My question is to the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services—a busy morning for you. Developmental services remain woefully underfunded in Ontario. In the run-up to the 2024 budget, developmental services organizations across Ontario led the #5ToSurvive campaign, calling for a 5% increase to their base funding to make up years of frozen budgets. The 2% they did receive is totally inadequate.

I wrote two letters to the minister outlining the strain on groups like Community Living Algoma, Community Living Espanola and Community Living Manitoulin. These organizations work tirelessly to serve people with developmental disabilities while working on increasingly tight budgets.

My question to the minister: Why did he ignore the needs of the developmental services sector once again in this budget?

Here’s an example from people in my riding: Karen and Jacques Ribout in my riding were forced to set up their own micro-board to support their daughter Emily through the Passport Program. They work full-time coordinating support for their daughter in making sure that she gets the services she needs. This year, they were informed that they will receive a 0% increase to their Passport funding, putting them behind inflation once again.

Karen and Jacques wrote to my office saying, “This just piles on from previous years of lower-than-inflation increase and even years when 0% increases and cuts were the norm.”

People with developmental services deserve to have the resources to live healthy and full lives. My question again to the minister: Why is this minister refusing to make that a reality for people that are in need in this province?

My question is to the Minister of Education. The Toronto District School Board is facing a $26.5-million budget deficit. This is after $17 million in cuts to programs and services for the upcoming year. The Conservative government has cut $1,347 per student since 2018. The chair of the board has written to the minister, saying programs students rely on are in jeopardy.

Will the minister address the TDSB’s structural deficit to avoid further drastic cuts?

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.