I’d like to welcome my two new interns for the summer, Nimrit and Aflyn, who are here for question period this morning. Welcome to the people’s House.

Just building on my colleague from Essex, inviting Karen Bolger to the House, I also have Marilyn Godard, Liz Raffoul, Tim Davidson, James Washington, John Klassen and Paul Brennan from Community Living, Windsor and Essex. Thank you for being here. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

It’s my pleasure to introduce in the Legislature today representatives of the Ontario Marine Council: Guillaum, John, Dave, Kevin and Wes. Also, introducing the chair of the Ontario Marine Council: Steve Salmons is in the gallery.

I invite all the members to join them at their annual reception this evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the legislative dining room.

Speaker, I wanted to introduce a staff member of mine. Many of you will know him and probably have been on his podcast: Vincenzo Calla, who is a University of Ottawa student, and he’s joining me up here today from Nepean.

I want to welcome a constituent of mine who is here, Robert Smith, to the Legislature today. I’m looking forward to seeing you after question period. And also, a shout-out to Connor, Hayden and Marshall, who are here today as well. Welcome.

I also want to extend my personal and warm welcome to Community Living Toronto—I look forward to your reception this evening.

And a very special welcome to Winston Lee, who is my new intern. I hope you’ve made it into the chamber. I want to say thank you for all you’re doing so far.

I would like to welcome former senator the Honourable Dr. Asha Seth, Dr. Arun Seth, Suzanne Decary and Larissa Proctor from the CNIB. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

To reply, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.

Supplementary?

Minister of Health.

Minister of Health.

Once again, I need to remind the House that it has long 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 House has granted unanimous consent. 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’m going ask the member for Toronto–St. Paul’s to come to order.

I’m going to warn the member for Toronto–St. Paul’s.

I must name the member for Toronto–St. Paul’s. Jill Andrew, you must leave the chamber for the duration of the day.

MPP Andrew was escorted from the chamber.

This question is for the Premier. Today, the Ontario Medical Association confirmed what we all suspected, that this government has no plans to address the primary care shortage. In fact, if they keep it up, they’re on track to make the crisis in health care worse.

Family doctors are concerned that this government—and I want to quote them here—will “further erode the ability of family doctors in Ontario to build viable practices, and continue to put access to family medicine out of reach for a growing number of Ontarians.”

Further, we know that the number of physicians that are retiring far exceeds the number of graduates into family practice.

So the people of Ontario want to know, does the Premier agree that a strong recruitment and retention plan is necessary to care for the more than 2.3 million Ontarians who do not have a family doctor?

While this government is ignoring the crisis in primary care, we are seeing private, for-profit clinics popping up all over this province. They’re promising 24/7 access to primary care. But the catch is patients have to pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. This is all about making money off of very sick people, Speaker. It is shameful. There is something very seriously wrong with that.

The government is doing nothing to stop these so-called executive health clinics from gouging patients. So my question to the Premier is, is this government eroding the public health care system to help line the pockets of private clinic operators?

Interjections.

Physicians have been warning successive Liberal and Conservative governments for years about the consequences of not investing in primary care. So, Speaker, back to the Premier of this province, why is this government ignoring the solutions that are being proposed by family doctors?

Interjections.

I’m going to use this opportunity to do a bit of compare and contrast, shall we? So I look at what the NDP government did under Bob Rae. They actually cut the number of nurses and residency positions. Under the Liberal government, they cut 50 residency positions available for family physicians, for physicians looking to match a residency. What does that mean? That means today, we have over 300 less physicians practising in the province of Ontario.

Now, let’s compare that to what we have done since 2018. Since 2018, under the leadership of Premier Ford, we have seen a historic high of 12,500 physicians licensed to practise in the province of Ontario—a historic high. We are ensuring through last month’s matching of residency positions—those are young people, those are medical students who are matching with their residency specialty of choice—a 100% match in the province of Ontario. And, of course, we’ve actually increased—

Since February, we have already seen in Minto-Mapleton, in Innisfil, in Kingston that these primary care multidisciplinary teams have recruited and started taking on new patients. Those are patients who are being attached to primary care practitioners in the province of Ontario—78 that we announced in February. Of course, under the leadership of the Minister of Finance, we have made an additional investment of over $500 million in our most recent budget.

We’re getting the job done.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine today has 51% of their students wanting a match for a primary care practitioner position. The scope-of-practice changes that we are making to ensure that people see the right clinician when they are looking for assistance—we know that those changes, specifically with pharmacies, have led to a decrease in people going to emergency departments, because they have access at their local community pharmacy.

We will continue to do that work and make sure that Ontario continues to lead the Canadian federation in the number of physicians who are matched with patients—

Let’s talk about Brampton, Mr. Speaker, and what this Premier and this government have done for that city. In fact, it’s that same leader who lost three of her own MPPs because of the neglect that they have shown to cities like Brampton.

Let’s talk about the 413. Your position on that is to oppose it while the entire city and region needs it.

When it comes down to investing in new hospitals for Brampton, what did you do? You voted against that.

When it comes down to opening the new medical school, the first one in the GTA in over 100 years, what did the NDP do? They opposed that, Mr. Speaker.

We will continue to invest in Brampton, and I hope the NDP get out of their downtown bubble, come to the streets of Brampton, Mississauga and Peel region, and listen to the people and what they are saying. They want us to build roads, highways and transit, and that is exactly what we will do.

Interjections.

Start the clock. We can resume question period.

Once again, I recognize the leader of the opposition.

And the final supplementary?

Interjections.

The Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity.

Start the clock. The next question.

Yes, let’s talk about Peel. Peel doesn’t want the NDP to represent them, because Peel voted in all PC members to represent the Peel region. Why? Because the Liberals, supported by the NDP, for decades neglected the region of Peel: one hospital; didn’t rebuild the second hospital. But what is happening? We are building the second hospital in the region of Peel. We are making a highway to get people home faster so that they could spend time with their families. That is happening under the leadership of Premier Ford and this government.

So, yes, we will continue to represent the people of Peel, because we actually listen to the people of Peel, and we will continue to get the job done for the people of Peel.

My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. There have been over 14 wildfires recorded in Ontario already in 2024. This is in comparison to two fires recorded in the same period last year. According to wildfire fighters, we are still short 200 forest firefighters. Minister, what is your plan to fill the gap?

In the words of Noah Freedman, provincial fire crew leader, “If you don’t have enough, you have to decide what burns and what doesn’t.”

Minister, how will you decide which community the water bombers will go to first?

Interjections.

My question is for the Minister of Energy. The Liberal carbon tax continues to not only increase our energy and gas bills, but also drive up the cost of food, housing and so much more. That’s why, Speaker, it should be a given that all members in this Legislature oppose this tax. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Rather than join our government in calling for the federal Liberals to scrap this disastrous tax, the NDP and independent Liberals are choosing to play politics and ignore their constituents.

Our government stands with the families and people of Ontario, which is why we will not stop until the federal government finally listens and eliminates the carbon tax.

Could the minister please explain what steps our government is taking to support our clean energy future without resorting to the carbon tax?

If the member opposite wants to talk about statistics, the number of hectares is way down over a 10-year average already this year.

But, Mr. Speaker, we’ve been clear. I’ve been very clear in this House about the respect and support we have for our wildland fire rangers in Ontario. We have our crews ready to go. We have our aircraft ready to go. We have the people on the ground, doing the logistics, ready to go. In fact, we’re ready to help not only Ontarians, but other jurisdictions all throughout this great country of ours, should they be suffering during their forest fire seasons.

We have always made it a priority to look after the well-being of communities, infrastructure, individuals all throughout Ontario. That’s what our wildland firefighters do. We’ve got the crews on the ground, in the air and ready to go when the time calls for it.

We’ve got our attack bases all throughout the north, again, ready to go—ready to go to make sure that Ontarians stay safe. That’s the mission of this government. That’s always been the mission of this government.

Previous governments did not make the investments that we make today to make sure that we’re supporting our firefighters, to make sure that we’re doing the things that want to bring people into forest firefighting in Ontario. But the conclusion of all of this is that this government is the only government that is making sure that northern Ontario stays safe, grows and has opportunities.

Back to the Premier: Global News has just reported on the chaos and confusion that surrounded the Premier’s reckless decision to restructure and dissolve Peel region and then his—of course, we’ll all remember this—partial reversal, another giant flip-flop just months later. Billions of dollars in taxpayer costs were at stake, and the Premier either didn’t care or had no clue.

It seems like neither the transition board nor anyone in the ministry had any idea where the Premier was going with his plans for Peel. So when it comes to the restructuring of Peel, does this government have any idea what they’re doing?

Is the government solving problems for the people of Peel, or just insiders and land-hungry developers?

Interjections.

Yes, absolutely, Mr. Speaker.

Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development. We’ve heard it from Ontarians, from Premiers of all political stripes and from experts that the Liberal carbon tax needs to be scrapped, but the federal government is not listening. Instead, they hiked the carbon tax by another 23% last month—

Interjections.

Speaker, can the minister further share with the House how the Liberal carbon tax negatively impacts northern and Indigenous communities?