I’m a very happy man this morning because I’m honoured that members of my family are here today: our daughter, Adele Mary Harden, artist in residence at the Great Canadian Theatre Co., from Canterbury High School; and Dr. Clare Louise Roscoe, part of the Children’s Hospital emergency room team, both beloved to me. Thank you for everything both of you do to make me be here. Thank you for coming, guys.

My question is to the Premier. People in Durham need health care and need to know that a new Durham hospital is coming. Lakeridge Health convened an expert panel to site a future hospital, and Whitby was chosen.

Premier Ford was a guest on our own local CKDO radio and said, “There is going to be a Whitby hospital. Is it going to be tomorrow? Not tomorrow, but down the road, very shortly, we’ll be issuing the planning grants.”

We didn’t see any planning grants in this year’s budget, but since the Premier clearly promised on the radio to everyone waiting for a Durham hospital, my question is, when will Durham get the planning grant for the new hospital at the proposed Whitby site?

The Premier is dragging his feet on this decision and seems to be backing away from his promise, which is making people very nervous. This Premier gave away MZOs and greenbelt chunks as wedding favours to PC donor developers, so surely he can appreciate that trust feels like too much to ask of people.

PC donor developers are chomping at the bit to develop the environmentally sensitive Carruthers Creek headwaters, and they want the Premier to put a hospital in northeast Pickering. Speaker, make no mistake; allowing development of the Carruthers Creek headwaters is about speculative profits and not health care.

So my question is whether this Premier will come good on what he told Durham folks and put the Durham hospital in Whitby to meet growing health care needs or if his flip-flopping means that donor developers will be making this decision—

Interjections.

Thank you for that question. I find it ironic, coming from the opposition—between the Liberals and NDP, they built no hospitals. We’ve invested over $50 billion in building new hospitals. Durham will eventually get their hospital.

But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker: The mayor of Whitby—it doesn’t work. I don’t even know if it’s legal that she’s asking for emails, collecting data—and God knows for what. I have an idea why she’s collecting data. But she’s holding her little lottery: “You give me your name and your email, I’ll put it in my data bank, and guess what? You may get an iPhone watch. You may get a backpack. But guess what? You’ll get a membership over at the local workout club.” Who does that? Who absolutely does that? Mr. Speaker, is that legal? Imagine if I went out there and asked for people’s emails: “You want a hospital? Send me your email, send me your phone number, and I’ll put it in my data bank.” That’s what’s happening out in Whitby, with the mayor of—

Interjections.

But what’s really staggering is when the mayor of Whitby stands up there with a Liberal MP, telling us we should use our health care funding to build a hospital. She’s not informed. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. The Liberal MP doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about. We can’t use that money directed by the federal government to build a hospital. Get your head around that, understand that, because I’ll tell you, the federal Liberal MP won’t be there much longer, by the way. But when he disappears, and the mayor—we’re putting more investments into health care than any government in the history of this province. We’re going to continue investing in the nurses, in the doctors, in the infrastructure. That’s what we’re—

Interjections.

You say about affordability, but you, sir, vote for a tax increase on every item that we put forward, along with your leader. There’s one thing that the Liberals and NDP understand in this province: increase taxes; take money out of people’s pockets until they can’t even go buy a burger at the corner store.

I was at Restaurants Canada, and all they’re saying is, “We need more relief.” Well, the Liberals and the NDP—we saw what happened for 15 years: They increased taxes, drove 300,000 jobs—

But guess what, Mr. Speaker? The—

Interjection.

You know, Mr. Speaker, we’re going to reduce taxes—

Interjections.

The minister had spoken about certain health care investments that were made in this budget, and I want to refer to a couple of health care investments that are important to the constituents of my riding of Essex; first of all, one which increased the number of patients that can be rostered to a nurse practitioner by 1,200 people. That’s another 1,200 people who are going to get primary care in my riding of Essex, and in addition to that, a new hospital, which is now in phase 2 of development for the region. That’s another promise that was made to this region, a promise that was previously made by another government but not fulfilled, but that was picked up by this government and indeed fulfilled.

So I’m wondering if the minister might comment on the various excellent health care investments that are made in this budget because I can tell you that my constituents in the riding of Essex are definitely pleased with the health care advancements being made in our area.