I would like to welcome Oliver Stone, general manager with Chartwell Retirement Residences, and a very special shout-out to my very own fire chief for Vaughan, Chief Andrew Zvanitajs, also known as Chief Andy. Welcome.

I think everybody in this room can agree that we want the best possible outcomes for our communities. And I’m very proud that near to my community, there’s going to be a York University medical school in Vaughan. This is a major step to create a goal, to create the doctors of tomorrow, because it’s going to be concentrating solely on physicians that are going to focus on family practices.

So I’m going to ask the member if she would support that, in favour of the doctors of tomorrow, alongside us.

Last week, I had the great privilege of standing with the Premier and my York region caucus colleagues to announce a brand new medical school just north of Thornhill, in the city of Vaughan. This school will be the first medical school to focus on primary care physicians—so important. It will include up to 80 undergraduate and 102 post-graduate seats starting in September 2028, with up to 240 undergraduate and 293 post-graduate seats on an annual basis once operating at full capacity.

This project is in partnership with York University and will be situated beside the state-of-the-art Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital and the soon-to-be-built long-term-care home. Together, these projects will significantly improve the quality of care our families and seniors have, bringing health care closer to home.

Speaker, our government is launching the largest expansion of Ontario’s medical education system in more than a decade. Parents, students, grandmothers, grandfathers, bubbes and zaydes, this is so exciting because our students will now have more opportunities to attend medical school locally, just a few minutes north in the city of Vaughan, a little bit north of Thornhill, and that is such positive news.

I want to thank my friend and colleague the member for King–Vaughan for being a strong champion for this project and a great advocate for the people of Thornhill and Ontario.

It is my very great honour to also welcome from the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries—and from Vaughan—Margie Singleton, Rebecca Hunt, Dina-Marie Raggiunti Stevens. It’s also my pleasure to introduce Melanie Mills, Caroline Goulding and Nathan Etherington, all from the Ontario Library Association, visiting us today.

It is with great pleasure that I welcome my friend and colleague Mr. Chris Ainsworth, city councillor for ward 4 for the city of Vaughan from the mighty riding of Thornhill.