Thank you to the member for that question. I want to remind the member that post-secondary institutions are autonomous institutions and make the decisions on programs for their own schools themselves. But I think what the member and I do both agree on is the importance of women in trades. Whether you are in hairstyling or you’re a construction worker, you’re a valued member of skilled trades.

I want to say I was recently in Indiana with the minister of small business and the Minister of Agriculture. I had the opportunity to be part of a round table on workforce development where I spoke about the importance of women in trades and some of the great programs that are happening here at Ontario’s colleges. Thank you to Conestoga College for creating the Jill of All Trades program, which works directly with high school and elementary students to ensure that we’re getting more women into the trades. So we’ll continue to work with the students. But I think I agree we value the importance of skilled trade workers. I will be continuing to work with the school.

But, as I spoke about the importance of trades and filling the gaps across this province in all areas of trades, I want to thank the Minister of Education for his work. Starting this fall, every student coming to grade 9 will complete two mandatory tech ed programs.

This will ensure that young women are having the opportunity to the use their hands in school to look at the trades, and the work is continuing to be done through my ministry, and the Ministry of Labour as well. We want to ensure that there are more opportunities for young women to enter the trades because, we can admit, we need trades workers in every area of this province, in all different areas.

We will continue to work with our amazing Colleges Ontario to ensure that we have the skilled trade workers for the future.

Thank you to the member. You have some great institutions in your area. I appreciate visiting and meeting with not only administration but also with the students. I love the student experience on campus when I get to chat directly with them about how they ended up at that institution and the program they were in.

I know, for myself, I was interested in STEM when I went to university. But then, when I got there—I thought I wanted to be an engineer—I realized that physics in university was much harder than physics was in high school, and my STEM career suddenly changed.

But the number of engineers, for example, that we’re going to need in this province alone—Minister Fedeli is bringing these companies. They are needing thousands and thousands of STEM workers. We wanted to ensure that government wasn’t going to be a barrier to training more STEM workers. We were hearing from institutions that the interest in STEM programming at their schools is very high. That’s because it’s very high in in-demand jobs for those students. We wanted to ensure that we were providing the funding for those students in those labour demand programs.

We’re going to work closely with Colleges Ontario and Council of Ontario Universities in ensuring that there is a standardized approach to reporting incidents of hate or racism on campus. Whether you are at U of T or a George Brown campus, it’s the same policy in place. We want to ensure that—because I was hearing from students that they weren’t reporting incidents because they said, “There’s never any follow-up. Nothing happens.” We want to—

Thank you to the member for that question. As I said before, we can always do more. I am meeting with the Indigenous institutes coming up shortly, where we’ll be consulting on what more we can be doing. The blue-ribbon panel did address some of the issues that Indigenous institutions are facing, and that’s why we have decided to specifically consult with all the institutions together on what more we can be doing on campus.

Indigenous institutes are very important in the communities, important for accessible education for First Nations learners, but also, they’re an economic driver for communities. Ensuring that they do offer the program that is needed for local labour market needs—so addressing the needs of learners being close to home, but also the needs of the local labour market, ensuring that those students are rolling right into jobs.

I look forward to consulting with the First Nation institutes to ensure that we can be doing more to support those institutions.

We have had the chance to visit. Actually, I had mentioned earlier about the welding program. I remember that programming was funded specifically through the associate minister of women’s economic empowerment, a specific fund that was set up for students as well as the institution that provided all the wraparound supports for those students. That included things like associated costs of transportation and daycare. It was really setting these women up for success. They were working with mentors as well. In the welding situation, they were entering into programs that are highly male-dominated and setting those women up for success.

I appreciate the work that Six Nations is doing, as well as all of our institutes in Ontario, setting students up for success.

To your comment about the blue-ribbon panel: The panel also stated that it was a shared responsibility of students, of institutions and of the government. The government stepped up. We did our part. We provided $1.3 billion in new funding for the sector. But to help institutions, we also provided the efficiency fund of $15 million so that they can apply directly to the fund to be able to do those audits. The shared responsibility for the students—we didn’t see a tuition increase as the panel had suggested as being something that we were interested in doing. We want to ensure affordability for students and—

Thank you to the member of the opposition for that question. And that is correct: Quite frankly, we are very disappointed in the federal decision that was made, a unilateral decision without consultation with the provinces or any of the post-secondary institutions. We are working very closely with our institutions right now.

But I can tell you, this is going to be an economic hit across not only Ontario, but across Canada. That’s what we were hearing from many different organizations. I talked to the tourism association during the ROMA conference and heard from them directly the impact that they foresee happening in the hospitality and tourism industry in Ontario.

As I have said, the Premier and the Prime Minister signed a historic health care deal. We need to ensure that we have enough PSWs to fill those spaces for the Minister of Long-Term Care, and enough nurses in this province for the Ministry of Health. We are going to continue working very closely with our partners, and we will have more to say by the March 31 deadline.

I’ve heard extreme dissatisfaction from many institutions—but more importantly, the economic impact this is going to have on Canada and Ontario. The Minister of Economic Development is bringing new companies here to Ontario every single week, and guess one of the reasons they come here? It’s because of the talented pipeline of students that we have in this province.

I will continue to work with our institutions and we will be addressing this by the March 31 deadline.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier announced an additional tuition freeze moving forward for students. I want to ensure affordability for students. There’s an affordability crisis in Ontario and across Canada right now: the cost of housing, the cost of food and the cost of gas. But what this government is doing is ensuring that post-secondary education is affordable for all students in this province.

I’d like to talk about the international students and the chaos that the federal government has caused in the post-secondary sector across Canada—absolutely no consultation with the provinces or the institutions themselves.

I am hearing from ministers on this side about the impact that this is going to have in their ministries. In fact, the Premier and the Prime Minister just signed a historic health care deal. Where do you think the PSWs and the nurses are going to come from that the Minister of Long-Term Care and the Minister of Health are going to need? Where are we going to find the skilled trade workers that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Infrastructure are going to need to build the houses, the roads, the schools, the hospitals in this province?

Mr. Speaker, absolutely no consultations with the provinces or these institutions themselves—absolutely disgusting from the federal government.

Our post-secondary institutions and research institutions are important sources of job creation, skills training, research, innovation, commercialization and obviously great athletes as well, making them leading contributors to our overall economic growth.

I am thrilled to stand up today to talk about what our government is doing to support the sector and our students, including launching our new blue-ribbon panel. Announced last week, the blue-ribbon panel will provide advice and recommendations for keeping the post-secondary education sector financially stable and focused on providing the best student experience possible. Led by Dr. Alan Harrison and an incredible group of panel members, this team will support my ministry in keeping Ontario’s post-secondary institutions on stable footing, now and into the future. As we all know, Ontario’s institutions—like St. Clair College in the member’s region—support the province’s economy in a number of ways, including by preparing people for the labour market, engaging in research and supporting the prosperity of local communities.