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—

I can tell you it’s world-class, Mr. Speaker, because this program was developed by the autism community for the autism community, and I thank them for the great work they do and the continuous support they’re providing.

The member across and the previous government may have been okay with families languishing on a wait-list where only 8,000 families were being served. It wasn’t good enough for us, Mr. Speaker. It wasn’t good enough, which is why we’ve worked with the communities, clinicians, to put in a program that is designed by the community for the community. Thousands of families are now accessing programs and supports that were provided, again, by the community—even the implementation team that supported us in putting this program together was done by the community.

So, once again, taking lessons from the NDP on a failed program by the previous government where they sat on their hands and did nothing is not something I’m going to do.

Interjection.

I thank my colleague for the question. I’d be more than happy to tell her why. I’ve done it many times, and I’ll do it again—because the program wasn’t working for the people of this province. Mr. Speaker, 25% of the children and youth who were on the registry were receiving services before. Today, over 40,000 families are receiving supports and services. That’s why.

That party supported a failed program under the previous government. The families told them that.

We started from scratch. We worked with those with lived experience—experts, clinicians—to put a program that was put together by the community for the community. We went with more than that—we doubled the funding, to $600 million. And we didn’t stop there. This year, I announced that we further increased the funding of the Ontario Autism Program by an additional 10%.

We’re doing what they couldn’t do for the people of this province.

We’ve developed a program that was put together by the community for the community. The programs that she won’t list—I will do for her. These are programs that families across the province are accessing every day, as soon as they register on AccessOAP—foundational family services; caregiver-mediated early years programs; the entry to school program; urgent response service. Before, they had access to one service. Today they have multiple streams that they can access—every single family—as soon as they register for AccessOAP.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, the opposition always will come in here and they’ll talk to you about what their questions represent—but they held the balance of power. You’ve been here longer than any one of us. You know the process of Parliament. They could have held the previous government to account and said, “We will no longer support you if you do not double the Ontario Autism Program.” But they failed the people of this province. We’re not going to—

Interjections.

I thank my honourable colleague for the question. I’d be more than happy to address it. Unfortunately, this member would have to also communicate to her constituents that when their party was in power, they failed the families and people of this province. Under the previous government, 8,500 children and youth were receiving services. Today, 40,000 are receiving services. Why is that? Because while they neglected families, under the leadership of this Premier—he doubled the funding of the Ontario Autism Program. This year, we increased that funding by an additional 10% to make sure more children and youth continue to receive these services. More children and youth are now receiving not just one service, as under the previous government; they have multiple pathways to services.

We will continue to make sure those families are supported so that no one is left behind under the—

I think my colleague would know that since being honoured and appointed to this role, I have met with families, I have met with groups and organizations every single opportunity I have gotten. Why? Because we said from the beginning that we’re not going to leave people behind, which is why we doubled the funding.

The Ontario Autism Program was developed by the community for the community. That’s the program that we’ve implemented. Some 8,500 children were receiving services under the previous government. Now more than 40,000 children are receiving services—and not just one service. Children, as soon as they’re transitioned and they have registered on AccessOAP, have multiple pathways to service immediately, like foundational family services, caregiver-mediated early years support, the entry to school program—

I thank the honourable member for the question.

To Weston and every single child, youth and family in this province: We told you from day one that we’re not going to leave anyone behind, which is why—again, the member referenced the wait-list. Mr. Speaker, 8,500 children were receiving services before, under the previous government, supported by the NDP. Today, more than 40,000 children and youth are receiving services. Why? Because we doubled the funding, and we’re further increasing that. Why? Because we want to make sure that children, youth and families are receiving the supports and services they need. Again, the NDP, under the previous government, had the opportunity to expedite this. They didn’t do it. It took this Premier, it took this government to say, “We’re not going to leave anyone behind.”

We will continue to make sure that the programs—families, as I said, only had access to one program; now there are multiple pathways to service. And there’s more work to do. We’re going to get—

This is a government that has increased investments in all levels, in every corner of this province to make sure that every single person is receiving this support. That means that, in the member’s region and all across the board, the funding has increased under our government. We’ll make sure those preventative measures are there to support and also to make sure that every single victim is receiving the support that they need throughout the process.

We have invested in a 24-hour hotline across the province in over 200 languages to help ensure those affected by violence or sexual exploitation can access the support they need anywhere, anytime. Also, to support shelters, we have invested $18.5 million over three years through the Transitional and Housing Support Program.

Once again, under this government, we’ll make sure no one is left behind.

I thank the member for the question, Mr. Speaker. When we formed government in 2018, we saw an Ontario Autism Program that was broken. Families and children and youth were not receiving the service. That was under that government, and it was always supported by the NDP. Only 25% of the children were receiving services.

This may have been okay and acceptable by them and the previous government. It isn’t acceptable under our government, which is why we doubled the Ontario Autism Program, which is why we created a program that was developed by the community for the community. Now, children, youth and families have access to more services than ever before. Before, they had access to one service.

I’m happy to announce that this year we are increasing the support in the program by an additional 10% so that we can get more children, more youth, more families service—no thanks to the NDP.

Thanks to my honourable colleague for the very important question.

Mr. Speaker, youth may be a percentage of our population, but they’re 100% of our future.

That’s why, when it comes to the program that the member is referring to—if you just go back to 2018, when we formed government, out of the 31,500 children and youth who were registered, only 8,500 were actually receiving service. Fast-forward to today: Not only have we doubled the funding of the Ontario Autism Program, but 40,000 are now receiving funding.

The new programs that the families have access to have an expanded set of core services that include applied behavioural analysis, speech-language pathology, occupational therapy and, for the first time, mental health services—not just one service, like they had.

But there’s still more work to do. That’s why the Premier entrusted me with this position, and I will do everything I can to make sure—

Mr. Speaker, once again, as I promised the member and every single family in this province, we’re continuously looking at ways to make sure that every child, every youth, every family is supported and we don’t leave anyone behind.

I thank my honourable colleague for the question.

Here’s what I’ll tell my colleague across: I’m asking you for your help and support. Come by and actually support us so that we can help the people of this province, instead of continuously objecting and opposing—

Interjections.

I thank the honourable member and ask her once again to come help me, to work with us to make sure that we support every single youth and child in this province—

Mr. Speaker, here’s the difference. Once again, I’ll go back and I’ll just remind the members that the NDP had the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. The NDP had the balance of power. They failed the people. They weren’t able to deliver. When the previous government didn’t do enough, they continuously supported them. It’s not going to continue that way.

As I said before, we not only doubled the funding; we made sure that more people are receiving support—better support. This is a program that was developed by the community for the community.

When it comes to this side of the House and the majority middle over there, we will continue to fight for every single child, youth—every single person in this province—with or without the help of the opposition.

When our government took office, it is important to note that we saw that adults with developmental disabilities and service providers across the province were continuing to face many of the same challenges that they were facing 10 to 15 years ago. We’re changing that.

We’re ensuring people with developmental disabilities can fully participate in their communities, and we’re doing that with our 10-year developmental services reform strategy, Journey to Belonging.