I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome Youth Without Shelter to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Joining us here today are board members, directors, staff, as well as some of the youth who are visiting us from the shelter: Emily Reign, Jacob Messam and Don Martins Obioha. Welcome to the House. I look forward to seeing you after question period.

I also see my chief of staff, Alexandra Hoene, and my manager of stakeholder relations, Shaida Maleki.

Back to the Premier: Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region provides life-saving, safe and compassionate shelter and transitional housing to women and children experiencing domestic violence. In their pre-budget submission, they detailed the desperate need for core operational funding. Provincially, that number is $60 million, noting the rise in domestic violence across the province.

A key ask involves transitional housing, which is foundational for survivors to move out of a shelter while they’re maintaining support and safety before living independently. It is crucial to addressing the bottleneck on housing wait-lists and emergency shelters.

Will the government commit to providing organizations like Women’s Crisis Services with operational funding for VAW transitional housing programs in the 2023 budget? Because I hope that we can all agree that we should not have to fundraise in the province of Ontario to keep women and children safe.