The cost of living in Ontario is out of control. People feel it every day, and many middle-class families are doing things they never expected.

The Feed Ontario report reveals record-high food bank use. Since the pandemic, first-time visitors are up 64%, with one in three people accessing food banks for the very first time. In its report, Feed Ontario cites precarious employment, underfunded disability supports, and unaffordable housing as reasons why middle-class people are turning to food banks in numbers never seen before. They say, “The reason that so many people must turn to a food bank is because our once-strong economic foundation has weakened.”

In my community of London, average rent jumped 36.9% last year, one in four children are living in poverty, and 6,230 individuals and families are on social housing wait-lists.

People are being crushed under the skyrocketing cost of living. Families shouldn’t have to turn to food banks to help feed their kids when they work hard for a living, but that is the reality in Ontario right now.

The middle class built Ontario because of public health care, because of public education, and because they earned good wages. The Ford government is strangling these public systems, while more and more people are being pushed into poverty.

This government should take Feed Ontario’s recommendations: improve the quality of work, improve social assistance, invest in social housing, and put people at the centre of policy and program design.

To this Conservative government: Protect Ontario’s middle class; not just wealthy, insider donors.

My question is to the Premier.

London Health Sciences Centre has an innovative plan to redirect patients suffering from mental health episodes to a new emergency room, but Ontario refuses to help or provide funding unless the already cash-strapped city of London ponies up $300 million of the total cost—$300 million. My question to the Premier: Why are you forcing the city of London to pay when health care funding is a provincial responsibility?

Cities lose revenue with Bill 23, cities lose democracy with Bill 39, and now Premier Ford, who is sitting on billions, wants to download responsibilities onto municipalities and taxpayers to fund provincial health care.

My question: Why is this government downloading huge costs onto municipalities like London when they’re underfunding health care by almost $900 million?

I’d like to thank the member from London West for her presentation. As I’m sure she’s aware, a group of London lawyers have called upon Ontario’s Attorney General in regards to judicial appointments because of the dire trial backlog in London and southwestern Ontario.

My question for the member: Is the provision in schedule 2 of Bill 46 sufficient to address the trial backlog in London and southwestern Ontario?