Let me be as clear as I can possibly be: There is no one in the province of Ontario or in this Legislature who believes that putting well water testing at risk is on the table. I want to be very clear on that matter.

Of course, the Ministry of Health funds Public Health Ontario to provide testing services for individuals who rely on private drinking water systems to serve households. We all know that.

The ministry has not made any decisions about changes to the provincial well water testing program, including which laboratories conduct testing of water samples.

I want to be very clear: There have been no changes. People who want to get their well water tested—and there are thousands across rural Ontario, including in my own riding—take those tests to their public health unit. They get tested. They get those results. That continues.

The Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.

To reply, the Minister of Infrastructure.

The next question.

This week, we found out once again how short-sighted this government is. They are putting rural communities at risk by proposing to eliminate free well water testing in Ontario and close more than half of Ontario’s public health labs. You do not cut corners on water quality. It is a human right. And it is our job, as leaders, to protect Ontarians.

Hello, Walkerton. Do we need a trip down memory lane? We should all remember the horrible tragedy that sickened over 2,000 people and killed seven because of neglect. Surely the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, who represents this beautiful town, would be fighting for the health and safety of her community and against this negligent proposal.

The government is willing to risk the lives of Ontarians to save a buck.

News flash to the penny-pinchers out there: Walkerton cost priceless, precious lives and $155 million.

My question to the Premier: Do you understand the importance of providing safe, clean, accessible water to the people of Ontario?

Does anyone here remember Roland Caldwell Harris, the supremely clever public works commissioner at the city of Toronto from 1912 to 1945? That genius had incredible foresight. The initial design for the iconic R.C. Harris water filtration plant down in the Beach was only half of its current length, but he made sure the whole operation was scalable, because he knew a growing city’s consumption of water would invariably increase.

I urge this government to look ahead. Think of the three million Ontarians who rely on well water. There should be no financial barrier to clean and safe water, especially in an affordability crisis.

This Premier has no problem spending millions on doubling the size of his office, but he cannot spend the money on clean water.

My question to the Premier: How do you justify raising your office budget to $6.9 million while cutting essential public health services like free well water testing?

Let’s talk about action. Included in the budget, recently announced—$1.8 billion for infrastructure across the province, $825 million of which will go to water infrastructure projects across the province of Ontario to help enable housing development, because we are in a housing crisis, but of course for health and safety purposes as well.

So if you want to talk action, why don’t you preach what’s in the budget?

Good morning, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Energy.

Our government, as you know, has been standing up for Ontario families and businesses and fighting the federal carbon tax, but that can’t be said for all members in this House. As we know, the Liberals, under the leadership of a woman who is now known as the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, continue to ignore constituents and stand behind their federal counterparts. The hard-working people of this province deserve so, so much better. They deserve to have more affordability, and they want more money in their pockets. And that’s exactly what our government is doing.

Can the minister please explain what actions our government is taking to mitigate the negative impact of the Liberal carbon tax?

I want to thank the great member from Flamborough–Glanbrook for that question.

Speaker, Chrystia Freeland is more interested in photo ops and getting a new pair of shoes than she is in helping the people of Canada and Ontario.

We’re focused on relief for the people of Ontario. We are cutting the gas tax, cutting the tolls on the 412 and 418, and we’re keeping electricity costs down. But the federal government continues to work against us. The whopping 23% increase in the carbon tax on April 1 raises the price of everything, including the prices in grocery and shoe stores, and heating bills.

I’m asking the Liberal members on the other side to join us in telling your federal counterparts the carbon tax is punitive and is hurting families all across this province. Stand up with us. Ask them to scrap the tax.

My question is for the Premier.

Speaker, the trades provide lucrative and secure employment for millions of Ontarians. Historically, women have been under-represented in these industries. To close the gender wage gap, it’s vital that we start early. We need to make dedicated efforts to recruit women into the trades, and this means ongoing hands-on opportunities throughout high school and post-secondary.

However, high schools and secondary schools have been consistently underfunded by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, which has led to a dramatic decrease in the number of available shops and an extreme shortage of qualified shop teachers.

How does the government expect to recruit women into the trades while neglecting and underfunding these programs?

Speaker, I’m utterly perplexed by that question from that member, who has voted against every measure that this government has put forward—measures to increase school funding, a massive capital increase which includes investments in the trades and shop class; voting against the Skills Development Fund, the largest skills development fund in North America. And what’s that doing? That member and I had a conversation just the other day about SDF projects in his riding that are working in partnership with school boards, that are making historic investments into the trades. Do you know who’s benefiting? Indigenous youth, women. We’ve seen a 30% increase in apprenticeship registration among women—a historic increase. Stats matter—the largest increase in apprenticeship registration last year.

We’ll take no lessons from the party opposite. In fact, we invite them to join us in making Ontario the best place to live, work and raise a family.

And what are we doing in this province? Under the historic investments we’ve seen into Ontario, we’ve brought back manufacturing; in fact, we’ve created more jobs than all US states combined. Speaker, do you know who that benefits? Young women I’ve spoken to from Ontario Tech, from Trent, from Fleming, from Loyalist, all graduating into jobs—jobs in the nuclear sector providing the backbone power we need for the electric vehicles.

When I visit the north, I’m speaking to graduates from Queen’s University working in our mining sector, unlocking the critical minerals; engineers that we need to support our massive automotive investments.

The key thing is that at every step along the way, the NDP has said no to critical minerals, no to mining, no to hospitals, no to those investments that are making Ontario—

I remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

Supplementary question.

Thank you to the member for the supplementary question.

Our government has been working hard to make Ontario the best place for business by cutting taxes, reducing red tape and expanding our use of clean energy.

Everything is getting more expensive here in the province of Ontario because of the carbon tax.

But there’s an additional problem, Speaker. You see, in spite of what the federal government tells the people, their intended effect of the carbon tax isn’t working; in fact, it’s noted that the emissions are not going down as a result of that. So the carbon tax isn’t even doing what the federal government said it was going to do.

So here you’ve got something that is not working, but it is succeeding in driving up the cost of everything in Ontario, hurting families, hurting businesses.

For goodness’ sake, Speaker, do they not understand it is time to scrap the carbon tax?

Thank you to the parliamentary assistant for his very passionate response.

Speaker, too many people in Ontario are struggling with the rising cost of living. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their rent. They’re struggling to buy groceries, to heat their homes.

But the Liberal members in the Legislature—under the leadership of a woman who loves the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie—fail to acknowledge the devastating impact that this tax is having on so many people in Ontario. They would be happy to raise your taxes each and every year, just like Bonnie Crombie did.

Our government is making life more affordable. Our government is the only group in this House that are fighting the federal government’s unjust and unfair tax hikes.

Can the parliamentary assistant please tell this House why it is time to scrap the carbon tax once and for all?

My question is to the Premier.

Caregivers are holding our health care system together through their tireless and selfless efforts to serve the most vulnerable people in our community. The work is largely done by women. They are doing this at great personal and financial cost, and their workload only goes up as this government continues to underfund and privatize our health care system. The least we can do is provide a caregiver benefit, which will allow these heroes to get a bit of respite care, pay for the equipment they need, and provide some compensation for their time.

The Ontario NDP has long fought for a caregiver benefit and will be keeping this government’s feet to the fire until we get caregivers what they deserve.

Will the government commit today to a caregiver benefit, or will I have to continue to stand up in this place to convince this government to do the right thing?

Back to the Premier: We know the incredibly important role unpaid caregivers play in supporting our mums, our dads, our grandparents, our aunts, our uncles, and those living with significant mental and physical disabilities in the province of Ontario. We know that more than half of the women in Canada—close to nine million women—perform caregiving work. But under this government, there are zero protections or benefits for unpaid caregivers, who make enormous personal and professional sacrifices to care for those in need and the ones we love.

When is this government going to do something to support unpaid caregivers in the province of Ontario? Please answer about caregivers.

My question is to the Minister of Health.

The government’s budget last month came as a big disappointment to people across my riding and the 11 hospitals in northern Ontario and across Algoma–Manitoulin. There was hope that after months of advocacy by hospitals in northern Ontario, the government would come to the table with an increase to hospital budgets that reflects the realities they face. The increase that this government offered does not come close to meeting the financial needs of hospitals in small, rural and remote northern communities.

My question to the minister: Why does her government refuse to properly fund northern hospitals to meet their needs?

The Auditor General’s report on northern health care recommended that the government implement a dedicated health care strategy for northern Ontario, but it’s nowhere in this budget.

At a time when wait times are getting longer, emergency rooms are closing and more northerners are losing access to primary care, the government cannot sit on their hands and do nothing.

Minister, when will your government commit to a dedicated northern Ontario health care strategy and end inequitable access to health care in Ontario?

I’m happy to continuously stand up in this place and talk about the investments that we have made in health care in the province of Ontario.

Just last month with our budget—some quick facts that I’m not sure the member opposite was paying attention to—$2 billion over three years to assist in home care and community care. Why? Because we need a health care system that protects the entire system. We’re making those investments in capital infrastructure—over 50 capital builds in hospitals across Ontario, $50 billion of capital.

Building the capital and the hospitals and the infrastructure is one piece. We also need to ensure that we have health human resources, which is why, of course, also in the announcement was York medical school in the province of Ontario, where 60% of those students will actually be studying to be primary care or family physicians.

Those are the types of system investments we are making after years of neglect under the NDP and the Liberal governments.

The finance minister made an investment in home care that was actually expedited in the fall economic statement and again, of course, in last month’s budget—an additional $2 billion. Where is that going to go? Those are investments that are going into community, that are assisting family members who want to care for their loved ones in their home. But they need that little bit of extra help. That’s where those investments of home and community care are going to make an impact—in our communities across Ontario.

But that’s not the only piece that we need to do. We have actually encouraged hospitals, through things like an innovation fund—to ensure that when they have ideas that are going to impact and improve quality of care in their communities, they have access to additional funds. We have hospitals that have been able to utilize these particular programs to ensure that wait times for surgeries, wait times for diagnostics in their communities decrease.

We’re going to make those investments, after years of neglect.

I would hope that the member opposite would look specifically at the investments that we are making in his community in primary care, in multidisciplinary teams, and see that there is change coming—

We have had increases in internationally educated trained nurses. Thanks to our reforms, we’ve already seen results.

The Learn and Stay grant program has now almost 5,000 students agreeing to work in underserviced communities such as the north. A Learn and Stay program means that students who train in the north are far more likely to live and continue as clinicians in northern Ontario.

When we make expansions in the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, it means that, again, as you train in northern Ontario, as you do your residency in northern Ontario, you are far more likely to continue to serve northern Ontario.

Those are the concrete, specific examples that our government has been able to do, under the leadership of Premier Ford, to make sure that, after years of neglect, we finally get it done in northern Ontario.

Thank you. The supplementary question.

Thank you to the great member from Thornhill for such an important question facing our small businesses in Ontario.

Speaker, from the start, this Premier and our government have never been fooled by this carbon tax cash grab. This carbon tax is not only punishing consumers, but it’s also punishing businesses that still haven’t seen a penny in rebates. It’s punishing our economy, as well. According to the Fraser Institute, this tax could shrink our economy by almost 2% and cause significant job losses.

I know the Ontario Liberals and NDP are fine with job losses. In fact, they sat back as 300,000 jobs fled this province.

But this Premier and our government have rebuilt our economy from the ground up so that small businesses, which make up 98% of all businesses, could see roaring growth and investment.

Unlike the opposition Liberals and NDP, we won’t stand by as the carbon tax constantly—

Our government will never stop standing up for Ontario’s job creators and small businesses that are being crushed by this job-killing carbon tax.

The anti-business realities of the Liberals’ carbon tax scheme are becoming clearer every single day.

We’ve learned three things that completely shatter the Liberals’ hollow claims about their carbon tax:

(1) It has never actually been revenue-neutral for business.

(2) There is no mechanism to return carbon tax money to small businesses.

(3) As things stand, the vast majority of small businesses would still be excluded from rebates.

So much for them being better off, as the opposition Liberals constantly claim.

The hard truth is, the federal carbon tax has been an anti-small business nightmare from the very start.

While carbon tax Crombie and the Liberals arrogantly refuse to tell the federal government how to do their job while—

My question is to the Premier.

Speaker, we all know that access to affordable child care is a huge determinant of women’s labour participation. Affordable child care in this province could add nearly 100,000 more women to Ontario’s labour force. And yet, at every turn, this government has neglected and underfunded the rollout of affordable child care in this province. Every space that is unopened due to the government’s lack of a funding formula or staff shortages due to low wage impacts a family, a mother looking to earn an equitable wage.

Will the Premier commit to properly funding child care so that women who can work will be able to access equal pay in the child care workforce?

My question is also to the Premier.

In Ontario, caregiver jobs are predominantly filled by women in crucial sectors like health care, long-term care, education, developmental services and child care. Those women are often primary caregivers for their own families too. And yet, we see a disheartening lack of progress in closing the gender pay gap. In fact, the government brings in legislation like Bill 124 to suppress the wages of those workers. Frankly, women are tired of waiting.

This government’s failure on affordable child care has resulted in limited spaces and long wait-lists, which we know further disproportionately impacts women in the workforce.

Speaker, when will this government get serious about closing the gender pay gap and begin building a child care system where workers are paid fairly and the system is accessible and affordable for all women?

My question is for the Associate Minister of Small Business.

The federal Liberal government has been collecting billions of dollars in carbon tax from small businesses and has promised those same small businesses that they would receive rebates. With $1.3 billion owed in rebates, we have yet to hear the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her Liberal Party call on their federal buddies for a plan to pay Ontario businesses back. But it’s not surprising, considering her inaction during the recent carbon tax hike.

While the Prime Minister and the Ontario Liberals bizarrely claim this damaging tax hike will benefit future generations, our government knows what Ontarians really need is an end to this disastrous tax.

Can the associate minister explain how the carbon tax hike provides no environmental benefit but risks harming our economy? Will she tell us how it hurts future generations of Canadians?

Speaker, the Liberals in this Legislature could not be more out of touch with the struggles of everyday Ontario business owners. Despite estimates showing that every Ontario business is owed between $2,600 and nearly $7,000, the Liberals in this Legislature think they’re “better off” with this carbon tax. And when their leader was asked if she would stand up for Ontario businesses to her federal counterparts, she said she was not going to “tell the federal government how to do their job.” That’s not what Ontarians expect from their elected officials.

It’s clear that the Ontario Liberals won’t stand up for Ontarians.

So, through you, Mr. Speaker, to the associate minister: How is our government standing up for the job creators and the small businesses affected by this regressive carbon tax?