Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In talking to parents about the change in programming with the deletion of the funding support for respite services, you can hear a parent tell me that respite has become a pillar in their family and their support mechanism. What has happened here is that pillar has held up many problems. It has provided them respite from stress. It has provided them respite from burnout. Mr. Speaker, the problem is that this pillar is now being chipped away and torn away. The family unit is feeling the pressure of that stress and they are approaching burnout.
Mr. Speaker, many families will tell you, as they have told me, that this is vital for the health of the family; not just health of their young adult that lives at home or the health of their child that lives at home, but it affects the full family. It affects the children that are being ignored because the priority of the family is always focused in on this one particular person. It affects the communication between two adults, the mom and the dad who try to find balance and a break and make sense of everything.
Could you imagine what this stress is like every day? Every single day. There are no holidays from having a child who has, for example, autism, or other developmental issues. There is no holiday. It is every day. You have to find ways to work through it and people have strength. I cannot imagine how they handle and manage it. I have seen individuals when it comes to families deal with these particular challenges in ways I have no way of comprehending, but respite services have provided them the much needed break to make sense of their world.
You will ask a lot of parents, and I have no doubt that people have, especially my colleagues on this side of the House, and the parents will tell you that many of them feel blessed to be given the chance to be the heroes of these children, to be blessed to be parents of these children who have problems. They are looking for this support and help.
Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about the little brothers or the sisters or the big brothers and sisters that get ignored in this process because the focus is typically on the one child, worrying about the day-to-day issues. Mr. Speaker, many people will tell you about the developmental and social skills that come forward through this program. You can hear stories and voices from parents and even the kids themselves of saying that they built a relationship. They learned to communicate better. They learned to have fun with the respite worker.
Mr. Speaker, this is not something we want to take away. Mr. Speaker, we have a program that is working and it is almost as if the government wants to sabotage that progress that government has made for these families by taking it away. Again, the struggle is turning back the clock. Where are we going next? People believe this was the next step and new hope for families, and yet taking respite away and providing no clear solution and no clear direction is not the way we should be communicating to our people.
Mr. Speaker, respite is a chance to have the normal moments in an un-normal day, where your normal day is full of stress and burden. It gives you that chance to take a deep breath and say what is important. I need to make sure that I am healthy so I can take care of the person that they love. Mr. Speaker, we often forget about the little things, but how many little things are forgotten in this equation? How easy is it to bring someone on an airplane? How easy is it to take someone to the movies? How easy is it to go to the playground? How easy it is to have, as Mrs. Groenewegen said, friends over? We forget about these little things these families are willing to sacrifice for the love of their children, for the love of their brothers and sisters who struggle every day.
Mr. Speaker, the government did the right thing through the THAF funding by supporting parents through the respite services. I believe strongly, and the voices of my constituents are correct, that the government is now doing the wrong thing by this approach. If we care as much as we say we do, we will show that deleting the line item of support for respite services is not the measured way to go.
Mr. Speaker, I will leave with this. If we can imagine our worst day when we are burnt out, whether it is due to arguments in the House or just silly things, and we go home and think about how life cannot get worse, all I can imagine is imagine what it is like to be a parent who struggles with these challenges day in and day out. Now double that stress. Triple that stress. That is probably considered a normal day. But yet they look forward to the ray of sunshine, the crack in the door of hope that has someone coming in and giving them a break so they can get the rest and take care of their own sanity at the same time, Mr. Speaker. It means they do not love their child any less by having help, but they have the courage of reaching out and accepting that help. That help is being taken away, Mr. Speaker. That is what bothers me very much. That, I can tell you, bothers a lot of constituents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.