Today, we are welcoming Centennial Infant and Child Centre straight out of St. Paul’s, where they’re supporting children with complex development challenges and their families through innovative—and fun, I might add—individually designed programs, services and supports. I want to welcome Shemina Ladak, Fatima Mulla, Matthew Lee, Kasia Ziemba, Lorraine Chiarotto, Ali Arshinoff, Brett Balaban, Chris Butler, Grace Lowe, Katherine Newton and Jessica Rotolo—who, by the way, is the winner of the LotsOfSocks design competition; Jessica’s fantastic sock design was selected from hundreds of entries to inspire the #LotsOfSocks design for #WorldDownSyndromeDay2023; rock on, Jessica—Sherene Karmali, Tonia Griffith.

And this cat shirt—Kaleb, you fantastic drag storyteller, this one’s for you.

I want to thank the member opposite for the question.

We believe every child has a right to be in school without disruption right to June. I would hope the members opposite will advance that principle as we carry on our negotiations with teachers over the coming months.

For children with special education needs, we actually increased the budget this year by an additional $90 million. The special education budget is now at the highest levels ever recorded in Ontario history.

I appreciate that we have long-standing challenges of staffing. It’s why this Progressive Conservative government has hired 7,000 additional education workers since we came to office in 2018. We know there’s more to do. For mental health, for example, we increased funding by 420%. I appreciate that there are challenges within our school boards. We can expect them to have the staffing in place to support our kids.