I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it is now time for members’ statements.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

Speaker, this government recently announced capital funding to non-profit organizations across the province to ensure communities have safe and ready access to vital programming, activities and spaces.

Once again, I would like to thank the minister and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport for the work they do along with the Ontario Trillium Foundation—everything from purchasing equipment and building new spaces, to retrofits or repairs.

Last month, I spoke to a few of a total of 12 organizations in my riding of Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston that received funding, and I’d like to mention a few more this morning—organizations like Southern Frontenac Community Services in Sydenham, who are using their funding to add to their new building and increase capacity to serve their clients and deliver programs. The McDonald’s Corners Agricultural Society are putting their grant toward renovations to their buildings and creating an emergency shelter for the community. Lanark Highlands will renovate the infield at the historical Clyde Memorial baseball diamond—ball and hot dogs, a part of the highland culture. And the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will create an accessible kitchen to allow the museum to expand its capacity to host community partners and events.

Speaker, this government will continue to help build healthy and vibrant communities throughout Ontario by strengthening the impact of our social programs and services, keeping people healthy.

Once again, congratulations to all the organizations in my riding that received funding, and thank you for all your contributions to the people in your community.

March is Persian Heritage Month in Ontario, and this week there will be celebrations here and around the world for Nowruz. Nowruz, which means “new day,” falls on the spring equinox each year, also known as the first day of spring. It is based on the Iranian solar Hijri calendar and it marks the Persian new year. Its origins are in the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism and it has been celebrated for 3,000 years, making it one of the oldest festivals in human history that is still celebrated today.

On Nowruz, millions of Iranians from around the world and from all walks of life, irrespective of religion, age, language, gender, race, ethnicity or social status, gather together with family, friends and loved ones to celebrate the new year. The celebration marks the rebirth of nature, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Nowruz represents much of what Iranian character, history and culture is all about. We eat traditional food, including a fish and rice dish called sabzi polo ba mahi. We give gifts, also known as eydis, to children.

More than 300 million people around the world celebrate Nowruz, and it is no small celebration. Imagine Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Canada Day rolled into one month-long holiday, and then add delicious food, street dances, fire shows and a lot of loud banging on pots.

To everyone celebrating Nowruz in Carleton, Ontario, in Iran and around the world, I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Nowruz Pirooz. Javid Shah.

Spring is in the air, and I’d like to highlight that it’s been an absolute pleasure over the last week, knocking on doors and getting to hear some of my constituents, what their thoughts are, and seeing the kids and their smiley faces.

It reminded me of an event I attended just this past February. It was a graduation ceremony for recipients from a local college, and it was recipients from the Black youth action plan. Now, graduating from the Canadian College of Healthcare and Pharmaceutics, these talented and smart young professionals are helping to improve Black youth representation in health sector technologies. They didn’t just graduate from school, they were going to work the next day. So congratulations to all those graduates.

I’d like to thank Umbreen Akhtar, Junaid Bhatti—who is the senior administrative officer—and president Syed Hussain, all from the Canadian College of Healthcare and Pharmaceutics, for inviting me to join them in the afternoon.

Ontario’s health care field has some of the most innovative and hardest-working professionals in the world, and with funding like the Black youth action plan, it pays dividends in both recipients’ lives as well as for the end-user in the health care system. Now, because of the great success of this program and on behalf of the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Michael Ford, I had the pleasure of announcing further funding for this program for the college of $600,000. This is great news for those communities, and I just want to congratulate the workers once again.

Speaker, 2024 marks 100 years of the city of Oshawa. However, our roots go much deeper than that. The earliest known settlement was in the 1400s, when the Wendat settled near Harmony Creek. The story goes that “Oshawa” meant “where we must leave our canoes,” and Oshawa was known as the carrying place where goods and canoes were carried north to Lake Scugog. It was a busy place of intersections. By 1850, Oshawa had become a growing village.

By 1914, the McLaughlin Carriage Co. was the largest carriage maker in the British empire, and the McLaughlin Buick was the first car built in Oshawa in 1908 under the GM umbrella. General Motors of Canada was born in 1918, with Sam McLaughlin its first president.

A hundred years ago, Oshawa achieved city status on March 8, 1924. From canoes to carriages to cars, Oshawa was on the move.

Oshawa is the home of labour. In 1928, 3,000 striking autoworkers voted to form an Oshawa auto union. In 1937, the UAW 222 Local was born out of another massive strike. CAW, and now Unifor Local 222, has been the heart of Oshawa labour ever since.

Oshawa was the hometown of Ed Broadbent’s local and national legacy. Oshawa is an academic centre, with three post-secondary institutions. It is a centre for health care, sports, arts, music and culture, and is a hub of business, creativity and diversity.

As it has always been, Oshawa is a place of intersections, innovation and possibility. Happy 100th birthday to the city of Oshawa.

Today, I’d like to congratulate the Punjabi Arts Association on 30 years of success in arts and theatre. The Punjabi Arts Association is known for bringing attention to serious community issues in a manner which is relatable and entertaining. Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to see their latest theatre production, CID, bringing bizarre 911 calls to centre stage. The play was a 90-minute comedy-drama focused on the critical issue of non-emergency calls flooding our 911 call centres. Through creative storytelling and humour, it shed a light on the real-life consequences of these calls, emphasizing the importance of responsible use of emergency resources.

I want to extend my sincere appreciation to the Punjabi Arts Association for their dedication to using arts and theatre as a tool to address social issues for social awareness and change.

Speaker, as residents do their part in ensuring these critical services are being used properly, our government, under Premier Ford’s leadership, has invested $208 million to modernize our emergency response system. This investment is helping municipalities and emergency response centres transition to new emergency communication systems known as Next Generation 9-1-1. Once fully implemented, the new system will make it easier to provide additional details about emergency situations, such as making a video call at the scene of an accident and giving people the ability to text 911 when requiring immediate help from police, fire or ambulance services.

Under Premier Ford’s leadership, we’re committed to making record investments to modernize and improve government services across the province.

Life in Ontario continues to get more and more expensive. Families across the province are facing higher grocery prices, higher hydro rates, higher property taxes, and this government continues to fail to act. The government has failed to control hydro prices, and families are paying more. The government has failed to support municipalities, even pushing more and more costs onto them in order to benefit their friends and insiders, and families are paying more. The government has failed to take concrete actions like removing the HST from essentials like home heating, and families are paying more. Medical practices are charging fees for service, and so families are paying more.

There is virtually no area of family budgeting where the increased costs are not directly tied to the actions or inactions of this government, all while this government continues to reward their friends and supporters with contracts, public appointments, regulatory changes to help them earn record profits, often on the backs of taxpayers.

As the government continues to focus on helping their friends and supporters, many families have begun to cut out the little extras they’ve worked so hard for. Too many families have begun to cut back on what many of us would consider to be essentials.

It’s time for the government to put families first and focus on regular everyday Ontarians, not only their friends and supporters.

I have a number of people to introduce today. I’ll start with my staff: my executive assistant Emma Henry; my executive assistant in the riding Sally Carson; and a Trent University intern student with us Jini Ganesalingam.

Also, today from Trent University—and that is why I’m wearing my Trent University shoes—we have president Leo Groarke, vice-president Julie Davis, vice-president Marilyn Burns, vice-president Glennice Burns, director of portfolio operations Christopher Armitage, director of communications Kathryn Verhulst-Rogers, executive director Ngina Kibathi and Trent student Sam Begin.

In the members’ gallery is Mr. Chris Houston, a director with the Canadian Peace Museum, and he’s joined by Dr. Julielynn Wong. Thank you for being in your House today.

Il me fait grand plaisir de présenter deux invités aujourd’hui. J’ai Eric Lemieux, un ami de la famille, mais surtout, je veux vous présenter une petite fille, une jeune demoiselle qui a vécu de grandes épreuves mais qui a une joie de vivre qui peut comparer avec n’importe qui : bienvenue, Mila, à Queen’s Park.

It is my great honour to welcome one of our legislative pages from my great riding of Windsor West, Jack Xu. Welcome to Queen’s Park. I look forward to working with you.

It’s my pleasure to introduce a family friend of ours who is visiting from Trinidad, Kareema Whittle, and with her, previously mentioned in my member’s statement, is of course my mother, Ruth Dixon, the wind beneath my wings.

I’d like to introduce to the House this morning board members from the Toronto Caribbean Carnival: Jennifer Hirlehey, Mischka Crichton, Adrian Charles and Bernadine Marina Rambarran. The Toronto Caribbean org—Caribana, as people remember the carnival—will be hosting a reception today, in rooms 228 and 230. I hope everyone can get a flavour and a taste of the islands this afternoon when we come down to join them in the reception hall.

I would like to welcome my friends from Mortgage Professionals Canada: Dr. Kuljit Singh Janjua, Mohinder Pal Singh, Barbara Cook, Lauren van den Berg and all the other members of Mortgage Professionals Canada. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

This morning I’d like to welcome to the House as a guest Mr. Jeffrey Spiegelman, trusted legal adviser, excellent legal counsel and advocate. Welcome to the House.

I want to wish a warm, warm welcome to Sarah Penner, who is beginning as a legislative page today, from the riding of Windsor–Tecumseh. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Sarah.

There’s a point of order from Ottawa–Vanier first.

The member for Ottawa–Vanier is seeking the unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 45(b)(iv), the time for debate on opposition day motion number 2 regarding support for primary care providers be apportioned as follows: 56 minutes to each of the recognized parties and eight minutes to the independent members as a group. Agreed? I heard a no.

Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Premier. Ontario’s health care system is on the brink of collapse because of Bill 124. While jurisdictions around the world try to attract our health care workers, this government chose to freeze their pay and dock their wages and fight them in court. And then they lost again.

Now it’s time to pay up, at least $6 billion so far. The Financial Accountability Office is saying the government could owe workers more than $13 billion. To the Premier: How much money is this government currently withholding from working people?

I seek unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 45(b)(iv), the time for debate on opposition day motion number 2 regarding support for primary care providers be apportioned as follows: 56 minutes to each of the recognized parties and eight minutes to the independent members as a group.

Interjections.