It is my honour to stand up for the first time as the Associate Minister of Housing.

I’d also like to congratulate the member on her election.

All members in this House want to prevent homelessness in this province, but this is a government that has taken real action. The $202-million investment announced in the budget has been well-received by organizations right across Ontario—“Housing is a human right and everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. While we work toward that goal, the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness is pleased to see this significant investment in homelessness services from the government of Ontario.”

Speaker, I really do hope the opposition joins us and supports our investments. But do you know what? There are shovels in the ground across this province building more non-profit and affordable housing, thanks to the changes we’ve made under the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022. Unfortunately, the opposition would rather tax those—

Thank you to the member opposite for the question.

No, this is an unacceptable situation. This should not have happened, and I feel very badly for that person who waited 11 days for someone to come and see them.

Our government has made significant investments into home care. A strong home and community care sector is critical to our government’s plan to end hallway health care and build a patient-centred, connected system. That’s why a few years ago—last year, we invested an additional billion dollars to improve the quality of care and keep the people of Ontario in their homes longer with the care that they need.

We like the model at the Southlake hospital, Southlake@home, which has the home care provider meeting with the person who is going to receive the care in the hospital, so they can meet the doctor, the nurse and get the discharge papers, so that person will know that the person will be there and when. We want to make sure that that’s the kind of system we have across Ontario, so people get home care which is appropriate and can stay out of hospital and get well.

As this government has said many times, the only thing better than care close to home is care at home. In partnership with hospitals, primary care and our Ontario Health teams, Ontario is expanding and improving access to home and community care.

Through the 2022 budget, the government announced a plan to invest a billion dollars over three years to get more people connected to care in the comfort of their own home, but our government is now, through this budget, accelerating investments to bring funding in 2023-24 up to $569 million, including nearly $300 million to support contract rate increases to stabilize the home and community care workforce. This funding will also expand home care services and improve the quality of care, making it easier and faster for people to connect to care.

Having strong home and community care for people like Barbara is a key part of this government’s plan for connected and convenient care.