The Minister of Long-Term Care has said that their government is working very closely with those stakeholders, but they haven’t even consulted them, so it’s hard to imagine that that’s actually happened.

Speaker, to the Premier: Over the past five years, beyond a few measures on vaping already implemented elsewhere in Canada, this Conservative government has not implemented a single new tobacco control legislation or regulation. The Ontario health care crisis is real. By the end of question period, two more people will die from this disease, from the use of tobacco. This happens every single hour. This government can do more to curb tobacco use. They can do more to prevent addictions. They can do more to end disease and death. In Canada, there’s $500 billion in lawsuits at stake—$500 billion in lawsuits.

It’s time that the big tobacco industry is held accountable. It’s time to make them pay. Will the Premier and the Conservative government finally prioritize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect future generations of Ontarians from the harms, the disease and death caused by tobacco addiction and use?