It’s an honour to rise to speak to this motion from the member from Brampton East. Speaker, schools need more resources to provide mental health services for students, and professional training for educators certainly is a good idea, but they actually need support. They need more EAs. They need more mental health workers. They need a government that’s going to actually invest in providing those supports in our schools. I can tell you right now, from my own personal experience, educators go above and beyond the call of duty.

I asked my daughter today if I could talk about her own experience—my oldest, who had a severe eating disorder when she was in middle school. It was her teachers who worked with us to identify it, to help her and then to advocate for her to get supports. But the challenges, even for a privileged family like ours, to navigate the system and actually get the supports we needed were huge. I can’t imagine what it’s like for families who—maybe English isn’t their first language or they don’t have the privilege that our family had. And then, on top of those educators helping us get supports for her, my youngest daughter’s teachers went out of their way to support our family, going way above and beyond the call of duty, because they knew that what was affecting her older sister was also affecting her younger sister.

And so this issue is pretty darn personal for me. People ask me why I’m such an advocate for this. It’s because I know what it’s like to have a family struggle trying to navigate the system, and I know what it’s like for a family to have teachers who are trying to navigate classrooms of 30-plus students, and then, off the side of their desks, doing everything they can to help a family that’s struggling.

And so it’s good that this motion has come forward, but we need a government that is going to recognize that according to the Financial Accountability Officer, we’re going to underfund education by $6 billion over the next five years. We need to be honest with ourselves and with the public that only in TDSB, it’s one social worker for every five schools. The percentage of Ontario schools with no access to a psychologist has doubled in the last decade; 91% of schools report that they are in need of mental health supports from psychologists, social workers and other specialists. Just 9% of Ontario schools have regular access to mental health specialists, and 46% report having no access at all.

Nicolle Kuiper, a grade 7 teacher in the Halton District School Board, summed it up by saying we have a system “teetering on the verge of collapse.” So when we talk about funding cuts to schools, that has real implications on students.

And I agree with the associate minister: We have to make a stronger connection between our schools and community mental health supports. It’s why I’m a strong advocate of youth wellness hubs, and I appreciate the government’s support of funding the ones in Guelph and Wellington county. But we also have to acknowledge that 28,000 children in Ontario right now are on a wait-list to access mental health supports. That wait-list can last up to two and a half years.

The base budget increase that went to mental health organizations of 5% in the budget is a good step forward, but let’s be honest. Let’s be honest with the people of Ontario that mental health organizations said, “We need an 8% increase just to maintain existing services,” especially in the inflationary period we’re facing. We have to be honest with people about this, that we have to do more for our children. We just absolutely have to do more.

I appreciate the member talking about outdoor ed. I’m a huge believer in outdoor ed, and the pandemic showed us the importance of outdoor education. But in 2019, when the government cut funding for outdoor education, it led to the termination of programs in the Halton, Bluewater, Trillium Lakelands and Simcoe district school boards. Four of 10 TDSB outdoor ed schools were closed. One child in Halton, Ciara, an Oakville teen, said that Doug Ford’s cuts to end the environmental program—these are programs that changed her life.

And so, yes, let’s support this motion, but yes, let’s invest more in the mental health services our children need and deserve.