 Member statements. Member statements. I apologize. Member for London Fanshop. Thank you speaker. I want to talk about today about the education system and specifically I want to bring the voice of a student in my riding Kristen and she wrote me a letter and she said I'm a grade 7 student at Evelyn Harris Public School in London, Ontario. I have a few concerns addressing all the new cuts possibly be made to the education system. My first concern is what may be happening with the special needs classes. This concerns me because I have a friend that is in grade 6 and he has very severe autism. He needs all the help he can get every day because his mood can change very fast. For example, he could be happy one minute and sad the other. My heart breaks knowing that next year he may not get the help he needs. My second concern is addressing a cutting teacher's jobs. This concerns me because my aunt and my uncle are both teachers and I would hate to see them lose their jobs. If the government does decide to cut more jobs for teachers, their families will go hungry or even worse go homeless. My teacher and her husband are both teachers as well. They have two kids and if they get cut and if they have these cuts they might not have enough money to keep their house. Finally, if these classes are bigger, there will be less focus towards teachers and students. I hope you take into consideration the lives that you may be affecting. So speaker, here we are, students like Kristen in grade 8, emailing us, sending us letters and asking this government to stop the cuts to education for the better of our schools. Member Statements, Member for Scarborough Rouge Park. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the immense privilege to represent the great writing of Scarborough Rouge Park. It is a home to great institutions such as University of Toronto's Scarborough Campers, the Toronto Zoo and of course the Rouge National Urban Park. As beautiful and vibrant as Scarborough is, it has lagged behind the rest of Toronto in job creation and economic growth. Youth and employment in Scarborough Rouge Park, among the highest in the province, and people have found it hard to find employment. That is why I'm hosting my first Scarborough job fair on March the 14th at the Malvern Family Resource Centre, where my constituents will have the opportunity to directly connect with local businesses and larger companies such as Amazon, RBC, Toronto Zoo, Scarborough Health Network and so much more. I want to thank the Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development for his support on this initiative. I'm also proud of the work our government continues to do to address unemployment. Since we got elected, over 300,000 new jobs have been created here in Ontario. And Mr. Speaker, I'll continue to fight for the residents of Scarborough Rouge Park. Thank you. Member Statements, Member for Tomiskaming Cochrane. Thank you Speaker. This statement is for the Ministry of Finance. Businesses, small businesses I think throughout the province, but certainly in my riding are being choked and are almost closing, are closing because of the cost of insurance. And I'll give you some examples. JPL storage in Halebury. The sun wants to take the business over, fully trained to drive an AZ truck, can't get insurance, only facility. We've got Alex Forest, Great All Business, same thing. Eve Rentson contracting, DJ and Suns contracting, both are closing or threatening to close their snow removal businesses because, why Speaker, the cost of insurance, the cost of liability and insurance, the cost of insurance to drive a commercial vehicle is shutting rural Ontario down. Insurance is provincially regulated. It is provincially regulated. And the government has the power to help these small businesses. There is a budget coming up where this government, with the majority, and they are saying that they're open for business, it's time that they help small businesses like JPL so they can actually afford the insurance so Earl can take over that business. Because if Earl can't take that business over, that business is going to close. And that's going to happen across rural Ontario. This government has the power to stop it. It's time to step up for small business. Member Statements, the member for Thornhill. Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. And I'm very pleased to share with the House that there was a celebration on March the second in my riding of Thornhill at the Promenade Shopping Centre. And it was a big celebration to celebrate a commitment that was made to health care in York Region. The Promenade Group, the Sorolla family, the Darvish family and Liberty Development generally gifted $5 million to support the new Mackenzie Vaughn hospital. The new hospital will be the first hospital in Canada to feature fully integrated smart technology systems and medical devices that speak to one another to maximize information exchange. Scheduled to open later this year, this hospital will be groundbreaking for both, for both health care in Ontario and for the York Region community. The new Mackenzie Vaughn hospital will feature the newest technology and diagnostic imaging, surgical services, ambulatory clinics and many other subfields of medicine. Innovation and efficiency have been a center focus of this government's mistaking office and I am proud that York Region is able to exemplify these values through projects like this hospital. I truly commend the Promenade Group, the Sorolla family, the Darvish family and Liberty Development on their generous donation and their commitment to helping Ontario continue to flourish and to set examples for the entire world. So thank you, thank you to all the families involved. Thank you for everybody at, we call it the Promenade Mall, not the Promenade Shopping Centre. But thank you for everybody to the customers and the people who work there. Take care. The members as they're coming to the chamber, we are in member statements and ask them to keep the banter to a minimum. Member statements. Member for Davenport. Good morning, Mr. Speaker. In recognition of International Women's Day, I rise today to salute the work of women's advocacy organizations in my community of Davenport. Organizations like the South Asian Women's Centre, Working Women's Community Centre, Abrigo Centre and Syestry provide essential services to women when they need it the most, often operating on very limited budgets and forced to continually apply for grants to sustain their operations. Mr. Speaker, despite the wealth generated in Ontario, poverty persists, especially in our urban communities. That poverty is gendered and it is racialized. The YWCA has estimated that 450,000 Ontario women live on low incomes, but instead of acting meaningfully to address this gendered poverty, this government has made things much worse with cuts to child care, to social services, to rape crisis centres. They've targeted the earnings of women in the public sector, taking us backward, not forward in the fight for pay equity, while offering tax giveaways to the wealthiest speaker. Our community agencies are working overtime to keep women safe, housed and employed. They deserve a government that works with them to lift women up instead of one that works to hold them down. Indeed, don't all women deserve that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One more time. I will ask the members to be quiet. We are in member statements. I need to be able to hear the member who has the floor. The next member statement, the member for Don Valley West. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I hosted my annual Don Valley West International Women's Day celebration. I want to thank all of the 100 men and women who came to mark this important day. The theme of this year's IWD was each for equal. The movement to equality for women around the world comprises organizational change, coordinated action, but as importantly, the actions of millions of individuals in their lives every day. We talked about the expectations and social norms that create barriers for women in business, in their communities and in politics. We talked about the times in all of our lives as women when we've challenged those expectations and pushed through, over or around those barriers. One young woman told us about her experience as the youngest woman member of the Afghan Parliament. It was her mother who encouraged her and helped her find the strength to defy the expectation that what she should have been doing was getting married and having a family. Another young woman who aspired to make a contribution by joining a corporate board was discouraged by her friends that she didn't have the experience and that she should give up on the idea. She heard the advice but moved ahead and has been successful. What we know for sure, Mr. Speaker, is that we're nowhere close to equal representation of women in positions of authority and power. Thank you to each individual who is working for true equality for women here and around the world. Member Statements, the Member for Oakville North, Burlington. March this year is the inaugural Hellenic Heritage Month in Ontario. I'm very honoured that the legislature passed my bill last year to establish this month, and I thank all my colleagues in this House who gave unanimous support to this bill. March 25th is the day that Greece declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire, which is why the month of March was chosen for this commemoration. Hellenic Heritage Month celebrates the contributions of Hellenes and Hellenic culture to our great province of Ontario, to Canada and the world. Greeks gave us the first democracy in ancient Athens. Greek philosophy, medicine, science, history, and much more are a vital part of the cultural foundation of western countries, the Islamic world, and many other nations. The month also honours the many Canadians of Hellenic descent whose families came to Canada seeking a better life. Mothers and fathers and grandfathers and grandparents who worked hard building a new life for themselves and their children. Hellenic Canadian Canadians today, their children excel in every field, business, sport, culture, politics, and education, and many more. I invite all MPPs today to join with the dignitaries who are with us for a picture on the grand staircase after question period. Thank you, Speaker. Member statements? Member for Scarborough Southwest. Thank you, Speaker. On March 6, a very special constituent of Scarborough Southwest celebrated his 100th birthday. Fred Arsenal, a decorated Second World War veteran who served our country valiantly in Italy and the Netherlands as a private in the infantry celebrated this milestone last Friday. Mr. Arsenal enjoys receiving the mail. It is what has gotten him through the past years. He remembers reading the letters he received from his mum at night in the trenches of Italy. Since then, he has always enjoyed going through the mail. Last month, Mr. Arsenal's son, Ron Arsenal, made an appeal on social media for a hundred cards to celebrate the extraordinary milestone. By Friday, Mr. Arsenal had received over 90,000 cards and countless messages from all over the world, wishing him happy birthday and thanking him for his service. He received letters from children, countless veterans, and people from all walks of life. I've had the chance to meet Fred at Remembrance Day events in Scarborough in the last couple of years, and it has been always a tremendous honour to meet him and listen to his stories. Fred's honour includes from 1939 to 1945 star and Italy star, France and Germany star, a defence medal, a Canadian volunteer service medal with overseas buyer and a war medal. We thank you for your service, Fred, to this country. Fred, from all of us in the Ontario Legislature, we wish you a very happy birthday. Thank you very much. Member Statements, the Member for Whitby. Thank you, Speaker. Last Tuesday, the Honourable Christine Elliott, the Minister of Health and the Honourable Michael Teebelow, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions for an Ontario Short Centre for Mental Health Sciences in my riding, to launch Roadmap to Wellness, a plan to build Ontario's mental health and addiction systems, which provides a clear path towards offering Ontarians easier access to higher quality care and support in their communities. Speaker, by improving the availability and quality of mental health and addiction supports and by better connecting Ontarians with these services, this new plan, Speaker, will help us build healthier communities by alleviating growing pressures on our hospitals and in doing so, significantly support our goal of ending hallway healthcare. Speaker, the government continues to fill our promise of making mental health and addictions our priority. The Roadmap to Wellness moves us in the right directions towards building a comprehensive and connected mental health and addiction system that works for all Ontarians across the lifespan. This is a plan, Speaker, that is client-centered, data-driven and evidence-based. Most of all, Speaker, is a plan that will ensure that all Ontarians are able to access high-quality services and supports where and when they need them. Thank you, Speaker. Member Statements. The Member for Barrie and Esfield. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our government has an ambitious agenda. Over the next 10 years, we will be investing over $100 billion in new schools, hospitals, transportation projects, and more. Yet, if the workforce is not available, these projects cannot happen. In industrial, electrician, and construction trades, the job vacancy rates in the third quarter of 2009 were 51% higher than they were four years ago, according to the job site indeed. The skills trades are meaningful and often lucrative careers, especially for young women. Yet, they make up only 17% in registered apprentices. Yesterday was International Women's Day. I am proud to work with our government and the work that our government is doing to end the stigma to make skills trades the first choice for our young women. This includes running ads that feature two female journeypersons, an arborist and a crane operator working in careers that dare I say, Mr. Speaker, they wouldn't trade. Another challenge is encouraging female students to take STEM-related courses, and our government is working with organizations like Skills Ontario to break down the barriers, and there's plenty of more, Mr. Speaker. Our government is working with businesses, working with labour, and Ontario is open for opportunities for everyone. Thank you very much.