Speaker, at every single opportunity they get, the Liberals have hiked taxes. Not only do they continue to hike the carbon tax, but now they plan to cancel the accelerated capital cost allowance. Now, Speaker, that’s the exact program that our government put in place to create 700,000 jobs since we were elected. The Liberals are taking that away from our businesses.

Their tax hikes chased 300,000 manufacturing jobs out of Ontario. If they need proof that lower taxes create jobs, just look at our track record: again, 700,000 jobs created since we were elected, 80,000 jobs this year alone.

Enough with the tax hikes. They don’t work. Lowering taxes is what works to create the jobs. Scrap the tax today.

The federal Liberals are doing to our country what the previous provincial Liberals did to the province of Ontario. Raising taxes at every opportunity, they chased businesses and jobs out of the province. Our manufacturing sector was on the brink of collapse, with 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost.

We came in and lowered costs right across the board. We’ve restored Ontario’s ability to compete on the global stage. And 700,000 more men and women are working today than before we took office.

Speaker, our message to the federal government is clear: Do not jeopardize the progress that we have made. Scrap the tax today.

We can’t allow the Liberals to crush our momentum.

Scrap the tax today.

While the Liberal government has been busy raising taxes and raising the burden on businesses, we’ve been busy—Premier Ford’s government—cutting red tape. In fact, we’ve cut over 500 pieces of red tape that save over $900 million of burden on businesses each and every year. We have lowered the workers’ compensation by 50% without touching the workers’ benefits. This is a savings of $2.5 billion each and every year. We allow companies now to write off their new equipment in year. It saves them $1 billion a year. This has all put a package together of saving $8 billion a year—put 700,000 people to work. While they’re busy with the carbon tax that penalizes business, we are continuing to lower costs and putting people to work.

We were here till midnight last night, and I had an opportunity to speak about this very topic. I’ll tell what you we said last night. When we travel around the world and talk to businesses, they ask you, “What the heck is this thing called a carbon tax and how much is it going to cost my business?” I can tell you, we have to fight for every single job that we bring here: $27 billion in new auto in the last three years; $3 billion in new life sciences in the last year; tens of billions in new tech in the last three years.

Can you imagine, if we did not have to sit there and explain this carbon tax, how much more business would be coming into Ontario? When they hear that number that they have to pay a tax on their fuel, on their goods, on everything they wear, on everything they consume, they realize this is becoming expensive, and that is a deterrent to doing economic development in our province.

We need them to drop the carbon tax.

Speaker, we all know that Ontario communities are the most competitive places to invest and grow. By lowering the cost of business by $8 billion every year, we have attracted record investments here into Ontario.

Just last week, Trusscore in Palmerston announced a $10-million investment in a manufacturing facility. They make a unique, sustainable PVC-based wall and ceiling panel, which is a really modern replacement for traditional drywall. With a $1.5-million investment from the province, they’re adding 68 good-paying jobs. Speaker, Ontario has attracted $1 billion in new investments like that one from Trusscore through our Regional Development Program. This is the commitment we make to the people of southwestern Ontario.

But our government has reversed all of that. We’ve eliminated red tape, lowered hydro rates and reduced the taxes that the Liberals and NDP piled on, sending those businesses running. We’ve attracted record levels of investments and jobs—$25 billion in auto investments, $3 billion in life sciences, and billions more in the tech sector. And we’re also helping entrepreneurs with support from our regional innovation centres, found all through Ontario, and our small business centres, found in most Ontario communities. Speaker, this is exactly what businesses and entrepreneurs needed to turn their dream into jobs.

Thank you to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London for that great tour yesterday. Together, we welcomed over $14 million in new investments from two area manufacturing firms.

Great work, Rob.

Edge Automation builds massive machinery for companies to automate their businesses. They’re investing over $5 million to expand their facility. The facility is well under construction, and they’re buying really innovative equipment. They’re creating 12 jobs along the way.

We went over to St. Thomas and saw Takumi Stamping. They manufacture auto parts over there. They’re investing $9 million. They got a $1.3-million injection from the province. They’re expanding that current facility and creating 65 brand new, really good-paying jobs.

Speaker, this is how we’re supporting Ontario’s manufacturing sector.

By reducing the cost of business by $8 billion annually, we’re proving that Ontario is open for business. This has led to record investments, with over $17 billion in the auto sector, over $3 billion in life sciences and many more billions in tech.

And we’re bringing new life to manufacturing. In Markham, NOVO Plastics recently announced a more than $10-million investment, creating 30 new jobs, with $1.5 million in support from our government. Speaker, they are an Ontario-made manufacturer of engineered plastic components for the auto sector. With this project, NOVO Plastics will modernize their production process with automation and bring in robotics. This is how we’re ensuring that Markham stays on the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing.

With our Small Business Enterprise Centres, entrepreneurs have all the tools they need to succeed. Markham’s centre is receiving $420,000 to help their small businesses and $92,000 for Starter Company Plus and Summer Company. Now students and young adults are encouraged to start their own businesses. Speaker, Markham and all of Ontario’s entrepreneurs will always have our government in their corner.

Speaker, we can all recall the days under the Liberals when Ontario’s entrepreneurs were closing up their shops, frustrated with a government that made businesses too risky and expensive. But our government changed all that. Lower taxes and less red tape brought a revival of Ontario’s entrepreneurial spirit. There were 85,000 new businesses opened in Ontario last year alone, Speaker. And with budget 2023, expect even more.

An additional $2 million is being invested into Futurpreneur Canada. They’ll help 18-year-old to 39-year-old young business people with mentorship and loans of up to $20,000. Speaker, entrepreneurs once again can take that next step and know that their government is here to support them all the way.

In addition to Futurpreneur, there’s a wide range of other supports. Small business enterprise centres offer all the tools they need to start and grow their businesses. In the member’s riding, he pushed very hard for $2 million in funding for Scarborough’s small business centre, with a further $620,000 for their Summer Company and Starter Company Plus that help their area’s students and young entrepreneurs start their business in his riding, and we’ve provided more than $77,000 in the Digital Transformation Grant to over 30 businesses in Scarborough. Speaker, that is what this member is doing to help his entrepreneurs.

By reducing taxes, lowering the cost of electricity and cutting red tape, we have seen manufacturers look to Ontario to expand again.

Every morning, Premier Ford gets what we call his one-a-day vitamin: the name of a company, where they’re locating, how many millions they’re investing, how many people they’re hiring, and whether we have any skin in the game or not.

Sante Manufacturing in Aylmer invested $7.5 million to accelerate their expansion, diversify their product line, and hire 15 people. Arvaspring in Middlesex is investing $5 million to build a new state-of-the-art poultry processing facility to help enter international markets—MC3, $6.8 million; Idol Core, $5.1 million, 30 new jobs.

Since our election, businesses and industry have created 600,000 new jobs—proof positive that Ontario is open for business.

This government dug deep and asked them, what do you need to return to Ontario? They told us—reduced taxes, less red tape, and to fix the Liberals’ hydro mess. And we delivered. We did exactly what they asked. We reduced the cost of business by $7 billion every year, and those businesses are now back here. The exodus is over. These companies have hired 600,000 men and women in the last four and a half years, and companies have recently announced millions in reshoring investments, adding thousands more new jobs—all because they know that Ontario is now the best place in the world to invest and succeed.

There is huge support for Hamilton, and not just the $500 million towards ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s green steel projects or the $40 million in support for OmniaBio’s $580-million investment in gene therapy.

Our government is delivering on our plan to encourage entrepreneurship and grow small business. We have lowered their taxes, reduced red tape and made their hydro affordable again. And to further encourage entrepreneurs, we are funding their Small Business Enterprise Centre to make sure their dreams become a reality.

We fund special programs for young entrepreneurs and students to help them get started in business as well. Through our Digital Transformation Grant, we’re helping these businesses go online to sell their products worldwide.

The message is clear: We are building Ontario.

I will note that I am sharing my time with PA Dowie and Minister Clark.

Speaker, there is no time to waste when it comes to securing major industrial investments that will employ generations of Ontario workers in good-paying jobs. We are constantly in fierce competition with other jurisdictions when companies consider making large investments in manufacturing and industrial operations, including multi-billion-dollar transformational projects.

You have to wonder, Speaker, how we got here, so a little of the history about why we’re standing here today looking to develop industrial sites: Quite frankly, it’s because the previous government, for 15 years, did not develop industrial sites. They sat on their hands and watched businesses leave Ontario. They sat on their hands and watched companies and other jurisdictions have all of these plants spring up and revitalize their communities and their states and their places overseas. This previous government sat on their hands. I’ll be very specific about this now.

First of all, the evidence is clear: 300,000 manufacturing jobs left Ontario under the Liberal government. That is just an absolute fact; it’s an undeniable fact. That’s the result of what the Liberals’ hand-sitting did. Let’s see how that occurred now.

In the long-term report on the economy—this is an annual report that is issued by the Minister of Finance. It comes out once a year and it gives the state of the economy, basically. There are quarterly reports that come out. The Liberals missed eight of them by the way; I just want you to recall that, that eight of them were missed. So we didn’t have a clue. They were trying to contain the damage that they had created by just not reporting to the people, as if we didn’t already understand how dire things were getting under them.

But in their final—thankfully, it turned out to be their final—report on the economy, it was clear, Speaker, that all they did was throw the towel in. They just gave up on manufacturing. They gave up on the workers in Ontario. The proof point of that—and I’m going to use my notes to quote the exact sentences from the report—is that in the Liberals’ report on the economy, they stated, “The structure of the Ontario economy will continue to shift from goods-producing to service-producing sectors.” Now, Speaker, we all know that this will result in—again I’m quoting—“shifting employment from goods-producing industries, in particular manufacturing, to service-sector industries.” This was their concept all along: They wanted Ontario out of the manufacturing. They put it in writing: “We want Ontario out of the manufacturing.” They no longer wanted us to be the economic engine of this entire country. They wanted us to find jobs in the service-producing sector, according to their own writing. This is exactly why we saw the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector: high taxes, high energy rates, red tape, all of the things that are anti-business.

To put a final cap on it in the auto sector, Speaker, we saw former Premier Kathleen Wynne sitting on a stage in Windsor with the then chairman and CEO of what was then called Fiat Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne. They were talking about why so many companies in the auto sector were leaving Ontario under the Liberals. She asked him, “Are you going to be expanding Chrysler?” And he looked quizzically at her. You could see it if you looked at any newspaper or if you watched it on TV or on the social media at the time. You would see him looking this quizzical look at her. And he said to her, “This is not what I would call the cheapest jurisdiction.”

They had doubled energy rates, increased all business taxes of every type. Red tape was piling up, strangling the business community. And then she asked a few more questions about it, and he finally said to her, “You need to create the conditions to be competitive.” You could hang that on the wall as a message to the incoming government.

Premier Ford took that message and said to his caucus, “We are going to do everything to create the conditions to be competitive, because that’s how we’re going to get the auto sector back, the life sciences sector back, the tech sector”—all of these sectors that were leaving Ontario. Some 300,000 people lost their jobs under that previous government. I don’t know how much louder you can say that to the government as we did in opposition day after day: “Don’t you see what you’re doing?”

So Premier Ford said, “That’s it, enough. We’re creating those conditions.” Many things happened. Number one, we visited every one of the auto plants, the Premier and myself. We sat with them and they told us exactly what Sergio Marchionne said, that you’ve got to lower the cost of doing business. We heard them loud and clear.

We came back and developed Driving Prosperity, and it’s the plan to bring back the auto sector. This is almost five years ago now. The plan was there and articulated. Number one: reduce the cost of WSIB. That’s your workplace safety insurance. That fund was so overstuffed with cash taken from the business community—so overstuffed that it far surpassed any financial requirements whatsoever. In fact, it far surpassed any moral requirements to keep that much money. So we reduced the cost of doing business by a 50% reduction in WSIB. That is a $2.5-billion annual saving to the business community that they are now reinvesting in their companies. That’s the first—$2.5 billion.

The next thing we did, Speaker, was put in an accelerated capital cost allotment. And what does that mean? When a company buys a piece of equipment, they get to write it off now in Ontario in-year, in the same year. That’s a huge financial savings to them. In fact, it’s a billion dollars a year that those companies are saving. Now that’s $3.5 billion.

Then we began with our red tape bills, meeting with the companies, asking them, “What pieces of red tape are duplicative with the feds?” Let’s take the highest, the most strictest of the two, and remove the other one. Then you only need to do your paperwork once. Those are the types of things. It’s over $400 million—in fact, in the last red tape report, they announced that it’s over $500 million annual savings in red tape reductions to these companies who we’ve seen, as you’ll see, are reinvesting that money here in the province of Ontario.

Then we reduced the province’s share of those companies’ local property taxes. Basically, we’ve standardized the taxes. Some came down 30%; some came down 6%. But we standardized it at 0.88% across Ontario and that saves $450 million every single year for these companies.

If you recall when we first got elected, in January the Liberals had a huge tax increase scheduled. We cancelled the tax increase. In fact, under this government, you will find no taxes increased, not even your hunting and fishing licences. Premier Ford and our party, we believe that lower taxes create jobs, lower taxes create wealth. High taxes kill jobs. We saw that under the Liberals. This is why we’ve done the reduction of the local property taxes.

Basically, we’ve pulled on every lever that a government has to lower our intake, to lower the cost of doing business. That now is over $7 billion annually in savings to companies right across Ontario.

So the Premier and myself got back in the vehicles and headed back to every auto company. We met with Toyota in Texas and Ford in Washington. We sat down and we laid this out for them. Here is Driving Prosperity: We’ve lowered the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually. That’s number one.

We have an ecosystem here in Ontario that is ripe for this EV revolution. We told them back then, “Look to northern Ontario.” We’ve got Glencore and Vale in Sudbury who are producing battery-grade nickel. We’ve got mines being planned north and south of Timmins, the gold town, that have found nickel. We have the Ring of Fire. Yes, there are mounds of chromite on the surface. We can move that aside and go deep and get the nickel. Then we look at northwestern Ontario, where there are four potential lithium mines.

We’re telling all of these companies, if you want to make electric vehicles, make them in Ontario, because Canada is the only jurisdiction in North America with all the minerals to make a lithium-ion battery. In fact, we have them all right here in Ontario. That was the first message.

The second message is: If you want to take that lithium and make lithium hydroxide, the liquid that’s necessary in an electric-vehicle battery, we have that expertise here in Ontario. We can set you up in northern Ontario near the mines, and we can do that with you. And as you come back to southwestern Ontario, where the auto companies are, you can build battery plants here. We have the ecosystem here. We have the technology. We have the expertise.

We told them we are producing 65,000 STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—grads every single year. You’ve got a steady stream of employees that can work at these companies. We have 700 parts makers in Ontario. We have 500 tool-and-die and mould makers in Ontario. We have 300 companies that are in the connected and autonomous sector in Ontario, including 700 or more employees at GM in Markham. Ford has 500 of these employees in Ottawa. BlackBerry QNX has 300 or more in Ottawa. Stellantis, formerly Chrysler, has more than 800 at their two new facilities in Windsor.

We’re telling them, “You can do all these things.” These are there today; they weren’t there when we were talking about them. You can do all these things. You can make all the components that go into a battery. You can make the cathode here. You can make the anode here. You can make the separator. You can make the copper foil. You can do all of that in Ontario. That is what we were telling them. We have the people. We have the expertise. We have the ecosystem. We have brought the cost of doing business down.

Canada has free trade agreements with almost 50 countries. If you make it in Ontario, you can export around the world almost exclusively tariff-free. If you make a battery in the United States and ship it, or you build a car in the United States and ship it to Europe, you’ve got either a 2.7% or a 10% tariff. If you build a battery or a car in Canada and in Ontario and ship it, you have no tariffs in Europe because of our free-trade agreements. We have agreements.

We have everything in place, but we need some land, because the previous government failed—miserably, I might add—to acquire large mega-sites of land. So, as we’re out around the world talking about all the great things in Ontario, we just need a few more pieces and that is these mega-sites.

We do know that, as a result of all of what we told these companies, all the investments that they are going to be making, when you think about—around the time we got elected, we did an analysis. There had been $300 billion dollars invested in North America in EVs. And under the previous government, zero came to Ontario. Zero out of $300 billion.

You look today and you will see that we have now announced $17 billion—$17 billion—in transformative automotive and EV investments: Ford in Oakville, Honda in Alliston, LG Energy/NextStar in Windsor, GM in Oshawa, GM in Ingersoll, Stellantis in Windsor, Stellantis in Brampton, Umicore in Loyalist. Magna just made their announcement: half a billion dollars into Brampton, Newmarket, Belleville, Guelph, Windsor, Penetanguishene. This is why Ontario is the number two automaker in all of North America. And it’s interesting, Speaker, that we are also the only jurisdiction in all of North America to have five major automotive assemblies, and I’ve just named them: Stellantis, Ford, General Motors, Honda and Toyota.

It’s interesting that not only are we the number two automaker, but we are the number two tech sector in all of North America. If you look at an EV car today, it’s nothing but a big computer on wheels. Well, isn’t it just great that we’ve got the opportunity to be the number two tech sector and the number two automaker—the two things that are needed to make these vehicles of the future?

As a result of all of these changes that we’ve made in Ontario—remember, 300,000 jobs lost in 15 years by the last government—today we are over 600,000 new jobs created in Ontario since the day we took office. We’ve got 100,000 employees alone who are in the auto sector. Since 2022, we’ve landed 150 deals alone, resulting in 7,500 new jobs just from those deals. And that included through our five trade missions into nine countries, when you include the States, Germany, Austria, Korea, Japan, Belgium—we heard a message, Speaker.

It’s really interesting: No matter where in the world we went, we heard two messages. The first was that in this really tumultuous world, where we’re just coming off of a two-year pandemic, where we have Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and we’ve got this China issue that we’re trying to face—all this turmoil that everybody in the world is antsy about—every company said that they looked to Ontario as a sea of calm. We are a trusted, reliable partner. In all of this turmoil, they can look at Ontario and know that they’ve got a partner here that they can rely on.

The second thing they all said about Ontario was that it was safe. It was safe for their employees, safe for their executives, safe for their families. That’s how they view Ontario. No matter where we were in the world, those were the same two messages that we heard. We’re a trusted, reliable jurisdiction for everybody’s employees and everybody’s families, and that’s why we have this $17 billion in new announcements.

Now, a couple of the things that we talked about that are going in our favour: It’s this talented workforce—it’s all about the people. It really does come right down to the people. Look at Toyota; they won the J.D. Power best automotive plant in the world. That’s what we’re producing in Ontario. This isn’t the best Toyota plant in the world; it’s the best auto plant in the world. It’s right here in Ontario. It’s because we have a talented workforce. We have state-of-the-art research and development in Ontario. We have award-winning manufacturers. We have an abundance of critical minerals in Ontario’s north.

And this red tape reduction—this is really something. I talked about it briefly before, but we’ve taken 400 pieces of red tape that have been reduced. We’ve also done things like lowered your payroll costs and lowered electricity costs. We lowered commercial and industrial electricity rates by an average of 15%. That’s another $1.3 billion in savings.

The CFIB gave a Golden Scissors Award just recently for our At Your Service Act, which was part of the spring 2022 red tape bill. That’s because our government has brought in nine red tape bills and cut red tape. It’s over $500 million a year in the cutting of red tape.

By reducing the cost of doing business in Ontario by $7 billion every year, we’ve shown that Ontario is open for business. We’re attracting record investments and record jobs—$17 billion invested in the auto sector; $3 billion invested in life sciences; billions of dollars invested in the tech sector.

And our support for Mississauga’s world-leading advanced manufacturing sector has never wavered.

Mother Parkers recently announced their $33-million investment in Mississauga. They’re a made-in-Ontario success story. They’re going to be producing private-label coffee and tea for the world’s largest retailers and restaurant chains. They will be creating new jobs, new markets, making cold coffee and tea extracts in a brand new manufacturing facility. We were pleased to support them with a $5-million investment.

Speaker, that’s what we’re doing to attract investments and jobs.

In addition, Mississauga’s Small Business Enterprise Centre receives $420,000 annually so they can supply entrepreneurs with all the tools they need to be successful, and that includes $112,000 to help students and young entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground.

We’re building Ontario, Speaker.

Ontario cities are the most competitive places to invest and grow. One reason for their success is our government lowering the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually. That has resulted in record investments being made.

TS Manufacturing in Lindsay invested $5 million and added 25 jobs and upskilled jobs. We invested $750,000 to help support this local company by supplying cutting-edge sawmill and mining equipment.

Colonial Log and Timber in Lindsay invested $1.3 million to double their log and timber framing manufacturing, with the help of $195,000 from our government. They’re creating jobs and gaining a competitive edge accessing new global markets.

All of this is because Ontario is open for business.

The Kawartha Lakes small business centre received $400,000, in addition to the almost $80,000 for their Summer Company and their Starter Company Plus programs for young entrepreneurs.

And close to 30 area businesses received $72,000 in Digital Transformation Grants to put their businesses online.

Our government eliminated the red tape, unaffordable hydro rates and taxes that the Liberals and NDP piled onto small businesses.

This is exactly what small businesses needed to ignite their entrepreneurial flames.

Brantford is a manufacturing powerhouse and one of the most competitive places to do business. That is why global companies continue to invest and grow there.

Ferrero Canada is investing $44 million in Brantford. This sweet project will increase production capacity to help meet the growing demand for one of the world’s most favourite products. It will create 124 well-paying jobs, which is why we invested $1.5 million through our Southwestern Ontario Development Fund. In total, this program has created over 1,300 jobs and attracted over $736 million in investments, with much more in the pipeline.

This is our commitment to the people of Brantford and to families in Ontario.

In fact, we provide Brantford’s small business centre with close to $500,000 every year, and we support their Summer Company and their Starter Company Plus programs with over $85,000 annually to help young entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. A further $35,000 was invested this year in Digital Transformation Grants, and that helped local Brantford businesses put their businesses online.

The dream of entrepreneurship is once again within reach of thousands of families in Brantford and all across Ontario.

When our government got elected, we vowed to provide entrepreneurs with all they need to succeed. This meant eliminating mountains of the Liberals’ red tape. It meant fixing the Liberals’ unaffordable hydro and lowering taxes. Now, Speaker, entrepreneurship in Ontario is alive and well.

We support a network of Regional Innovation Centres, small business centres and Futurpreneur Canada.

In Cornwall, we fund the small business centre with almost $500,000 annually. We provide $85,000 for their Summer Company and their Starter Company Plus programs, and that helps students and young entrepreneurs turn ideas into businesses. And we provide almost $33,000 in Digital Transformation Grants; it went to local businesses to help them get their businesses online.

Speaker, this is just the start that entrepreneurs in Cornwall need to succeed.

Cornwall isn’t just a great place to live and work and raise a family, it’s one of the most competitive places to invest as well. In the last two years, $100 million has been invested there with help from our regional development programs. Biscuits Leclerc has an $80-million project creating 76 jobs with $1.5 million of our support. This is a sweet deal for Cornwall, for Hawkesbury and for Brockville. They’ll all see upgrades to their plants as they enter new markets.

We also supported Cornwall’s auto sector through an O-AMP investment for Morbern’s $429,000 project to implement Industry 4.0 technologies.

Speaker, this is how we’re supporting businesses in Cornwall.

Brampton has been a key auto-assembly jurisdiction for decades, which is why our government led the Stellantis conversion to EV, shoring up thousands of jobs for further decades. We also fund the parts makers through our Ontario Automotive Modernization Program. In Brampton East, O-AMP supported Nahanni Steel, Tipco, RPPL and SHW Pumps, with more than $385,000 in funding. This boosts our supply chain competitiveness, getting them ready to build the cars of the future.

Since 2019, O-AMP has leveraged $36 million in private investments from 150 companies, creating over 820 jobs.

To the member from Brampton East: Let your businesses know that O-AMP has opened another intake just this week to assist even more businesses in Brampton to create good-paying jobs.

That’s why our government has consistently reduced red tape, lowered taxes and fixed that hydro debacle. Businesses are now saving $7 billion in costs every single year. Now we provide entrepreneurs all the tools they need to grow their business.

In Brampton, we fund their small business centre with over half a million dollars annually. We provide over $200,000 to their Summer Company and Starter Company Plus, to help students and young entrepreneurs start their businesses. We’ve provided over $165,000—

When we were elected, our government made a commitment to support the province’s regional manufacturing economies, and in 2019 we delivered by launching a $100-million Regional Development Program.

To date, we’ve attracted $716 million in investments and 1,300 jobs in southwestern, southeastern and rural Ontario through that program. We were there with the member in Essex recently at MC3 Manufacturing and at another company, Idol Core. These two companies are investing $11 million in creating 29 well-paying manufacturing jobs with a total investment of $1 million from the province.

Speaker, this is how we’re supporting economic growth and those skilled workers in communities like Essex, because these companies are showing the world that Ontario is open for business.

In fact, costs have been lowered by $7 billion every year. This is attracting record numbers of investments and entrepreneurs to southwestern Ontario.

In Essex, our automotive program attracted over $500,000 in investments from Industrial Fastener, B&B Tool and Mould, and Windsor Industrial Services.

And with a further $631,000 invested in the Small Business Enterprise Centre there, their entrepreneurs have all the tools they need to start and grow their own businesses—and another $182,500 for their Summer Company. That helps students and young entrepreneurs start their businesses because, Speaker, this is how our government is driving growth in Essex.

The Liberals and the NDP gave up on Ontario’s manufacturing. In the last economic report, hear their true intention: “shifting employment from goods-producing industries, in particular manufacturing, to service sector.” That’s what they intended to do. But we changed all that, Speaker, by lowering the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually. We lowered taxes. We cut red tape. We reduced their hydro rates.

That’s why investments in Mississauga keep on coming. Cyclone Manufacturing invested $21 million to re-shore from the US a project and create 60 aerospace jobs. Bora Pharmaceuticals invested $2.5 million in Mississauga to scale-up their operation. And there are dozens of auto-parts manufacturers who have invested in their companies through our auto modernization program. Mississauga is, again, where businesses are investing.

With our support, Mississauga’s entrepreneurs now have all the tools they need to grow their businesses. We’re providing Mississauga’s Small Business Enterprise Centre with $420,000 to support local companies, and another $112,000 to support Mississauga’s Summer Company and their Starter Company PLUS. These are companies that help students and young entrepreneurs start businesses of their own.

We want entrepreneurs to know that this government understands them and fully supports their success.

Yes, the Liberals and the NDP did in fact lose 300,000 manufacturing jobs in Ontario because of their outdated policies, their red tape and their high taxes. In 2018, we promised families that our government would do things differently, and we did. We listened to the businesses, like those in Ajax, and developed plans to support their unique challenges. We introduced a $40-million advanced manufacturing and innovation competitiveness program. This AMIC program supports manufacturing businesses to invest, grow and remain competitive on a global scale and will continue to support Ajax’s manufacturing supply chain through the attraction of billions of dollars in investments, just like we’ve done in the last four years.

Speaker, 500,000 jobs have returned to Ontario, and we will continue to bring back even more jobs—those jobs that the Liberals sent running from this province.

Ajax entrepreneurs now have all the tools they need to grow their businesses. We’re providing $732,000 to the Durham-Oshawa Small Business Enterprise Centre and another $187,000 to support Durham’s Summer Company and Starter Company Plus programs. Those help students and young entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. All of that is proof positive that Ontario is open for business.