The MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh is going to bat at Queen's Park to save a local kids mentoring program.
Percy Hatfield is asking Premier Doug Ford not to cut the Big Brothers and Big Sisters’ mentoring program for at-risk kids in local schools. The province helps fund the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization to provide the program but the survival of the program is being threatened under provincial cuts.
“It’s cost efficient and provides essential prevention and intervention to children at risk of involvement with drugs or alcohol, or who face mental health challenges,” said Hatfield.
He is asking the Ford government why it would consider scrapping such a valuable program when thousands of young people need the service, including more than 500 in Windsor?
Education Minister Lisa Thompson said the province is working through a line-by-line audit to make sure that the programs that it supports align with its education priorities.
"When it comes to transfer payments, we are absolutely taking our time and making sure that, after a $15 billion deficit, we get it right in education," she said.
Hatfield added that cutting the mentoring program will cause a great deal of damage and could end up costing society much more in the long run, including breaking the mentoring bond youth have with their mentors, who are sometimes the only reliable consistent influences in a troubled life.