This government is failing to adequately staff Toronto’s newest Ontario Court of Justice facility. In September, a man charged with sexually assaulting a minor walked free because his case took too long to get to trial. Last week, another sexual assault charge against a rapist was stayed and his case was also thrown out because of the long court delay. What a waste of Toronto police resources.

Speaker, despite this government’s claim that they are fixing the courts, the Ministry of the Attorney General saw a base-funding cut in the fall economic statement. How is the Premier justifying funding cuts to the court system when he is already failing survivors?

Thank you for the question.

There are so many things that are missing from this budget. There are probably too many to list, as I’ve got a minute left. But I do want to highlight one thing which I think is critically important.

Earlier this month, Statistics Canada released some new data and it specifically talked about the rise of gender-based violence and how Canada is seeing no end in sight. We’ve seen the highest level of gender-based violence that we have seen in past years, and this has grown an astounding 18%. There’s absolutely nothing in this budget that addresses gender-based violence. I couldn’t even find the words “gender-based violence.” I couldn’t find the words “sexual assault.” And yet we know it’s an epidemic in Ontario.

That is one example of the things that are missing, but we also know that when it comes to missing one critical policy piece, the others fall apart—with respect to court services and support, with respect to housing for women who are fleeing violent situations, with respect to children who are losing the capacity to stay in school because their housing situation is so unstable.