School boards in Toronto are facing a funding shortfall because of this government’s failure to properly fund education in Ontario. The Toronto District School Board is short $27 million. Parents often contact me about how this underfunding is affecting their kids’ education.

I think of Adhi. His son is in a developmentally delayed class at Clinton school. His son has been attacked twice by another child. He has been scarred physically. The school knows they need another skilled educator in the room to keep kids safe, but they don’t have the staffing allocation.

I think of Janice and Christine at Kensington. They’ve just learned they will have a grade 4/5/6 class for this coming year. That means a teacher will have to explain three different classes all day, every day. That’s a very difficult task. It means that older kids will sit there in the class and be bored, and it means younger kids will sit in the class and feel completely overwhelmed.

Stories like this come into my office every single week. Every school is having to do more with less, year in and year out.

The TDSB has asked the ministry to fund schools properly and to account for the extra costs they must shoulder because of provincial and federal directives, because of COVID, because of inflation. How does this ministry respond? How does the minister respond? They look the other way.

I want schools to be properly funded. I want our kids to have an excellent public school education. The TDSB is asking for a new funding deal, and I support these requests, and I hope the ministry and the government support these requests as well.

I’m not sure if the member opposite is suggesting that the $2 billion that we fund Cancer Care Ontario to allow hospitals across Ontario to provide exceptional cancer treatment is not what she thinks is appropriate. I believe that we must continue to rely on clinicians, to rely on expert data to drive our decisions.

I will not put the risk of people of Ontario into suggesting that these are political decisions. They must be made by experts, by our specialists, by our clinicians working in the field. I will continue to rely on their expertise because, frankly, our numbers show that we are doing an excellent job in Ontario, including, of course, making changes that increase access to cancer treatment in Ontario.

Again, the only people in this House who want these men and women to do more with less is the NDP, because they voted, every time, against budget measures that have put more funding into programs like the Skills Development Fund.

I would encourage that member to join me in the union training halls in his own riding, look them in the face and explain to those business reps why he voted against SDF funding that’s helping people who are out of work get access to a job. It’s because he doesn’t want to build the hospitals. He doesn’t want to build the schools. He wants misery. He wants government handouts. He doesn’t want to give these people a leg-up.

That’s what we’re doing with this government. We’re giving people dignity and purpose, and I’m proud of it.

Interjections.