My thanks to my colleague for his presentation today. I would ask him if he could talk a bit more about the impacts of this budget on his riding with regard to health care and education. You were just talking about education, but perhaps you could expand further.

Our colleagues know very well that enabling water systems is key to housing and a critical part of the construction process. This budget allows for a system fund of $200 million to $825 million over three years, which is quite substantive.

I’m just wondering if the member will stand with our government to support these endeavours so we can get building going.

It is my honour to speak to this budget this morning. I want to start my debate to say that, based on the government’s own numbers, you are spending big. I mean, it’s right here in your own budget. This is a budget that has increased the debt and the deficit to extraordinary measures. In fact, this is the most indebted the province of Ontario has ever been.

By your own numbers, this government is paying more interest on the debt than ever before. This government has a net debt-to-GDP that is approaching 40%, which actually doesn’t even meet your own numbers. And so, this ratio—how much debt you owe to how much the province is earning, the GDP—is higher than when Kathleen Wynne left office.

So let’s be clear: Your government is indebted. I would say you are now the most indebted sub-sovereign government in North America. Currently, you have a $9.8-billion operating deficit. Your total net debt is $439 billion. That is your current net debt, and that has grown under your government since 2018 by almost $200 billion, so you are piling debt upon debt on the backs of our future generations.

But let me be clear: What are you spending this on? Because you are also underspending in every category that is important to people. When we look at health care, this government spends the least for every individual in Canada on health care. You’re pulling up the rear when it comes to spending on health care. In education, you’re spending the least in the provinces of Canada. All of these things that people rely on—health care, education, the social services that we all rely on—you are underspending. So you have this huge debt and deficit, but you’re not spending it on people, so where is this money going?

And I would just like to say that it’s quite obvious that this government is not working for the people, they are working for the insiders. They are working for connected donors of the Premier, the developers who went to Vegas and got massages, the developers it was identified that you gave preferential treatment to. That’s who you’re spending your cash on. You’re also going to spend almost $15 billion on a highway, Highway 413, that nobody really wants except those developers whose land in and around the 413 was going to skyrocket in price, never mind all of the interchanges that will host Costcos and Home Depots. All of that is working for your insiders, but we know, by your own numbers, you are underspending on health care, education and social services.

But let’s go back to where you’re also spending, because the member from Ottawa South talks a lot about the gravy train, and I just have to say that it bears up, what he says, because now we see a Premier’s office that has ballooned in spending—ballooned in spending. There seems to be no limit on the spending when it comes to the Premier’s office. In the Premier’s office, there are 48 staff who are on the sunshine list—48. They’re earning a combined $6.9 million. That’s 48 people, up from 20 in 2019—so, yes, no problem spending money on your insiders.

We also see appointments to boards, to positions and lobbyists that were previous employees of the Premier or who were the friends of the Premier, like Dean French, like Jenni Byrne, like Ron Taverner, who now are receiving exceptional salaries in public appointments. That’s more taxpayer dollars—so absolutely no compunction, no problem spending money—

In fact, to the member from Eglinton–Lawrence—she may not like to hear the facts and the figures, but unfortunately, they come directly from your own budget. I don’t know what point of order that you are referring to, but when I’m talking directly about your spending and your budget, and I’m reading directly from the charts—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Evidence that this budget shortchanges the people of province of Ontario: Student nutrition programs are being cancelled all across Ontario—feeding kids. In Hamilton, at a high school in my riding, Westdale, they have a Bring Back Breakfast program that is aimed to make sure kids aren’t going to school hungry. They served over 45,000 meals last year by fundraising through volunteers, but because of the one-time cut of the provincial funding, they have had to close this. We thankfully have the Bulldogs Foundation that will fill the gap for hungry kids, but this is something that I think should be the responsibility of the government, not fundraisers and not private foundations.

I also want to say, shamefully, that patients are now being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, metastasized cancer, in emergency rooms. Dr. Grewal said, “The emergency department is a terrible place to receive this type of diagnosis.”

Why is this happening? I’ll tell you why this is happening. Again, from the government’s own numbers, comparing 2023 interim actuals with this budget, the government plans to spend $1 billion less on health care at a time when we’re seeing longer wait times in hospitals, ER closures and patients being diagnosed with cancer in emergency rooms. Imagine if that happened to one of your loved ones—but I’m sure it won’t, because you’ve got the inside track.

Finally, I have to talk about Lydia’s Law and funding for the justice system in this province. As we know, there were almost 3,000 sexual assault cases between 2022 and 2023 thrown out of court because of the underfunding of the justice system. Now, you have a billion-dollar courtroom, but unfortunately you don’t have any staff in that courtroom. So how is this the case? How is that a good use of taxpayer funding?

What I want to say is, we had a bill yesterday that was going to bring attention to the lack of funding in this justice system. The member from Waterloo, Catherine Fife, her Lydia’s Law—she had almost 100-plus women that were going to come and talk about their experience of being—

Interjection.

I would respectfully submit to the member opposite that if he really cared for farmers, the best thing he could do is support our budget, because we are bringing so much relief all across Ontario thanks to the Minister of Finance. He is engaging all of us in terms of making sure Ontario remains affordable.

Talking about affordability, we need to recognize—yes, we have the amazing Beef Farmers of Ontario in the House today. I would like to share with you that they were part of a rally on April 2 that was hosted by the President of the Treasury Board in Holland Marsh. They came together with 25 other farming and rural organizations to stand up with the Premier and myself to send a direct message to the federal Liberals, as well as the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie. That message is simple: Scrap the tax.

I am so proud to rise today to speak to our government’s 2024 budget, Building a Better Ontario, which funds programs and projects that will no doubt meet the needs of hard-working Ontarians during this time of global instability.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we are celebrating PSW Week in Ontario. So to all of our wonderful PSWs working across different health sectors, but especially in long-term care, thank you for your contributions—and a very happy PSW Week in Ontario.

Madam Speaker, make no mistake, this budget is an investment into our children, parents and grandparents. It uses a proactive approach to tackle the ever-changing challenges Ontarians face.

I want to reflect on the Minister of Finance’s words on budget day—how his father bravely immigrated to Ontario from war-torn Europe, never to see his parents again; how through his hard work and the privileges afforded to him in this great province, he achieved his dreams of going to university, marrying the woman of his dreams and raising three children. And Madam Speaker, I can attest that at least one of those three children turned out pretty well. Wouldn’t you agree?

When I moved to this country at the age of 12, I could not have achieved my dreams if I wasn’t afforded the same opportunities as everyone else—if I didn’t have access to world-class primary, secondary and post-secondary education. My home country was under an authoritarian regime up until 35 years ago, where people were not guaranteed their freedoms.

Let’s not forget and let’s appreciate that we live in a country with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows us to pursue our dreams, speak freely and worship as we choose.

In the same way the minister spoke fondly of his father achieving the Ontario dream, I can say the same for my mother, my brother and myself.

Madam Speaker, this budget is for the 16 million Ontarians who have their unique hopes and dreams, who proudly call this province home and want to live, work and play and raise a family in our great province of Ontario.

Speaker, let’s not forget that over 80,000 residents in Ontario live in a long-term-care home. Just like a house, a condo or an apartment is a home, so is a long-term-care home, where residents live out the last precious years of their lives.

Just two weeks ago, I attended a gala held by Copernicus Lodge, a non-profit long-term-care home that was founded 45 years ago to serve Toronto’s Polish community. Having known this home and their staff for many, many years, I can attest that the lodge provides a loving home to their many residents, using a holistic and resident-focused approach in their work. And they don’t just provide regular programming for residents but also cultural programming for the Polish residents, including those who are World War II veterans.

That being said, it is only right that we invest in these homes, ensuring that the Ontarians who need them have access to a safe, modern, state-of-the-art, comfortable place to call home.

Thankfully, our government has made groundbreaking investments and improvements to our long-term-care sector since forming government, and this budget had even more wonderful news.

Madam Speaker, Mahatma Gandhi once said the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable persons.

Our elders cared for us, so it is only proper that we take care of them.

Caring for our most vulnerable seniors, including those with dementia, is why I tabled my private member’s bill, with the member for Thornhill, to reform our government’s approach to dementia care. Right now, 250,000 Ontarians are living with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, and that number is expected to triple by 2050. Caring for this community requires our utmost attention, so I was glad to hear that we are investing $46 million into not only the continued operation of 59 behavioural support units but also to have 200 more total BSU beds across the province so we can provide care to our beloved seniors with complex needs. It’s the right move for our province, which is predicted to see a huge spike in our senior population, the “silver wave,” as my colleague across likes to call it.

There’s a report that shows a 23% increase in our over-65 population by 2029. Speaker, we know that many Ontario residents are waiting to be placed in a long-term-care home and, rest assured, our budget is addressing that need. We are making progress on our goal to build 58,000 new and upgraded beds by 2028 and already have 18,000 that are either open, under construction or have approval to start construction.

As of now, we succeeded in building 4,500 new and upgraded beds. This is fantastic news for Ontario families with loved ones expected to be placed into a home. With more beds, we will be able to serve the needs of vulnerable seniors in our province.

Sur les 110 foyers en cours de développement, 12 prévoient d’offrir des programmes et des services culturels et linguistiques à la population francophone de l’Ontario. Le fait que notre gouvernement donne aux opérateurs nouveaux et existants les moyens d’établir des foyers francophones est vraiment louable, car cela répond aux besoins de la riche diversité de la population de l’Ontario.

Dans toute la province, nous avons des foyers qui accueillent les résidents dans de nombreuses langues différentes, y compris Ivan Franko, qui dessert la communauté ukrainienne locale.

This budget is providing $155 million to increase the construction funding subsidy top-up, supporting the cost of developing or redeveloping a long-term-care home. Eligible projects will receive an additional construction funding subsidy of up to $35 per bed per day for 25 years. And we want to support our newly built and existing homes so they can operate without issue, which is why we are responding to higher costs in the sector by increasing operating funding to support the financial stability of these homes.

And I want to mention one more home. Through the incredible work of our government’s Accelerated Build Pilot Program, we were able to create over 600 new beds with the opening of Wellbrook Place, a new state-of-the-art long-term-care home in Mississauga. This six-storey facility took only two and a half years to build. Speaker, that is a remarkable accomplishment and a testament to our government’s ability to build more homes for those in need of them.

C’est pourquoi ce budget prévoit 4,9 milliards de dollars pour embaucher et maintenir en poste 27 000 personnes dans le secteur des soins de longue durée, ainsi que 100 millions de dollars pour former des préposés de soutien à la personne et des infirmières dans le cadre du programme PREP LTC. Ce programme attribue des stages cliniques aux étudiants, ce qui leur permet de recevoir une formation pratique adéquate.

And that’s not the only program; we also have the BEGIN initiative, which our budget is investing $100 million into, which provides tuition grants for nursing students with the aim of adding 2,000 more nurses to our long-term-care sector by 2025. Speaker, just last week, our government announced $4.1 million towards GeriMedRisk, a program that makes it easier and faster for seniors living with complex needs like dementia to access coordinated care and get connected to geriatric specialists and pharmacists. This helps our seniors avoid unnecessary trips to the emergency room and allows them to stay at home to better manage their health.

Speaker, the members opposite who accuse us of mismanaging health care and mismanaging long-term care, I ask them: Look at the evidence. It is our investments that are supporting our seniors. It is our investments that are supporting and growing our long-term-care sector and it can only be achieved through budget 2024.

On a personal note, I just want to conclude by saying that I feel it’s a privilege of a lifetime to be working together with the Minister of Long-Term Care and the Minister for Seniors and Accessibility. We are all immigrants to this country, and I do believe that it is very, very inspiring that it is in our mandate to be travelling across the province, building modern, state-of-the-art long-term-care homes where seniors who have spent their entire lives building the province can live out the last days of their lives in beautiful, modern, welcoming homes. Because, Madam Speaker, they are truly homes.

Thank you to the member from Oshawa for her comments. I was very happy to see the investments in health care in this budget, and I think all of us share an interest in making sure we have the best health care available for our constituents. I know the member mentioned that she was pleased that the minister of mental health had worked with her to ensure that a community group was getting ongoing funding.

There are some great investments in the budget, including an extra $2 billion over three years for home and community care; a 4% increase in hospital funding; the first new medical school in Canada focused on training family doctors; and also the primary care investments—an additional $546 million for more primary care interdisciplinary teams.

The member said she expects this budget to do things to help people, and I wanted to ask: Don’t you think these are important investments to help people in your community and all of ours?

Speaker, we all know the importance of building more homes across the province. I know especially young people are seized with the issue as they become concerned that the dream of home ownership will never be a reality. That is why I am so glad that the new measures in budget 2024, taken to provide new support, ensure we are hitting our goal of 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

My question to the member opposite: Will you support our government’s investment of $1.8 billion in infrastructure funding that we are providing to our municipalities and vote on the budget 2024?

It’s always an honour to rise, today to debate Bill 180, the government’s budget bill. It’s interesting that we’re debating this bill on the same day the Financial Accountability Officer released their economic and budget outlook for Ontario.

When the FAO compared the 2016-17 to the 2022-23 period versus the current and projected periods for 2022-23 to 2028-29, they only found one area of spending where we’re seeing a significant increase in government spending. Do you know what that area was, Speaker? Interest on debt.

Health care, going down; education, going down; community and social services, slight, slight increase. The one area we saw a significant increase? Interest on debt, which to me just shows a government—maybe we haven’t had a government in Ontario’s history that has spent so much, increased the debt by so much, and actually gotten so little out of it. If we weren’t experiencing the various crises in the province of Ontario, you might understand the decrease and the increase in spending in all the other major categories.

Speaker, I want to talk about five areas of the budget where the government falls short, and I’m going to start with housing. Right now, in Ontario, tonight—on average, any night in this province—16,000 people will be unhoused in Ontario. The average market rent in the province of Ontario for a one-bedroom apartment is now $2,200. It takes the average young person 22 years to save for a down payment on a new home. We have a whole generation of young people wondering if they will ever own a home.

The government had an opportunity in the budget to actually legalize housing, legalize fourplexes, four storeys, as of right. They had a chance to legalize six- to 11-storey buildings along major transit and transit corridors, something builders tell me will cut their building time in half, just those two measures, key recommendations from the government’s own task force.

They had an opportunity to legalize commercial to residential transitions. They had an opportunity to legalize making it easy to build on underutilized strip malls and parking lots so we can quickly increase housing supply in places where we already have infrastructure built. But unfortunately, the government said, “Not in my backyard. We’re not going to legalize housing,” at a time when we’re in a housing crisis.

The government also had an opportunity to invest more in non-profit, co-op and permanent supportive housing. As a matter of fact, the Bank of Nova Scotia says that we need 250,000 additional non-profit and co-op deeply affordable homes built over the next decade. Do you know how many the government has built since they’ve taken office? Around 1,100—only 6% of the commitment they made to the federal government in 2018.

The reason this is so important—and I’ve seen this in my own community, and I am going to compliment the government on this one. We actually have succeeded in building permanent supportive housing in Guelph. We got to yes, and I want to take a moment, because this was highlighted in the budget, to thank the Associate Minister of Housing and the Minister of Health for saying yes to building and funding permanent supportive housing in Guelph. I was happy to see it highlighted in the budget. But why aren’t we seeing that across communities all across Ontario, where so many people are desperate for housing?

I want to turn for a moment to health care. I wanted to address health care because, right now, 2.3 million Ontarians do not have access to a family doctor. Hallway medicine is the norm in Ontario—even though this government said they were going to eliminate it when they first ran for election—and we have emergency departments closing across the province of Ontario.

I’ve been listening to the members in debate, and they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to build more hospitals and long-term-care homes.” What I haven’t heard them talking about is who’s actually going to staff any of these hospitals, long-term-care homes and primary care offices, especially at a time when the projection is that over the next decade, we’re going to be short 33,200 nurses and 50,853 personal support workers. There wasn’t anything in the budget about addressing these staffing shortages that will be critical to making sure that health care services are available to the people of Ontario when and where they need it.

I want to shift to education now. You know what the biggest cut in the budget was? Post-secondary education—critical to our economic well-being, to educating the workers of the future. What’s so surprising about seeing that cut in the budget was, prior to the budget, the government said, “Hey, we’re going to invest $1.3 billion in post-secondary education,” which was less than half of what their own blue-ribbon panel said. The government failed to address the fact that we’re going to have less international students coming, which is going to cost our post-secondary education sector $1.8 billion, which actually led to a real cut in the government’s budget on post-secondary education.

On top of that, we’re dealing with a teachers’ shortage in our elementary and secondary education. As a matter of fact, just yesterday, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario released a report on the alarming increase in violence in our schools due to the shortage of adults in the schools teaching our children. As a matter of fact, a third of secondary schools in Ontario face daily teacher shortages—not addressed in the budget.

The next area I want to talk about in the budget is poverty. There are 16,000 people unhoused on any given night in Ontario and 717,000 people living in legislated poverty in the province of Ontario, many of those people with disabilities. It’s shameful in a province that is as wealthy as Ontario, especially when we know that poverty costs this province $33 billion a year. The government had an opportunity to increase ODSP and OW rates to a level that would bring people above the poverty line. That was not addressed in the budget.

I want to close by talking about the climate crisis, because the government had an opportunity in this budget to bring forward a climate affordability plan to help us reduce climate pollution and make life more affordable for the people of Ontario. One way they could have done that was to make heat pumps affordable for people. We know that heat pumps save people 13% on their heating and cooling bills versus folks with gas furnaces, though today, unfortunately, the government passed a bill imposing those expensive gas furnaces onto new homebuyers. PEI offers free heat pumps for people who make under $100,000 a year to help them be able to afford increases in energy costs in their homes.

The government could have also had money in this budget to expand EV charging stations across the province and to bring back EV rebates so people in this province can afford to drive the electric vehicles we want to build in Ontario. I will say, yes, we’re making some progress on building electric vehicles in this province, and we should all celebrate that, but you know what? It would be nice if Ontarians could actually afford to drive those electric vehicles.

It would also be nice if we would open up investment opportunities in renewable energy, low-cost wind and solar, because the $1.88 trillion invested in the green energy transition, half of it to wind and solar—

A question to the members opposite: Part of this budget includes Critical Minerals Strategy funding—it’s part of this budget.

The Ontario Mining Association puts together a report every year. It’s called the State of the Ontario Mining Sector. They are forecasting gross domestic product from the mining industry to grow between the years 2020 to 2025 by 25%. I’d say that’s a good thing. I think that it’s, in part, attributable to the Critical Minerals Strategy that’s part of this budget and part of the previous budget as well.

And so, to either of the speakers who spoke on this issue, I would like to know: What are their views on the Critical Minerals Strategy? And do they think that the Critical Minerals Strategy is, in part, helping to grow the domestic product of the mining sector in Ontario?

I thank the member from Thornhill. First, I want to say if we truly all agreed on wanting the best outcomes, then it would be reflected in this budget. The Conservatives say that they want the best outcome. Then how come we are cutting education funding and we are continuing down the path of privatization of health care—among the many, many examples that are contained in this budget?

Yes, with regard to, very specifically, the family doctor shortage, we need to create more spaces. We need to train more medical doctors. We need to encourage family medicine as a practice. There are a number of measures that can be taken. A lot of this is down the road, but this problem is urgent and there needs to be an immediate solution, as well.

One of the things that we have proposed in the NDP is to reduce the administrative burden that family doctors are experiencing so that they can spend more of their time seeing patients—a recommendation that has been put forward by family physicians themselves. And yet this government voted it down.

I’d like to thank my colleagues for their presentations today on the budget bill.

My question is for the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North. I was very interested in your comments about front-line health care workers who have been recommending a health care human resources strategy that focuses on recruitment as well as retainment. Most importantly, one of the things that has been recommended is the need for wage parity across health care sectors. Specifically, actually, the finance committee’s own report on the pre-budget consultations mentions the need for wage parity. I’d like to ask the member: How important is this, and would you like to see this reflected in the government’s budget?

My question for the member for Parkdale–High Park: This government seems to have ignored the crisis that is going on, and I’d like to know: Would you like to see further investments in education and education being brought back to the cuts that they’ve made since 2018 to address what’s going on in schools?

I’ve got a few things I want to talk about in this budget—

I have some really great things to talk about in the budget, but I want to address a couple of things the member just said. Two facts—I think all we really need to do is talk about two facts. Health spending when we were elected was $60 billion annually. Today it’s over $80 billion. We’ve had a 6%—higher than inflation—year-over-year increase in health spending. Let’s just put a pin in that for a moment.

Then we can talk about education as well. When we were elected, the budget was $23.6 billion; today, it’s $28.6 billion. That is a $5-billion increase. That’s almost $1 billion a year that the education budget—there are 3,000 more teachers; there are 7,500 more educational workers. What they have suggested is completely opposite than what the facts outline.

Speaker, I can also tell you that our government continues to move ahead with the economy, not just the $5 billion more that’s spent in education since we were elected, not just the $20 billion more that’s been spent in health—each year, $20 billion, Speaker. This is what we’ve added up to. And all of that came as a result of the fact that when we got elected, the revenue in Ontario was $150 billion; today the revenue in Ontario is $214 billion. It is a $64-billion increase in revenue. Why? Because we lowered taxes in the province of Ontario, and that made 700,000 new people working in the province of Ontario—700,000 new taxpayers, 85,000 new businesses last year alone. Those businesses and those 700,000 workers are all paying taxes for the first time in Ontario. That’s why our revenue has gone from $150 billion to $214 billion, which allows us to spend $20 billion more in health care spending and allows us to spend $5 billion more since the election.

We are going to continue—look to just last month alone. If you want more facts, last month alone, 25,000 people were added to the job rolls in Ontario; 5,800 in manufacturing. We’re back now to where we were in manufacturing before the Liberals, backed by the NDP, gutted the manufacturing sector and we lost 300,000 jobs. That’s what’s happening. It’s because we’ve secured $43 billion in new auto investments, $3 billion in life sciences, tens of billions of dollars in tech. That’s what’s happening, and this budget 2024 ensures that we continue to build on that momentum and attract more of these job-creating investments.

Some really exciting news in the budget is the new Barrie Regional Innovation Centre. It’s a RIC, as we call it. In the budget, we announced $1 million a year over three years to establish a brand new regional information centre in Barrie. Now we have 17 of these RICs across Ontario, and they ensure that innovators and entrepreneurs have all the tools they need in front of them to succeed. These RICs will help our entrepreneurs protect and commercialize their intellectual property, attract talent, attract customers and attract capital. This is what will happen now in Barrie with this brand new, million-dollar-a-year regional innovation centre that 17 communities here in Ontario already have.

Speaker, we are North America’s second-largest tech cluster. We are growing 350% faster than Silicon Valley. Just last July, in a 48-hour period, we had 10,000 California tech workers flee California and apply for visas here in Ontario—10,000 in 48 hours. That’s the attraction that we have here in Ontario. We also saw 11,300 self-employed jobs created just in the province of Ontario. That’s the kind of activity that’s happening here.

Let me turn to Invest Ontario, our investment agency, our investment arm of the province of Ontario. In the budget, you’ll see an additional $100 million to the Invest Ontario Fund, which brings the total fund to $600 million. They have been very pivotal in the successes, in landing our investments in advanced manufacturing, in automotive, life sciences and the tech sectors.

Since its inception, Invest Ontario has secured over $2.4 billion in investments and created over 2,600 jobs. They have helped land these important auto investments, like Dana, a $60-million investment that landed in Cambridge and Oakville, and they’re creating thousands of good-paying jobs through Invest Ontario.

Just yesterday, of course, Invest Ontario was with us to welcome Asahi Kasei’s $1.6-billion investment to build an EV separator plant in Port Colborne. That’s what’s happening in Ontario because of the kind of incentives and the kind of action that are built into this budget 2024. Asahi Kasei’s $1.6-billion investment is a game-changer for the people of Ontario.

It’s almost that we’ve used that word too much, because that is actually what’s happened: $43 billion has landed here in Ontario in four years. We’ve stood here and said, “That’s a game-changer,” because these are. In a community like Port Colborne, they have been hit hard by the Liberals’ slashing of the manufacturing sector in Ontario—300,000 jobs lost. We drove through Port Colborne yesterday and saw where a lot of those businesses used to be. The person who was one of the people who are assembling the land in Port Colborne showed us: “Well, this is where that company used to be. This is where that manufacturing used to be. This is where that paper mill used to be.” It was shocking to see.

This investment of $1.6 billion is the single largest investment in the history of Port Colborne, and it’s because we put the economic climate together: lower taxes, lower red tape, lower electricity rates, all of these things. All of the things that we’ve done are why companies like Asahi Kasei are now investing $1.6 billion. They chose Ontario because they know we have everything here in our boundaries to succeed: this dependable supply chain that we’ve shown them, access to the best talent in the world, an abundance of clean energy. We have green steel—just so much more for them to be able to access.

I mentioned the $43 billion. I might have mentioned that a few times in this Legislature.