I beg to inform the House that, pursuant to standing order 9(g), the Clerk has received written notice from the government House leader indicating that a temporary change in the weekly meeting schedule of the House is required, and therefore the afternoon routine on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, shall commence at 1 p.m.

This morning I would like to introduce representatives from Western University: president Alan Shepard, Florentine Strzelczyk, Lynn Logan, Penny Pexman, John Doerksen, Keith Gibbons, Peter White and Sophie Helpard. I would like to invite everyone to attend their lunch reception.

I would also like to welcome representatives from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. Welcome to Queen’s Park today, gang.

Today I’d like to welcome Francis Garwe and Roselyn Sagar-Lal from the Durham Community Health Centre. Thank you for being in the House today.

I’d also like to acknowledge Nancy Henry, councillor for Ward 2 in Ajax—it’s nice to see you—and Mayor Kevin Ashe, his wife Karen, and his group from Pickering as well. Thank you for coming today and thank you for the discussion on mental health.

Recently, I had the pleasure of joining members of the Blenheim Medical Health Foundation, who unveiled plans to develop a local health hub which will provide primary, multi-disciplinary health care to a catchment area that extends well beyond the community of Blenheim to include rural areas of South Kent, Ridgetown and surrounding areas. This facility will house a wide range of health care professionals and services, including family physicians, nurse practitioners, diagnostic imaging personnel, laboratory, physiotherapy, pharmacy and mental health care services all under one roof.

I’m so proud of this community-driven grassroots movement, and I want to acknowledge members of the foundation, including Mr. Ed O’Brien, Ms. Joan Hackett, Ms. Cathy Smith, Dr. Andrew Lanz-O’Brien, and the countless Blenheim-area residents and businesses who supported them all.

I also want to acknowledge the extreme generosity of Peter and Annie Timmermans, who selflessly donated the beautiful 26,000-square-foot building—the former Andersons agri-business and research building on Hyland Drive—to house our future health care hub and make this dream of comprehensive rural health a reality. The collective effort will create a warm, welcoming, comprehensive and professional space to better support all rural residents, from young families to seniors, who are all being supported by a central integrated whole-person health care facility.

I was pleased to attend the recent swearing-in ceremony of 45 new Ontario provincial police officers at the headquarters in Orillia. It was a momentous occasion, one that signifies the commitment and dedication of these individuals to serve and protect our communities.

Among these dedicated recruits is my good friend Curtis Trotz, who has made the transition from the city of Thunder Bay police force to serve at the OPP station in Armstrong. Curtis’s decision to join the OPP is a testament to his unwavering commitment to public safety and his willingness to embrace new challenges in the pursuit of a safer Ontario. Congratulations, Curtis.

I’d also like to extend my congratulations to Natasha McLellan, who will be serving right here at Queen’s Park. Your presence and dedication to serving in the heart of our province’s governance is truly commendable. Your service here, safeguarding the very institutions that shape our great province, is of immense importance. Welcome, Natasha.

I want to recognize the sacrifices made by the families of our police officers and the vital role that they have in supporting their family members as they serve our communities.

In closing, I want to thank all officers for their dedication to upholding the law, protecting our citizens. And once again, I offer my congratulations. May you all return home safely at the end of every shift.

Affordability: Our neighbours in Niagara are feeling the crunch on the affordability crisis, and it’s hitting hard—especially around housing. Our municipalities in Niagara are falling short on housing targets at no fault of their own. The council in Niagara Falls hit the nail on the head, including Councillor Pietrangelo who said this: “We can approve them, but we can’t ensure that they’re going to be built. It’s nice to have a plan, but it’s better if it’s realistic and achievable and I don’t know how to make sure that it is achievable.”

The Conservatives’ housing plan is failing this province after wasting years cutting deals with their friends in the greenbelt. They promised 1.5-million homes. In Niagara Falls, it’s a 21-year wait-list for a one-bedroom apartment; nine years in Fort Erie.

Food bank usage has skyrocketed; 800,000 adults and children accessed a food bank in Ontario this year, an increase of 38%. Those on social assistance are facing legislated poverty.

Enough with the lip service. We need solutions. It’s time for this province to roll up its sleeves, get back to building homes and tackle the affordability crisis head on. How can the Premier tell the people in Ontario we are 1,000 times better off from when he became Premier? Family, friends, grandkids are going to bed hungry every night in the province of Ontario. We deserve better.

From the post-secondary sector, I’d like to welcome the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance as well as the delegation from Western University, my alma mater.

I would also like to welcome the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, who I’ll be meeting with later this afternoon.

Finally, from a health care perspective, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Home Care Ontario as well as the Carion Fenn Foundation, which hosted a great reception this morning.

Thank you to the member for the question.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if you know this, but in fact, legislators in this House have been talking about what to do with Ontario Place since the late 1980s. Since the late 1980s, legislators have been talking about what to do with declining attendance and what to do with the increasing subsidies at Ontario Place.

Mr. Speaker, we are at a point where we’ve submitted our development application to the city. We have done everything that is required by us, by law, and now we have to make a decision and move forward. This is a government that gets the job done, and we will bring Ontario Place back to life, finally.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I will never be afraid to present legislation in order to build infrastructure in the province of Ontario and finally, after over 30 years of debate in this House, get it done and bring Ontario Place back to life, a place that families can enjoy 365 days of the year.

Mr. Speaker, we legislators have been debating this issue since the late 1980s. It is time to get the job done and this legislation will help us do it.

As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, I’d like to introduce Home Care Ontario, who are holding their annual awareness day today at the Legislature.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Introduction of visitors. The Minister of Finance.

Interjection.

The supplementary question.

Minister of Infrastructure.

To reply, the Minister of Infrastructure.

I would like to welcome members of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance who are here today: Abby Samuels from McMaster University; Katie Traynor from the University of Waterloo; Carleigh Charlton from Brock University; Simi Olufowobi from Laurentian University; Riley Ambrose from Trent University; and Victoria Mills from Queen’s University. Welcome. I look forward to meeting with you later.

This question is for the Premier.

The Conservatives have had to roll back major policy after major policy because they got caught rigging the system for their friends. And while they promised to be more transparent around land use planning after the greenbelt scandal, here we are again, a few weeks later, and the Conservatives are muddying it even further when it comes to Ontario Place. They’re doing everything they can to ram their private luxury spa through, even skirting their own rules. They’ve proposed exempting the project from environmental assessment laws and the heritage act.

To the Premier: Is he overriding his own rules to avoid accountability under the law?

To the Premier: Is he just making it easier to give preferential treatment to his friends?

Back to the Premier: Why is this elite luxury spa his number one priority?

Interjections.

This government can pat themselves on the back all they want, but they know as well as we do that this was never about Toronto. The fight has always been right here at Queen’s Park to protect public interests and expose their dirty deals.

The government is spending over half a billion dollars on a luxury mega-spa to hand public funds directly over into the profits of private companies. If this isn’t about giving preferential treatment and avoiding public accountability, surely this government has a plan to invest in other municipalities.

To the Premier: Which other municipalities will get a deal from this province?

I’m very pleased to have met with OFVGA this morning. I somewhat share a farmer with my colleague from Oxford county: Mike Chromczak of Chromczak Farms, who produces some of Ontario’s best asparagus and watermelon.

Welcome to the House, and thank you for all your hard work.

On behalf of the official opposition, I’d also like to welcome the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association. I look forward to meeting with them and attending their reception this afternoon.

Thank you to the member for Whitby for that applause.

I want to acknowledge again the great mayor of Pickering, Kevin Ashe, joined by his wife, Karen O’Brien.

Kevin and Kim Cahill also did a great job. Thank you for being here.

Theresa Deboer and Ajax ward 2 councillor Nancy Henry, welcome to the House.

And my constituent manager, the great Edward White, is up there.

He’s not here yet, but I know he’s coming for question period—I’d like to introduce former member of Hastings–Lennox and Addington, Daryl Kramp.

My question is to the Minister of Transportation.

Ontario already has responsibility for the Trans-Canada Highway, Highway 11. Last week, north of North Bay, on November 22, it was closed for 13 and a half hours. On November 24, it was closed for 12 and a half hours.

Our sympathies go out to the families involved. This isn’t something new. If your car is registered in the district of Timiskaming, you’re four times as likely to die on a provincial highway than if it’s registered in Toronto.

My question to the Minister of Transportation is, can northerners also expect a new deal to actually put Highway 11 up to standards so people don’t die on it?

Interjections.

There are many other roads in northern Ontario, and many of them were downloaded by the Harris government to municipalities—the town of Iroquois Falls, the town of Kirkland Lake, the city of Timmins. Many of these places are also suffering. They can’t afford to provide vital services because they’re actually looking after highways that should be provincial.

So those municipalities across the province—can they also expect that this government actually uploads the highways that a previous Conservative downloaded? Can they expect a new deal on roads as well?

Interjections.

As the member knows, it is our utmost priority to ensure we have safe and efficient highways across this province, and that includes Highway 11. We have some of the safest roads in all of North America. We have the trans-Ontario standard that is met by this province and this province only—across the country and across North America.

And we will continue to work—we had the Good Roads Association that was at Queen’s Park just this past week, listening about further measures that can be taken.

We commit to always ensuring that we have the safest roads, and working towards safety across this province, especially on the roads. We do have some of the safest roads, but we’ll continue to make sure that we do whatever we can, making the necessary investments on Highways 11 and 17 in the north, to do—and ensure that our roads remain safe.

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

The federal carbon tax is hurting businesses across this province. It’s significantly harmful to small and medium-sized businesses, which are crucial sources of employment for our regional communities.

When the federal government hikes energy costs with their carbon tax, it hurts these small businesses—their bottom lines. Unfortunately, this has meant that many small businesses and businesses have been left with the difficult choice of scaling back production, laying off employees, or closing their doors altogether. Sadly, the federal government, along with the independent Liberals and opposition NDP, do not care.

Can the minister please explain how, unlike the NDP and Liberals, who want to penalize businesses, our government is providing support for them?