Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow members to make statements in remembrance for the late Mr. Roland McMurtry, MPP for Eglinton, with five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s loyal opposition, five minutes allotted to the independent members as a group and five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s government.

Actually, Speaker, that’s in fact not what I said. What I said is that there were not enough details with respect to the announcements made by the federal government on its infrastructure programs. I also said that we would be working very closely with our municipal partners—AMO; big city mayors; ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—and we will be coming forward with a Team Ontario approach to ensure that we can access as much as of the federal dollars that have been put on the table.

At the same time, I’ve been very clear. The Premier has also been very clear that we don’t think that we’re in the best position to mandate what 444 municipalities should be doing across the province. We want to ensure that we meet our goals of building 1.5 million homes. That is why, of course, the Minister of Infrastructure has brought forward one of the largest infrastructure programs in the history of the province to ensure that we can get sewer and water in the ground. It is also backed up by the Minister of Education, who will be building more schools, and the Minister of Transportation, who is building more roads and transit. We’re building communities, Mr. Speaker.

The reality is that we want to work with our municipal partners—there are 444 of them—who have very unique circumstances across the province of Ontario. We have set a goal of building 1.5 million homes, and across the province, we have heard one issue constantly gets in the way of building more homes, and that is sewer and water. That is why we brought forward a nation-leading program of $1.8 billion to build sewer, water, roads and bridges across the province of Ontario.

But what also gets in the way are high taxes and regulation. So the high interest rate policies of the federal government because of high inflation, because of overspending and taxation, are stopping people from building homes. They are also stopping people from being able to afford homes. So what we’re going to continue to do is double down on removing red tape, putting sewer and water and infrastructure in the ground, working with our municipal partners to build not only hundreds of homes but millions of homes in communities across—

I have talked about the student and the family in my riding. He works at Circle K. He works at the Petro-Canada. He and his family live in a basement apartment miles away from their college. You know what he said to me? He’d like to live closer to the college. He’d like to live on campus. He would like options. For the NDP, he’s a bother; he’s a nuisance. For us, he’s somebody who builds the province of Ontario, and we will stand by him every step of the way.

Speaker, what we’re doing is running a government that is delivering on behalf of the people of the province of Ontario.

The Liberals increased taxes and delivered nothing. They increased red tape and delivered nothing. Are there more people working in the province of Ontario? Yes, there are: about 700,000 more people working in the province of Ontario than there were under the Liberals. Do you know why? Because we’re doing what they wouldn’t do. We’re actually investing in people. We have the largest transit and transportation investment in the province’s history. We have the largest investment in hospitals in the province’s history, the largest investment in new schools in the province’s history. We have the largest investment in economic development ever. Do you know why? Because people want to come to Ontario and make those investments. Do you know why they want to do that? Because they have a confident Progressive Conservative stable majority government, and we’re delivering for them: cutting taxes, making investments, more jobs. It’s a good time to be a Progressive Conservative—

The new leader of the Liberal Party’s first ask wasn’t for the people of the province of Ontario; the first ask was what? A million dollars to pay her salary. That is what this member is supporting.

Do you know what we’re doing? We’re cutting taxes for the people—

Interjections.

The leader of the Liberal Party knows what we’re doing. What we’re doing is making sure that we have an economy that works for all of the people. We’re fixing the mess that they left behind, and we’ll continue to do that job for the people—

Interjections.

Obviously, the position of the NDP has changed during question period, colleagues, so apparently now a retirement home is a home for the NDP, because long-term care isn’t a home, but now a retirement home is, so I guess we’ve got two minutes left to see what their position will morph into then.

What we’re doing for the people of the province of Ontario, including our seniors, is not only investing in long-term care, we’re investing in all types of homes—because I think the member hits the nail on the head. One of the reasons why we brought in as-of-right three across the province is because we heard from seniors that they wanted to be in the communities that they helped to build. That’s why we build long-term-care homes in smaller communities across the province. That’s why we’re allowing garden suites in homes for people, because a lot of people have said, “Listen, we want our family member to be with us.” We agree with that. That’s why we are building more. We are meeting our targets.

But ultimately, we ensure that tenants are treated fairly. We are making investments in the long-term-care board to ensure that that happens. We will treat all Ontarians with the respect that they deserve, Mr. Speaker.

I share the disappointment of the member opposite with respect to Mississauga’s complete inability to build more homes of all types for their community. We saw that in Mississauga, towards the end of last year. I think they had like 12 new home starts in that community. But we’re making substantial investments across Mississauga to ensure that we can build more homes—all types of homes. It is why we’re investing in as-of-right three. It is why we’re making more long-term-care homes available. It’s why we’re building more affordable homes. It is also why the associate minister is working on the attainable housing program. Because what we want to do is build 1.5 million homes of all types across the province of Ontario. It’s why we’re investing in infrastructure, investing in transit and transportation, investing in health care, because all of that matters in helping build communities. That is what we want to do for all of the people of the province of Ontario, build—