Thank you to the great member for Thornhill for that really important question. Our economic competitiveness does depend on our ability to address the over 100,000 jobs going unfilled in construction alone.

We also know that we’re facing a silver tsunami. What does that mean? One in three journeypersons are over the age of 55, and we’ve got to do more to attract new workers into the skilled trades.

It’s not only a labour shortage issue, but it also affects our productivity as a province—something we have to work to address, because when we improve our productivity, we improve our competitiveness as a province.

So what are we doing? We’ve launched a $1.5-billion skilled trades strategy. Through our skills development training stream alone, we’ve trained over 500,000 workers into a better job with a bigger paycheque. We’ve taken steps to get properly fitted PPE for women in the trades, leading to one of the highest registration years in Ontario’s history for women into the skilled trades; and tackling barriers for marginalized and racialized Ontarians. We’ve also launched foreign credential recognition, streamlined pathways, and so much more I can’t even fit it into the answer.