Yes, Speaker, I want to apologize. I got caught up in my own excitement. Whitney Public School is coming tomorrow. I’m a day ahead of myself and I apologize. I apologize to Whitney Public School. I’ve been waiting a long time for them. And I apologize to the House for my error.

Well, first of all, I’d like to invite the dairy farmers over to my office for a cold glass of chocolate milk.

And I’d like to invite the class up there. If you have time—I don’t know your schedule—come by and say hello and we’ll get a picture in the office.

Thank you, Minister, for your response and especially for the respect and the care you give to our seniors. It is encouraging to hear that our government is taking action to ensure that seniors are able to receive the care they need and enjoy the high quality of life that they deserve within the very community they helped plan and develop.

For 15 years, the previous Liberal government neglected the long-term-care sector. Now, under the leadership of carbon tax queen Bonnie Crombie, they are turning a blind eye on how the carbon tax is negatively impacting our seniors. Speaker, they did nothing to stop the 23% hike earlier this month.

Unlike the NDP and Liberals in this Legislature, our government will continue to fight the carbon tax and protect Ontario seniors. Speaker, can the minister tell the House what our government is doing to support our long-term-care sector?

Well, Speaker, we are doing a lot and I appreciate that question. Let’s just look at the most recent budget, right? I mentioned the $155 million for the construction funding subsidy 2.0. That’s going to allow for thousands of more spaces to get online. But above and beyond that, the highest increase to level-of-care funding—this is operational support for staffing, for food for our seniors—in history of 6.6% annualized.

And Speaker, a one-year support of $202 million. That’s $2,543 per space in long-term care so that seniors can get the repairs they deserve, whether it’s a leaky faucet, new televisions, new supports, new equipment, new rec room. This is a government that said we are taking care of our seniors.

Now, the Liberals can heckle the carbon tax all they want, but their record on long-term care is clear. When they exited government in 2018, they built 611 net new beds. We have 18,000 built with shovels in the ground, well on our way to 15,000. We’re getting it done for our seniors.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The cost of rent is out of control. Oshawa has experienced some of the most dramatic rent increases in the province. Between 2014 and 2023, the cost of renting increased by 61%. These aren’t just numbers. These are real people.

I met with Mark who was relieved that his family found an apartment so they’re not on the street. But now they’re facing a steep rent increase and they already can’t afford groceries. People are hurting. Will the government bring back real rent control for real people?

We used to have real rent control in Ontario. Now, all we have are loopholes for big corporate landlords. People are spending 50%, 60%, 70% of their income just to keep a roof over their head. That’s money they should have for activities with their family or a night out at a local restaurant, money to save for the future. But instead, they’re in such a mess.

Will this government deliver real rent control, please, so that people can get back to their lives?

It’s no cabinet shuffle. Ask the Premier.

Speaker, I just want to recognize the dairy farmers and Adam Petherick who’s here and to recognize someone who’s not here. I’ve not had the opportunity—and I feel it’s important to read their name into the record. That person is Sid Atkinson, who we tragically lost at the end of last year.

Sid was a giant in the dairy space. He was never afraid to tell you a story, to give you his opinion. He advocated for dairy farmers in our community across Ontario, and was a former member of the board. He will be dearly missed by our community, by dairy farmers across Northumberland–Peterborough South, and I just want to recognize that.

Supplementary question?

Interjection: Labour.

Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.

The Premier is next.

Government House leader.

The House recessed from 1149 to 1500.

Report adopted.

I’ve read this petition in the House before. It’s to save the Minden emergency room—or actually, to reopen the Minden emergency room. We’ve been reading these for well over a year now, ever since it first came out that the emergency room in Minden was going to be closed. It was a horrific decision to make. It’s the nearest emergency room for thousands of people and the next nearest one is in Haliburton Highlands.

The petition talks about how Haliburton’s health services board of directors, without consultation with the affected people, with the affected communities, closed the emergency room on June 1, 2023. What we’ve heard since then is about people not being able to get the care that they need when they need it. That’s the model of this government.

One case was a girl at a summer camp who had a fishhook stuck in her eye and had to travel 20 minutes from Minden to Haliburton in order to get emergency service. There was another case where a person died of cardiac arrest five minutes out from the Haliburton hospital. If the Minden emergency room would have been open, they would have received care 15 minutes prior to that because they were going from Minden to Haliburton.

So this petition asks the government to reopen the Minden emergency room, restore the funding and provide the funding that’s needed. It will save lives. We’re coming up to the summer season right now, so I will add my voice to this. Save and reopen the Minden ER because it will save lives this summer.

It’s my pleasure to present a petition around protecting farmland and sustainable growth in Waterloo. It’s signed by hundreds of people from Waterloo, Kitchener, Wilmot and Cambridge.

Essentially, this petition calls upon greater transparency around the proposed industrial site in Waterloo region. Most people are not against this site. They just don’t want it on 770 acres of prime farmland.

They also have concerns that developers approached those farmers even before the land was rezoned industrial. They also have some concerns around a non-disclosure agreement that has been made public with, we assume, the proposed industrial site. People want transparency, they want democracy, and they want to be part of the process.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and give it to page Simon.

I have a petition titled “Vulnerable Persons Alert.” With the autism coalition being here today and them being the co-sponsors of this petition, I thought it was a fantastic day to be able to read more names into the Legislature. This petition goes hand in hand with an online petition that has well over 100,000 signatures to it.

This petition strictly speaks about Draven Graham, who was a young boy with autism who went missing and never came home safely; as well as Shirley Love, who was a senior with dementia and, again, did not make it home to her family safely. This would definitely only be one tool in the tool box to ensure that police have access to all available tools necessary to ensure that vulnerable people come home to their family safely.

I wholeheartedly support this petition and will give it to page Ryder to bring to the Clerk.

It’s my honour to present the following petitions on behalf of Sally Palmer, professor emeritus, school of social work in the faculty of social sciences at McMaster University. The petition is entitled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.”

Within this petition, it talks about how deeply in poverty people receiving social assistance are in Ontario. It points out that it’s inadequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent, that individuals on Ontario Works receive $733, whereas those on ODSP receive $1,308. But I’d also like to point out that OW has been frozen since 2018.

It also points out about the CERB program and how it was determined that the basic income of $2,000 per month was adequate for people. It raises and begs the question why we have people on social assistance so deep below that as well as the poverty line.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Emirson to the Clerks.

I would like to present this petition called “Improve Winter Road Maintenance.” I thank Jon Berube from my riding for these petitions.

The petition is quite simple, Speaker. The winter road maintenance in northern Ontario has been privatized by the previous government. The private contractors—some of them do good jobs; some of them do horrible jobs. I can tell you that, in my riding, I can tell you where one snow-clearing contractor ends and the other one starts, because where the other one starts, it’s perfect pavement, and before this, we’re in a foot of snow.

People are signing the petition to say: If you’re going to continue down the path of private contractors doing winter road maintenance in northern Ontario, then you have to have an oversight of it. If they don’t do a good job, they are putting northern Ontario drivers at risk. They should have an oversight, and if they don’t correct this, the government should take it over.

This is what they want. I want it also. I will sign it and ask Armaan to bring it to the Clerk.

It’s my honour today to table a petition that was collected by members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, with over 500 signatories across Ontario. These petitioners express a concern about what is happening in Ontario’s provincial schools. They note that we have an obligation under the Human Rights Code to equal treatment of all students. Therefore, they call on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to require the Minister of Education to improve transparency and funding for these schools, and to call for a provincial audit into these schools.

It’s my honour to support this petition. I wholeheartedly endorse it, will add my name to it and send it to the table with page Aura.

The petition makes reference to the fact that levels of Ontario Works and ODSP in Ontario are far below the poverty line and do not provide enough income for people actually to be able to support themselves, especially compared to the income security program that we had during the pandemic which was provided by the federal government, the CERB program. Therefore, the petitioners call on the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for people in Ontario.

I wholeheartedly endorse this petition, will ad my name to it and send it to the table with page Brayden.

Your committee begs to report the following bill, as amended:

Bill 166, An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act / Projet de loi 166, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités.

Speaker, I beg leave to present a report from the Standing Committee on Social Policy and move its adoption.

I would like to thank Gisele Raymind from Hanmer in my riding for this petition. It’s called “Coverage for Take-Home Cancer Drugs.”

Basically, cancer drugs, if they are administered in a hospital, are covered with no out-of-pocket expenses. But for more and more cancer drugs, you don’t need to be in a hospital anymore; you can take them at home, which is great for patient care, but that means that you have to pay for them. For many people, that’s a huge barrier to care.

In other provinces, whether we look at British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba or Quebec, they all cover take-home cancer drugs so that you can focus on getting through your cancer treatment and getting better as fast as you can. The Canadian Cancer Society has called on the government to cover take-home cancer drugs. I think it is high time for Ontario to join other provinces in Canada and make sure that every patient facing cancer can put all of their energy into getting better, not into trying to get coverage for the drugs that will help them do better.

I am happy to add my name to this petition and I will ask my good page Aura to bring the petition to the Clerk.

Basically, medicare is a program that defines us as Canadians and as Ontarians, where the care we get is based on our needs, not on our ability to pay. Under this government, we have seen more and more of the publicly paid-for care being delivered by for-profit companies. The for-profit companies are there for one reason: to make money. It is really easy to make money off of the backs of sick people. Once you are sick, nothing else matters.

We have to make sure that our health care system is protected, that we do not want people to make money off of the backs of sick people, and people are signing this petition by the hundreds every single day. I get big stacks of it coming to my office to make sure that the services we get will be based on our needs, not on our ability to pay.

I support this petition and will ask Shiara to bring it to the Clerk.

Did you know, Speaker, that right now there are more than 1,742 people on the wait-list for an organ in Ontario? And that, of those people, every third day one of them will die waiting for an organ? It doesn’t have to be that way. Over 81% of Ontarians want to be a donor. If you ask 81% of us that want to be a donor, only a fraction of this—36%—have signed their donor card.

I have a bill in the name of one of my colleagues, Peter Kormos, who would change this. We would basically copy what has been done in Nova Scotia, where we would assume consent, give people many, many chances to opt out, all the way until after death—their loved ones will have an opportunity to opt out—but I can guarantee you that that will increase the number of organs available for people who need them and would bring a lot of relief to our health care system at the same time.

This is something that I strongly support. Peter Kormos started it, and I would be very happy to see it become a reality. So I’ll be happy to add my name to it and give it to page Simon to bring to the Clerk.

Il y a plusieurs programmes du système de santé qui n’existent pas dans le nord de l’Ontario. On doit se déplacer, soit à Toronto, Ottawa, London, pour les recevoir. Le gouvernement nous rembourse les frais de transport, les frais d’hébergement, étant donné que les services ne sont pas disponibles dans le Nord. Par contre, les frais n’ont pas été mis à jour depuis très longtemps.

Et là, je vais faire un petit paragraphe, parce que dans le budget qui vient d’être déposé, il y aura une augmentation des frais d’hébergement, qui passeront de 100 $ par nuit à 175 $ par nuit. Mais les frais de transport, les autres frais, n’ont pas changé depuis les années 1990. On a besoin de mettre ce programme-là à jour, parce qu’il y a des gens qui vont choisir de ne pas avoir de traitements parce qu’ils ne peuvent pas payer pour se rendre dans le sud de l’Ontario.

Je suis d’accord avec cette pétition. Je vais la signer et je demande à Simon de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 24, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 188, An Act to amend the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 and various other Acts / Projet de loi 188, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2017 sur les services à l’enfance, à la jeunesse et à la famille et diverses autres lois.

It’s my honour again to present the following petitions on behalf of Dr. Sally Palmer, professor emerita at the school of social work in the faculty of social sciences at McMaster University. The petition is “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.”

This petition speaks about how Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line. They do not cover the cost of food. They do not cover the cost of rent. Ontario Works rates have been frozen for six years, and the small increases this government would pat itself on the back for for ODSP are leaving people below the poverty line. The fact that they have indexed it means that they have kept people below the poverty line.

This petition recommends the doubling of social assistance so that people can live with dignity, people can buy food that is healthy and have a safe place to call home.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with Ruby to the Clerk.

When I had to end my debate this morning, I was sharing some of the pressures that are facing the Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex, and I had talked about the fact that fully half of the families that the children’s aid society is working with are those who are struggling with lack of access to mental health and addiction services in the community.

One third of the families are struggling with mental health or addiction challenges for caregivers and an additional 17% of families are struggling with a child’s behaviour or conflict in the home that could be endangering other children. These families are struggling because they can’t access the community-based services that these caregivers or their children need, and the consequence, particularly for those young people with the most critical needs, is that sometimes those families feel that they don’t have anywhere to turn; they don’t know what to do next. What we are seeing in London, and we are seeing across the province, are young people, children, being surrendered to children’s aid in the desperate hope that this might be a way to get their children the treatment they require.

The children’s aid society—their data system to keep track of the children in the system, they’ve actually created a new category called “youth in need of treatment” or “not otherwise in need of protection,” because the children who are being surrendered are not being surrendered because of child protection reasons. They’re being surrendered because they need mental health treatment and they don’t have access to that.

The reason for this is that community-based agencies in the province that support children and youth mental health services are not mandatory services. They are funded to a certain level, and that is the amount of support that they provide. When they run out of resources, young people are put on a waiting list, and that’s what we hear more and more from families in the province.

But the mandate of the CAS is that children who are surrendered to that agency are taken into protection. The CAS does not have the ability to turn these families away. In London, we heard that nine youth have been voluntarily surrendered to CAS, and that is a more significant increase than we had seen in the community previously. It’s frustrating for the staff at CAS, who know that these young people who are being surrendered aren’t going to get the treatment that they need after being surrendered to the children’s aid society. The problem is the lack of services in the community.

When the government launched this bill, that was one of the responses of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. They said that the bill addresses the back end of child welfare. We have to address the back end of child welfare. We have to ensure that when kids are housed in group homes or foster families, they are safe, but we also need to act proactively to keep kids out of care in the first place.

The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies said that the issue is that the government is not dealing with causation. They’re not dealing with those factors that lead to children going into care in the first place. And so, I would encourage this government to look at the community-based treatment options that are available to young people in this province and provide the funding that those services need so that young people can get the support, the treatment that they require in order to move forward.

Another issue that I would encourage the government to address and that has been brought to my attention in London is the issue of kin families. In the London CAS, there are 135 foster homes, but there are 72 kin homes. Kin placements are really—where they are available, that is a preferred option for CASs when they have to take kids into protection. It is much better for the child to be with kin family, rather than to be in a foster family or a group home. And yet, we do not provide the same support for kin arrangements as we do for foster families.

This again makes it frustrating for those child protection workers at the CAS when they have a kin family, a willing family who wants to take that child in, but can’t afford to do so because the amounts that kin families are reimbursed are so far less than the amounts that foster families or adoptive families receive. Kin families receive $280 a month for a child, whereas families that adopt or take legal custody receive over $1,000 per month per child until the child turns 21. I have heard from kin families or potential kin families who would like to support that child, who would like to take that child in, and simply can’t afford to do so. That should never be the case, because that is in the best interests of the child.

So, Speaker, this bill that we have before us today, Bill 188, as I said at the outset, it’s actually a pleasure to be able to participate in a debate on legislation that all sides of the House seem to agree on. But it’s also an opportunity to highlight some of the other issues that need to be addressed to fully support young people in this province to enable them to reach their full potential and to prevent young people having to go into care in the first place.

Further debate?