Of course, once again, I would like to thank Dr. Sally Palmer for the thousands of signatures that she has been able to collect on behalf of people who are on social assistance in this province.

As we know, people who are on social assistance are living in legislated poverty. On Ontario Works, they’re at $733 a month; for ODSP, they’re at $1,308 a month. The meagre increases that have been put on by this government are not near enough to ensure that people have the ability to live full, healthy lives. That’s why the people who have signed this petition and the thousands before that are asking the government to double the social assistance rates. I think it’s the right thing to do, and hopefully the government will also see fit to ensuring that happens.

I have a petition here that comes from Ostomy Canada Society. Basically, the Assistive Devices Program in Ontario should cover 75% of the cost of assistive devices. For people who wear an ostomy—believe me, nobody wears an ostomy if they don’t have to—the amount that they get has not been changed in many, many years, which means that right now, they get about $850 a year max, when most of them spend over $2,000 for their ostomy supplies. They would like us, as legislators, to make sure that the Assistive Devices Program is true to itself so that they get reimbursed 75% of the true cost of having to live with an ostomy and buying the ostomy supplies.

I think this is reasonable. I fully support their ask and will ask Duncan to bring that to the Clerks.

We know that the vaping industry really targets the kids. They target the kids with the flavours that they use. They target the kids with the way that they sell their products.

Mr. Taschereau is very worried. He knows that there are a number of public health agencies, such as public health Canada and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, that are encouraging schools and others to do everything we can to keep vaping out of the hands of children. I think this is wise.

I would ask the House to consider passing my bill, the Vaping is not for Kids Act.

I support what the petition is trying to do. I will ask Nate to bring it to the Clerk.

Je crois que c’est une bonne idée. Je vais signer la pétition, et je demande à Nate de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

A lot of women have signed this petition. Because of intimate partner violence that is rampant in some areas of French River, they need the OPP stations to stay open.

I fully agree with them.

I will sign the petition and ask my good page Nate to bring it to the Clerk.

J’aimerais remercier Kieran Murphy, un élève au Collège catholique Franco-Ouest, et aussi tous les élèves et tous les enseignants au Collège catholique Franco-Ouest.

I’d like to thank Kieran Murphy, a student at Collège catholique Franco-Ouest, who collected all these signatures from students and teachers on a petition which addresses the Student Nutrition Program and the First Nations Student Nutrition Program—

Point of order.

Our understanding is that the standing orders—we oppose this specific change, by the way. It is our understanding that the standing order was meant to summarize the petition, not to change the subject matter of the petition and to make sure it was within a certain time. There was no time limit specified—but that it not be repetitive. I would submit that this is our first day at this. I think we have followed the intent of the standing order change.

The Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Are there any other contributions to the point of order that has been raised?

I would point out that, indeed, the standing orders were changed. Standing order 42(b) indicates that, “A member may present a petition in the House during the afternoon routine ‘petitions.’ The member may make a brief statement summarizing the contents of the petition and indicating the number of signatures attached thereto,” but shall not read the text of the petition.

I would say that of the members who have presented petitions this afternoon, not one of them has read the text of the petition, as far as I can tell, based on what I’ve heard.

The issue is, is the submission brief or not?

I would ask the members to keep their introduction of their petitions or their presentation as brief as possible.

Petitions? The member for Ottawa West–Nepean.

These are a continuation of the petitions that the member from Waterloo brought in on behalf of the Roth family. The Roth family, following the death of their daughter, Kaitlyn—there were some flaws in mental health. And so, the intent of these petitions—because we’re not allowed to read them anymore, I’ll summarize them. Because of the number of people who die by suicide and because of the mental health concerns when discharging patients, and the intake policies, what they’re looking for here—and there are many petitions here, Speaker; if you remember, yesterday the member had a huge stack of them. These are just the handful that I had left over. What they’re petitioning for is that the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions earmark funding for training to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again in the future.

I’ll provide it to page Lyra for the table.

The essence of the summary of it, basically, would be that labour disputes are less long, less hostile and dangerous to communities when you have anti-scab legislation. Obviously, they’re not asking for no worker to be able to go in—because in workplaces like mine, you would need to do care and control of places. But they want to be able to have the withdrawal of labour, which is the only power workers have, as a right so that they can force negotiations to move forward more efficiently.

I obviously support this petition. I’ll affix my signature and provide it to page Simon, who snuck up on me like a ninja.

I’ve been advocating for this petition for a while now, and it’s because if an adult adopted person’s next of kin is deceased, the current legislation prevents them from accessing their birth records and identifying information—specifically, for Indigenous people who need to have that information. It’s very important to them.

This petition was created by John Vo. He lives in Etobicoke. Many others have signed. They are asking the Legislative Assembly that they can have access to post-adoption birth information when the next of kin or extended next of kin is deceased, so that they can find out their heritage of their family lineage.

I’d like to submit this petition to the Legislative Assembly and have Lyra deliver it to the table.

Questions?

I apologize; I missed the section of the routine proceedings for introduction of visitors.

I’d love to give a warm welcome to my mother, Mary Jo Dowie, and her friend Barb Newton, who are up in the members’ gallery right now.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 9, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

I would like to thank Carole et René Menard de Hanmer dans mon comté pour ces pétitions.

Ils veulent vraiment que l’on répare les subventions aux résidents du Nord pour les frais de transport à des fins médicales. Il y a beaucoup de services de santé qui ne sont pas disponible dans le nord de l’Ontario. Donc, les gens du Nord doivent voyager vers Toronto, vers Ottawa, vers London pour avoir ces services-là.

Le remboursement n’a pas été mis à jour depuis très longtemps, ce qui veut dire que pour plusieurs personnes, ils n’ont pas suffisamment les moyens de se rendre à Toronto, London ou Ottawa pour recevoir les soins dont ils ont besoin.

Ils voudraient que les frais de remboursement soient ajustés à la hausse pour permettre à tout le monde d’avoir accès à des soins spécialisés.

Je pense que c’est quelque chose d’important qui devrait être fait. Je n’ai aucun problème à appuyer cette pétition, et je vais demander à Emirson de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

There are hundreds and hundreds of people who would like to see a doubling of the social assistance rates. There are many parts of my riding where we have a higher concentration of people on social assistance. It is extremely difficult for them to make ends meet at $713, $730—I forgot the exact number—to pay rent, to pay for food, to pay for transportation. They would like a living wage so that what they receive in social assistance actually allows them to live. I agree. I support this petition and ask my good page Emirson to bring it to the Clerk.

Thank you very much, Speaker. When the debate ended this morning, I was speaking about the unprecedented situation we have in our education system right now because of the government’s underfunding of education. There’s really no part of our education system where that’s more true than special education.

We are really seeing our kids with disabilities and learning exceptionalities being put in an impossible position within our school system because of the funding shortfall. Teachers and administrators are telling me stories about principals having to pull kids with special needs around the school with them all day in a wagon because there’s nobody else in the school who’s available to take care of them.

Earlier this year, we had a situation where a student eloped from his school, a student with autism, and no one realized he was gone for over 30 minutes, even though the student is supposed to have one-on-one support at all times, because the government’s underfunding of special education means that schools are being put in a position of making impossible choices.

The Ontario Autism Coalition has warned that with this funding shortfall, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when some child is going to be seriously hurt because of the lack of supports, and yet this government put only $18 million towards special education in this budget. That’s equivalent to the deficit of only two school boards in the province: the Greater Essex school board, which has a deficit of $10 million, and the Halton Catholic District School Board, which has a deficit of $9 million—so it’s actually less than that deficit. What about the other 70? Where’s their funding to support students with special needs?

The problem with not supporting these students is that then they fall through the cracks. There are students who are sitting in a classroom but who are not getting any support with learning at all. One mom told me her son is looking out the window all day. Others have told me their child is being given a worksheet and some crayons instead of having the opportunity to learn.

We’re also seeing this erupt in frustration and violence from children who are not getting the supports they need, along with students who are not getting the mental health supports they need. I just want to read this message from an education worker from Hamilton, who said:

“My EA team is burnt out, we’re attacked on a regular basis and we’re short handed almost every day because there are not enough supplies to pick up open jobs. We are all juggling way too many high needs students, we are struggling to be effective in our roles because all we’re doing is putting out fires.” The Minister of Education “has done nothing to make schools safer and stability is a thing of the past at this point, things keep getting worse ever since the pandemic.

“The students are not okay and we don’t have the manpower or the properly skilled professionals to meet their needs. We need mental health professionals, more social workers and more self contained classes for the students who are not able to function safely in regular class. We have had five staff sent to hospital this year because of the violence of just one of our spec ed students.”

A teacher from Waterloo sent me this message: “I’m in a K-6 school. This week so far we’ve had a non verbal student elope and run off campus, three different students trash three different classrooms, one staff member get assaulted by a student, and two class evacuations. And it’s only Wednesday.”

And yet what did the government put in this budget to address violence in our schools? There’s $30 million for surveillance cameras and vape detectors, but nothing for additional mental health supports, educational assistants, admin staff, professional development for teachers and education workers on de-escalation and addressing violence. Apparently, our schools are just supposed to watch on video as students, teachers and education workers get attacked, without being able to do anything about it.

Another area that the budget fails to address is the teacher shortage. We are seeing teachers burnt out and struggling. They feel like no one cares what happens inside of our schools. They’ve dealt with the indignity and the insults of Bill 124 and the incredible disrespect of this government throughout the past four years as they’ve been doing incredible work throughout the pandemic, and so teachers are leaving the system, unable to take the conditions any more, able to earn more money in a less difficult situation outside of the sector or in a different province. And so we have unqualified teachers in our classrooms. We have classes that are congregating in the library for the day because there’s no teacher for them. High school students are telling me there’s an absenteeism problem because why bother going to school if you’re not going to be taught anything for the day, and yet the government failed to even mention this in the budget, let alone even address it.

I could go on for another 20 minutes, Speaker, on just everything the government failed to do on education in this budget, but unfortunately, I’m out of time, so I hope I get lots of questions about education.

Merci à ma collègue de Nickel Belt pour cette question.

It’s a very important question because the mental health of our children really is suffering, and sadly, the resources just aren’t there.

So 95% of schools in the province say they need more help with mental health than what they’re getting. Only 9% of schools have regular access to a regularly scheduled mental health professional, and half of schools have no access at all, and unfortunately, francophone schools are overrepresented in that half of schools with no access at all.

When I speak with directors of education and school boards within the francophone system, they tell me it’s incredibly challenging to recruit French-speaking mental health professionals and the kind of support they’re getting from the government is just inadequate to address the task.

Unfortunately, French-speaking children get no assistance with their mental health, even though they’re dealing with the same challenges that English-speaking children are dealing with, and it’s completely unacceptable in this province.

I’ve spoken to parents who’ve felt like they can’t enroll their children in our publicly funded schools for that reason. I’ve spoken to other parents who say their heart is in their throat when they send their kids off to school every morning because they don’t know if they’re going to be safe.

We are failing these kids and unfortunately, it’s a larger pattern on the part of the government towards people with disabilities. This is how they’re treating kids in our provincial schools. This is how they’re treating older adults in our developmental disabilities sector. This is how they’re treating people on ODSP—

And with regard to high schools in Ottawa, the CEPEO, the Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario, has been asking for funding to support a public French high school in Centretown. They have land that the NCC has committed. All they need is the government to step up and commit funding, and unfortunately, the minister has refused to even meet with them, so I would encourage him to do that immediately.

The member spoke very eloquently about the importance of funding for children with special needs. I was recently speaking to a colleague of mine, who has two children on the autism spectrum and is struggling with the lack of accessible services and the lack of funding that’s coming for that program specifically with the children in school feeling like they’re not accessing the same quality of education other children would be able to.

Why would the government—I lose track of the hashtag that has been #40KIsNotOkay, #50KIsNotOkay, #60KIsNotOkay, I don’t know if it’s up to 70 now, but why has this program been broken for so long?

I remember in 2018, Doug Ford promised these parents they would never have to protest on the lawn of Queen’s Park, but it keeps getting worse and worse, and why couldn’t that be in this budget?

Next question?

Next question?

I would like to ask my colleague—when it comes to children with special needs, we see that the demand for mental health services for children continues to increase, the demand for children that need to be taken into account to meet their needs continues to increase, if you look at the services that are available.

And now, I will direct you into the French schools because kids in Ontario have a constitutional right to go to French schools. Have you seen any improvement in the accessibility of services to support the children with special needs in our French schools?

Just on the budget itself, I know there’s a lot in the budget in terms of community infrastructure—we talked in the past about building new schools; there are more schools to be built—but other infrastructure needs in the community.

Something I hear a lot about through parents especially is the need for more sports and rec opportunities, especially as many communities are growing. It has a great impact on youth, on children, on students. It’s great for their mental health. It’s something for them to do outside of the classroom as well.

And the fact that there’s actually money allocated to this budget on community sports and recreation, I just wanted the member to elaborate on what she is hearing about the need for sports and recreation in her community, and if her local municipalities have noticed the funding that is available for application in this budget?

I want to thank the member from Ottawa West–Nepean for her remarks. Just on your most recent point about schools running out of space, part of the budget has a capital plan of over $16 billion in capital grants for the next 10 years, including a public high school in the city of Ottawa. I’m hoping you might be able to share with us what school that is and what community it will serve.

Thank you so much to the member from Ottawa West–Nepean. I was able to be here this morning for that portion of her debate. She talked about Community Living and struggles that people with disabilities are having when it comes to living in supportive housing and ensuring that those homes are available. We know that we have wait-lists already, and now we’re hearing that they’re starting to close their doors, they’re considering closing their doors or they’re changing to a fee-for-service program. The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services has implemented a Journey to Belonging plan, which is into year 3, and there are still no answers from the ministry.

Would the member like to elaborate maybe once again to update the current members of the House on what she’s been hearing for people who need supportive housing living and are seeing those houses close?