It is my absolute pleasure to rise today to discuss a recent funding announcement in my riding of Flamborough–Glanbrook.

On April 12, alongside the Minister of Education, I announced that our government is investing over $31 million in the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board for the new Waterdown Bay Elementary School and an addition to Mount Hope Elementary School. This investment will support the creation of 682 student spaces and 176 licensed child care spaces for my community. Parents and representatives from the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board have been influential throughout the process. They have been strong advocates for our community and demonstrated our need for this funding.

Due to its unlimited potential, Flamborough–Glanbrook is one of the fastest-growing communities right across Ontario. By investing in early learning, we are laying the foundation for the next generation of leaders and innovators to build on this success.

Schools and access to child care are important for Ontario’s students and parents. Our students deserve to learn in state-of-the-art, modern facilities.

Mr. Speaker, our government recognizes the importance of getting new schools and expansions to existing schools built as quickly as possible for our growing communities.

I was happy to attend the recent Kawartha Lakes Dairy Producers annual banquet and awards at the Woodville Legion. We got to honour and thank our local farmers for producing such high-quality milk, most of which is delivered directly to Kawartha Dairy, where it is made into their famous product, Kawartha Dairy ice cream, which we’ve all enjoyed right here in the Legislature and across the province.

Our featured speaker was Kawartha Dairy’s general manager, Brian Kerr, who highlighted their plans for continued expansion in Ontario. With 11 stores across the province, the most recent in Burlington, where their first month sales projections were met in just eight days—not surprising. Two more stores will be opening soon, one in Cobourg and one on the Danforth.

Their success is not only about the taste, but the experience shared by generations of families—the best marketing tool you can have.

Kawartha Dairy is in their 87th year, 100% owned by the Crowe family, embodying the legacy of quality and service.

Kawartha Dairy was also named Canada’s safest manufacturing employer and Canada’s safest employer for young workers in 2023. They’ve developed extensive training and mentorship programs. They employ 225 full-time staff and provide jobs to 200 students annually.

I’m always proud to be the MPP who represents Kawartha Dairy.

On Friday, hundreds of residents from all across Waterloo region gathered in Wilmot to speak for farmers, to protect our farmland.

With the Get It Done Act, we are getting it done wrong—disrespect to our farming communities through policies that encourage expropriation, threaten good planning that prevents sprawl, and override regional planning. They threaten our groundwater, making it saltier and threatening the recharge. And it has the speculators circling, making farmland prices explode and threatening the future of this $50-billion economy.

The 500 people who gathered in Wilmot rallied together in support of our farming community.

Introduction of visitors? That concludes our introduction of visitors.

The Leader of the Opposition has informed me that she wishes to raise a point of order.

The member for Ottawa South has informed me he has a point of order he wishes to raise.

Mr. Fraser is seeking unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak during private members’ public business today. Agreed? I heard a no.

Mr. Fraser is seeking unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 45(b)(iv), eight minutes be apportioned to the independent members as a group for debate on opposition day motion number 4. Agreed? I heard a no.

It is now time for oral questions.

The House recessed from 1040 to 1055.

I’m wishing a warm welcome to a tremendous leader from Windsor-Essex, a true role model for so many in our community and someone who truly keeps on giving back, through and through, through her community leadership. I’d like to welcome Helga Reidel to the chamber today.

Speaker, we know that farmland is critical to the success of our agri-food industry. That’s why we’re taking a balanced approach, working with communities to find the right balance.

Just look at what happened in St. Thomas: 1,500 acres of land was assembled with no expropriations. That allowed Volkswagen to announce their gigafactory—3,000 jobs, 30,000 indirect jobs. To get there, we introduced Bill 63, and that was able to change the way municipalities were handling the real estate in their areas. It facilitated Volkswagen coming here. The bill was supported by both parties.

Why are they not supporting us today?

I’d like to introduce and acknowledge Audrey Lo, a page from my riding, as well as her mom, Nicole, who is visiting today, as well as the grade 5 classes from Maurice Cody public school in my riding.

Today, I’m so proud to welcome my constituent Fikayo Aderoju, recipient of the Ontario volunteer medal for founding his amazing organization, Project Impacting Lives, which has helped countless individuals and families experiencing homelessness in the GTA and beyond.

Welcome again to Queen’s Park, my friend.

I seek unanimous consent that this House acknowledge that the kaffiyeh is a culturally significant clothing item to many in Ontario’s Palestinian, Muslim and Arab communities and should neither be considered an expression of a political message nor an accessory likely to cause disorder, and should therefore be permitted to be worn in the House.

Calls and messages are pouring in from all across Ontario from Ontarians who are shocked to learn that people are being prevented from wearing cultural attire in the Legislative Assembly.

After the Premier publicly acknowledged the ban on wearing the kaffiyeh was unnecessarily divisive, we gave him a chance again today to do the right thing and reverse it. Yet again, his Conservative members have said no.

Will the Premier stand behind his words and compel his caucus to support the freedom to wear cultural attire at Queen’s Park?

We observe truth and reconciliation day to acknowledge the impact of colonial oppression and the erasure of and, at times, criminalization of cultural symbols.

Will the Premier support the freedom of cultural expression and stand with thousands of Ontarians who want to see the reversal of the kaffiyeh ban?

In this week alone, the Premier made a public declaration about the need to reverse the kaffiyeh ban, but his members blocked it. He has admitted he thinks his own post-secondary legislation is an overreach, but his minister doubled down and forced him to recant. Question period is just not long enough for me to capture the full list of this Premier’s policy reversals and flip-flops.

Ontarians are the ones who are paying the price here.

Is the government caucus losing faith in their Premier, or has the Premier lost faith in his caucus?

Ontario’s agri-food sector not only feeds us; it adds $48 billion to Ontario’s economy. But to this Premier, rural Ontario is just empty land to punch holes in or pave over, especially when his friends stand to profit.

I asked the Premier three times yesterday why farmers in Wilmot are being threatened with expropriation if they don’t hand over their land for some sort of secret industrial development. The Premier didn’t answer, and his minister couldn’t even bring himself to use the words “farmer” or “farm.”

Why is the Premier repeating the mistakes of the greenbelt scandal with this latest attack on Ontario’s farmers and prime agricultural farmland?

There are lots of places in Ontario that would be excellent sites for a new industrial facility. But the Premier wants to put it right in the middle of some of Ontario’s most productive farmland. There is no planning study to justify this. There is no agricultural impact assessment. And the Premier has no idea what impact an industrial site will have on groundwater or the surrounding agricultural systems, or how much it’s going to cost to run infrastructure out there.

Speaker, with so little information available to the public, can the Premier tell us why this site was chosen over all of the available sites in the province, and who stands to actually benefit?

I want to welcome the Rehman family, who are with us today. Thank you for your leadership with Humanity First. We welcome you to the people’s House.

I think the Premier was abundantly clear in how his views were on that.

I will say to the Leader of the Opposition, it is not in the tradition of the Conservative Party to compel its members to do anything. There was a free vote, and members expressed—members on whatever side of the House expressed their opinions on that. So I can assure the member opposite that we will not be compelling our members to do anything. It’s not what Progressive Conservatives do. We allow them to represent their communities.

Interruption.

We have amongst us the most diverse caucus in the history of this province—

Interruption.

I come from a caucus that is the most diverse caucus in the history of this province.

I don’t take any lessons from the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to how marginalized people feel. I’m an Italian Canadian who, in the 1970s, was spit on for being a “wop.” I don’t need any lessons from her on what it means to stand up for marginalized people. I do it every single day, and so do the rest of my caucus mates. We bring people together; we don’t divide them.

It is an honour to welcome today’s page captain, my daughter Mariam Rasheed. I’m so proud of her and the great work she is doing at Queen’s Park.

I just want to wish all those of the Jewish faith a celebratory beginning of Passover.

It’s very important. Today, in this Ontario Legislative Assembly, someone is turning 43. It is the member from Windsor, who worked on my first campaign in 2006. He doesn’t look a day older than when he was at Carleton University—

Happy birthday, Andrew Dowie.

I seek unanimous consent that, notwithstanding standing order 100(a)(iv), five minutes be allotted to the independent members as a group to speak during private members’ public business today.

My question is for the Minister of Energy.

At a time when people in our province continue to face high interest rates and rising cost of living, the federal Liberals plowed ahead with their plan to hike the carbon tax by a staggering 23%. It was a cruel April Fool’s joke to play on Ontarians, but it was one that we will all remember.

The dire effects of the carbon tax are felt by our agriculture and trucking industries. When farmers who grow the food and truckers who transport the food are taxed, these extra costs are passed on to our consumers as they purchase daily necessities.

This is ridiculous. The federal Liberals need to eliminate this tax today.

Can the minister tell the House how the federal carbon tax hurts farmers, truckers and families in Ontario?

The escalating fuel costs are burdening individuals and families across every community in Ontario.

With summer quickly approaching, it’s not fair that Ontario families have to worry about taking children to sports practices and enjoying road trips.

The people of this province have had enough of the Liberals’ fiscal mismanagement. The federal Liberals and their provincial counterparts continue to push forward ideas that cost Ontarians.

Unlike the Liberals, our government remains committed to making life more affordable and protecting people’s hard-earned money.

Can the minister tell us more about what our government is doing to counteract the federal carbon tax and bring Ontarians real financial relief?

How is it that some people seem to know what’s going on here, but the people who are going to lose their livelihood, their farms, aren’t given any information? It’s outrageous.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture says that we’re losing 319 acres of farmland every day in this province, and here’s this government, doubling down with their anti-farmer sentiment and a new land grab in Wilmot—

Interjections.

People are tired of this.

The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario and the Ontario branch of the farmers’ union have called the government’s decision “shameful” and “short-sighted.”

Why does the Premier keep attacking the province’s farmers and prime farmland?

The minister from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell is right again this morning, and as a matter of fact, it was a cruel joke on April 1—but it was no joke. The federal carbon tax, supported by the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and her Ontario Liberals, went up by 23%—which, incidentally, is where they’re at in the polls, 23%. The worst part of this story is that on April 1 next year, the carbon tax is going up again.

We don’t need a carbon tax. We have a plan, as a matter of fact. We’re refurbishing the Pickering nuclear station. We are refurbishing Darlington. We’re refurbishing Bruce Power. We’re building small modular reactors at Darlington.

As a result of all that, last week I was at a great announcement at BWXT in Cambridge with a couple of my colleagues, and the Premier was there later in the day—an $80-million investment creating over 200 million jobs.

We have 76,000 people working in our nuclear sector in Ontario, and it provides almost 60% of our baseload power every day that is emissions-free.

We don’t need a carbon tax. It’s time to scrap Justin and Bonnie’s tax.

The final supplementary.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Speaker, my question through you, to the Premier, is around his government’s flip-flop on the Hazel McCallion Act, an ill-conceived and poorly-thought-out plan by the Premier to dissolve Peel region—a plan that resulted in chaos and an exodus of qualified staff.

Yesterday, taxpayers in Peel region were outraged to learn from the Toronto Star that they’re on the hook for a $1.5-million bill from the Peel transition board for “efficiencies.” Local leaders who only met with the four-person board once said it has been a “non-transparent process,” and residents are now being forced to pay for the indecisiveness of the province.

Does the Premier feel it is fair for property taxpayers in Peel to pick up a $1.5-million tab for his poor performance?

Speaker, through you to the Premier: Will he admit there is nothing efficient about this fiasco, and will his government pick up the tab for hard-working Peel taxpayers so they are not on the hook for his mistakes?

Interjections.