Thank you to the member from Brampton West for raising this important issue and for your advocacy on the new TMU medical school.

I am proud to say that, in 2022, we added 160 undergraduate spaces and 295 postgrad spaces over the next five years to train doctors, which is more than Ontario has seen in over a decade. In budget 2023, we were able to build on our government’s unprecedented medical seat expansion by adding an additional 100 undergraduate and 154 postgraduate seats. That is 709 new medical seats announced in just one year.

Unlike the previous Liberal government and the official opposition, our government, under the leadership of Premier Ford and the Minister of Health, have rolled up our sleeves and got it done. We didn’t just talk about needing more doctors; we are ensuring that we will have more doctors. Our government is building Ontario’s health care system to be stronger, more resilient and better than before.

We have taken a pragmatic approach to ensure that every medical seat expansion increases medical seats in all regions of Ontario. By training more students in key communities, we will keep up with providing quality health care to the growing population and improving distribution and retention of physicians across the province.

To the member from Brampton, I share your excitement about the new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton, and I cannot wait for the first cohort to be welcomed. Speaker, it’s worth repeating that Brampton isn’t the only medical school announced by this government. Because of the work done by Premier Ford, we were able to transform the northern Ontario medical school to a stand-alone institution and create the Scarborough Academy of Medicine under the University of Toronto.

We aren’t just training doctors for humans. We’re also training more vets, thanks to the collaboration between Guelph and Lakehead University.

Speaker, our government continues to make record investments to build up our health care infrastructure. We’re ensuring that we have the trained professionals needed to care for all Ontarians, including the furry and feathered ones.

Thank you to the member for the question. We are taking it very seriously. This government wants to ensure that everyone in this province has access to a family physician, whether you are living in northern Ontario, rural Ontario or underserved areas within the GTA. That’s why we are taking measures to ensure that we are training more and more doctors by opening the new Brampton medical school, the Scarborough integrated medical school, as well as expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge Health centre. These are all measures we are taking to ensure we have more doctors for the future.

We’re also expanding the medical seats in this province. This is the first time this has been done in over a decade. There will be 160 undergraduate seats and 295 postgraduate seats.

This government takes this very seriously. We want to ensure every Ontarian has access to doctors and proper health care resources across this province. We will continue to work together with this and ensure that everyone has access to these resources.