Speaker, there are a lot of questions for the Minister of Education. His ministry is responsible for TVO, which has done high-quality programming work for years on public affairs and children’s programming. In the last four years, funding to TVO has been frozen or dropped while inflation has relentlessly driven costs upwards. The budget for content and programming at TVO dropped by well over 10% between 2021 and 2022, and this year’s estimates from the Minister of Education are certainly nothing to be happy about.

I have to ask, why is TVO management trying to starve TVO programming? TVO public affairs programming and children’s programming are literally award winners in this country. And yet, both the ministry and TVO management seem to be committed to slowly—maybe not so slowly—making it more and more difficult for programming to be made here in Ontario. What do they have against high-quality programming being made in this province?

My question is for the Premier. Members of my community are anxiously awaiting the completion and opening of the Finch West LRT line. The construction phase hasn’t been easy, with massive traffic disruptions, vehicular and pedestrian accidents, property damage complaints, a collapsed underground garage of a high-rise condo, a day care flooded with sewage, displacing over 100 children for months, and more. My community has been patient but understandably frustrated.

In light of all of the issues on the Eglinton LRT, what assurances can you provide my community that the Finch West LRT will be completed on budget and on time at this year’s end?

Mr. Speaker, we have increased funding for school boards by 14% when compared to the former Liberals. We have increased funding by $78 million for the Toronto District School Board, even though, to the member opposite—we can disagree often on opinions but not on facts—there are literally 8,000 fewer students, yet they have $78 million more than they did when we started.

As the member opposite will know, as a parent and a parliamentarian, the per-pupil funding—when student enrolment rises, funding rises. When enrolment declines, as does the funding; it’s commensurate with the amount of kids in the system. Yet even with fewer kids, funding is up. That’s such an important point for people in Toronto to know. We are stepping up with investments in Toronto. We’re building modern schools in Toronto. We’re expediting the delivery of schools in the city of Toronto. We’re building in all of your communities, because we appreciate there’s more to do.

The best way we can help Toronto is to vote for our budget, vote for our plan, vote for a responsible course of action that lifts standards, elevates the expectations of the system and stands up for—

The member opposite has the gall to speak about transparency. We are the only jurisdiction in the nation that required every school, 4,800 schools, to publicly report on the state of ventilation at the school level—the rate of ventilation, the use of filtration. We require every school to have a MERV 13 for the schools that have mechanical ventilation. We have a standard that no province has. If a school does not have mechanical ventilation, we require a HEPA filter in every single learning space: the classes, the gyms, the libraries, the learning commons. That is the gold standard when it comes to elevating expectations on ventilation.

If the member opposite was so concerned about this, then you should explain to the parents here why you voted against the measures that improved the air quality in Ontario’s publicly funded schools.

Interjections.