I thank the member for her comments. There were a couple of words that I heard from her remarks. One was on housing, and the other was on spending. On housing, I’m delighted to hear the member say that we have a need for housing. I’ll just remind her that this government plans to build a million and a half homes over the next 10 years—an excellent plan—and further, to encourage affordable homes, removing development charges on affordable homes. Also, the Homelessness Prevention Program: $202 million in this budget. I was delighted to hear what I thought was support for these housing initiatives.

On the spending side, this is the budget document. On page 139—people have heard me refer to that before—health care spending will be up $15.3 billion over the next three years. I’m curious as to whether those are important positives for the member to consider.

I thank the member opposite for his remarks. The member used the word “investment,” and I agree with that investment. Certainly, this government agrees with that approach. That’s why the Ministry of Economic Development has been so incredibly active in all the investment opportunities here in Ontario—$25 billion in the electric vehicle industry.

You mentioned investment in terms of numbers, and I come back to one of my favourite pages in the budget, page 139, where we look at health care spending, which increases $15.3 billion over the next three years from the previous, including $1 billion extra in home care, with education increasing as well. Wouldn’t the member agree that those are very substantial investments in health care and in Ontario?

I thank the member for her comments.

The member mentioned spending. As she knows, there is the budget debate bill that’s proposed. On page 139 of this document, it outlines health sector spending for this upcoming year of $81 billion—a record—and over the next three years an increase of $15.3 billion from previously.

The member quoted some references. I’d like to quote one too. The president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association said, “With the introduction of the government’s Your Health Act, Ontario is setting the foundation to expand and integrate community-based surgical and diagnostic centres into the public system. The Ontario Hospital Association welcomes the legislation which will require, for the first time, prospective clinics to satisfy public interest requirements and expectations to be granted for a licence.”

I’m wondering whether the member supports the quote from the Ontario Hospital Association regarding this bill.

I thank the member for the question. Yes, I certainly enjoyed our visits to various parts of Ontario, be it Kenora on January 9 or Sault Ste. Marie or Sudbury or Peterborough, Windsor, Kingston.

The member talked about choices. Well, I’ll tell you the choices that our government is making. Infrastructure spending—a record of $184.4 billion over 10 years. That’s a choice that will matter not only to this generation but to the next. Record spending in health care—has gone up from $74.9 billion to $81 billion over the next three years, spending $15.3 billion.

Those are the choices that our government made, and I’m very proud to be a part of those choices. And I hope this House supports the bill.

Seniors are a priority for this government in so many ways. You just saw the increase in the GAINS program, which is so successful—another 100,000 low-income seniors will be on that program this year. That is back to supporting seniors. And we’re increasing our health care spending overall, as I mentioned before and I’ll keep mentioning over and over and over again—record health care spending for our seniors. We care about them, their families, and we’ll keep caring about them, because we want to make sure we have the best health care system on the planet, which we will continue to invest in—so those are the supports for seniors that I’m very proud to be a part of this government and support.

I appreciate and I thank the member for her comments. I want to start by thanking her for mentioning the ODSP changes as well as the GAINS changes as elements of Bill 36 that, if I heard correctly, she could support.

I want to ask, though, about health care funding, because she commented in her remarks about it being a resource issue. On this side, we acknowledge that and would say that we’re spending more on health care in Ontario than has ever been spent before. The budget increased by a whopping $5.6 billion year over year, which is about 7%. Doesn’t that allow the member to say, “Yes, we have the resources here,” and support Bill 36?