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.

Let’s look at the history of medical schools. The Liberals and the NDP have voted against every single measure we’ve taken to increase medical seats in this province. Budget 2022 was the largest expansion in medical seats in over 10 years, and you voted against it. Budget 2023: again, another increase in medical seats, and guess what? They voted against it.

Budget 2024: a new medical school at York University that will be specifically for family medicine. I urge both of you, the NDP and the Liberals, to get on board, support budget 2024 and see access to more family medicine in this province.

Under the leadership of this Premier, we just invested $1.3 billion in post-secondary education, the largest investment in over a decade in post-secondary education. We are giving schools the stability and the predictability that they need, and we are not doing it on the backs of Ontario students.

Mr. Speaker, we are continuing to freeze tuition for an additional three years. Looking back under the Liberal leadership, Ontario had the highest post-secondary education tuition in all of Canada. Under the leadership of this Premier, we decreased tuition by 10% and we have continued to freeze it. We are going to ensure that every student in this province has accessibility and affordability when it comes to post-secondary education.

They haven’t arrived yet, but we had a great discussion this morning: grade 10 students from Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School from my riding in Simcoe North. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I rise in this chamber to voice my full support for our government’s plan to catch up and for the actions we are taking to ensure our province’s children can enjoy a normal school year.

I speak to you not only as a minister and as an MPP but also as a mother. My children have always been blessed with amazing education workers in their schools.

But why we’re here today is to ensure that children are staying in school.

For the first time in two years, children are back in their classrooms and they’re experiencing an academic year expected to be free of disruptions.

Ontario schools are safe for in-person learning, thanks in part to the over $3.2 billion in COVID-19 resources we provided to school boards since the start of the pandemic and the major improvements we have made to air quality and ventilation in schools in every corner of the province.

Hard-working parents in Simcoe North have made their expectations clear. They want their kids in school and learning alongside their peers right up until the academic end of year in June.

I was speaking to Kim last evening, a grandmother, and she was explaining how important it is for her grandson to stay in school. She also commented that this has been going on since the times when her daughter was in school. Students need to be in the classroom.

I believe that Simcoe North families, and indeed all families across Ontario, deserve a normal school year after two years of pandemic-related disruptions.

Today, Madam Speaker, Ontario students are back in the classrooms where they belong. The 2022-23 academic year is two months’ old and is going very well so far. Moreover, students are benefiting from the full school experience, including sports, band, field trips and after-school extracurricular clubs and activities.

The purpose of education is, of course, to prepare our young people for the jobs of tomorrow, but school is also about spending time with friends, sharing a laugh or two and, of course, achieving personal goals. Those goals might include displaying excellence on the football field, mastering an unfamiliar song, captivating an audience by acting in the school play, or raising money for a worthwhile community cause.

Madam Speaker, I hope that everyone in this chamber can agree that in-person learning is essential for the mental and physical health, as well as the overall well-being, of Ontario students.

It is true the pandemic demonstrated the usefulness of online or remote learning, and I definitely saw that in my own ministry. Remote learning certainly has a role to play in the delivery of education, but the pandemic also demonstrated its limitations. I know every member in this chamber has heard from constituents of ours about the difficulties during the pandemic with online learning, and especially with young children at home.

For the past two years, our kids were isolated. Many students had trouble adapting to remote learning, and some even experienced physical and mental health challenges—and that’s for those people who had access to Internet, and stable Internet. I know many of us were working from home, had children trying to learn from home—and in rural ridings, we know that can be difficult. It’s not surprising, considering the COVID-19 pandemic was a frightening time for all Ontarians, but especially for children, who lost two years of normal school experience.

Thankfully, Ontario’s Plan to Catch Up includes significant investments to help students cope with these anxieties. In fact, we are delivering a $90-million investment in student mental health supports. That includes $10 million in new funding, and it represents a 420% increase in student mental health funding compared to the previous NDP-backed Liberal government’s plan in 2017-18.

The simple truth is that mental health is health. We cannot begin to fix all the damage caused by the pandemic without acknowledging this fact and providing meaningful mental health supports for our young people.

Student mental health is just one issue that needs to be addressed. The reality of this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic meant students would face new obstacles in their education. Now, as we emerge from the pandemic and return to our normal lives, we need to be prepared to help those young people who bore the weight of many public health restrictions.

Students are excited to be back in the classroom, to see their friends and their teachers, and to be back to normal activities. Although I don’t have young children at home anymore, I know, from watching the news on back-to-school day and seeing the young kids who were super excited to be out there talking to the reporters—even their parents—how excited they were to return to normal and to see their teachers, to see their friends, and to have those fun learning activities in class.

A global trend emerged, and it has become visible in the United Kingdom, the United States and across Canada. Students across the country and around the world experienced similar challenges with remote learning and other pandemic-related disruptions to education. In a nutshell, we are seeing steep declines in math, reading and writing.

As the recently released EQAO results demonstrate, that trend is unfortunately visible here in Ontario as well. As the Minister of Colleges and Universities, I find it troubling as that continues, possibly into high school and into the post-secondary world—the possibility of that.

The EQAO assessments showed a decline in every subject field except for grade 6 reading. Grade 3 students experienced a four-point decline in reading, a seven-point decline in writing, and a small drop in mathematics. Grade 6 students saw a further three-point decline in math, from 50 to 47. This is a real problem, and it is even more profound for French-language students, who saw a 33-point drop. Grade 9 followed the same trend, with math scores dropping 23 points for English-language students and 25 points for French-language students.

Learning gaps created by the pandemic are a significant problem, but it is important to put things in their proper context. In Colorado, for instance, only 27% of students tested in the spring of 2021 met or exceeded state math standards, while here in Ontario 67% of grade 3 students met or exceeded provincial math standards. In a comparative sense, Ontario is in better shape than other jurisdictions, and I want to make that clear. But it does not mean that we can afford to rest on our laurels. More work needs to be done.

It is for that reason that Ontario’s Plan to Catch Up includes the largest tutoring program in Ontario’s history. Our government is investing $176 million to expand access to free, school-based tutoring so thousands of Ontario students can utilize learning resources in their communities to help them succeed. Since April of this year, over 150,000 students as well as over 18,000 special-education students have accessed local board-provided tutoring supports. In addition, many parents have taken their own initiative and invested in tutoring supports for their own children.

Our government believes parents should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their children’s education, and we were elected to make life more affordable for hard-working families in my riding of Simcoe North, as well as across Ontario. For those reasons, our government recently announced the availability of catch-up payments to parents. As you know, Madam Speaker, our government delivered over $1.6 billion in direct payments to parents through three dedicated support programs to help families cover the costs of child care and at-home learning created by the pandemic.

I am proud to say that we are going even further by investing $365 million in direct financial relief to parents, who could use some extra support in uncertain times to help their kids catch up. Through this program, parents with school-aged children up to 18 years will receive $200 per child. Parents with school-aged children with special-education needs up to 21 years of age will receive $250 per child. Being at home this weekend, I talked to many constituents, when I was out, who mentioned that they had already signed up and were accessing the program and were very happy about the additional supports.

I am told that over 970,000 applications for catch-up payments have been submitted, which amounts to over one third of eligible students in our province. Applications for catch-up payments will remain open until March 31, 2023. Madam Speaker, I hope that you and all honourable members of this House will encourage parents of school-aged children in our respective ridings to apply as soon as possible. We need these additional supports.

As an aside, I think another big reason Ontario students may have weathered the pandemic storm a bit better than students in other jurisdictions is that our government is strongly committed to improving public education, and we are delivering tangible results. Our government is providing school boards with $26.6 billion in total funding for the 2022-23 school year, which is the highest investment in public education in Ontario’s history. Average per pupil funding through the Grants for Student Needs program has risen to over $13,000, which is an 2.7% increase over last year and yet another record high.

Our government has also been busy updating the curriculum to ensure it does a better job of preparing young people for the jobs of tomorrow. We are taking these actions because the world is changing, and the stakes could not be higher. As technology advances, the global economy is increasingly becoming a digital economy. We must adjust to the reality or run the risk of getting left behind. It is estimated that more than 40% of jobs in Canada are at elevated risk of getting disrupted by technology and computers.

Moreover, Ontario is in the middle of a skilled labour shortage of nearly 370,000 unfilled jobs just here in this province. And one of the most crucial labour shortages is in the skilled trades. We will need at least 100,000 additional trades workers over the next decade to build desperately needed housing for Ontarians. By 2025, it is estimated that one in five jobs in Ontario will be in the skilled trades, but the average age of people entering the trades is 29.

Madam Speaker, since our government was first elected in 2018, we have addressed this challenge by reviewing and updating the province’s curriculum. More specifically, this has meant making financial literacy and digital fluency key priorities, investing $200 million to support a four-year math strategy; teaching valuable transferable skills such as leadership, communication, collaboration and critical thinking; improving science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM learning; and my favourite, promoting the skilled trades as a top-choice career path for young people and increasing awareness of and access to apprenticeship programs.

Two years ago, we launched an updated elementary math curriculum that teaches coding skills starting as early as grade 1. Mandatory learning on coding from grades 1 to 9 will further enshrine Ontario as a STEM leader.

Last year, our government launched a destreamed grade 9 math course that builds on earlier skilled trades-related learning and drills down on financial literacy, including interest rates and budgeting.

And earlier this year, we introduced a new science and technology curriculum, including a destreamed grade 9 science course.

Madam Speaker, our government is making progress improving STEM learning in schools and in promoting skilled trades as a first career choice.

In my former ministry of women and children’s issues, I was an advocate for women entering the skilled trades and starting this in early grades and really allowing girls to have the opportunity to use their hands. We have a great opportunity to increase the number of women in skilled trades and promote the great opportunities and advantages they will have.

These are key reasons why I believe Ontario students will effectively catch up and overcome any learning gaps created by the pandemic. Mind you, my assessment is based on there being no further disruptions to student learning this school year.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE, has threatened a strike that could put over 55,000 education workers, custodians, early childhood educators and administrative staff on the picket lines at the worst possible time.

Let me be clear, Madam Speaker: Our government deeply respects Ontario education workers and the valuable work they do. I see it every day. I’ve seen it in my own children’s learning over the years. We have the utmost respect for them. School custodians and early childhood educators are excellent examples of unsung heroes who performed their jobs magnificently during the pandemic.

That said, it is completely irresponsible for the leadership of CUPE to rile up its members by making completely—

Thank you to the member from Ajax for that question. We need to increase the number of doctors and health care workers across the province, and that includes rural and remote communities and communities like hers in the GTA. That is why our government has taken historic action by building new medical schools in Ontario.

The new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton: This is the first new medical school in the GTA since University of Toronto opened in 1843. We’re also creating the University of Toronto academy of medicine and integrated health in Scarborough and expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge Health campus in Oshawa.

But we recognize that more action needs to be done across the province. That is why we also created the first stand-alone medical school in the north through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. We’ve also invested in post-secondary health care programs like Learn and Stay, and we continue to work with the Ministry of Long-Term Care to increase the number of PSWs and nurses in Ontario.

We are working to fill the gaps across the health care system and across the province after 15 years of Liberal mismanagement. By making these investments in post-secondary education today, our expansions will help to serve a growing and aging population in the years and decades to come.

Our government is making record investments in innovative approaches across the health care system—investments that the NDP and Liberals did not make. That’s why earlier this year we announced that we are making historic expansions increasing the number of seats for doctors and health care students. Over the next five years, we are adding 160 undergraduate and 295 post-graduate seats to six medical schools: medical and education expansions at Western, McMaster, the University of Ottawa and others. This will ensure that Ontarians will always be able to have the health care resources they need here when they need them.

Our government is creating concrete ways in which we can increase the number of health care professionals in our province, but as we know, the NDP and Liberals always say no. Speaker, I am proud to say our government is keeping Ontarians safe with a high-quality health care system, supported by high-quality post-secondary education.

Thank you to the member for Brampton North for that question.

Our government is getting it done for the people of Ontario by providing additional supports to health care post-secondary education.

After 15 years of Liberal mismanagement, this government is taking action to increase health human resources in Brampton. We understand that a growing population means a growing need for health care professionals.

Through our historic medical education expansion, we are delivering on the first new medical school not only in Brampton, but the first new medical school in the GTA in over 100 years. That’s right; the last medical school built in the GTA was the University of Toronto, in 1843. We are the government that is building the new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton.

We are also creating the new University of Toronto Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health in Scarborough, and expanding the Queen’s Lakeridge health campus.

Our government knows that training more doctors will ensure Ontarians can access the health care they need when they need it, wherever they may live.

I am happy to say that our government has taken action on this issue. As the member mentioned, it is important to have high-quality training across Ontario. Not only are we increasing choices for students in the GTA to access post-secondary health education—but across Ontario as well.

Earlier this year, we established the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as the first stand-alone medical school in northern Ontario. This will give students the flexibility to study closer to home and serve remote and underserved communities across Ontario.

I also want to note that our government is adding 160 undergraduate seats and 295 postgraduate positions to six medical schools over the next five years. This is the largest expansion of undergraduate seats in over a decade.

We need to ensure that we have a high-quality and resilient health care system, and that starts with high-quality post-secondary education across the province. At colleges and universities, our government has created hundreds of new opportunities for students to join Ontario’s health care professions.