It is good to hear debate today and that things are pretty collegial, and it’s nice to hear the member from Spadina–Fort York actually agree with something that the government has put forward. I hope that he’s going to support this bill. And maybe I’ll give him an opportunity to talk a little bit more about the things he does like in this bill and that he can support and it sounds like the NDP caucus will support.

I’d also remind him that there are PC members on that side of the House as well; it’s not just the NDP caucus. We won a second majority government that is so large it actually wraps around the other side of the Legislature.

So we’re talking about those things too, and I’d love to give him another 30 seconds to talk a little more.

I’ll just touch on the broadband issue since it has been brought up. We’ve had over a dozen projects in and around Waterloo region that have actually been funded and come forward and have been approved, and many have been completed. So it is really great, I think, when we talk about all members in this House wanting to see broadband expanded affordably across the province for everyone—it’s really great to see that there are many of those projects that have moved forward.

I did, in the spirit of bipartisanship—and it looks like we’re having a good, sort of healthy debate today. Being from North Bay, some will say it’s northern Ontario; some will say maybe it’s not. If the MPP from Mushkegowuk–James Bay was here, he’d be razzing me right now about it—oh, sorry; I can’t say that. I didn’t mean it in a negative way. Apologies, table.

But what do you see as some of the barriers? If you’re the critic for this file, what do you see as some of the things that we can work on as government, without the political rhetoric, to bring better service, in particular with the locates in northern Ontario?

Point of order.

Don’t jinx it. Don’t jinx it.

It’s interesting to hear the member from Niagara Falls say he wasn’t here, because the NDP like to talk about all the great Conservative governments that most of us weren’t a part of, except for, I think, maybe the member from Oxford and the Speaker. But we’re very proud of our past history here in the Legislature and certainly want to be able to celebrate all those good Conservative governments that we’ve had. The NDP, I think, have only had one shot at government.

Anyways, to the minister: I hear consistently from municipalities and other organizations that are looking at building critical infrastructure here in the province. One of the challenges they have is they put in requests for locates and sometimes it can take weeks for people to show up and paint the lines and look for the underground services. I’m just wondering how this bill will help speed that up. It’s good to see us taking a look at red tape and finding out ways that we can build things faster here in the province.