To the member from Essex: I can absolutely agree that Ontario has excellent educators who are dedicated to student and understand the students’ needs. It’s unfortunate that in the creation of this legislation this government completely ignored the voices of the professionals, of the people who are on the front lines. We see this time and again. We see that this government ignored health care workers when they created Bill 124. We see that they’re ignoring education workers and education staff when they created Bill 98.

What also concerns me, Speaker, is that this could just be a smokescreen for yet another land grab. We’ve seen this happen before, in Bill 23, which is a way to monetize the greenbelt for only certain folks. We see, in Bill 69, the Reducing Inefficiencies Act, the government also grabbing hold of real estate rights. And we see it yet again in Bill 98. This is a government that thinks “father knows best,” and they want to dictate to everyone how they should operate.

We’ve seen in Ontario’s classrooms how educational assistants are provided to schools in a way that makes no sense. First of all, the money that the government gives to school boards for special education, the school board has to also add to that tens of millions of dollars. Frequently educational assistants will often be shared—