I’d like to welcome the parents of one of our staff members from the Ministry of Long-Term Care: Speranzo Guida and Francesca Guida. Welcome to the House.

I’d like to introduce my friend Diane Elms and welcome her to the House. Diane is a trusted voice, a respected homeopath with many years of experience as a natural health care researcher and practitioner focusing on drugless cancer care.

Welcome to the House, Diane.

I’d like to welcome a constituent, Robert Palm, who is here. He saw the unanimous passing, third reading, of Garrett’s Legacy Act, which is also a tribute to his daughter, Jaime Palm.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome a group of seniors from North American Seniors club who are visiting Queen’s Park today. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I would like to welcome Natalie Mehra and the 6,000 people from the Ontario Health Coalition who will be on the front lawn of Queen’s Park right after question period. Please come and join them. They come from all over the province.

I’m delighted to invite the House and everyone listening to Downtown Milton SummerFest this Saturday.

Just to give you an idea, the small stretch of main street that hosts this festival was built for a town of 3,000 to 5,000 people, and yet, every year, we welcome 35,000 attendees at this festival. In addition to food, drinks, vendors and everything else, we also have eight different concerts—not at the same time.

I would love to see my colleagues and everyone listening out there come out to Milton and enjoy some of the hospitality my community has to offer.

On a point of order, I recognize the member for Peterborough–Kawartha.

I’m very pleased to be able to welcome my husband, Matt Helleman, and my daughter Mira Pasma-Helleman to the House today.

Thanks so much for coming to spend time with me, guys.

Each year, our government invests nearly $50 million to connect hundreds of thousands of Ontarians to primary care through 25 nurse practitioner-led clinics across the province. Ontario is the first jurisdiction to use the nurse practitioner-led-clinic model of care, and we will continue to use this innovative way of delivering publicly funded primary care to connect hundreds of thousands of people across the province to the care they need.

Speaker, this year, we invested a record $110 million to create 78 new and expanded interprofessional primary care teams; and then in this year’s budget, which the opposition voted against, we’ve expanded that to $546 million over the next three years, to another 600,000 Ontarians to receive primary care.

While the opposition continues to stand in the way of our innovative ways of delivering publicly funded health care, we will continue to do what’s needed to get the job done for the people of Ontario.

Speaker, if someone is wrongfully charged for health care services, we will investigate it. That has always been the case.

We’re investing a record $85 billion into our publicly fund health care system this year, which is a 30% increase from when we took office in 2018. We’ve invested into our primary care expansion of $546 million over the next three years—to expand our primary care to another 600,000 Ontarians. We’re also investing in hospital infrastructure, with over 50 projects under way, with $50 billion associated with that.

Ontario has the most internationally educated nurses in Canada, with internationally trained nurses now making up 41% of the new applications to the College of Nurses.

Speaker, in Ontario, we have a plan and it’s working. And the opposition will continue to vote against our plan.

Last year, we registered 2,400 new physicians, with 1,000 of them being internationally trained, which the opposition voted against.

Speaker, Ontario is the first province to have a publicly funded nurse practitioner-led clinic.

In addition, the new Practice Ready Ontario program will add 50 physicians this year. The new and expanded teams are the results of a province-wide call for proposals that took place in 2023.

Ontario leads the country in how many people benefit from the long-term, stable relationship with a family doctor or primary care provider. Since 2018, the province has added over 80,000 new nurses and 12,500 new physicians, which is actually outpacing the growth of the province.

Speaker, what Ontario parents want is that their kids are financially literate and graduate with life skills in this province—which is why we brought forth a comprehensive plan today to do just that.

The Leader of the Opposition has a history of voting against every single investment in our school-building fund.

It was Premier Doug Ford who doubled the funding to build more schools, who cut the timeline in half, who actually achieved the Auditor General’s recommended investment of maintenance funding.

But the member opposite lacks the courage to stand up to the TDSB, which many of her compatriots sit on, and insist to the NDP trustees of the board to actually do their job and invest the money in that very roof.

It is comical that you think it’s acceptable they’re sitting on $300 million when they ought to be investing it in our school system. They are the only board to have done so. We passed a law to prohibit it in the future. It’s unacceptable. We’re standing up for students.

“Invest in our schools” is our message to the TDSB.

My goodness, 22% increase in funding—we doubled the funding, 136% increase in capital. We added $1.3 billion of investment. We cut the timeline in half—maintenance funding, as encouraged or recommended by the AG, at 2.5%, which we have done.

This school board, specifically, is literally sitting on $300 million of cash—so much so that they conceded yesterday that they don’t even have the capacity to spend it all because there aren’t enough skilled trade workers to do it. It’s not a lack of money. It’s a lack of will.

Stand up to the school board and demand better for your kids.

We announced today a plan to introduce Ontario’s first financial literacy graduation requirement, that actually will ensure young people graduate with real life skills and practical knowledge on how to balance a budget, live a life of purpose, save and retire.

We announced a plan today to hold new educators to account, something the Leader of the Opposition would never do—they’ll never stand up to the teacher unions—while we expect better from our new educators by imposing the math proficiency test, elevating standards; something that is radically different from the NDP, who want to water us down and talk us down in this province.

We announced a plan to introduce home economics—a modernized version.

This is how we restore life skills, job skills and give young people knowledge they can apply to their lives.

Well, Madam Speaker, the member is right about that. We’ll keep voting against the privatization of health care every single time. You can be sure and you can count on that.

The government keeps repeating the same line over and over again—that people are paying with their health card and not their credit card—but it’s simply not the case. You will, as Ontarians, have to pay for this, and you’re already doing it—countless publicly reported examples of patients who are having to pay for upgrades before they’re eligible for OHIP-covered services in private clinics. Over and over again, it’s happening right now. It’s costing patients, it’s costing their families, and it’s happening at a time when the cost of living has become absolutely unbearable for most people.

So I’m going to ask the Premier again: Why is this Premier expanding pay-for-it health care?

I was in a school, last week, where I asked grade 4 and grade 5 kids what their dreams are for their school. I asked them, if they could have anything at all in this school, what would they want? Do you know what they said? They said, “Can you bring back the soap in the soap dispensers?” That’s what their dreams are right now.

That is the state of education in the province of Ontario right now—no soap; leaky roofs.

This government is failing the future of our province.

Can the Premier explain why his Minister of Education thinks the learning conditions of Ontario’s students are not his problem?

Meanwhile, Ontario is facing a whopping $16.8-billion school repair backlog. We know both Liberal and Conservative governments have left our schools crumbling. Students are left to learn under caved-in ceilings or in classrooms with garbage bins that are collecting the rain. We’ve all seen it on this side—boy, have we.

The minister can blame the school boards all he wants, but they at least are legally bound to balance their budgets. And it’s basic math—when the minister underfunds them by millions of dollars, they are forced to make cuts, and they are not going to be able to make repairs.

So I want to ask the minister again—and the Premier: When is this Premier going to make his minister take some responsibility—

The TDSB alone is facing a deficit of $26.5 million.

In Thames Valley, classroom supplies are scarce amidst an $18.5-million deficit, the largest they’ve ever seen.

Ottawa-Carleton is facing $70 million in deficits.

The minister says there’s historic education funding, but a budget that ignores inflation is a budget that ignores reality. The only thing historic is the fact that our kids are now lobbying us to fix the roofs of their classrooms, to bring back soap in the bathroom, and to keep the lights on in classrooms.

I want to ask the Premier, do we need to hire a lobbyist or reach out to you on Gmail to get some answers?

I recognize the leader of the official opposition.

My question today is for the Minister of Energy.

Do you know what? It has been two months since the federal government increased the carbon tax by a whopping 23%, and everything seems to be getting more expensive. Speaker, while the Liberals like to blame everyone else for the damage they’ve caused, Ontarians know that their costly tax has driven the cost of living to record highs.

The carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, along with her Liberal caucus continue to prop up their federal buddies’ costly measures, despite witnessing the financial hardship Ontarians are facing. I hear this every day when I’m knocking on doors.

On the contrary, our government has been opposing the carbon tax since day one. We want to keep costs down for Ontarians and deliver real affordability.

Speaker, can the minister please explain why the carbon tax must come to an end?

Life is harder under the Liberal government and its flawed policies. The federal government and the Liberal members sitting in this Legislature must come to their senses and give a break to Ontarians who just want a vacation this summer.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how the carbon tax continues to hurt every single person living in this province?

Honestly, it’s an unfortunate question from the member opposite, because the member would know that members on all sides of the House would take this very seriously, and to assume anything less really is beneath the dignity of every member in this place.

The member, who is a long-time member of this House, would also know that the government does not direct committee business. The member would also know, being a long-time member, that there is a subcommittee that works on each committee, and that subcommittee is made up of a member of the NDP, and it is made up of a member of the government party. So what I would suggest the member opposite do is reach out to the subcommittee member from her party on that committee to call a subcommittee so that they could bring a study forward. I know that they have been working very closely together, in fact. The NDP member of the subcommittee and the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler have been working very closely to put together a very thorough study on this, and I trust that—

My question is for the Premier.

On May 14, this government chose to silence the voices of survivors by sending Lydia’s Law, Bill 189, straight to committee without debate, claiming it expedites the process.

Yesterday morning, I asked the Chair at justice committee if they had received instruction to review Lydia’s Law at committee. The answer I got was no. They had received no instruction. There is no timeline for when this bill will be called.

There were 1,326 sexual assault cases thrown out of court in 2022. I hope that we can agree that rapists should not be walking free in the province of Ontario.

My question to the government: Why did you silence survivors on May 14, and when will you call the bill to committee?

This government is knowingly and deliberately starving the system, and sending a message to survivors and families across Ontario that they do not care about the lived injustices that women have experienced.

If expediting was the goal of the government, why hasn’t the committee been instructed to call the bill? If you had read Lydia’s Law and if you had read Lydia’s victim impact statement, you would never have deferred this piece of legislation to committee, where it is languishing.

Lydia asked me, “Why would women report, knowing how broken the system is?” This is our opportunity to correct that system. We need to change the justice system because the status quo isn’t working, and change begins with transparency.

My question, again: When will the government call the bill at committee so that survivors can get the justice they deserve in this province?

I recognize the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health.

On May 10—this is to the Premier—last year, this government’s Minister of Health stood in this House and said, “The Minden hospital is not closing.” Yet, two weeks later, on June 1, they took down the hospital sign and they rolled the beds out in a minivan, and that hospital has been closed ever since.

The community warned this government that closing that emergency room was going to take lives.

Last summer, a father had a heart attack in Minden. He was rushed in an ambulance to the next nearest hospital, in Haliburton. He died of a cardiac arrest five minutes from the destination.

A girl with a fish hook in her eye in Minden had to be transported 30 minutes to Haliburton.

Two weeks ago, the Haliburton hospital—the one remaining emergency room in the community—was without a doctor for at least four hours.

Will this government acknowledge its mistake and reopen the Minden emergency room?

Durham hospital in West Grey is this government’s next Minden. On Monday, their emergency room will close 14 hours per day, and all in-patient beds will be closed. West Grey town council had to declare a state of emergency. South Muskoka Memorial Hospital is going down the same path, looking at closure. And the hospitals in Chesley, Clinton, Almonte, Arnprior, Campbellford, Hawkesbury, Listowel, Mount Forest, Palmerston, Seaforth, South Huron, Walkerton, Wingham—their list goes on—are not far behind.

How many rural hospitals does this minister intend to close?