My question is to the member for Elgin–Middlesex–London. I’m sure that he has been following in the media the legal battle that’s going on right now between Reptilia at Westmount mall and the city of London, because the city of London does have a prohibition on keeping exotic animals in captivity and was using their bylaw enforcement power to prevent Reptilia from setting up displays at Westmount mall, but the zoo is saying that it can go ahead because it has a provincial licence for a private zoo. That’s very concerning for people who care about the welfare of these exotic animals that are being displayed at the mall.

So I wonder if the member can commit to using this bill to consider amendments that will help ensure the protection of exotic animals, to actually prohibit exotic animals from being held in captivity.

I want to extend a personal welcome to my friend and London West constituent Andy Kroeker, who is here today for the Alliance for Healthier Communities and has served West Elgin for years as the West Elgin Community Health Centre executive director. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

It’s a pleasure to be back in this place, debating important issues once again, on behalf of the people whom we represent in our communities. As a representative of southwestern Ontario, the member for London West, I certainly appreciate the importance of economic development tools and strategies, policy changes, legislative changes that support that very tightly interlinked regional economy that we have in southwestern Ontario, and similar regional economies exist across the province.

I do want to raise, however, Speaker, a couple of process concerns regarding this bill, Bill 63, the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act. Some of us were sitting in this chamber yesterday at shortly after 3 o’clock, I believe, when the Minister of Municipal Affairs rose and announced that he was going to be introducing a bill, this bill. That was introduced yesterday. There was no government media release explaining why this bill, why now, what’s in this bill.

We got an electronic copy of the bill. We requested immediately a briefing from the minister’s office, so that we could understand the context for this bill being brought forward; we have yet to receive that briefing. Some of the comments that I heard just now from my colleague from Elgin–Middlesex–London were helpful, certainly, in understanding the context for this bill, but it is frustrating—as you can imagine, Speaker—when you are expected to meaningfully participate in debate on legislation that literally has just come off the printer.

That being said, I just want to say that on this side of the House, from an initial analysis of the bill, we don’t see any major red flags. It is something that is very much supportable, especially when you consider the rumoured uses of this mega-site for an electric-vehicle-battery manufacturing plant and the as-many-as-2,500 jobs that would support. This is positive legislation. It has the potential to be very beneficial to southwestern Ontario—to London, St. Thomas and Elgin county in particular. It is something that we don’t have any major objections to at this point. We will certainly be consulting with people who have had a chance to think about some of the implications of this bill, and we will raise any concerns that we hear as we move forward.

I did want to emphasize, however, to the government that there are many things that this government could be doing to support economic development in our province. One of the issues that I don’t think has been addressed so far throughout this debate is the need for child care spaces. Child care is a fundamental economic development priority, to ensure that workers have access to high-quality, affordable child care so that they can go to work and feel that their children are safe.

I want to share an email that I received from a constituent, Kathleen Tevlin, who told me that she has been actively seeking daycare for her 17-month-old and her three-and-a-half-year-old so that she can return to work after her maternity leave. She says daycare spaces for even one child in the west end of the city of London are non-existent. She says, “I have been on the centralized waitlist for centre daycares since the moment my pregnancy was considered viable (April 2021), yet nearly two years on the waitlists have proven to be fruitless.” She says that she is in the position where she sees her only option is to have to quit her employment, an employer that she has worked for for the past 13 years, because she cannot get access to a child care space.

What we have not seen from this government is a strategy such as my colleague the member for Parkdale–High Park has been calling for to deal with the workforce challenges in the child care sector. We know that without any new measures, the province will be short 8,500 registered early childhood educators by 2026. This shortage of spaces that we are experiencing in the city of London and other communities across the province is really a reflection of a shortage of ECEs and child care professionals to work in child care spaces.

We understand—actually, the government’s own documents show that the child care sector has been experiencing a staffing crunch over a number of years. The number of registered early childhood educators in licensed child care decreased by 7% between 2019 and 2021. I have to commend the sector who have been working diligently at trying to get this government to develop this strategy that’s necessary to ensure recruitment and retention in the sector.

Just as we see in health care, we know that wages are an important aspect of recruitment and retention. I’ve participated in Zoom meetings with child care workers who are weeping because they love their jobs, they love working with small children, they love supporting children—

I want to congratulate the new member for Elgin–Middlesex–London on his inaugural remarks. It was a pleasure to listen to a bit of your history that brought you to this place, and it’s been a pleasure to get to know you since you first arrived, since we do share part of that boundary in the city of London.

You talked about the diversity of that riding, taking in part of the city of London, the city of St. Thomas and many of the rural areas in Elgin county. I wondered if you could just elaborate a little bit about how you approach representing a riding that is so varied, that brings together both those urban and rural communities within Elgin and London.