From my seat, over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve listened to the Minister of Transportation talk about how safe our roads are in northern Ontario. I want to give him some reality as far as what people are facing in northern Ontario.

We see extensive shutdowns—Highway 17 between Heyden and Wawa shut down and closed for 12 hours; Highway 17 closure between Sault Ste. Marie and Batchawana. And just a couple of weeks ago, over in Jones Landing on Highway 17, a transport was within mere feet of hitting a home, and hydro was lost in that area for 12 hours.

“White River Resident Killed in Highway 17 Crash....”

“Overnight Highway 17 Crash Claims Lives of Two Teens.”

That’s the reality of what we’re facing in northern Ontario.

Speaker, Good Roads were here and have provided reasonable prescription, treatment and remedy to improve the state of our roads across the province, and it’s time for this government to take the medicine. The medicine is road safety audits. It’s a basic principle of good health care. Our roads were built 30 to 50 years ago, and we need to consider the designs, the width, the shoulders, the ditching and much, much more. Acting on the recommendation and implementing road safety audits is just good medicine.

Here’s another headline: “Highway 17 Reopened After Crash Near Iron Bridge.”

And the headline—a 29-year-old horse-and-buggy driver was involved in a collision with a transport at Birchland Camp Road. He succumbed to his injury. My heart, thoughts and prayers go out to the family and the community.

Speaker, we can do better. We have to do better.