I’m happy to say that Kitchener is getting it done when it comes to building housing. Premier Ford recently joined me at Kitchener city hall to congratulate them on a job well done. For meeting their housing goals, Kitchener received $14 million from our government as part of the Building Faster Fund. The fund is a three-year, $1.2-billion program that encourages municipalities to address the housing supply crisis here in the province. The plan allows municipalities to receive funding for making significant progress against their targets by providing money for infrastructure to build more homes.

Kitchener broke ground on a total of 3,579 new housing units in 2023. That’s 139% of their targeted goal. They knocked it out of the park. Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic and the rest of his council have done a phenomenal job. Berry knows that addressing the housing crisis is a team effort.

The mayor went on to say, “Tackling this challenge will take an all-of-community approach with all orders of government and the private and not-for-profit sectors working together to ensure every Ontario resident has both a roof over their head, and any supports they may need, in order to live a great life.” I can wholeheartedly support that sentiment.

Thank you very much to Kitchener for getting it done.

I want to thank the member for Kitchener Centre for talking from the perspective of a social worker, which is a useful one for this discussion. I want her to reflect upon what we could do as a province to incentivize people to pursue social work as a career, particularly for marginalized people, given that you’ve walked in those shoes. And I’m wondering if you could talk specifically about cases where we know private, for-profit homes are inadequately staffing residential facilities for people at risk.

Thank you to the member from Kitchener for sharing your experience as a social worker. It is commendable, and thank you for that.

Madam Speaker, this bill proposes a modern and flexible suite of tools that will empower ministry inspectors to improve compliance rates among the licensed providers of out-of-home care to children and youth. In my remarks, I mentioned that we are supporting that oversight by adding 20 new positions across the province.

My question to the member: Does the member opposite support stronger oversight and accountability for those providing care for Ontario’s most vulnerable young people?