 It is now time for Member Statements. The Member for London North Centre. Speaker, the government has previously said in this legislature that there will be no pause or delay when it comes to funds promised to the Thames Valley District School Board. And yet, teachers and parents at Masonville Public School are still waiting for the government to sign off on the funds needed to expand and repair their school. Masonville is relying on this investment to address critical overcrowding. Half of their students are stuck learning in the schools over 13 portables, two of which are in the parking lot. 300 students are forced to share a single washroom and the boys washroom has only two stalls. Currently, the school's gymnasium can't even fit all of its students inside. Speaker, Masonville students deserve better. Under the school's new design, the gym will be expanded to include a general arts room, a beautiful stage and room to host athletic events. Students and their parents deserve a place where they can gather as a community and celebrate their academic, artistic and athletic achievements. Funding for the school's expansion will do just that. The designs are completed, all the legwork is done. We're just waiting for the government to act and not engage in an overly difficult review process. If these funds aren't issued soon, construction could be delayed for yet another year. Masonville had to wait long enough under the previous Liberal government. Enough is enough. It's time this government stopped playing politics with London's children. Let's release these funds so that London students can attend the school they deserve. Thank you. Member, statements to Member for Perry Sound, Moscow. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm excited to rise today to celebrate the accomplishments of the West Perry Sound Health Centre. This week the West Perry Sound Health Centre has been awarded accreditation candidates accreditation with exemplary standard standing for the second time in a row. Accreditation Canada's criteria balances global best practices with community needs to assess all aspects of a health organization. West Perry Sound Health Centre was compliant with 100% of the required organizational practices and has a 97.6% compliance rate with over 2,000 accreditation standards. CEO Donald Sanderson proudly accepted the recognition on behalf of West Perry Sound Health Centre, crediting this word to their team's commitment to quote, quality improvement and the delivery of compassionate, patient-centered care. The West Perry Sound Health Centre has always been an icon for compassion within the community. They have long-term care facility, acute care programs, six nurse practitioners led clinics and deliver services to rural communities. They continue to offer innovative health programs will simultaneously being recognized as a pay-setter hospital for their consecutively balanced budgets. I want to thank Accreditation Canada for their work maintaining a high standard of care in our health system and offer my congratulations to the frontline team members, physicians, health professionals, volunteers, board members and staff of West Perry Sound Health Centre for this tremendous accomplishment. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Member Statements, Member for Algoma, Manitoula. Well thank you Speaker and I want to recognize Dr. Dieter Porn from Little Current and he received Canada's Family Physician of the Year working in rural and remote areas in one of the most difficult job in Canada's Canadian medicine when it requires a high level of expertise, broad skill sets, excellent interpersonal skills and leadership skills. That is according to W.E. Osman M.D. Other friends of his, Dr. Stephen Cooper says he is a very capable competent physician and throughout his career he has demonstrated his ability, his skill sets and knowledge make him stand above. He is a silent leader not in your face kind of guy but he knows what is right and at the right time he delivers it on every situation from Dr. McCrae. Dr. Porn is wonderful. He has served the community for a long time and is most collegial with doctors and in other communities. He also takes fitness very seriously and he practices what he preaches from Dr. Hamilton. It is an award that is well deserved. He has also been involved in teaching for many, many years from Dr. Maureen Reed as the rural physician Dr. Porn has practiced the full range of practice. She notes that from some two decades Dr. Porn has served as a corner on Manitoulin Island. He has served as an important role model for the Northern School of Medicine and from Dr. Roy Jeffries Dr. Porn owns special interests in sports medicine has been a tremendous asset to the muscular skeletal ailment segment of the medical students curriculum. Speaker, he deserves all the accolades that we could provide him. Thank you. Thank you. Member statements. The member for Markham Union Dome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Sunday, I attended a walk a mile in her shoes event hosted by Yellow Break House at Markville Mall in my writing of Markham Union Dome. This event entailed many men and women marching together in women's footwear like high heels to demonstrate their solidarity with victims of domestic abuse. This form of abuse is all too common in our communities and not all victims has the opportunity to seek help. However, this sort of events contribute to raise awareness of this occurrence which may help women and children and during this form of abuse to come forward with their preferences to those who can help them. Mr. Speaker, our government has proven to the people of Ontario that we care about women's issues and are employing efforts to alleviate the severity of domestic abuse in our province. Just recently, our government has pledged to invest 11.5 million in supporting our shelters and is appointing consultative committee on violence against women. This is soon. It will help vulnerable women and children and is a concrete step towards resolving this issue. And we are collecting shoeboxes to support shelters in this week. So please support it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Member's statements. The member from Mrs. Saga. No, Brampton Center. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Last night, I had the pleasure to attend a community meeting at the night's table in Brampton that was actually organized by the Peel Poverty Action Group, Tough Times newspaper, and Annie Bino, the executive director of the night's table. The night's table is a food bank in Brampton, actually in my riding, one of the only that we have access to in Brampton. And at this meeting, many community members shared with us their concerns around cuts to social assistance programs and, you know, the very services that they were dependent on. One gentleman in particular shared his concern about not being able to purchase a new pair of shoes. He asked that I would bring this concern here to the legislature and perhaps even ask our premier if he would be willing to take his shoes and try to walk a mile in them. I hope that I do have an opportunity to discuss that with the premier in the very near future. The night's table has seen a dramatic increase in their usage, doubling, in fact, last year. They served 3,879 people in the city of Brampton. That's a staggering number of people accessing our food banks. And as we head into the holiday season, I just want to take this opportunity to remind us all, wherever you are in the province, please find your local food bank, learn how you can engage with them, hold a food donation drive, or in fact just take a couple of non-perishable items to your own local food bank and make sure that everyone can have a very happy holidays, a merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Member Statements, a member for Ottawa South. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I'd like to say a few words about Mike Foley, who was a member of Ottawa's hockey community. Mike passed away on November 17th. He was a devoted and caring son, an older brother, a great husband, father, and grandfather. Mike dedicated his life to hockey as a player, a coach, a fan, and a photographer. He was a member of the Ottawa Senators' Equipment Staff for 26 years. He coached his daughters, cheered on his granddaughters, and continued to play hockey on Sunday mornings. Mike and I were friends when we were teenagers at our cottage in Norway Bay. Spent a number of really kind of glorious and fun summers together. And even though I haven't really seen Mike much in more than four decades, I know that he continued to be the kind and fun loving and always willing to help person that he was then. So to his mother, Gwen, his wife, Nancy, brother Jay, his daughters, Julie Allison, his grandchildren, Haley, Cameron, Tessa, and Hannah, and to his Ottawa Senator family, Mike was truly the kind of person we all want to be. Generous with his time, loving to others around him, and although I haven't seen him, as I said, in almost four decades, seen him a few times, I'm really proud to have known him. So on behalf of Mike's family, I'll put this across, it was in his remembrance in the paper. Mike would like us all to say hello to everyone that we come across. Even if you don't have time to stop and talk, just say hi. You'd like that. Thank you, Speaker. Member Statements, and Member for Durham. Thank you, Speaker. I rise today to voice my support for the Lakeridge Health Bowmanville Hospital Redevelopment and Expansion Project. Speaker, the Bowmanville Hospital has been in long need of a substantial renovation and update. The incredible frontline healthcare workers are challenged daily to meet the demands of a growing community. Speaker Durham is one of the fastest growing regions in Ontario, and the Bowmanville Hospital had its last expansion approximately 30 years ago. One of the major priorities our party set and communicated in this year's election campaign was ending hallway healthcare. In order to bring an end to hallway healthcare in Durham, we must make an outdated and overcrowded hospital a thing of the past. My constituents in Durham will only increasingly rely upon the services provided by our community hospital in Bowmanville in the years to come, and we need to make sure the services are there when people need them most. Speaker, I will continue to be a strong voice of support as Lakeridge Health works with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to move forward in the approval and planning process. I want to thank the minister and her hardworking team of staff and officials for their commitment to ending hallway healthcare in Durham and province-wide. And I want to specifically recognize the Bowmanville Hospital Foundation for their ongoing efforts to raise funds for this important project. Together and with the support of the municipality of Clarington, we will make this redevelopment project a reality. Thank you. Member statements. The member for Tomiskaming Cochran. Thank you. On Friday night, I had the pleasure of attending Tomogamy Country Christmas, one of the most beautiful light shows I think in the province. And as you know, lights form an important part of this holiday season. And for those of us in the Christian faith, probably the most important light was the star of Bethlehem. Everyone knows the story, how the wise men followed the star to find the Christ child. A part of the story that isn't told as often is that the wise men stopped first to visit King Herod. And they told the story of the Christ child and King Herod became envious and became jealous. And King Herod decided to do what was in his power to eliminate the threat to his king, what he felt was a threat to his kingdom. And Mary and Joseph and the Christ child had to cross the border into Egypt. And at that point, the Christ child was an asylum seeker. And we in the Christian faith and many other faiths have to realize that at this time of year, we have to be lights, lights of mercy and lights of compassion. Because the people on which, the person on which our faith was built was at one time needed the help of others. And he was given it. We always have to remember that. Merry Christmas. Joyeux Noël. Prétec castor. Thank you. Member statements, the member for Brampton South. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I would like to highlight the great work that's being done in Brampton and the Costa Peel region by the Boys and Girls Club of Peel. I'm proud to announce that the Boys and Girls Club of Peel, which happens to be located in my riding, received a three-year grant of $659,900 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The focus of this funding is to help improve the family dynamic and strengthen the relationships between parents, children, and the community. This is achieved by providing educational workshops, physical activities such as exercise classes, support groups such as social groups, gardening clubs, sewing clubs, family nights, and many other parent-led initiatives. The programs are currently focused on helping families and youth in two local, low-income neighborhoods. And now with the OTF funding, I'm thrilled to announce they will be able to expand into two more areas in both Brampton and Mississauga. The Boys and Girls Club of Peel has been providing vital programs for young people in our community for many years. I'm pleased to see that the Ontario Trillium Foundation is supporting the community organization and the great work that they have been doing across the region. I want to thank the Ontario Trillium Foundation for seeing the true value of the Boys and Girls Club of Peel and what they bring to the community. Our government for the people is committed to making life more easier for Ontario families and businesses, and we continue to deliver on that promise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For statements, member from Mississauga, Aaron Mills. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment today to talk about the Mississauga Santa Cruz Barade that happened last Sunday, December 2nd, in my beautiful riding of Mississauga Aaron Mills. This is the second annual Santa Cruz Barade happening in Mississauga Aaron Mills, a ceremonial parade that celebrates Christmas, an initiative presented by the Mississauga News and the Mississauga Aaron Mills Auto Center that I am proud of and fully support. I had the pleasure to walk in the parade with my team and many supporters, giving out candies and spreading the Christmas cheers, seeing Mykonosthetian Sea and a smile on their faces. Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great pleasure to see the smile on the face of children seeing Santa Cruz enjoying the parade and the candy cans. Kids and children from all ages and all ethnicities, there were about 30,000 attendees this year and over 50 groups, floats and entertainers, totaling 1,000 individuals, including all of the volunteers. I want to thank all the organizers and volunteers for amazing work they did, and I want to wish Mississauga Aaron Mills and all of Mississauga and Ontario a very merry Christmas, a happy hunker, happy holidays, and a happy new year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.