Thank you very much, and a big thank you to my good friend the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore for sharing his time with me.

I think it’s always important to be able to speak to the budget. While the budget features many initiatives that will benefit my riding and our region, I want to take a moment to discuss one portion that I was able to help announce just a short time ago. Animal and animal-related agriculture are both crucial to the economic stability of rural Ontario. This is something that residents of Kitchener–Conestoga know very well. I have about 1,200 farms in my riding. However, many regions across the province are experiencing a shortage of veterinarians who care for livestock.

Any gaps in service create risk to farmers and their animals, and also jeopardize the security of our food supply chains. I was pleased to join the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as the Minister of Colleges and Universities, at the University of Guelph to highlight the $15 million we are allocating in this budget to help address veterinary shortages in rural and northern communities.

The government is also launching the Veterinary Incentive Program to encourage recent veterinary graduates to practise in underserved and northern communities. We do have some members from rural and northern communities here today, and I’m sure they’re very excited to hear about this announcement. Students will spend two years at Lakehead University and two years at the University of Guelph.

What does this mean for the residents of Kitchener–Conestoga? This means that agriculture, a key sector of our region’s economy, will continue to be healthy. For our farmers, this will mean they can be confident raising healthy livestock, with qualified vets available. Vets diagnose and treat diseases and disorders, as well as advise farmers on hygiene and general strategies for their animals. It also means that our food supply chain will be kept safe, which is something we all rely on.

After our announcement at the university, the day concluded with a tour of Ontario Drive and Gear. Some of you may have heard of the Argo all-terrain vehicle that serves many people across, quite frankly, North America. It’s manufactured in Waterloo region, in my riding, in New Hamburg, Ontario.

This leads me to my next point, Madam Speaker. Here are two damning quotes from the former Liberal government’s final report on the economy: “The structure of the Ontario economy will continue to shift from goods-producing to service-producing sectors.” It goes on to say, “shifting employment from goods-producing industries, in particular manufacturing” to other sectors like the service sector. Years of mismanagement under the previous government cost Ontario a staggering 300,000 manufacturing jobs. Just in Waterloo region alone, we lost about 20,000 manufacturing jobs under the previous Liberal government.

A week ago today, I was able to attend the 12th Annual Manufacturing Summit, hosted by the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. The Premier spoke of the importance of manufacturing in Ontario, and it seems this sector has taken note. Let’s compare the tone of what I like to call the Liberal’s eulogy to manufacturing jobs in Ontario to the reaction to this budget: “Manufacturing is no longer an afterthought in provincial budgets, it is a centrepiece. With this consequential budget, Ontario establishes a leading position among provinces in spurring an industrial resurgence.” This is Dennis Darby, the president and CEO of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, I couldn’t have said it better myself. This is great news for the people of Kitchener–Conestoga, as manufacturing makes up roughly 20% of our region’s economy.

Waterloo region currently has about 650,000 residents, and the population is expected to hit a million people by 2051. As the Premier noted again in his remarks last week, we can’t keep attracting workers to Waterloo region if they don’t have a place to live. Our government is doing everything in its power to get more houses built while addressing other key housing issues. We’ll be investing $24 million over the next three years in the Ontario Land Tribunal and the Landlord and Tenant Board in an effort to help clear backlogs and streamline processes via more adjudicators and administrative support. Speaker, this is something that comes up often at my constituency office, and I’m sure it does at yours as well. We want to make it easier for both tenants and landlords to have their cases heard in a timely manner.

The budget also contains a promise to continue pushing the federal government to reduce taxes on new and rental housing. To again borrow a comment from the Premier’s remarks at the manufacturing summit in Kitchener last week, “Solving the housing crisis requires that all levels of government work together,” so we hope that the federal government will do the right thing and follow our lead by reducing the cost to make new and rental housing.

We’re investing $25 million over three years to attract more skilled workers through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. So what does this mean, again, for Kitchener–Conestoga residents, Madam Speaker? This means that we are taking the fight to the skilled labour shortage to ensure that critical infrastructure we need gets built and that critical jobs are filled. We’re investing $2 billion in the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund over the next five years to help small and rural municipalities pay for roads, bridges, water and waste water projects. This is incredibly important for my riding as we continue to grow, Madam Speaker.

As I begin to wrap up my remarks here today, I want to highlight why I am proud to support this bill. My riding of Kitchener–Conestoga and the entire region enjoy many competitive advantages. We have a good quality of life, three post-secondary institutions, hospitals, innovation hubs and, as I alluded to earlier with the member for Guelph, access to highways connecting to several US border crossings. That said, we need to work hard to keep these advantages, so we will be investing $70.5 billion over the next 10 years for transit, including continued investment towards that all-important two-way, all-day GO service along the Kitchener Line.

The budget builds on our commitment to addressing backlogs by providing more OHIP-insured cataract surgeries. The Ministry of Health is investing up to $8.5 million annually to support the delivery of cataract surgeries for patients at four facilities across the province, including—we’re very lucky to have this partnership in our region with TLC Laser Eye Centres in Waterloo. They’ve been doing fantastic work with St. Mary’s hospital, might I add, to help alleviate some of the pressure in cataract surgeries in the region for almost a decade.

We are also funding historic hospital expansion, including the construction of a new acute-care facility, seeing the Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s hospital come together as our region, as I had said, expands to somewhere in the neighbourhood of a million people over the next 40 years.

Through this budget, we are investing in housing, highways, transit, education, health care, skilled trades, manufacturing and, of course, mental health. These are exactly the kinds of investments that will enhance our competitive advantage here in the province of Ontario and keep Waterloo region a world-class place to raise a family for years to come.