Thank you very much to the member for that question. What an important question. It doesn’t happen by chance, Madam Speaker. We’re competing with international sites across North America and across other jurisdictions. It’s because of the vision of this Premier that we have been able to land over $30 billion of EV investments.

You know what? It’s because we’re committed to building highways. We’re committing to building transit, we’re committed to building homes, something the Liberals and the NDP have said no to every step of the way. In fact, they continue to campaign against projects like the Bradford Bypass and Highway 413.

We need those critical pieces of infrastructure to attract investment, like the one the member is talking about: a $15-billion investment, one of the most historic—the largest investment in Ontario’s history for an auto manufacturing facility. Thank God we have someone like Premier Ford leading this province because under the Liberals and the NDP, all they know how to do is raise taxes, cancel projects, not build anything, be NIMBYs. But under this government we’re getting it done and we’re getting projects built.

When it comes to fighting for pocketbooks, when it comes to fighting for Ontarians, there’s only one Premier and one government that does it, and that’s ours. Whether it was removing the tolls off of Highways 412 or 418 it was this government, under this Premier, that led that charge. It’s so unfortunate that any time we bring any measure forward, whether it be tax cuts, fee decreases or other measures to support the people of this province, the NDP and Liberals vote against it. We’re always going to put more money back into the pockets of hard-working families.

We’ve landed $30 billion since this government has come in because of the measures we have taken. We have cut taxes on businesses and people in this province, and we have put more money back into their pockets. The NDP vote against every single one of our measures, every single one of these workers who are being supported by these EV investments.

Those members have an opportunity to vote in this budget, in our budgets, to support them. What do they do? They say no to every single thing that this government is doing, whether that’s reducing taxes, fighting the carbon tax or taking 10 cents a litre off your gas costs.

We’re going to continue to get to done. We’re going to continue to build over $180 billion over the next 10 years. This is about building for the next generation.

Our government is investing over $28 billion in the next 10 years to build highways.

We know what the NDP is trying to do with this. They don’t want the 413 to be built.

We know that our highways are going to be at capacity in the next five to 10 years.

For 15 years, the Liberals did absolutely nothing to build infrastructure in this province.

It’s under this government, this Premier and this Minister of Infrastructure that we’ve launched over $190-billion worth of—whether it’s hospitals, schools, roads, highways, we’re going to get that built, because this government is about building.

We know that people are stuck in gridlock. Over 30 minutes will be saved each way when we build Highway 413. We will continue to move forward with this plan because that is what the people of this province elected to us do.

I urge those members to go to communities like Brampton—in fact, they actually lost all three members of their team because of their position on Highway 413.

I urge the Leader of the Opposition to please go to Brampton, Mississauga, Milton and communities across—

In fact, the members opposite are so out of touch. Just look back at June 2, 2022. What happened? Where are those three members who were a part of that team before that? They’re not here anymore—because the members from Brampton North, Brampton East and Brampton Centre supported the building of the 413.

Let’s look at their record when it comes to drivers. They voted against removing tolls off the 412, the 418; they voted against those two measures that we took for drivers. They voted against removing $120 off your licence plate sticker for trucks or cars. Every step of the way, whether it’s removing 10 cents off a litre for gasoline—they voted against that as well.

We asked them to join this government in our fight to scrap the carbon tax. What do they do? Absolutely nothing.

This government will put drivers first, people first, and will do whatever we can—

Mr. Speaker, we’re making the largest investment in public transit in the entire world—$70 billion-plus over the next 10 years.

Let’s look at the record of the previous Liberal government and the NDP—voting against every single one of these investments—

Mr. Speaker, that member has voted against every measure this government has taken to improve public transit in this province. Not only does he support the largest carbon tax in Ontario—over 35 cents—he doesn’t want anybody to ride on public transit. He’s voting against projects like the Ontario Line. He’s voting against projects like the Scarborough subway extension.

Our government will continue to commit to building the largest expansion of public transit in the world.

Here are the facts: We are making the largest investment in public transit in the history of this province. Speaker, under the leadership of Premier Ford, over $30 billion is being invested in the city of Toronto.

That member and the members from the Toronto team in the party of the opposition have voted against key projects in transit. They voted against the Ontario Line. They voted against the Scarborough subway extension. They voted against LRTs across this province. They don’t want to build transit in cities like Toronto. They don’t want to build transit in Ontario. We will take no lessons from them.

We will continue on our path to making sure the people of Ontario can move, whether it’s through transit or highways.

Our government will continue to make historic and unprecedented investments into the health sector across this province. Just last year, we invested an additional $5.2 billion to support the delivery of health care services all across this province. That included investing and making sure that we increased or actually opened up additional medical seats for those in the north to ensure that there was better care for residents across all parts of this province.

We’re continuing to ensure that we make the necessary investments in health human resources: over 12,000 nurses were registered, a record year in this province. We will continue to make sure that those investments are being made all across this province.

Mr. Speaker, our government will continue to make these historic and unprecedented investments across this province. We ask the members opposite to stop voting against many of those measures that we have put up, including this historic investment of over $5 billion in additional support, and join our government in increasing investments in health care across this province.

As the member knows and as the AG has stated, we’re reviewing the decision and we intend to appeal it.

But we will speak to the investments that we have made in the health care system. Over the past year alone, we’ve increased base spending in health care by over $5.2 billion. That is the largest year-over-year increase in the history of this province. When we look at health human resources across this province, we have put in place the investments to support the hiring of over 14,500 net new nurses. That is unprecedented in the history of this province.

We will continue to make those investments, as we have with two new medical schools that we are announcing in this province, in Brampton and Scarborough, making sure we have new medical staff, more doctors in the north through that.

The members opposite have voted against each of those measures, have voted against every single increase to health care spending. On this side of the House and with our members opposite, we will continue to make sure we make those investments—

As the member opposite knows, we are reviewing the decision, and our intention is to appeal.

But let’s speak to the historic investments this government has made across this province—over $170 billion invested.

Let’s look at health care investments. We’ve got a $40-billion hospital infrastructure plan that we’re going to put forward. That’s going to build new hospitals all across the province—new hospitals in a city like Brampton, which was neglected and ignored by the previous Liberal government; a new hospital in the city of Windsor; a new hospital in Uxbridge; a new hospital in Mississauga.

Mr. Speaker, we are making the critical investments needed to support this province—throughout the last four years, and we’ll continue to deliver on that over the next four.

The largest health care investment increase year over year was recorded last year, when this government put an additional $5.2 billion into the health care system. What does that mean? Since March 2020, we have added over 12,000 health care professionals into the system. Just this year, the Ontario college of nurses has registered 12,800 nurses—and we still have a month to go.

We will continue to make these historic and unprecedented investments that we have been making to ensure we have the health human resources across this province.

We are incredibly grateful to our public service across this province that serves Ontario and Ontarians.

We’re also incredibly proud of the investments that we are making in this province.

Just three months ago, the Minister of Finance tabled our budget, which, in fact, the members opposite voted against. They voted against increasing health care funding to this province. They voted against building infrastructure—a $160-billion infrastructure plan across this province, which would see hospitals in cities like Windsor, in cities like Brampton, in Scarborough, all across this province.

We will continue to make these historic and unprecedented investments across this province.

This government will continue to make the historic investments into health care that we have since being elected. This starts with ensuring that we have health care workers across this province, and that is why we have put forward programs that will, as in the fall economic statement, invest over $342 million to add over 5,000 new and upskilled registered nurses and registered practical nurses, as well as an additional 8,000 personal support workers.

Mr. Speaker, this is on top of the investments we made to ensure that our health human resources across the province are appreciated by investing another $763 million to give up to $5,000 per person, which is almost equivalent to a 6% increase on the average salary to those health care workers in Ontario.

We will continue to make the necessary investments in health care and health human resources across the province.

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to make sure that health human resources and health care workers across this province are supported, and we will continue to make those investments by working with our stakeholders in the industry.

This government has an unprecedented record of investing in health care and health human resources across this province. We have added over 10,500 health care workers since March 2020, and every step of the way the members opposite have opposed that. We have added over 3,100 new beds into the system since March 2020—that’s almost the equivalent of five new hospitals—increasing capacity across the province. We’ve also put forward a bold plan to invest over $40 billion to build over 52 capital projects across this province. Mr. Speaker, every single one of those projects have been rejected by the members opposite; they voted no to each and every single one of those.

We will continue to support health care and health human resources across this province by investing in our nurses, investing in our doctors and investing in health human resources across this province.