The member highlights several important problems that our government inherited. When you have a problem, you have to look at where that problem originated from and take steps towards fixing it. That’s what this government did in 2018, Speaker.

One of the problems the member highlights is a capacity issue. Under the last government, over 15 years, 611 net new long-term-care spaces were built—not nearly enough for a growing population, an aging population, with record immigration and seniors moving to this province.

This government decided to do things differently: a $10-billion investment—the largest capital investment in this country’s history—to build and upgrade 58,000 new spaces for our seniors. That plan is bearing fruit, Speaker.

In fact, I was just last month with that member in his riding to announce 160 new spaces in the Ivan Franko home, part of 18,000 spaces we have built, or have shovels in the ground, since 2018. We’re going to continue to invest in our seniors.

I want to thank that member, and merry Christmas to you.

But to make those homes, it has to be more than just a physical space. We have to talk about the health human resources. That’s why this government is investing up to $1.25 billion for long-term-care homes this year to hire, to retain thousands of hard-working front-line health care workers who do the job for our seniors that, frankly, many of us cannot do—part of a larger plan of $4.9 billion to make sure we hire 27,000 PSWs, to hire thousands of nurses, to provide programs for those PSWs, for those nurses to scale up and to stay within the sector because we know that our seniors need them. In fact, by 2025, we’re establishing a nation-leading standard of four hours of daily care per resident in our homes for our great seniors.

Seniors built our country. We have to take care of them.