It’s the first time I’m probably going to talk about my French bulldog, Kevin. This guy is three years old and cost me a fortune, but I can’t see life without him at home. I understand that his health care—well, to me and to my wife, he’s our little fur baby. I can’t imagine life without him.

Vets play a crucial role in our families here in Ontario.

I was curious about this legislation and how it could help to remove some of the barriers for entry into becoming a veterinarian and some of those barriers that people face today.

It is PSW Week here in Ontario, and I want to introduce some really cool people from the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association in the House today, including CEO Miranda Ferrier, Ian DaSilva, Nicole Crawford, Becca Stolp Romanowicz, Tonya Haevens and Kaitlyn Cannon.

Thank you for all that you do. You are the backbone of long-term care in Ontario. Welcome to the Legislature.

The member addresses something extremely important, which is planning for the future.

I think back to 2006, when the government of the day introduced something called the Ontario growth plan, which said they knew Ontario was going to grow at a record pace. But we also knew, at the same time, that we have an aging population, which means that we have record growth within the senior sector.

Speaker, the last Liberal government, even though they knew about this growth, failed abysmally to plan for that growth. In fact, they said they were simply hoping for the best. They made this plan to build 35,000 spaces in long-term care—and guess what? They missed the mark by 33,000. When they left government in 2018, they had built a net new 611 beds.

That’s exactly why this government, after years of neglect by Bonnie Crombie’s party over there, is getting it right. We’re building for seniors. That is our plan. It is simple: Let’s build. Since 2018, 18,000 spaces have been built or have shovels in the ground.

We are working for our seniors because they worked for us. We’re taking care of them in Ontario.

Willowdale—four and a half kilometres north to south, three and a half kilometres east to west. I have more spaces being built in my riding alone than the Liberals built over their entire mandate in the province of Ontario. And that’s the story across every single region.

I have letters here from members of the independent party, from the members of the NDP, asking for more development in their neighbourhoods, because they understand something very important: that seniors took care of us, and it is our turn to take care of them. That is what this government is doing.

We are supported by the Ontario Long Term Care Association, who says, “No ... jurisdiction has made this level of continued commitment and investment in long-term care.”

Speaker, this Premier is showing his leadership in taking care of our seniors. We’re getting it done for those who took care of us in Ontario.

Oh, sorry; I didn’t see my friend from Richmond Hill there.

Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. I enjoyed the minister’s remarks, and you talked about the importance of getting more women into the workforce. So you mentioned some of those numbers. I think you said one in 10 in some of the trades that you had gone through.

I’m curious; how do you feel that we can progress towards defining that success and that gold standard of having that equal opportunity for women? How will this legislation improve those conditions so more women can get to that gold standard?