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.

Speaker, April 25 was a historic day for Ontario and, quite frankly, all of Canada. Honda announced a $15-billion investment right here in Ontario to build Canada’s first comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain. Honda will build an innovative EV assembly plant in Alliston. They’ll also build a stand-alone battery manufacturing plant in Alliston—4,200 jobs retained, 1,000 new jobs just on those sites. And to complete their supply chain, they will build a cathode plant through a joint venture with Korea’s POSCO, and they’ll build a separator plant in a joint venture with Japan’s Asahi Kasei. Those two announcements are coming in the very near future, in the coming days and weeks, which will add a significant amount of employees here in Ontario.

Their investment reaffirms that Ontario is the EV powerhouse.

The minister was kind enough to loan me this one question. Thank you, Minister.

As the minister was saying, a $15-billion investment with Honda; another massive investment, a multi-billion dollar investment we’re announcing next week—so by all means, show up.

When the minister was in Germany, he got off the plane, went into the terminal, and took a picture of the big Ontario sign. Another person got off in LA, walked out—and the terminal was all Ontario. The world is talking about Ontario. The world knows that Ontario is open for business.

We’ve seen over $43 billion of investment in the EV sector. As Bloomberg said, Canada—which should really be Ontario—is now the number one destination for EV assembly and EV battery production.

We’re going to continue telling the world that Ontario is open for business, no matter if it’s a $20-billion investment through the tech sector, $3 billion through the life sciences, more manufacturing jobs—

I want to wish the hundreds of thousands of nurses in Ontario a happy Nursing Week, including nurse Dianne Martin, CEO of WeRPN, and Karen McKay-Eden, VP of ONA. They are here today because our health care system is in disarray, with no relief in sight.

Patients, from sick babies to people needing palliative care, face long wait times in emergency rooms and overcrowded hospitals.

Minister, it does not have to be that way. This is not the new normal. BC is implementing mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios.

Will the minister commit to improving patient outcomes and nurse retention, and bring nurse-to-patient ratios in Ontario?

Let me tell you, Speaker, the state of California implemented nurse-to-patient ratios 25 years ago, and the numbers speak for themselves: better patient outcomes and less nurses burning out—two challenges that this Minister of Health and Premier continue to ignore as they rush forward with the for-profit delivery of our health care system.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If the government is interested at all in improving Ontario’s health care system, there’s a very easy first step they can do: Put in place nurse-to-patient ratios. Will the minister do it?

Interjections.

Yesterday, when the Premier, Minister Dunlop and I were at TMU to celebrate and mark the beginning of Nursing Week, I spoke to a nurse who trained and graduated under Bob Rae’s NDP government. Do you know what she told me? She told me that only three nurses in her graduating class stayed in Ontario, because there were no jobs. The NDP government was actually firing nurses.

I now look at the Liberal government of the day. Your previous leader, Kathleen Wynne, admitted and acknowledged in her exit interview with TVO that she wished she had invested more in the health care system.

Well, we’re doing it. We’re getting it done. We’re training more nurses. We’re retaining more nurses. We’re bringing international nurses to Ontario, who want to be here. We have two years running of historic highs of internationally trained clinicians licensing in the province of Ontario. We’re getting it done.

Last week, I was with Minister Piccini and I sat down with nursing students who are participating in an extern program. They told me how that extern program that was brought in under Premier Ford has made them more confident, has made them a better nurse. That’s the kind of initiatives we will continue—

The supplementary question.

Interjection.

The next question.

Minister of Health.

That answer had nothing to do with my question.

On the day that the changes to the greenbelt were announced, the minister’s chief of staff, Ryan Amato, asked ministry staffers to confirm that Mr. Rehmatullah’s Nobleton property in the greenbelt could be developed. Mr. Amato told staffers, “PO has asked me for a picture to make sure it’s captured.” Ministry staffers responded with assurances that changes to York’s official plan would do just that.

Who in the Premier’s office wanted to make sure that the Nobleton property belonging to the Premier’s friend was captured in the changes to the greenbelt, and why?

News flash to the member opposite: Nobleton and King are actually in York region, and York region is suffering from an infrastructure deficit.

York region was also suffering from a school deficit until this Minister of Education came on board—because what we’re doing is building communities.

This is what they do: They make enemies out of everybody who wants to move the province forward; so if you build a home, you’re an enemy; if you’re a manufacturer, you’re an enemy; if you drive a bus and want to buy a home, you’ve got to be an enemy as well. They are all about making people enemies.

What we are about is fixing the devastating damage that we inherited from the Liberal-NDP coalition government in the province of Ontario that left us with an infrastructure deficit, that left us the most indebted sub-sovereign government in the world, that left us with the most highly regulated province in the world. Jobs were fleeing the province. We are working every single day to repair the damage. The job is not done, and that is why we are going to double down to work even harder to continue the economic progress in Ontario.

My question is to the Premier. Good morning, Premier.

Speaker, 2.3 million Ontarians currently have no access to family physicians. Our communities are aging—including burnt-out physicians—and recruitment and retention of professionals is waning. The Ontario Medical Association referred to this as “the perfect storm.” They need support now to establish interprofessional, team-based models of care. Right now, only 70% of doctors have access to a team. Family doctors have said that access to an interprofessional team would help reduce their workload so they can see more patients, the fundamental basis of our health care system. But this government is moving at a glacial pace to approve new primary care teams.

Why won’t this government act with the urgency that the primary care crisis requires?

She went on to say, “I want my tax dollars to be allocated to the part of the health system that affects me and every citizen most—access to family doctors. Enough is enough, Premier. Value the family physician and compensate them fairly!”

Kathleen is also very worried about this government’s health care privatization scheme, as we all are here in this Legislature.

Will the Premier tell Kathleen his plan to attract, recruit and retain family doctors, while also paying the health professionals properly and not scamming them the way he has done nurses?

Interjections.

Thank you very much.

The next question.

I’m going to ask the member for Toronto-St. Paul’s to withdraw the unparliamentary comment.

The next question.

My question is for the Minister of Energy.

The federal Liberals continue to make life less affordable for Ontarians by hiking the carbon tax. Many families and businesses across Ontario cannot afford the skyrocketing prices for everyday essentials. Unfortunately, the opposition NDP and the independent Liberals in this House are refusing to fight this devastating tax.

While those members want higher and higher prices and higher taxes, our government is working for the people and supporting them during this difficult time.

With summer quickly approaching, can the minister please explain how the carbon tax will continue to drive up costs for Ontarians?

It’s good to hear that the minister is paying attention to what the people of Ontario are looking for.

It is truly unfair that the Liberals continue to punish Ontarians who are already struggling to pay their bills, make ends meet, and provide more for their families with the Liberals trying to hike taxes.

What’s even more disturbing is that the Liberal members in this House, knowing how much Ontarians are suffering, still refuse to rise up and do the right thing and tell their federal counterparts that this tax needs to go. It’s unacceptable. Our government will not stand for their silence and inaction. Our government will continue to fight and tell the federal government that this is a tax that Ontarians don’t want and don’t deserve.

Can the minister please tell this House why the people of this province cannot afford this disastrous carbon tax?

Thanks to the member from Kitchener–Conestoga for his question this morning.

The carbon tax, obviously, is impacting the price of gasoline, but it’s also impacting the price of everything.

I couldn’t help but picture the Harris family of seven as they load into their minivan and maybe head for a holiday this summer—the price that they’re going to be paying at the pumps to fill that van, at $1.65 a litre or whatever it is today. That family of seven—incidentally, when I think about it, if the Harris family was a caucus, they’d be almost the same size as the Liberal caucus here in the Legislature—can rest assured that they’re getting a 10.7-cents-a-litre break from Premier Ford and our government here in Ontario. They’re also not going to have to pay the tolls if they come visit me in eastern Ontario. The tolls are gone in eastern Ontario. Licence plate sticker fees are gone.

This is the contrast between our government and the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and the federal Liberals. We’re looking to save people money. They’re making life more expensive. It’s time for them to scrap that tax.

As the NDP and the Liberals always look to increase taxes or make life more expensive for the people of Ontario, we’re trying to drive costs down through things like I mentioned earlier: the gas tax break; eliminating the licence plate sticker fees; income tax breaks; ending the tolls; making One Fare for our transit operators a possibility, saving people up to $1,600 a year. These are real, tangible impacts on families like the Harris family of seven and other families right across Ontario. We’re going to be there to help those families while Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax, and Justin Trudeau continue to make life more expensive for them.

Oh, Speaker. I’m not sure where the member was in February, but we actually announced the largest expansion of multidisciplinary primary care teams in Ontario.

And of course, last month, with the budget, we announced another over $500 million to expand primary care multidisciplinary teams.

I am hearing from multiple communities that have said they have already recruited, hired, and started to bring online new patients with these multidisciplinary teams. We’re hearing about it in Kingston. We’re hearing about it in Palmerston. We know that this is happening across Ontario.

I only wish that the member opposite would support our budget that increases, again, the opportunities for multidisciplinary team expansions in the province of Ontario.

I will say that we had, last week, residency students, medical students, who are matched with their specialty—100% coverage now in the province of Ontario, which, again, is a historic high. We have residency physicians who want to train as primary care doctors, who have been matched and are now working towards those goals.

When I see the expansions that we are doing with medical schools in Brampton and in Scarborough, it is incredible, the amount of investments that we, as a government, have made to ensure that, moving forward, we are never in the position that we were when we formed government, when Liberal and NDP governments continuously ignored the health care system at the—

Interjections.