I look forward to this opportunity to join and, like the member opposite, I am going to talk a little bit about some of the committees and some of the things that they are talking about, some of the things they could take up.

And it’s really interesting to listen to the member opposite because—maybe he has not read the bill, because the very point that he was talking about is the fact that he was allegedly removed from committees. I don’t know; I haven’t followed his career. But I understand that the whole idea of this would be to allow the procedure and House affairs committee to actually appoint and revise members of the committee.

So, when you listen to that member, it sounds like one thing is happening, but in reality, this is exactly what the NDP have asked in the past. They asked to take committee appointments out of the hands of the government, and this absolutely fulfills that request. That’s exactly what’s happening. It’s very hard to have the member not take yes for an answer. I think that the whole idea is that this would be a process that’s no longer led by the government, the appointment of committees, and this would accomplish that by having committee membership be formed in a collaborative process at the committee.

And so I listened intently as he was speaking and tried to figure out what the heck is he talking about when what we’re actually doing, had he read this, is exactly what he was railing against. I’ve always been at a loss when he speaks, so let me, at least, talk a little bit about some of those very committees that he was referring to and the things that happen in those committees.

I like getting called to committees. I don’t get called very often, but when I do go, I like the committee work. I don’t care whether it’s our members, opposition members, independent members who are asking the questions. I love that. I love the opportunity because we’ve got such a stellar record in the province of Ontario to talk about that I can’t wait for any format to get out there and talk about it. I could talk about it at any of the committees that I get called to with my economic development portfolio. I can talk all day—and it’s going to be tough to contain it in 20 minutes, but I could talk all day at the committees about the 700,000 jobs that were created.

I love going to committee. I’ve been to estimates, where I talk about how we got there and I talk about the fact—and I’ve stood in this Legislature and shared this not only in committee, but here in the Legislature day after day, week after week, month after month, and, as it’s turned out to be, year after year, with these growing numbers of jobs that have been created, and we share how it happened. That’s why I like going to these committees. It doesn’t really matter how they’re formed or who’s sitting there. We just like the opportunity to be able to share this great news about the province of Ontario and the turnaround that we’ve seen.

Now, we can never forget that, under the previous government—I sat on that side for six and a half years and shook my head almost every day. I couldn’t understand why they were so anti-business, we lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. I could not understand how this could happen. I mean, I could see how it happened. I would go to committee and I would talk and I would ask the questions. I remember talking to the Minister of Finance and asking, “How can you let this happen? How can, under your watch, all of these things happen?” I remember sitting with the then Minister of Economic Development from the then government and saying, “You’ve lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs.” I can’t remember how they could answer, but I just remember it was not a very solid answer trying to tell how you lost 300,000.

I could stand here all day and tell you how we gained 700,000 jobs, and that was all, as I said in the last committee that I attended, because we cut the cost of doing business by $8 billion every year. At committee, I stood there and was able to be asked by members and tell them what the answer was.

We reduced the cost of WSIB in Ontario by 50%. They asked, “How did you do that? How did you come up with the number? How were you able to form that?” And we told them: Because there was so much cash in the WSIB—workplace safety insurance. There was so much cash there, it was beyond any financial requirement, any legal requirement. In fact, it was way beyond any moral requirement to have that much cash stashed there. So we reduced the premiums.

We didn’t touch the benefits; they’re still as strong as they’ve always been. But the premiums were reduced by 50%. That’s $2.5 billion in savings to business every single year and a big reason why companies like Ford and GM are doing so strong in their turnover to electric vehicles here in Ontario. We reduced the cost of WSIB for everybody, but it’s a major number to these large employers. They employ 100,000 people in the province of Ontario and that’s a significant savings for those kinds of companies.

At committee, I stood up, and I was able—at the last committee I was at, actually, I was asked by an NDP member about this very topic, and I went on to be able to say to that member that the second thing we did was we reduced the accelerated capital cost allowance. It meant businesses could write off the cost of their new equipment because they’re buying and expanding. They write that off in-year, saving them $1 billion a year. The member did press on these numbers, and I was able to talk about how we got to those numbers and how we reduced the cost of industrial and commercial hydro by 15%—$1.3 billion in savings. I went on and on at the committee and talked about how we got to the $8 billion.

To me, it’s a really valuable opportunity to be able to go to these committees that are formed by, again, all the parties. How they’re going to be formed now is going to be having the procedure and House affairs committee—they will appoint and they will revise the membership of all the other committees. Again, to the member who was talking about how he kept getting removed from committees, the NDP have asked to take committee appointments out of the hands of the government. This fulfills that request.

I will talk a little bit more about the last time I went to committee. I think it was estimates I went to. At estimates, I was asked a question about our trade offices. I was asked that very question the last time I went to estimates. I was able to talk about the fact that we have trade offices all around the world and that our trade offices have attracted almost $11 billion in new investments. Going to that committee was a really good opportunity for the opposition members to learn the fact that 10,000 really good, brand-new, good-paying jobs were created just through the Ontario trade and investment offices that we have around the world. I was able, in fact, to discuss that our Dallas office alone has created close to 120 jobs.

There are four companies I would talk about. Thryv is a new company that opened a regional headquarters in Toronto. This is out of Dallas and our Dallas trade and investment office; a TIO, we call it. ePac Flexible Packaging invested in a new line of equipment in their Mississauga facility. Search Wizards announced a new office in Ontario. And a 3-D company announced a $2.5-million investment to acquire a company in Markham and increase the staff of their engineering in Waterloo. I’m able, at committee, to be able to talk about those kinds of things.

I think it’s really important that the opposition get that opportunity to ask us. This is how it gives us a chance for them to be able to see some of the things that are happening in other offices and, quite frankly, around the world. And it’s a really good opportunity for them to see what’s going on in some of their own communities with some of the major announcements.

We have a regional development program that I discussed at committee. We launched it in 2019. It was a really neat launch in November of 2019. It was in around Oxford county. We had a lot of the regional mayors who came that particular night, and they learned that we were putting $140 million in this regional development program and that part of it will be able to help municipalities build industrial parks, that we’re going to use that money not just for businesses but for the municipalities to build industrial parks. It was a really good opportunity for the opposition to learn about that. I think that’s what you see in these committees—a good two-way discussion that can happen.

Incidentally, out of that $140-million RDP—regional development program—we’ve attracted $1.4 billion in investments; 2,600 jobs have been created in all the ridings. Everybody in this room basically has been touched by one of these four programs that we have.

In fact, if you’re in eastern Ontario, we have the Eastern Ontario Development Fund. There’s the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund. In the north, we have the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. And in all Ontario, pan-Ontario, including the GTA, we have AMIC, the advanced manufacturing innovation competitiveness stream.

We’re able to talk to these individual members at committee when they say, “What’s happening with this program? How did that money get spent? Where did you get that money? Where did you spend that money?” We’re able to tell them about their own ridings. I have a book here that lists every single dollar that has been issued to all of their ridings, as well. It’s a good opportunity for them to be able to ask me a question about, “How did you come up with the tens of millions of dollars that you invested?”, or in this particular case, $140 million.

I can tell you that in eastern Ontario and southern Ontario, we invested $105 million into 93 companies. That’s almost everybody’s riding of those two funds that have got businesses that were able to grow from it. In fact, that $104 million that we put in leveraged $1 billion in private investment. It created 2,100 jobs, so it was a really exciting day to be able to sit in committee and talk about these things, because we don’t get a good chance to talk about these kinds of things.

The AMIC program that I mentioned is $40 million. We’ve issued about $25 million of it so far in 12 different companies—$290 million, it generated in revenue, and 580 jobs came out of it. That’s the kind of thing that should be understood by the opposition and the independents, and that, you learn in committee when you ask these kinds of questions. So this is important, that we have this opportunity to discuss this, even today.

NOHFC, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.: $726 million in 6,000 projects since we were elected—6,000 projects. We looked at every one of those, one by one by one by one by one. It leveraged $2.3 billion in northern Ontario. It’s important to the northern members here to understand what’s happening. We want them to know, so that they can come to us and say, “How can I access some of that in my riding of Thunder Bay or Timiskaming–Cochrane?” They want to be able to know how to do that.

Timiskaming–Cochrane, by the way, has done particularly well under the NOHFC. They’ve got a lot of applications that they do; 9,500 jobs have been created by that. Having this chance today to speak about it is important, but also having the chance at committee is a really, really important opportunity as well.

I can think about some of the stats that we haven’t talked about yet. Ontario is leading the nation in job creation. I think that’s one of those facts that we need to continue to talk about—not only in job creation, where we’ve seen last year 180,000 jobs created last year alone, but we carried it over into January where 24,000 jobs were created in the month of January. So obviously we’re leading the nation. I think that was 93% or 95% of all jobs in Canada were created in Ontario in that particular month, and it happens month after month after month. That included 9,700 construction jobs, so it’s really fascinating to see what’s happening.

You’ve heard me talk about how many more manufacturing jobs were created in Ontario alone last year than every US state combined. That’s really something to be able to talk about, Speaker. And not only that, but there was a stat that I used, I think just today, in the Legislature—I can’t wait to go to committee and talk about this particular number—the foreign direct investment. Again, we have these offices all around the world that we work with. We have created more jobs in Ontario from foreign direct investment—that means companies like Volkswagen investing, or NextStar in Windsor investing—from 2018 to 2023, any year in there, than any Canadian province or any US state. That’s the strength of what’s happening, and I can’t wait to go to committee to be able to be asked about that at estimates. “How did you get there?”—that’s what I want one of them to be able to ask me. That’s why I want them on the committee. I want them to ask me those questions, so I have a chance to be able to say, “Here’s what we did in Ontario. Here’s the strength that we bring to all of the functions that we go to, all of the meetings around the world that we go to.”

I want them to also understand the feeling out there about Ontario, because I think that’s reflected, whether you see it here in the Legislature or you see it in a committee. I went to 15 countries over the course of last year when we had this unprecedented year. Don’t forget, Speaker: We’ve seen $28 billion of new investment in the EV sector alone come to Ontario in the last three years. These are the kinds of things that we want to be able to tell them. I want them to ask, “How did that happen? What did you do? What was said? What did you hear? What are people saying about Ontario?”

It’s fascinating that, last year, all of those countries, no matter where we went, all said two things—really, unprompted, they would say two things. They would say to us, number one, when we see all of the turmoil that’s going on around the world, whether it was post-COVID, we’re out of COVID, we’re not quite out of COVID—all of the turmoil that that has created. And then we look at Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine—this was before the Israel war right now. This was all before that, because I didn’t travel in November or December after that outbreak. But they would say to us, in all of this turmoil, the supply chain interruptions, questions about China interrupting the supply chain, all of the turmoil, all of this trouble—they look across the ocean and they see this sea of calm in Ontario. And they all offer this: It’s stable. It’s reliable. It’s dependable. It’s almost boring, in a good way, which is good. When you’re in this business, that’s a good thing to have, that there’s no surprises, that you can count on everything in Ontario. The second thing they said is that it was safe. Ontario is safe. We heard that universally.

So I’m eager to go to the next committee, to have the opposition ask us those kinds of questions and say, “Tell us.” On the next deal that we land, I want them to have that opportunity to ask us about the deal, and the next deal and the deal after that—because there are going to be more deals.

I remember going to France early in 2019 and meeting with Sanofi—brand new in this role, meeting with them, talking about all of the good things about Ontario. A year or so later, we landed a billion and a half dollars. It was our first big deal that we did as the government. I want to go to committee and share that excitement. And they should be proud, too, that we, collectively, the people of Ontario, landed these remarkable companies like Sanofi—a billion and a half investment. It turned out to be $3 billion in investment in the life sciences sector in three years; tens of billions in tech investments in the last three years; and, as I’ve said, $28 billion in the auto sector alone in the last three years.

I can’t wait for this year to unfold. We’ve already been to a few countries this year. We’ve already got some good deals packaged that we’re hoping we’ll be able to roll out. That’s the kind of thing. I want to stand in front of any committee they want and be able to say, “Look at what we’ve done. Look at what we’ve been able to achieve by working together.” That’s the beauty of our system that we have.

I thank you for this opportunity to be able to share my thoughts for 20 minutes.