I'm going to tell a bit of a different story. These are big organizations. I'm a single enterprise here.
I raised two kids with disabilities—with profound hearing loss and cochlear implants. I've used almost every government system in our education boards—in Toronto and the York Region board. As a special ed teacher, I also made a huge impact and change for disabilities. I then turned into a registered psychotherapist, which I do in my day job. I run my non-profit charity summer day camp through the summer.
I have six locations across the GTA. I actually put in nine different grant applications in nine different municipalities and received six of them. I hired 52 employees this summer and ran summer programs for over 100 students. It was quite a big impact.
Throughout the year, through my psychotherapy practice, I continue to keep on a lot of those staff as mentors and role models. I have speech-language pathologists, teachers, occupational therapists and anything that comes out of our community colleges and universities to help people with disabilities.
I, myself, am neurodiverse. I have been through our education system many different ways and I struggle immensely. Your government grant has tons of barriers for me, as does even sitting still here today.
I really love the flexibility of funds. I'd like to be able to hire more people throughout the year. I get students from a few different career colleges. They do their internships and practicums with me throughout the year. I'd like to be able to hire them from January to April to keep the scaffolding and the mentoring going.
I am servicing people with autism for the Autism Ontario program through psychotherapy, through their benefit systems, through passport funding and through ODSP.
My daughter just got a hearing dog. That's through the Lions. That was a six-year wait.
I help parents with the disability tax credit. I have all of that knowledge. I've used every program in our board.
I support the transition from high school into employment. There are 92 government agencies in Ontario that I deal with consistently to try to find funds to help everyone find jobs and keep moving. Everyone is stuck right now in every way, with education and medical. All of our government programs are stuck.
Your summer program is amazing because it gives me 52 staff. However, for those 52 staff, I have every single grant application to fill out—all of the paperwork and six different.... Tony is one of the guys—you are amazing—who came and visited two of my locations. We did some social media stuff together.
I also have a full-time job. I do this part time. Imagine me trying to find a camp director.
How much time do I have left?