Good morning, everyone. I’m happy to have the opportunity to have a few more moments on the budget bill and to bring up a very serious issue that’s happening right now within Hamilton and the way that naloxone kits are distributed in our community.

I believe it was on February 9, this executive officer order notice was put out with no consultation to the community, and quite frankly, one of our pharmacies, who has been doing brilliant work, found out by chance on I believe it was February 21. So there was no direct notice to him, who was doing this program and really saving lives within the Hamilton community. What this did was it stopped him from being able to do training unless people went directly into his pharmacy. He used to provide full training on naloxone kits and all the tools necessary to our community-based organizations.

There is a program for community-based organizations, but many of the organizations with Hamilton had not set up that practice, because we did have a practice that was working really well. All the rules were being followed. Nobody was doing anything wrong, except doing the hard, heavy lifting in the grassroots of our community and truly saving lives, making sure that naloxone kits were available and that training was widespread. He was doing workplaces. He was doing work with First Nations in the north. That’s how good this Faisal is at doing this job. But due to this executive order, he has literally been cut off and not been able to do this work.

We have many organizations who are not able to get that quick response. I know our Hamilton public health is doing everything they can. But when you change something without proper notice, something that actually saves lives and was a major pillar in our community, it does nothing but hurt people.

I’ve sent a letter to the minister previously, but nobody has heard anything. I’m calling on the government today to ensure that this program is relooked at quickly and readily to ensure that Faisal and the pharmacy that he works within can continue the work of our community, whether it’s a temporary measure until they find another plan, another way around it, whatever it takes. I just plead with the government to please make sure that this is looked at immediately.

I will send another letter to the Premier and to the minister, ensuring that all information is readily available and that we can continue to save people’s lives in Hamilton.

We still have 2.2 million patients in Ontario without a family doctor. We have great programs, like the Hamilton health program, which very clearly put together an amazing plan and asked for $20 million to be able to implement that plan to ensure that 55,000 Hamilton residents had access to a family doctor. This government didn’t see fit to ensure that that program was in place. Instead, they gave them $2.2 million, which is not near enough to ensure that we can do the programs that we know are necessary.

Regardless of the talking points of the members opposite, we know in our communities that the health care system is falling short and privatization is not the answer out of this. We need actual real investments in health care and proactive work.

I want to thank the member opposite for her speech both last night and today. Certainly, I took back the passion for helping those in the community, and I know certainly the people in my community want access to health care for their constituents as much as possible, just as I’m sure the residents of Hamilton Mountain do.

That’s why I was happy to see in this budget many investments in health care. This includes $2 billion over three years for home and community care that ensures that people get the care they need when they need it, right at home. And also, the hospitals have said very clearly to me that they’re excited about the 4% increase in hospital funding so that they can fund more support for critical care for the people of Ontario. And the new medical school is going to go a tremendous way to improving the number of medical students in our province focused on training family doctors.

Speaker, my question is this: The government is making historic investments in health care to help Ontarians. Will you support budget 2024, to join with us in providing better health care for Ontarians?

The Royal Bank of Canada’s research recently warned that the housing crisis is going to get even worse if governments don’t act. This government, because of their measures, have only created 8% of the housing that they promised will be created by 2025. In fact, since 2018, their measures have only created 1,100 units of affordable housing. RBC has indicated this: that drastic measures need to be taken right now by government.

So my question for the member from Hamilton Mountain is: Should the government return to its historic responsibility, do the heavy lifting, pick up their shovels and actually build the affordable housing that Ontarians need right now?

I want to thank my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain for her remarks on the budget.

One of the things that I hear about the most—and I think everybody in this chamber shares this in their constituency offices. It’s hearing from people who don’t have access to a family doctor. I had a telephone town hall recently. I want to thank Dr. Andrew Park, who is a London West constituent and also president of the OMA, who participated in that town hall meeting.

I heard the people who logged on to the call. More than one quarter didn’t have access to a family doctor. Almost 90% said someone close to them didn’t have access to a family doctor. So I wondered if the member could comment on whether the measures that were included in this budget are sufficient to address the dire shortage of family physicians in the province.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 8, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

We’re going to go to questions for the member.

Next question.

Thank you to the member from London North Centre. Absolutely, there should be nothing more important than ensuring that people are housed. When you have safe, affordable housing, you’re then able to make your way into getting that job or being able to go to your job and be fresh, and not put yourself in danger in a job.

When someone isn’t housed, they find themselves in a precarious position. There’s food insecurity. There’s the ability to—just self-maintenance. All of those things go so far into making sure that people are able to live a healthy lifestyle. And when you have a government that actually takes money from municipalities instead of invests in municipalities so that they can have that affordable housing route, then we have people living in tents across our city, which we see each and every day. And it’s growing and growing.

This government, in all of their talk about all these housing plans—we’re literally seeing nothing happen, and people are continuing to fall through the cracks further and further.

We’re hearing, each and every day, they’re six years under inflation, and they were given 2.7%—not near enough when we know that families are struggling. If they want to talk about a big increase into education, is that to make up for the pay wages that they took from educational workers in Bill 124? That’s where that money is going. It’s making up for their errors.

To the member opposite: The government is continuing to support K to 12 education, investing over $23 billion, including $16 billion in capital grants over the next 10 years to build more schools and child care spaces, including a new joint French and English public school in Blind River, a new elementary school, a new secondary school in Ottawa, and additional in other areas, including one in my riding. This includes $1.4 billion in funding for the current school year to support repair and also renewal needs of the schools.

Since the government keeps investing in education, is the member going to support this budget so that we can move forward with the public education sector?

It’s an honour to rise today to speak to Bill 180, the government’s budget measures act. Speaker, I think it’s important when you talk about the budget to contextualize the challenges that people of Ontario are facing right now.

What if I told you that in Ontario right now 16,000 people were sleeping rough and unhoused, where a one-bedroom apartment costs $2,200 a month on average, and it takes the average person 22 years to save up for a down payment to buy a home? And yet in the budget, housing starts go down, not up.

What if I told you that the wait-list for social housing is longer than the number of social housing spaces available?

What if I told you, Speaker, that last year, 700 forest fires destroyed one million acres of forest and the health care costs associated with the toxic air that that produced cost our health care system $1.28 billion in just four days due to increased hospital admissions?

What if I told you that our electricity sector grid has gone from being 90% clean to 80% clean, getting dirtier each and every year, and the government plans to make it dirtier?

What if I told you that 2.3 million people right now in the province of Ontario do not have access to a family doctor, where last year we had an unprecedented number of emergency department closures, where hallway medicine is the norm in hospitals across this province, and we have hospitals actually taking out lines of credit to be able to keep the doors open?

What if I told you, Speaker, that a third of secondary schools in the province right now are experiencing teacher shortages and a difficulty educating students, where the repair backlog in our education system is $16.8 billion?

What if I told you that 60,000 young people are on a wait-list to access autism services, and 30,000 children were on a wait-list to access mental health services that can be as long as two years, where organizations who provide services for people with developmental disabilities have told me their budgets have been frozen and they’re struggling to not have to cut programs for people in need? What if I told you that 717,000 people in Ontario right now are forced to live in legislated poverty?

That’s the Ontario we live in today. So then the question we have to ask the people of Ontario and the government is: Did the budget meet the moment? Did it meet the moment to address the real challenges that so many people in this province are facing? And Speaker, I would say no.

I want to start with housing. We have a government that has housing starts going down, not up. And the Premier, instead of saying, “Let’s legalize housing. Let’s make fourplexes legal across the province, so we can quickly build homes in a fast and low-cost way that people can actually afford in the communities they know and love without having to pave over our farmlands, our forests and our wetlands”—the government said no to that.

What if we had a government that actually sat down and read the Scotiabank report? Scotiabank—nothing too radical here: Over the next decade, Ontario needs to build 250,000 deeply affordable, non-profit and co-op housing spaces just to keep up—just to keep up, Speaker. And yet the government has built 1,188 of those spaces in the six years they’ve been in government.

There was nothing in the budget that talked about actually putting some money on the table so that Ontario once again could start building homes that people can afford so we can address chronic homelessness. The government had an opportunity with this budget—and I will, again, later today, when my colleague the MPP for Kitchener Centre brings forward a private member’s bill to actually bring in protections for renters in this budget, at a time when there is no city in Ontario where a minimum wage worker working full time can afford the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment.

The housing crisis is getting worse, the dream of home ownership is getting further and further away, and thousands of people are struggling to pay the rent. And while I appreciate the government providing some funding for permanent supportive housing in my riding of Guelph, which was highlighted in the budget, the budget fails to meet the moment of the housing crisis we’re facing, which is the number one driver of the affordability crisis. The Premier has been talking about bags at the LCBO, but let’s talk about what’s really driving up costs for people, and that is the housing crisis.

Speaker, I want to move to the climate crisis, because we’re already seeing an early start to the fire season in western Canada, and we have numerous experts predicting that we could have a historic fire season here in Ontario after the historic season that we experienced last year. So what I was hoping to see in the budget were two things: one, a firefighter protection preparedness plan that actually takes and gives wildland firefighters the dignity they need to be able to be treated as firefighters and the resources they need to ensure that we are prepared in Ontario after what we went through last year. The other thing I wanted to see was an actual, dedicated funding stream for municipalities to ensure that they can be climate ready.

According to the Financial Accountability Officer, the additional cost to public infrastructure in the next seven years will be $26.2 billion in the province of Ontario due to the impact of the increasing frequency and severity of climate-fuelled extreme weather events: floods, droughts, fires, extreme heat. It costs our economy when communities don’t have access to electricity for two, three weeks or longer due to a climate-fuelled extreme weather event, which we had last year in Ontario—nothing in the budget that actually prepares our communities or our economy for that.

As a matter of fact, I stepped out of committee. Right now, the government is going to ask people to pay more on their gas bills to subsidize Enbridge to expand gas services in the province. Instead, they could have brought in a climate affordability plan in this budget, making access to heat pumps, which reduce climate pollution, operate more efficiently, and save people money—save people money—rather than having people pay more money to expand gas infrastructure in the province. They could have brought in a climate affordability plan that helped people completely disconnect from the pumps and give them rebates to be able to afford the electric vehicles that we want to build in this province, or a rebate to buy an electric bike for those who live in urban areas so we can actually lower our cost of transportation in this province.

Speaker, my time is limited, so I want to close with health care and poverty. The budget could have brought in funding to address the fact that 2.3 million people don’t have access to a doctor. The budget failed to do that. And they could have taken pressure off the health care system by ending legislated poverty by more than doubling social assistance rates, because we know that poverty costs the province $33 billion a year, primarily putting additional pressure on our health care system, and the budget failed to do that.

I know that my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain has some outstanding post-secondary institutions in her riding. There’s Mohawk College, McMaster University. The post-secondary sector is really in a state of crisis right now in terms of the financial stability of the sector.

The government made an announcement in February; nothing additional was announced in this budget. Can the member comment on whether the path that this government is on is going to ensure the stability that our post-secondary institutions need?

We’re going to go to questions for the member. I recognize the member for Whitby.

Next question?

One last question?

When I look at this budget, my first impression is that it doesn’t make it much easier for people to get a doctor. It doesn’t make it easier for our kids to get a good education. It doesn’t make it easier for people to rent or buy a home that they can afford.

To the member for Guelph: When you’re looking at how this budget is going to impact the residents of Guelph, what’s missing?

Through you, Speaker, I know the member and every member in this room is concerned about the cost of living, but support for seniors is such an important issue. And I’m sure the member realizes that we all have people in our communities that need help and deserve our support as they grow older.

So, there are many ways, for crucial parts of the communities, we need to be there to provide for that. My question to the member is simple. Will you support the government’s expansion of the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income System program to provide more support to our seniors?

I appreciate the member opposite’s question. I do think we need more funding for recreational facilities, and I think that’s a good measure in the budget.

But, Speaker, what municipalities also need is to ensure that those facilities are built in a way that withstands the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events, fuelled by the climate crisis. We’re already spending billions more in insurance costs and to deal with the uninsured losses due to the increasing frequency of climate-fuelled extreme weather events. The Financial Accountability Officer has shown that just public infrastructure alone will face additional costs of $26.2 billion this decade—I think I said seven years. Actually, it’s 2024 now; it’s six years.

The budget didn’t meet that moment. When we build these facilities, we have to make sure they’re ready for extreme rain, heat and freeze-thaw cycles, and there’s nothing in the budget that provides a dedicated funding stream for that—

Secondly, I can’t not answer that question without talking about post-secondary education because the University of Guelph, like many universities, is facing incredible financial pressures, because the province of Ontario is dead last when it comes to funding colleges and universities. I was meeting with a plant scientist who was telling me that two of her colleagues will be leaving and won’t be able to be replaced, which is going to have a direct impact on our agricultural economy, because of the research they do, let alone the students.

So I just want to close with, I know I’m out of time—

It’s impossible for somebody to live on $1,300 a month or $731 a month, so let’s more than double that. Let’s bring them up to the low-income cut-off level to help eliminate poverty in this province.

Thank you, Speaker. You will know that, in the budget, there is a new $200-million investment in the Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, which is intended to help build new recreation, sport and community centres in ridings across the province, including my colleague opposite in Guelph. It’s intended to revitalize older ones, but also to get upgrades that they need to continue to bring health to our communities and also joy for hard-working families, including Guelph.

Will the member opposite be voting against our budget measures to build and revitalize more community infrastructure?

I’m very pleased to rise and continue the debate on our government’s historic 2024 budget, Building a Better Ontario which, as Minister Bethlenfalvy stated previously when he introduced it a few weeks ago, is our road map and our blueprint to rebuilding Ontario’s economy.

As part of budget 2024, the Ministry of the Attorney General is continuing to do its part to realize this goal. A significant part of our plan to create a more prosperous Ontario is by ensuring we have strong, resilient and safe communities. I can assure you that the Ministry of the Attorney General is doing its part to create a better, more responsive justice sector for people across Ontario.

I’ll start, Madam Speaker, with how our government is working very diligently to ensure the justice system and its laws meet the needs of the 21st century. In recognizing that, let me take a moment to discuss an issue that is impacting families and people right across the province. As you know, auto theft is on the rise. This is deeply concerning.

I just want to stop there for a moment. We’re talking about auto theft. This isn’t somebody who, when you’re in the mall, is taking your car. These are individuals who break into homes, who assault people, who commandeer the keys and then, of course, take the vehicle. It’s very personal. It’s in people’s homes; it’s in people’s personal spaces. Of course, this is happening as well at shopping malls, where people are being ambushed. This is very, very serious stuff.

Mr. Kerzner and the Premier and I and our entire government remain steadfast in our advocacy to the federal government to do more to combat organized auto thieves. Across the province, particularly in the GTA, we see the issue worsening and it concerns me, it concerns the Premier and I know it concerns everyone at home. That’s why we’re taking pointed steps to combat the rise in auto theft, because drivers and families need peace of mind.

So far this year, to use Toronto as an example, there has been over a 100% increase in auto thefts compared to the same time in 2023. In response, the OPP are expanding vehicle theft investigations, which means there will be more cases for specialized prosecutors to review and pursue, and more hours in court. Myself, Minister Kerzner and the Premier have listened to the concerns around this issue from law enforcement here in Ontario, and we’re ready to support them in stopping these crimes.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Only a strong, coordinated approach across the sector will stop the rise in auto theft. We’ll continue to take action to ensure thieves are held to account and keep drivers and families safe. We’re taking this extremely seriously. This is why our government is ensuring the court system has the capacity to hear and prosecute the influx of cases. It’s why, over the last year alone, our government has invested in new measures to help police identify and dismantle organized crime networks and put the thieves behind bars.

Last year, I joined Premier Ford and Minister Kerzner to announce that we’re creating a major auto theft prosecution response team to include dedicated legal and prosecutorial support to the Ontario Provincial Police. A $6-million investment this year in the specialized prosecution teams will help prevent violent vehicle thefts and identify, disrupt and dismantle organized criminal networks that are involved. This team will provide permanent, dedicated prosecutors at priority courthouses in areas facing the highest rates of auto theft, such as Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and London, and we’re structuring the team so prosecutors can provide support in other areas if expertise is required.

Our investment in the coming year also includes $1.7 million for court staff and judicial resources. We’re adding more court staff, and we’ve already appointed an additional judge to the Ontario Court of Justice specifically to address the anticipated increase in cases. Work is well under way to appoint remaining judicial positions related to this priority. We hear you loud and clear. Ontario will continue to do its part to keep communities safe.

When it comes to protecting our communities, we’re also working to improve our aging institutions, including courthouses. It is a fact that the average age of a Ministry of the Attorney General building is 65 years old. It’s why we’re working to modernize the system with key investments right across the board.

I’ll stop, Madam Speaker, from my notes to say I was recently speaking with justice officials in Dublin, in Ireland, and I was telling them about the age of my buildings and how difficult it was to modernize those buildings when the minister of justice stopped me and said, “You realize you’re sitting in a 250-year-old building.” So, we have our challenges; they have their challenges. But we do have to modernize because people expect that, and we have to make sure that we’re working in a proper forum.

But we’re working to modernize across the system with key investments, something I know Premier Ford and our government are excited about. We’re modernizing public infrastructure, making our courthouses safer, more secure and efficient while improving access to justice in our growing communities across Ontario. We’re using new and existing technology to our advantage by putting it to use to support those on the front lines—all so more people can benefit.

Let me give you an example of how recent modernization is improving communities in Ontario. Just a few months ago, I was joined by my colleagues in Brampton to unveil the new Brampton courthouse expansion. As the busiest courthouse in the province—I think the busiest courthouse in the country—we knew that investing in an expansion would improve operations for years to come. The previous government had shelved the building, but left no money to build it out. Madam Speaker, that is shameful, and it’s performative politics. But this government is getting it done. Today, it has more space and better accessibility features that serve people in Peel region, one of the fastest-growing communities in the province.

Just over a year ago, we opened the new Ontario courthouse in Toronto, not too far down the street. It’s an award-winning courthouse that brings together six different court locations into an accessible and inclusive state-of-the-art courthouse.

I’m proud to share that the courthouse was just recognized by the Ontario Association of Architects with their 2024 Design Excellence Award. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the partners and leaders who came together and supported our vision and made this unique space a reality.

Now, let me tell you about the courthouse itself. If you haven’t been there, I encourage you to go. This new courthouse has technology that allows for virtual and hybrid hearings in every one of the building’s 63 courtrooms and 10 conference settlement rooms. It has state-of-the-art security features and accommodates the unique needs of drug treatment, Gladue, youth and mental health courts, as well as supports for victims.

By building, upgrading and modernizing courthouses across Ontario, as well as the ways we deliver justice, we’re ensuring Ontario is built to last both today and for the future generations—a key tenet in this year’s budget.

I also want to note that Renzo Piano was the architect of the new Toronto courthouse. Renzo Piano—if you don’t know him, grab your phone and google him—is a renowned architect, internationally. He was the architect for the Shard—if that’s a reference point for people. It really is a magnificent building, well-designed, well-executed and now it’s being well-used.

Part of modernizing the justice system also means supporting more victims of crime, something I’m very passionate about. The 2024 budget includes significant and meaningful investments in victim services—a critical pillar in strengthening public safety in communities and our justice system.

Our government remains focused on increasing access to justice for more victims of crime. Budget 2024 builds on that commitment, and recent unanimous support in this Legislature—and I thank all parties and all members for their support of Bill 157, the Enhancing Access to Justice Act. This legislation recently received royal assent, became law and will support even more victims of crime.

In collaboration with our partners, we’re supporting victims, local organizations and people who keep our communities safe—and we’ll continue to be there to make those critical investments, because a responsive and agile justice system is one that works to keep people safe, especially the most vulnerable.

Now, Madam Speaker, as you read the budget, as you look through the budget, you’ll see that we’re investing more than $2 million per year over the next three to expand those supports for victims of crime in Ontario. This new funding will help to sustain and expand the Child Victim/Witness Program, which helps reduce the trauma of testifying in court for children and youth victims right across—and witnesses in fact, not just victims but victims as well.

Madam Speaker, I’m going to talk a little bit more about those children victim/witness programs. They really are unique, and they really are impactful. Right now, this program is delivered by seven community-based organizations in eight areas across the province. The new funding will allow my ministry to explore ways to expand this important service into additional communities across the province. The additional investment also includes funding to support improvements in Ontario’s independent legal advice program for victims of sexual assault. Demand for the program, unfortunately, has increased tremendously since it was first piloted in 2016.

How does it work? Victims of sexual assault receive up to four hours of free, independent and confidential legal advice, no matter how much time has passed. The independent legal advice program is delivered by a roster of independent lawyers, as well as the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic—that was once a community clinic—here in Toronto, an organization dedicated to showing support for victims of violence. They’re among the many heroes in our justice system who work tirelessly to support victims of crime and advocate to make our communities safer for everyone.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the Child Victim/Witness Program and the CYACs that exist in many of our communities across the province. They are a vital tool for children, whether they be victims or witnesses to incidents or caught up in some of the nastier parts of what happens in our communities. These locations are always supported by police. You can imagine a child victim or a child witness, who is already in a form of trauma, having to go to a foreign place like a police station to be among the busyness that is there and the confusion that happens. It’s a very intimidating way to potentially tell your story. We know that that isn’t the best way for things to happen.

The CYACs in my area—there’s one in Orillia, in Minister Dunlop’s riding, that also has a location in Barrie in my riding. I was around when it was first set up. I was just a member of the community; I wasn’t elected. I can tell you the impact these organizations have is absolutely phenomenal.

You come in the front door and in my area, in my case, there’s a COPE service dog. It’s a service dog that is there for comfort. I came to learn that if a dog is lying down when you enter a room and it doesn’t get up, it actually reduces your blood pressure, because if the dog’s not fussed, you’re not as fussed. So there’s a lot of science that goes behind what they’re doing and how they’re providing care and treatment, but also helping these young victims tell their stories.

These are victims, whether it be of domestic abuse or human trafficking or any number of heinous scenarios, and it really is a wonderful service that is being provided in the toughest times of life for some of these individuals. So I am thrilled to be able to not only fund, but potentially expand across the province so that we have even more services for the victims that we know that exist, Madam Speaker.

Now, that’s pretty heavy stuff and it’s important stuff. It’s very dear to me. My mother was a crisis councillor and she was one of the founding directors for the York Region Abuse Program, so it’s important to me that we’re providing the services for things that have been going on for a very long time, when services weren’t there for these children and for these youth. They’re not all children, quite frankly; they’ve had to grow up much faster than their chronological years.

On a different note, Madam Speaker, this budget covers everything from victims to how the government operates to the investments that we need to make. Another exciting investment for me—and you hear us talk about it—is the transportation infrastructure. When I was a kid riding my bike out to the 400 to see it back up, and that was some time ago, there was one GO train that went to Bradford. That was the end of the line. That one GO train would take commuters in in the morning and take commuters back at night, and that was as good as the service got.

The Northlander was running at the time. It was a very popular train. It was well-used. It opened up parts of Ontario that you couldn’t get to otherwise. I had the privilege of getting to ride those trains, because my father was an engineer. I’m not sure that you would be allowed today to bring your kids on the engine, but that’s what happened. I’d get on the GO train in the morning and we would go to Toronto. We would go to the bunkhouse and they “cook up,” as they say. You do what you do during the day, and then get on the train and ride it back. It was a pretty neat job. There is a lot of pride by the engineers in doing that.

The Northlander, as well, opening up through the north: I remember taking that train, again, as a kid, up through areas that I had never heard of, and I can rhyme them off now. I know Hornepayne and Wawa and a lot of the small towns up through there. That came to serve me well later on, when I had a summer job at a company that was a road company. They had operations in New Liskeard and different parts of Ontario. I said, “I know where that is; I’ve been through there.” It’s really a wonderful part about Ontario.

But for reasons that I don’t understand, previous governments let it wither. They didn’t do the investments that needed to happen to keep the north open. So I’m really proud, in this budget, that we’re moving forward, that we’re acquiring the machinery, that we’re acquiring the engines. We’re getting things done to make sure that the north is being opened up again.

We know the tremendous value in the north, not just from a lifestyle—I don’t know anybody who has gone to the north—and when I say “north,” I mean the north. If you look on a map, Sudbury is in the middle of Ontario. Sudbury is not the north. I’m talking about the north.

My friend in the back there—if you go up and have a visit, he will show you some of really northern Ontario. It’s a part of Ontario that had been neglected for way too long, until this government got elected. We have some very strong members from the north making sure that everything from highway expansions from Kenora, Thunder Bay is getting significant attention, and of course, the Ring of Fire.

The Ring of Fire—my goodness, I love it. When I hear President Biden get up and talk about the domestic minerals needed for manufacturing, I turn to my friends and say, “He’s talking about our minerals.” He doesn’t have any domestic minerals. They’re ours, and we’re going to make the best of it.

I grew up listening to economics professors, listening to professors in political science and others say, “Oh, it’s”—gnashing of teeth that we’re not manufacturing our own resources. “Why don’t we build furniture when we have the wood? Why don’t we do the metal when we have the inputs?”

I can tell you, Madam Speaker, we are in a state where we have the critical minerals, and we have a plan to not only use those critical minerals, in partnership with First Nations and others—to make sure that we’re getting the minerals out, to make sure that we’re putting them to use, and we’re manufacturing them domestically. That is something that, really, people complained about for decades and decades and decades. This government has figured it out, and we’re putting the resources in place. They’re in the budget.

It’s really important that we’re extracting the possibilities for Ontario and putting Ontarians to work, to make sure that we’re world leaders—and we are, in fact, world leaders. That’s why Minister Fedeli is attracting businesses, talking to businesses, that are setting up in Ontario. That’s why we’ve created 700,000 jobs, after Ontario had lost 300,000 jobs. It is quite a swing. It’s really incredible—the potential of Ontario. But it’s not going to happen on its own. And that’s why the Liberals took us down 300,000 jobs—because what we do matters. What we put in the budget matters. Where we invest and how we help really, really matters.

We can talk about infrastructure right across the board, but if we don’t plan for the future—as they say, a failure to plan is planning to fail. So we are planning for the future, whether it be some of the things I’ve talked about—the Northlander, the GO trains, the subways.

The investments we’re making are the largest in North America, if not the world.

I haven’t even talked about highways yet. The Bradford Bypass—my goodness. I grew up hearing about this Bradford Bypass. I didn’t know what it was as a kid. I used to play hockey in Bradford. I went to high school in Bradford. They don’t own it now, so I don’t have any conflict of interest on this, but my brother-in-law’s family owned a farm a little bit on the 10th, just north of Bradford, which is now affected, but it was long sold. So it’s incredible that it’s coming to be. The people who are producing the vegetables—the Holland Marsh is the vegetable basket of the country. I talk to friends there and they say, “Yes, we need this bypass. We need to move our goods. We need to get things out.” This is going to help with affordability, with helping to keep costs down, by moving the product that is grown in Ontario—not just across Ontario, but we will move it to other markets. Just that one road alone is going to have a huge impact.

I could talk about the 413, but I don’t want to get the opposition all exercised. It is before the final stages in the courts, so I won’t talk about that. But it’s that kind of thing that we have to do, and we have to do it today, because it takes a long time to bring these things into being.

I couldn’t be prouder. The Minister of Finance, Minister Bethlenfalvy, has crafted investments in every sector of life, as you go through the budget. We are getting the job done. We’re going to make sure that we get Ontario built and we get Ontario’s economy going.

I was kind of moved by the member’s statement on building system and supports and infrastructure, and the fact that his mother was a crisis counsellor.

So I used to work under the child protection act, and he talked about the independent legal clinics and the CYAC, which protect our most vulnerable. I was just wondering what these investments and the supports and the improvements to the court will have on the future generations of those victims?

Thank you to the member from Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte. He talked a lot about victims and it reminded me of an issue with EMS workers across the province.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at a rally for CUPE 911 EMS workers in Niagara and they face the same problems that emergency workers all over the province do with lack of funding, lack of staffing. Those are costs that are shared with municipalities, but if the government cares so much about victims, why are they not providing more support for EMS workers across the province who are calling out for support for ambulance attendants and dispatchers and folks who are really struggling with code blacks and not enough staff in their departments?

We’re going to go to questions for the minister.