I’d like to introduce to the House Deani Van Pelt, president of Edvance, and Tim Bentum, director of leadership for Edvance.

Welcome to the people’s House.

It’s my pleasure to welcome Monica Singh Soares to the House today. Not only is Monica an outstanding councillor from the municipality of Southgate in Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound; she’s also, more importantly, the mother of page Bella-Sitara, who has been with us the last three weeks.

Welcome, Monica.

It’s wonderful to rise here today to recognize the outstanding work of the general manager of the Stratford and District Chamber of Commerce, Eddie Matthews. He recently announced that he will be retiring from the chamber. I’ve had the privilege of working with Eddie in his capacity as general manager during my time as a member in this assembly for Perth–Wellington, and even before I arrived in this place.

Eddie is a diligent and hard-working individual who always has the best interests of our business community at heart.

Eddie has been with the chamber for the past five years, and during his time as general manager, he endured tough challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, completely reworking the chamber, how they ran their key events, and he was there for our small businesses as they dealt with those challenges. He was there to support our local businesses in good times and bad. He has played a key role in expanding the chamber of commerce membership beyond Stratford and into the area of West Perth and St. Marys.

Speaker, before Eddie was even general manager of the chamber, he had a long and successful career in radio. And I know in whatever he does next, he will succeed again.

I would like to sincerely extend my gratitude to Eddie for all of his service and leadership to our community.

I wish you all the best in your next chapter with Lori.

She’s really upset with me for doing this, but I have to. My daughter Lily is here today. She has a dance competition, so she has to come to work with me this morning.

We want to wish all Dancercise dancers good luck.

That’s not the same subject as the original question.

Member for Ottawa Centre, come to order. Leader of the Opposition, come to order. Member for Brampton North, come to order.

I think there’s still some time. Start the clock.

Government House leader.

Final supplementary.

I remind all members that we don’t make reference to the absence of any member, because on any given day, one of us might be not here, as we know.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

The government House leader can respond.

In this year’s budget, we invested $743 million into health human resources, to be able to stabilize the resources of our hospitals.

Our plan is adding thousands of hours of MRI and CT scans and more procedures, including hip and knee replacements, closer to home, all accessible with your OHIP card, not your credit card. Our plan has already reduced the surgical backlog to pre-pandemic levels. We’ve added 14,000 additional OHIP-covered cataract surgeries annually and added 97,000 MRIs and 116,000 CT operating hours.

But we know more needs to be done.

That is why we’re expanding our community and surgical diagnostic centres to deliver more convenient care closer to home.

Speaker, the people can always go to protectpublichealthcare@ontario.ca and report any incidents of being overcharged for our publicly funded health care.

Ontario will continue to ensure that we have the best publicly funded health care when and where the people need it.

Okay, I’m going to make this a supplementary. I’ll make this question to the House leader. This is outrageous that we are seeing one of our members removed from—

Other provinces have tried private clinics and have been forced to walk it back as wait times got longer and the quality of care got worse.

Opening up more for-profit facilities will mean fewer nurses and health care workers for public hospitals, where we have emergency rooms and the capacity to do the most complex procedures.

Why is this minister ignoring the lessons from BC and Alberta, who saw their health systems worsen with privatization?

When businesses, which are motivated by profits, enter the health care system, it’s patients who have to pay the price. We’ve already seen this happen with cataract surgeries that cost two and three times more in for-profit surgical clinics than in the public hospital.

Back to the Minister of Health: Does the minister like corporations making money off of sick people?

Interjections.

Speaker, my question is for the Premier. Will the Premier stand behind his words and compel his caucus to support the freedom to wear cultural attire here at Queen’s Park?

I have never seen a government more willing to divide than this government here today, and we’ve seen it for months and months. At a time when we should be bringing people together, they want to remove people.

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

I am going to say, I am absolutely—

Interjections.

I will say, I wish the Premier was here to answer this question—

Interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition is, of course, speaking of a member of her caucus whom she removed from her caucus.

Having said that, I think the Premier has been very clear on where he stands. It’s a decision that the Speaker has made.

At the same time, Speaker, I am quite concerned that the Leader of the Opposition continues to suggest that the members of her caucus or any caucus should be compelled to make a decision. That is not the way this place works. I am somewhat concerned that the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that she’s compelling her members to make a decision.

We will continue to follow the rules, as established by this House, until those rules are changed.

Interjections.

I speak very directly to the people of the province: The government of Ontario has not banned anything. In fact, it was this government and this Legislature, led by that Minister of Transportation, who, in the last Parliament—

Interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition really ought to be ashamed for what it is that she is doing here today—suggesting to the people of the province of Ontario that the government has made a decision that it has not done. This is a decision of the Legislative Assembly. If those rules change, of course we will follow those—

Interjections.

What Progressive Conservatives do on this side of the House is stand up for all of the people of the province of Ontario. We don’t sit on our benches, compelling our members. We stand up for everybody, no matter where you come from, no matter what you believe in. We don’t use this chamber as a place to divide people. That’s not what responsible parliamentarians do. It is what she does and—

Interjections.

My question is for the Premier.

Ontario’s housing crisis has become beyond parody. An Airbnb owner says she posted three tents in a room as a joke, but people are so desperate that the joke has become a reality: $720 a month for a tent in a shared room—but hey, they come with their own lock. I call this hitting rock bottom.

Can the Premier tell me whether these three tents will count as affordable housing homes or one tent will be counted as affordable housing under his own strategy?

My question is for the Minister of Energy. People across this province and in Whitby are struggling with out-of-control costs due to the federal carbon tax. This tax is punishing hard-working families and costing them hundreds of dollars more than the rebates they receive.

Speaker, it’s unfair that the federal Liberals are making everything more expensive at a time when many Ontarians continue to face affordability concerns. But it seems like Justin Trudeau and his ally Bonnie Crombie don’t care about reaching further into our pockets to achieve their own political objectives. This has to come to an end.

The carbon tax has to come to an end.

Could the minister please explain what our government is doing to support the people of Ontario without—

Speaker, the hard-working people of this province are paying higher prices for everything because of the sky-high carbon tax.

It’s absolutely disgraceful that the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her Liberal caucus support a tax grab that punishes hard-working families and local businesses. They must come to their senses now and join our government in calling for an end to this disastrous tax.

Can the minister please—

Speaker, the member is right; we’re not imposing a carbon tax in Ontario.

As a matter of fact, we’re giving the people of Ontario tax breaks at the pumps—10.7 cents a litre until the end of this year. We’re lowering taxes, we’re lowering fees, and as a result, we are seeing multi-billion dollar investments in our province.

As a matter of fact, right now, the Premier is standing in Alliston, Ontario, announcing the largest investment in our country’s history, at the Honda plant.

We’re seeing record investments, multi-billion dollar investments.

We have a plan for Ontario. It doesn’t—

The queen of the carbon tax, the leader of the Liberals, combined with the NDP—they want to have the highest carbon tax in the world.

We have a plan called Powering Ontario’s Growth. And the Premier announced, this morning, the largest investment in Canada’s history, in Ontario—a $15-billion investment in Alliston, at the Honda plant. That’s on top of the multi-billion dollar investments, in what were previously the largest investments in Canadian history, at Volkswagen in St. Thomas and LG-Stellantis in Windsor and the Umicore plant in Loyalist township. We have seen $45 billion of investment in Ontario’s EV supply chain, because our plan is working. It’s called Powering Ontario’s Growth.

The minister can spin all he wants and deflect blame, but documents reveal that this government is spending less on community housing and is making the homelessness crisis worse. The goal should be to prevent homelessness, which is better for people and costs less in the long run.

Will the minister do the right thing and restore community housing funding?

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. New government documents obtained by Global News reveal that this government continues to underfund affordable housing. The Conservatives have cut funding to community housing programs even though the wait-list for an affordable home has ballooned to well over 65,000 people.

My question to the minister: Why is this government cutting funding to affordable housing at a time when the homelessness and housing crisis has never been worse?

In fact, we’re not cutting funding for affordable housing.

Do you know who’s cutting funding? The Liberal-NDP government in Ottawa. That is who is cutting funding, by billions of dollars, for the people of Ontario. It’s an agreement that they signed in 2018 with the previous government, that we have honoured. We have overachieved, thanks to the actions that we have taken and our partnership with municipalities across the province of Ontario. Speaker, 426% of renovations have been completed under this government—because we inherited a mess from the others—11,000 of the 19,000 units that had to be built over 10 years were already there. But unilaterally, the NDP-Liberal government in Ottawa has decided to cut billions of dollars from the people of the province of Ontario for affordable housing.

I ask the member opposite—they have an opportunity to call their federal cousins in Ottawa to say that they will not support the federal budget unless the federal budget includes the restoration of the billions of dollars in funds that were unilaterally removed from affordable housing in Ontario.

There’s one—one—government that is opposed to affordable housing funding, and that is the federal Liberal and NDP government, who unilaterally decided to cut funding to the province of Ontario. They didn’t cut funding anywhere else, just Ontario. And do you know who’s staying silent? It is the NDP in Ottawa. They have an opportunity to vote against the federal budget or to say, “Add the funding back in for the province of Ontario and then we will support the budget.” But they’ll stay silent, because they’re just like the NDP here: irrelevant.

Stop the clock.

Members will please take their seats.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

The next question.

Minister of Energy.

I’ll remind the members not to make reference to the absence of another member.

Start the clock. Supplementary.

The Minister of Energy can reply.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t actually have to answer a question. Do you know why? Because every question they ask just highlights how bad a party and how irrelevant they are to the discussion in the province of Ontario.

Let’s look at this this way: They had one Premier, Bob Rae, in their history, and he was so embarrassed to be an NDP member, he fled the party.

Some of the best relations I have right now are with the former leader of the NDP, who is now the mayor of Hamilton. She is telling me that she loves working with this government, because we’re getting things done—and it’s not just her; it’s the former leader of the Liberal Party in Vaughan, who tells me that the housing crisis started under the Liberal government, and that we are finally taking action to get more homes built across province of Ontario.

So do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to ignore the most irrelevant party in the history of the province of Ontario—

Interjections.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll take the good advice of—

We are breaking records. We’re breaking records on new purpose-built rental housing, more than ever before; the most new housing starts over the last three years than we have had in over 30 decades. I’ll continue breaking those records every single day.

My question is for the Premier.

The Conservative government continues to underfund the education system. With inflation, per student funding has fallen by $1,357. When school funding doesn’t keep up with inflation, school boards struggle to offer special education and supports for children with higher needs.

For example, the Rainbow District School Board in Sudbury has an almost $19-million shortfall.

Kale is one of the students in Sudbury who’s being hurt by these Conservative cuts. Kale is in kindergarten. He has autism. And because there’s not enough school board funding, Kale can’t get the supports he needs to be safe and successful at his school.

My question is, why is school funding so low that schools can’t support students like Kale?

Kale’s parents are working tirelessly to get their son the supports he needs to be safe and successful. They’ve already been waiting for years on the Ontario Autism Program wait-list. They’ve already been paying out of pocket for autism supports for Kale. On top of those financial burdens they’re paying because of this government, Kale’s parents are trying to find a school with the supports Kale needs. There’s not enough funding to provide the support at Kale’s current school. There’s not enough funding to enrol Kale at the closest next school.

Will the Premier explain to Kale’s family why there’s not enough funding to support Kale?

It was the previous Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, that cut half a billion dollars in education funding while calling it savings. This included special education funding.

For the 2023-24 school year, we’ve invested over $3.4 billion for special education, the highest investment ever in Ontario history. This represents $125 million more compared to the 2022-23 school year and nearly $541 million more than the 2017-18 school year.

We are the government that is ensuring equal access to top-quality education in Ontario. Under this Premier, our government continues to make record investments to support the next generation of Ontario leaders, including those with special needs.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Housing.

Before the previous Liberal government took office in Ontario in 2003, Ontario was registering 85,000 housing starts per year, but then, after the Liberals took office in 2004, that rate fell below 80,000 units per year, and it never came back until the Liberals were thrown out of office.

Speaker, the housing supply crisis that we inherited was a result of the failures of the previous Liberal government—supported, of course, by the NDP.

And now the Liberals, under the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, are supporting the federal Liberal carbon tax, which is a tax driving up the price of everything, including housing.

Can the minister please tell us how our government is building more homes, delivering for Ontario, and fighting the carbon tax?

Despite the challenges imposed by the federal Liberal carbon tax, our government is delivering on our commitment to build more homes in Ontario. The carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her Liberals, on the other hand, are propping up their federal buddies in Ottawa with a pricey carbon tax every step of the way.

Speaker, Ontarians are already struggling to make ends meet, and this regressive tax is only adding strain to their household budgets.

We know that in order to provide more affordability and more housing solutions, our government must continue to show leadership by undertaking robust efforts to build thriving communities across the province.

Can the minister please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is making it more expensive to build houses in Ontario?

I thank the member from Essex for that question.

As we all know, the carbon tax that has been inflicted upon us is hurting the cost of building houses throughout this province. Even still, in the last three years, we’ve built more homes—in the 1980s. And even more importantly, we’ve set a record—27% increase, last year, in purpose-built rentals.

Let’s look at another factor. In the last five and a half years, we built more purpose-built rentals than in the entire 15 years of the Liberal government.

And we’re going to do more. We’re going to pave the way for more housing to be built. We’ve lowered the HST on purpose-built rentals. We’ve lowered development charges. And we are investing in massive infrastructure—billions in infrastructure across this province, to get shovels in the ground faster.

But when I talk to modular home builders, they complain about the cost of transportation to get from A to B—their homes. The carbon tax—

Mass timber construction is an innovative technique that has the potential to lower our carbon footprint while building more housing in Ontario. It’s sustainable, it’s energy-efficient, and it lowers our carbon footprint. I’m proud that our government is expanding the use of mass timber construction. However, mass timber materials are heavy. They need to be transported. And guess what hurts that transportation cost? The carbon tax. We need to get rid of the tax. Building with mass timber uses 50% less carbon than building with steel.

Let’s axe this tax. Let’s make it affordable for all Ontarians to get into the housing market. Axe the tax.