SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
August 10, 2022 09:00AM
  • Aug/10/22 3:10:00 p.m.

It’s interesting that a nurse on that side of the House is heckling me, because I believe you take an oath—

Interjections.

I do want to say one final thing on that, because until you actually acknowledge that this is the reality in our health care system, I worry. The mental health piece was mentioned in the throne speech yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and I just want to finish on this point. I started the first day of the election attending a visitation of a young woman who died by suicide. That was day one. She waited for two years for mental health supports. Her name was Kaitlyn Roth. She was a friend of my daughter’s.

The mental health funding that was in the budget that you tabled—and then you ran away to an election—is insufficient. It is insufficient, because this young woman came into contact with 27 police officers. Think of the cost to the Halton police services and the Waterloo police services, and the cost to her family, and the lost productivity, and the fact that she was stuck in a hospital that was not prepared for or equipped to deal with mental health.

So when I say that budgets are moral documents, I mean it. This budget and the throne speech and the language within that throne speech, which only addressed in a very insulting and demeaning way the ODSP rates, which are legislated poverty for the people of this province, and the fact that you are continuing to undermine public education—this does not instill confidence in us as legislators or in the finances of the province of Ontario. When you do that, you hurt our democracy and you hurt the people of this province. I would urge you to course-correct. You have time to do it, and we want to help you do it.

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