I’d like to welcome a constituent from the great riding of Waterloo, Shiva Subramanian. She’s participating in the Remarkable Assembly women’s forum. Subra, welcome to your House. I hope you have a great day.

My question is to the Minister of Health. For years, the Ontario Medical Association has been sounding the alarm on the shortage of doctors in the province. In Kitchener, there are currently 55 open physician positions on the provincial recruitment program.

The KW chamber of commerce has said, “There are somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 people in Waterloo region right now who don’t have ... a ... doctor.”

Kitchener is not alone; there are 2.2 million Ontarians who do not have a family doctor, and that number is going to surge to 4.4 million by 2026.

Speaker, my question to the Minister of Health: When will this government prioritize the patients and families waiting for care in Waterloo region.

A shortage of doctors causes more people to visit the emergency room, increasing wait times and putting further financial strain on this already overburdened health care.

KW is not alone; there are currently 32,000 people in Peterborough alone without a family doctor, another 28,000 in Kingston, another 10,000 in Sault Ste. Marie. This Conservative government is failing to provide Ontarians with access to primary care that they definitely deserve.

Back to the Minister of Health: When will this government finally address the crisis in Ontario and the 2.2 million people who do not have access to a family doctor?

This petition is entitled “Petition to Improve Air Quality for Our Children.” I want to thank our education critic for developing this.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas good air quality reduces the spread of infectious diseases, lowers the rate of chronic health conditions like asthma and allergies, improves test scores in reading and math, reduces absences and improves worker morale;

“Whereas there is currently no requirement for publicly funded schools and licensed child care centres to monitor air quality in Ontario, which would identify classrooms and other learning spaces where air quality is poor;

“Whereas other jurisdictions, including Quebec, require schools to measure and publicly report on air quality;

“Whereas children, teachers, education workers, child care workers, and administrators in Ontario also deserve to work and learn in a space with clean air;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to require the Ministry of Education to begin to take action to improve air quality for our children by supporting and adopting the Improving Air Quality for Our Children Act, 2023.”

It’s my pleasure to affix my signature, Madam Speaker, and give it to page Anushga.

Thanks for the commentary on this piece of legislation. Our critic this morning did a full hour on and really untangled this particular piece of legislation.

I come from a riding where there’s the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier and Conestoga. The issues of mental health on these campuses have been compounded by poverty, by a lack of housing, by a lack of resources. I’m thinking of when the Liberals once mandated and legislated student well-being in the education system, but the funding never flowed. The resources were not there.

What can the member say about legislating a responsibility on these post-secondary institutions? Your own blue-ribbon review indicated that there’s core fundamental underfunding on operational funding. So how are these institutions going to meet this moment when you are intentionally underfunding them and setting them up to fail, and by doing so, I think, from a moral perspective, hurting the students in the post-secondary institutions across this great province?

Thanks so much to the member from Parkdale–High Park. I love the fact that she focused on the experience of international students.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Conestoga students in my riding. One student from India told me that she came to Ontario to learn, to gain experience, to build Canadian relationships. She didn’t come here to learn online.

Can you imagine, Madam Speaker, coming here just to learn online? I hope we can all agree that this is wrong.

Alex Usher, who has been a very vocal voice, obviously, on post-secondary institutions, says that—that of declining domestically sourced funding, because of Liberals and now this Conservative government, you’ve now offered only $700 million over three years in new public money, and about a third of what its own panel recommended.

To the member: How do you think post-secondary institutions are going to cope with this chronic and institutional underfunding going forward?

As the finance critic, I’m very concerned about the operational funding for post-secondary institutions. We do know that these institutions have become very dependent on international students. With the reduction in international students and the failure to meet the moment, we now know that the PSE sector will be seeing a 15% cutback, which is only comparable to 1996 Mike Harris.

How is this government going to support post-secondary institutions in their core business of education?