Yesterday and today, the Minister of Energy and I got a real perspective on the cost of this carbon tax. There’s a couple of isolated First Nations communities who operate their own independent power authorities, and between the shortened winter road season and the impact of the carbon tax, what would otherwise be years that they would break even—several years, in fact—they’re now running significant deficits that they don’t know how to pay for.

These are serious issues, and so far, the NDP position has been nothing short of gallimaufry. And I can’t help but wonder, when Bonnie Crombie was in the House of Commons, standing shoulder to shoulder with Justin Trudeau, whether she imagined she’d take the throne of the Ontario Liberal Party and become the queen of the carbon tax and live up to the provincial Liberal standards of their understanding of northern Ontario: that it’s a wasteland.

It’s not. We’re proud of our vast region. We want affordable living in northern Ontario, and it’s this—

This tax is expensive. The opposition needs to stand with the government, who’s working to reduce the cost to these communities and make life affordable in northern Ontario, and just scrap the tax.

Thank you.

The supplementary question?

My question is for the Minister of Long-Term Care. The Liberal carbon tax is adversely impacting every sector in Ontario. It drives up the cost of building expenses, from the cost of materials and transport to the cost of operations.

Speaker, people in my riding of Richmond Hill and across Ontario want to ensure that family members in long-term-care homes receive the best possible care. They are concerned that the regressive carbon tax is negatively affecting this vital sector.

Our government must continue to ensure that residents in a long-term-care home receive the quality of care and the quality of life they need and deserve.

Speaker, can the minister please tell this House what our government is doing to protect Ontario families, especially our seniors, from the negative impact of the carbon tax?

My question is to the Premier. NOMA municipalities are meeting this week. On their agenda: forestry, resilience and partnership with Indigenous communities. We know there will be forest fires. First Nations communities will be most impacted, and municipalities will welcome evacuees with the means they currently have. Yet we never seem to be quite ready for wildfire season.

Premier, can you tell NOMA members today: Are we ready for the fire season?

Monsieur le Président, ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Il nous manque déjà 50 équipes, donc 200 pompiers forestiers. Ce gouvernement est toujours dans l’état de réaction plutôt que de préparation.

Monsieur le Premier Ministre, les municipalités du Nord ont besoin de savoir : allez-vous envoyer du financement dès maintenant pour que les municipalités soient prêtes à accueillir les évacués des feux de forêt?

That’s the difference between the opposition and us, Mr. Speaker. What we believe that will help the challenge that people have with finding rental housing is to actually build more purpose-built rental housing. I feel that that will work, and we’re showing that it does work because under the policies of this government, we have the highest level of purpose-built rentals not in one year, not in two years—but ever, Mr. Speaker. And that is giving more people more options and that is what will bring the price of rental housing down across the province of Ontario.

I was speaking to the mayor of Oshawa, and he could not have been more supportive of the things that we are doing to help his community grow. That includes the groundbreaking investments that we’ve made in the automotive sector in that area.

So let’s see: We’re building more purpose-built rental housing than ever before. We’re getting more shovels in the ground for housing than ever before. We’re saving the automotive sector in Oshawa and making it bigger. We’re expanding the GO trains. We’re building more hospitals in that part of the region. We’ve got more jobs. We’ve reduced the cost of transit and transportation. We’re building more schools, more long-term-care homes, reduced the costs to the people in Oshawa and all of Durham region. I’d say we’re on the right path, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Speaker, I want to apologize. I got caught up in my own excitement. Whitney Public School is coming tomorrow. I’m a day ahead of myself and I apologize. I apologize to Whitney Public School. I’ve been waiting a long time for them. And I apologize to the House for my error.

Well, first of all, I’d like to invite the dairy farmers over to my office for a cold glass of chocolate milk.

And I’d like to invite the class up there. If you have time—I don’t know your schedule—come by and say hello and we’ll get a picture in the office.

Well, Speaker, we are doing a lot and I appreciate that question. Let’s just look at the most recent budget, right? I mentioned the $155 million for the construction funding subsidy 2.0. That’s going to allow for thousands of more spaces to get online. But above and beyond that, the highest increase to level-of-care funding—this is operational support for staffing, for food for our seniors—in history of 6.6% annualized.

And Speaker, a one-year support of $202 million. That’s $2,543 per space in long-term care so that seniors can get the repairs they deserve, whether it’s a leaky faucet, new televisions, new supports, new equipment, new rec room. This is a government that said we are taking care of our seniors.

Now, the Liberals can heckle the carbon tax all they want, but their record on long-term care is clear. When they exited government in 2018, they built 611 net new beds. We have 18,000 built with shovels in the ground, well on our way to 15,000. We’re getting it done for our seniors.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The cost of rent is out of control. Oshawa has experienced some of the most dramatic rent increases in the province. Between 2014 and 2023, the cost of renting increased by 61%. These aren’t just numbers. These are real people.

I met with Mark who was relieved that his family found an apartment so they’re not on the street. But now they’re facing a steep rent increase and they already can’t afford groceries. People are hurting. Will the government bring back real rent control for real people?

We used to have real rent control in Ontario. Now, all we have are loopholes for big corporate landlords. People are spending 50%, 60%, 70% of their income just to keep a roof over their head. That’s money they should have for activities with their family or a night out at a local restaurant, money to save for the future. But instead, they’re in such a mess.

Will this government deliver real rent control, please, so that people can get back to their lives?

It’s no cabinet shuffle. Ask the Premier.

Speaker, I just want to recognize the dairy farmers and Adam Petherick who’s here and to recognize someone who’s not here. I’ve not had the opportunity—and I feel it’s important to read their name into the record. That person is Sid Atkinson, who we tragically lost at the end of last year.

Sid was a giant in the dairy space. He was never afraid to tell you a story, to give you his opinion. He advocated for dairy farmers in our community across Ontario, and was a former member of the board. He will be dearly missed by our community, by dairy farmers across Northumberland–Peterborough South, and I just want to recognize that.

Supplementary question?

Interjection: Labour.

Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.

The Premier is next.

Government House leader.

The House recessed from 1149 to 1500.

Report adopted.

Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just want to correct my record. Yesterday, when I was talking about the multi-million dollar expansion at BWXT, I inadvertently said they were creating 200 million jobs at BWXT. While I wish that were true, it’s 200-plus jobs that they’re creating.

I’ve read this petition in the House before. It’s to save the Minden emergency room—or actually, to reopen the Minden emergency room. We’ve been reading these for well over a year now, ever since it first came out that the emergency room in Minden was going to be closed. It was a horrific decision to make. It’s the nearest emergency room for thousands of people and the next nearest one is in Haliburton Highlands.

The petition talks about how Haliburton’s health services board of directors, without consultation with the affected people, with the affected communities, closed the emergency room on June 1, 2023. What we’ve heard since then is about people not being able to get the care that they need when they need it. That’s the model of this government.

One case was a girl at a summer camp who had a fishhook stuck in her eye and had to travel 20 minutes from Minden to Haliburton in order to get emergency service. There was another case where a person died of cardiac arrest five minutes out from the Haliburton hospital. If the Minden emergency room would have been open, they would have received care 15 minutes prior to that because they were going from Minden to Haliburton.

So this petition asks the government to reopen the Minden emergency room, restore the funding and provide the funding that’s needed. It will save lives. We’re coming up to the summer season right now, so I will add my voice to this. Save and reopen the Minden ER because it will save lives this summer.

It’s my pleasure to present a petition around protecting farmland and sustainable growth in Waterloo. It’s signed by hundreds of people from Waterloo, Kitchener, Wilmot and Cambridge.

Essentially, this petition calls upon greater transparency around the proposed industrial site in Waterloo region. Most people are not against this site. They just don’t want it on 770 acres of prime farmland.

They also have concerns that developers approached those farmers even before the land was rezoned industrial. They also have some concerns around a non-disclosure agreement that has been made public with, we assume, the proposed industrial site. People want transparency, they want democracy, and they want to be part of the process.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and give it to page Simon.

I have a petition titled “Vulnerable Persons Alert.” With the autism coalition being here today and them being the co-sponsors of this petition, I thought it was a fantastic day to be able to read more names into the Legislature. This petition goes hand in hand with an online petition that has well over 100,000 signatures to it.

This petition strictly speaks about Draven Graham, who was a young boy with autism who went missing and never came home safely; as well as Shirley Love, who was a senior with dementia and, again, did not make it home to her family safely. This would definitely only be one tool in the tool box to ensure that police have access to all available tools necessary to ensure that vulnerable people come home to their family safely.

I wholeheartedly support this petition and will give it to page Ryder to bring to the Clerk.

It’s my honour to present the following petitions on behalf of Sally Palmer, professor emeritus, school of social work in the faculty of social sciences at McMaster University. The petition is entitled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.”

Within this petition, it talks about how deeply in poverty people receiving social assistance are in Ontario. It points out that it’s inadequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent, that individuals on Ontario Works receive $733, whereas those on ODSP receive $1,308. But I’d also like to point out that OW has been frozen since 2018.

It also points out about the CERB program and how it was determined that the basic income of $2,000 per month was adequate for people. It raises and begs the question why we have people on social assistance so deep below that as well as the poverty line.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Emirson to the Clerks.

I would like to present this petition called “Improve Winter Road Maintenance.” I thank Jon Berube from my riding for these petitions.

The petition is quite simple, Speaker. The winter road maintenance in northern Ontario has been privatized by the previous government. The private contractors—some of them do good jobs; some of them do horrible jobs. I can tell you that, in my riding, I can tell you where one snow-clearing contractor ends and the other one starts, because where the other one starts, it’s perfect pavement, and before this, we’re in a foot of snow.

People are signing the petition to say: If you’re going to continue down the path of private contractors doing winter road maintenance in northern Ontario, then you have to have an oversight of it. If they don’t do a good job, they are putting northern Ontario drivers at risk. They should have an oversight, and if they don’t correct this, the government should take it over.

This is what they want. I want it also. I will sign it and ask Armaan to bring it to the Clerk.

It’s my honour today to table a petition that was collected by members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, with over 500 signatories across Ontario. These petitioners express a concern about what is happening in Ontario’s provincial schools. They note that we have an obligation under the Human Rights Code to equal treatment of all students. Therefore, they call on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to require the Minister of Education to improve transparency and funding for these schools, and to call for a provincial audit into these schools.

It’s my honour to support this petition. I wholeheartedly endorse it, will add my name to it and send it to the table with page Aura.

The petition makes reference to the fact that levels of Ontario Works and ODSP in Ontario are far below the poverty line and do not provide enough income for people actually to be able to support themselves, especially compared to the income security program that we had during the pandemic which was provided by the federal government, the CERB program. Therefore, the petitioners call on the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for people in Ontario.

I wholeheartedly endorse this petition, will ad my name to it and send it to the table with page Brayden.

Your committee begs to report the following bill, as amended:

Bill 166, An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act / Projet de loi 166, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités.