To the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane: I love your stories. Even more importantly, I love that you were a Masterfeeds customer for so many years; thank you for that.

I’ll cut to the chase. The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke said it best: I think a lot of this legislation has to do with expanding the scope for veterinary technicians, which I’ll talk about in a few minutes. The vet act hasn’t been changed for 35 years, so my question is, what do you see in the future that will need to take place as animal agriculture consolidates? We’re going to need different types of vets. What do you see in the future, looking at dairy herds down the road? What are the needs going to be for veterinarians down the road, and/or veterinary technicians?

Speaker, as we’ve heard this morning and this afternoon, now is the time for the modernization, advancement and improvement to the vet act, and I’ve appreciated hearing and listening to the many comments that have been made, all supporting this particular piece of legislation. As we all have heard, the Veterinarians Act has not been substantively updated since 1989, and I want to take a moment to thank the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for her foresight—again, emphasizing foresight—in bringing Bill 171 forward. It was long overdue, so kudos to her and her team.

If passed, the Enhancing Professional Care for Animals Act would provide a much-needed update to the legislation that governs veterinarians throughout Ontario. As the former parliamentary assistant, I heard from key stakeholders that I’ll talk about in a few minutes, representing organizations such as the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture the Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians, amongst many, many other key stakeholders, about the need for change with this particular legislation. Their feedback was clear, and again, the vet act absolutely needs to be modernized.

I’d also like to acknowledge my colleague the member for Chatham-Kent–Leamington, who is also the deputy House leader, for his role and work as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. He’s doing a great job and, I know, advocating well for veterinarians and animal health right across this province. I know he has worked hard and supported the minister in helping craft and develop this legislation.

I’d also like to give—and I believe they’re close to you, Speaker—a big shout-out to the entire team at OMAFRA, from the deputy minister and his team, who did a great job, and the chief of staff and her team in the minister’s office. Thank you.

In particular, I’d like to thank Ryan Puviraj—I’m going to call him my wingman—who travelled with me throughout the province, keeping me on the straight and narrow. He certainly was a great support. We had a lot of fun listening and learning to the people advocating on behalf of the changes that were needed to our particular vet act in Ontario.

Let me go back in a little bit of time. I’m not going to tell all kinds of cow stories—but maybe a few, like my friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane. They were great stories. The only thing I would say about—how he did the twisted stomach was a little bit archaic, but there are different ways.

We talked at one time in this Legislature about all kinds of animals—avian, livestock, pork. We even talked about poultry husbandry at one point. I think we even talked about turkey breeding back in the spring of this year or fall of last year.

Agriculture and food is near and dear to my heart, having spent my life around it. My grandfather was a farmer in the Ottawa Valley—not too far from the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke. I grew up around animals, and I love them. To this day, I have beef cows. I have a farm in that riding—I have had for years—and I have purebred Polled Herefords, so I can tell a lot of vet stories throughout my life.

My first story of remembering what a vet didn’t do: I was probably under five, and I was at the farm at Highway 17 and White Water Road. It’s a blueberry farm now, but that was my grandfather’s farm. I remember that Aunt Lizzie—his aunt, actually; great-whatever she would be—had a dog with porcupine quills in its snout. I remember she was saying, “Call the vet. Call the vet.” My grandfather, coming from the Depression era, said, “It’s going to cost money. We can do this.” So at the age of four or five, I can remember bending down, scared to death, holding on to the muzzle of this collie mix mutt or whatever it was, and my grandfather holding it and pulling those darn quills out with tweezers—and it was kind of gross, but he didn’t want to spend the money. So the need for vets has been around for decades. The dog lived; I’ll tell you that.

I, too, thought about being a vet at one point in my career. But as my teacher said in one of my report cards, “Robbie, school”—

Interjection.