I want to thank my colleague for his excellent remarks as well. I’m pleased to join the debate on third reading of the Get It Done Act, an act that would make it easier and faster to build transit, housing and other critical infrastructure. Because all over our province, we’re seeing historic growth—465,000 new residents in the first half of last year alone—and this is a trend that will continue, with almost six million new people expected to come to Ontario in the next 20 years.

But we’re also seeing other incredible signs of growth in this province: 18,000 new businesses opening their doors in Ontario just last year. That’s over 40% of all the new businesses in Canada. And these new businesses are sprouting up in every corner of the province, from Barrie to Brockville, Innisfil to Ingersoll, and from Cornwall to Kenora. This includes investments—and I mean historic investments—in our auto sector.

Thanks to the leadership of this Premier, our government is strengthening Ontario’s position as a global leader across the electric vehicle supply chain. Over the past three years, we’ve attracted record-breaking automotive and EV-battery-related investments from global automakers, parts suppliers, and EV batteries and material manufacturers—and we heard a little bit from the previous speaker, who has a great investment of Umicore in his own riding as well.

But this is making us North America’s hub for building the cars of the future. It’s creating the jobs of the future. It’s historic investments like the one in Windsor, where LG Energy Solution and automaker Stellantis are joining forces to build the province’s first large-scale EV battery manufacturing plant. The NextStar Energy EV battery plant will support 2,500 Ontario workers, with more than $5 billion invested in Ontario. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 2025, and would be the first large-scale domestic EV battery manufacturing in Canada, with a production capacity of 45 gigawatt hours to supply Stellantis plants in North American markets.

And this morning, Speaker, I was in Alliston as Honda Canada announced a milestone $15-billion investment to establish a comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain, creating good-paying jobs right here in Ontario. This is a large-scale project that will see four new manufacturing plants in Ontario, and just next door in my riding of Barrie–Innisfil.

Honda will build an innovative and world-class EV assembly plant in Ontario, the first of its kind for Honda and the first in Canada, which will produce up to 240,000 vehicles per year. They will also build a new stand-alone battery manufacturing plant in Alliston, and to complete the supply chain, Honda will also build a cathode active material and processing plant through a joint venture partnership with POSCO Future M and a separator plant through a joint-venture partnership with another corporation.

Speaker, this is huge news. Today’s announcement not only secures the jobs of the 4,200 associates at its two existing facilities in Alliston, but it will also create more than 1,000 new jobs in Ontario. Make no mistake: This is the largest auto investment in Canadian history. It’s a strong vote of confidence in our government’s plan to build Ontario. Businesses know that under our government and under the leadership of this Premier, we have created the conditions for them to thrive and for Ontario to retake its rightful place as an economic engine of North America.

With today’s investment, I’m proud to say that Ontario has now landed over $43 billion in transformative auto and EV investments in the past three years. These are made-in-Ontario EVs that are not just a good-news story, but a great-news story for our environment and for our economy, and it has ripple effects.

Just on my way back from the announcement to the Legislature just now, I got a message from Matt McRae, who is an owner of a Tim Hortons in Beeton, just next door to Alliston where these thousands of jobs will be. He sees the great partnership we have with transforming the automotive sector, taking care of our environment but not forgetting small business owners like him by keeping taxes low and not raising fees, which is good news for his employers and his business. Certainly he’ll be providing coffee, tea and Timbits to way more workers.

But the fact is, over the last three years, Ontario has created more than 700,000 net new jobs—not just the jobs that Matt McRae, as I was speaking about, is creating in his own business, but all across the province, for today and tomorrow. We’re also building the infrastructure that is required. After all, those workers at Matt McRae’s Tim’s need roads to get on to get to work. Those workers are going to the Honda manufacturing plant, whether they’re waking up in Barrie, waking up in Innisfil, waking up in Alliston or today I met someone from Brampton who wakes up in Brampton and drives all the way down. They need roads to get to work.

And this government has an ambitious capital plan. It’s the most ambitious capital plan in Ontario’s history when it comes to building the infrastructure required. That’s because our government has planned investments over the next 10 years totalling $185 billion, getting shovels in the ground to build hospitals, highways and other critical assets for Ontario’s growing population, laying the foundation for a strong Ontario: investments like the new Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program, a $1-billion fund to largely support core infrastructure projects such as roads and water infrastructure, to enable housing for growing and developing communities, because we know that building more homes is critical to accommodating Ontario’s growth. Those workers who are going to be working at those Honda plants need a home to live in. Again, whether they’re in Barrie, Innisfil, Newmarket, Aurora or surrounding communities, need a place to live. They need roads to drive on to get to their jobs.

That’s why investments like the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which helps municipalities repair, rehabilitate and expand drinking water, waste water and stormwater infrastructure, are important. The government is quadrupling the housing-enabling water systems. Our government announced $200 million for this fund in January of this year, and then announced that it would be quadrupled to $825 million in the 2024 Ontario budget. This increase would make more funding available for municipal water infrastructure projects, which in turn would enable much-needed new housing.

Our government is improving flexibility on loans for water infrastructure projects, helping ensure that this growth does not come at the expense of the environment. We will provide municipalities increased access to financing for housing-enabling municipal water and waste water infrastructure projects under the Infrastructure Ontario Loan Program. Municipalities will be given options that will provide flexibility on things like construction period interest payments, including deferred interest payments until projects are substantively complete, long-term loans, more flexible repayment terms and lower administration costs. Deferring interest and principal payments until after the construction period will better align municipal revenues from new housing with payments on the loans from Infrastructure Ontario.

Speaker, I’ve given you just a few examples of the incredible growth occurring all across Ontario and a few examples of the programs our government has established or is establishing as part of its 10-year, $185-billion infrastructure plan, a plan that is certainly ambitious, a plan that will require everyone to work together. I can assure you that this government is up to the task. And as the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, I am ready and willing to play a vital role.

One of the ways we will be doing this is through modernizing and improving the environmental assessment process. We’ve taken a hard look at our policies and processes and found ways to make them smarter and more efficient, to get shovels in the ground to finish major projects sooner. It’s through these improvements that we will modernize Ontario’s environmental assessment program while maintaining environment protections. Over the past several years, we’ve consulted extensively with municipalities, Indigenous communities and key stakeholders on ways to do just that.

I’m here today to speak about a minor change to the Environmental Assessment Act that we’re proposing in the Get It Done Act, 2024. It will help municipalities, provincial ministries and other provincial government agencies when planning for infrastructure development. It would clarify the ways that property can be acquired for a project before the environmental assessment process is complete. This proposed change would provide greater certainty to municipalities and other proponents as they plan for future projects. Project proponents will still have to comply with all other applicable legislation.

I would like to thank my colleagues for allowing me to talk about building up Ontario’s infrastructure and to emphasize its great importance, and how we are continuing to build up Ontario, and how I, as the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, am playing my role in this government with my great team members as we are creating homes for the future, roads for those who need to get to work and creating lasting investments for generations to come, all while protecting our great environment.