First, I’d like to congratulate my good friend the member from Willowdale on becoming the Minister of Long-Term Care—and now I’m going to grill him with a question.

In June, I was privileged to have the Minister of Long-Term Care come to my community of Peterborough to announce the construction of 416 new long-term-care beds at the Marianhill Nursing Home and Extendicare in Peterborough. These critical investments by our government are positive and are welcomed by the people of both Peterborough and Pembroke, but there’s still more that needs to be done to increase capacity in long-term care to help support Ontario’s seniors. That’s why it’s so important that our government continues with our plan to invest in the infrastructure that’s needed to care for our seniors.

Speaker, can the Minister of Long-Term Care please explain how our government is increasing the number of long-term-care homes across Ontario?

However, rising interest rates and construction costs are making it more expensive to finance crucial infrastructure projects. With pressing needs in communities across our province, it’s positive that our government introduced an additional top-up to the construction funding subsidy to support the costs of developing or redeveloping long-term-care homes.

Speaker, can the minister please provide an update on the benefits of this funding strategy in supporting solutions that will meet the needs of our seniors in Ontario?