It was said of the Blitz that a rich person driving their fancy car through the streets of London was as damaging as a German bomb. You can understand that. Why would you put your heart and soul into the war effort when a privileged few did not?

When we face a social crisis, when we need team spirit to work together, we’ll find it if people believe that society is just and offers equal opportunity.

We do face multiple crises—unaffordable homes, no family doctor, overcrowded hospitals, labour shortages, rising mortgage payments, mental health and addictions issues, education disruption, international conflicts, and overshadowing it all, climate change.

Now, the Conservatives, having promised over and over to not touch the people’s greenbelt, told by their own task force that it was not needed for housing, have withdrawn greenbelt land for development to benefit their political donors. Instead of getting housing built with as-of-right zoning in the greenbelt, it looks like as-of-donation zoning—it’s the government helping some people profit at the expense of everybody else. The worst thing about this is, it’s not just that it’s bad housing policy or bad environmental policy; it’s the corrosive effect—

Interjections.

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.

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?