I’d like to extend our welcome and congratulations to the First Nations Technical Institute for hosting their morning reception. It was wonderfully attended, and everybody had a lot of good times but we also learned a lot. I want to welcome Suzanne Brant and Cathie Stewart Findlay.

I just want to welcome Nathan Core, the president of the Waterloo Region Occasional Teachers’ local, as well as my friend Jeff Pelich from ETFO. Welcome to your House.

I recognize the member for Thornhill on a point of order.

Minister of Education.

Minister of Education.

The next question.

I want to welcome everyone to join us at the flag-raising for Israel in celebration of their independence day, Yom Ha’atzmaut, just outside, right after question period.

This question is for the Premier. Yesterday, we gave the government an opportunity to put children, to put kids, first, an opportunity that this government passed on. We asked the government a simple question on behalf of our children: Will you fix our schools? The failure of this government to take inflation into its budget calculations is resulting in more crowded classrooms, more growing incidents of violence and more school programs that are disappearing day by day by day.

So I want to ask the Premier again: Will the Premier explain to the children of this province why he doesn’t like funding their schools?

Why is this government so determined to leave our education system worse than when they found it?

Interjections.

When the government cuts education funding it is parents who have to make up the difference—parents who are right now struggling already with the cost of living and are increasingly having to pay out of pocket for education supports, for activities and, yes, even for mental health supports. This government is cutting education funding for our schools to the tune of $1,500 per student. That’s a fact.

I want to know what the Premier thinks our children should do without. Is it breakfast programs? Is it counsellors? Is it music and sports—the things that bring joy in your life? What is it that this government expects our schools to cut and our children to do without?

Interjections.

The Minister of Health said that recruitment and retention of family doctors was “not a major concern.” I want to say that again: “not a major concern.” A quarter of patients in the Soo are without a family doctor. That’s not a major concern for this minister? Some 30,000 patients in Kingston are without access to primary care—not a major concern?

These comments are insensitive considering there are 2.3 million to 2.4 million people in this province without a family physician, but they are also dangerous. So I want to ask this government again, to the Premier: Does he really think it’s not a concern that millions of people are going without primary care?

When we came to office in 2018, the funding in Ontario was at $23 billion. Today it stands at north of $28 billion, a 22% increase in funding, proof positive of our government and Premier’s commitment to invest in publicly funded schools.

We are also the government that delivered stability for children, which your party and the Liberals could not achieve: four years of peace with Catholic and public and English and French. Two million kids have stability in the classroom, and I believe that is worthy of praise. All the parties came together for the benefit of children in Ontario.

When it comes to mental health, when it comes to preventing violence and injury of our staff and of our kids, we, as the government, are working with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to have increased funding in mental health by 577%. It is the most significant investment, and we mandated learning on mental health—the first in the country to do so. We’re going to keep investing to support our kids.

That is how we make a difference in Ontario schools: by investing in prevention and upstream investments and through curriculum. We’re working across ministries, from health to education to social services, to make a difference and keep our kids safe.

And Mr. Speaker, I found it very curious, the member’s motion yesterday includes a component about supporting parents financially, but the Leader of the Opposition led the charge against our support for parent payments when we gave $200 and $400—

Interjections.

This is what’s ironic about your motion: On one hand, you call for us to back parents, but if only parents knew that you voted against five iterations of payments to parents. It is regretful, it is shameful and it’s consistent with your support for higher taxation in this province.

My question is for the Premier. Today is the 10th anniversary of Children and Youth in Care Day, a day promised to kids who shared their stories, lived experiences and recommendations.

This morning, CUPE front-line child protection workers—many are here today—released their survey results of young people who are being warehoused instead of being afforded safe homes. The results are shocking: children and youth as young as two years old in hotel rooms, Airbnbs, for-profit facilities and on cots in children’s aid offices.

Will the Premier and his minister, today on Children and Youth in Care Day, commit to sustainable funding for safe homes for our most vulnerable children and youth?

Will the Premier and his minister commit today to honour their duty to Ontario’s most vulnerable children and properly fund our child welfare system?

Interjections.

Facts matter. The records matter, Speaker. In the NDP government, when they were in power for those short five years, and hopefully never again—and the Leader of the Opposition was a staffer at that time—they cut medical school enrolment by 10%. In 2015, the Liberal Premier cut 50 resident spots, which amounts to hundreds of fewer doctors serving in our province today.

We expanded the Learn and Stay grant—which, again, the opposition voted against—which provides tuition, books, supplies for nurses and other health care workers who work in underserved areas in our province. We’re also funding the largest expansion of the medical school spots in over 15 years, adding 1,212 undergraduate and 1,637 postgraduate seats across Ontario; 60% of these seats will be dedicated to family medicine.

What I do recommend is that the Leader of the Opposition gets her party to support our budget, Speaker.

Interjections.

Since 2018, we’ve registered over 80,000 new nurses in Ontario, as well as 12,500 new physicians, with 10% of those being family physicians. Last year alone, we registered 2,400 new doctors to practise in Ontario. That was a record-breaking year for nurses in Ontario, but we’re not stopping there. We will continue to ensure that the people of Ontario have what they need for health care.

We have 17,500 new nurses registered last year, which was a historic number, over 33,000 over the last two years. We’ll continue.

We’re investing significantly into our health human resources. In this year’s budget, we have over $740 million to address immediate staffing needs, supporting the expansion of over 3,000 new nursing seats across Ontario.

We’ll continue to do what needs to be done to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care system.

Speaker, we understand that more needs to be done. That’s why we’ve invested $110 million into interprofessional primary care teams, and then in this year’s budget, we actually added another $546 million. Over 600,000 Ontarians are going to receive the care they need.

We’ll continue to ensure that the health care system in Ontario is the best publicly funded system across all of Canada.

Speaker, I’m going to ask the member there, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, to really think about this: people being diagnosed with cancer, not in the comfort and the safety of their family doctor’s office, but in an overcrowded emergency room, how did they get there? Because they don’t have a family doctor. So by the time they get there—just imagine for a moment, to the member opposite, being the emergency room physician who then has to tell that patient that not only do they have cancer, but it has metastasized, because they couldn’t get to see their family doctor. They couldn’t get screening. This is not a major concern?

So I want to ask the member opposite: They’re having you answer all the questions today. Is this not a major concern for you?

It is unimaginable, Speaker, that this minister doesn’t see this as a concern; that this Premier and this member don’t see this as a concern. We are losing doctors and nurses and health care workers faster than we can recruit them.

I want the members opposite for just a moment to imagine being the mother of a newborn. You have so many questions; you have nowhere to go for answers. Imagine you’re the parent of a sick child and you live in the Soo and you find out now you have no family doctor. Where are you going to go?

Take some responsibility, own up to it.

Will this government admit that they have a problem on their hands and that it is unimaginable that their minister, who was supposed to be responsible for this, refused to live up to her responsibility?

Interjections.

The parliamentary assistant, the member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

Supplementary question?

The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

The member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry to reply.

Supplementary?

Minister of Children, Community and Social Services.

Since Minister Jones was sworn in as Minister of Health, our government has registered a record number of new nurses two years in a row, registering a total number of 32,000 nurses in Ontario. We achieved this by directing the College of Nurses of Ontario and the college of physicians of Ontario to break down barriers for internationally trained and educated health care workers, and expanding programs like the Learn and Stay grant, which, I will remind the House, the opposition voted against.

Our government has invested nearly $1 billion into the home and community care sector. This funding has not only added thousands of PSWs—in fact, we’ve added nearly 25,000 since 2021—but it has also increased compensation for the PSWs, nurses and other front-line health care providers to further stabilize the workforce.

We know that more needs to be done, and that’s why as part of our 2024 budget, our government is investing another $743 million to continue to grow our health care workforce.

We will continue to do what needs to be done to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care system.

Order.

Stop the clock.

Interjections.

The next question.

Merci au député de Perth–Wellington. C’est vrai que, ce matin, nous avons un ami du Québec. C’est tellement agréable d’avoir des gens qui partagent les mêmes idées ici. Le membre du Québec qui est ici en Ontario partage la même position en matière de ce qui concerne la taxe carbone.

C’est une taxe inutile. Ce n’est pas un plan d’environnement; c’est un plan budgétaire. Et notre voisin a le même message que notre gouvernement. C’est clair. En anglais, c’est « scrap the tax ». En français, c’est « restez à l’écart de nos affaires ». Le message est clair : il faut qu’on « scrap the tax ».

Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé. According to ministry data, Ontario is presently short 13,000 nurses; in a few short years, this number will rise to 33,000 nurses. The number one reason for this shortage is the workload that nurses face on each and every shift. What is this government doing to improve the workload of our nurses?

As incredible as it sounds, Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I introduced a new actor to the very complicated carbon tax royal love story. We talked about the king of the carbon tax, Prime Minister Trudeau, and his failure to rein in his friends and folks in the Liberal family and, of course, Prince Carney—a very smart man in his own right; just ask him—read the tea leaves. He said this is not a very good tax for Canadians right now. That’s interesting. I’m not sure whether it’s driven from his intellect or from polls, but here’s what’s clear: This introduced increased costs on every conceivable thing that the people of Ontario and the people of Quebec buy. From fuel to food, from appliances to planting their gardens this spring, there’s only one thing that’s going to pop up every single time, and that’s the carbon tax. That’s why we take the position to just scrap this tax.

Ma question est pour le ministre du Développement du Nord et le ministre des Affaires autochtones.

The Prime Minister has a new flashy video, but he’s not fooling anyone. Ontarians are paying more for food, gas and home heating. And at a time when we are facing a 40-year-high inflation rate the Prime Minster and the federal Liberals decided to hike the carbon tax by an additional 23%. You can hear the groans already from the independent Liberals. It’s clear that the Liberals in this place do not care about affordability and addressing that. Under their leader, carbon tax queen Bonnie Crombie, they are content with seeing the tax continue to rise and eventually triple by 2030. This is unfair to Ontarians that are paying for the expense of failed Liberal policies. The Liberal carbon tax must come to an end.

Speaker, with the summer quickly approaching, can the minister please explain how the carbon tax continues to burden every Ontarian?

While the members opposite have no regard for fiscal discipline, as the people in Ontario truly understand after 15 years under the previous Liberal government, our government will continue to put Ontarians first, protect their hard-earned paycheques and savings.

Can the minister please share with our House today how our government remains steadfast in investing in the priorities that resonate with the people of Ontario while the NDP and Liberals across the aisle continue to support the carbon tax?

Thank you to the member for that question.

On this side of the House, we know that Ontario’s prosperity hinges on our ability to address the pressing issue of our province’s labour shortage, particularly in the skilled trades. Sadly, the carbon tax is only increasing these issues.

Ontarians are deeply concerned about the cost-of-living crisis that the carbon tax has created. While the Crombie Liberals would like to separate this issue, we, on this side of the House, know that the cost of workers don’t just end at the workplace. Whether it’s being able to cover the cost of one’s commute or the ability to invest in the tools and skills that you need, we know that it’s just essential for workers’ success.

We see the Liberals at every turn working hard to make it harder for Ontarians to survive. In stark contrast, our government has adopted a wholly different approach. We’re committed to empowering our workforce by launching a comprehensive skilled trades strategy, supporting nearly $1.5 billion in funding over the next four years.

Together, we are unified in our effort to build a future our province deserves.

My question is for Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. The Liberal carbon tax raises the price of absolutely everything in our province and is hurting our economy and our workers. It drives up the costs of everyday essentials like food, heating and transportation.

With a rapidly growing population, we need all hands on deck to start building right across Ontario, but the costly carbon tax is hurting our workers’ ability to invest in their skills and development to build a better future for Ontario. The federal government needs to finally listen to what our government has been asking from day one and eliminate this job-killing tax.

Speaker, can the minister outline the steps that our government is taking to fight the carbon tax and to ensure Ontario has the workforce that we need to start building for the future?

You know what we are doing? Training more PSWs, more nurses, initiatives like the Ontario Learn and Stay program. We have 3,500 graduates coming through the program that are nurses, lab techs and paramedics in underserved regions of the province. These students have their educational costs covered by the government in order to fill those spaces. In fact, there are actually six students for every nursing space in Ontario. This is a growing profession, and we have students across the province who are looking to become nurses.

We are going to continue to work with our post-secondary partners to ensure that we have nurses, paramedics, lab techs and PSWs across Ontario.