I thank all the speakers for their comments on the red tape reduction bill and the housing-related—it’s very, very exciting legislation, and I like the way the associate minister phrased the budget as the “infrastructure budget.”

My question, because I think this is such an important part of the program: The $1.8 billion that we propose, if the bill is passed, to have implemented—I was in the infrastructure world; I know how important it is to get these important assets financed. The great thing about water and waste water infrastructure is that there are revenue streams attached.

Municipalities have borrowing limits that are very restrictive. So I wonder if we could further hear from the associate minister on the impact this huge new program will have on getting those projects started that otherwise would not be started, and the impact it will have on the housing market.

Ontario’s 2024 budget revealed this government’s plan to rebuild the economy while continuing to invest in health care, housing, infrastructure and more, without raising costs for families.

In long-term care, the $155 million in funding in 2024-25 will allow for continued progression on building 58,000 new and upgraded long-term-care beds across the province—like the completed homes in Carleton Place and Almonte, and the Broadview long-term-care home in Smiths Falls currently under construction.

We’re investing just over $3 million to assist up to 3,500 people in connecting to primary care in Perth, Ontario, and $4 million to help up to 10,000 people at the Periwinkle site in Kingston. This budget also green-lit the reconstruction of Princess Street in Almonte and the reconstruction of Battersea Road in South Frontenac.

Access to high-speed Internet and mobile service is a necessity of modern life. That’s why we’re investing $71 million through the Eastern Ontario Regional Network to continue getting more communities online faster than ever before.

These are only a few of the highlights of the 2024 budget, which is supporting economic growth in Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and across Ontario.

Our government is committed to creating stronger communities for the future, improving Ontario’s productivity growth, and building prosperity for generations to come.

With the greatest of respect, wrong, wrong, wrong. We have made historic investments in our health care budget and our health care system, whether it is expanding primary care, multidisciplinary teams—over a half a billion dollars that we are investing in primary care multidisciplinary teams. Whether it is capital projects that are happening in our hospitals across Ontario, over 50 capital projects that are happening right now across Ontario, new expanded and renovated hospitals, including, of course, in the Hamilton region.

We continue to invest in our health care system. We know that Ontario leads Canada, whether it is attachments to family physicians or primary care docs, whether it is the lowest wait times in Canada that are happening here in the province of Ontario, we will continue to do that work to make sure that we build up a system that, frankly, previous governments have ignored for decades.