I would like to introduce today’s page captain, Alina Wu, and her mom, Loris Wu, in the public gallery, from my riding of Don Valley North. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome Lina Di Carlo and Jeff Silverstein, who are representing the Ontario Occupational Health Nurses Association. Thank you for being in the House today.

Speaker, I’ll ask you to picture this: a beautiful white-and-green-sided gable house. On the shores of Lake Ontario, along the historic Loyalist Parkway, nestled in the cute port village of Bath, stands the Fairfield-Guzeit house.

This home, built by United Empire Loyalists William and Benjamin Fairfield in 1796, went through many generations of both Fairfields and others before its final family owner, Mabel Fairfield Gutzeit, bought the home in 1938 with her husband, Dr. William Gutzeit.

Then, in 1968, Mabel’s estate passed the entire home and its heritage artifacts to be a museum to be shared with the community. It is currently owned by the aptly named Loyalist township, and the treasures herein are greatly appreciated.

This home has seen and carries treasures from before the War of 1812, has witnessed the birth of our nation and this province and even hosted Sir John A. Macdonald for a picnic once.

But like all things, time has had an impact on this beautiful home. Speaker, I recently had the pleasure to attend the kick-off event as Loyalist township begins to restore the home with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. I’m grateful to see that heritage sites like this get the funding to keep the history of this province alive. I’m thankful to the OTF, the ministry and this government.

I beg to inform the House that the following document has been tabled: a report entitled Ontario’s Credit Rating: Fall 2023 Update from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.

It is now time for oral questions.

The final supplementary.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome some vulnerable road user champions to the people’s House today. With us are Peggy Hawthorn and Bob Murphy, who made the three-hour commute from Wasaga Beach. Thank you very much. Peggy represents United Senior Citizens of Ontario—300,000 seniors.

With us as well is Robert Zaichkowski, who is the author of the Two Wheeled Politics blog; Jonathan Schmidt, one of our friends from Scarborough who advocates for cycling; Richard Oldfield, Rick Harrington, Ann-Marie Thompson—Speaker, do not try to keep up to these people on a bicycle; they’re incredibly fit. Thank you for your work.

Also with us this morning is the Sayed family from Scarborough; Sharon Lee; Janice Jim; Patrick Brown; Kelsey Pietrobon; the incredible Ethan Smith-Johnson from our Ottawa Centre team—thank you for being her; and Jessica Spieker and Alison Stewart from Cycle Toronto and Friends and Families for Safe Streets.

We’ve got a lot of help, and we’ve got a great debate this afternoon. Thank you so much for making the trip out here to be with us.

I’m feeling pretty good today, Paul.

They were too noisy.

Speaker, I really hope that the Premier will answer this time. I’m going to go back to the Premier.

This government gave preferential treatment to insider greenbelt speculators, enriching them to the tune of $8.3 billion at the public’s expense, without building a single new home. It included the Duffins Rouge farmland, which was supposed to be protected. The Conservatives’ scheme undid those protections and made their insider friends $6.6 billion richer.

The government is already three ministers down. To the Premier: How many ministers will have to take the fall before he fesses up?

The question is for the Premier. The people of Ontario see a pattern of preferential treatment for this government. The former Minister of Health, who got the ball rolling so that private companies could profit off of our public health care services, is now a lobbyist for the largest chain of private surgical centres anywhere in the country. A clinic she actually represents is now receiving more funding to provide the same services that are delivered in public hospitals, and that’s exactly what we have been warning was going to happen.

So to the Premier: Why is the province paying private, for-profit clinics as much as four times more than public hospitals for the same procedures?

Interjections.

The former Minister of Health would have been responsible for transferring licences for publicly funded surgical services to for-profit clinics. Under her watch, funding for one private, for-profit surgical centre—Don Mills—has quadrupled since 2018, reaching $5.2 million by 2022-23. The same cataract surgery that costs $500 in a public hospital costs more than $1,200 at Don Mills.

To the Premier, and I hope he will answer this question, how is hemorrhaging public funds innovative or cost-effective health care? Tell us.

Here’s what’s really going on. Clearpoint is a wholly owned company of Kensington Capital Partner Ltd. That’s a private equity firm. They’re not health care experts or medical professionals; they’re a for-profit corporation. Their priority is to maximize profits for their shareholders. There profits come from over-billing patients, from charging unnecessary fees, from cutting costs by compromising quality.

Back to the Premier, why does this government keep prioritizing patient profits over—sorry, private profits over patient care?

Interjections.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, what the opposition isn’t telling people: that there were 14,000 cataract surgeries off the list of backlogs; that people can see; they can read the books to their grandchildren. That’s what they aren’t saying. They aren’t saying 49,000 hours of MRI and CT/CAT scans last year alone paid by OHIP, not their credit card. What the opposition isn’t saying: Since we’ve been in office, we’ve hired and registered over 63,000 nurses, 8,000 doctors. Last year alone, 15,000 nurses came on board. We’re spending over $50 billion renovating or building new hospitals right across this province.

But guess what, Mr. Speaker? They voted against it. They voted against more nurses, more doctors, building more medical universities, building more hospitals. That’s what they stand for.

Thank you to the member for the question. I think the member had it right when she tripped over her wording there. We are prioritizing patients. We are prioritizing patient care. We are clearing the backlog brought about by COVID. We also have a lot more demand, and we are making sure that people have access to surgeries and scans and screens as quickly as possible. That’s what the people of Ontario want.

The Don Mills Surgical Unit has been funded since 1960, with licences renewed every two to five years under every political stripe of government. So the NDP renewed, the Liberals renewed and the Conservatives have renewed the licence for that centre. They have been funded the same way, on a procedure basis.

We have also added premiums to clear the backlog brought about by COVID and to get more surgeries done. We’re going to continue to make sure patients get care as quickly and efficiently as possible in whatever—

Members will please take their seats.

Government House leader.

I’ll remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

Start the clock. Supplementary question.

To reply, the member for Eglinton–Lawrence, parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

Interjections.

The next question.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: The Premier continues to break his government’s promise to make municipalities whole for revenue losses due to Bill 23. There was no money to do this in the budget or the recent fall economic statement. The Building Faster Fund won’t come close to replacing those lost revenues and is based on shovels in the ground, something municipalities have no control over. Municipalities control approvals; developers control shovels.

The planning system is in chaos, and municipal taxpayers are facing massive tax increases. When will the Premier stop bullying municipalities and finally adopt policies that will actually get more homes built, such as ending exclusionary zoning and investing in non-market housing?

The supplementary question.

I recognize the Premier to reply.

Supplementary question?

The Premier.

Thank you to the member opposite for the question. We are using the Shoppers Drug Mart vaccine distribution system because it is a system that is everywhere in Ontario, making sure we get vaccines to people across the province in a timely way. This is the same system we were using during COVID, and it was very successful in getting vaccines everywhere.

It’s always up to the pharmacy whether they want to opt in or opt out of providing those vaccines. Sometimes pharmacies also don’t order the number of vaccines that they end up needing to deliver to their population. They can adjust what their order is and get more vaccines.

Interjections.

Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Last week, two Toronto pharmacies declared publicly that they are no longer administering vaccines due to major problems with the province’s new vaccine distributor. Do you know who that is, Speaker? Shoppers Drug Mart, the Loblaws chain of pharmacies. Those pharmacists reported receiving only 10% of their orders, having to cancel days of pre-booked appointments—a real headache.

Does the Premier see a conflict of interest in having Shoppers Drug Mart responsible for distributing vaccines to their competitors?

Speaker, public health handled vaccine distribution in Ontario for decades with no issues. They knew, they listened to the local providers. They were reliable. Does the Premier understand that handing over the distribution of vaccines to their friends at Loblaws is having drastic consequences for the health of Ontarians?

Interjections.

We were here till midnight last night, and I had an opportunity to speak about this very topic. I’ll tell what you we said last night. When we travel around the world and talk to businesses, they ask you, “What the heck is this thing called a carbon tax and how much is it going to cost my business?” I can tell you, we have to fight for every single job that we bring here: $27 billion in new auto in the last three years; $3 billion in new life sciences in the last year; tens of billions in new tech in the last three years.

Can you imagine, if we did not have to sit there and explain this carbon tax, how much more business would be coming into Ontario? When they hear that number that they have to pay a tax on their fuel, on their goods, on everything they wear, on everything they consume, they realize this is becoming expensive, and that is a deterrent to doing economic development in our province.

We need them to drop the carbon tax.

My question for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. The NDP and Liberal members in this House are standing by idly as the federal carbon tax continues to hurt businesses and drive up costs for households. Rather than picking up the phone and calling the Prime Minister and his right-hand man, Jagmeet Singh, to scrap the tax, they choose to turn their backs on their constituents.

Unlike them, we will always stand up for the businesses and people of the province of Ontario. That’s why, from day one, our government has opposed this terrible carbon tax. Speaker, can the minister please explain how the federal carbon tax is affecting businesses in Ontario? Thank you.

We hear these concerns day after day after day, and that’s why we will not stop until this tax is scrapped. Can the minister please elaborate on how the carbon tax is affecting businesses and families across the province of Ontario?

This Premier ignored the vast majority of recommendations from his own Housing Affordability Task Force and instead wasted over a year on municipal power grabs and attacks on the greenbelt and Ontario’s farmland. Municipalities are fed up, not only because of the cost this Premier has dumped onto local taxpayers and the preferential treatment for his speculator friends, but also because all this chaos is making it harder for municipalities to get homes built.

Will the Premier compensate municipalities for all revenue losses due to Bill 23 with funding based on housing targets they can actually control? Yes or no?

Interjections.

Well, through you, Mr. Speaker, our task force did a great job. We’ve implemented over 21 recommendations. But guess what? They based it on 200,000 people.

Just to inform the NDP—I don’t know if they’ve seen it or not—over 800,000 people arrived in our province last year alone, the fastest-growing region in North America, bar none. But what they don’t say is how we had the most starts in 2021, 99,566, and in 2022, 96,000.

Again, Mr. Speaker, we’re pouring money into housing. The Building Faster Fund is $1.2 billion. I told my colleagues in the US who came up, the senators, congresspeople and governors, that we have to pay municipalities to build. They almost fell off their chairs when I told them that—$1.2 billion, and the smaller rural areas, another $500 million.

I can guarantee you one thing, Mr. Speaker: We’re building those 1.5 million homes as they vote against every single piece of legislation we have.

The largest distributors in the province and in the entire country are the 4,000 pharmacies which—Shoppers Drug Mart has the best distribution centre anywhere in the country. That’s the reason, during the pandemic, we involved the pharmacies, and we set records around the world.

We’re vaccinating over 100,000 people a day, thanks to the great partners in the pharmacies. It’s convenient care close to home. That’s what it’s all about.