Welcome everyone to theCUBE's continuing coverage of SuperCloud 5, the Battle for AI Supremacy. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. I'd like to welcome two guests to theCUBE right now. Harry Alt, he is the EVP of Corporate Development and Partnerships at Datastax and Mona Chata. She is the Director of Technology Infrastructure Partnerships at AWS. Welcome, Harry and Mona. Thank you. Great to be here, huge fan of theCUBE. Thank you, Rebecca. Excellent. We're talking about all things gen AI. Harry, I want to start with you. Tell our viewers a little bit about Datastax. It's a database management solution companies. Tell our viewers a little bit more about what you do there and how Datastax is currently focusing its efforts. Perfect, love to do it. So Datastax was founded a little over a decade ago to be an enterprise distribution of an open source technology called Apache Cassandra. And roughly seven, eight years ago during the mobile app boom, enterprises were looking for an always-on distributed operational data store to power the applications that was gonna drive their business and their customer experience. And so many of them selected this open source technology. So if you, most of the apps we all use on our phones, if you used Uber to get to work or to run an errand, if you used Apple today, whether it's Apple Pay or iCloud, JPMorgan Banking, Verizon, Capital One, all of these companies use Apache Cassandra as the operational data store to power these applications. And the really interesting element about bringing our partnership together and taking us to the next level with AWS is that all of these customers, the overwhelming majority are running AI in production today. It's just not generative AI. It's predictive AI. It's taking unique machine learning models, deploying those in forms of recommendation engines, feature stores that provide really advanced personalization that make us love the Marriott Bonvoy app experience or the Delta Airlines app experience, and sort of enable that application to be always on and serve the customer. So our partnership is evolving now to this next level of generative AI. And we've been on this journey as data stacks for the last four years. We've done four acquisitions. We've been very focused on developer-centric experience with our cloud product and AWS. And we have a purpose-built platform that's already running predictive AI that will talk more about how we with AWS are now bringing generative AI with radical simplicity for the developers and operators of those systems. Yes, exactly. I want to dig more into this new integration. Moda, I want to talk to you about GenAI, which has been the buzzword of 2023 and that shows no sign of slowing down next year in the years to come. I'd love you to share some insight about how AWS is approaching the GenAI wave. Yeah, and really our... Well, just to sort of echo some of Harry's points there is that, look, AI has been around for decades and Amazon has been doing AI and has incorporated AI into their applications for decades. And it manifests in Amazon Go, you can see it in Alexa, even on the Amazon website, just really being able to create just better experiences for our end customers. And we've always sort of incorporated that. And now, as Harry also mentions, generative AI kind of takes it to the next level. And that also manifests in a lot of the partnerships that we have, including the one that we have with data stacks with the new kind of SCA that we've also put in place. It's just adding that extra layer to it. But really our strategy, the AWS sort of strategy for generative AI has really been rooted in ensuring that we innovate rapidly, to deliver just comprehensive set of services and programs that really help customers accelerate their innovation with generative AI and doing it in a cost effective and secure way. And I think that that's really important. And so the way that we look at generative AI is almost in like three mega layers. The first one being that you have to run your, whether it's these large language models or any other foundational models, with the right power, with the right compute, right? And in a cost effective way. And so that's why AWS developed AWS Traneum, which really is like powered, Amazon EC2 instances that really bring that efficiency to allow people to run their large language models and train them in a most cost effective way. The other set of chipsets that we have are AWS Inferentia. And that really leverages sort of that custom design where you can leverage your learning models, run them on Inferentia. And what we found is that a lot of other providers of large language models like Anthropic, for example, are actually incorporating AWS Inferentia and Traneum into their large language models build. So it's just a very easy way to like now build, train and deploy your future LLM model. So that's sort of the first layer is all around compute and having that power available to run these foundational models. The middle layer is really, you can kind of think about it as like, almost like MLMs are foundational models as a service, right? And then being able to embed those into your generative AI applications. So that's Amazon Bedrock. And that is something where, Datastax and us as part of our SCA agreement, that's where Datastax has integrated with Amazon Bedrock. And that's a fully managed AI service that really, it includes our large language models like Titan, but also third party models such as Anthropic Cloud, Stability AI, AI 21, Labs and Co-Kir. And there's others that are integrating to it. And so, that sort of middle layer is kind of important to then build upon and run those large language models and embed those into applications via APIs in a very simple way. And then the last layer is really about development tools and having applications that run these large language models or any sort of foundational models. And that's sort of manifested in Amazon Code Whisper, which is really your co-companion, right? And it's a key development tool to really accelerate code creation for any generative AI application. And it's trained on billions of lines of code so that you can generate code suggestions that range from snippets to then, any sort of fully functional lines of code in real time. So those are sort of the, I would say operational aspects of it, but then when you look at it, when you look at this, so that's on the services side, but then you gotta think about the program side of it. And one of the key things that I don't think we talk about enough is that you gotta give people the skill sets. You gotta have the programs in place, right? That allow developers, as Harry mentioned, take over and be able to leverage and use these applications, large language models, be able to build it, right? And so that's why what we've done is we've built a Generative AI Innovation Center. And what that does is it really allows experts in AI that are technical experts that really help you develop your application, really help you think about how you want to, develop a business around it, think about what the business value is, and then just really help to figure out how do you wanna leverage some of the applications, some of the tools that we have, the services, any third party that includes third party applications like data stacks, like AstraDB, into your generative AI applications. And then we also have things that we announced recently, Amazon corporate wide around AI ready. So again, training 2 million people by 2025, so that they have the skill sets that they need in order to not just build, but also just have the knowledge of what it takes to create and to innovate with generative AI. And then we also have an AWS generative AI scholarship that we're providing to high school students, right? And to 50,000 high school students is really our target. And you gotta start young, right? We gotta start with the knowledge and the education and as quickly as possible. So we just don't want generative AI to be in the hands of a few, but for many so that, you know, everyone can ultimately benefit in this sort of transformative technology that's kind of been here for a while, but it's now gone to the next level. Right, people in the industry, as you said, have been working on this for decades, but it's really sort of captured the public imagination this year with the launch of chat GBT. Harry, as you've said, data stacks in AWS have worked together for a long time, but this year, I think you said, we sort of took our relationship to the next level with this integration with Amazon Bedrock, and you took a little bit more about what you see as the primary benefits of this integration. Yeah, I think just to riff a little bit off of what Mona said, you know, if you listened to what she commented on, it's all around developer empowerment and developer simplicity of bringing GenAI apps to the companies that they work for to change the trajectory of those companies and to do it at low cost of failure, to do it with velocity, to do it with simplicity. And so before I get into the agreement, what we are seeing is that we're seeing a fundamental shift of our partnership that is less enterprise migration oriented and much more new app generation oriented, catering to that developer community. And so that means a lot of heavy lift behind the scenes that our engineering teams have worked on around radically simplifying adoption through APIs. Most developers are not going to want to work with CQL Shell to do their new generative AI app. So having APIs that are in the language that they prefer, having rich sample frameworks and application starter kits as a part of the experience, developers want to work in a product led cloud native type approach. And so with AWS, we're providing that with AstraDB on AWS and the integration of the SCA level with Bedrock and SageMaker, again simplifies that capability, not just from a Bedrock Python notebook, quick pip install via SageMaker, but actually the larger ecosystem, motor referenced other alternative foundation models in LLMs. We work actively with Langchain as an example to simplify that onboarding of the system in a retrieval log managed generation application deployment. So our partnership being taken to the next level is a couple of fold. One, it's becoming developer focused. Two, it's becoming more and more product led in terms of developers don't want to talk to salespeople necessarily. They just want to go. They want to have a cloud native experience. And so we're doing that in our product integrations. And then I think lastly, we as in our partnership in the past, we have not had a large developer go to market focus. And I'll just give you one example. Myself and several of our technical leads will be in India and Bangalore in two weeks time. AWS is hosting a Gen AI conclave. There'd be roughly 1400 folks there. Very developer focused event. We're doing dev days before that event with a lot of our customers that are in production which entered of AI already to help foster that community of bringing people on board and showing them the power of this technology and how easy it is to adopt with our partnership. I think that community is such an important element of this. Talk to you, Mona. You mentioned the strategic collaboration agreement, the SCA, which seems incredibly relevant and pertinent to the time as we're living in right now in particular, the objectives that you said in terms of how AWS intends to work with its partners. Can you talk a little bit about how you collaborate with your partners in terms of AI advancement? And I'm talking here about your partners in consumer packaged goods, companies, utilities, governments, who do you work together to make sure you are all speaking the same language? Yeah, that's a good question. And I think that also this agreement that we have, we've been doing strategic collaboration agreements with multiple partners. And I think part of that is to really create transformative solutions for our end customers. And I think at Amazon, you've heard this a lot of times and we'll continue to say this is that we always work backwards from our customers. And as we also, and Harry can attest to this, right? Like whenever we are developing any sort of integration that we have, whether it was with AstroDB and Amazon Bedrock, we're always looking at, well, ultimately, what's the best experience for our end customers? And so that's what we anchor all of our sort of strategic collaboration agreements on, as well as just start regular sort of go-to-market initiatives on. And really what we're trying to do is we're working with partners that want to create those sort of transformative experiences for end customers and really help to transform their end applications and integrate generative AI solutions into that. Whether it's our services or other third-party LLMs or other solutions that they need, such as data stacks in order to build their generative AI solutions. So one of the things that we look at is we look at it from like sort of three levers, if you will. It's co-build, co-market and co-sell. And so the co-build part is always when we talk about integrations with AWS services as well as with the ISV solutions, that's kind of how we create, that's like the product, right? And focusing on what that product fit is for the end customer. That's sort of the co-build and the co-market is we really think very thoughtfully about the market part, right? How do we go to market together? And it's not about throwing money at this at all. That's like an easy way, that's an easy way out. The real thing is you can have a ton of money and not know what the hell to do with it. So this is really, we're very focused on how do we wanna market to our end customers together? We do that in a very thought-provoking, I think we've done this with data stacks, right? With AstraDB on integrated with Amazon Fedrock. And that has really made the difference with our end customers. And as a result of it, we now have end customers across different industries that are interested in figuring out how do they partner with us, with this partnership as well as with other AWS partnerships. I think the other thing that we do is that we also, look at those user experiences, making sure that it's good, but then we also have a co-sell component of it, which is where our fields come in and where we have that interlock with our field organizations to ensure that, since they're the sort of front lines to customers, how they understand what the solution is, what the advantages are for the end customers, and ultimately how this is gonna benefit them in the long run. And what this really means to them and building their generative AI applications. And one of the things that we heard from customers is that I have a lot of data and I really need my applications to really be customized with their data and other sort of tools that they have. And so enabling data as your differentiator is one of our key components as we're sort of partnering with generative AI solutions with our partners. And so in doing that securely, I think is really critical. And so that's why we've developed things like agents for BenRocks to really help those customers build and those partners build the application so that it's very specific to the business, to your data, and ultimately to the end customers. So that's sort of how we've encompassed it. And then ultimately these all get integrated into a strategic collaboration agreement that we, similar to what we did with data stacks. Harry, I want to piggyback a little bit off of what Mona was talking about in terms of the customer focus or to use Amazon, Parlon's customer obsession. Do you have any specific case studies or use cases of customers in terms of how they're using data stacks in AWS to come up with and to build with GenAI and come up with some cool initiatives for their organizations? Yeah, yeah, so let me just kind of dovetail on a couple of things that Mona mentioned. So much of this comes back to the developer experience. And so one of the things in our strategic collaboration agreement that we did was we provided a free tier for developers to get their vector databases started, to get their operational data stores started at no cost. So, and we see hundreds of those vector databases created on a weekly basis. So we're getting the velocity in that community, as you mentioned, which is an exciting element about the partnership. And then on top of that, we have thousands of these customers that already have their applications running on data stacks or on Apache Cassandra. And from a vector data store perspective, it makes complete sense for them to run vector in that same operational data store that's certified, proven, supported in the company. And so these dynamics create a catalyst for us to have the engagements. And that's what the partnership's all about. And we will take Mona's money, we won't spend it for you. But it is a big part of it that we are both investing in this and we're excited about it. So from an example of customer deployments, what's interesting right now is we are in the early innings or early phases of GNAI adoption. The types of prototypes and applications that people are adopting are largely, let me take static data, do vector, have it connect to LLM through RAG and then provide some type of output. So we see things like co-pilots, virtual assistants or chat bots that are using vector and LLMs to go to market. And we're excited about that. We're engaging with customers, but it really is just the tip of the spear or the potential of this. And I think in many ways our partnership because of the type of applications that data stacks is involved in, our partnership is looking at the next level of generative AI of how do I bring advanced agents into that real-time operational data store and that real-time experience. So things like hyper-personalization, really advanced dynamic fraud detection for banks, real-time supply chain decision-making via vector and LLMs, helping support desks, not just capture static data via generative AI, but capture real-time data. So you have the call that somebody just put, made three minutes ago, that is now re-incorporated back into that operational and vector data store for querying capabilities. So we're getting started with some easy use cases. A lot of things around basic search capabilities, but where the potential of this is and where we're gonna engage with our joint customers is super exciting and it's gonna change everybody's way that they have application experiences on a daily basis going at four. Excellent, great note to end on. Harry, Mona, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE. Thank you. Great being with you. Thank you, Mona. Thank you. I'll see you later. See you at re-invent. Definitely. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of SuperCloud 5. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in technology enterprise coverage.


Suppose we are given a circuit with some resistors and some batteries. We are asked to find out the current through each branch. Current through each of these wires is what we need to figure out. So how do we do this? Well, usually when we have a circuit, the first thing I look for is if we can reduce the circuit by using series and parallel formula. But over here, you can't do that. If you don't trust me, go ahead, give it a try. Reduce the circuit using series or parallel. So in general, what do we do when we can't do that? When we have more complicated circuits, that's where we use Kirchhoff's laws. And so that's what we're going to do over here as well. You use Kirchhoff's laws to figure this out. But before I solve this problem, let me give you a general overview of how to solve any complicated circuit. How do you solve any complicated circuit like this? So think of it mathematically. Since I want to calculate current through each branch, and there are three branches over here, as you can see, color differently, I have three unknowns. And to figure out three unknowns, I need three equations. And it's Kirchhoff's laws that are going to help me build these equations. The first equation can be built using the Kirchhoff's current law, which is applied to nodes where three or more wires get connected. And the remaining two equations can be figured out by using Kirchhoff's voltage law, KVL, which is applied to closed loops, like a loop over here or over here or this big loop over here. Now I'm assuming that you have already practiced Kirchhoff's laws. Otherwise, this video is going to be pretty confusing. So if you aren't familiar with this, I highly recommend to go back and watch videos and do practice on our website on these laws and then come back over here. But if you have, well, then let's go ahead and solve this bad boy. All right. Where do I start? Well, since I want to calculate the current, we can start by assuming some current in each of these branches. So let's say in this yellow branch over here, the current is moving to the right. Let me call that value as I1. And I've colored this over here just to indicate that the current through this entire branch will be the same. So over here will be I1, here will be I1, here will be I1 because the current has nowhere else to go. And you could ask me why am I choosing it to go towards right? Well, I've randomly chosen that. You could have also chosen it to go backwards, for example. You're free, feel free to choose whichever direction you want. Similarly, in this branch, let's assume the current is, I don't know, maybe going upwards. So let's call that current as I2. And again, now here also you are free to choose whatever you want. But since it's so nice, I can see that, you know, there's I1 going in and there is I2 going in. I like to think of it as, okay, these two currents are merging and coming out from here. So if I1 goes in and I2 goes in, then what is the current that comes out? You can say I3, but that I3 has to be I1 plus I2, right? Right? I1 and I2 go in and the current that goes out, comes out over here, must be I1 plus I2, sorry. And in effect, what I've now done is applied KCL. This is Kirchhoff's current law, which says that whatever current enters a node should exactly equal the current exiting the node. And you can see that the same applies here as well. I1 plus I2 come in, comes in over here. I2 goes out, I1 goes out over here. Everything works nice and well. So because I applied KCL already, I only have two variables now, which means I only need two more equations. Does that make sense? So KCL is done. Now to build two more equations, I'll have to use KVL. So let me write that down. So next step would be KVL. And this is where things get usually a little tricky with the signs and everything.  All right. So how do you apply KVL? You choose a closed loop first. So for example, I can choose this closed loop over here. And the whole idea is you start from some random point and let's say I start from a point somewhere over here. And let me just give that point a name. Let's call it point as A. And then you figure out what the voltage at this point is and whatever that value is. And then you keep track of the changes in the voltage. At every point. And then you come back all the way. If you do that, you will build an equation. And the whole idea behind KVL is energy conservation. Okay. And again, like mentioned before, this is something that we've been explaining great detail in a previous video. So if you need more details, feel free to go back and watch that. And of course, please practice as well. This is definitely requires practice. All right. Having said that, let's quickly start this. So the way I do this is I start at this point and I say, let's say that the voltage over here is VA. Okay. Some voltage, I'm going to call that VA. And now I keep walking. And every time I cross a battery or I cross a resistor, I will figure out what the new voltages. So let's say when I walk, walk, walk, and I cross this battery, notice some voltage gets added or subtracted. So the voltage over here is going to be VA plus or minus something. So now the question is, what is the voltage at this point? Well, it's going to be, first question is, am I going up in potential or am I going down in potential? The way to figure that out, at least for a battery, would be able to look at the terminals. This is the negative terminal of the battery. This is the negative terminal of the battery. This is the positive. Negative means low, positive means high. So I'm going from low to high, meaning when I'm going from here to here, I'm going uphill. It's like climbing a mountain. I'm going uphill. All right. So when I go from here to here, voltage gets added. So the voltage over here must be VA plus something. Plus how much? Two volts. It's given in the battery. It's given over here in the question itself. So the voltage at this point is VA plus two. All right. Let's continue walking, walk all the way until we come back. Now when I, when I cross this resistor, again, there's going to be a potential drop. Remember Ohm's law, whenever a current flows through a resistor, there will be an IR drop. Now the question is, when I go from here to here, am I going up in potential or am I going down in potential? How do I figure it out over here? Well, notice I'm going in the same direction as the current. Current is moving this way. Right. And remember through a resistor, current always flows from higher potential to lower potential, but think of positive charges. They will always move from higher to lower potential. So I can again say this has to be positive this side. And this side has to be negative. And basically I'm saying that this should be higher than this one because current is moving this way. And since I'm also going in the same direction, I'm also walking. I can now say that I'm going down high to low. And so when I come over here, the potential drops by some value. So negative by how much when I go from here to here, potential drops by the whatever is the voltage over here. And that's V equals IR. And I know I is I one, I know R is one. So the potential drop over here is going to be I one times one. And now I am over here. This is the voltage at this point. Does that make sense? The same thing. Continue, you walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. And you keep doing this all the way till you come over here. So great idea for you to pause the video and see if you can just complete and see if you can build the equation. All right. If you're given it a shot, let's continue. So I come over here, now I cross this resistor. This time notice I'm going in the opposite direction of the current. So again, same up the same rule. If the current is going this way, this must be the positive. This must be the negative. But remember, I am walking in the opposite direction. So notice I'm going from low to high. I'm going in the opposite direction.  All right. And so when I come over here, my potential increases. Oh, let me use the same color. Increases by how much IR, five, two times five. And this is where mistakes are usually made. I mean, when I was studying this, I used to not think about it. Think about whether I'm going up the voltage or down the voltage. I used to mug up in the direction means negative. Opposite direction of the current means positive without even understanding what was going on. And obviously if you try to mug up like this, you are bound to forget it sometime, definitely during the exams. That's what used to happen to me. But now I don't do that.  Instead, think about it. Think about, are you going up in potential or down in potential? All right. So finally I'm over here. Now I'm going from here to here. When I'm going through a battery, you don't look at the current because a battery is an active device through a battery. Current can flow either ways, can flow from higher to lower potential or from over to higher also because battery is a pump. It can pump charges in the opposite direction. So when you're going through the battery, that's how you don't look at the current. You only look at the positive and the negative terminals. Another place where commonly I should make mistakes. So now when I'm going through a battery, notice this is the negative terminal of the battery. This is the positive terminal of the battery. And so when I go from here to here, again, I'm going up in potential just by looking at the terminals. All right, low to high. And so by the time I'm over here, what's the voltage? What's the potential that has to be plus two. And now I'm over here. This is the voltage at this point, right? But hey, that point has the same voltage as point A because there is no more potential difference. That means that has to equal VA. And ladies and gentlemen, this is how we build equation using KVL. Okay. Now all I have to do is go ahead and, and reduce this. So VA cancels out on both sides. And notice what I'm end up with. I end up with two plus two is four minus I one plus five I two equals zero. One equation down, one more to go to build a second equation. We have to choose a different loop. Maybe we can choose this one or we can choose this big loop as well. Okay. And I want you to give this a shot. So since we want, since I know I want us to get the same equation, let's choose a particular loop. Let's choose this and let's choose this small loop. All right. So let's say we start. Let's do it together. Let's say we start at this point. Let me call that as point B and let's walk in this direction like this. Let's walk this way and come back over here. So I want you to give this a shot. Okay. See if you can build an equation and then let, you know, then let's see if it matches it, what I get. All right. If you're given this a shot, this is what you end up with. I didn't want to, you know, spend time again, writing the whole thing. But again, you can pause the video and just confirm that this is what you got. And if you basically reduce that, you will eventually end up with this equation.  Right. The equation would have remained the same. And of course, if you have taken a different loop, let's say you have chosen a different loop, let that this big loop, then you would have gotten different equation, but eventually the final answer turns out would have to turn out to be the same. All right. Anyways, for our loop, this would be the equation. And again, if you've got some place wrong, no worries.  But now that we have the two equations, our physics is pretty much done. And now all we have to do is algebra, which I believe that you would be able to take care of this. So I'll just quickly brush through the algebra part. So I'm just going to minimize all the physics part. This is now the algebra. So if I just pull that equation over here, I just try to match the coefficients. So I'm going to match the coefficients of I one with this one. So I just multiply this whole equation by three. And that gives me a new equation. All the coefficients multiplied by three. And then I basically subtract this equation to finally give me I two equal to negative two amperes. I'm just brushing through this. I'm pretty sure you can do this all by yourself. And again, if you plug this back in, you will get the value of I one and you'll get I one as negative six amperes. So this is just algebra. And there we have it. We have solved our problem. Let me just get rid of this. Again, if you need some time on this, pause the video. All right, but that's pretty much it. So we have solved our problem. And now finally, just to make sense of these numbers, you might be wondering, what does this negative sign mean? Well, the negative sign is basically saying, hey, we chose the wrong direction when we assumed current to be flowing this way. I one really flows like this, but it doesn't matter if we got it. It means that the current over here is six amperes flowing down. I two is also negative, meaning, hey, we got this wrong as well. So this has to be two amperes downwards. And the current over here is just I one plus I two. So the current over here will be negative eight and not writing that down. And that again means that the current in this branch has to be going in the opposite direction eight amperes this way. And so the final thing is that, you know, you now maybe asked further questions. For example, they could ask you, what is the potential difference between let's say point A and point B? How do you calculate that? Well, you can use the same idea. You can use the same Khrushchev's law, but instead of walking through the entire loop, you start from point A and you end at point B. So I'm not going to do that. I'm pretty sure you can work this out yourself, but you go walk. You start over here, VA, you walk, walk, walk, walk like this.  And then you stop here. So that will equal VB.  And that would be the potential difference between these two points. And because you can choose any path you want, you can walk like this and reach here, you can walk like this and reach here. In all cases, VA minus VB has to be the same. Great idea to confirm that.


It's now time for Question Period. The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Thank you, my question to Premier. Premier, as we begin the week, sadly in liberal Ontario, liberal government, there are a million people that work. I recently spoke to a man in Niagara Falls who lost his job, John Deere, part of the 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost. He talked to me about the impact on his ability to pay the mortgage, to pay the bills, and very importantly, first, he started with the impact on his pride as a human being, as a dad, a provider for the family. He did get a job parking cars for $11 or $12 an hour, but he says, can't we do a lot better than this? It's because of people like that that I brought forward my plan, the Million Jobs Plan. It created a good million jobs in our province, well-paying, middle-class jobs. So, Premier, part of my plan is to lower taxes for all businesses to actually hire in the province again instead of giving out corporate giveaways to the well-connected. Isn't it time to lower taxes to create jobs and help people like this man in Niagara get a good job? Thank you. Thank you, Premier. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Well, I absolutely support the notion, and we are working very hard to make sure that we make the right investments in people, the right investments in infrastructure, and that we partner with business, Mr. Speaker, that we create those partnerships that will allow jobs to be created, Mr. Speaker. What I do not see from the leader of the opposition is any way in which driving labor down, Mr. Speaker, driving good jobs out of the province, cutting and slashing across government, and not partnering with business, Mr. Speaker, all of which are pillars of his plan. I do not see how those tactics will create jobs, Mr. Speaker. We have created a net of more than 440,000 net new jobs since 2009, Mr. Speaker. Employment last year, Mr. Speaker, we're going to continue on our plan. Thank you. I think the Premier mistakes my plan with her own. There's no doubt that Premier's plan has bankrupted our province. It's cost us 300,000 manufacturing jobs, and he put us deeper and deeper into debt. I think, Premier, if the plan is not working, isn't it time to try something bold, something new, and something as optimistic as it says in Ontario can lead again? That's my plan. That's my billion jobs act. Let me, for example, Kellogg's recently announced the closure of their plan to London. You gave Kellogg's a big corporate handout to create a small number of jobs, and in return, we're losing 6 or 700 jobs in London. Don't think that works. You now have a plan before you. I think you're taking it to cabinet to do billions more in corporate handouts. You have a question before you if we should give Chrysler $700 million, a billion. You've given handouts to Ubisoft. Question. On my point of view, instead of corporate handouts to the well-connected, why don't you lower taxes for all businesses in every sector to succeed? That should create jobs, a great contour of middle-class jobs in our province. That's a better way. So thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I think the leader of the opposition knows that taxes have been lowered in our jurisdiction, and we are competitive, Mr. Speaker. He also knows that the HST, which was a conservative policy, which we implemented, was done expressly, Mr. Speaker, for the manufacturing sector. And the manufacturing sector knows that that was an important move, Mr. Speaker. But what the leader of the opposition is talking about, Mr. Speaker, is he's talking about walking away from the people who are working in plants, in Oshawa, in Oakville, in Brampton, in Woodstock, and in Windsor, Mr. Speaker. He's talking about reversing a policy in this province to work with and support the auto sector that has been in place for decades, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe that he has fought through this policy, Mr. Speaker, because to abandon the auto sector and the auto parts sector in Ontario would lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, Mr. Speaker. I'd appreciate, while I'm standing, I'd appreciate the attention given to me by the minister of the environment along with those that want to shout down somebody. So let's cool it. Final supplementary, please. Premier, you've created a province of Ontario with higher taxes, unaffordable energy rates, more and more red tape. That means the only way for business to open up in Ontario is you have to bribe them with hundreds of millions of taxpayers' subsidies. That's basically what it is. And I think you should start saying no to the corporate extortion that you've got yourself into. I think it's better to lower taxes for all business and succeed to get affordable hydro in the province of Ontario again. Get the heavy hand of government off their backs so they can succeed. Now, it's just not me saying that. Your own economist, Don Drummond, said that your corporate welfare policies were not working. He said we should get out of that business, Premier. And I agree. Let's actually create an environment, whether you're in the auto sector, whether you're in agriculture business, whether you're in financial services, whether you're in the cities in the province of Ontario. I want to see them all invest in creative jobs. My question is, why don't you? Premier? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Well, what I would say is why does the leader of the opposition not understand that partnering with business and supporting business and particularly, Mr. Speaker, in this case we're talking about the auto sector that partnership is decades old, Mr. Speaker. The naivete associated with the leader of the opposition's position is quite stunning, Mr. Speaker. And I, you know, I go back to 1996-97 when there was $746 million put into a businesses in the province, Mr. Speaker, during the Harris years. 1997-98 $425 million $98.99 $360 million $99.2414 million $2201 $717 million Apparently the leader of the opposition and his colleagues used to understand that it was important in order for us to compete globally that we work with business, Mr. Speaker, that we put those supports in place. Apparently he's lost the thread. Any question? Back to the premier. I was there. I was car to cabinet and what did we do? We lowered taxes. We had affordable energy raised. We got off the back of business. And the results, the results we created an environment for 1.1 million new economic era that's chasing jobs in the province. The biggest area of subsidies from the McGinty-Winn Liberals is the unaffordable handouts to wind and solar projects that the full tune is some $46 billion premium. You thought you'd build an industry where everybody could work at a wind farm or at a solar panel factory. We've actually lost jobs for every short-term job we create with those four in the broader economy. It isn't $46 billion an awful expensive price tag to actually cause jobs to feed the province of Ontario. Just send that program, I would. Can you see the face? You tricked me there. Premier. Minister of Energy. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the leader of the opposition supports a healthy community. There's nothing more important to our party than the health of our citizens. Health has always been our top priority. The clean energy is helping to replace and has in fact replaced dirty coal. Mr. Speaker, that represents of $4.4 billion in environmental and healthcare costs. Mr. Speaker, we had to build a surplus of energy in this province. We did it by also eliminating dirty coal and we have built a safer, healthier community as a result of that. And Mr. Speaker, we're now represents less than 4% of our generation in the province of Ontario. And Mr. Speaker, less than 4% is not a doomsday scenario that that leader of the opposition is claiming, Mr. Speaker. He's exaggerating and he's not telling the truth. Withdraw. Withdraw, Mr. Speaker. I... I'd like to get to the next question. Supplementary. Thank you. Speaker back to the premier. One thing too, premier, I don't know if you ever notice. It seems like hardly ever these grants go to Ontario companies. They're almost always international companies. Maybe it's because you want to cut a very expensive ribbon. So, for example, the biggest area of subsidy has been Samsung. Samsung, the Korean based on they become incredibly rich. Now, you would never give money to a competitor of Blackberry, right? You would never tell the people of Kitchen or Waterloo, Cambridge that you would give about hundreds of millions of dollars to the big competitor, Samsung. But that's precisely what you've done. I don't know how you can reconcile this to taxpayers to say you're taking money out of their pockets. They're taking money out of businesses or higher hydro rates to hand it over to an international competitor. Clearly, this is a policy that we can't afford. It's costing us jobs and investments outside the country and we're hurting our own company. So, Premier, why don't you abandon this misguided expensive policy and support my million jobs plan to put people back to work in our big economy. Thank you. Minister of Energy. Minister of Economic Development Trade and Appointment. I can't believe what I'm hearing because a lot of our support goes to those great Ontario based small medium and large size businesses. Just last Friday, I was in Cambridge and I provided a support through the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund for a great Ontario company, Cambridge Tows, that I know the people that are aware of that company understand just how important it is we continue to support that made in Ontario. Member from the PN Carleton will come to order. Which manufactures containers for our agricultural industry right across this country, provided support as well on Friday through the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I understand if the member opposite, if the leader sees the importance of those made in Ontario investments, it's because his party and he didn't support the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund. The last year and a half has created and retained more than 24,000 jobs, Mr. Speaker. Final supplementary. One of the games, Speaker, my daughter I think learned in school is hot potato. Looks like they played a bit of hot potato over there. Everybody is trying to answer the question. Except the premier. The reason it's a hot potato is because it's bad economic policy. Energy act subsidies don't make any sense and the jury is in premier. It's costing us jobs. There is a better way to stop the subsidies and get affordable hydro for all. Also, you're forcing these projects into communities that don't want them. You're not even enforcing your own rules. For example, in West Lincoln, the Niagara Regional Wind Corporation and HAF Wind Energy, those projects are in a state of chaos. Five turbines have been built as part of that wind project, but three of them don't even meet in setbacks. They're effectively breaking the law. It seems to me if somebody breaks the law then you take out the turbines and make sure you follow the laws in the province of Ontario. That makes sense. But here's the bottom line. It costs us jobs. It divides communities. You're not even enforcing your own laws. Why don't you get rid of this misguided, outdated policy and support my plan? It'll bring good jobs back and help John Deere employer work in the province of Ontario. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Again, I just don't understand where the member opposite is coming from with this million job loss plan. Quite frankly, and we already know, Mr. Speaker, that he's going to, if he gets into power his party is going to cut 10,000 jobs among education workers, thousands more in the healthcare sector. He's already indicated he didn't support the Cisco investment which is bringing 100 jobs to this province. We already know that he didn't support the auto sector in 2009. Frankly, if the party opposite had had their way, we wouldn't have an auto sector, Mr. Speaker. The member from Northumberland, the member from here in Bruce, the member from Simcoe Gray will come to order. Finish, please. And Mr. Speaker, I know these are challenging times across the province, particularly in the Niagara region. I acknowledge that. But that's why the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund, Niagara Piston and Beansville, as well as Indexable Cutting Tours and Wellands. And I was at the opening of original foods in Dunville and the Niagara region as well.  Importantly, in a community that really needed that help because of previous closures. Thank you. Question, leader of the third party. Speaker, my questions for the Premier. Over this winter, the Premier had numerous opportunities to visit Niagara. How would she describe the state of unemployment in that region, Speaker? Premier. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I know that, first of all, I want to welcome the new member for Niagara Falls. Welcome to the House. Have opportunities to visit Niagara Falls before the by-election was announced, Mr. Speaker. And after, and Mr. Speaker, I know that there is a lot of work to be done in that community and in other communities across the province, which is why, Mr. Speaker, a six-point plan, which is why we know that investing in infrastructure, I heard about infrastructure investment and the need for infrastructure investment in Niagara Falls, Mr. Speaker, whether it's a hospital or whether it is transit, Mr. Speaker, making sure that we have the right go transit, the right municipal transit, Mr. Speaker, those kinds of initiatives and those kinds of investments are very, very important. And that's why infrastructure investment is very much a pillar of our economic plan. So we will continue to work with Niagara Falls. We will continue to work with communities across the province to make sure that those supports are in place. Speaker, what we heard from families was that they're feeling the squeeze and they're worried about jobs. There were over 100 families who relied on a paycheck from Vertus who are wondering how they're going to pay the bills now that the plant in Fort Erie has closed its doors. 90 people from Redpath in Niagara Falls are going to see an end to their paychecks in May Speaker. Will the premier tell those people that she thinks her six-point jobs plan is actually working? Well, Mr. Speaker, what I can tell the leader of the third party is that there are situations where companies have made changes and there have been job losses and there are also situations where jobs are being created, Mr. Speaker. Just on Friday, I believe the Minister of Children Youth Services made an announcement in Windsor, an investment in Thomas Canning, Mr. Speaker, $3 million of 40 new jobs in a food processing plant, Mr. Speaker. There are those kinds of investments and the companies that the Minister of Economic Development Trade was talking about, Mr. Speaker, that are Ontario companies. They're small and medium enterprises, Mr. Speaker. They are the kinds of businesses that we know need support in order to be able to invest, to be able to expand and create jobs. That's what we're doing, Mr. Speaker. That's the work that we're doing and we are seeing those jobs stay and come to Ontario and there's more work to be done, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, for the years the Liberals have insisted that corporate tax giveaways, the HST and private power schemes would bring prosperity to Ontario and they promised 600,000 new jobs. Can the Premier produce any evidence of those 600,000 jobs, Mr. Speaker? Well, Mr. Speaker, more than 400,000 of them since 2009 have been created, Mr. Speaker. The leader of the third party is supportive, for example, of our wine strategy, Mr. Speaker. $75 million over five years to make sure that the wine strategy in the very region that she's talking about is able to continue that industry that has grown up over the last 30 years, that it is described, Mr. Speaker. I did hear her endorsement when we made the announcement, but I can tell you that the wine and the grape growers, Mr. Speaker, were very supportive and they wanted to hear that announcement. They wanted to know that we were going to continue those supports in that investment. So I hope that the leader of the third party understands that that's a critical part of that regional economy and deserves the support of all parties in this House, Mr. Speaker. But I will say I'm glad the Premier had time to read the NDP platform from 2011. Premier's no strings attached corporate tax giveaways and loopholes are not creating jobs, Speaker, and people are falling further and further behind. Families in Niagara not only see that, but they feel it. They see Ontario's unemployment is above the national average and Niagara's unemployment is the highest in the entire province. So I'm glad the Premier ready to admit that the status quo simply isn't good enough for the families in Niagara or in fact anywhere across Ontario. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm never satisfied with the status quo and in fact we had a wine strategy in place in 2011 so it's excellent that the leader of the third party put that into her platform. It would be interesting to know, Mr. Speaker, what the leader of the third party would put into a platform today is that we haven't seen support on retirement security, Mr. Speaker. We haven't seen support for the Ford Erie plan. We haven't seen support for the wine and grape strategy that we've put in place, Mr. Speaker. We haven't seen support for increased investment in transit, Mr. Speaker. So I am very, very, very impatient, Mr. Speaker, which is why we have been moving on every one of those fronts and we will continue. Will? The Premier needs not worry, Mr. Speaker. Feeling the squeeze though, it's not just that liberal policies aren't doing the job when it comes to job creation. It's the government at Queen's Park seems to be going out of their way to make things even worse. That's certainly the story for the residents of Ford Erie who are fighting to keep jobs alive after the government's short-sighted attempt to kill the Slots at Race Traps partnership is the answer. So Mr. Speaker, as the leader of the third party knows, the Slots at Race Traps program was not a transparent program. It was not accountable, Mr. Speaker. It was not a program that could be supported or should, quite frankly, have been supported by any party in this house, Mr. Speaker. We have put in place a plan that over the next five years will allow the industry to restructure, Mr. Speaker. What we're looking for right now, the leader of the third party knows that we have been working with Ford Erie for months long before there were any questions in this house about the race track industry, about the horse racing industry. There was not a question in this house. We were already working with Ford Erie. We have an arrangement, Mr. Speaker. There will be a 2014 season at Ford Erie and Mr. Speaker, for Niagara region families worried about jobs. The plan they've seen from this government isn't very impressive at all. Instead of smart tax measures that reward job creators, the Liberals are opening up new tax loopholes and giveaways for companies to shift jobs away. Instead of providing affordable, accountable electricity so businesses can compete, the government blows a billion dollars a year to subsidize cheap electricity to protect local jobs, the Liberals went out of their way to kill the slots at race tracks partnership. Will the Premier agree that the Liberal plan isn't working for communities like Niagara and admit that it's time for real change in this province? So Mr. Speaker, I just want to, I want to talk about some of the major investments that have been made in the region, apart from the $75 million investment in the wine and grape strategy Mr. Speaker. SciTech Canada, a grant of $2 million and a loan of $8 million was provided through the strategic jobs and investment fund and that supports a total investment of $125 million to expand its Niagara Falls facility and that project will create 30 new jobs and retain $105 in Niagara Falls Mr. Speaker. Rich products of Canada Limited, Fort Erie we announced a $3.9 million advanced manufacturing investment strategy loaned to rich products to support a total investment of $13 million to protect, will create 5 jobs and retain 43 jobs Mr. Speaker. So the reality is that as we make these investments as we develop these partnerships there are commitments Mr. Speaker there are commitments to retention of jobs there are commitments to the creation of new jobs. That's the kind of partnership that works for the people of the region and the people of the province Mr. Speaker. Thank you. New question? Remember from Burlington. She was for the Premier. Premier in 1998 Honda opened a new plant in Alastair without a government payoff but in 2014 Ontario can't compete without massive handouts your government spent an estimated $3 billion a year in corporate subsidies but nine figure loot bags won't fix the problems with Ontario's economy. Job killing red tape, sky high high door rates, taxes, taxes Ontario's manufacturing sector has lost 300,000 jobs on your liberal watch. Trying to subsidize those jobs back would cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars Wouldn't it be cheaper to get the provinces fundamentals right? See you later please. Thank you. Premier. Mr. Speaker I'm developing trade and employment. Minister. Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I'm very proud that Ontario remains the number one destination in all of North America for foreign direct investment and Mr. Speaker 90% of the time when businesses choose to come here to Ontario they do that without any government support whatsoever. They have a great investment climate we have a tax rate which is lower than most of the U.S. states we have a quality of the workforce which is second to none quite frankly Mr. Speaker we have a great healthcare system many reasons why businesses would choose to come here and that's partly why Mr. Speaker we've added 25,000 manufacturing jobs since the recession we've added 12,500 jobs the auto sector alone direct jobs and I know the member opposite doesn't support the auto sector and if she had her way she would eliminate the auto sector from Ontario we're not prepared to do that Mr. Speaker we support it. The measures are important and we're actually succeeding that doesn't mean that there's not much more work to do we're constantly looking at ways to increase those investments and create them. Back to the premier your way to prosperity your government should be creating a level playing field for all businesses GM and Toyota have both said that it is the most expensive place in the world to build a car. The solution isn't to pay those countries to be your friend it is to make our economy competitive paying out huge incentives while ignoring fundamental problems is like getting a new pay job to fix the broken transmission University of Calgary professor Jack Mint says Tim Hudex the million drawback is the kick start to Ontario's economy needs will you support him? Okay stop stirring it the member from Cambridge come to order and the member from Renfrew Premier Mr. Speaker I know that there are many people in that member's party that support the right to work legislation that will gut labour across this province we're not prepared to do that frankly I believe that the leader the opposition still believes in that principle Mr. Speaker and I challenge the member opposite to go down to Windsor and tell the 4600 people that are working at that Chrysler assembly plant that in two years time they won't have their jobs if the conservatives get to power and I challenge that member opposite as well to go to the Ford plant in Oakville and meet with many of her own constituents from Burlington Mr. Speaker and tell them that she did not support the Ontario government's investment in Ford last September where her federal cousins the federal PC party came forward with Ontario equal measure to support those jobs retaining those jobs in the future I know she didn't support the Cisco proposal to create 3700 jobs in this province I know she doesn't support Chrysler New question member from Niagara Falls Thank you Mr. Speaker my question is to the Premier Niagara has the highest unemployment in Ontario for some people it's just a number I've met those people I met with them in the coffee shop talk with them on the phone talk with them in the living room and now I'm standing up here for them at Queens Park they're worried about their jobs they're worried about their jobs for their kids and their grandkids these are real people facing real challenges does the Premier think that her jobs plan is working for the people across Niagara across Niagara Falls riding who are wondering question oh I'm sorry yes in fairness to the member and all new members that will be coming when I say that you have about 10 seconds to wrap up just so that you know from here on to Mr. Speaker and again I welcome the member and I know that he is an advocate for his community Mr. Speaker our job is to advocate for all of the people across the province Mr. Speaker and to make sure that region by region and community by community we put the right conditions in place which is why we've made those investments in Niagara Falls and the Niagara region that I spoke about earlier whether it's the wine and grape strategy in order to be able to compete whether it's the investment in the hospital or the support for the race track Mr. Speaker that will allow those people who I many of whom I have met Mr. Speaker who need those jobs and need to make sure that there is a strategy I hope that the member is able to work with his caucus and to understand that support for those businesses is absolutely critical that's how we put that in place and also Mr. Speaker for policies like the minimum wage increase and like retirement security are things that we have to work together on Mr. Speaker There are young people across Niagara Falls riding who are wondering if they'll be able to stay in their hometown because to stay they need the kind of good jobs that will let them raise their own families they want to be able to live work and raise their families in Niagara I'm going to stand up for their jobs is a premier ready to admit that the status quo isn't working and it's time for a plan that rewards job creators cut small business taxes and get people in Niagara and across Ontario working again Thank you Mr. Speaker and Mr. Speaker I also want to congratulate the member opposite for his election win and representing that important riding here in the legislature we mentioned youth specifically Mr. Speaker because apart from the fact that just last month or sorry in January the province created 7,800 youth jobs alone for youth between the ages of 15 and 25 that youth unemployment rate is gradually coming down it is unacceptably unacceptably high but that's part of the reason why we've created our youth jobs initiative 295 million dollar investment over two years which includes importantly Mr. Speaker our youth jobs funded ministered by my colleague behind me the minister of training colleges and universities and just the latest information on that youth employment fund which are new hires in businesses across the province as of February 21st 7,934 young people have received placements and jobs because of that program Mr. Speaker Thank you, new question the member from Ottawa Orleans Thank you Speaker and my question is for the minister of health and long term care and stroke foundation and Canadian cancer society are joining us in the house today I met with four of them this morning every seven minutes in Canada someone dies from heart disease or stroke many of these deaths are preventable and the risk factors are well understood and smoking is one of these risks and kids are especially vulnerable to its harms there is bill before the house now the youth smoking prevention act which would help to protect children from harmful tobacco smoke I would like to ask the minister through you Speaker how important it is that this proposed legislation be passed swiftly Thank you, minister of health and long term care Thank you Speaker and thank you for the member from Ottawa Orleans who is a huge champion of these issues in fact it's the McNeely amendment to the smoke free Ontario act that banned power walls Speaker I too welcome and thank the representatives from heart and stroke and Canadian cancer for their life saving work Speaker the reality is that smoking kills 36 people in Ontario each and every day that's why it's so important to quickly pass bill 131 I believe we have all party support for that I was pleased that the leader of the opposition has written a letter supporting the youth smoking prevention act and last week the member from nickel belt indicated she'd like to see this bill move quickly unfortunately bill 131 has been installed in this legislature we would like to see it move it more quickly and we're calling on all parties to quickly move this bill through the legislature Thank you minister Speaker I'm pleased to see our government is placing such a high priority on protecting kids from tobacco smoke I hope that the opposition will work with us to send the bill to committee very soon but smoking isn't the only way to lead to heart disease and stroke healthy eating is important in maintaining a healthy heart and a good eating habits start young our government has taken steps as always looking at other initiatives to keeping Ontarians especially children healthy speaker can the minister tell us what our government is doing to help ensure our children are eating nutritious food Thank you speaker and thanks again to the member from Ottawa Orleans speaker we know that healthy kids grew up to be healthy adults that's why we created the healthy kids panel and we've taken strong action to implement many of its recommendations we've announced an expansion of the student nutrition program we've enhanced support for breastfeeding moms and we started the healthy kids community challenge last October we committed to introducing legislation that would require the posting of calories in large chain restaurants after consultation with health leaders food service industry and above all parents I believe this is something all three parties can support I certainly know that the member from nico belt has advocated menu labeling herself as with bill 131 I'm reaching across the aisle to ask the third party to stop stalling important bills I'm moving to the house and then when this bill is introduced let's get it passed your question the member from the key in Parliament thanks very much speaker the question is to the premier the green energy act has cost this province billions of dollars dollars for energy we don't need a price we simply can't afford premier the government promised at the time 50,000 new jobs in term for massive four billion dollar annual subsidies to wind and solar you stripped away locally based decision making the jobs never materialized but skyrocketing hydro rates the general went so far as to say that for every job created by the green energy act four we're lost here in Ontario your own liberal long-term energy plan says that you will subsidize this policy with 42% increases in our hydro rates the cause and effect are proven and it's time to move on from this policy question today we'll have people from rural Ontario here marching to ask you to listen to them to stop the green energy and then will you rip up the green energy please please thank you the member from Durham the member from Durham will come to order and as I get quiet I want quiet premier minister of energy I thank the critic for the question Mr. Speaker you know there were some anti-wind demonstrators outside the legislature Mr. Speaker they were mothers for I think that the name or similar name and I met with them several months ago Mr. Speaker and I certainly appreciate their commitment and their concern as I indicated earlier Mr. Speaker green energy has replaced dirty coal dirty coal Mr. Speaker dirty coal Mr. Speaker was causing 4.4 billion dollars cost and environmental cost Mr. Speaker on the other hand their position on the other side is very confusing first of all the leader of the opposition said he will cancel wind contracts then he said he would not cancel wind contracts now Mr. Speaker that caucus over there is telling maybe they will cancel wind contracts supplementary Mr. Speaker replacing dirty coal is nuclear it's gas it's hydroelectric not expensive wind turbines at the expense of freedom in the rural areas of this province your green energy act is bankrupting this province it is costing us to lose jobs the world trade organization agrees they say it's a dud you are the only jurisdiction in all of Canada the first province to break international law in the history of our nation I haven't even gotten to the environmental and health effects of what's happening to birds what's happening to turtles and what's happening to humans there is no due process for municipalities and your environmental review tribunal has become a sham and it's disgraceful Health Canada and Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy are studying I'm asking the premier if she won't scrap the green energy act today will she at least signal to Ontario that doesn't want these wind turbines they don't have to put up they still have a moratorium please please thank you minister of energy and the number from Derm is using this as an opportunity every time and I'm going to ask him stop doing that carry on Mr. Speaker the green energy act has created over 31,000 jobs in Ontario Mr. Speaker several weeks ago I met with senior officials from Siemens and we discussed a number of issues including job creation they indicated that their Tilsenberg plant Mr. Speaker for wind turbines is continuing to create more jobs than originally estimated probably in the order of 200 jobs Mr. Speaker I visited Celestica in Don Valley last week Mr. Speaker and they're planning on doing expansion in clean energy Mr. Speaker the jobs are continuing to be created we haven't compiled them all Mr. Speaker because they're happening across the province and I hear example after example after example Mr. Speaker of new jobs being created in clean energy and Mr. Speaker we have people coming out of our community colleges who are well versed in clean energy and they're going to clean cleaner Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker again to the premier the construction of the promised new Niagara Falls hospital can be an important source of local jobs at a time when families in Niagara are facing the highest unemployment rate in the province what guarantees can this government give to the people and companies in the Niagara region that the construction of the new Niagara Falls hospital will hire local and by local citizens thank you very much Mr. Speaker and I know the minister of health will want to speak to this great project but I wanted to say that we were very pleased to be able to announce $26 million for a planning grant for the new hospital in Niagara Falls a firm commitment that we are going ahead with that Mr. Speaker we're following through on Dr. Kevin Smith's expert advice Mr. Speaker it was very clear actually during the the past few weeks that it was not necessarily the position of the NDP to build that hospital Mr. Speaker there was a real lack of commitment and it wasn't clear whether the hospital would be built in Welland or somewhere else or all the other services would be kept in place and the hospital would be built in Niagara Falls which would be a particularly irresponsible position so I'm very very pleased that we are committed to better health care in Niagara Falls we're committed to building the hospital Mr. Speaker and we're following through on that commitment supplementary Premier jobs are the most important issue for the families in Niagara when it comes to building large infrastructure projects this government should be looking to create as many local jobs and opportunity for workers engineers, architects contractors to shore up the local economy in Niagara what is this government doing to make sure that the promise new Niagara Falls hospital construction will provide as much needed local jobs by hiring locally stimulating local businesses and by purchasing locally made products thank you Mr. Health and Long-Term Care Well Speaker I am delighted that we finally have some clarity about where the NDP stands when it comes to the construction of a new hospital in Niagara Falls Speaker I congratulate the new member he's having an impact already and I look for further clarity on NDP positions on say minimum wage coming from the newest member of that caucus speaker so I am delighted that we have moved forward to the planning grant for the new hospital in south Niagara I know that will benefit the constituents of the member from Niagara Falls and the members of the whole Niagara region this is an important step forward to improve the quality of care and I really do urge the member opposite to vote for bill 141 which will support local employment thank you Speaker Question to the member from Scarborough Aging Court Thank you Mr. Speaker my question is to the Minister of Labor Minister as a father you know how tough it's been balancing work life looking after your children and working support your aging parents that's why I am proud to support bill 21 the Leaves to Help Families Act which seek to provide Ontarians with three parties to support the family. Having worked as a nurse I feel strongly about this bill and its intent to ease the stress on everyday lives of Ontarians. In my writing of Scarborough Aging Court the residents slowly support this bill and I brought 12 petition to the House on this particular bill however it is frustrating Mr. Speaker to see that all three parties have worked together in committees to improve the bills is now stalled by the third reading debate. We can easily process bill by now to help so Mr. Speaker through you to the Minister what kind of reaction to the Ministry regarding this delay in terms of bill 21. Thank you Minister Laverton. Thank you very much Speaker I want to thank the member from Scarborough Aging Court for her relentless advocacy in regards to bill 21 to ensure that we have family caregiver provided for in our province. Speaker we have heard from sole caregivers on the importance of this very important bill and we have heard frustration from many stakeholders that they came to watch third reading debate that this bill was being bogged down in unnecessary debate in this House Speaker. Speaker I am talking about the caregiver coalition which is composed of the MS Society the Alzheimer's Society, the Parkinson's Society, the ALS Society the representatives of Speaker from the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society all members to expedite the debate on this very important bill and to pass this bill into law so that we can give the much necessary break that our families deserve for looking after for their loving caregiver so I urge and implore all the members of this House special opposition speaker to vote in support of that bill. Thank you supplementary. Thank you Mr. Speaker and thank the Minister for the response. I must admit that there is a frustration in terms of hearing the debate about the third reading debate. When we start a third reading debate Mr. Speaker members of opposition continues filibuster and stalling tactics and going rear of different speaking points and recycling speaking points Mr. Speaker and roundling on different topics on the should not relate to the bill 21 this bill should have been passed like any other many of the legitimate bills that are before the House Mr. Speaker yet the opposition continue want to make change so Mr. Speaker through you to the minister can you please explain some of the final points of this bill that we have may have missed thank you thank you Speaker and thanks to the member again Speaker this bill is first and foremost about compassion compassion that we owe to our loved ones and of course the families the caregivers who look after them in time of need today's speaker I'm asking the opposition to think about the Ontario's that are struggling with family responsibilities when deciding whether or not to stall this bill any further I'm asking the opposition Speaker to acknowledge the support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society and the countless others that have put their support behind this bill the same bill they are keeping from becoming law Speaker it is absolutely clear this is not a partisan issue the content of the bill are not the value of our society where we look after our families we look after each other to make sure that caregivers have the necessary job protection that they need to look after their loved ones let's pass this bill into law so that our families have the necessary supports they need at home to look after their loved ones Speaker Thank you My question is on Ontario are gathering on the front lawn today to bring yet another message your team has failed and the rubber is finally hitting the road as electricity bills are skyrocketing for all Ontarians urban and rule no matter which way they spell it it's a no win situation your government turns his back on proponents when they break the rules you take municipalities trying to stand up for their constituents to court you tell government employees who try to do the right thing to stand down you ignore the facts determined by the State of Ontario University of Waterloo Health Study and here's the kicker your government actually appealed itself when an ERT did the right thing and said no to a proponent Premier will you do the right thing stand up have the confidence today personally go out and address the group that are outside admit to your correct mistakes and help them Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker that I have met with folks who have strong opinions about wind energy across this province Mr. Speaker repeatedly in community after community and Mr. Speaker I know that the member opposite doesn't want to talk about the fact that cleaning up the air is at the root of this Mr. Speaker I know that the member opposite doesn't want to talk about the reality of 31,000 jobs that have been created Mr. Speaker I think that the member opposite should acknowledge that when I came into this office I said we were going to change the rules about citing these energy infrastructure Mr. Speaker we've done that Mr. Speaker and we've worked with municipalities The member from Renfrew the member from Prince Edward Hastings and the member from Northumberland and the member from here on Bruce who asked the question come to order Here he is Good on that commitment Mr. Speaker these pieces of energy infrastructure are cited and we will continue to work with municipalities on that project Mr. Speaker Thank you The member from Eleverton Thank you Mr. Speaker and I would like the Premier to answer my supplementary My constituents and others are currently appealing now over the 50 story industrial wind turbines planned on the Oak Ridge's moraine The moraine is ecologically important because it provides clean safe drinking water to over 20 million people It's been protected since 2002 The community has spoken out against these wind turbines 2,874 people commented on the EBR posting The Buddhist Association of Canada opposes the project The Curve Lake First Nation insists further consultation take place Many constituents in my writing have traveled to Queens Park today yet again to protest Premier you've turned your back on the moraine and your supposed consultation process Will you immediately call our Tourium on the wind turbines Thank you Premier Mr. Speaker I addressed the issue a little bit earlier Mr. Speaker The reality is the leader of the opposition has said he will not cancel existing wind contracts They're talking about an existing wind contract Mr. Speaker What is your policy? Are you going to cancel it? Are you going to expose the province to more liability? Mr. Speaker The group that is outside this legislature Mr. Speaker There are mothers who are concerned about health Mr. Speaker I want to repeat the point by eliminating dirty coal The health impacts of getting out of dirty coal 4.4 billion dollars per year Mr. Speaker 928 fewer hospital admissions per year Mr. Speaker 1100 fewer emergency room visits per year Mr. Speaker 333,000 minor illnesses such as headaches coughing and other respiratory symptoms avoidance Mr. Speaker That's why we're in renewable energy Mr. Speaker Thank you My question to the Premier When this government pulled slot machines across Ontario the hard working families that depend on the racing industry felt like they had the carpet ripped out from underneath them Now the Premier has been doling out short-term funding when the timing suits them which in the case of Fort Erie happened to just come in time for the by-election during the by-election Families in Fort Erie can't plan a future based on one year funding Will the Premier commit today to a long-term partnership with the Fort Erie race track to a future that they can look forward to Thank you very much Mr. Speaker And I know that the member opposite is fully aware that Elmer Buchanan and John Snowblen and John Wilkinson formed a panel Mr. Speaker and worked on a five-year plan Mr. Speaker in which we're investing $400 million So we are putting in place a long-term plan Mr. Speaker We want that kind of sustainability and the snide remark that the timing of the Fort Erie contract deal was coincided with the by-election Mr. Speaker Again the member opposite knows full well that we were working for months before there was even a by-election called to make sure that every race track in this province had the opportunity for a sustainable future That's the work that we've been doing We will continue to do that Mr. Speaker I made a commitment to put the horse racing industry back on track Mr. Speaker Well it's interesting Speaker that the announcement actually came on the liberal for trailing in the polls So Speaker Any business would tell you that long-term planning is crucial and since the slots were pulled from the Fort Erie race track families who depend on a track had no way to plan for the future short-term funding, vague promises of a five-year plan that may one day be released They had to march in the streets and march here at Queens Park for months before the Premier would listen One-time funding and vague promises are not a plan for the families who live in Fort Erie Well the Premier reinstates the slot at the race track partnerships that horse racing can continue in Fort Erie and sustain over a thousand jobs locally Mr. Speaker We're not going to reinstate a plan that was unaccountable that was not transparent in the long-term industry Mr. Speaker We're not going to do that and we've been working on putting a better plan in place and that is what we have done $400 million over the next five years and Mr. Speaker the NDP was crying for a season for Fort Erie in 2014 Mr. Speaker They were screaming from the rooftops that that's what they wanted when they finally got to the issue which was long after we had already started working on it Mr. Speaker So the plan is in place we're going to continue to work with Fort Erie the people of Fort Erie who work at the race track know I have met with many of them Mr. Speaker they know that I am committed to making sure we do everything possible but there will be a business plan Mr. Speaker there will be a transparent exchange of dollars as part of that plan and that is why we are going to continue to work with it Mr. Speaker Thank you Mr. Speaker My question is for the Minister of Energy in days past the electricity system in Ontario could be described as a bunch of wires attached to wooden poles powered by a generator and turned on by the flick of a switch and while I know our electricity system has been modernized with the advent of smart meters and smart grids to some today the system appears the same Mr. Speaker could the Minister tell us how these new technologies are changing how we interact to use our electricity system Minister of Energy I thank the member for the question Mr. Speaker several weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Barry and the new IBM state of the world data center in Barry Mr. Speaker they are analyzing information from smart meters and other information in order to create a more efficient energy sector and not only that Mr. Speaker that is another example of clean energy creating jobs in Ontario in fact Mr. Speaker smart meters are modernizing our outdated inefficient energy system they help Ontarians conserve energy and save money 2006 conservation and our smart grid have saved our energy system over four billion dollars in avoided costs smart meters help us conserve and allow local distribution companies to quickly determine when systems arise when system issues arise and avoid them as quickly as possible Mr. Speaker the smart grid the home of smart grid in North America is Ontario Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker through you I want to thank the Minister for his response I believe my colleagues will agree with me that we need to continue to do more to promote conservation in Ontario I know this is important to the people in my riding of Scarborough Guildwood Speaker I understand that smart meters allows us to control our energy usage during peak times to help save money and conserve power I've also heard that during the recent ice storm local distribution companies like Toronto Hydro used smart meter data to assist with restoration efforts Mr. Speaker can the minister please tell us if the ministry has any programs to leverage this new smart grid technology or if there is any way that I can access this information Minister Mr. Speaker there is a lot of excitement in Ontario over smart grid and new technology in the energy sector Mr. Speaker a few months ago in partnership with Mars Discovery District we launched the energy apps for Ontario challenge this challenge is a great example of people using their ingenuity and creativity to create new tools that can inform the public these apps will help Ontario households and businesses manage and better understand their electricity use so they can make informed decisions and save money using the smart grid data energy apps for Ontario will empower consumers by providing easier access to their own electricity data and allowing them to securely share their data with mobile and web based apps they can actually Mr. Speaker get all of that data from their meter and use that to help create apps for themselves new tools to conserve energy Mr. Speaker thank you Mr. Speaker my question is to the minister training college universities Minister a critically important part of your mandate is to uphold and enhance the skilled trades in this province your exercise of this responsibility is vitally important to all the fine hard working men and women in the trades today whether they are compulsory or mandatory trades while we practice politics in this place I know they would not want the practice of your work being done by the Ontario College of Trades as such will you commit today to halt any compulsory certification review before the Ontario College of Trades until after the next election thank you what a political question for somebody who just said we shouldn't be playing politics with the college of trades Mr. Speaker what I will say is this we're very proud of the work that we're doing both as a government to promote the skilled trades across this province Mr. Speaker we have our youth apprenticeship fund which is doing some great work in our high schools to encourage young people to get into the skilled trades which is so so important and Mr. Speaker as we work with the federal government we're working at ways to do even more to encourage young people to take on apprenticeships we've doubled the number of apprenticeships in this province in the last 10 years we're proud of that but Mr. Speaker there's more work to do Mr. Speaker building a stable environment for the skilled trades across this province building an environment where those skilled trade workers themselves have a say in those future decisions is the direction we're going as opposed to making these decisions in smoky opening room back rooms okay so you didn't answer the question to begin with okay so one of the greatest powers the Ontario College of Trades has is to change a trade to compulsory one and minister the ramifications of such a change cannot be exaggerated should any trade be changed into a compulsory one the process needs to be perfect so I trust the minister could appreciate that the politics of a provincial election campaign no question about it and I trust the minister can also recognize that given your party is likely to be supported with hard dollars from the very organization seeking compulsory certification the election is no time to do that and I can tell you minister if you compulsory certify a trade like carpentry and let these guys do it down there right now you can you can cripple the construction industry in the province of Ontario so I'll ask you again will the minister stand in his place today and commit to any compulsory certification review should we go into an election and it's very important minister this is an important question I don't want you to dance around this yes or no it'd be fine okay no Mr. Speaker the fact is that the member asked the exact same questions where we're going through the ratio reviews concerned about process ahead of time concerned they were going to get it right and Mr. Speaker they did get it right because they reduced ratios 20 times more Mr. Speaker than any other party did over the course of time that they were in office including our own that's a pretty good accomplishment the process went very well now when they undertake the process for compulsory reviews Mr. Speaker they'll do that but the difference between us and them is it will not be a political decision it will not be a political decision made in the back rooms of the Albany club it'll be a decision made transparently by the college of trades by trades people themselves so politicians like yourself who want to get involved in these decisions will not have a role to play in those decisions because they'll get it a lot better than politicians from any party thank you the Liberals have told Ontarians over and over that they're going to deliver full day two way go service on all corridors but Speaker they're nowhere near delivering on that commitment families and businesses in the Niagara region have been clear they need the service they don't need higher taxes and fees the people of Niagara Falls riding could see that the Liberals haven't delivered on their promise and so they chose to elect a strong new democrat to get results for families and small businesses in our area the 12 mayors and the regional chair have also issued a joint statement to the province to tell them to get moving by 2015 on all day go service to the Niagara area my question to the premier when we listen to the people of Niagara while in St. Catharines and commit to a date delivering go service in the Niagara region thank you thanks Mr. Speaker clearly the member from Welland has a sense of humor which is good to know half hour all day go service runs on the Lakeshore line we are taking over from the party's opposite that made no investment in go froze the funding didn't acquire tracks and let the system fall apart and rot we have made up 20 billion dollars in transit infrastructure 10 billion the reason that we cannot move faster is because when you were over here you didn't buy any tracks from CNCP and you didn't invest in anything so we're making up for 30 years of neglect Mr. Speaker I would invite the member to come down to Hamilton with me in the near future to see a few announcements about the results of those billions of dollars of expenditure I'll just let you anticipate what that might be because it wouldn't be happening Mr. Speaker thank you Mr. Speaker I was listening intently in a question period and I hope I didn't misunderstand what the government was saying and I'm going to reference standing order 23 because they were talking about family caregiver leave that has not received or has not been debated at third reading and I remember very vividly speaking positively of the bill family caregiver leave at third reading Mr. Speaker I wonder what's going on in terms of trying to perhaps mislead but certainly of naming different first of all you will draw because you can't say that so withdraw withdraw that's not a point of order for the purposes of the question period there are no further debates this house stands recess until 3pm this afternoon