The Toronto District School Board is calling for a new provincial funding structure to help address their near $27-million deficit, and I’m calling on this Conservative government to support their demands, for the sake of our children, youth, families and the caring adults who teach and support them. Our schools are at the heart of our community, and we need them properly funded in order for them to function.

The Minister of Education says he expects school boards to put student achievement first. Well, guess what? In order to do that, we need funding that keeps up with inflation, instead of the chronic cuts we’ve seen throughout this government’s tenure. We need this government to fix our schools, not tinker with them. Fixing our schools requires billions of dollars, which this government has and can invest in education.

Schools are losing invaluable staff because they can’t keep up with salaries and benefits. TDSB programs supporting the most vulnerable are being cut. We only need to look at special education to see where your government’s cuts are impacting the most vulnerable students.

This government continues to toss money at the rich while having austerity measures for those who need the most help.

Stop blaming and shaming our TDSB and other school boards across Ontario and start helping them put student achievement first.

Speaker, 2.3 million people in Ontario do not have a family doctor. That’s 2.3 million Ontarians who cannot access the basic humane right of seeing someone whose expertise is in taking care of sick people. Many of those 2.3 million people have ended up on the doorsteps of our already understaffed, underfunded and overburdened emergency rooms—some of which have experienced shutdowns under this Conservative government due to its ongoing health care privatization scheme.

The goal should be to keep people out of ERs as much as possible, for as long as possible, but to do that, people need access to family doctors, so they can manage their physical and mental health needs. Statistics show that those without access to primary care are more likely to receive late diagnoses, which directly impacts both short- and long-term health outcomes. Without family doctors, if you need a specialist appointment, good luck on that journey, because you’re out of luck.

Every Ontarian deserves access to care. I say this as an MPP representing my community of St. Paul’s, I say this as a family member of folks in my own family who don’t have family doctors, and for many in this community—and many are racialized, let me tell you that. Many are in communities that are already underserved; many are rural; many are northern.

Today, we, the Ontario NDP official opposition, are giving this government yet another opportunity to help patients, to put them first. We are giving this Conservative government a solution to help our doctors get back to what they do best, that is, seeing patients, not having to fill out 19 hours a week of necessary, critical administrative work and paperwork. Help patients access more doctors by reducing the amount of time doctors spend on administrative work. That’s what we’re asking, Speaker. Help patients access more doctors by reducing the amount of time doctors spend on administrative work.

We are calling on this government to invest in administrative support staff and integrated health teams. By doing so today, we can add the equivalent of 2,000 more family doctors here in Ontario and help up to two million additional Ontarians get the help they need.

This should not be a partisan issue, Speaker. Saving lives should be about humanity. The NDP has put forth a solution. The government has the opportunity today to save people’s lives. Will the government accept our proposal today? Yes or no?

This question is to the Premier. Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. To eliminate racism means cutting it off at the source through anti-racism education, yet across Ontario, only 49% of public schools have implemented a school-wide anti-racism policy, according to a report by People for Education in my riding of St. Paul’s. This is a direct result of Conservative government underspending on public education—$844 million and counting, to be exact.

My question to the Premier: Will Thursday’s budget include the necessary funds so that 100% of Ontario schools can implement anti-racism policies and practices to end racial discrimination experienced by both students and staff?

A recent school year report from the TDSB found that, across the TDSB, 50% of hate incidents were race-related; 61% of these were anti-Black racism. Black students need to feel safe from violence in all aspects of their lives, especially at school. They deserve for school to be a place of joy, building self-esteem and support. The toll racism takes on their academics and well-being is mounting as schools are increasingly underfunded and under-staffed. TDSB is projecting a $61-million shortfall and a loss of 522 staff positions in the coming school year because of this Conservative government’s cuts.

My question to the Premier: Will you prevent this from happening? Will your Thursday budget invest every dollar and cent needed to ensure students and staff have the resources necessary in their school to protect them from anti-Black racism and hate across the board?

The arts and culture sector, artists and cultural workers have been disproportionately hit by COVID, and to be frank, it’s not COVID alone. This government has chronically cut and underfunded the arts well before the pandemic, despite the fact that we can count nearly 30 billion ways in which arts and culture contributes to our GDP, not to mention the near 300,000 jobs the sector creates for our province.

Make no mistake: Committing to sustainable funding at or above the rate of inflation is key to the survival of our creative sector, a sector where most creatives weren’t even able to get CERB during the pandemic, and most in live performance saw their careers go poof without notice.

Most government funds for smaller art organizations tend to be targeted towards individual short-term projects, which does not help the organization build capacity for long-term planning. That is why I’m demanding today that the OAC budget for the Ontario Arts Council remain at $65 million in the 2023 provincial budget. On behalf of every creative worker and community-based organization in St. Paul’s, we’re pleading with this government: Do not cut the already strapped Ontario Arts Council budget again, especially with the work that they do for priority groups like deaf artists, artists with disabilities, artists of colour, francophone artists, Indigenous artists and new-generation artists, to name a few.

Speaker, visit any gallery, any museum, any theatre, any library, any art studio. The arts are the way—