 of guests. Let's start off with a member statement. Recognize a member from London Fanshawe. Thank you, Speaker. Speaker, it's always an honor to rise in legislature and speak on behalf of my constituents of London Fanshawe. And today I stand as a proud Portuguese Canadian. I am honored to rise today to speak about Portugal Day, also known as Camões da Comunidades Each year, June is heralded as Portuguese Heritage Month, culminating on June 10th with Portugal Day. The Portuguese Canadian community is vibrant community in Ontario and continues to make significant contributions to our society and to enrich it with its history, language and culture. It's an opportunity for the Portuguese immigrants and their families to celebrate their culture, their solidarity and identity, but also to introduce their heritage, their Canadian friends and neighbors. The idea of Portugal Day was to celebrate the nation. The day was picked to coincide with the death of Luís de Camões, a poet in the 16th century who shaped much of the Portuguese language and literature. One of the Camões' most famous work is Zalissudades, which was an epic poem about Vasco da Gama's trip to India and the feats of Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries. I want to make a special mention that tomorrow I will be at London's Portugal Day celebration and I encourage and hope everyone in this legislature in Ontario will partake in their local events to celebrate the Ontario's Portuguese community. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you very much. Further member statement, I recognize the member from Mississauga Streetsville. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand today in the legislature to highlight the work of an extraordinary company, Lakeside Process Controls, from my riding of Mississauga Streetsville. I recently had the pleasure of attending an event recognizing Lakeside Process Controls as one of Canada's most admired workplace cultures. For over 70 years, Lakeside has provided innovative solutions, local accessibility and consistent engineering practices to support its customers and to solve process automation challenges, while simultaneously demonstrating a profound commitment to its employees, helping them achieve this award. Through creativity, teamwork and dedication, they are helping to keep one of Canada's largest infrastructure projects, the Bruce Power Life Extension Program on time and on budget. Once complete, this project will ensure Ontarians have affordable, reliable and GHG emissions-free electricity for decades to come. Bruce Power's Life Extension Program will also stimulate Ontario's economy, having an economic impact of greater than $4 billion per year and sustaining 22,000 good jobs across Ontario. Lakeside all sets a wonderful example of an innovative company that has flourished in Ontario by attracting top talent that supports the high performance of Ontario's nuclear fleet whilst contributing to the high-tech economy in Mississauga. The dedicated team and effort at Lakeside is helping to ensure Ontario's nuclear fleet can continue to provide Ontario with the power we need every day. Thank you to Lakeside Process Controls and for the great work that they do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much. Further member statement, a member from Waterloo. Thank you very much. Strong Start began as a community project in 2001 in Kitchener, Waterloo. Today it is a charitable organization that trains thousands of volunteers across southwestern Ontario to work one-on-one with young children to help them learn to read. The Waterloo Catholic and Waterloo Region District School Boards were early adopters of Strong Start, and I am proud of their leadership. Speaker, did you know that a child's vocabulary at age five is a predictor of vocabulary at age 17? And by the end of grade three, 74% of struggling readers rarely catch up. Ontarians with low levels of literacy are more than twice as likely to be in poor health and nearly half living in low-income households with slim chances of employment. It's clear that increasing the literacy rate would not only benefit people's well-being, but it would also boost Ontario's economy. We take literacy for granted, but just like public education, if we get literacy right, almost everything else falls into place. This is why early intervention programs like Strong Start are essential. It will take our collective energy to ensure that every child in Ontario can access the additional support that they might need to improve their literacy skills. It's so encouraging that members from all parties have come together to form the Strong Start Education Caucus, and I'd like to thank Michelle and Collette from Strong Start, former Speaker Lavec for forming the Strong Start Education Caucus, as well as Speaker Arnaut for his continued commitment to the program. We must support programs like Strong Start so that every child can succeed. This is our shared responsibility as legislators. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Thank you. Further member statement? The member from Simcoe North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I rose in the House to introduce my private member's bill to cut redundant regulation in Ontario's water power sector. For decades, dam owners and water power producers have been regulated by two separate pieces of legislation, which has added unnecessary costs to their operations. My bill will align these two regulations so that our hydropower partners don't have to wade through endless red tape to reach the same high safety and environmental standards. I tabled the Ontario Water Resources Amendment Act, or facetiously named, a bill to cut that damn red tape, in the lead up to the water power day on June 20th. This date honors the birthday of hydroelectricity advocate and former Ontario MPP Sir Adam Beck, and it is a time to celebrate the role water power plays in ensuring an affordable, reliable and sustainable energy system in Ontario. On that day, I joined my colleagues for a tour of the Sir Adam Beck Generating Stations in Niagara Falls, hosted by the Ontario Water Power Association. As we chart our province forward on a cleaner and more sustainable path to growth, water power and its dedicated generators will be our close ally. We need them to expand, innovate and update. We need them to dedicate their energies to powering the homes and businesses of our province. By removing redundant obstacles to growth, we can allow water power generators to invest in the future of Ontario and its energy. I want to thank the Ontario Water Power Association for organizing Water Power Day and their leadership in the sector. I look forward to joining them on June 20th to wish Sir Adam Beck a happy 162nd birthday. Thank you. Thank you very much. Further member statements? I recognize a member from Beaches, East York. Thank you, Speaker. Every day in Beaches, East York, I hear stories of schools that have lost teachers and courses. Second C-Court Elementary is losing its music project program, which provided music lessons to 100 kids who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford them. At Victoria Park School, the parents of kids with special needs are distraught because the TDSB is cutting one of three special needs classes, which means there will be too many kids with too few adults and the kids will no longer thrive in the same way. I hear stories of people facing homelessness because there's no affordable housing and legal aid clinics that don't know how they'll continue to help their vulnerable clients and a growing opioid crisis but no overdosed prevention site in the East End. Meanwhile, the beaches are flooded. There are sandbags in front of the Bommie Beach Club and a railing along a part of the boardwalk so people won't fall into the lake. We are watching the climate crisis play out before our very eyes. My constituents are angry and frightened. They don't want to live in a dog eat dog province where the richest corporations get tax breaks, but kids living in poverty can't get music lessons. They want their governments to act on the climate crisis that is threatening the very existence of the planet and their kids' futures. They want the Ford government to do a reset over the summer and to walk back its harmful cuts, especially to education and health care and legal aid and mental health. And they certainly don't want a government that obsesses over beer instead of bread and butter education and health care. Enough is enough. Thank you. Thank you very much. Further Member State and the member from Scarborough Guildwood. Thank you, Speaker. Last weekend, my riding of Scarborough Guildwood joined together for the annual Guildwood Day, organized by the Guildwood Village Community Association. I was lucky to spend time with folks from the community, many of whom are new to the neighborhood, and many of whom called Scarborough home for generations. I want to share what I've heard from my constituents again and again. Loud and clear, they want to protect, improve, and expand the hospitals in their neighborhood. They want and need good, strong, timely public health care institutions that they can rely on to take care of their families, friends, and loved ones. For one of my constituents, she says, closing hospitals and downsizing is not the answer. We need more new hospitals as Scarborough's population is increasing exponentially. In 2015, a provincial expert panel highlighted that the residents of Scarborough don't just need more staff at hospitals. We need more hospitals in general to support their population and its growth. The community is clearly in need of more accessible, more available health care. And I'm asking this government to recognize that and to support the Scarborough Health Network. Right now, our health care system is allowing people to fall through the cracks. This government might say that they're open for business, but only one thing's for sure. They're closed for health care. With their attack on public health units, the resources at hospitals are going to be even more vital in preventing and treating illness. Now more than ever, we need to support the longevity of our local hospitals so that they can expand to serve our growing communities. Scarborough Guildwood deserves better. Thank you very much. Further member statements, a member from Mississauga, Erin Mills. Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the first Canadian parliamentarian from Coptic Egyptian origins and as a member of the Christian Coptic community, it gives me a great bride to rise today to shed more light on the integration of the global Coptic Day, which was celebrated worldwide for the first time on June 1, 2019. The global Coptic Day was chosen to be June 1, which also commemorate the Holy Family's flight to Egypt, and also as well thousands of martyries across thousands of years, hundreds of years, who lost their life defending their way. It is a day to celebrate the Coptic Orthodox Church's rich heritage. It is indelible history for martyries and persecution, theological education, and monasticism. Mr Speaker, the Coptic Church has endured a lot of persecution over the centuries and offered great sacrifices to protect its faith, beliefs, and to deliver its message of love, peace, and joy for the world, for the whole world. Establishing the Coptic Theological School in Alexandria in the second century, which will reduce the great number of philosophers and leaders for the Coptic Community. The Coptic Community has hundreds of thousands of members all across Canada and in Ontario. They are proud contributing to Canada and Ontario, which I was unloved. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. Further member statements, the member from Muskegelac, James Bay. Thank you, Mr Speaker. On May 28th, the Chief and Council of Fort Albany First Nation declared a state of emergency as a result of a ravaging opioid and alcohol epidemic in their community. This flying and isolated community of James Bay Coast is suffering from what Chief Leo Metatabao Waban is calling, is rightly called intergenerational trauma. Speaker, colonialism, racism, and other alienation are taking a toll on the children, the elders, and families of Fort Albany. Let me say it again, this drug and alcohol crisis is but a consequence of emotional and physical intergenerational trauma that the people of Fort Albany have historically encountered and continue to face today. I have spoken to Chief and Council members who indicate they are seeking to open the detox and mental health centre in the community. They have reached out to the Indigenous Affairs Canada and they are hoping to do the same with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Indigenous Affairs. More importantly, they want the minister to travel to Fort Albany to see with their own eyes how this pandemic is particularly affecting the physical and mental health of the community's next generation. Speaker, Fort Albany is weeping for help. It is this government's turn to listen before it's too late. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much. Further member statement, the member from Dodd Valley North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. June 22nd makes the 13th anniversary of the federal government's full apology to Chinese Canadians for their implementation of the head tax and subsequent exclusion of Chinese immigration to our country from 1923 to 1947. Speaker, Chinese Liberals were brought to Canada in the middle 19th century to have built the Canadian Pacific Railway. After the last spike was laid, the government make the consented effort to stop the flow of Chinese immigrants starting with passage of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, which imposed a head tax of $50 on every Chinese newcomer. This rate doubled in 1900 and was raised to $500 three years later. And 20 years later, the federal government replaced the head tax with the Chinese Immigration Act, ultimately excluding anyone from China to legally enter Canada. Speaker, apology from Prime Minister Stephen Hubbard was an important step towards the consideration with Chinese Canadians. Chinese Canadians have played a vital role in building our country and what the apology can move forward with future contribution to our multicultural society. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much. Further member statement? The member from Mississauga East Cooksville. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Today I have the honor to highlight the accomplishment of the Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club from my writing of Mississauga East Cooksville. The Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club, a diverse non-political group of residents and a chapter of the International Lions Club, have a vision to be global leaders in community and humanitarian services and are working since November 15, 1983 to improve the quality of life in our community. They have an open door policy where anyone is free to join them for making a positive contribution to their community. The Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club chapters chartered in 1983 now comprise of 22 members. Majority of the club members enjoy carrying out service, carrying out service oriented projects and continue to volunteer their time raising funds for a community cause there to them. The Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club has participated in a number of community-based projects in the past including protecting our environment project, supporting our youth project, fighting hunger project and legacy project to name a few. The Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club has been supporting Trillium Health Partner, Mississauga Hospitals for three decades and on Monday May 13, 2019 the Cooksville Lions Club presented a check of 231,000 as a donation to the Trillium Health Partners Foundation for the purchase of equipment. They believe this is one way we can contribute to improving the quality of life for our community. Reducing wait times at hospitals, faster diagnostics of their illness and having not to travel far to access medical services. I'm proud of the work the Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club does for the community and thank you very much for all the great work. Thank you. Thank you very much. There being no further member statements. Reports by committees. I recognize the minister for seniors. Point of order. I recognize the member.