Thank you, Viviane. Thank you for your words but thank you especially for your leadership and your work here as the local member of Parliament in Sudbury. It is always a pleasure to come back here with you and to hear the concerns of your constituents. Thank you, too, to Marc for being here. You have represented Nickel Belt for many years for us in the House of Commons, and you always work hard to represent your constituents well, too.

David, thank you very much for your welcome here to Health Sciences North. It’s great to see this extraordinary facility that serves so many people across the region, and the cutting-edge research and innovation and service that is offered here is truly remarkable. Ray Hunt, thank you so much. As CEO of NOSM, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, we see really, really important potential, not just to continue to do the extraordinary work that you’re doing, but to grow it, and I’ll talk about that in a moment. I also want to recognize Paul Lefebvre, the Mayor of Sudbury, a former colleague in the House of Commons.

Thank you, Paul, for everything you do to serve the beautiful city of Sudbury so well, and to build a stronger future for all.

Before I begin, I want to highlight that starting last night and this morning, Canadians have been rallying around tributes and memories, memories and thoughts about the extraordinary service of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, but we are seeing how much this remarkable man shaped today’s Canada. Today I can confirm that there will obviously be a state funeral for the former prime minister. We will provide details in due course, but we are working with the family to ensure all its wishes are respected. But I can also confirm that there will be opportunities for Canadians to express their gratitude and to honour the former prime minister and his family.

Before I begin, I want to highlight that last night, and this morning, Canadians have been awash with reflections, and memories, and tributes to former prime minister Brian Mulroney. He marked the history of this country, he marked the present of this country, and it is right that we all be reflecting on him and his family today and for many days to come. I can confirm that, obviously, there will be a full state funeral for the former prime minister. We are working with the family closely to ensure that all of their wishes are respected and that it be the right and fitting tribute to him. We will be sharing more details, of course, in coming moments. But I can also let everyone know that there will be opportunities for Canadians to express their gratitude and share tributes to the former prime minister as the coming days and weeks unfold.

Canadians are very proud of our universal public health care system. It is one of this country’s strengths. We know that with insurance, if we get sick, we will not have to sell our house, or take out a new mortgage, or need to be financially penalized. This is one of our country’s great strengths.

Canadians are rightly proud of our public health care system, and it’s a strength for us that we know that if we fall ill, we’re going to be there for each other to make sure that everyone gets the care they need, regardless of where they live or of how much they make. But we also have to be honest that our health care systems haven’t been meeting the mark of what Canadians expect over the past years. That’s why, as a government, we’ve committed $200 billion over the next 10 years to invest in health care systems across the provinces and territories with $25 billion specifically for tailored agreements with the provinces going at particularly high priority areas.

Here, in Ontario, it’s a $3.1-billion agreement over three years that we announced just a few weeks ago that will cover essential elements for Canadians. To start, to ensure better access to family doctors. We know that family doctors are people’s entry point into the health care system. We need more people to have access to family doctors. We need to shorten waiting periods; wait times are too long for health care, so we will shorten these waiting periods. We are also working with the provinces to hire more health care workers. We need more staff. Those who are working in our system—especially since the pandemic—are working much, much harder and they need reinforcements. And that is exactly what we are working on.

We also recognize the need to have better access to mental health care. This is a top priority, especially for young people, and to ensure, with these agreements with the provinces, that there will be an emphasis on mental health care. This is all part of what we are expecting.

And there are also investments to ensure that Indigenous people receive better quality services and care, which is important all across the country, but especially in regions like northern Ontario, where there are many Indigenous communities. All of these issues and these commitments that we are signing with the provinces are based on better data collection.

We know that as we look to improve health care systems and health care outcomes for Canadians, we need to make sure it’s being measured in a rigorous, transparent, comparable way so people can know what their tax dollars are delivering in terms of improvements to our health care system. It also is about modernizing the system, getting rid of fax machines, making sure that people have access to health care data, and that their specialists or their pharmacists have access to the right information to make sure people get the best quality of care. A huge cornerstone of these agreements that we’re signing with the provinces are around better, rigorous data collection so that Canadians can know, right across the country, that they are getting the very best quality of care necessary and that improvements are brought, that are brought in in one part of the country can be modelled and taken on in other parts of the country. This is how we create a stronger system. Of course, we recognize that right across the country there are different priorities, different challenges, which is why we’re negotiating these agreements directly with the provinces in terms of their priorities. But even within provinces, we know there are different needs in different regions.

Especially here in northern Ontario, where access to health care is more difficult than it is in the rest of Ontario, we need to bring in specific measures.

That’s why we’re leaning in specifically on a number of initiatives for northern Ontario that will make a huge difference. In terms of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, we’re announcing 30 more undergraduate spots and 41 more postgraduate spots to ensure that there are the health care workers, and indeed, the primary care physicians here in the north, trained in the north, that are going to be able to serve northwestern Ontario and the remote and rural areas that are part of this and are often underserved. We’re also going to be increasing cancer screening through mobile units across northern Ontario because we know that’s a very real need that has been identified for remote and northern communities. We’re also moving forward on better training on anti-Indigenous racism to make sure that every health care centre is more welcoming, more sensitive, and culturally appropriate to the needs of Indigenous peoples. We’re moving forward on more primary health teams across underserved areas in the North.

And, of course, this is part of our commitment to providing more doctors and more health care professionals who speak French, who can serve the Francophone community here in northern Ontario. This is part of our commitment across the country, but it is especially relevant here in northern Ontario. So, we are here to work with communities, with local experts on the needs that people are facing here. This is part of the investments that we are making to better support Canadians in these difficult times.

We know, we just announced pharmacare legislation yesterday that is going to move forward on ensuring Canadians can have access to medications at even better prices, particularly when it comes to family planning and contraception, but also when it comes to life-saving diabetes medication. We know that these are things that delivering for Canadians will take some of the pressures off in the very difficult and challenging economic times families are living through. On top of that, our reduction of child care fees by 50% on our way to $10 a day has made a huge difference in families with young kids. In terms of our moving forward on dental care, we know seniors 70 and up are now registering for the Canada Dental Care Benefit, which is going to start delivering in May and is making a huge difference not just for seniors, but also will make a huge difference for the half a million young people who have accessed dental care last year because of our early moves on Canada Dental Care.

We’re going to continue to be there in ways that are delivering for people here in northern Ontario, and indeed, right across the country, because we know being there to support Canadians, invest in the future, and prepare for the jobs, growth, and opportunities of the future is what Canadians expect of their government. We’re going to continue to do that in partnership with friends and partners right across the country.

Thank you, everyone.