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?

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.

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?

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—

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?

To reply? The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, the member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

What’s the plan?

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?

Scraping the bottom of the barrel there.

Since this government won’t do anything for CHEO and their physician shortage, let’s talk about Grey county. Local residents are here today in the hope of finally getting some answers from this government. They are losing all of their in-patient beds at Durham hospital, meaning that patients can’t be kept overnight. Not only that, their emergency room is going to be permanently shut after 5 p.m.

We’ve been raising this with the government for years now. The community has experienced rolling closures in Chesley, in Kincardine, in Walkerton and Durham hospitals. For a month, their local councils have been asking the Minister of Health for a meeting—I mean, a call; frankly, any explanation for any of this. But what they got? Silence.

My question is to the Premier: Will the Premier do what the minister will not and commit to meeting with the people of Grey county today?

Health care workers across the province have not forgotten about Rae Days. I know the Leader of the Opposition really doesn’t like me to bring it up, but she was a staffer in the Rae government, as well as some of their other caucus members.

It does take time to reverse the poor Liberal policies. Unfortunately, the NDP cut the amount of residency seats by 10%. The Liberals cut 50 seats. We are going to continue making those investments that are needed to ensure that our health care system functions properly after 15 years of a Liberal-NDP coalition that put us into this mess in the first place.

The South Bruce Grey Health Centre is governed by a local board of directors to best serve their local community needs. When reviewing their community needs, they’ve decided to refocus the resources at Durham hospital to primary care and urgent care. This will result in expansion of care beds at Walkerton and Kincardine hospitals as Durham shifts to primary care and urgent care. With many patients in the Durham region community without a family physician, this focus will be imperative.

The South Bruce Grey Health Centre changes will have no impact on the level of care, while retaining the existing staff. These changes will ensure a stable and sustainable health care system that will better serve the local needs. The Ministry of Health, Ontario Health and South Bruce Grey Health Centre will continue to work together for longer-term solutions to health care in South Bruce Grey.

Under the leadership of Premier Ford, our government has made record investments into the health care system. Since 2018, we’ve increased the health care budget by over $18 billion, investing over $85 billion into the system this year alone.

Speaker, we will continue to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care system all across Canada with our investments into our system.

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.

Speaker, any tax hikes are misguided.

Look at what our government is doing. Yesterday, we welcomed a $1.6-billion investment from Asahi Kasei to build an EV separator plant in Port Colborne. We’ve now landed $43 billion in new EV investments in the last four years; that is more than any US state. These investments are creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs right across our province. How? Because we’ve reduced taxes right across the province. We’ve lowered the cost of doing business by $8 billion each and every year.

Speaker, we’ve shown the Liberals the way: Lowering taxes is how you bring wealth to an economy.

Axe the tax.

We took the opposite approach. We have lowered taxes in Ontario. We have cut red tape. We have lowered electricity rates. That’s why 700,000 more men and women are working today and manufacturing employment is now at the highest level in 15 years.

The Liberal agenda of high taxes does not work.

Our message is very clear: Scrap the carbon tax today.

Minister of Education.

The supplementary question?

I’ll remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The next question.

Supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker, we took action to sign a better deal with the federal government. The members opposite urged this government to sign the first deal available that would have precluded 30% of the market—70,000 spaces.

The member opposite asks me why operators aren’t receiving support, and yet they wanted us to remove the ability of government to fund 30% of our operators, who are for-profit child care owners, often women that run these businesses, often one or two operations. So you’ve got to pick a lane. You can’t argue that we need more capacity and then single-handedly urge the government to deny 30% of families access to this program.

We are standing up for flexibility and affordability. We are delivering on our commitments, but the one challenge we face is the federal government has imposed a ceiling on growth because of an ideological adherence, the same one the NDP seems to champion today.

Stand up for families. Support choice. Every parent in Ontario deserves—

Interjections.

We’ve increased tens of thousands of spaces—31,000 spaces within our schools—and members opposite should make it aware to the families watching that you opposed the expansion of spaces and the reduction of fees. You actually would have made it worse. Wait-lists would have been longer because the opposition wants to impose blind adherence to ideology instead of standing up for every single parent in Ontario. And so the opposition should get on board with what every parent instinctively knows: Child care was too expensive under the Liberals, it’s finally more affordable under our Progressive Conservative government.

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. Your government has failed to implement the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program. Child care operators, stakeholders and advocacy groups have been raising red flags that your minister has not delivered the $10-a-day child care spaces that were promised. Ola, a child care provider, pulled out of the program, citing a broken funding model.

Everyone wants to know where the money is being spent. Your budget doesn’t even mention the words “child care.” Will the Premier commit to requesting the Auditor General provide a full report of government spending on the $10-a-day child care program?

Families, Speaker, are paying the price for this minister’s lack of action and his failure to implement the $10-a-day child care spaces. Wait-lists keep growing, and parents can’t access affordable child care.

Families have lost trust in this government’s ability to deliver affordable child care. This government won’t even publicly report on how many of the 41 child care spaces they created in 2019 are subsidized spaces—they won’t even report on that.

This government has not met with their own advisory group on the funding issue since last June. Families and child care providers want to know why this government continues to hide, and when will they finally come up with a funding formula that will work for kids?

My question to the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. The Liberals continue to tell Canadians that their carbon tax is the only way to fight climate change, but the people of Ontario know that paying more for gas and groceries is not fighting climate change. In fact, in my riding of Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, all we have to do is look across the St. Lawrence River, south of the border, to our biggest trading partner, the United States—they don’t have a carbon tax, but yet they managed to have greater emission reductions than Canada.

My question to the minister is: Please explain why the Liberal approach to fighting climate change through the carbon tax is a misguided approach?

While Ontario’s economy, as you noted, Minister, has made significant progress since we took office, just imagine what we could do in Ontario if the Liberals scrapped the carbon tax.

Speaker, can the minister explain our approach to economic growth and how it’s so, so different from the Liberal approach?

My question is to the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery. Minister, auto theft is happening every day across this province. Car thieves are gaming the system and are able to get new VINs for stolen vehicles at ServiceOntario counters. This government has reportedly been getting advice from current and former law enforcement and insurance experts about how to prevent re-VINing. This is more than a loophole, it’s a highly lucrative scam that this government knows about but isn’t fixing.

So my question is, why is it so easy in Ontario to get stolen vehicles legitimized with a new VIN?

Provincial centres like ServiceOntario do not have a system that checks if VINs already exist in other jurisdictions.

In Ontario, someone can steal a car, register it, make quick cash and be good to go.

So my question is, what is this government doing to protect the VIN registry and Ontarians from car thieves?

Speaker, there is no reason people should live in fear of their cars being stolen or their homes being burglarized. That’s why our government is using all the tools available to immediately put an end to the increase in auto theft.

At our ministry, we have implemented many security measures with ServiceOntario. All employees at ServiceOntario centres go through a rigorous screening process and receive constant training to ensure that government services remain safe.

Under Premier Ford, this government takes matters of consumer protection very seriously. We will never stop taking action to protect Ontarians.

Interjections.

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

To reply, the Solicitor General.

The Minister of Energy can reply.

I apologize to the member from Kingston and the Islands for making him wait. I recognize him for the next question.

Supplementary question?

Government House leader.

Interjection.

Sorry; I apologize to the government House leader.