I would like to congratulate Philippe Boyer, our very own page from St. Paul’s, who is today’s page captain. I also want to welcome his father, Sebastien Boyer, to the House, his mom, Shu Boyer, and his grandparents, and also say a warm welcome to every single SEIU member here. Thank you so much for your work. And a welcome to—

It’s my great pleasure to welcome Alex Hector, executive director of South East Grey Community Health Centre, to the House today. I had the joy of serving on the board of the CHC with Alex for three years. Thank you, Alex, for your great service. It’s great to have you at Queen’s Park today.

I want to extend a personal welcome to my friend and London West constituent Andy Kroeker, who is here today for the Alliance for Healthier Communities and has served West Elgin for years as the West Elgin Community Health Centre executive director. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Beautiful day, everyone. I have an international visitor here I’d like to introduce: awesome Alex Clements, from the Netherlands, doing great work on impact investing in the Ukraine. Welcome to our House.

It’s my great pleasure to introduce my constituency assistant, John Mace, a very smart young man who is here in the Legislature with us today.

I’d like to welcome the mentorship candidate I mentioned earlier, Olivia Batte, and her mom, Fiona, from Waterloo.

Mr. Speaker, this week is the Small Business Week celebration, and I am happy to announce that we are having a business forum right here at Queen’s Park. I’m hosting a small business forum here. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy; 67% of the private labour force in this country is employed by them. I would like to welcome speakers from Digital Main Street, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business—

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the members of SEIU Healthcare who are here today, in particular E.S. Pohler, Teresa Wheeler, who I met with this morning, and Michael Spitale. Thank you for looking after us and the people that we love and care for.

It’s a privilege to rise and recognize a great initiative and a passionate team of volunteers helping their community during the Halloween season. As we all know, Halloween is a time for trick-or-treaters, jack-o’-lanterns, scary costumes and haunted houses. To prepare for Halloween, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the Ghost Walk for Charity held in Cornwall, Speaker.

If you like to be scared and see spooky things, you do not want to miss this event. The suspense-filled charity walk definitely got my wife and I ready for Halloween. Now my kids want to be spooked.

The Ghost Walk for Charity is an initiative led by Michael Turcotte, who is a dedicated community member with a long history of supporting and volunteering his time to many local charities and organizations. For years, people would flock to Michael’s home in Cornwall to walk through his haunted garage, and from that was born the initiative. This year’s sixth annual Ghost Walk for Charity is being held every Thursday through Saturday evening and a non-scary option every Saturday and Sunday at the Cornwall Square.

Over the last five years, I’m proud to share that this event has donated well over $100,000 to worthy organizations. This year’s proceeds will go to benefit the children’s treatment centre, the Cornwall Hospice, Ronald McDonald House Ottawa, Cornwall Canada Day, Cornwall Comfort Quilts and Centre 105. I’d like to encourage all to attend this spooky event that has provided so much support over the years to great charities and organizations.

I beg to inform the House that I have today laid upon the table a request by the member for Davenport to the Honourable J. David Wake, Integrity Commissioner, for an opinion pursuant to sections 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the Members’ Integrity Act, 1994, on whether the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville, Kaleed Rasheed, has contravened the act or Ontario parliamentary convention.

Introduction of visitors?

There are still members on both sides of the House who want to introduce guests. Does anyone object to me continuing to allow members on both sides of the House to introduce their guests? We will continue.

I’d like to welcome our chair, Wayne Emmerson, from York region as well as all the mayors and regional councillors and councillors from York region. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

We have quite a few people from different community health centres: Sarah Hobbs, who is from the Alliance for Healthier Communities; James Huff from Belleville and Quinte West Community Health Centre; Marc Bisson, Centre de santé communautaire de l’Estrie; Estelle Duchon, Centre francophone du Grand Toronto; Michelle Carr, Community Health Centres of Northumberland; Kim Fraser, Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood and Community Health Centre; Melissa Kwiatkowski, Guelph Community Health Centre; Jeanie Argiropoulos, Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities; Alex Hector, South East Grey Community Health Centre; Charis Romilly Turner, Stonegate Community Health Centre; Michelle Joseph, Unison Health and Community Services; Kimberley Floyd, WellFort Community Health Services; and Andy Kroeker, West Elgin Community Health Centre. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to introduce to the House some very important colleagues from York region: Chairman Wayne Emmerson; CAO Erin Mahoney; chief of staff Lina Bigioni; regional councillor Jim Jones; York region mayors, their Worships, Margaret Quirk, John Taylor, Steve Pellegrini, Iain Lovatt, and my two good friends and my local mayors, their Worships, David West and Tom Mrakas. Welcome to the House.

To reply, the government House leader and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Interjections.

Start the clock. Supplementary question?

The final supplementary.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs can respond.

Interjection: Point of order, Speaker.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Start the clock. The Leader of the Opposition has the floor.

I’d like to recognize the parents of the page from Brampton East. Gurkaram Dhillon’s parents are here: Karmjit Dhillon and Harvinder Dhillon. They’re just seated in the members’ gallery over there.

It’s my honour to rise and introduce my good friend, and a young leader, Carlos Cabeneros from Scarborough. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I, as well, would like to welcome all the members from the Alliance for Healthier Communities, especially executive director Sarah Hobbs.

I’d like to remind all—to welcome you to the reception that I’m proud to sponsor in room 228 at 11:45.

I trust that the Integrity Commissioner will do whatever work he needs to do.

At the same time, there’s no doubt—it’s pretty understandable why the Leader of the Opposition is looking backwards, because she doesn’t want to look forward. Because when she does look forward, she’ll see what is happening in the province of Ontario.

It’s actually fitting that we have a delegation here from York region, because in York region we’re building schools, where they closed them; we’re building roads where they couldn’t; we’re building transit and transportation, including a subway that the Liberals failed on for 15 long years. Our economy is booming in the area. Our farmers are doing better because of the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

They want to look backwards. We’ll look forwards. But, really, the entire party’s premise for being is about looking backwards. It’s never about looking forwards. They’re a backward party, and that is why the people of the province of Ontario look to Progressive Conservatives to move the economy forward each and every time.

Interjections.

But let’s talk again about what we’re seeing across the province of Ontario, Mr. Speaker. I talked yesterday about how things are challenging. Things can be challenging when you have policies like the Liberals’s and the NDP’s, right? We’re seeing these policies in Ottawa: a carbon tax, which is costing the people of the province of Ontario on literally every single thing that they do. They hold the balance of power in Ottawa. Will they ask the federal NDP to do something about the carbon tax? No, Mr. Speaker. It is the same policies that brought the province of Ontario to its knees under the Liberal and NDP coalition.

It’s fitting that we have York region here again, because since we have been in office—27,000 more jobs in York region and 4,500 tech companies in York region. It is the second-largest tech hub in Canada because of the leadership of this Premier and this minister. And Friday, the Minister of Long-Term Care will be there to open up—

Interjections.

Now, curiously, the Leader of the Opposition told the member to retract and apologize. The member refused to do that. And now we’re seeing that the NDP caucus is in a full-blown revolt against their own leader, refusing to follow the edict of the Leader of the Opposition.

When it comes to leadership, we’ll take the leadership of this Premier, who has brought 700,000 jobs to Ontario, who has removed taxes, who has taken the lowest-income earners off the tax rolls. The economy is booming despite the policies of the Liberals and NDP to hold people back. We’ll continue to get the job done.

My question is to the Premier. For weeks, this side of the House has been trying to get answers from the Conservative government on their greenbelt corruption scandal, and they’ve responded by voting down motions and standing in the way of accountability. They’re now under active criminal investigation by the RCMP.

Yesterday, I again urged the Premier to ask the Integrity Commissioner to get to the bottom of the boys trip his senior staff and former Conservative minister took to Las Vegas.

I’ll ask the Premier again: Will the Premier ask the Integrity Commissioner to investigate the 2020 trip to Vegas?

The former minister and two members of the Premier’s most senior advisers all suspiciously—

The former minister and two members of the Premier’s most senior advisers all told the Integrity Commissioner that their trip was in 2019 when it actually occurred months later. That’s three different people giving the wrong date for the same trip.

So my question, again to the Premier, is, can the Premier explain how three different people could mistakenly give the wrong date for the same trip?

The former minister and the Premier’s senior advisers told the Integrity Commissioner different things about interactions they had with greenbelt speculator Shakir Rehmatullah while on these trips. The former minister said he and the Premier’s staff only saw the greenbelt speculator in the lobby of the hotel. Now we know that they got spa services, including concurrent massages, at the same hotel, at the same time.

So I’m going to go back to the Premier, Speaker. Does the Premier agree that it’s a general rule that members of provincial Parliament should provide honest testimony to the Integrity Commissioner?

Interjections.

Interjections.