I want to thank my colleague the member for Nickel Belt for her remarks. I think her summary of what happened in committee was very useful, to hear the kind of input that people brought to the public consultation process. It was also interesting and very disappointing to hear about the number of amendments that were proposed and yet were rejected by this government.

So I wanted to ask the member for Nickel Belt if she could highlight maybe one or two amendments that were rejected that she feels would have had the greatest impact on helping protect kids in this province.

I appreciated the remarks of the government members on this bill, which we on this side of the House have been clear that we support because it does take some modest action to improve protections for children and youth.

However, many of the concerns that this bill addresses and more—a huge number more of concerns—were identified by the former child and youth advocate in this province, Irwin Elman. He points out that there are 19,000 serious occurrence reports every quarter that are produced by group residential homes. And one of his primary roles was to address those serious occurrence reports.

So why did the government not take the opportunity to reinstate that vital position of child and youth advocate?

Thank you to the minister and the parliamentary assistant for their remarks on this bill.

I had the opportunity to attend one of the committee meetings that was reviewing this legislation, and I was particularly interested in the panel from the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society, the Toronto Humane Society and Dr. Martha Harding, who operates three not-for-profit veterinary clinics. They shared stories about how, in this current affordability crisis, we are seeing a doubling of demand for pet food to community food banks. They are seeing more and more animals having to be surrendered for economic reasons, which is absolutely heartbreaking, because all families—low-income people should be able to access veterinary services.

What in this bill will expand access to veterinary services, especially for low-income Ontarians?

Thank you to the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler for her remarks about this bill.

I actually want to echo something that was said earlier in this debate by my colleague the member for London North Centre. He and I are both big fans of the London humane society. We both got our cats from the London humane society and are very excited about the move of the new home of the humane society in London.

This is a big undertaking. It requires significant support from the public and from other levels of government. The municipal government has stepped up. The federal government has stepped up. Londoners have stepped up, but there has been no commitment from the province.

I’m hoping, in the context of the initiatives that have been brought forward by this government to support animal welfare, that this is something that would be considered. So I’m asking the member if that would be the case.

I want to compliment my colleague for his remarks. I think we have all in this chamber learned much more about dairy farming than we ever thought we would when we arrived in this place—

But the member knows that Ontarians everywhere are facing significant affordability challenges. The cost of veterinary care is a big barrier for low-income people in their ability to own pets. I want to give a shout-out to veterinarian Dr. Martha Harding, who has clinics in London, Kitchener and now Hamilton to serve low-income pet owners and those on social assistance.

So my question is, is there anything in this bill that will help facilitate the creation of more of these non-profit veterinary clinics that can help low-income people afford the cost of owning a pet?

I appreciate the question from my colleague across the way. One of the reasons that I spent so much time at the beginning of my remarks in providing a context for the financial situation that Ontario colleges and universities face is to emphasize that no policy, however perfect it is, is going to be effective if there are no resources to implement it. We have reached a situation, in the post-secondary sector, where our post-secondary institutions are literally on the brink.

We heard from the government’s own research report that was released in January 2024 about mental health supports on campus that universities and colleges are already struggling with the ability to resource the mental health supports that are supposed to be available. So we need to have that funding—

As lots of research has highlighted, financial stress is very much a contributor to student mental health issues.

We know that investing in OSAP, in making student financial assistance much more accessible to students would go a long way to removing the financial barriers that students face, not just to enter post-secondary education, but to continue their studies.

As I mentioned, we have seen post-secondary students, international students among the largest group of food bank users because of their struggles with food insecurity, because the affordability crisis that we are seeing in this province is affecting—

She goes on to say, “This commitment does little to tackle the serious lack of investments in Ontario’s post-secondary sector and continues to burden students, especially international students, to fund the quality of post-secondary education.”

So while they may be supportive of the requirement to have mental health policies and racism and hate policies, students are very concerned about this government’s failure to address the fundamental—

I listened with interest to the brief remarks from the member for Guelph. He didn’t have much time.

Certainly we hear from constituents and Ontarians across this province that there are huge concerns about what the Premier is saying about the politicization of the judicial process. I wondered if the member would like to take a little bit more time to elaborate on why this is so dangerous to democracy and why the Premier should reverse his decision to appoint those partisan members to the judicial committee.

I would like to thank the member for Ottawa West–Nepean for her articulate comments on this bill and for sharing some of the examples of the challenges that people in her riding are facing as they deal with the housing crisis that we have in Ontario. She addressed some of the real solutions that would address those problems in her remarks, but I wondered if she could just try to summarize in one minute why this bill is so ineffective at dealing with the real issues that people are facing in her riding, and all of our ridings, and what would have been a better approach.