I’d like to welcome a good friend and my political assistant from Ottawa who is joining us here in Toronto today: Dave Williams.

I’m very pleased to introduce members from the Ontario Hospital Association. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I had the great pleasure to visit with Rachael Wilson, CEO of the Ottawa Food Bank, as well as Alex Noreau, who works in comms for the Ottawa Food Bank.

Thank you for coming to your House and for all the good you do.

I’d like to introduce Trevor MacKenzie, vice-president of Tribute Communities, from the great riding of God’s country.

I’m delighted to welcome once again my constituents from Markham–Unionville, Jennifer Ng and Ernest Ng. They are the proud parents of page Victoria Ng. Joining them today is Victoria’s youngest brother, Matthew.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome Kim Wilhelm, CEO of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region; Michelle Rickard, marketing and communications manager for the Food Bank of Waterloo Region; and Ashley Quan, senior manager, research and government relations for Feed Ontario.

Thank you for being here. Welcome to your House.

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.

It’s my pleasure to welcome my constituents Margaret and Richard Hensen from Oakville North–Burlington. They’re the parents of Mark Hensen, who works with our Premier’s office.

I want to welcome to the House today a good friend, Nikos Alexiou from UNICEF. Thank you for being here in your House.

Mr. Speaker, we have, from the great town of Kingsville, Mayor Dennis Rogers and CAO John Norton.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Speaker, I was joking.

Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the House to observe a moment of silence in remembrance of Nobel laureate, master of the contemporary short story and Ontarian, Alice Munro, who was the 13th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award, winner of the Trillium Book Award, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, and recipient of many other honours and awards, who sadly passed away on Monday, May 13, 2024, in Port Hope, Ontario.

I’m pleased to introduce, here in the gallery today, guests from the St. Thomas Elgin Food Bank: Karen McDade and Sarah Coleman. Welcome to Queen’s Park. We’re delighted to have you as guests today.

Interjections.

I heard a no.

Interjections.

Members will please rise.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

It is now time for oral questions.

It’s my pleasure to introduce Doreen Armstrong-Ross, CEO of Dryden Regional Health Care Centre, and Andrew Williams, CEO of Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, also from the great riding of Perth–Wellington.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Sue Lebeau, the CEO of West Nipissing General Hospital, and a dear old friend of mine, Mike Baker, the CEO of Temiskaming Hospital.

I would like to introduce the members of the Canada Chinese Mazu Community Centre tour team, who are sitting up there in the public gallery. They are Ye Feng, Li Rue-Jia, Huang Shengjia, Xie Xiumin, Lin Yang Zhong, Ma Haohua, Cai Limei, Li Antony Chang and Cheung Chiu Lie Lan.

As I said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I’m sorry that the Leader of the Opposition and her party are characterizing it that way.

What we did yesterday was in recognition, really, of the important step that this Parliament took as a whole with respect to the motion on intimate partner violence and the standing up of the justice committee, led by a former crown prosecutor, the member for Kitchener–Hespeler, to investigate how we can ensure that victims and survivors of intimate partner violence are better treated not only in the justice system, but by those who provide services for victims and survivors.

It seemed reasonable to me that we expedite passage of that bill into the committee so that it can also form part of the work that is being done by the standing committee on justice—very, very important work that is being done by that committee—so that it can report back to this Parliament, and as a whole, we can consider the options.

The leader of the opposition is quite correct; intimate partner violence and what we’re challenged with in that bill are two separate things but are often handled in very much the same way, not only in our court system, but by those who provide services for victims, survivors and their families.

We’ve heard from countless numbers of individuals that, often, services are fragmented.

We look at the work that was done by the member from Haliburton and the committee with respect to human trafficking.

We lead the world in how we handle and tackle human trafficking issues. I think this Parliament can do the same when it comes to these issues. We’re ready to do that work.

We have a lot of things that we do in this province very, very well. But what we have heard from victims, from their families, from survivors is that often those services don’t work well together. How can we make that change happen better?

I take it at full faith that the members opposite are going to work co-operatively with members from all sides of this House to move forward and do some very, very important work, similar to the work that we did, led by the member for Haliburton, with respect to human trafficking.

We want the same thing. To suggest that anybody is not hearing is just absolutely wrong.

Let’s take the opportunity to do something very special, to work across party lines and get this right.

We do have a plan. Since 2018, we’ve registered 12,500 new physicians in Ontario, including an almost 10% increase in family doctors. But we do know there’s more to be done. Our plan is reversing the old Liberal policies that were really short-sighted—they were supported by the NDP—that eliminated 50 medical residency school positions; that is hundreds of less doctors practising today in Ontario.

On top of that, we can go back to the Rae Days. The Leader of the Opposition—you were a staffer there. I know you don’t like the facts, but you were a staffer, part of the Rae Days, and you—

Interjections.

We’re working closely with MPP Romano on our expansion of primary care. As part of Ontario’s largest expansion of primary care, we’ve invested $1.1 million into two new teams in Sault Ste. Marie.

My question is back to the Premier.

It is unacceptable that they will stand here and say to the women who worked on Lydia’s Law, the women who travelled to Queen’s Park yesterday, and to Lydia herself, that it wasn’t their turn to speak.

The government says they need to know more before they can address the crisis in the courts. Well, yesterday they had a chance to learn, but they refused to listen.

Survivors of sexual violence are being told to wait until the government gives them permission to come to committee. They feel betrayed. Lydia feels betrayed.

Premier, how can the intimate partner violence study succeed when you have lost the trust of this community in this province of Ontario?

Interjections.