Thank you to the great member from Newmarket–Aurora for the question.

Speaker, food entrepreneurs are core ingredients in the recipe for thriving local economies and strong communities we can all be very proud of. That’s why I was thrilled to recently attend the Restaurants Canada 2024 trade show. And the message came through loud and clear: The federal carbon tax is taking a huge bite out of these businesses. I heard from the owners of a popular family diner, who said their monthly natural gas bill for operating ovens, fryers and kitchen equipment has increased significantly over the past year because of this tax. This is, sadly, just the tip of the iceberg. Across Ontario, restaurateurs, cafe owners and food truck operators are being threatened by escalating expenses on all fronts, thanks to the federal carbon tax.

I hope now the opposition will listen to the restaurateurs right across this province and tell the federal Liberals to—

Speaker, Ontario farmers, growers and food producers are the foundation of our economy and food supply chain. From the tender fruit orchards of Niagara to the innovative greenhouse operations around Leamington and the Holland Marsh, these multi-generational family businesses work tirelessly to feed us while sustaining good jobs.

The Liberals need to get out of their urban bubble and talk to the working people of Ontario.

Speaker, imagine you’re a fifth-generation egg farmer. Thanks to the carbon tax, your natural gas heating costs have tripled, but your sales have not. That’s money going out of your pocket instead of being reinvested into modernizing your operations and hiring more locals.

So you can thank a Liberal the next time you pay more for a carton of eggs at your local grocery store.

This Premier and government will continue to fight for Ontario’s small businesses, and we’re going to continue to call on the federal government to scrap the tax.

Thank you very much, Speaker—great to see you in the Chair today.

To everyone here in the House and for those watching at home, you have to know that our government has the most ambitious infrastructure plan in the province’s history. We’re making historic investments, including $100 billion over the next decade to build the roads, the highways and the public transit that our growing province desperately needs.

It’s such an easy thing to say “$1 billion,” isn’t it? What’s $1 billion? I’d like to have $1 billion, but how do you conceptualize $1 billion? I did a little math: If I handed you a hundred-dollar bill every second—every second—do you know how long it would take me to hand you $100 billion? Does anyone hazard a guess?

Interjection.

I like to do that because I like to simplify things. As an optometrist, sometimes we have to explain difficult concepts to people, and I like to simplify things down into simple concepts for myself, because if I can explain it to you—if you have pink eye, Speaker, and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on and how to resolve that situation, “Hey, this is what I’m going to do. This is why.”

It’s an astronomical number that most of us can’t understand, but we’re going to spend that money here in the province of Ontario to build the roads, to build the highways and to build the public transit that our growing province desperately needs. This includes almost $28 billion to renew, to build and expand our highway infrastructure in every corner of our province. We’ve seen the federal government waffle on this, and not long ago I think it was the Minister of the Environment who said there would be no more spending by the federal government on highways and then he had to backtrack and say that it was only for one specific project in Quebec that they weren’t going to support.

The reality is, we’re reliant on vehicles. The people of Ontario need to get from point A to point B, and whether those are electric vehicles—and it’s so great to hear about the announcements going on from the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. I think it’s $34 billion of investment in the auto sector in the province of Ontario now. That is going to make a difference in northern Ontario in the Minister of Mines’ riding. That’s going to make a difference in Windsor and Essex and in the southwestern part of the riding and clear across, and I think there will be even more announcements going on.

But we need cars, we need roads and we need infrastructure. We need to act very, very quickly in order to get these critical projects built, but as we all know here in this House, it’s so much easier to say things than it is to actually get things done.

This is at a time when many families feel that they’re struggling to get ahead. We need to take action to make life more affordable for people and for businesses.

The Get It Done Act gives us the tools to build quicker while keeping more of Ontarians’ hard-earned money in their pockets. That’s why our government plans to use the Building Transit Faster Act to designate the Hazel McCallion Line extensions as priority transit projects. This will allow us to build these much-needed extensions into downtown Mississauga and downtown Brampton more quickly, connecting communities throughout the greater Toronto area and expanding access to jobs and other opportunities throughout the region.

But that’s not all we are doing to transform public transit in our province. We’re investing another $80 billion over the next 10 years to build a world-class transit network for all Ontarians.

Speaker, the Get It Done Act will make it easier to get shovels in the ground on priority projects and build transit-oriented communities for our future. That won’t just affect us in our working careers; that’s going to affect generations of Ontarians to come. In fact, Speaker, shovels are already in the ground to build new subways like the Ontario Line, and I know we see some of that construction on University Avenue when we’re trying to get up here to this building, and yet it’s so exciting to see at the same time.

This is monumental, Speaker. With 15 new subway stations, the Ontario Line will accommodate up to 40 trains per hour and nearly 400,000 riders per day. Wait times for a train will be as short as 90 seconds, and we’re reducing crowding at some of the TTC’s busiest stations. We’re putting thousands more greater Toronto area residents within walking distance of public transit and expanding people’s access to jobs and other life-changing opportunities.

The Gardiner is under construction. That’s now under provincial oversight. I think we’ve all been stuck on it trying to get here and get away from here. Think what it will mean to be able to get those cars off the roads and people taking public transit to come into downtown Toronto. We are putting thousands more residents within that.

Contracts have already been awarded for building the southern portion of the Ontario Line: the paved tunnel and underground stations and elevated guideway in stations and contracts. Our government recognizes the importance of building transit that will connect communities and create new travel options for people all across the greater Toronto area.

And for those of you who are watching who are in my riding, that makes a difference. When you come into downtown for a hockey game or for a baseball game and get on at Aldershot from Brantford to take the train in, imagine what it means to be able to get here more efficiently. That’s why we aren’t wasting any time getting the Ontario Line built, and why we are looking to accelerate construction on other critical projects with the Get It Done Act.

We’re working each and every day to make transit a better, more accessible choice for commuters by breaking down financial and accessibility barriers to taking trains, taking buses and taking streetcars. That’s what we’ve done with the One Fare program, and that’s what we did by launching credit and debit card payments on GO Transit, the UP Express and the TTC. No Presto card? No problem. If you forget your card at home and haven’t had a chance to load funds, that shouldn’t stop you from getting where you need to go and when you need to get there. Riders can now tap their physical or digital debit or credit cards to board transit. Speaker, it’s that easy, and our transit network will only get better if the Get It Done Act passes.

Ontario is one of the fastest-growing regions in North America, and Ontario will grow by over five million people over the next 10 years. The greater Golden Horseshoe alone is expected to grow by one million people every five years, reaching almost 15 million people by 2031.

We in this House have a responsibility to build Ontario for the next generation of young people, young families and businesses. Unfortunately, the current gridlock commuters face each and every day on our highways and roads costs us more than $11 billion annually in lost productivity. Gridlock not only increases the cost of the things we buy, but it also reduces access to good jobs and forces too many Ontarians to sacrifice time away from doing the things that they love, just to get to and from work.

Speaker, I can tell you from personal experience that the commute from St. George to Toronto is often greatly hampered by gridlock. I get up at 5, I hit the road at 5:45, and I get here, well, lately between 7:15 and 7:30, and then there’s no point, really, in leaving before 6 or 7 o’clock in order to get home at a reasonable time, only to hit the sack, wake up and do it again. But it’s worth it, because my daughter gets that kiss in the morning before I leave. I don’t even know if she recognizes it, but I know she always mumbles something under her breath at 5:30 when I do that.

By addressing these issues, I, along with thousands of Ontarians, would be able to spend more time with family and less time stuck in traffic. Despite what some parties want people to believe, you simply cannot fight gridlock without actually building new highways. Highway 401 is already one of the most congested highways in North America, and with other major highways quickly reaching the breaking point, doing nothing is not an option.

That’s why we need to pass this act, and I’m going to ask all members in the House here this afternoon to do right by the people of Ontario and pass, with an overwhelming majority, the Get It Done Act.