It’s an honour to rise this afternoon and to speak in support of Bill 79, the third Working for Workers Act, introduced by the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. I’d like to thank him and his team, including his parliamentary assistants from Mississauga–Malton and Scarborough Centre, for their great work on this bill and on the first two Working for Workers Acts.

I was proud to speak about these historic reforms in the House. If passed, Bill 79 would expand on other reforms which are already helping millions of people across Ontario.

Yesterday, the President of the Treasury Board and I had an opportunity to visit the Medical Innovation Xchange in Kitchener with the member for Kitchener–Conestoga. This facility, which is supported by grants from the Ministry of Labour’s Skills Development Fund, is developing made-in-Ontario medical technology that’s being used now in our hospitals and in long-term care. I want to thank the executive director, Elliot Fung, and the CEO of Intellijoint Surgical, Armen, for the meeting and the tour. Their director of corporate affairs, Tim Dutton, said—and I agree—that Bill 79 as well the previous two Working for Workers bills show that the Ministry of Labour is one of the most forward-thinking policy-makers in the country.

Speaker, before I begin my remarks today, I also want to take the opportunity to thank the Premier and the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade for their leadership on Bill 63 and all the other changes we made that led to this historic announcement last week that Volkswagen has chosen St. Thomas, Ontario, to build the first electric-vehicle battery gigafactory outside of Europe. This will be the single largest investment in the auto sector in the history of Canada, and Volkswagen is the first auto manufacturer to set up major operations in Ontario since 1980. As the minister said, this is a major vote of confidence in all the work that we’re doing across government to position Ontario as a global leader in the supply chain for electric vehicles.

A very important part of this is our work to close the skills gap and to build a stronger, more competitive labour market. As the minister said, we’re in the middle of the largest labour shortage in a generation. The Conference Board of Canada reports that Ontario’s skills gap costs our economy over $24 billion each year, or about 4% of Ontario’s provincial GDP. We know there are about 300,000 jobs left vacant across the province, including many in the skilled trades. In fact, we expect that over one in five job openings in Ontario will be in the skilled trades by 2026.

The government is working to increase Ontario’s supply of skilled labour through training, through bringing new skilled workers into Ontario and through making it easier for them to work in the field that matches their skills and experiences. I’ll speak briefly about each of these.

Just yesterday, Speaker, the Premier and the minister announced an investment of $224 million in a new capital stream of the Skills Development Fund to allow businesses, unions and industrial associations to build new training centres or to upgrade their current facilities with state-of-the-art design and technology. This will build on the previous investment of $700 million through the Skills Development Fund since 2020, including an investment of $1 million that the minister and I announced in Mississauga–Lakeshore to help the Christian Labour Association of Canada offer free, online and flexible training for construction workers. It was great to meet them again earlier this month during their lobby day at Queen’s Park.

Speaker, the mayor of Vaughan, Steven Del Duca, said “I want to thank” the Premier “and Minister Monte McNaughton for their continued efforts on this critical province-building priority.... Our highly educated, multilingual population already ensures businesses from all industries have a qualified and ready labour pool, and the government’s new investment in the” skilled trades development fund “means that pool will grow even larger.”

As the minister announced Saturday, we’re also doubling the number of economic immigrants that Ontario can nominate each year through the Ontario immigration nominee program from 9,000 to 18,000 by 2025 to help fill the skills gap.

The two previous Working for Workers Acts removed barriers for internationally trained professionals to allow them to match their skills with jobs they need to fill here in Ontario. Speaker, this was critical because up to three quarters of internationally trained immigrants were working in jobs that didn’t match their skills or experience. As I said before, members of our caucus experienced this when they first came to Canada. The members from Mississauga–Malton and Mississauga–Erin Mills came to Canada with degrees and experience in chemical engineering and information technology, but they weren’t able to work in jobs matching their skills. As we continue to recover from COVID-19, this is a problem Ontario simply cannot afford.

If passed, schedule 3 of Bill 79 would amend the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act to continue to remove barriers for internationally trained professionals looking to register here in Ontario. This includes a new section to clarify that Canadian experience can only be accepted if there are international alternatives as long as they meet certain criteria. Speaker, this will make it easier for engineers, plumbers, mechanics and many other internationally trained professionals to register here in Ontario and to fill in-demand jobs, to help drive economic growth and our recovery from the pandemic.

As my friend Tonie Chaltas, the CEO of Achēv, said, “We need to make it as easy as possible for newcomers to Ontario to find jobs, settle into their communities and build a life here. Streamlining the credentialing process for skilled immigrants is a great step in supporting that journey.”

Speaker, recently I had the opportunity to visit Mike Yorke and the Toronto’s Carpenters Union Local 27 in Woodbridge. They were looking forward to another change. Starting this fall, students in grade 11 will be able to enter a full-time, skilled trades apprenticeship program and still earn their secondary school diploma. These changes mean that high school students will be able to enter the skilled trades faster than ever before. And I know the minister and his team will be consulting with our partners later this year about other options to make it even easier for young people to enter the skilled trades.

Speaker, if passed, Bill 79 would also update the Employment Standards Act and various other laws to reflect the changing nature of our workforce after COVID-19. In the last quarter of 2022, about 2.2 million Ontarians worked from home, including 1.4 million people who worked from home full-time and 800,000 people who worked from home part-time. If passed, schedule 2 of Bill 79 would update how workplaces are defined in Ontario’s labour laws to extend fundamental protections to people who work from home. For example, employees who work from home would become eligible for the same eight-week notice as in-office employees in mass terminations.

Speaker, the minister is also proposing changes to the regulations that would require employers to give new employees information about their jobs in writing, including pay and hours of work but also work location before their first shift. These changes would help to provide certainty for both employers and new employees.

Yesterday, I joined the President of the Treasury Board and Jamie Wallace, the CEO of Supply Ontario, for an event at Communitech in Kitchener, which supports a community of over a thousand high-tech companies, from new start-ups to rapidly-growing companies. Many of these depend on employees who work from home or from other locations around the world. The CEO and president of Communitech, Chris Albinson, said, “We applaud Minister McNaughton for taking steps to ensure that all workers in Ontario are afforded the same rights and protections, regardless of their workplace setting.”

It’s also worth mentioning schedule 2 of Bill 79 would make Ontario’s job-protected leave for members of the Canadian Army Reserve the most flexible and most comprehensive in the country. If passed, schedule 2 would ensure that their jobs are protected when they’re sent into emergency operations, even when it is their first day on the job. And for any other reason, they would qualify for a job-protected leave after only two months so they can take the time they need to recover from physical or mental injuries. Major-General Charles Sullivan said that this “will allow our proud and dedicated reservists to serve their country at home and abroad knowing they will be able to return to their places of employment and be entitled to care after they return home.”

Bill 79 would also strengthen the protection of vulnerable and migrant workers. If passed, schedule 1 would introduce the highest maximum fines in Canada for employers convicted of taking or withholding a foreign national’s passport or work permit: up to $500,000, plus up to $200,000 for every worker whose rights are violated. This will be another important tool to help our police fight human trafficking, which is a growing problem in Peel Region and across the province. My friend the Mexican consul general in Toronto, Porfirio Ledo, offered his support, as Mexican workers have been victims in the past.

If passed, schedule 5 would also introduce the highest fines in Canada for companies that don’t follow our workplace health and safety laws. If convicted, officers and directors of businesses that don’t provide safe work environments that lead to a worker being severely injured on the job could face fines of up to $2 million under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, up from the current $1.5 million.

Unfortunately, we know that some businesses treat fines as just another business expense, and they continue to put their workers at risk. But injuries or death should never be just another cost of doing business. This new penalty will help send a strong message about the importance of worker health and safety and compliance with workplace laws and regulations.

Earlier this year, members of the Mississauga Fire Fighters Association visited my community office in Port Credit. Their top request was that we support an addition of thyroid and pancreatic cancer to Ontario’s presumptive coverage for firefighters. Firefighters die of cancer at a rate four times higher than the general population. On average, 50 to 60 firefighters die of cancer each year here in Canada and about half of them right here in Ontario.

The changes the minister is providing would assume thyroid and pancreatic cancers are work related and streamline workplace injury claims for firefighters. This would make it faster and easier for them to access the compensation and the support they deserve. These changes would be retroactive for claims back to 1960, and it would follow similar changes in other provinces like British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The minister is also proposing changes to the regulations to ensure that construction sites are safe and welcoming for everyone. For example, it would ensure women have access to properly fitting safety gear and clean, women-only washroom facilities with proper lighting and hand sanitizer.

Victoria Mancinelli of LIUNA said—and we agree: “Ensuring women have access to the tools to reach their full potential in the construction industry will strengthen retention, eliminate barriers, attract talent, and” ensure that they will stay on the job.

Lastly, Speaker, the minister has proposed to expand employer services to five new communities—London, Windsor-Sarnia, Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie, Durham and Ottawa—to make it easier for job seekers across the province, especially those on social assistance, to find better jobs.

Speaker, in closing, I want to thank the minister and his team for all the work they’re doing on Bill 79 and for everything else they do.

Meghan Nicholls, the CEO of the Mississauga Food Bank, was here on Monday for the Feed Ontario breakfast. She is working to support over 600 new refugees who are coming to Mississauga from Ukraine per week, every week. The minister and his staff are working to connect them with resources, jobs and a safe place to live here in Ontario. So again, I just want to thank the minister and his team for doing everything they can to help.

Speaker, Bill 79 will help prepare Ontarians for the jobs of the future. It will help protect some of our most vulnerable workers, and it will help ensure that our labour laws can keep pace with new technologies and with the new reality of working from home. It would continue to position Ontario as a top destination for global talent and innovation and as the best place in the world to live, work and raise a family. I look forward to voting for Bill 79, and I urge all members to support this important bill.

I want to thank the member from London from that question. The member doesn’t know that on December 12, 1985, my father died of asbestosis from being a welder at the Texaco refinery in Port Credit. It was difficult at the time, and I agree that workers’ compensation at the time was not how it is today. It is getting better, and we’re going to continue making it better.

We fought WSIB for 12 years, because my father was a smoker as well, but we were able to prove at the time that it was asbestosis that caused his death, and my mother—not me; I was young at the time—was able to get a settlement from WSIB at the time. But, like I said, it took us 12 years at that time, and I know today it’s much easier and much better how we’re doing things here in the province of Ontario.

Just a month ago, I met with the firefighters here in Mississauga, and their recommendations were the two items that we put, the thyroid cancer and the pancreatic cancer, on this bill. We were able to deliver it for them right away, in not even three months. So our government is continuing to work with the workers in this province, and we’re going to continue to work with workers in the province of Ontario.

Not only that, we’re going back to 1960. Think about 1960: I wasn’t even born in 1960. Pretty well a lot of us in the House weren’t born in 1960. We’re going back that far, and I think our government will continue working with workers in this province very closely.

From there, he came over to Port Credit, and he started working at the Texaco refinery because after the Second World War, he was in the Middle East working in a refinery there. His skills at the time were not recognized. That was difficult, because he wanted to bring my mother over from Italy, and he couldn’t afford to do it until he was able to get his skills up to par to bring her over and raise a family here. So it’s very important that we recognize the skills of immigrants who come to this province and even the discrimination against immigrants who come to this province, because still today—I was born here, my kids were born here, and we’re still discriminated against for being Italians. That should stop here in the province.