Last month, there was a transformative announcement that was delivered in Windsor and will phase out thousands of truly dreaded trips up the 401 to London—no offence to my colleagues across the aisle.

Thanks to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Essex, Kent and Lambton will receive $4.5 million in annual funding to increase our local pediatric health services. More children of our region will get the care that they need for the future, when they need it, and right at home in our own community.

This funding supports a new after-hours pediatric emergency diversion clinic at Met campus, together with increased support for children’s speech-language pathology, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rehabilitation services at the John McGivney Children’s Centre in Sandwich and the Connections early years centre in Walkerville. The Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent and Pathways Health Centre for Children in Sarnia are also receiving new support for their services.

In contrast to the past, this government goes beyond the talk and continues to choose to invest. The regional acute care hospital at County Road 42, the repatriation of nurses working in Detroit, support for in vitro fertilization for the first time, new nursing schools based at the University of Windsor, new MRIs, the cardiac catheterization lab and nuclear accelerator at the Windsor Regional Hospital have been taken off the shelf and delivered, now that the years of inaction are over.