Children and youth have the highest mental health care needs of any age demographic. We know this. This informs every investment we have made and will continue to make. In 2022, we invested another $31 million in new annual funding to reduce wait-lists and support the mental health and well-being of children and youth. We’re innovating on new ways to treat children and youth and new means for them to access care. This means: $3.5 million in the Step-Up Step-Down live-in treatment program, helping move kids through levels of intensive treatment; $2.1 million for virtual walk-in counselling, connecting youth to a clinician by phone, text or video chat; $1 million for children and youth telehealth services; and $4.5 million for One Stop Talk virtual walk-in counselling programs for children and youth.

Mr. Speaker, we’re innovating. We’re working with the sector. We’re ensuring that the kids have the supports they need, where they need them.

And, yes, I have and will continue to meet with all stakeholders to ensure that we understand the needs not just of children and youth in general, but on a region-by-region basis. That has been the way we’ve done our work to date. We’ve attended meetings. We’ve had round tables throughout the province—in Thunder Bay, in Indigenous communities throughout the north, in southern Ontario, and of course with children and youth mental health.

Mr. Speaker, we’re more prepared than any government in Ontario’s history to build an accessible, equitable and accountable mental health system.

Once again, I reiterate that there is the Roadmap to Wellness that specifically looks at the needs of children and youth during the education period, which includes prevention, education and building resiliency, which is extremely important. That is being funded, as the minister stated before: $90 million for school-based supports, annualized.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we’re looking at $31 million in new annual funding to reduce wait-lists and supports in the community, which is where the supports are needed for treatment, and $11 million annually so children and youth with eating disorders can heal closer to home, another very important issue that needs to be addressed if we are going to help children and youth.

In addition to that, we’ve invested in beds—

Interjections.

There is a plan. We’re implementing the plan, and we are making a difference in the lives of children and youth throughout the province of Ontario.