Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

This being the first sitting Monday of the month, I will ask now that everyone join in the singing of the Canadian national anthem, followed by the royal anthem.

Singing of the national anthem / Chant de l’hymne national.

Singing of the royal anthem / Chant de l’hymne royal.

Today, I want to share with you the story of an award-winning, month-long festival taking place in my riding. Winterfest, formerly known as Christmas in Cambridge, kicks off on November 25 with Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night. This event attracts thousands of residents, young and old, who enjoy a musical walking tour through historic downtown Cambridge. It is illuminated with various lights and art installations along the route. It is truly a memorable way to start your holiday season. The weeks leading up to Christmas will feature a visit from the CP Holiday Train; Winter Ice and Lights in Preston’s Central Park; Music and Lights in the Village; the Cambridge Christmas Market at the David Durward Centre and the Cambridge Centre for the Arts.

I encourage everyone to go. This is one of the top 10 festivals named by Festivals and Events Ontario for the past three years. If you haven’t been, I encourage you to go.

It is my pleasure to rise in this place to recognize the good work SE Health does in my riding and across Ontario. SE Health is a not-for-profit health care provider in Ontario. SE Health currently provides nearly 50% of all home care services in Ontario.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with them and representatives locally and touring their location in Palmerston. I had the opportunity to meet Kelly, a community nurse in the town of Minto who works for SE Health. She does important work to support our seniors and those recovering at home from major operations. She is also a community care nurse at Minto-Clifford Public School. I had the opportunity to join her at Minto-Clifford to meet some of her brave patients. No matter the need, Kelly ensures her students are living a healthy and rewarding life. We had a great discussion about how best we can work together to better serve those living in our communities.

I want to thank Kelly for everything she does for our rural communities and the children she helps every day. Our government is committed to helping our elderly remain in their homes longer and ensuring Ontarians receive the right care in the right place. I appreciate everything SE Health does and that all their employees do in my community and across Ontario.

I rise today to speak about something inspiring: Ontario’s labour movement. Last week, we were all reminded who makes this province function, and that’s workers. For a long time, this Conservative government dismissed that, but with the actions of CUPE education workers, along with the support from the entire Ontario labour movement, the government was made to pay attention. Bill 28 should never have been drafted, let alone introduced. It’s a bill intended to break unions and attack workers.

At my office in Niagara Falls, we had nearly 1,000 people telling the government they were wrong. When they decided to use the “notwithstanding” clause to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights, they woke up a giant. They united the labour movement against them from coast to coast to coast.

I hope this government follows through on their promise to repeal Bill 28 immediately.

But we can’t walk away from this experience without holding people accountable. The Minister of Labour sits in this chamber and tells us that he supports workers. He tells the labour movement that he’s their friend. But when Bill 28 was introduced and voted on, he was the first member to stand and applaud its passing. He was happy to strip workers of their bargaining rights. He was happy to continue to attack workers, who are predominantly women, and also supported Bill 124. As Minister of Labour, his role is to support workers in this province, but instead he clapped for legislation that ripped basic rights away from them. For that alone, it’s time for the minister to resign. He never supported the labour movement, and last week he proved it.

Another fall migration is just winding up. Over the past couple of months, millions of birds have been migrating across the Great Lakes to winter in Ontario. But windows that reflect the sky and the clouds can appear invisible to a moving bird, so they continue to fly at high speeds until they smack into the glass and fall to the ground. Some are rescued by compassionate people working with organizations like BirdSafe and FLAP Canada, but many do not survive the trauma.

The bird photographer Priya Ramsingh writes that if you walk around one of the city’s large towers during the migratory season, “you’ll find the bodies of dead birds, their feet curled up in the air.” These are brilliantly coloured birds, including electric blue indigo buntings, “warblers with yellow, greens and blue wing markings, and scarlet tanagers with their regal, red feather plumage.”

Some 25 million birds die from window collisions each year in Canada. This week, I am reintroducing a motion to adopt the Canadian Standards Association 2019 bird-friendly design standard into the Ontario building code for all new construction and retrofits in the province.

At a rally on the lawn of Queen’s Park tomorrow at 11:30 a.m., we will be showing Ontario residents simple measures that they can take to make their windows bird-safe and to reduce the risk of collisions. I invite all members of the House and residents who want to make our built environment bird-safe to attend the rally. Come help us protect Ontario’s biodiversity for years to come.

I had the privilege of attending two services of remembrance in my riding of Niagara West last week, including ceremonies in Fonthill and Jordan.

I want to thank the local Legions in my riding, including Branches 127 in Grimsby, 612 in Beamsville and Jordan, 613 in Fonthill and 393 in Smithville, as well as the township of Wainfleet, for hosting meaningful tributes.

A little over 100 years ago, following the First World War, as Canadians gathered at war memorials—like the cenotaphs in Niagara West last Friday—many considered it unimaginable that the bloodshed of that great conflict would ever be repeated. It was called the war to end all wars. And yet, a short generation later, the world was once again plunged into a struggle against the hateful ideology of fascism in defence of the democratic values and human rights that we hold dear. Throughout the 20th century, time and time again, the call to arms was issued, and young men and women in uniform across Canada and Ontario, including members of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, died for freedom.

Perhaps many of us today consider it inconceivable that we would ever again enter into such terrifying conflicts. Yet, even today, our northern neighbour, the Russian Federation, is an aggressor state pursuing its illegal invasion of Ukraine against the pleading of civilians and the cries of humanity. Once again, war has returned to European soil, and we are again reminded of the need to ever stand on guard.

As a descendant of those who emigrated to this country because of the sacrifice and heroism of Canadian soldiers, including those who liberated the Netherlands, my family and I are personally grateful to those who fought and continue to fight for freedom and democracy.

Last Friday, as we should everyday, we remembered those who fought and died in battle. They are passing the torch to us so that the memory of their sacrifice will continue and the values they fought for will live on in all of us. May God rest their souls.

I rise today to speak about the important work that nurse practitioners do, serving patients in every corner of our province, and why we need this government to fund more nurse practitioner positions. At a time when many family physicians are retiring, patients across Ontario lose access to primary care, leaving them dependent on walk-in clinics and emergency departments. Meanwhile, Aboriginal health access centres, community health centres and nurse practitioner-led clinics all have nurse practitioners who want to be hired and who are available, but they have no money to hire them. These nurse practitioners can assess, they can treat, and they can advise patients with complex medical conditions who otherwise end up in our crowded emergency rooms.

Unfortunately, this government refuses to modernize their antiquated funding model so nurse practitioners can be hired to provide their excellent services to more patients.

For example, an executive director in a nurse practitioner-led clinic has to be a nurse practitioner, but she still has to carry an 800-patient-load roster and her administrative duty in this clinic.

In fact, this funding model is so rigid that the government claims that they are still working on the paperwork to provide nurses working in these clinics with the retention bonus that was promised nine months ago.

If this government wants to improve access to health care services to thousands of people across Ontario, invest in nurse practitioner positions. It will pay off.

Today’s page captain, Camilla Moscato, is from my riding of Niagara West, and I wish to welcome her to the Legislature, as well as her parents and her brother, who are here today: Melanie, Maddox and Chris Moscato. Welcome to Queen’s Park. It’s good to have you here.

I would like to say a few words in tribute to Dr. Barry Adams, a pediatrician from Ottawa who was my pediatrician and my children’s pediatrician and, in fact, the pediatrician for thousands and thousands of families over his long career.

Barry was an incredible, gentle, warm, kind person. He was always available. He was a big proponent of our Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. I wanted to spend all this time talking about his accolades, but his accolades are actually the thousands and thousands and thousands of families whose lives he touched and improved by his work.

I was thinking about what Barry would have had to say today, if he were alive, about what’s happening at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and with our children in this province.

Barry could be very kind and very gentle, but he could also be very stern. And what he would be asking us is, “Why is there this indifference to what’s happening to our children? Why are we not masking? Why are we not making sure we’re all vaccinated and our kids are vaccinated?”

You know, Barry was a physician who was old enough to know when measles outbreaks occurred, and he was always astonished at the efficacy of the vaccine, and how it was almost non-existent.

So, Speaker, I think we should learn from Dr. Barry Adams’s example that our children are important and that right now there are some things that we need to do to protect our children. We should be doing them: masking, vaccination, washing our hands and staying home when we’re sick.

It’s a pleasure to rise in the House this morning.

Last week we spent time in our collective ridings honouring and remembering our veterans as we proudly wore our poppies and attended Remembrance Day services. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to pay tribute today in my comments about the Royal Canadian Legions that pepper our ridings and our communities across the province. In my riding of Simcoe–Grey, there are 12 Legions, and each branch has a proud history of supporting veterans and serving the communities. They act as community hubs. They host important civic events, from Veterans’ Week events to political events, from community events to private celebrations. Alliston, Angus, Beeton, Collingwood, Creemore, Everett, Lisle, New Lowell, Stayner, Thornbury, Tottenham and Wasaga Beach all have thriving, active Legions that serve these communities.

On Saturday, November 5, I had the great opportunity to spend a night at the Collingwood Legion at a dinner in honour of our veterans in preparation for Remembrance Day. As I sat in the facility, I was reminded that during the pandemic, the Collingwood Legion served as the overflow facility for the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital—18 beds. It served a vital purpose as an overflow unit and, during a number of the waves, had many beds filled. That was one way that a Legion can help work with our communities and collaborate with our communities to support them.

Last Friday, on Remembrance Day, I had the privilege of going to the Alliston Legion and sitting with Albert, one of the last remaining World War II veterans. He’s 98 and his hearing isn’t great, but we had a wonderful conversation, and so it’s wonderful to be able to rise and pay tribute to our veterans like Albert.

During the course of that meal, I was reminded by the speaker there that the Alliston Legion had received a vital grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation for much-necessary capital improvements. These facilities serve our ridings, and I want to thank the executives and presidents of each of the Legions for their great work.

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday I was pleased to join the honourable Solicitor General at Peel Regional Police headquarters in Mississauga. Alongside Chief Nishan Duraiappah—who I commend for being recently appointed to the Order of Ontario—we kicked off Crime Prevention Week, an opportunity for all Ontarians to recognize the important men and women in uniform who sacrifice so much to protect our communities.

Organizations present included the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Safe City Mississauga, Empowering Against Exploitation, Vision Zero and Peel Crime Stoppers.

Additionally, on November 4, myself and many of our colleagues welcomed Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich and Sergeant Earl Scott here in Queen’s Park to recognize them for a $25-million drug seizure, one of the largest in Peel police history.

Mr. Speaker, one of the foremost priorities for people and businesses in Ontario is to feel safe and comfortable in their city. I want to recognize the important role that law enforcement officials play in keeping our province safe and protecting our most vulnerable. Crucial to this process is a strong relationship between law enforcement and local communities, working hand in hand to ensure a safe and prosperous society.

While Mississauga is one of the safest cities in Canada, we are nevertheless seeing a rise in car theft and pharmacy holdups. We will continue to work with Peel police to support them and allow them the resources to prevent crime. This partnership between police, community, and government is a relationship we cannot afford to forsake.

I would like to thank my incredibly talented assistant from my riding of Nickel Belt, Adele Fawcett, who is here to witness question period this morning. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I beg to inform the House that the following document has been tabled: a report entitled Ministry of Education: Spending Plan Review, 2022, from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.

Her Honour Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the Lieutenant Governor, will bestow the province’s highest honour to the new Order of Ontario appointees on November 21, 2022. One of those appointees is Dr. Angela Brathwaite from Whitby. Over nearly five decades as a nurse, Dr. Brathwaite has launched initiatives to promote nursing education, improve women and children’s health, and address racism in the nursing profession.

In announcing the appointees, Her Honour said this: “Their service to our province is a reminder to all of us fortunate enough to call Ontario home, that the fabric of society is knit together by good deeds and the dedication of individuals. May their accomplishments be an inspiration and example for many to follow.”

Congratulations to Dr. Brathwaite. Your dedication, drive and lifetime of service is an inspiration to everyone in Whitby and other parts of the region of Durham who aspire to build better communities and a stronger Ontario.

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature Dora Mehany, Pixie George-Benjamin and Nathan Zhu, who are members of CUPE 4400, which was a union I was recently a member of at Central Tech when I was teaching woodworking.

Mr. Speaker, she’s not here yet, but I would like to welcome my niece, Zahara Israr, who will be here this morning as part of the West Glen Junior School tour. Thank you.

With the greatest of respect, we haven’t been ignoring it. In fact, our government has made unprecedented investments to ensure that our hospital partners have the resources they need to make sure that they can deal with what is undoubtedly a bit of a triple threat of RSV, influenza and COVID-19. In particular, with emergency departments, we have invested $90 million in EDs to pay for result programs that provide funding incentives for 74 high-volume emergency departments to make improvements in areas such as length of stay. We’ve implemented 49 models of care for select 911 patients where patients can receive timely and appropriate care in a setting outside of an emergency department.

We’ve funded Ornge’s virtual medical doctor trial for northern hospitals at risk of closure. The emergency department locum program and the COVID-19 temporary summer locum program’s expansion have provided supports for eligible hospitals in rural and northern Ontario to maintain—

Yes, I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 40(e), five minutes be allotted to the independents as a group to respond to the ministerial statement by the Minister of Finance on the fall economic statement.

Today is my wife’s birthday. I can think of no better birthday present for my wife, Madame Pam, who is a kindergarten teacher, than to welcome Ema, as a page, and her father, Kevin MacAulay, to the Legislature today.

I’d like to welcome Michau van Speyk here today, from the Ontario Autism Coalition. Thank you so much. Nice to see you.