growing life sciences sector. With Ontario’s talented workforce, the best R&D facilities and 65,000 annual STEM grads, more overseas companies are coming.

Speaker, companies around the world continue to choose Ontario for their future because our government has reduced the cost of doing business by $8 billion every single year.

School bus cancellations have thrown thousands of Ottawa families into chaos this September, because the Minister of Education cut $6 million in transportation funding to Ottawa school boards. When the boards rightfully complained, the minister offered just $1.8 million in a one-time transfer, but only if the boards agreed to use key messages praising the government.

Why does the minister think it’s okay to demand praise while Ottawa parents scramble every day to get their kids to school?

The minister created this problem with his funding cut. What is he going to do to fix it?

Speaker, I just find it pretty rich coming from the Liberals, who had scandal after scandal for 15 years; cost the taxpayers billions of dollars; changed the greenbelt not once, not twice, not three times, but 17 times for your buddies, building mega-mansions.

Mr. Speaker, when we took office, as I said earlier, we inherited a bankrupt province from the Liberals and the NDP supporting them. We have turned things around. My friends from Arizona—we’re the number-one trading partner to 19 states, number-two to nine other states. We’re an economic powerhouse in North America. We do $460 billion a year with the United States. We would be the third-largest trading partner in the world to the US. We have an incredible relationship, shipping car parts back and forth up to seven or eight times.

But do you know something, Mr. Speaker? Last month, the numbers came out: We created more jobs in Ontario than all 50 states combined. That’s what we’re doing for the people of Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, we’re going to move the province forward. We’re going to create the 1.5 million homes. We’re going to make sure that we create economic development and job creation so that we’re leading North America. We’re going to focus on the $184 billion of infrastructure that the Liberals and the NDP failed to do. They didn’t build the 413. They talked about Highway 7; they did absolutely nothing. They talked about Highway 3 and did absolutely nothing. We’re building the Bradford Bypass.

And guess what? As the hospitals were crumbling, we’re putting $50 billion into building 50 new hospitals or additions to hospitals, and that’s the tip of the iceberg. But thank you for the question.

My question is for the Premier. Last week, the Premier’s $8.3-billion gravy train derailed, and Speaker, what a mess: three cabinet ministers lost in a month, and the Premier’s office is right in the thick of it. Amin Massoudi and Jae Truesdell were both on that infamous Vegas trip with that developer friend of the Premier’s. And then the Premier’s ex-executive assistant, Nico Fidani-Diker, was working with Mr. X to crack open the greenbelt, and that same Mr. X, an unregistered lobbyist, was passing brown envelopes. And of course, we have the Premier’s hand-picked chief of staff for the minister of housing, Ryan Amato, the one who the Premier wants us to believe was the lone wolf in this whole thing.

Speaker, it’s clear to all of us here and all Ontarians that all roads lead to the Premier’s office in this scandal. Why won’t the Premier apologize to Ontarians for trying to pull an $8.3-billion fast one on them?

So what is this really all about? It’s about how the Premier thinks he can do business in this province. It’s all about what his priorities are, and it’s very clear his priorities are rich, well-connected insiders and putting them ahead of all Ontarians.

So I’m going to ask once more: Why won’t the Premier just apologize and admit that he was wrong? And let’s actually put this to committee, so we can have some witnesses in about what happened in this greenbelt scandal.

Supplementary question.

Interjections.

Interjection.

Interjection.

Start the clock.

Interjections.

Start the clock. The supplementary question.

It’s equally imperative that we make targeted investments in First Nations communities across northern Ontario. In the fiscal year 2022-23, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund invested $17 million in more than 61 First Nations projects, leveraging $30.9 million and creating or sustaining more than 110 jobs.

What does this look like on the ground, Mr. Speaker? The Biigtigong Nishnaabeg outdoor arena and upgrades to their community centre to improve their training capacity, the Matawa Wellness and Training Centre, the Mattagami First Nation Fishing tournaments and improvements to their waterfront development, and the list goes on.

What’s changed about a new-look Northern Ontario Heritage Fund is that we’ve gone from just under 1% in the previous government to up to 19% of those investments annually into First Nations communities in northern Ontario. We’re changing the game, Mr. Speaker, investing in their businesses and investing in their communities for a greater sense of prosperity across northern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, when our government increased funding for student transportation by $111 million, what did the NDP and Liberals do? They voted against the investment.

When our government increased funding to Ottawa school boards, $75 million this school year, what did the member opposite do when given the chance to support her own community? She voted against it.

Interjection.

What did we do, Speaker? We increased funding across the board. We increased funding specifically to accommodate the increase in inflationary costs with respect to commodities. In addition, we increased drivers’ pay by 17%. In addition, we gave $1.8 million to Ottawa specifically, and the French school boards in Ottawa were able to deliver transportation, but not the English.

Why doesn’t the member opposite stop politicizing an issue that disrupts parents’ lives, get on board, hold the school board to account and demand better for the people of Ottawa?

Instead of justifying the inaction of the board and consortium, stand up for constituents and demand better for Ottawa students.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member for that question. Students, their families and the taxpayers of Ontario deserve to know that when their hard-earned dollars are invested in Ontario’s post-secondary system, that investment pays off.

Our decision to not fund the Université de Sudbury’s proposal to become a stand-alone French-language university was one that was not made lightly. The university’s proposal did not reflect current demand and enrolment trends or the existing capacity of post-secondary institutions to offer French-language programs in the Greater Sudbury area and across Ontario.

I must remind the member that we have 10 francophone and bilingual institutions across Ontario, and students have the choice to make. I would remind you: Collège Boréal, collège La Cité, University of Ottawa, Laurentian University, Université de Hearst, Dominican University, Glendon College, Université de l’Ontario français. We have options for students across Ontario. As the minister, it is my duty to respect the taxpayers’ dollars.

We are also taking meaningful action to address the shortage of French-language teachers in Ontario. In fact, just last month, I was with the Minister of Education and the Treasury Board president and Minister of Francophone Affairs, where we announced an additional—

Interjections.

Interjections.

The supplementary question.