The housing crisis is the primary cause of the affordability crisis in this province. That is why last week, the Premier announced that Ontario will be investing over $1.8 billion in housing-enabling infrastructure in order to help build 1.5 million homes by 2031. That investment is part of the commitments our government has made to help build more affordable homes across Ontario.

Speaker, the new $1-billion Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program will help support core urban infrastructure that growing and changing communities need, such as roadways or waterworks. This funding is supporting our existing $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund to help reward communities that meet or exceed their housing targets.

Our government is investing to build homes that Ontarians can afford and looking at new methods of housing, such as modular homes.

York region and my city of Markham are looking forward to working with our government in order to get more shovels into the ground that will help build more housing, especially affordable housing.

I would like to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the associate minister and the PA for their hard work to help create more housing supply.

What’s also not in the budget is the carbon tax, which is something we are standing up against every single day because members opposite seem to trivialize affordability for working parents of this province. We will not increase the costs of groceries, of baby goods, of fuel, and punish people who go to work or drop off their kids at the local school or child care centre.

But talking about child care, it was a Progressive Conservative government, not ironically, that actually slashed child care fees by 50%, saving an average family in this province $6,000 to $10,000 a year. That is meaningful when it comes to delivering affordability for working people. We’re building 19,000 spaces in Toronto, 86,000 across this province.

We know there’s more work to do. We’re working with an imperfect system from the federal government, but we stood up to this Liberal Prime Minister for a better deal for the people we represent. Join us. Fight for more affordable child care for Ontario families.

We’re hiring 3,000 more teachers, 7,500 more education workers. Part of this budget is an increase in funding to combat issues of insecurity in our schools, an additional investment to improve math, the hiring of 800 specialized literacy educators to boost the fundamental skills that we know matter to the course and success of a child.

Speaker, this budget invests in our kids. It invests in better futures. It invests in better jobs and bigger paycheques. We’ll always ensure our children have a better education that leads them to better jobs in this province.