 Members' statements for Beaches East York. Thank you, Speaker. I'm thrilled to share a beautiful story from my writing of Beaches East York, the story of a pickup football team at Secord Elementary School that wasn't supposed to win and did. Secord is one of 150 schools in the Toronto District School Board that face the most challenges, a model school, they call it, meaning that many of its students live in poverty. Jason Kuter, a FIZAD teacher at Secord, decided to start morning touch football games as a way to energize students for class. There were no tryouts. There ended up being 11 grade 5 students interested, four girls and seven boys. They started playing just 10 minutes a day in the few minutes of school yard supervision time before the morning foul rings. On the last Monday in October, the school played in a city-wide touch football tournament. They played teams that were better funded, that had sports gloves and personalized jerseys. At half time, they were down 20 to 8 against an all-boys team from the west end of the city. As Caroline Alfonso later wrote in the Globe and Mail, they staged a fierce rally in the second half, forcing overtime and eventually winning the game and the championship. It is the first time in Secord's 103-year history that they have ever won a sports championship. Kudos to the students, their coaches and principal, and the school whose heart-filling victory has caused a ripple effect of pride in our community. A lesson in perseverance. There is absolutely nothing these kids can't do, and we should all be so proud of them. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for York Center. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Implemented over a year ago, the King Street pilot project has been suffocating downtown Toronto traffic, killing King Street businesses, and made one of Toronto's most magnificent streets into a ghost town. Traffic on adjacent streets, namely Adelaide, Richmond and Wellington, has become unbearable. The streetcar does not reduce traffic. It clogs up roads, creating congestion and causing pollution. King Street is known for its wonderful dining, but since the project started, 11 restaurants have shut down. Police are busy enforcing rules no one understands. And what did this ideological exercise achieve? According to a city staff report, a decrease of four minutes out of a 21-minute commute and a meager 10% increase in ridership barely above the increase in population. And they have the audacity to be proud of that. Moreover, they realize that they're killing King Street businesses when they realize that city council passed measures to subsidize those businesses with reparking at taxpayer expense. This classic modern liberal thinking of killing jobs and then suffocating businesses with regulation and then subsidizing them back to living makes no sense. Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. City council will be voting on the pilot shortly. I urge city council, all 45 of them, to exercise common sense and end the streetcar monstrosity. And if they're not going to end it, then find a compromise. Open one of two lanes or open King Street to traffic outside of rush hour for 20 hours a day when the streetcars are half empty. To save these restaurants, to relieve traffic, to restore some common sense to beautiful downtown Toronto. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Member Stevens, Member for Scarborough Southwest. Thank you, Speaker. Speaker, last week saw the long-waited launch of the Scarborough Health Network. This is the new name of Scarborough's only acute care hospital created from the merger of the Birchmount, the general sites of the Scarborough Hospital and the centenary site of the Rouge Valley Health System Network, system back in 2016. It now becomes Ontario's third largest community hospital employing over 5,000 people. Yet it's one of the most underfunded hospitals in the province. This hospital is in dear need of upgrade. The operating rooms at the general site are some of the oldest, still in use in Ontario, having first been opened in 1956. That's more than 60 years, Speaker. In 2015 an expert panel recommended a range of essential capital projects. But we heard crickets from the Liberals about funding these projects until you guessed it earlier this year, right before the election. So when I attended the launch last week of the new Scarborough Network, branding, what I had hoped from this government was that help was on the way. But what we heard instead was that the all too familiar from Scarborough's residents same messaging, loss of platitude but no firm commitments to funding the urgently needed new operating rooms or the emergency departments. Speaker, for decades successive liberal and conservative governments have neglected healthcare in Scarborough. It's time to make investing in Scarborough healthcare a priority so that the new Scarborough Health Network can be more than just a branding exercise. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for Northumberland, Peterborough South. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise today to pay special tribute and to thank everyone. With the recent municipal elections we saw a number of great people in my community put their name for it. I wanted to thank them all for their commitment to public service and make special acknowledgement of a number of outgoing mayors who's through their tireless service they've served our community with dignity and brought us forward to the great place that we are today in Northumberland, Peterborough South. So special thank you to Mayor Mark Wallace, outgoing mayor of the municipality of Brighton. Mayor Mark Coombs, outgoing mayor Terry Lowe, from the township of Hospital Norwood. Gilbrock and Ear, from the town of Coburg. Reeve Dave Nelson, from Autonomy South Monaghan Township. And finally, Mayor Mark Luffchin from Hamilton Township who is also our outgoing county warden. Thank you all for your tireless service to our community. Thank you for your commitment to public service for bettering our community of Northumberland, Peterborough South. You'll be missed. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Member Statements and Member for University Rosedale. Speaker, the recent fall economic statement saw $1.4 billion cut from Ontario's transit infrastructure. Yet this government refuses to come clean about its plan for Ontario's transit systems. So here's what we don't know. We don't know what projects this government is cutting. Is the Huron LRT going to be built? The Huron Ontario LRT going to be built? Is Toronto getting its relief line? Is the Huron's BRT does this government have a firm commitment for two-way all-day go to Waterloo Region? Is the Bowmanville expansion still on track? Will Kingston get the ferries that were promised? I and my colleagues have repeatedly asked about these projects, but this government has refused to even provide us with a simple yes or no. So we are left guessing and wondering which projects are included in this government's cuts. What we do know what takes no guessing at all is steamrolling ahead with its disastrous plan to break up the TTC. In Toronto we need transit relief. We need more integrated and reliable service. We don't need to further disjoint, sever or privatise our system because that will make our commutes longer and more expensive. Transit experts and advocates are already mobilising to stop this government's attack on transit. I want to thank and acknowledge them for their hard work. I'm also happy to say that I'll be joining them tomorrow morning at Queens Park subway station as they continue their work to educate and engage Toronto's 1.8 million commuters on the devastating impact this upload will have on their daily lives and Toronto's economy. Thank you. Thank you, Member Statements. The Member for Guelph. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's an honour to rise today and thank the many water protectors in the city of Guelph and if you'll permit me, Mr Speaker, as neighbours to thank the many water protectors in Wellington, Halden Hills as well. So I'd like to thank Wellington water watchers, the many Indigenous water keepers who do water walks in our area, save our water, get concerned and protect our moraine for the amazing work that you do for our community. Water is our most precious resource and I believe government has a sacred responsibility to protect it as a public trust managed in the public interest. I want to extend my thanks to the city of Guelph to our mayor, our city council and city staff. Guelph has done something remarkable. Our water consumption is actually going down while our population growth is going up. This not only saves water, it saves our community money and not having to build more water infrastructure. Guelph indeed is the largest city in Canada that solely relies on groundwater for its drinking water. But we need to do more to protect our water. We're under drought restrictions almost every summer in Guelph. So next week I'll be introducing a private members bill the Paris Gull Moraine Protection Act and I really appreciate and I want to thank many of the members in this assembly have given me feedback on that act designed to protect our region's water. So thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you to the members. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Don Valley North. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I rise today with great news for my writing of Don Valley North. Earlier this month, Dr. Stephanie Klein of North York General Hospital was named the 2018 recipients of the Ontario College of Family Physicians of the Year Award. This award is recognized outstanding clinical research, leadership and teaching skill in a family medicine residence. A graduate of University of Toronto Medicine School Dr. Klein recently completed her family medicine residence at North York General as co-chief resident she designed and implemented the wellness curriculum for family medicine residence at North York General. She has presented nationally and won multiple awards for her works. I have the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Klein on last Friday at my constituents office in Don Valley North. She is an amazing example for all of us. I thank Dr. Klein for her service. Don Valley North is lucky to have such a dedicated community member. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank you all. Thank you Speaker. On November 13th over 150 residents from Black Creek in York Southwest packed a town hall meeting in my home community to express their outrage at a system of auto insurance that penalizes them simply for where they live. The NDP have held similar town halls in Brampton and Scarborough and the feelings of the crowd were always the same. The NDP members were overjoyed. But that satisfaction turned to anger when they learned that the government voted it down. In fact, it is the second time in many years the PCs have voted down measures to stop auto insurance gouging based on postal code. The NDP members voted it down. In fact, it is the second time in many years the PCs have voted down measures to stop auto insurance gouging based on postal code. Why? Because they take direction from corporations such as the auto insurance industry and not the people, the workers, the voters. Rather than address the problem of postal code discrimination the PCs offer measures with a loophole so large you could drive a truck through it. But don't take my word for it. Ask the many lawyers who have written a letter denouncing the PCs handling of auto insurance reform. When will this government evolve past slogans and actually put the people in the spotlight? I'm proud to be part of a team that will keep fighting for a fairer system of auto insurance. My community, all communities deserve better. Member statements. Member for Kitchener, South Heskler. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm rising this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, because I want to tell you a little bit about how our government for the people is working to end hallway health care in my riding of Kitchener, South Heskler. At St. Luke's Place, which is located in Heskler in 18 new transitional beds, the CEO, Stacey Bartlett, excitedly informed me that their first three new residents moved into last week, and they're hoping to move in five new residents a week until they hit 18. Good news. Ms. Bartlett and the team at St. Luke's Place have always considered it to be, in her words, incredibly important for them to be a good community partner. She said she was looking for ways that they could help alleviate the pressures on the system as we enter flu season, as known in our local hospitals as surge season. When she came along the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Plan for short-term transitional model care funding to open up these new beds, she wanted to be a part of our pilot program. This new unit is specifically designed for patients whom the hospital is no longer the appropriate place for care and is intended to prepare patients for the next destination, which will likely be long-term care. The staffing for these ratios for the beds is higher than that in the hospital and in long-term care. And these are community beds located within St. Luke's Place. So there are no fees to the families as well, and they will have recreational activities, and they have their meals in a dining room to give them that preparation for being in a long-term care setting. So thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time today to highlight what we are doing to help end hallway healthcare. Member Statements. Member for Mississauga Mall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Riding of Streetswell is home to Pill Hill, one of the top life sciences clusters in Canada. On Friday, November 23rd, me, my fellow MPPs and I had the opportunity to learn more about the innovation and service this industry provides. The life science industry is an economic powerhouse in the Riding of Mississauga Streetswell. There are over 400 companies that provide 15,000 well-paying jobs to the people of GTA. These companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into local economy, billions of dollars into provincial economy, and the innovation, production, research, and development, and these companies they provide is priceless. Mr. Speaker, we are pleased to meet with these three companies in particular Glaxo, Smithkin, Fordis, and Roche, Canada. Each of these companies have been making investments into our economy, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new manufacturing facilities, R&D, training, and education. Additionally, they have contributed millions of dollars in taxes. Mr. Speaker, we are excited to continue to work with these companies as they continue to expand in our riding and across Ontario. Our province is open for business and will continue to work to provide the environment these businesses need to succeed and make life better for all Ontarians. I'd like to congratulate and welcome Mr. Ryan Locke from GSK, Veronica Carlson from NOVO, Nordisk, and Lorraine Hudson from Roche, Canada. Thank you so much for coming. Please come. This concludes our time for member statements. Next we have reports by committees.