January 9th, 2021

Ford must help low-income families hit hardest by extension of virtual school: NDP MPP

YORK SOUTH—WESTON — MPP Faisal Hassan called on Premier Doug Ford to provide support to low-income households in communities like York South-Weston, who have been hardest hit by the province's extension of schools' online learning:

"My community and others like it are home to the PSWs taking care of our most vulnerable, the grocery store and manufacturing workers keeping our food and supply chains running," said Hassan. "They are essential workers who don't have the luxury of working from home or taking paid time off to supervise their children who will continue learning virtually for weeks or months more. When they miss a shift, they miss a day’s pay.

Doug Ford could have prevented the extension of virtual learning by investing to make classrooms safe, but instead he sat on billions of dollars in COVID-19 funding. Now families in my riding are paying the price for his choice. How can they stay home and support their kids learning virtually if they can’t afford to miss a day or work, let alone two weeks?”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has called for financial supports for families who now have to stay home with their school-aged little ones. I support that call, and say that without it, working class families in communities like mine will end up being unable to keep putting food on the table.”