My question to the government with regard to Bill 188, the Supporting Children’s Futures Act: There are immediate steps that you can do today to advance the futures and keep safe and well the children and youth of Ontario.

One of those things is to pass Bill 174, the Missing Persons Amendment Act. That would really help protect vulnerable people, especially those with disabilities. This is a bill that I understand the member from Hamilton Mountain has put forth. This government has said yes to this and yet you have not delivered.

Another thing to help our children and youth: bring back the provincial child and youth advocate so there can be a voice, an independent non-partisan voice, in this Legislature speaking on behalf of children and youth. Don’t do it for the NDP; do it for the kids. Do it for the family. Do it for the people who feel down and out and betrayed by the care system.

I’ve got several thanks to give today. I’d like to thank the Mount Dennis community that joined us today in a presser earlier in the morning: Neiland Brissenden, the spokesperson from save Eglinton Flats coalition; Cynthia Bell, executive director of the ENAGB Indigenous Youth Agency; Hassan Mohamud; David Roberts; David Anderson—Neiland, I mentioned—Simon Brissenden, his son; Kim Bradshaw; Jessica Murray; Mark Dieu; Heather McKinnon; Andrew Watt; Simon Chamberlain; Judith Hayes; Natalie Vojno; Brandon Machado; Curtis Power; Matthew Barrigar; Bob Murphy; Jamie McQuaig; Lisa Derksen; Floyd Ruskin; Reed Garou; Frank Cotner; David Kidd; David Anderson; Nicole Strachan; Mike Mattos; Graine O’Dell; Cynthia, as I mentioned earlier; Shayla Manitowabi; Tyrell Wemigwans; Gordan Nikolic; Lijida Nikolic; Martha Parrott; Van Desanini; Ron Raunch; Michelle Lopez; Siver Das; and Linder Gonzales.

I’d also like to welcome and thank the former MPP for York South–Weston who is also here, Faisal Hassan.

It’s an honour to stand to address the Legislature today on Dress Purple Day.

The minister did say one thing that was correct: Yes, all children and youth should matter in Ontario. But what we do know is, certain children and youth do not matter as much as they should in Ontario, namely, Black youth and Indigenous youth and youth of colour, who we know are disproportionately represented in systems of care, currently, in Ontario.

I want to start first by reminding the public who may be watching that this is the Conservative government that cut a billion dollars in resources from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services just a few years ago. And we learned again today, through the Financial Accountability Office’s Economic and Budget Outlook, that we are seeing $44 billion in contingency from this government that’s directly impacting the very sectors that can help us ensure that children and youth are safe and healthy and have well-being in their communities, such as a $23-billion shortfall in health, a $6-billion shortfall in education, a $4-billion shortfall in the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services—

Interjection.

I want to also take some time to thank one particular group of folks who are instrumental to the safety and well-being of children and youth in our province, and that is education workers.

Speaker, I want to make it clear: Paying $39,000 a year to education workers doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the way in which they support the social, academic and of course, most importantly, the mental health of our children. Whether they’re driving them to school on the school buses, whether they’re working with them in classrooms, with our kids who have disabilities, we have to pay—and respect—education workers what they deserve. Currently, this government’s decision to pay education workers at a rate that’s lower than inflation, when many of them are going to food banks, when many of them don’t know where their ability to pay for rent comes from, does not create a social climate where education workers can thrive. And I can assure you that if education workers aren’t thriving, they cannot support our children and youth thriving either. So that is something I want us to really think about in this space today.

I want to give a special shout-out to one of our local organizations in St. Paul’s, For Youth Initiative. FYI is their acronym. They’re in our Oakwood Village community, and they really do a lot to support Black, Indigenous, racialized students and youth who live in the Oakwood Village area and otherwise. It’s all about employability. It’s all about ensuring that students have a sense of pride and that they receive culturally relevant services in our community.

I want to encourage the government to continue to invest in community-based services, because at the end of the day, we have a government that will spend billions of dollars to build a highway to mansions that folks cannot afford in Ontario, yet the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services stands there and proudly talks about investments of $800,000 to address anti-Black racism or $800,000 to address 2SLGBTQI+ communities. You can’t buy one house in St. Paul’s for that price. So that’s really difficult to hear, when we know that there are billions of dollars being cut by this government or withheld by this government from education, from community social services, from the things that actually matter.

Of course, I will run out of time before I get to mention many of the pieces of legislation that, for instance, our member from Hamilton Mountain has put forth. And the member from Kitchener Centre, myself and the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North are consistently putting forth pieces of legislation that we hope this government will look at and create laws based on—but actually are about protecting children and youth in this province of Ontario.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and soon” 1,227 whopping dollars “for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a basic income of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I could sign this a million times, Speaker, and I will until it happens. And I’m tabling it with Malini.