I rise in the House to join in on the debate today on opposition day motion number 3.

Madam Speaker, since we were elected, we—I bet you every member here in this House can agree that we inherited an absolute mess and mismanagement of this province. The former government chased away 300,000 jobs.

Over the past six years, our government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, has invested back in the people of Ontario. To that end, Ontario is becoming a world-class province that is now being taken seriously on the global stage. We are competitive with all 50 states, creating more manufacturing jobs than all states combined. As the Premier has said many times over and over, we are eating their lunch.

Toronto continues to grow, and that’s why we here in Toronto are focused on building infrastructure and promoting amenities that realize the vision of Toronto as a world-class city.

When we talk about advertising, the former Liberal government advertised, and they were told that they advertised inappropriately. But we, this government, have cut advertising spending by 75%, from $62.6 million in 2017-18 to $16.4 million in 2018-19. I guess when you’re the Liberal government and you’re driving away jobs and when you’re driving away the economy; when people are struggling to do anything; when you’re not building schools; when you’re actually closing 600 schools; when you’re not building any roads, so people can’t get from A to B; when you’re not investing in infrastructure, the only thing you can do is advertise.

But we are not advertising like the Liberals. As the Auditor General said, they did not provide viewers with useful information; they were actually misleading. On the other hand, when we are advertising, we’re talking about the great things that are happening in Ontario.

I’d like to share a couple of examples of some of the great things that we can showcase about our province.

I know not everybody in this room may agree with Ontario Place, but I am so excited about the future of Ontario Place for this province. It is going to be such an amazing place.

Interjections.

We talk about faith-based hate crimes, and they are on the rise. We hear about that everyday on the news. I was actually knocking on doors on Friday in my riding and was disappointed to hear somebody who said some things I thought were awfully cruel—not about me, but about others who I care about.

The Victims’ Bill of Rights already allows victims of hate-based crimes to seek civil damages for emotional distress and related bodily harm. One thing in this bill is changes to the regulations. They’ve added terrorism offences, which are often hate-motivated; hate crimes which are targeting clergy; and disruption of worship. As we hear about that more and more, I believe those changes are important, and now these victims can charge or sue for emotional distress.

Does the member support that, which is in this bill, and will you be supporting this bill—