 it's now time for members statements the member from here on Bruce as we all know our Toronto Blue Jays are in the midst of their postseason American East Division against Cleveland and I have some good news today a dairy farmer from my riding of here in Bruce is giving us another great reason to cheer them on for them and cheer on the players to get on get as many home runs as possible today I would like to acknowledge Derek Van Dieten a dairy farmer from Seaforth Ontario mr. Van Dieten will be donating 100 liters of milk to local food banks every time the Toronto Blue Jays hit a home run in their postseason so far the Jays including last night have hit 10 home runs during their playoff games and that means that mr. Van Dieten has already donated a total of 1,000 liters of milk this postseason alone and this is not the first time that mr. Van Dieten has donated last year last year the Jays have donated in terms of milk with the achievement of 14 home runs 1,400 liters of milk this donation is just one of many that he gives during the year and I want to offer a sincere thank you to mr. Van Dieten for the inspiring manner in which he demonstrates support not only for local food banks but for our Toronto Blue Jays as well and I would like to encourage others to follow his example and just as I close I just want to say I hope there's more reason today for mr. Van Dieten to donate more liters of milk go straight go Jays go remember statements the member from Essex thank you very much speaker you know speaker I never get tired of talking about the great people in my writing of Essex and the great things that they achieve and contribute to and every year since 1978 the town of Essex has held their annual citizens of the Year Award banquet this year they will honor Tim Catherwood for his outstanding service to the town I'm pleased to take a few moments to honor Tim here in the chamber to acknowledge some of his contributions Tim's working career is very impressive and diverse he has served in senior leadership positions in business labor and in the public sector however a lifetime of community involvement is even more impressive speaker Tim has served or is currently serving as the vice chair of the hotel do grace health care board directors the chair of board directors of the Changing Lives Together Foundation member of the board of the United Way of Windsor Essex County chair of the United Way cabinet campaign cabinet for 2015-2016 former chair of the board directors of the teen health center former co-chair of the board of the Windsor Essex Community Health Center and former member of the board of the Brain Injury Association of Windsor and Essex County Tim and his wife Diane live in Essex they have three children and five grandchildren Tim enjoys golf and is an avid sports fan especially the Oakland Raiders and on behalf of our entire community thank you Tim your leadership and dedication to the people of Windsor Essex is inspiration inspirational and I look forward to joining you and everyone else at the banquet on October 22nd thank you speaker thank you Mr. Speaker I'm pleased to rise and talk about a wonderful event that I attended my writing of Scarborough Southwest this past weekend on Saturday night I've been an Avenue Collegiate Institute auditorium the Ontario Bengali Cultural Society hosted a cultural event that brought together Bengali Canadian and international artists from incredible night of music and dance I was fortunate to be one of the 1,000 people or more than announced people took part in this event and let me say a performance gave us quite a show their talent their passion their creativity and their pride in their culture were on full display and made for truly unforgettable evening Mr. Speaker Bengali Canadians have made countless significant contributions to our province and this event served to highlight their important role in strengthening the multicultural fabric that keeps Ontario's community strong so I'd like to thank the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Institute frozen the event in the Ontario Bengali Cultural Society for their efforts to organize and put the show together and of course I'd like to give a huge thanks to all the talented performers who share their incredible artistic gifts with us it was truly a night I won't so forget and I'm already looking forward to the next one they're very involved and they want to get more more involved in the province and in the in Toronto and particularly in the writing of Scarborough Southwest. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the member Samus the member from Dufferin Caledon. Thank you Speaker I want to share with the house one of the letters that I've received far too many of from constituents living in Dufferin Caledon about their exorbitant hydro bills allow me to read expert excerpts from their letter quote we are a low-income family for living in a small bungalow with electric everything what we don't understand is why our delivery charges are almost as high as our electricity charges we can serve energy as much as possible as you can see from our bills which show that we use the majority of our electricity on non-peak hours we have no air conditioning but we run ceiling fans and other fans throughout the house to try to keep cool why is my summer time bill so high it shows we only use two hundred and thirty nine dollars in actual electricity but it costs two hundred and six to deliver it we could go on and on but the bottom line is this needs to stop before we lose everything we have worked so hard for all of these years this is just one of the many stories I hear regularly from families and businesses in my writing about their difficulty in paying their hydro bills our province has reached the point where hundreds of thousands of families are having difficulty paying their monthly hydro bill just last year five hundred and sixty seven residential electricity customers we're in energy arrears this is unacceptable it's time for a real plan and I urge the minister and the government to make real changes to make electricity affordable for Ontarians and businesses so we can get Ontario back on track thank you thank you for the member's statements the member from London so no west London West it's say that afterwards okay speaker last month I was pleased to attend the launch of the London chapter of the AODA Alliance and would like to offer my congratulations to the new London co-chairs Jeff Prustin and Lisa Klinger I also want to recognize David Lepofsky of the AODA Alliance who is present for the launch and whose leadership and determination have contributed so much to the accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act with support across party lines and from the broader business community the AODA held the promise of eliminating barriers facing Ontarians with disabilities yet despite the high hopes that accompanied its passage the AODA has made little difference in the lives of Ontarians living with disability frustrated by the limited gains achieved after a decade of provincial advocacy local chapters of the AODA Alliance are being formed across Ontario as in my community of London to push for change at the community level while the government's recent agreement to develop a health standard and accessibility is welcome another standard is meaningless if it is not enforced and there has been no commitment on the development of an essential standard for education both K to 12 and post-secondary multiple reports on the Liberal government's lack of progress in meeting the 2025 AODA deadlines raised serious questions about this government's commitment to accessibility without strength and standards and rigorous enforcement there is no hope that we will achieve a fully accessible Ontario by 2025 thank you speaker thank you for the members statements the member from Ancaster Dunn flamboroll and Westdale thanks speaker I want to share a story about a four and a half year-old boy from Hamilton I once knew who because his mother experienced a period of poor health went to live with his grandmother in downtown Hamilton one day this adventurous lad wrote his tricycle down Bay Street all the way to Main Street he thought it was the steepest hill in the world at the bottom he was frightened discovered he was quite a long way from home and no matter how hard he tried speaker he was unable to ride his tricycle back up the hill a young man came along and sensing the boys distress asked if he could help so he did help by carrying the boys strike under his arm and walking the boy back home it turns out the man was a part-time YMCA staffer he spoke to the boys grandmother suggesting the boy become involved with the YMCA for years that boy thought his 25 cents every three months paid for his membership the boy made new friends became more confident and developed skills that helped equip him to cope with the challenges of growing up the YMCA saw this young boy not as a child of limited means but as a person of unlimited potential that boy was me well much has changed since that tricycle ride down the hill one thing remains many in my community are committed to being difference makers I recently had a chance to celebrate work being done by two organizations in the city Dundas roots youth center and city kids both doing incredible work with inner city kids organizations like these try to make our beloved city a better place to live they transform lives each and every day one child at a time rather than curse the darkness these community organizations dedicate themselves to lighting candles of hope they do so with passion and resolve I want today to thank them for their courage leadership service and their willingness to help a little guy up the hill give members the member from Paris on the school thank you mr. Speaker I rise in this house today to highlight concerns recently brought to my attention by members of Coopie local 2049 representing the children's aid societies for the district of nipsing in Paris sound they brought up a number of concerns of the issues raised the most pressing was a parent all back and funding has become so restrictive the local CAS have been forced to cut any unmandated programs there's no training allowance available workers have been forced to reduce visit physiological assessments offices are vacancy managing mandated programs and enrichment options formerly available to children have been cut this is resulting in overburdened frontline workers how can we expect these workers to provide the support mandated by the ministry to the children under their care when we do not support the workers themselves in one instance the Perry sound district see CAS was forced to cut its foster parent recruitment position resulting the decline in the number of foster parents this is forced the CAS to use privatized group homes more often for longer periods of time financially a private home can cost between $100 to $300 per day per child a foster family on the other hand is paid $29 per day per child beyond the obvious higher cost of homes we must ask what is best for the child recent office closures have been concerning as well in a recent merger the Berks Falls office was closed and workers relocated to North Bay through this process the frontline workers in Berks Falls were given just five days notice of the impending changes the push to modernize our children's aid services it is imperative that we make sure that our actions here at Queen's Park create more stable and more caring environments for children their care and not the other way around thank you thank you very much mr. Speaker mr. Speaker kinetics.ca just released a report saying that Brampton is now the most expensive city in all of Ontario to ensure your vehicle what makes it worse is that this government has so horribly failed the people of Ontario by allowing the insurance industry to continue to cut coverage to the point that they slashed benefits for catastrophically impaired people these are the most seriously injured people in the province and this government has slashed their coverage in addition to make matters even worse the premiums are now going up in this province they've recently approved rate increases of 12 percent mr. Speaker this is simply deplorable people in this province are struggling to pay their insurance premiums they're seeing their benefits slashed by this government allowing insurance companies to do that and on top of that this government is now allowing insurance industry to increase the rates mr. Speaker we're seeing less coverage less benefits but increase premiums this government has a responsibility to ensure that premiums are fair this government has a responsibility to ensure the insurance companies don't exploit the people of this province but they're not doing that job the people of this province are being exploited insurance companies are making record profits and the fault lies squarely at the feet of this liberal government thank you Mr. Member from Davenport thank you Speaker October is Hispanic Heritage Month in Ontario for the second year in a row Hispanic Heritage Month will honor the more than 400,000 Ontarians of Hispanic descent and serve as a chance to remember elevate educate future generations about the achievements of our Hispanic Latino community I know that this year just like last year October will bring the entire Hispanic Latino community together to celebrate Ontario's diversity I'm privileged to represent the great riding of Davenport which has such an active and engaged Hispanic Latino community mr. Speaker in the beginning of October I attended the start of Hispanic Heritage Month in Davenport with the Mayan sacred fire ceremony organized by members of the Hispanic Canadian Heritage Council and I also attended Latin Licious a fantastic food truck festival celebrating the flavors of the over 20 different cultures of Latin America my office all celebrated the beginning of the Hispanic Heritage Month with an art gallery opening in my constituency office the exhibits feature artwork from Casa Cultural Colombiana the Davenport Perth neighborhood community health senior Spanish seniors group and performances from a group of talented Spanish speaking seniors group by Lando forever it was also great to start Hispanic Heritage Month in Davenport with all of these celebrations at Queen's Park we celebrated as well all things Hispanic Latino and I had the pleasure of helping launch Hispanic Heritage Week in Hamilton a great celebration organized by associate son fraternity that his father it is clear that the events around Hispanic Heritage Month keep growing every year thank you very much thank you I want to thank all members for their statements