Last week, we reached a major milestone on the Yonge North subway extension. I was happy to attend the launch of the proposal process, alongside the Minister of Transportation and my York region colleagues. This extension is a critical infrastructure investment that will deliver much-needed rapid transit to cities across the GTA—cities like Markham, and my riding of Markham–Thornhill.

When the Yonge North subway extension is complete, it will provide over 94,000 daily trips and will put nearly 30,000 more people within a 10-minute walk to transit. It will create thousands of jobs during construction and generate nearly $4 billion in economic benefits to the province.

Improving infrastructure is a key part of our government’s promise to the people of Ontario. Our government has focused on creating and promoting transit-oriented development within communities like the Langstaff development in Markham.

People in my riding have been waiting for decades for this extension to be built. We are delivering on that promise, we are getting shovels in the ground, and we are building the infrastructure that the residents of Ontario and our economy need for the future.

Speaker, I would like to thank you for your hard work.

I wish everyone a happy holiday.

I enjoyed myself at the Empire Club yesterday. We had close to 400 people attending in person and thousands of people viewing our government’s update on our P3 pipeline, which is $185 billion worth of investment. It was an important day for the Ministry of Infrastructure, and it was a really important day for Infrastructure Ontario, who helps us execute all of those contracts for the most complicated projects in the province. We’re talking transit, Yonge North; we’re talking hospital expansions, highway expansions.

But you’re right: We’ve have had a very successful fall session. We have a deal with the city of Toronto in terms of making sure we provide supports for operational funding for the TTC, to keep riders on the TTC safe, for more trains on the TTC, and of course, a brand new science centre at Ontario Place.

But when we’re talking about the work that has been done at Ontario Place from an environmental perspective, we’ve completed two environmental assessments, one class C. We’ve completed over 40 different studies, an arborist report, a heritage impact assessment, a stormwater report—all in compliance with the city of Toronto development application process.