Good morning. Let us pray.

Prières / Prayers.

Today we are honoured to remember and pay tribute to a former member of our provincial Legislature, the late Mr. David Rotenberg, who was the MPP for Wilson Heights during the 31st and 32nd Parliaments.

Joining us in the Speaker’s gallery are Mr. Rotenberg’s family and friends—his stepchildren Jacob Freedman and Jonathan Freedman; his niece Reena Greenwald; his nephews Noam Rotenberg and Paul Rotenberg; his great-nephew Zev Rotenberg; his grandchildren Joshua Freedman and Elishua Benchoreen; and his great-grandchildren Ora Aviner, Shoshana Aviner and Tiferet Aviner. Also in the Speaker’s gallery: Phil Gillies, who served as the MPP for Brantford during the 32nd and 33rd Parliaments; Judy Marsales, who served as the MPP for Hamilton West during the 38th Parliament; and David Warner, who was the Speaker during the 35th Parliament.

Welcome to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

The member for Humber River–Black Creek.

The holiday season is supposed to be a joyful season, but for far too many, it serves as a reminder that they’re struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table.

We have a lot of great organizations working in Hamilton to support people faced with food insecurity, but the situation is becoming dire.

Hamilton Food Share says an estimated 11,000 house-holds will likely reach out at Christmas alone. This will be the largest number in the program’s history.

Food4Kids, a food relief program for children, has been forced to implement a triage system to make sure that the most at-risk children are still getting food because of rising food costs. This program delivers food to roughly 1,400 students across 75 schools in Hamilton every week. Food4Kids is doing a great service to our community, but this year has been hard. Director Cathy Haan shared on 900 CHML earlier this week that they are seeing more requests than they ever have and that they have had to start a wait-list.

Programs like Hamilton Food Share and Food4Kids are filling the gap for this government, but they won’t be able to fill it for too much longer. Community programs cannot be the backbone of the food insecurity crisis. Families are going hungry.

This holiday season, I’m asking the Premier and his government to think of these families, think of these children who are on wait-lists for food, and do something about it.

My question is for the Premier.

Mental health care is not getting any better in our communities. Just last week, it was announced that Hamilton city council had to cut staffing for mental health and addictions programming because this government froze those budgets. The wait-lists for treatment in Hamilton are staggering, ranging from six months to multiple years, and this move will only worsen this.

I did not realize that cutting program capacity was a part of the government’s Roadmap to Wellness.

So I’m asking, will the Premier commit to re-funding programs so people in my community can get the services they need when they need them?

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.