I do want to thank the member opposite for the question. It’s a good question.

In my previous role as the Associate Minister of Housing and when we worked with many municipalities throughout AMO, the COHB funding was very, very important—even through to the Homelessness Prevention Program, which we actually provided an additional $202 million to, to help support municipalities through their service managers and service providers, to work with those people who needed that top-up. We made that funding very flexible so it allowed them to support more people to get into housing. There was a massive gap. There was a gap between shelter, transitional, supportive housing for individuals, housing for families. It’s an area where we need to do more work.

This bill actually has streamlined the processes, and we’ve worked with providers to get more rental housing built so there’s more supply. When there’s more supply, there’s more affordable housing for everyone.

We heard loud and clear from his chamber and chambers right across this province, BIAs, boards of trade on how we as a government have made it much more easy for them to do business, but they’re also telling us about the challenges that they’ve faced in the past. They’ve come to us, through these red tape reduction packages, to let us know how difficult it has been for them to really just do what they need to do best: streamlining licensing and permits, maybe making singular dates for those renewals of those licences and holding on the fees. Every year, the fees were going up exponentially.

This government has made permits and licence fees stagnant instead of increasing them. That has helped businesses.

And let’s just face it: Every single person in this province, most businesses also, single sole proprietors, may own their vehicle. We have now cut having to renew the licence plate sticker. That $120 a year for each individual across this province has made a massive impact, and that’s something that our government is very proud of.

When it first came to my attention about two and a half weeks ago, I came back, I immediately spoke to—I had a few of the individual family members reach out to our office, who we immediately got back to and started up casework, because we need their permission to talk on their behalf, and you know that; I also spoke to Chartwell and heard from both sides what was happening.

Chartwell has sold that building. It blindsided all of us. Nobody wants to see anybody evicted, let alone our seniors. I heard from them that they’ve sold the building to another company, and they’ve issued notices for the seniors to move. They’re assisting with these seniors. I just spoke to them again yesterday.

I actually met with seniors on Friday, with some of the families, and so we had a conversation. I’ve got all the details that they’ve received.

I’ve got the details from Chartwell—

I’d like to talk a little bit about the record of the previous Liberal government, the biggest bloated bureaucracy we’ve ever seen. They would use their unemployment numbers by increasing their bureaucracy as opposed to helping businesses come to Ontario. They drove away over 300,000 jobs from Ontario. This government—Premier Ford and all of us collectively here—worked and took massive steps to encourage investment. We reduced red tape through a number of packages to help bring that investment. And it’s working—more than 700,000 people wake up to a job today than they did when they left in 2018. That is something that our government is extremely proud of.

Yes, when I visited her riding a couple of years ago and met with that company, it was actually very heartwarming to see their creativity. This was something they built from scratch—such beautiful Ontario-made products, something that we should encourage more of across this province.

And to really welcome, congratulate and support the success of our small businesses is critical to a government—to create that environment, to help them not just start a business but to grow. I think that’s where we see one of the areas where our government—where we can create that environment to help more businesses grow.

Through this package, by eliminating processes, by making fees more affordable, by making sure that everybody has the ability to say, “I want to grow. How do I do that?”—having their backs to do that is so critical and something, again, that our government is very proud of.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you to the member opposite for the question.

Indeed, we are committed to making life more affordable for mothers and for women across the economy—working with the minister and I.

This government has cut fees historically by 50% for working families, saving roughly $8,000 to $12,000 a year. We’re also building 86,000 additional spaces in small towns and big cities to reduce the wait-lists, to make it more accessible for families.

With respect to the workers, we stand with them. It’s why the government announced an over 19% increase in wages, which was opposed by members opposite. And notwithstanding that opposition, we’re going to continue to lift wages every year. What we did in this deal is deliver wage parity with school board ECEs who were making more. We’ve now closed that gap.

We’ve delivered more access, increased the rate of wages. And we’re reducing fees for Ontario families.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve cut red tape for the operator. We’ve cut fees for the parent. We’re increasing wages for the worker. We’re doing all of this without the support of the members opposite.