I have a letter that I would like to share from a very concerned and upset mother. She wants me to know, “My son ... is struggling in school. He is ADHD and has autism. He is seven years old ... and desperately needs an EA or some kind of support. Our teacher is absolutely wonderful, for the first time in many years. She specializes in special education but the thing is like a lot she is running out of resources. He is very high needs and desperately needs 1:1 support in class. Unfortunately all requests come back as ‘no budget’ or no more staff available.

“I’m so upset as my son gets very hands” on “sometimes and can’t self-regulate. Last week he had an incident and now is told he has to sit in the office with admin staff to realize his actions (he has no idea what is going on). So this morning I pulled him to get some testing done. I was told because he missed part of the day he would be making up the hours tomorrow ... he would spend the full day again in the office with no outside recess, which he barely gets to experience.

“I’m so upset for my son. He is so bright and is being held back because of apparent resources not available and then making him spend all this time in the office. I’m ready to pull him.... He is being secluded from his peers” and “he is very liked in school.

“Can you help me in any way? I have no idea.”

My question to this government is: Why won’t they fund schools so that students like this child can participate and learn with the resources that they so desperately need?

Thank you to the member for her presentation. In this Bill 91, we actually talked about updating the Services and Supports to Promote the Social Inclusion of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act, 2008.

You just mentioned in your response to my colleague that you want to be focused on people and ODSP. So my question to you is, in reforming this plan, it will make Ontario’s developmental services system more responsive and directly linked to people’s needs. I would have to think the member would want to support that. Can we count on your vote?