I want to welcome the Friends and Advocates of Catholic Education, who are with us, as well as Bishop Bergie, who’s with us.

Thank you to the head of OECTA as well as the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association.

Likewise, as mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, welcome to all the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario colleagues who are with us today.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

When we came to office in 2018, the funding in Ontario was at $23 billion. Today it stands at north of $28 billion, a 22% increase in funding, proof positive of our government and Premier’s commitment to invest in publicly funded schools.

We are also the government that delivered stability for children, which your party and the Liberals could not achieve: four years of peace with Catholic and public and English and French. Two million kids have stability in the classroom, and I believe that is worthy of praise. All the parties came together for the benefit of children in Ontario.

When it comes to mental health, when it comes to preventing violence and injury of our staff and of our kids, we, as the government, are working with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to have increased funding in mental health by 577%. It is the most significant investment, and we mandated learning on mental health—the first in the country to do so. We’re going to keep investing to support our kids.

That is how we make a difference in Ontario schools: by investing in prevention and upstream investments and through curriculum. We’re working across ministries, from health to education to social services, to make a difference and keep our kids safe.

And Mr. Speaker, I found it very curious, the member’s motion yesterday includes a component about supporting parents financially, but the Leader of the Opposition led the charge against our support for parent payments when we gave $200 and $400—

Interjections.

This is what’s ironic about your motion: On one hand, you call for us to back parents, but if only parents knew that you voted against five iterations of payments to parents. It is regretful, it is shameful and it’s consistent with your support for higher taxation in this province.

One of the ways by which we keep kids safe is by removing distractions in our publicly funded schools. That’s why we announced a plan to remove social media from school devices—

Interjections.

It’s why we announced $17 million of mental health supports, leveraging community-based mental health. It’s why we finally annualized funding for mental health services through the summer to make it better for the family so they get access to the same practitioner.

I’ve been working with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions for the past years to build capacity in our schools and in our communities to keep our kids safe.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve increased the funding and the staffing in Ontario’s publicly funded schools. What we’re also doing, a matter of contention with members opposite, is we’re elevating the expectations on our school boards to deliver better outcomes for the investments we make in Ontario.

It is an issue. It is a serious concern. And there’s a reason why the government of Ontario, under our Premier’s leadership, was the first in Canada to initiate an anti-human-trafficking protocol, the first of its kind, and to initiate a plan to counter bullying and cyberbullying in every publicly funded school.

We’ve added thousands of EAs, 3,000 additional EAs, to our schools, more social workers, more mental health workers, but we’re also building that capacity in the community.

The establishment of the youth mental health hubs has been a massive positive intervention for kids. A one-stop shop of access, and it’s because of the leadership of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions that we have these access points.

We’re working together to bridge the gaps, reduce the wait times and support every child in Ontario.