By Staff
August 21st, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Friends…It’s great to be back here in the wonderful city of London…Alongside my caucus and cabinet colleagues for the 2023 AMO Conference.
I want to acknowledge Regional Chief Glen Hare and Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell as well as our host mayor Josh Morgan.
It’s my sixth time speaking at this conference and as I’ve said before this event is one of the highlights of my year. It’s always a privilege to join you to not only talk about the challenges we’re facing but also talk about the great progress we’re making together.
Premier Ford’s sixth time speaking to an AMO crowd.
And friends Ontario is growing at an unprecedented pace. Last year alone our population grew by more than 500,000 people. At this rate Ontario will add five million more people in the next 10 years. That’s like adding two new cities nearly the size of Toronto in a decade.
Ontario is now the fastest growing jurisdiction in all of North America…Bar none! We’re growing faster than both Texas and Florida. Hundreds of thousands of families are coming to Ontario because here in Ontario we have endless opportunity.
We’re seeing new businesses set up shop. We’re attracting billions of dollars in new investments…And new jobs…Across all sectors…In all regions of the province.
And I have to tell you as Premier nothing brings me more joy than joining you in your communities to welcome a new investment.
Another factory or a new shift. Another production facility or a state-of-the-art manufacturing lab.
In April…I joined Mayor Vrbanovic and Mayor McCabe to break ground on the University of Waterloo and City of Kitchener’s new Innovation Arena for health-science start-ups.
In May I was thrilled to join Mayor Liggett to celebrate Moderna’s major investment to make vaccines in Cambridge.
And I’ll never forget last year standing shoulder to shoulder with Mayor Dilkens to celebrate Canada’s first large-scale electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor.
Or this past Spring in St. Thomas alongside Mayor Preston to announce that Volkswagen was following suit with their first overseas gigafactory.
And friends…I just want to take a moment to talk about our growing auto sector. We’re building a home-grown electric vehicle supply chain…That’s going to benefit every community in this province for generations to come.
Rendering of the Volkswagen plant to be built in St. Thomas
We’re connecting critical minerals in northern Ontario and clean steelmakers in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie. We’ve attracted over $25 billion in auto and EV battery investments.
Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America where the world’s six largest automakers have set up shop.
Last month alone Ontario added more than 7,800 manufacturing jobs to our economy. That’s more new manufacturing jobs than all 50 U.S. states combined.
Ontario manufacturing sector now employs over 820,000 people, the highest it’s been since December 2008.
Across all sectors…700,000 more people are working today, than when we took office in 2018. as our economy grows our population grows…
We need to make sure our infrastructure keeps up. That’s why we’ve embarked on the most ambitious capital plan in our province’s history. We’re investing nearly $50 billion to support more than 50 new hospital projects across Ontario.
We’re investing $28 billion in roads and highways…
And more than $70 billion in transit…
As we build the largest transit expansion in North America.
The Bradford bypass
Shovels are in the ground to build the new Ontario Line.
Work is underway…On a bridge crossing over the future Bradford Bypass. We’re building the new Highway 413… stretching across Halton, Peel and York regions.
In Windsor we’re widening and expanding Highway 3 from two to four lanes between Essex and Leamington and building a new interchange to connect Highway 401 to Lauzon Parkway. We’ve purchased three new train sets as part of our plan to bring back the Northlander connecting Timmins and Cochrane with Toronto.
And we recently approved the terms of reference for the First Nations-led Environmental Assessment to finally build the all-season roads to the Ring of Fire.
Together, we have to ensure that Ontario is a place where our shared potential is limited only by the scale of our ambitions.
We have to ensure that Ontario is a place where we can do and build big things. We can’t talk about building without talking about homes. As everyone in this room knows We’re in the midst of a housing crisis. I hear it everywhere I go. People are struggling. Struggling with affordability, with the rising costs of buying a home and with high rents.
This struggle is being felt most by young people and newcomers who are priced out of the dream of home ownership. Even one of our own mayors, Mayor Salonen from Wilmot Township can’t afford to buy a home in the municipality she leads. That’s why it’s so important, that we work together to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031.
Failing to act would worsen the housing supply and affordability crisis. Failing to act would hurt everyone in Ontario by driving up the cost of goods and services and by hampering new job creation and investments.
Failing to act…
The gag was about the time he swallowed a bee.
The Premier continued with one of the better Chamber of Commerce boost business speeches read in some time. He mentioned the
A Housing Supply Action Plan…
The Building Faster Fund.
Extending strong mayor powers to another 21 municipalities.
Urging the federal government to renew and expand the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program.
It wasn’t until the Premier got to saying “thank you again for inviting me here today” that we realized he didn’t use the word Greenbelt once in his address to the Mayors.
Only in Ontario
