Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Today I’m rising to highlight a recent investment that our government has made to combat auto theft in Ontario, and specifically in my region of Hamilton.

Mr. Speaker, every 14 minutes a vehicle is stolen in Ontario. In the last year alone there was a 14% increase in auto thefts right across Ontario. This investment of over $895,000 over three years will ensure that our Hamilton Police Service has the tools and the resources that they need to fight car theft and to keep our communities safe.

When the investment was shared, Hamilton police chief Frank Bergen said, “We thank the provincial government for funds received from this grant, which will be used to combat auto theft through increased staffing: two new investigators and an analyst. We will also be working closely with our policing partners to share strategic intelligence” involving “organized crime groups that impact our city.”

This funding to the Hamilton Police Service is part of the government’s new Preventing Auto Thefts Grant Program designed to support new and enhanced crime-fighting measures that focus on prevention, detection, analysis and enforcement. This Preventing Auto Thefts Grant is just one of several measures enacted by our government to fight auto theft. Earlier this year, Ontario also announced the organized crime towing and auto theft team to help police services identify, disrupt and dismantle organized crime networks.

Mr. Speaker, with the crime of auto theft growing across Ontario, I am proud that our government is tackling the issue head-on.

It is my very great honour to welcome Thornhill resident and student Ella Rosen in the gallery.

Mr. Speaker, thank you to the leader for the question. I got this feeling that the word “tourism” is a bad word. We’re talking about—now hang on for a second—tourism, which represents almost $36 billion in economic activity, just under 400,000 jobs and 82,000 business-related jobs and careers in tourism. Yet we talk about an opportunity, a destination—tourism is about finding a place to go, drawing people in, not just people in Ontario but the people across Canada and maybe into the United States. It’s driving tourism. A destination is important, whether it’s a spa, common areas, water parks, paddling, walking and being casual in an area where you can sit and be quiet—all these great things that tourists like. They want to come to. They want to come here. We’re making a world-class destination.

Interjections.

To reply, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.

The supplementary question?

I’ve said many times that when individual hospitals have to make a very challenging decision based on the health human resources that they have available to them to temporarily close for an hour or shift a part of their operation, it is disruptive for a community. But that is exactly why our government has made such a conscious effort and investments in our hospital systems, in our health human resources: expanding the number of nurses that are training in the province of Ontario; expanding the number of residency positions that are available for physicians in Ontario.

We’ll continue to do that work and we’ll continue to expand the health human resources because we know how important it is to the people of Ontario.

We now have, in northern Ontario, physicians who are in our emergency departments having access to other physicians who have practised for longer and are able to walk through specific issues. That one change alone has ensured that we have had no physician shortages or issues in northern Ontario. Those are the kinds of policy changes that are actually being suggested by our hospital partners and making an impact in our communities.

We’ll continue to make those investments. In last year’s budget alone, we had an average increase in our hospital budgets of 4%. Those are the changes that we make as a government to make sure that our hospitals and our community system is robust and there for us when we need it.

Good morning, Speaker. This question is for the Premier. People in this province should expect quality health care that’s available when they need it. But under this government, we’re seeing critical services disappearing from communities. Emergency department closures are happening more frequently, and they are staying closed longer. A new report from the Ontario Health Coalition reported a staggering 868 emergency department closures this year alone.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: What possible explanation can this government offer to Ontarians who lost over 30,000 hours of emergency care this year?

Folks in Huron, Perth and Wellington are experiencing multiple simultaneous closures. Durham had 51 closures this year alone. People in Clinton haven’t had reliable access to an ER since 2019.

The holiday season is one of the busiest times for local hospitals and emergency rooms. What is this Premier going to do to stop emergency department closures over the holidays?

The newly renovated Mindemoya Hospital had to close because this government didn’t fund the staff to keep it open. Hospitals and long-term-care homes are being gouged by private staffing agencies taking over our health care system. Perth and Smith’s Falls hospital was forced to spend a whopping $2.8 million this year on temporary staff through private agencies. I’ve talked to local hospitals in northern communities who are worried about making payroll.

Speaker, we need investment to finally address these staffing shortages. Will the Premier stand up and commit new hospital funding to ensure care is available when the patients of Ontario need it?

The official opposition NDP have unearthed yet another secret government document that’s called “Ontario Science Centre modernization relocation plans”—very interesting. But what’s really notable about this document is the date: August 27, 2021.

Speaker, why did the Premier keep his plans for the science centre a secret during the 2022 election?

Speaker, to the Premier: Why should the public trust a Premier who clearly believes in decision-based evidence-making instead of evidence-based decision-making?

I’d like to welcome to the House Richard Bradley from Moore Falls, Ontario.

I’d like to welcome the students today from Trafalgar Castle School, who will be performing later on today as the choir on the grand staircase. Welcome to the Legislature.

I’d like to welcome to the House a guy who has been putting up with me since I was born and who has supported me every step of the way: my dad, Jim. Welcome to the House.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. Under the previous Liberal government, supported by the NDP, when global companies were considering locations to expand in, Ontario was never on the short list. Businesses did not want to navigate through mazes of red tape while paying tax hike after tax hike.

When we came into office, we immediately took action to scrap the Liberal-NDP agenda of tax hikes and red tape. Now, Ontario is the first place that comes to mind when companies want to invest and expand. By creating the conditions for businesses to succeed, we’ve seen record investments and job growth across the entire province of Ontario.

Speaker, can the minister highlight some of the recent investments that Ontario has welcomed?

You would think that, with more than 700,000 jobs created since we took office, the Liberals and the NDP would realize that our approach of lower costs works. Instead, they continue to advocate for policies that would crush businesses, penalize workers and destroy our economy.

While we have been laser-focused on creating jobs and growing the economy, the Liberals spent the last six months just to end up with a new leader who endorses the same anti-growth agenda as the NDP. By reducing the annual cost of doing business by $8 billion annually and cutting burdensome red tape, we have seen job-creating investments flood into the province of Ontario.

Speaker, can the minister please elaborate on other investments and expansions Ontario has secured over the past few months?

Back to the Premier: Can I just say, if this was such a great idea, why did they work so hard to keep it secret for so long? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think the people of Ontario buy it. They know there’s something dirty about this deal.

Earlier this year, the NDP released an FOIed secret document showing that the government had already decided to pay for a new parking garage for Therme as early as January 2021—again, nearly two years before the public found out. We know they planned to move the science centre also nearly two years before the public found out.

We can wait for the Auditor General’s report tomorrow or the Premier can set the record straight right now: Is he building a half-sized science centre on top of the Therme parking garage to justify spending 650 million public dollars on a private luxury spa?

Speaker, while this government is busy planning for a luxury spa in downtown Toronto, the people of Brampton are facing property tax increases up to 34% next year—wild. That’s because the government’s plan to dissolve Peel region is estimated to cost the city of Brampton more than $1.3 billion. So I’m going to ask the Premier, how can he justify the largest tax hike in Brampton’s history in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis?

So back to the Premier of this province: What does he have to say to the people of Brampton about their 34% tax hike?

As they say, two cases are better than one—two business cases that suggest that this is a wonderful opportunity, opportunity that we’d like to think we want to explore for the people of Ontario.

But more importantly, again, back to that “tourism” word that everyone—or not everyone, just certain people don’t seem to like. We talk about building up opportunity in Ontario in jobs and careers, destinations, making an Ontario Place that people want to come to visit and stay maybe an extra day or two longer because the destination is so special, and the opportunity is an experience that those people and their families want to experience. That’s what tourism is about.

People in Ontario do a fabulous job. Those working in the industry are doing a better job because of COVID. They’re smarter, they are ready and they want people to come to Ontario. They want them to visit. They want them to stay. We want to welcome people—

Interjection.

Well, the new science centre will not have that much common space because it will be more efficient, more directed, more targeted to exhibits, and I believe that’s what the science centre is about: drawing people in, educating them, creating—dare I say it again—an experience. Don’t worry about the common area, worry about what they come to see. Those are the displays. Those are what’s out there for people to learn from—not hallways, exhibition space.

The member for Hamilton Mountain will come to order.

Final supplementary?

Response, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport.

And the supplementary?

We were at the opening of Kainos—it’s an IT company from Ireland. Just yesterday, they announced—and we did the ribbon cutting at their facility in downtown Toronto: 100 employees, on their way up to hiring 300 employees. Again, all because we have lowered the cost of doing business in Ontario. We graduate 65,000 STEM grads each and every year. Welcome, Kainos and the 100 employees that they’ve brought.

The week before, we welcomed Unilever to downtown Toronto. They’re from the UK, obviously. They have opened their world’s first and only AI lab right here in Ontario, right here in Toronto. We competed with 50 countries around the world to attract Unilever here, and we won. They have several hundred employees that will be employed here at their downtown operation in Toronto. So, Speaker, we’re very grateful—

I can say this: The government is continuously focused on reducing taxes, building more homes. It has been at the core of what we have been doing since 2018. We will certainly never allow a community to raise taxes so that the people in that community can’t afford to live there.

It is only really the Leader of the Opposition who is consistently talking about increasing taxes on the people of the province of Ontario. When we have reduced it—when we have reduced taxes, she has actually voted against those reductions.

It was so bad that when we reduced taxes on the lowest-income-earning Ontarians—virtually removing them from the responsibility of paying taxes—the NDP, actually, voted against that, because at the core of what the NDP believes is that people have to be dependent on government. We believe you give the people the tools to succeed and they will do just that. They will succeed, and we will continue on that, because the job is not done.

This is a party that’s against the 413; they were virtually—not virtually—were wiped out of Brampton, Mr. Speaker, because they are so old-school. They’re against development. They’re against people. They’re against business. They’re singing the same old tune over and over and over again. This is a party that has no ideas. Even their time in opposition is starting to come to an end, colleagues, because they are so bankrupt of ideas.

So we’ve created thousands of jobs across the province of Ontario. We’ve cut taxes. We’ve made investments in all of the important areas for the people of province of Ontario. Consistently, they have voted against.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

My question is to the Premier. Speaker, this government decided that the luxury spa act, Bill 154, won’t be going to committee or have any more time in this Legislature, but folks have real concerns. In this bill, the Minister of Infrastructure is being gifted the power to issue minister’s zoning orders. Ontarians see that MZOs are a government gift for their insiders to fast-pass process. MZOs don’t get shovels in the ground faster. They often don’t have community buy-in, but they do make some people stinking rich.

My question is: Now that the Minister of Infrastructure has the power to issue MZOs, who is going to get rich next?

Speaker, we saw preferential treatment and MZOs given out as party favours by the previous Minister of Housing. So, my question to the Premier is, who gets the first MZO from the minister of mega-spas and where did they get to sit at the wedding?

Thank you to the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan for raising this very important issue.

Since the federal government imposed a carbon tax, the financial burden is already making an impact on hospitals across Ontario. The federal government’s carbon tax will impact Ontario’s hospitals by increasing annual heating costs by $27.2 million for 2022. What would that $27.2 million purchase? It would have offered an additional 104,615 MRI operating hours, providing scans for an additional 157,000 patients. These are real issues that are impacting our hospital partners and, of course, our patients.

That’s why our government will continue fighting the federal government’s carbon tax on behalf of the people of Ontario.

We know the federal government is making that travel more expensive. Over the last number of months, we have demonstrated the real cost of the federal carbon tax on families, students, seniors and on our institutions and services the people of Ontario have come to rely on.

We call on the members from across the aisle to join us in demanding that the federal government repeal this tax that is disproportionately impacting northern Ontario.

Last week alone, we had several hundred million dollars in new investment. Heddle Shipyards is investing $107 million in St. Catharines so they can tackle the Vessel Life Extension project. That’s 30 new jobs—$3.4 million in support through our government’s AMIC operation.

Medicom, a $165-million investment in London: This is a 140,000-square-foot production facility that’s being built. There’s 135 new jobs coming. If you remember before the pandemic, Speaker, we made virtually no PPE here in Ontario. Today, we make 74% of the PPE we buy. Once Medicom is up and running, making nitrile gloves here in Ontario, 92% of all PPE that we buy will be made domestically right here in Ontario.