Order. Stop the clock. The member for Hamilton Mountain will come to order. The member for Kitchener–Conestoga will come to order.

Restart the clock. The member for Beaches–East York has the floor.

Once again, I’ll ask the member for Kitchener–Conestoga to come to order.

The Premier to respond.

Interjections.

Start the clock. Next question.

Thanks for the question. Let me be perfectly clear, as we have been the whole time, talking about this opportunity to build homes for Ontarians: Wetlands are not going anywhere in Ontario. We are going to continue to protect this important part of our province.

We are also going to build 1.5 million homes over 10 years. We are also going to make sure that those homes are protected from flooding and any other natural disasters. We are going to get the job done, Mr. Speaker, both on the home front and on the ecology front, and Ontario is going to be the better for it.

I want to thank my former colleague from the city of Toronto. We spent a lot of time together, and I have a great deal of respect.

Mr. Speaker, you’ve got to look at the total greenbelt. We’ve added 2,000 acres more. Since I’ve taken office, the greenbelt has expanded. But what I suggest to the member from Beaches–East York: Sit down; speak to your colleagues about why you changed it 17 times. You changed it 17 times.

We need housing. There are people in the gallery, there are people right here who are still renting. They’re renting. We need to build homes. We need to build 1.5 million homes. We have 300,000 people showing up every single year. Are we going put them in cardboard boxes? Are we going put them in mud huts? No. They want a home. They want an affordable home—

Interjection.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member from Brampton West for his question. I had the honour of presenting the Minister’s Lifetime Achievement Award to two outstanding leaders who continue to make a lasting difference in Ontario’s public colleges. The 2022 recipients are Anne Sado, the former president of George Brown College—Anne was also the first female president of a college—and MaryLynn West-Moynes, former president and CEO of Georgian College, and also my former boss, so I know first-hand the amazing leadership that MaryLynn provides to Georgian College.

These two exceptional women deserve recognition for their hard work, dedication and contributions on advancing Ontario’s colleges. By acting as ambassadors of the college system, they have made a lasting mark on post-secondary education in our province. It was truly an honour to present them with the lifetime achievement awards.

My question is to the Premier. First I’d like to thank the Premier for this lovely gesture of the inaugural speeches that the new members received. That’s a point I’m giving you, but now I’m going to have to take away that point in my question.

I may sound like a broken record here, but I need to, because I’m hearing from all my residents, and actually, all your residents, about—what? The greenbelt. Because the government has misread the room on the greenbelt. You really have. The greenbelt is full of—

Interjection.

Interjections.

We know the greenbelt is full of wetlands and watersheds, areas that protect our province from devastating flooding by absorbing stormwater. As we see more and more natural disasters come our way as a result of climate change—we know what’s going on in Brazil right now; we know what has gone on out west, out east—we should be trying to conserve these areas for all Ontarians. If we pave over them, it puts people at financial and physical risk. The average basement flood is $43,000.

My question to the Premier: Do you believe that the choice to open up the greenbelt for development puts Ontario at risk for more flooding? If not, please explain.

I know all of us here care about farmers. We’ve heard that over and over again: how they feed us every day, how hard they work. Many of us here are connected to farmers and the farming community—

Interjections.

So my question is, why would we remove Ontario’s only agricultural preserve, Duffins Rouge, if we care so much about farmers and farmland and eating? Will you be able to sleep at night knowing that you bulldozed over our last agriculture preserve?

Interjection.

Once again, thank you for that question. Eating disorders are something that are very pronounced that we’ve noticed over the pandemic, and it’s something we need to look at. This is something that we believe is as a result of isolation, the school disruption and social media exposure. These are things that are impacting on children and youth.

In December 2021, $8.1 million went to support specialized care for children and youth with these eating disorders. We opened seven beds at CHEO, five at SickKids, two at McMaster Children’s Hospital. This is in addition to $11.1 million annualized for eating disorder services: 20 treatment spaces in underserved communities like Sudbury, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie; 10 new pediatric beds in North York and Southlake; 16 new spaces in Peterborough and Kingston.

In November 2021, we invested another $5.8 million in SickKids hospital, easing access to treatment by expanding their outpatient eating disorder program.

Mr. Speaker, our government is taking this issue very seriously. Our children are our future and we need to invest to ensure that children get the support they need, where and when they need it in the province.

Studies from leading health experts reveal that mental health issues can start early in our young learners, particularly from the age of 15 onward. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, these students are more likely to experience mental health illness and substance-use disorders than any other group.

We know that mental health education can empower students with the knowledge, skills and tools they need to assist in navigating their own mental health, often saving lives.

Speaker, through you to the Minister of Education: How will our government commit to supporting mental health education in schools?

Speaker, over the past few months, we have had numerous tragic and terrifying incidents in high schools, including a number of incidents in schools across Scarborough.

Students are experiencing immense difficulty, especially after the two and half years of virtual learning. With the lack of extracurricular activities, students, families and teachers are all worried. They’re scared. They’re worried about these students’ mental health; I know the minister just spoke about it. These students are dealing with trauma and anxiety.

We’ve even had stabbings and shootings in our schools, resulting in multiple deaths in Scarborough.

These students don’t want to hear about the Roadmap to Wellness or the numbers—those are great, but we need real action in these schools. They want to know what resources are in place for our youth in schools and in our communities to ensure their safety and well-being.

The Minister of Northern Development and Minister of Indigenous Affairs.

I want to thank the member for Flamborough–Glanbrook for this question.

I think the first principle of ensuring children catch up is that kids remain in class.

I’m so pleased that 73% of CUPE members endorsed our deal that will provide stability for families, for children, and for education workers in the province of Ontario.

Part of our plan to catch up is very much based on the principle that literacy and numeracy are foundational skills to ensure we increase graduation rates and create better links to better-paying jobs. That is our mission as a government—ensuring young people remain aspirational and bold, and that they’re able to achieve their full potential. That’s why we launched the largest tutoring program in Canada.

In addition to that, we also recognize that reading is an important skill set. We saw that the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read report suggests the former Liberal government’s curriculum was outdated and didn’t follow the evidence, the science of reading. We reformed our language curriculum, and we’re ensuring that every child in kindergarten through to grade 2 gets a screening assessment, so that we improve their reading and we give them the support they need to succeed in our economy.

Since 2017-18, from the former Liberal government—we increased funding in mental health in a significant way. They were spending about $16 million to $18 million per year; we’re now spending $90 million, a 400% increase in expenditure to improve outcomes for children. This year, there is $10 million more.

We increased mandated learning for the first time in Canada in mental health, from kindergarten all the way to grade 8. We were the first jurisdiction in the country to do that.

We also recognize that there’s a role for public health nurses—a critical role within our schools. It’s why we nearly doubled them, providing mental health support.

I want to assure the member from Burlington that we will move forward with her motion to strengthen mental health promotion, save lives, and improve the lives of all children in this province.

I think we all, in this Legislature, are deeply concerned about the violence taking place near or at schools in this province and, frankly, across the country. We share the resolve to confront the violence with investment, with staffing and support for our schools, for our children and for our staff.

In addition to increasing funding—a roughly 420% increase in supports—we also have targeted community-based organizations.

The Pinball Clemons Foundation, for example, is being supported to help racialized children with sport and after-school programs.

We’ve also ensured the Canadian Tamil Academy supports intergenerational trauma with mental health supports—and the Muslim Association of Canada, with new targeted supports for students and for staff dealing with mental health and bullying.

We’ve doubled the Black graduation program, an amazing program that helps ensure higher success rates for racialized children.

We have funded the Child Development Institute to support children with behavioural issues—and we’ve massively increased Kids Help Phone.

The member from Burlington has introduced a motion to call on the government to do more; I assure the member that we will, in the interest of saving lives, protecting children, and preventing violence in our schools.

Speaker, my question is to the Premier.

Recently, Grassy Narrows honoured the 20th anniversary of their visionary efforts to protect their homeland from industrial logging and mining. And yet, the Toronto Star reported that this government has granted thousands of gold mining claims and proposes to allow clear-cut logging on the area that Grassy Narrows is protecting.

To the Premier: When will this government stop the attacks on Grassy Narrows and start respecting the Grassy Narrows Indigenous protected area?

Grassy Narrows deserves safety and deserves a clear answer. Will the government finally withdraw Grassy Narrows territory from mining and logging? Yes or no?

My question is for the Minister of Education.

Recently released EQAO results confirm what parents already know: Children excel when they are in class and are able to participate in school life. Keeping our children in the classroom, as our government has done, is critical. We know that the disruptions of the past few years resulted in learning loss, particularly among our youngest students.

Through you, Speaker, to the Minister of Education: How is our government helping our youngest students recover from disruption to in-class learning?

I had a chance to sit with the chief of Grassy Narrows not that long ago, and we spoke about the opportunities in their communities—building much-needed infrastructure; having a shared vision for economic prosperity; coming to terms with a harsh reality that this government was the first to act on, by indexing the pensions from the mercury.

We don’t need to stand here and feel badly about the work that we do with Grassy Narrows. We continue to work with that community to ensure that they have the same opportunities that other Indigenous communities in the surrounding area have and want in forestry and mining and in their interests of protecting their land.

Grassy Narrows is in dire need of community-level infrastructure. We work very closely with them, and I’ve asked the chief—we’ve sat down together to ensure those shared priorities come about. In that community, there is a critical need for places and spaces for young people to go, and this is the kind of thing that we’re working on.

The Indigenous communities that share Treaty 3 land with Grassy Narrows are excited about opportunities both in mining, forestry, and local infrastructure—so that prosperity is a shared value and a shared opportunity, once and for all, in the Kenora district.

Thank you for that question.

In fact, to complement the investments that are being made in education that are looking to assist children while they’re in school, our government has also invested in community-based supports and services, with a 5% increase across the board for children and youth services. We’ve looked specifically at adding additional youth wellness hubs to provide those supports to individuals, and these supports are reducing the amount of times that people need to go to emergency rooms, which means that the ones who need the more acute care will have access to that.

And we’ve invested—one of the leading causes of issues for young people—and I don’t know those specific cases—is eating disorders. Those eating disorders lead to other complications, whether it be an addiction—so we’ve created the capacity, and we are continuing to create capacity to ensure that the gaps are filled and that young people have the treatment options available to them where and when they reside.

For instance, with the Solicitor General, we’re building mobile crisis intervention teams that are geared to providing supports and services to take individuals to crisis centres instead of taking them to hospitals, to emergency rooms.

With the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, we’re working—he’s doing incredible work, and he’s trying, through the new legislation, to build even more homes for individuals. He has invested $500 million annually for the Homelessness Prevention Program.

I have a quote from the CEO of Habitat for Humanity. He said, “This government’s proposal to exempt affordable housing from development charges will provide certainty to all affordable housing providers and enable us to build more homes.”

Mr. Speaker, we are going to make a difference and build a continuum of care and ensure that people are getting the supports they need where and when they need them.

Mr. Speaker, this is the first government—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

The Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

With winter upon us, more people will depend on our public transit systems for safe and reliable travel.

Public transit is a vital service for individuals and families in many regions of our province. While we know that our government has made significant transit investments, many of my constituents are looking for assurance that our government will continue to support our transit system during this period of economic uncertainty.

Can the Associate Minister of Transportation please explain what our government is doing to support our transit agencies as we ensure their continued operation?

Our government’s recent funding and historic multi-billion dollar transit expansion plan will continue to assist transit riders across our province.

Our transit system must continue to be responsive to our communities’ needs, now and in the future.

Can the Associate Minister of Transportation please explain what ongoing support our government is providing to our transit agencies?

My question is to the Premier.

Times are tough, and coping is hard for anyone. People also struggling with mental health issues are really up against it, with nowhere to turn and dangerous waiting lists.

The Auditor General basically said we were doing a terrible job with youth mental health back in 2018, and now, heading into 2023, we’re terribly beyond capacity and things are really bad.

Ashley is a young woman in my community who has spent too much time asking and waiting for help. She has a question for the Premier. She asks, “At Lakeridge Health, why is the wait time to see a psychiatrist over two years long? Why does it take a trip to the emergency room in active crisis to maybe be seen sooner? It always has to escalate. But all too often, folks in crisis are sent home from the ER and told to wait years.”

So my question is Ashley’s question: Why is the wait time to see a psychiatrist over two years’ long for youth in my community?

To the Premier: Eight thousand Ontarians with mental illness or disabilities are experiencing homelessness. And 216 people experiencing homelessness died on the streets of Toronto last year.

Two nights ago, I was speaking with a young man in front of a shelter. He had been beaten up. He had a broken rib and a broken cheekbone. He had been discharged from the hospital, and he was sleeping on the street in front of a shelter that had just been closed. I phoned shelter services to see if they had a bed, but there was nothing available. All the shelters in Toronto were full.

The Minister of Children, Community and Social Services has been boasting about a 5% increase to ODSP rates, which is actually an inflationary cut.

To the Premier: Are you not ashamed that your government’s destitution-level ODSP rates are leading to homelessness and death for Ontarians with mental illness and disabilities?

Again to the Premier: My office is working with three families facing similar struggles. Each of them has a child who is self-harming and has made multiple suicide attempts and is violent at home. These families have been told that their children’s needs are too complex for community program options, but they can’t get in-patient care. One family has been waiting months to hear about a placement in Hamilton or Niagara. The second family is waiting to go on a wait-list, if a residential treatment option can be found. The third child was placed in a group home and is now using and living on the street.

Will this government commit to providing appropriate treatment options in London for children with some of the highest mental health needs?