I want to welcome Taline Dorna and her family, who are here with us today. Taline has gone to great lengths to support her son following her cancer diagnosis, and in an effort to raise awareness of this disease, she penned a book, The Extraordinary Eye. She has been a great source of inspiration in our province, and I want to welcome her here to Queen’s Park.

What’s also not in the budget is the carbon tax, which is something we are standing up against every single day because members opposite seem to trivialize affordability for working parents of this province. We will not increase the costs of groceries, of baby goods, of fuel, and punish people who go to work or drop off their kids at the local school or child care centre.

But talking about child care, it was a Progressive Conservative government, not ironically, that actually slashed child care fees by 50%, saving an average family in this province $6,000 to $10,000 a year. That is meaningful when it comes to delivering affordability for working people. We’re building 19,000 spaces in Toronto, 86,000 across this province.

We know there’s more work to do. We’re working with an imperfect system from the federal government, but we stood up to this Liberal Prime Minister for a better deal for the people we represent. Join us. Fight for more affordable child care for Ontario families.

We’re hiring 3,000 more teachers, 7,500 more education workers. Part of this budget is an increase in funding to combat issues of insecurity in our schools, an additional investment to improve math, the hiring of 800 specialized literacy educators to boost the fundamental skills that we know matter to the course and success of a child.

Speaker, this budget invests in our kids. It invests in better futures. It invests in better jobs and bigger paycheques. We’ll always ensure our children have a better education that leads them to better jobs in this province.