Speaker, over the summer months, I attended many events, meetings and round tables in my riding of Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, connecting with residents and organizations and hearing what is most important to them. Health care and housing continue to be top of mind, and this government is listening, with just over $5.8 million in funding for upgrades and repairs to hospitals in my riding—including Perth and Smiths Falls as well as Carleton Place and Almonte—plus an additional $820,000 to address emergency department pressures.

Last month, I was pleased to join Minister Calandra for the groundbreaking ceremony of the brand new, 128-bed Broadview nursing home in my hometown of Smiths Falls. This is part of this government’s $6.4-billion commitment to build more than 58,000 new and reconditioned beds in this province.

In July, I was honoured to be part of the opening of Lanark county’s newest five-unit community housing building.

And I look forward to the spring of 2024, when Carebridge Community Support is scheduled to open another affordable housing project within my riding.

Mr. Speaker, my sincere thanks to Minister Parsa and Minister Calandra for joining me this summer for round-table discussions—real conversations about how we can remove barriers and improve access to services.

I look forward to welcoming Minister Gill next week to discuss streamlining productivity and efficiencies with stakeholders and businesses in Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston.

It was a productive summer.

Mr. Speaker, while members from Ottawa West–Nepean and Ottawa Centre literally sit on the sidelines on this issue and do what they do best—slacktivism and hashtag politics—this government is standing up for Ottawa families and getting the job done. We are the only party in this Legislature holding the school board and the consortia to account—and we have not only done that; we’ve launched an audit of the consortia, because we demand better. Speaker, 70% of all cancellations in the entire province are in the English public Ottawa school board. The French school board consortia, which has fewer students and a larger territory, is getting the job done—and not the English consortia. So I expect all members to stand up for Ottawa families—like the member from Carleton—to demand better. We provided an additional increase of funding of $1.8 million to that school board and, even still, with additional funding, they can’t get the job done. So we’re going to stand up and demand better for all Ottawa residents.