I thank my honourable colleague for the question. We have been listening to the families from day one, when I became a minister in this portfolio, in this very important file for the government and for the Premier. I reached out to the families, to everyone who’s involved, to listen to them, to get that feedback from families, from service providers, from experts and from those with lived experience. That’s why this government doubled the funding of the Ontario Autism Program moving forward.

At that time when we formed government, there were 8,500 families receiving supports and services. Today, thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, are receiving supports and services through multiple streams. The family foundational service, the urgent response, the entry to school and the caregiver-mediated programs are programs that families can have access to the second they reach and register with AccessOAP. None of these programs were available before. Even core clinical service—

Mr. Speaker, I 100% back the program. Do you know why? Because this program was developed by the autism community. It was members of the autism community, those with lived experience, family members, clinicians and experts who are the ones who put this program—and even the implementation team was made up of those from the autism community.

So, yes, I’m absolutely supportive of the program that we have in place. I will continue to meet with families. And I said this from day one, that we will come to work every day to make sure we improve their lives and go home to do better the next day every time we come to work.

Premier, I wrote the minister in June of last year on behalf of families like Bethany’s. Her daughter has been waiting for years for autism core services and is still waiting. Bethany tells us that at her daughter’s school there is only one EA for three kids with special needs, and without OAP funding her daughter is falling further and further behind because she cannot get the ABA or the speech therapy she needs.

Under your government, autism services are only getting worse for this family and all the families here today. Premier, why are kids waiting for years for the OAP core funding they need and deserve so they can thrive?

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?

I thank the honourable member for the important question. As I said earlier, when we formed government, 75% of the families were waiting with no prospect of support at all. Today, because of the supports and services under the leadership of this Premier, we have increased the funding to more than double, $600 million, and this year, as a result of the budget—which, unfortunately, so far you’ve voted against, and I hope you vote in favour of it when you have the next opportunity, because in the budget there’s an increase of $120 million more to support families. That will help us more with getting tens of thousands of families enrolled in core clinical services, like the member alluded to.

Unlike before, when families had one route to service—IBI—today, they have multiple opportunities through family foundational services, through urgent response, through entry to school and through care-mediated therapy, and tens of thousands of families are accessing these services because of our decisions.

In our most recent budget, which I hope the member and all my colleagues in this House support, we increased funding by $310 million for the sectors who are doing—

Interjection.

The member talked about supportive living. We increased supportive living funding by more than $2.2 billion. Journey to Belonging is our long-term vision, but we’re making the process easier and more streamlined for families so that they can access services and supports digitally, regardless of where they are in the—

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.

It was with great interest that I listened to the member’s debate, because the member spoke quite a bit about accountability. I think it’s important that we have some accountability for what’s happening in the child welfare sector, because we have a funding formula that’s completely broken.

The children’s aid societies across the province have a deficit this year that’s not being eliminated. Last year, they got one-time funding only to eliminate the deficit, and they don’t have the resources they need to provide sufficient quality care to children who need care. So across the province, we have kids who are in hotel rooms, Airbnbs and even offices, which is not a good place to provide care for a child, especially not when the child has complex mental health or physical health needs.

My question to the member opposite is: Where is the funding to actually provide good-quality care to children who are in care in the province of Ontario?