Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy writes a regular column for NewmarketToday about provincial initiatives and issues impacting our community.
Summer is here, and I am looking forward to being out in the community at our Saturday farmers markets and especially the Aurora Concerts in the Park and the TD Newmarket Music Series. Hope to see you and your family out enjoying these festivities, including the upcoming Canada Day parade in Aurora and the Tim Horton’s Canada Day Festival in Newmarket.
At the end of May, I was honoured to attend the Girls Inc. York Region’s Spirit of the Girl breakfast. Girls Inc. is a non-profit youth organization dedicated to empowering girls and young women to seek the highest quality of life. Their programs help girls develop to their fullest capacities in all areas of life. At this event, I announced two grants that our government had provided totalling more than $400,000 through the Ontario Trillium Foundation. These funds have helped Girls Inc. expand their innovative after-school programs to three new schools, as well as increase their capacity to support girls and young women in York Region.
June is Seniors Month, and once my Private Member’s Bill receives royal sent in the coming months, it will be officially proclaimed Seniors Month in Ontario. I was thrilled to host my first Seniors Month Community Connections Expo at the beginning of June in Newmarket. The event brought together organizations that seek to support, serve, and engage seniors in our community.
Together with Minister of Seniors and Accessibility Raymond Cho, his parliamentary assistant, Richmond Hill MPP Daisy Wai, we hosted a roundtable to hear from 17 organizations from Newmarket-Aurora and discuss how we can further assist them in supporting seniors. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to announce the Seniors Active Living Centre funding at this event with more than $102,000 being split between the Aurora Seniors Centre and Town of Newmarket. This funding will further aid seniors in connecting with their community by staying fit, healthy and active.
The government has a great focus on supporting Ontarians to find jobs and earn higher paychecks. Nearly 300,000 jobs are going unfilled across our province and by 2025, about one in five job openings in Ontario is projected to be in the skilled trades. Ontario is facing a historic labour shortage and we need all hands on deck to build a stronger Ontario for all of us. That is why our government is investing more than $1 billion over three years to provide more young people with the training they need to launch rewarding, well-paying careers in the skilled trades, help employers take on more apprentices, and bring Ontario’s skilled trades system into the 21st century.
New apprenticeship registrations for women are up nearly 30 per cent compared to last spring, and 24 per cent overall (more than 5,000 applications).
Our government’s skilled trades career fairs will also be returning for the second year in a row in even more cities to prepare the next generation of students for rewarding and well-paying jobs in the skilled trades. The fairs will address labour shortages in high-demand sectors and help deliver our ambitious plan to build roads, schools, and hospitals, and 1.5 million homes by 2031.
In addition, we are focusing on ensuring that all people can find meaningful work close to home so they can earn paycheques of which they can be proud. That is why the government is investing over $6.5 million to support five innovative training projects to help more than 3,770 people with disabilities find jobs with businesses in their community.
The first project, run by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, will provide people who are blind, partially sighted, or Deafblind one-on-one and peer support, skills building and goal-setting workshops, and accessible technology training. The other four projects are run by Community Living Toronto, Do Good Donuts Geneva Centre for Autism and PTP Adult Learning & Employment Programs in partnership with George Brown College. They will support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and will provide a range of supports such as employment counselling and hands-on training. Participants will also have the opportunity for paid work placements with local employers.
Through its first three funding rounds, our Skills Development Fund has supported 595 projects and helped almost 522,000 people around the province take the next step in their careers.
Should you have any questions about this update or other provincial matters, my constituency office is available and can be reached at (905) 853-9889.
