We have an affordability crisis in Niagara. Seniors and families are struggling. In Fort Erie, there is a 13-year wait-list to get an affordable one-bedroom housing unit if you’re a senior—13 years. Seniors are cutting pills in half or skipping a dose. They can’t afford their medication and groceries.

I get calls every week from seniors concerned with the cost of home heating. Under this government, Enbridge rates have doubled in the last two years. Grocery prices have skyrocketed. Last year, food prices rose at the fastest pace in 40 years. Loblaws, owned by the Weston family, earned more than $500 million in fourth-quarter profits. They earned a million dollars a day last year in profit. That’s price gouging. One in five children live in poverty in the province of Ontario. Conservatives have done nothing to combat corporate greed.

This crisis is putting enormous pressure on our front-line social services in Niagara. Non-profits in my community have seen drastic increases in the need for housing supports. Demand for food banks has never been higher.

We need investment in affordable housing and public, not-for-profit health care. I proposed solutions to this crisis, but the Conservatives say no. It has become unaffordable to live in Doug Ford’s Ontario, but I’ll keep fighting for affordable housing to protect our families and our seniors, and fight grocery price gouging by the Weston family.