Recently, the good people of Cambridge gathered to celebrate another successful United Way campaign. The sixth annual Spirit Awards ceremony was an opportunity to celebrate that in 2023 the United Way raised $5 million to be shared among more than 90 local charities and non-profit organizations. Those organizations assist nearly a quarter million individuals and families in need across Waterloo region. The evening was an opportunity to celebrate individuals and businesses in the region who work to support our most vulnerable and marginalized residents.

Spirit Awards were presented in seven categories.

Nutrition for Learning was awarded the Community Impact Award.

Sandi Young was named volunteer of the year.

The Spirit of the Community Award went to Reliance Home Comfort.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario won the Labour Community Partnership Award.

The outstanding workplace campaign awards went to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and EY.

Last but not least, the Ken Seiling Community Leader Award was presented to a very deserving individual: John Neufeld, executive director of the House of Friendship. This award recognizes a public figure—and John is definitely that person.

Thank you to United Way CEO Joan Fisk and her team for coming to the aid of all our community groups this year, and year after year.

I’m going to now ask our pages to assemble for their introductions.

It is my pleasure to introduce this group of legislative pages: from the riding of Whitby, Raisa Anand; from the riding of Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill, Jeslyn Chui; from the riding of Niagara Centre, Antonio Geremia; from the riding of Hamilton Mountain, Charlise Hillen; from the riding of Scarborough North, Anika Karthik; from the riding of Orléans; Lise MacDonald; from the riding of Durham, Diya Gokul Nathan; from the riding of Markham–Unionville, Victoria Ng; from the riding of Toronto–St. Paul’s, Sophie Obee Tower; from the riding of Kenora–Rainy River, Woodland Parent; from the riding of Oakville North–Burlington, Soyul Park; from the riding of University–Rosedale, Kai Peski; from the riding of Barrie–Innisfil, Hriditya Patel; from the riding of Mississauga–Malton, Aaldrian Pynadath; from the riding of Eglinton–Lawrence, Alexander Rose; from the riding of Vaughan–Woodbridge, Rhys Tweedie; from the riding of Parkdale–High Park, Norah Tysoe; from the riding of Toronto–Danforth, Glynnis Vaughan; and from the riding of Scarborough Southwest, Liam Yumul.

Welcome to the Legislature. We’re very grateful to have you here.

Applause.

I’d like to welcome Zehavi Zynoberg to the House. He’s the associate director of government relations at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. He is also here to host a Jewish Heritage Month reception which will be happening later in the day. All are welcome.

Just to add on, I needed to make special mention: Welcome, Claire Sault, Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and also Six Nations Police Chief Darren Montour, to the House today. Welcome to the people’s House.

It is my great pleasure to welcome my friend Chief Mary Duckworth of Caldwell First Nation; Chief Claire Sault of the Mississaugas of the Credit; and Mississaugas of the Credit councillors, my friend Larry Sault, Jesse Herkimer, and Erma Ferrell. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I want to thank the members of the Chiefs of Ontario for being here in the Legislature today and for that drum ceremony that opened the day.

I also want to welcome to the House my staffer Alesha Cabral. Welcome to the Legislature, Alesha.

It’s not too often I get guests from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry. I would like to welcome Grand Chief Abram Benedict from the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. Welcome.

This morning, we have two fabulous guests from St. Paul’s coming to Queen’s Park: Kathleen Christie and Maureen Callon.

Welcome to Queen’s Park, and thank you for your advocacy on health care in Ontario.

I have several guests in the gallery today. First, I want to introduce Natasha Restrepo Rivera, who is a new member of my team. She is new to politics, so she is in for a whirlwind.

Of course, I have several folks from Asthma Canada, as we celebrate their 50th anniversary: Jeffrey Beach, president and CEO; Jenna Reynolds, director, programs and services; Pauric Keegan, communications and marketing specialist; Megan Leigh, director of development; Zoe Ullyett, research and communications intern; and Vibhas Bapat, board chair.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

As you know, this is Nursing Week. Happy Nursing Week to all the hard-working nurses out there.

I would like to introduce four of their leaders who are here today. Karen McKay-Eden, a registered nurse, is the region 3 vice-president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. Dianne Martin, a registered practical nurse, is the CEO of the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario, better known as WeRPN. Jackie Walker, a registered practical nurse, is the executive vice-president of SEIU Healthcare. And Lucy Morton, a registered practical nurse, is the chair of the OPSEU/SEFPO Community Health Care Professionals sector.

Welcome to Queen’s Park, ladies.

Meegwetch, Speaker. Today, the Chiefs of Ontario are launching a lawsuit against Ontario and Canada for failing to provide First Nations with equal access to policing services as other Ontarians.

In First Nations across Ontario, we have communities in crisis. We have deaths every day, and we have communities being grossly under-policed and underserviced.

Will Ontario ensure First Nations have sufficient resources and mechanisms to uphold our laws?

Point of order.

Speaker, through you to the Premier: Recently, we obtained government records that showed that just two days after Shakir Rehmatullah attended the Premier’s daughter’s wedding, ministry staffers were looking for ways to open up Mr. Rehmatullah’s greenbelt property in Nobleton for development. Mr. Rehmatullah attended the wedding on September 27, 2022. By September 29, this had been deemed a “priority project.”

Who deemed development of Mr. Rehmatullah’s property to be a priority project, and why?

As this matter is before the court, it would be inappropriate for me to comment any further. Again, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.

Interjection.

On April 1, this government sent a clear message that community safety does not matter in First Nations. They had five years to make sure that when they changed their policing act, it would not discriminate against First Nations.

Speaker, I ask again, how does this government plan to keep our communities safe and ensure First Nation laws are enforced throughout the province?

Speaker, being able to enforce First Nation laws on-reserve will allow First Nations police forces to keep drug dealers at bay, using trespassing laws. It can also help non-dangerous offenders break free from destructive cycles and reintegrate into the community.

The government can actually fix this matter today.

Will Ontario pass a simple regulation under the CSPA making enforcement of First Nation laws mandatory?

Interjections.

To reply for the government, the Solicitor General.

Final supplementary.

The Solicitor General.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Final supplementary.

My question is to the Premier.

Under its agreement with the federal government, this government promised to build nearly 20,000 new affordable homes over 10 years, but six years later, they’ve barely managed to build 1,000.

You’ve fallen so far behind that the federal government is punishing you and refusing to hand over affordable housing funding to this government. Whatever you’re doing is not working.

My question to the Premier: What is this government going to do differently to ensure we build the tens of thousands of affordable homes that Ontario needs and get the funding that we are owed?

Interjections.

AMO estimates municipalities are on track to lose $2 billion over 10 years because this province has banned them from collecting fees to help pay for homelessness programs, at a time when shelters are full, and cities and towns have permanent encampments in parks and sidewalks.

What is this government’s plan to ensure every person in Ontario who is homeless is provided with shelter and permanent housing?

My question to the minister: Can this government fix the bill, allow fourplexes as-of-right and ensure we get the infrastructure funding we’re eligible for?

As I said to the member yesterday and today, earlier, in committee, we’ve actually, through our partners and through our service managers, built 11,000 of the 19,000 homes that we were asked to build. And we were asked to, I think it was, rehabilitate, renovate and repair 26,000—we’ve actually done 123,000 units. So, by any measure, it is a smashing success for both the province of Ontario and our municipal partners, our service managers.

Nobody is being left without funding, because the province of Ontario is paying the federal government’s bills. We want to ensure that the most vulnerable get the housing help that they need. So we are paying the federal government’s bills. Eventually, hopefully, they will decide to pay the people of the province of Ontario back, but if they don’t, we’ll still be there for the people of the province of Ontario.

What I did was increase funding for homelessness prevention programs by 28% in the member’s riding, and then I actually didn’t stop there. This government and this caucus, with the Minister of Finance’s help and Progressive Conservatives on both sides of the House, decided that we had to do even more, and that is why, in ridings across the province, we have increased funding to the highest level ever.

But it goes even further than that—it’s the work that the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is doing; it’s the work that we’re doing to bring jobs and opportunity back to the province of Ontario.

We’re building communities, whole communities, that are not only affordable housing, attainable housing—all types of housing. We’re building more schools. We’re building more bridges. And we’re doing this all in the context of having inherited a province that was on the brink of bankruptcy, that had an infrastructure deficit, whose affordable housing stock hadn’t been renovated in over 15 years.

We’re getting the job done for the people of the province of Ontario.

Interjections.

And then we’re going a step further. We’re spending—what is it—$2 billion to build more schools across the province of Ontario, because when you build homes, you need schools.

And do you know what else we’re doing? We’re building transit and transportation, and we’re building new automotive manufacturing capacities—so 700,000 jobs—because the people who are coming to work in the province of Ontario need to be able to get to work. They need the housing.

The federal government is, right now, trying to hold provinces hostage. There’s not one province across the entire federation that supports what the federal government is doing right now—only the Ontario NDP.

We want to build more homes.

Do you know what the stumbling block is, colleagues, to building more homes across York region? It is the infrastructure deficit that we inherited from the Liberals when they were in power for 15 years.

Now, the federal Liberal government is providing Toronto with a billion dollars, I think it is, to build 2,000 homes—a billion dollars to build 2,000 homes.

The investments that we are making in infrastructure will unleash thousands of homes across York region, thousands of homes to help support the thousands of people who will be working in the province of Ontario.

There is more work to be done, but we’ll get the job done.

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

The excitement from Honda’s historic announcement on April 25 continues to grow. Throughout the Alliston area and throughout Ontario’s automotive sector, from Windsor to Loyalist township, enthusiasm is building. Honda’s workers are proud, their suppliers are confident, and our entire EV ecosystem is supercharged for success.

Ontario’s auto and manufacturing sectors are winning again and thriving again under this government.

What a contrast from the industrial graveyard the Liberals left behind after 15 years of lost opportunity. Speaker, 300,000 manufacturing jobs were lost under their watch.

Can the minister please update the House on how Honda’s investment will position Ontario’s economy for the long term?

I was at the announcement on April 25, and you could feel the electricity in the air, and that was fitting because they’re going to build electric vehicles and electric batteries.

Honda’s investment proves that our government’s targeted and responsible economic plan is working.

Under the previous government, 300,000 manufacturing jobs fled the province as hydro rates soared, red tape grew, and taxes rose—Speaker, countless headlines over the last 15 years told of companies packing their bags and leaving Ontario.

But now we are reading headlines repeatedly and daily, almost weekly, about companies investing billions to move their operations to our province.

Can the minister tell us about the state of Ontario’s automotive sector today in comparison to where it was just six short years ago?