Speaker, my question is for the Premier. We cannot take clean air for granted, especially as the climate emergency fuels more and more wildfires in our province. We just need to look back to last summer’s unprecedented wildfire season. In our communities, we all saw the smoky skies, felt it burn our lungs. We even smelled it right in this chamber.

Wildfire smoke is toxic. It contains ultra-fine particulate that penetrates deep into our body. Ontario has an Air Quality Health Index, but this ministry does not track that ultra-fine particulate, which is completely negligent; almost all other provinces do so, but Ontario hasn’t acted.

My question: When will you update the Air Quality Health Index so people have the information that they need to keep themselves and their families safe?

This government is also failing the people of Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Aamjiwnaang First Nation declared a state of emergency last month because of its high level of benzene pollution in the air. This government continues to ignore Aamjiwnaang’s air quality recommendations and failed to consult—

Interjection.

To the Premier or to the environment minister: Please explain why, in a First Nations community, you are allowing benzene to be emitted at concentrations that, hourly, would trigger a shutdown in California and are 10 times the annual amount that is allowed by any other emitter in the province? Please try and explain that.

I share my colleague’s complete disgust that we will not be sitting for 19 weeks.

There are so many things that have been described that people are facing: housing issues; homelessness; no family doctors; long, long emergency waits.

I particularly want to say that people also won’t have their voices heard in this House because we are ending this so early—petitions like the ones that I have here, that were signed by almost 1,000 people in six days, who are very upset with the suspension of programs at Fleming College, including programs that address environmental studies. That’s something this government could use—some lessons on environmental studies. We currently have a climate emergency, and this is a government with absolutely no climate plan. So that would have been a good petition for the government to have been able to hear.

I also would have been able to talk about the folks in Dresden who have a petition. They are concerned about the potential damaging impacts to Sydenham River by the Dresden landfill. You should have heard about that.

Finally, I have to say I’m absolutely horrified that in my riding there’s a for-profit blood plasma clinic setting up shop. They will pay for blood plasma, and they’re allowed to sell it internationally. The concern is that this is a company that’s going to prey on people who are already vulnerable, who already need income and would be prepared to sell their blood products for profit. That is a shame, and that’s something that this government should stay and hear about.

What I want to focus on is a very shocking report that has just been published, and it comes from the University of Toronto’s Investigative Journalism Bureau. This concerns our children in schools. We’ve already been hearing about how underfunded our schools are and the conditions that our kids are going to school in. We have the absolute tragedy of Landyn dying in an isolation room in a school because there were no resources, no staff there to support. That’s on this government.

This report from the University of Toronto’s Investigative Journalism Bureau is showing that toxic lead in Ontario schools is a significant and serious health risk. In fact, in the past four years, nearly half of the province’s schools have had at least one test for toxic lead fail. That lead-laced water has impacted more than 800,000 students and roughly 2,300 elementary and high schools all across the province. Our children are going to school and if they drink the water, they are drinking lead, and I am sure that the government is aware of this, because we know that the schools have an infrastructure backlog of billions. But the very fact that this government knows that our children could be exposed to lead and they continue to underfund infrastructure and upgrades is completely shameful. We should be here over the course of the summer and into the fall to talk about the findings of this report and to come up with plans to address these shocking findings, to come up with plans that will put the minds of parents ease who know that their kids are going to school in classrooms where the water is toxic because of lead.

And finally, it’s shocking to see that this study will impact not only just schools, but it also impacts daycares. In a really shocking example, the Assikinack childcare centre in Barrie—the Minister of the Environment’s own riding—had among the highest rates of troubling tests among daycares. So daycares are failing these tests: 12 out of 16 tests in these daycares in Barrie failed. Another shocking example is Fort Frances, a high school in northwestern Ontario. The number of tests they failed there is a shocking example of how this government continues to underfund. We already know that First Nations across Canada have an infrastructure deficit in the billions. This is an example of how it impacts them and where we see it.

The minister was emailed a statement or was asked to respond to this—that’s the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. She didn’t respond to questions about the province’s decision not to adopt the federal safety guidelines for lead. Why are they allowing the lower lead limits? And what did the minister say? Rather than responding—

Interjections.