Speaker, the 2024 volunteer service awards took place last week to recognize thousands of volunteers across the province for their countless hours of dedicated service. This is Ontario’s premier event, and I’m so pleased today to highlight the eight outstanding members from my community of Oakville North–Burlington.

Three individuals with five years of service are Pannaga Adiga with the Sringeri Vidya Bharati Foundation Canada, Thomas Aro with the 23 Division community policing liaison committee, Toronto Police Services, and Denise Noguchi with GlobalMedic, the David McAntony Gibson Foundation; for 25 years of service, Chi Kan Li with the 38th Mississauga Scout Group; for 35 years of service, Edward Anczurowski with the Knights of Columbus; and youth recipients Frank Liu, Jessica Wang and Michael Yu from the Oakville Chinese Network Society.

Speaker, I believe we can all agree that volunteers are the heart and soul of communities, driving positive change, fostering connections and making our province a better place for everyone.

Congratulations to these worthy recipients and thank you for all you do to support our community.

I would just like to highlight I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga–Malton, as well as the member for Oakville. Madam Speaker, I’m pleased to be here before you to discuss Bill 180, Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024.

Madam Speaker, our government is always keeping the needs of Ontarians firmly in sight. Every day across the province, people are headed to their place of work or the businesses they own. Patients are headed to their health clinic. Students are headed to their classrooms. Young families are headed to daycares or their play dates. Seniors are headed to meet their friends at the park for some exercise and some socializing. It is these people, Madam Speaker, who we keep in our sights and for whom we’ve prepared our 2024 budget and the measures found in Bill 180. That’s because they’re going about their lives despite the challenges of our times.

Despite a challenging global economic situation, our government is moving forward with our plan and building a better Ontario for them. People in governments around the world today are seeing and coping with high interest rates and global instability. Like people everywhere, governments have to make plans and decisions in light of these rates and this instability.

I stand before you today and say that, with this reality in mind, our government remains on a path to build for the long term while keeping costs down now for Ontarians. This is reflected in our budget with our proposal to extend the gas and fuel tax cuts to continue helping families and businesses when the cost of living is simply too high.

It is also reflected in our work to support our historic and vital investments in infrastructure across the province through the Building Ontario Fund. It is reflected in our changes to the Liquor Tax Act to help supply and support Ontario’s world-class winery sector.

I recognize the member from Oakville.

I want to thank the member from Waterloo for a very compelling 60-minute speech and bringing back some great memories from the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, particularly the incident in Oakville, which, I think, can’t be matched by any other experience.

I think every member in this House wants as much health care for their constituents as possible. That’s why I’m so happy to see new investments in health care, particularly in my riding, Windsor–Tecumseh. One of the reasons I’m here is, basically, the NDP candidate in my riding did not support the hospital, so the community responded.

These include $2 billion in over three years in home and community care, ensuring that people get the care they need right at home, and an unprecedented increase of 4% in funding for hospitals to ensure that they have the supports that they need to provide critical care to the people of Ontario.

I haven’t mentioned the new medical school in Canada that is focused on training family doctors.

So, Speaker, my question to the member from Waterloo is this: Our government is making historic investments to help Ontarians in health care. Will you join us in supporting those investments in this budget?