I want to welcome, all the way from sunny Sudbury, Linda Squarzolo, from the Catholic Women’s League. She’s the Ontario Provincial Council president. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m quite happy to present this petition. Marc Carroll, a disability rights activist from Sudbury, has collected over 200 names. Marc lives with a disability, and he feels that our society will need more supportive housing in order to be able to accommodate people who have disabilities, so he took it upon himself to write a petition and to go around and ask people to sign it. He’s asking us to make sure that the supportive housing sector in Ontario gets the funds they need so that we have enough supportive housing to meet the 2.6 million Ontarians who live with disabilities, who would benefit. I agree with him.

I will ask Duncan to bring those petitions to the Clerk.

I was really glad to hear the member from Barrie–Innisfil talk positively about nurse practitioner-led clinics and the fact that one of those clinics has been funded for the community of Innisfil, in her riding—just for interest, the very first one was created in Sudbury, and we worked really hard to get this up and running. I’m happy for her community.

How can she explain that a community like Capreol has been asking for one more nurse practitioner since 2021, and yet the government has not even had the courtesy to answer them back? They have written a number of times—they have submitted last June. They have sent their budget again last fall. They came to the budget consultation that took place.

I’m happy that her riding will be seeing more. But there are 40,000 people in Nickel Belt without access to primary care. What’s in the budget to help them?

We are very fortunate to have some really dedicated workers who work within community living. There’s about eight group homes that exist in Sudbury and Nickel Belt. All of them are always packed to full capacity, and I have many families like the Rodgers, who care for a child with a developmental disability who is now an adult, who is now a 60-year-old adult, and they see themselves as, “We need to prepare for the next phase, when we cannot look after”—and there is no money in the budget to open up new group homes. There is no money in the budget to allow the group homes that exist to put on a few more beds and take on a few more residents. But there are many, many people with developmental handicaps who would love to know that, if their support’s not there, they would have access, but there’s nothing in the budget for that.

I can tell you that, in the community of Cartier, the community hall had to close. They don’t have a place to gather anymore. I have many of the little communities that I serve where the hall where they used to meet together is in such poor shape that they cannot offer recreation anymore. They cannot offer a place for the community to gather.

I hope that this money will be available to them, but I know that the demand will be way bigger than what the budget offers.