My riding of Thornhill is filled with hard-working, innovative self-starters. I talked about them a bit in my maiden speech yesterday. And on the topic of hard work, I want to pay special tribute to the many hard-working people with small businesses within Thornhill who came here with very little and created something from nothing.

With that being said, I would like to show praise to a local business in our riding known as Yosef Mokir Shabbos, owned by a man named Moshe Wolfson, whose journey originates in Israel. He came to Canada not so long ago in hopes of a better life for himself and his family. This new takeout business offers a huge selection of fish and prepared food, with more than 40 types of salads, dips and meals that will help our busy families put food on the table. And I forgot to mention, Mr. Speaker: The food is completely kosher—very delicious.

The name of his storefront, Yosef Mokir Shabbos, comes from Jewish folklore. The story presents itself with a poor man who buys a fish, only to discover a diamond within that fish. He uses this to feed his family and provide for a future. This is exactly what Moshe did, a newcomer in 2017 with little to nothing. Then he opened a takeout restaurant amid the pandemic, employed individuals and serviced our community, leading him to open a second store just a few weeks ago. He continues to be an inspiration not only for myself, but the rest of the innovative and hard-working community that resides in Thornhill—just one Thornhill success story depicting solid determination and starting from something that was nothing, and then growing into something more and then something more.

I will continue to work hard for the people of my community, Mr. Speaker, cutting red tape for businesses and building for a stronger Thornhill and Ontario.

My question is for the Premier. Good morning, Premier.

Marilyn Matheson, the executive director of the Caldwell Family Centre, runs a community kitchen and food bank in the west end of our community. The centre has benefited from COVID-19 disaster funding relief, and it’s used that to feed people in need.

It’s a success story for our province. It feeds up to 600 meals a day right now for people who are suffering from the prices of high rent and high food. But last week, Marilyn said they may have to shut their doors if that funding doesn’t continue, which will end early September, and that will disadvantage, as she was saying at the time to the media, 340 families and almost 1,000 individuals that she was serving in that particular week.

Speaker, this is a success story to deal with poverty. I’m wondering if the Premier today can commit to us that these sorts of community food agencies will have consistent, stable funding going forward.