I would like to welcome, from my riding of Waterloo, Sara Casselman, who’s the executive director of the sexual assault support centre. Welcome to your House, Sara, and thank you for participating in the press conference.

I have students from St. Demetrius and staff and volunteers here today to tour Queen’s Park whom I’ll get a chance to speak with and meet, so, of course, I would like to welcome them to Queen’s Park.

If there are no objections, I’d like to continue with introduction of visitors. I heard a no.

I recognize the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

Government House leader.

Today, in the members’ gallery, we are joined by Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill, an amazing leader for Six Nations of the Grand River. They’re holding a reception today as part of their lobby day. We welcome them to this magnificent place. Colleagues, I ask you to drop by rooms 228 and 230 at lunch time to say hello and join us.

I had a great meeting this morning with MPP Burch. As well, in attendance were CAO Ron Tripp from the Niagara region, regional chair Jim Bradley, Daryl Barnhart, Adrienne Jugley, Mark Rupcic and Rachael Ball-Condron. Thank you for the meeting; we had a great time. Welcome to your House.

I’m very pleased to welcome Mike Shoreman to Queen’s Park. Mike was the first person with disabilities to cross the five Great Lakes by stand-up paddleboard—folks know him for that—but he’s also an excellent advocate for mental health and a great public speaker. We’re glad to welcome him back to Queen’s Park. Welcome back.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the members of Delhi Chandigarh Elite Indian Community. Please bear with me, Mr. Speaker, it’s a long list: Gaurav Shrivastava founder and CEO, Munish Wadhwa, Lalit Keram, Devyansh Kaura, Sanjeev Sharma, Neeraj Tripathi, Rajan Sethi, Vikram Dhawan, Sherwin Trindade, Sumati Makhija, Ekta Wadhwa, Heena Siddiqi, Harsimranjit Walia, Malika Narang, Nisha Sawhney and Kanika Grover. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to welcome Mr. Ross MacDonald to the Legislature today. Mr. Ross MacDonald is page Lise MacDonald’s grandfather. Lise and her grandfather are not from my riding, but Lise’s father, Anthony MacDonald, is a family physician in the town of Plantagenet in my riding. I had the opportunity to meet several times with Dr. MacDonald. He’s probably assisting patients at the Prescott and Russell long-term-care facility as we speak.

Again, I would like to welcome to Queen’s Park Mr. MacDonald. I have to say, he must be really proud of his son and his granddaughter.

I’d like to congratulate page captain Antonio Geremia from Niagara Centre for a job well done and welcome his parents, Kerri-Ann and Mario Geremia, to the Legislature. I look forward to having lunch with them this afternoon.

I want to introduce members from Beef Farmers of Ontario: Joe Dickenson, Jim Whitley, Thomas Brandstetter, Evan Chaffe and thank Craig McLaughlin, president, for the meeting earlier this morning. Thank you for all you do to grow Ontario’s beef industry. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I also want to welcome some good people from Durham, Dawn McNab and Kris Kennedy, who are the co-chairs of the Save the Durham Hospital committee, as well as everybody else who came to join us. Thank you for being here.

The House leader knows full well that if the government was going to vote for that bill, it would have ended up in justice committee anyway.

Months ago, a young woman named Lydia and her mother came to me and they shared their experience of navigating Ontario’s broken justice system. It took Lydia two years to get justice. She told me that she did not want any other survivor to go through what she went through and asked what I could do to help. I learned through stakeholder consultations just how broken and underfunded and retraumatizing the justice system is for survivors.

Lydia’s story represents the story of so many survivors in Ontario. Speaker, sexual violence disproportionately impacts women, girls and gender-diverse people.

To the Attorney General: You have silenced survivors in the court system, and now you are silencing female voices in the Legislature. What are you hiding from?

Interjections.

Speaker, if this government won’t listen to me, maybe they’ll listen to Lydia’s mother. She said:

“The most difficult thing a parent can ever experience is watching your child suffer. Throughout the over two-year court process for this trial, my daughter’s mental health suffered immensely ... due to court backlogs.

“With every delay, every setback in court, my daughter’s mental health deteriorated. She was revictimized and traumatized over the course of two years, in which during this period of time the accused (who was found guilty of all charges) was free to live his life”—but not Lydia.

To the Attorney General: Why are you attempting to silence voices like these and trying to prevent them from getting the justice that they deserve in this Legislature, in this province?

Interjections.

Again, in her opening comments, the member opposite frankly identifies that the bill would go to the exact same committee that we expedited the bill to yesterday. We were very clear that we thought that there are very important elements in the private member’s bill that the member brought forward.

But we’re undertaking right now a very comprehensive study into the challenges facing victims of intimate partner violence. The justice committee, which is, on our part, being led by a former crown prosecutor, is to provide recommendations to this Legislature, to the government, on how we can make the system better, how we can make those who provide services for victims of intimate partner violence better, how we can improve the justice system. We want to also ensure that the federal government understands how important this issue is to the people of the province of Ontario.

We’re not silencing anyone, Mr. Speaker. In fact, what we’re doing is showing how important it is and expediting that work, and the committee will continue to do that work.

What we want to see is, what are the obstacles that are being faced? We know that there are obstacles in the courts because the federal government seems somehow unable to appoint judges to the bench, which is causing delays, but there’s more to it than that, Mr. Speaker. We want to talk to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. We want to talk to the minister of family and children’s services, to the Minister of Housing—across government, to see what obstacles can we remove? How can we work better together? Are there provinces that are doing things better than we are doing? And how can we make changes that will provide victims of intimate partner violence real, real change so that they can move forward?

Ontario has some of the shortest wait times across the country, but we know there’s more to be done.

That’s why, this last summer, we announced that our government is investing an additional $330 million each year for over 100 high-priority pediatric-care initiatives across the province. I was at that announcement at CHEO, because that is my local hospital, and I will quote the CEO of CHEO—“the biggest children’s health funding announcement in provincial history.” This would help “unleash creative forces of children’s and youth organizations across the province.”

This investment includes hiring more pediatric surgical staff to increase the amount of day surgeries and increase access to diagnostic procedures for children.

Speaker, we’re ensuring children and youth in every corner of this province can connect to the care they need when they need it.

Our increase in pediatric surgeries has been supported by our government doubling pediatric ICU capacity at both McMaster and CHEO.

We’re taking the bold and innovative action to ensure Ontarians can connect to the care they need when and where they need it.

It took Ontario years of neglect by previous governments that were supported by the NDP unfortunately—and we’re fixing those mistakes that they’ve taken.

The Leader of the Opposition actually voted against our historic $330-million investment, but she doesn’t mention that in the House.

Screening and overall surgical wait-lists have declined to below pre-pandemic levels, with nearly 80% of all Ontarians receiving their surgery within the target time.

The number of pediatric surgeries taking place is up by over 30% of what surgeries were last year, with three of the five Ontario pediatric hospitals operating close to or near 100%.

With our Your Health plan, we’re growing our health care workforce to ensure Ontarians can access the care they need now and for years to come.

Speaker, I will remind the House that for a decade, the NDP propped up the Liberals, and that’s why—

I’ll tell you, Speaker, no one is buying that. No one is buying what they’re selling, I’ll tell you. I cannot tell you how disappointing this is for everybody here.

Let’s talk about another disappointing issue. While the Minister of Health dismisses and minimizes the doctor shortage in this province, the CEO and president of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, CHEO, says that their hospital has lost dozens of pediatric physicians since this government took office. CHEO is struggling to provide the early intervention that our kids need, and we know that it makes a world of difference for our children.

Does the Premier agree with his minister who thinks vacancies at children’s hospitals are not a major concern?

Interjections.

Wait times for MRIs and ultrasounds at CHEO are now the longest in Ontario. We have sick little kids transported out of the region, even out of the province, to get care; parents taking time off work; brothers and sisters taking time off school; little kids separated from their families and their friends while they’re getting treatment. Why? Because of the doctor shortage that this government and that minister refuse to even acknowledge, let alone fix.

So back to the Premier: Is this a major enough concern for his minister yet?

Interjections.

All you need to do is look at their own numbers: 3,000 physician vacancies right now across the province; a growing population; more physicians leaving the province every single day.

Here’s the problem: A child is sick. They can’t get treated because there aren’t enough doctors. Listen to the CEO and president of CHEO, for goodness’ sake.

What I and parents across the entire province are hearing from this Minister of Health is that this is not a major concern—not a major concern. If the people of Ontario cannot trust this minister to acknowledge the extent of the crisis in our primary care system, how can the Premier trust her to solve it?

Thank you.

The supplementary question? The member for Waterloo.

I remind members to make their comments through the Chair.

Government House leader.

Again, I remind members to make their comments through the Chair.

Government House leader.

The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health and the member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

The member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

The final supplementary?

To make sure that we understand, we’re talking about the town of Durham, not the region. Those good people are here today.

We’ve seen this all before with the closure of Minden hospital last June. This government starved rural hospitals and emergency rooms with chronic underfunding. They blamed the workers. They blamed the community. They blamed everything but themselves. After being ignored and dismissed by this government when the community of Minden asked for help, their local hospital officially closed their doors last June.

The good people of Durham are here today. They are living the same nightmare that Minden lived last year. Will the Premier assure the good people of Durham that their hospital will stay open?

Thank you to the member opposite for the question this morning.

The federal government has imposed this torturous federal carbon tax on the people of Ontario and the people across Canada, and we know that the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, is happy to have this carbon tax in place. Her counterpart federally, Minister Guilbeault, her buddy on Parliament Hill, has said that the queen of the carbon tax is happy to have that federal carbon tax in place. We know that the caucus here supports that increased tax and what it’s doing to drive up the cost of everything. The NDP supports that tax, and the Green Party leadership here supports that, as well.

I want them to hear this: Last night, I was speaking at the net-zero forum put on by the Transition Accelerator. They applaud our plan, which is reducing emissions and growing our province’s economy.

We are doing a lot. She referenced the massive energy procurement last week for storage. The largest storage facility is actually going to be in the riding of our good member from the riding that’s way too long to mention—the Brockville region. That’s going to ensure that there is secure, reliable electricity in eastern Ontario for future growth, the kind of growth that we saw yesterday, with Asahi Kasei—I said that wrong, but the Minister of Economic Development is going to support me on this. It was an almost $2-billion announcement down in the Niagara region yesterday, building on the $43 billion of new investment that we’ve seen across the province.

Our Powering Ontario’s Growth plan is working. Even the environmental organizations that I met with last night at the Transition Accelerator are endorsing the Powering Ontario’s Growth plan because we’re reducing emissions, providing reliable clean power for our province and watching our economy grow at the same time.

What’s the plan?

My question is for the Minister of Energy. The inflation affordability concerns Ontarians are facing right now are a direct result of the federal carbon tax. They are paying higher taxes and higher costs for the necessities of life, like food, gas and housing, and it is only getting worse from here. Families need a break.

However, the carbon tax queen Bonnie Crombie and her Liberal caucus are supporting their federal buddies who want to keep punishing Ontarians. That’s unacceptable.

Speaker, can the minister please tell the House how our government is working for the people while the Liberals are punishing them with higher taxes?

Since the introduction of this regressive tax, the cost of people’s everyday essentials has reached a new high. Businesses are raising prices to keep up with costs, families are cutting back on groceries and seniors are worried about being able to afford heating fuel.

Contrary to what the Liberal members in this House believe, the carbon tax is not in the best interests of Ontarians.

People are looking to our government to keep costs low and deliver real energy solutions. Last week, we concluded the largest battery storage procurement in Canada’s history to meet growing electricity demand. Speaker, can the minister please explain why initiatives like this procurement deliver better results than a costly carbon tax?