I need to ask for a moment of the House’s time, as I have a brief statement that I wish to make regarding the controversy that has surrounded the wearing of kaffiyehs in the legislative precinct and the chamber.

As we know, areas assigned to members, caucuses or the media are their own individual domains. These spaces are not subject to any restrictions relating to the choice of attire by their occupants.

However, there have always been different rules governing the chamber. I return again to an explanation of our long-standing practice, going back decades, that items of clothing or accessories, including T-shirts, jerseys, scarves, ribbons and pins, that, in the opinion of the Chair, are being used to make a deliberate statement may not be worn in the chamber unless there is unanimous consent of the House to permit members to do so.

When the issue of wearing kaffiyehs in the House was raised with me, I reviewed the matter, and I concluded that, at this time, a member seeking to wear the kaffiyeh in the chamber was intending to make an overt political statement by wearing it. I stand by that conclusion, and I believe that events which have transpired since have confirmed it to be true.

On at least two occasions when it was raised, the House denied unanimous consent for the wearing of kaffiyehs in the chamber. Had unanimous consent been granted, I would have had no objection to the wearing of the kaffiyeh in the chamber. Again, the Speaker is the servant of the House.

Let me add that I never concluded or stated that the kaffiyeh is not a cultural symbol for many in the Arab and Muslim communities.

Since the issue has become so controversial, I think it necessary to point out that there is not a blanket ban which singles out only the kaffiyeh for those who wish to wear it and enter the legislative precinct. It has been our standard practice, again for many decades, to ask those who seek to enter the assembly not to wear any attire which appears to be intended to make a political statement of any sort. This is intended to promote order and decorum and mostly has had the desired effect through the years. But in this case, which unfortunately became politicized, it has instead fostered division and discord, both in this House and in our communities in the province.

As Speaker, my intent has always been to uphold the conventions and principles that were designed to bring us together to debate important issues. Diversity has been and remains one of Ontario’s greatest strengths.

Therefore, I wish to clarify that members, staff and visitors wearing the kaffiyeh will be permitted entry to the legislative precinct. However, in line with my previous statements in the House, the kaffiyeh is not permitted to be worn in the chamber or the galleries at this time without the unanimous consent of the House.

I will remind all members and guests that demonstrations in the building are always prohibited, and members must be able to fulfill their parliamentary duties without obstruction.

I thank the House for its attention.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The Minister of Education would rather talk about anything but what’s happening in our schools right now, because the situation is pretty grim thanks to this government. Schools are turning down the heat to save money, telling teachers to bring in their own supplies. Kids with special needs are being sent home because there’s no one left to look after them. Teens asking for mental health support are waiting over a year to see a social worker.

In the face of all this, the Premier is once again proposing education funding for next year that doesn’t keep pace with inflation or enrolment growth. This is another cut, Speaker.

Why does the Premier not believe that children in Ontario deserve a high-quality education and safe, supportive, fully resourced classrooms?

It’s not a prop.

Wow. Do you know what’s highest in history? Homelessness rates right now—that’s what’s the highest in history.

But back to the Premier: A little over a week ago, on a Friday afternoon right before the constituency week, the government dropped their annual funding announcement for schools. That should have been the first clue; right, Speaker? Dropping a major announcement at the last minute on a Friday afternoon. The government thought they could pull one over again on the people of Ontario. They thought that if they gave it a different name, showed some kind of new calculations and rebranded it, they could confuse you.

I’m sure the Premier and the minister thought that they had outsmarted everyone and avoided accountability, but it turns out they weren’t so clever, Speaker. In fact, it’s the same cuts again and again, just under a different name.

My question to the Premier is, does this government refuse to adequately fund school programs that are needed by the most vulnerable of our students, and why?

This year, public funding is $2 billion lower than was expected. That’s only accounting for the current status quo, to keep things the way they are, which is pretty darn terrible right now. It’s not even including the additional funding that schools need to address the worker shortage, the student mental health programs, the school violence. This government thinks that that’s just good enough.

So to the Premier: Why does he think that “just good enough” is good enough for our kids?

Interjections.

The Minister of Education has pile after pile of applications for capital builds for schools, while kids are sitting in portables, and they are collecting dust on his desk.

The government has made a habit of stashing away so-called contingency funds to give them free rein on spending. We see this over and over, and we’re seeing it again with $1.4 billion allocated for “planning provisions” that is not accessible to school boards. Core funding isn’t really core funding if it isn’t actually available to our schools.

So to the Premier: Is the government disguising this new slush fund under education funding to hide the massive cuts to public education and our schools?

The Minister of Education.

Supplementary question?

Minister of Education.

Once again, I’ll remind the House that it has been the established practice of this House that members should not use props, signage or accessories that are intended to express a political message or are likely to cause disorder. This also extends to members’ attire, where logos, symbols, slogans and other political messaging are not permitted unless the unanimous consent of the House is granted. This Legislature is a forum for debate, and the expectation in the chamber is that political statements should be made during debate rather than through the use of props or symbols.

I must warn the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Harden left the chamber.

The member for Hamilton Centre is warned.

Sarah Jama, you are named.

The member is currently not eligible to be recognized in the House, pursuant to the order of the House adopted on October 23, 2023. As a result of being named, for the remainder of the day today, the member is ineligible to vote on matters before the Assembly, attend and participate in any committee proceedings, use the media studio, and table notices of motion, written questions and petitions. You must leave the chamber.

Ms. Jama left the chamber.

Interjections.

Interjection.

We can start the clock, I think. The next question.

Mr. Speaker, if you can believe it, we also made an announcement on a Sunday—because our government seems to be working 24/7—to restrict cellphones, to ban vaping and to deny social media from school websites.

This, coming from the member opposite: a party that has a record of literally denying to the public servants of this province, by the Rae day imposition of 12 days of mandatory unpaid leave. This is a member whose party, a generation ago, cut staff by 5%. This is a party that actually forced teacher unions to use surplus monies in their teacher pension fund to offset teacher cuts that they imposed.

This is a government committed to investing in our students and in our future: $745 million more dollars in the coming school year, 9,000 additional education workers, 3,000 more front-line educators.

I know the member opposite doesn’t want to acknowledge that this is a government investing more than ever before in our publicly funded schools.

Interjections.

I mean, in addition to the monetary investment, this is a government that did what your party and the Liberals couldn’t do, which is sign deals for three years, delivering peace for children in Ontario. Then we announced a revision to the curriculum, the introduction of a kindergarten curriculum that ensures literacy and math is involved in the curriculum. We also announced a plan to remove distractions, to ban vaping, to eliminate social media from school devices. This is a common-sense plan bolstered by support.

Some $17 million on mental health funding: The member opposite speaks about mental health. This is an issue we care about. There’s a reason why we’ve increased funding by 550%.

We’re continuing to invest. We’re also continuing to demand better—better outcomes from the investments we make. That’s the difference. We actually will hold school boards to account, to expect better outcomes on reading, writing and math, and the outcomes of our kids.

This is an opposition that can’t accept a basic premise. It is the Progressive Conservative Party that cut child care fees by 50%, it’s the Progressive Conservative Party that has increased capital funding by 136% and it’s the Progressive Conservative Party that is increasing literacy and math rates for the first time in a generation.

We are getting the job done. Join us for the benefit of kids in Ontario.

Interjections.

I guess the minister’s math is so basic, Speaker, that he’s never heard of inflation.

The Premier is providing $1,500 less for each child in our schools compared to 2018. This at a time when we have a massive teacher shortage, a problem with violence, a mental health crisis, not enough special education or ESL supports, transportation problems and crumbling schools.

As a parent, on behalf of parents across the province, I want to know, why are you attacking our children’s education?

Interjections.

Speaker, my question is for the Premier.

A recent Ombudsman report has revealed fatal gaps in youth support and has made 20 recommendations to York children’s aid society.

Mia, a 16-year-old young girl, repeatedly cried out for help. She needed a foster placement, and she wanted to return to school, which are all within her rights. Mia’s rights were ignored, and she was shockingly told to go to a shelter.

Premier, are you going to adequately fund our children’s aid societies, or are you going to continue to leave children like Mia behind?

Speaker, time and time again in this House, your government has made promises to children and youth in care. Two weeks ago, legislation was introduced outlining small steps in the child welfare system—small steps in a system that Mia tried to navigate herself while in emotional crisis, a system which turned its back on her and broke its promise to keep her safe, housed and protected.

Back to the Premier: What has your minister done to ensure there will never be another Mia anywhere again in this province?

My question is for the extremely busy Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

Last week, our province welcomed a historic investment in my riding of Simcoe–Grey. Honda’s $15-billion investment in Ontario is the largest auto investment in Canadian history. This general investment will create jobs not only for my constituents in Simcoe–Grey but right across our great province.

Premier Ford has called Minister Fedeli the architect of the Honda deal, and not surprisingly, Minister Fedeli has credited the Premier as being the best closer you have ever seen. The reality is that this dynamic duo got it done for Ontario.

Speaker, can the minister take us behind this historic deal?

But now our province is landing investments that were unthinkable six years ago and bringing back jobs by the tens of thousands. Can the minister explain what this new investment will mean for Ontario’s economy?

Mr. Speaker, we’re increasing funding by over $745 million for the coming school year because we believe in restoring focus, discipline and some common sense back in Ontario schools. And that’s why we’ve increased the funding for the coming school year to the highest levels ever.

We’ve also committed and we have hired 9,000 more education workers, 3,000 additional front-line educators. We have 900 additional teachers being hired for literacy and for math. Mr. Speaker, this is a historic investment, underpinned by a reform to the curriculum that infuses life and job skills, that actually ensures financial literacy and coding and phonics has returned to the norm in Ontario schools.

We know there’s more work to do, but I would hope members opposite would join our government and our Premier in increasing the funding and the staffing and the expectations in Ontario’s publicly funded schools.

If we want to listen to the people we represent, then the overwhelming majority of parents will say, “Go back to basics. Remove the distractions and the nonsense, and make sure my kids are proficient in literacy and in math,” and that’s exactly what we’re doing. The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act repatriates that power back to the people, puts parents in the driver’s seat, ensures transparency on school boards and benchmarks their performance according to academic achievement, which is what education is supposed to be about.

We have increased the funding, we’re increasing the expectations and we’re adding more staff to make sure that students are set up for long-term success.

Speaker, Honda’s $15-billion investment is a game-changer for our auto sector and for our entire province. This would not have happened without Honda’s long-standing history here in Ontario and especially with the dedicated team of workers at Honda, who produce some of the best-selling vehicles made in Canada; Premier Ford, as you heard, the best closer at the negotiating table, and a strong team—thank you to them—our team, who were introduced earlier, with their deep understanding of the auto sector; the officials in our ministry and their tremendous work and countless hours; and every member of this government—treasury, finance, infrastructure, energy, mines, labour. It was an all-of-government effort.

Speaker, this is a new chapter now in Ontario’s auto sector. We are an EV manufacturing powerhouse.

We are the EV-manufacturing powerhouse.

I thank the member for the question.

The death of any child or youth is a tragedy.

We’ve reviewed the report, and we take it very seriously. We agree with the Ombudsman. The best interests, protection and well-being of children is paramount in the child welfare system, and our government expects York CAS and every children’s aid society in the province to ensure that children’s and youth’s voices are heard in their decision-making and their well-being.

We will never waver from our commitment to keeping children and youth safe, regardless of their circumstances. That’s what’s driving our comprehensive redesign of the child welfare system—that’s the most recent bill that I introduced last week, the children’s futures act, which the member debated on. We saw that it was passed in second reading. Through the redesign, we have initiatives to improve out-of-home care to make sure that we hold bad actors to account.

Once again, let me make it very clear: We will never waver from our commitment to making sure every child, every youth is safe in this province.

In the recent bill that I mentioned earlier, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, which we introduced a couple of weeks ago—here in this bill. Mr. Speaker, we are going above and beyond what we’ve already introduced, and I made it very clear in the bill.

The member calls it small steps. Mr. Speaker, I said that this bill is just one of the many steps that we’re taking. The child welfare redesign, Mr. Speaker—never took any action by the previous government, and this member was here. It was our government that said, through the child welfare redesign, we will make sure we won’t leave anyone behind. That means introducing fines and making sure that the bad actors are held accountable. None of these provisions included before; none of these children and youth were being cared for, were being looked after. We’ll make sure that through this bill and other initiatives—

Thank you for the question from the member opposite.

Our government’s dedication to protecting the environment is clear. The report confirms that Ontario continues to lead the country with 86% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emission reductions. We’ll continue to build on this success by making Ontario a global leader in electric vehicles and investing in clean steel production, reducing emissions by the same amount as taking two million cars off the road.

We will continue making critical investments to get Ontarians where they need to be, such as the Ontario Line, that takes another 28,000 cars off the road every day. In addition to those historic investments, we’ve also invested in conservation through the Greenlands Conservation Partnership, which has protected over 420,000 acres of land.

We’ve proven we can protect the environment without imposing a costly job-killing carbon tax on—

For the Premier, Mr. Speaker: The Premier campaigned on being transparent, ethical and accountable, yet six years after assuming power, his government has left nothing but a series of scandals in its wake, punctuated by backtracks and broken promises. Five ministers have resigned. Others have been banished from caucus. There’s an RCMP criminal investigation with a special prosecutor and judicial appointments for like-minded friends, with even a special office in Ottawa for a failed political candidate. Clearly, the gravy train is rolling full steam ahead with a new station in Ottawa.

So you’ll forgive me for being skeptical of the Premier’s taxpayer-funded self-promotional ads saying that everything in Ontario is okay. With shuttered emergency rooms and an unprecedented health care staffing crisis, he refuses to give details about our health care worker shortage, citing the risk of economic damage.

Will the Premier break his cone of silence and let his Minister of Health tell Ontarians how bad they have let our health care worker shortage really get?

It is an absolute pleasure to tell you how well we are doing in Ontario, in Canada, with our health care system.

We have our second match of CaRMS. What is CaRMS? CaRMS is matching residency students with their first choice, and we have all of those residencies now matched in the province of Ontario—unprecedented here. It means that students who are training and want to practise in Ontario got that match with CaRMS. So please, congratulate them.

And I have to say, the outgoing president for the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Sarita Verma: congratulations. Fifty-one per cent of your students at Northern Ontario School of Medicine have chosen family practitioner as their number one specialty residency.

We are making progress. We will continue to invest in our health care system because we know, whether it’s hospital capital, whether it’s health human resources, offering those opportunities for students to train—

Speaker, to the Premier: Last Thursday, Canada released its annual report on greenhouse gas emissions. Ontario is showing sharp increases in GHGs since they bottomed out at the beginning of the pandemic. The report showed the increases in Ontario’s emissions were the largest in Canada.

The Conservatives’ inadequate climate plan is headed towards failure. When will the Premier take action to sharply cut Ontario’s emissions to protect our standard of living?

I can do that. Through Powering Ontario’s Growth, we’re going to ensure that we have the clean, non-emitting, reliable, affordable electricity that we’re seeing right now. But into the future, this type of affordable, reliable non-emitting energy is what has actually allowed us to land the historic multi-billion-dollar Honda deal, which Minister Fedeli was just talking about last week: a $15-billion investment at four different plants across the province.

Through Powering Ontario’s Growth, we’re ensuring that we have a small modular reactor not just being talked about but under construction at Darlington right now. Three more SMRs are going to be going in at that site. Mr. Speaker, we have the first large-scale build that’s about to get under way at what’s already the world’s largest nuclear facility at Bruce Power. We have a non-emitting procurement that’s under way with the IESO. We have the largest battery storage procurement under way—

But in spite of that, we’re continuing to move forward with non-emitting resources like our nuclear facilities, hydroelectric facilities, battery storage facilities and renewables that will work better because we have the storage that we need in the province. As a matter of fact, according to the 2024 greenhouse gas registry—

Interjections.

The people in Milton, the people in LKM disagreed with their proposals last week: They got 6.76% in the by-election. We’ve got two new Tory members because people are opposed to the federal carbon tax and they’re opposed to Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax.

My question is for the Minister of Energy. My riding in Richmond Hill and everyone knows that the Liberal carbon tax does nothing to reduce emissions. It is fueling the cost-of-living crisis Ontarians are already going through and burdening families with one tax hike after another.

Speaker, Ontarians won’t be fooled by the Liberals’ tax-grabbing measures. Unlike the NDP and the independent Liberals, our government knows that a carbon tax is not a solution. That’s why, under the leadership of Premier Ford, we have shovels in the ground on new clean energy infrastructure.

Speaker, can the minister please explain our government’s affordable approach to ensuring that Ontario has sufficient energy capacity to meet growing needs without a carbon tax?

As Ontario moves towards an electric future with a strong electric vehicle supply chain network, the need for reliable, low-cost and clean power has never been greater. Unlike the federal government’s carbon tax disaster, our government has a real plan to ensure that our energy supply will continue to meet the needs of a growing population and industrial expansion.

Speaker, can the minister please elaborate on what our government is doing to build a stronger Ontario and strengthen the competitive advantage?

Thank you very much.

The next question.

Supplementary question.

The next question.

The supplementary question.