Thank you to the member for Oshawa for her speech this afternoon. Bill 79 does propose changes to support the rollout of our employment services transformation. Ontario is expanding its new employment services to five more regions, being London, Windsor-Sarnia, Kitchener-Waterloo, Barrie, Durham and Ottawa, and this is helping more people move towards meaningful and purpose-driven careers close to home.

I’d like to ask the member, because I believe Oshawa is in Durham, don’t you agree that we should be doing everything we can to help those on social assistance, including in your area of Durham, find meaningful work?

It’s an honour to rise this afternoon and speak to Bill 79, Working for Workers Act, 2023. I think this is the third Working for Workers Act, so I suppose my first criticism would be the lack of creativity in the name, Madam Speaker. But, overall, having just had a day or so to read it, there are some promising changes that will be beneficial to Ontario workers, so I’d like to start on some of those high notes maybe before getting into some of the areas where there are some gaps.

I’d like to talk about the more flexible job protections that are proposed by the government for military reservists. Military reservists in Canada are very special, because they offer their service to help defend our country, to help protect our communities, while also maintaining their other full-time employment. These individuals can be deployed at very short notice right across our country to help keep us and our neighbours and our families safe. They typically serve one or more evenings a week and during the weekends and spend several weeks a year training for these jobs. Reserve units are located in hundreds of communities right across our country and, of course, our province, and they’re always there when we need them the most.

No matter your role in the reserve, I want to take a moment to thank the brave women and men in Canada’s reserve army for their dedication to our country and to their community.

I had the opportunity, Madam Speaker, to work with reservists very directly in the spring of 2019, when Ottawa was suffering enormous flooding in the west end of the city, in Carp, in Constance Bay and in the east end of Ottawa, in the community I represent along the Ottawa River in Cumberland Village. Between Ottawa and Gatineau, more than 6,000 homes were flooded or at imminent risk. Roads and bridges were flooded out and forced to close. At least two people died in this flooding. Thousands were without power, were without water. Some were left stranded without food as a result. Many, of course, had to evacuate their homes out of threat of being flooded out altogether.

Anyone who witnessed the devastation of this flooding in Ottawa—whether in person, on the ground, or in photographs or in video afterwards—knows just how bad it got in our nation’s capital. The reason I bring this up is because, in Cumberland, we had the honour and the benefit of working with the Canadian Armed Forces reserve from the 33 Domestic Response Company, who came to the rescue during the flooding to help residents of Cumberland, in east Ottawa.

Many of these reservists, as I said, if not all of them, are employed full-time in other lines of work and had literally almost no notice to pack up their entire life, tell their boss, “Sorry, I’m not coming in tomorrow” and head out to Ottawa to help. In fact, one young woman who was interviewed at the time of the floods mentioned that she had less than 24 hours’ notice to give to her employer so that she could come to Ottawa and help save these homes. They carried sandbags along the river, shoring up homes that were at risk of flooding. They helped evacuate people to safer areas. They worked to protect the Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant. Many of them described it as some of the proudest moments of their lives, helping protect these families in Cumberland and across Ottawa.

So I want to thank the reservists who were involved in that operation in 2019. I understand that it’s very difficult to call your boss and say, “I’m not coming in tomorrow,” on short notice, “and I might not come in for days and days and maybe weeks on end.” Obviously, we want to ensure that they have the protection of being able to return to their job, not only when their service is over, but when some of the other issues that might arise from their service might need to be dealt with as well. We want to make sure that they have that protection. I know those reservists who participated in 2019 and all those who benefited from that great work will understand the importance of the measures that are being proposed by the government.

The other area that I wanted to speak to, Madam Speaker, was the increased fines and protections relating to the treatment of migrant workers. From what I understand—again, it’s only been a few hours since we’ve had the bill and had an opportunity to review it, but from what I understand, the proposed changes would establish increased fines for employers and people who are convicted of taking possession of or retaining a foreign national’s passport or work permit.

In eastern Ontario, as many know—I know the member from Renfrew knows—we have a vibrant agricultural sector. Ottawa is one of the largest farming communities in Ontario, certainly in all of Canada, and many of our farmers and our farm operations rely heavily on migrant workers to fulfill the needs on the farm, to help ensure that we all have food to eat and that our farming system remains as vibrant and as sustainable as it is. So we need to ensure that the protections are in place for these migrant workers. We should all agree that treating these workers with respect, treating these workers with compassion and treating these workers as the vitally important workforce they are for our agricultural community is of the utmost importance.

While I agree certainly with the proposals the government is making in terms of fines and jail time for withholding passports etc., we also need to be talking about the working conditions that many of these migrant workers face. There are many farmers who do an absolutely amazing job treating their migrant workers with respect and dignity—proper housing, proper pay etc.—but there are always bad apples. In any line of work there are bad apples, and we need to ensure that those bad apples are filtered out, treated and punished appropriately—not just on the passport side of things though, too; on the housing side, on the pay side, on the treatment as workers on the farms. I’d like to see the government pay a little bit closer attention to those elements of migrant work as well as we move forward.

Certainly I would agree—I know the NDP spent some time hammering away on this during their debate—that some of the most vulnerable workers may not have the confidence or the position to come forward to speak up about some of the treatment they might be facing, but I’m not sure that that’s a reason to vote against this legislation. Yes, there will be people who don’t come forward because of those reasons—that’s almost certain, to be sure—but not proposing stricter fines or not proposing stricter requirements simply because some people might be afraid or unable to come forward isn’t really a reason not to do that. If anything, those measures need to be in place and we need to figure out how to give these workers the confidence and give these workers the avenue, the platform etc. to be able to come forward without risks—not vote against it simply because those don’t exist yet.

I’m also very encouraged, Madam Speaker, to see the removal of barriers for women in the construction industry. We know that there is an enormous gap in construction and the trades from a labour perspective. This is obviously traditionally a male-dominated sector or sectors—lots of reasons around that, to be sure. Anything that can be done to encourage women to participate in the skilled trades, in construction etc., will obviously give those women another opportunity for employment, but will help the industry get to the numbers of workers that it needs to fulfill the obligations that we have in terms of our goals for housing construction and infrastructure etc. Making the working environment for women in these trades—offering them more protections; offering them the same ability to use washroom facilities that men, at least, take for granted; having proper equipment that suits the needs that women have that are unique to them—is obviously a step in the right direction.

But if the government really wanted to remove barriers that women are facing in the workforce, they would repeal Bill 124, which targets sectors of the economy that are predominantly women in the workforce in those sectors of the economy. They would also do things like support my private member’s bill, Bill 5, to help stop harassment and abuse by local leaders in municipalities. We know that there have been any number of cases where women in cities have been psychologically, physically, sexually harassed and abused in recent years. It’s happened in Ottawa; it’s happened in Barrie; it’s happened in Brampton; it’s happened in Mississauga. It’s likely happened in almost every community across the province, Madam Speaker. And while anyone who does these things who works at a construction site, who works at a farm, who works at Walmart or any other employer in the province would almost certainly lose their job pretty quickly for this type of behaviour, of course, for municipally elected officials, there is no ability to remove them from office. So I do hope that the government will support Bill 5 when it comes up for second reading at the end of May, as they did in the last legislative session, so that we can offer protections to women in our municipalities who suffer this kind of harassment and abuse all too often.

Perhaps the biggest absence from the bill that we’ve been able to see so far, Madam Speaker, is the lack of attention towards paid sick leave. We all know that people get sick from time to time. Your kids get sick. And no one should have to make a decision between going to work sick or staying home and not getting paid, putting the health of their children or their own health at risk in order to be able to continue to pay the bills, to buy groceries, to put a roof over their family’s head. And so we would hope that, as we move forward through the fourth and fifth and, I’m sure, sixth iteration that this government might come up with with the Working for Workers Act, that attention is paid to the need for paid sick leave so that all Ontarians can have that security of when you’re sick and need to stay home, that you don’t go to work, that you don’t spread whatever that sickness is, but you also don’t have to put your family’s security on the line because you fear being fired or losing out on a paycheque.

Questions?

I want to thank the member for Orléans for what I would say was a pretty balanced approach to what is and isn’t in Bill 79, contrary to what I heard from the New Democrats earlier, where they wanted to go back for 20 years and a litany of things that they don’t like. Because, you see, they have abandoned workers in this province, but we’re supporting workers in this province. And I appreciate what the member for Orléans had to say about the positive aspects of this bill, because no bill can address everything, otherwise they’d be that thick. But this bill is about supporting workers and also making sure that Ontario has the workforce to see that we can advance and progress over the next several years and the next number of decades.

So you did talk about the flooding in 2019 and your support for reservists, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Can you elaborate a little more on some of the aspects of that part of the bill that you find really positive and will be really good for families that have someone serving in the reserves?

Well, certainly what we saw in 2019, or what I saw personally in 2019 during the flooding in Cumberland were men and women who had, on 24 hours’ notice or less, put their entire lives on hold. We had students, we had people who worked in office and retail, and we had a lawyer who had to go and tell the partners, “Look, I can’t show up for work tomorrow because I’m going to head up to Ottawa and help save people’s homes.” That is noble work that our reserve army does for us, and I think we owe them the security of being able to say, “Yes, when you go home, your job will be protected. If, because of what you’ve done and what you’ve seen you need to take some time off to recover psychologically or from a health perspective, your job will be protected for that period of time as well.”

The government is certainly taking a step-by-step approach as opposed to going big. I know the NDP would prefer to go big, but they’d also prefer to get nothing done.

The important element that needs to come next, though, is the inspection regime, the enforcement regime and the penalty regime for organizations, companies etc. that may not end up providing the level of access or the level of facilities that the legislation and the regulations might call for. That’s act 2 to act 1. Act 1 is pretty good.

We typically take a whole-of-government approach to bills when we’re putting them forward. I want to give a shout-out in particular to the Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity. She did a number of round tables in my riding. One of the things that came up in the round table for women in business, especially in the trades, was some of the challenges around simple things like the washroom. Here we have in this bill some changes to that, to make it more accessible for women, to effectively double the number of washrooms, the number of porta-potties at worksites. There were a number of other things that came up from those round tables, and I’m expecting to see some of those come in future bills.

But my question to the member is—I know there are things that are missing in it. I’m hoping that you will agree that this is actually a positive move forward on something as simple as having appropriate washrooms for both males and females. Would you agree with that?

I would like to thank the member from Orléans for his presentation. We’ve heard from government members claiming there will be presumptive coverage for pancreatic and thyroid cancers for firefighters, yet it does not exist within the bill. Earlier, I’d spoken to the government members about Bud Simpson, a Sarnia native who passed away from nasopharyngeal and gastrointestinal cancer which metastasized to his brain.

But I also wanted to share, from the Occupational Disease Reform Alliance, somebody from Peterborough who worked at General Electric—his widow’s name is Sara Sharpe. He worked there for 42 years and, unfortunately, he passed away just after he was nicely retired, with esophageal cancer. He passed away within two weeks.

My question to the member: Would you like to see multiple exposures covered in presumptive coverage, such as we’ve discussed?

Member from Waterloo.

The member from Orléans had some interesting points, I guess. I mean, we come here every single day to try to make legislation stronger and to make it better, and this particular piece of legislation misses the mark on WSIB and deeming drastically. The migrant injured farm workers have called on WSIB to address the racism in the dealing of health care supplies and care when they are injured here in Ontario. They’ve gone on to say that “their horrific experiences of improper health care support and the racist reality of the practice of ‘deeming’ workers” is impacting labour retention and the labour shortage issue.

So if the Minister of Labour really truly cares and understands what’s happening on these farms when workers are injured and the negative impact it has on the labour shortage, why do you think he left this part out of Bill 79?

Thank you to the member from Orléans for his comments tonight. I thought they were very balanced, as has already been observed, especially comments regarding employers of international agricultural workers, and I’ll simply invite the member to offer further comments on schedule 3, which will increase fairness to regulated professions and make it easier for internationally trained people to get access to Ontario employment. I invite him to comment.

You will speak to the bill, right, because the NDP don’t speak to it.

Was not Italian.

I feel like I’m getting a bedtime story here.

I’ll speak to the bill.

We are talking tonight, this evening, and I’ve listened to a day-long debate about Bill 79, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters. The short title of this act is the Working for Workers Act, 2023.

In my riding of Essex, we have a big demand for skilled workers—huge demand. They’re in demand in the construction industry. They’re in demand in the automotive industry. They’re in demand in the agricultural sector. We need skilled workers in just about every sector in every industry in the riding of Essex, and so I need to thank the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development for bringing forward this bill and its related announcements. This is excellent. It’s something that people in my riding want, and I’m going to be very happy if this bill passes into law, because I’m going to be able to go back to my riding in Essex and announce to the people of Essex that these things are going to happen. It’s going to be very welcomed.

Now, my first introduction to skilled trades came when I was a young person growing up on the second concession of Anderdon township. I got my introduction at Anderdon Public School, which was just down the road from us and around the corner on the middle sideroad about two miles away. I went there, and so did all my siblings.

Anderdon Public School, when I went there, was a very multicultural place. There were lots of kids there from all sorts of different backgrounds. There were Italians; there were Germans, Dutch people, Hungarians, French Canadians, English Canadians and people from other backgrounds, and we were very respectful of one another. We liked being at a multicultural school. We liked sharing our traditions. We liked sharing our cultures. We liked teasing each other about our different traditions and cultures.

We would even share and swap our food at lunchtime. We Italians, we’d bring big sandwiches, big sandwiches on ciabatta buns with meatballs inside, or maybe we would have calabrese bread with some leftover veal from last night’s dinner. And the English kids, they’d tell us they were jealous of us, because their parents would give them sandwiches with two slices of white bread and a square piece of processed cheese in the middle. So we’d joke and laugh back and forth with each other, and it was all in good humour. And just every once in a while, but very rarely, we’d give them one meatball—but that’s all.

In order to get to know each other better, we’d ask each other questions. The most common question we asked each other was, “What are you?” For example, one kid in my class might ask me, “What are you?” And I would say, “I’m Italian. What are you?” They would say what they were, and we’d always be respectful, and we appreciated each other.

And we loved our school. We loved our school, and we loved our teachers, and we respected our teachers, because our parents expected it. And we had great teachers, because we thought we went to the best school in the world. We had Mr. Hernandez, who taught us grade 8. He was of Mexican background. We had Miss Bond, who taught us how to sing. We had Mr. Parrot, who I adored, because he taught politics with me in grade 5.

And we had something called industrial arts; that was the more technical word for shop class. When we went to shop class, we lined up in lines. The girls lined up in one line, and the boys lined up in a separate line. The girls walked to home economics class, and the boys walked to shop class, because back then we had division of labour based on gender. Our shop teacher was Mr. Grodzinski, and Mr. Grodzinski—

When we went to shop class, it was sometimes dangerous because we had machines and moving machines in shop class. For example, we had a lathe. A lathe is a machine that holds an object, usually a piece of wood, and turns the object at great speed. Then you use another object to shape that wood. We had, for example, a band saw, which is a saw that turns a blade on a wheel, and you have to use a tool to push the wood to cut the wood. You have to be very careful because you don’t want to get a piece of clothing caught in the band saw and hurt yourself.

So Mr. Grodzinski was stern and strict, and he had to be because we were in an environment which was dangerous, or could be dangerous, if you weren’t careful. In shop class, we learned how to be very safe, because we had to be. We did things, and we all felt proud of what we were doing. There was nobody in shop class who felt bored. We all felt proud. We loved shop class because we were working on machines and we were doing things that our fathers did, and it made us feel like we were growing up into adults and becoming responsible.

Now, that was a very simple introduction to the skilled trades. And even though it was simple, it was important. Many of us graduated from Anderdon Public School and we went on to do skilled trades at high school. Many of us went to a specialized high school—it was called Western Secondary School—where it concentrated on skilled trades. That school was strictly committed to skilled trades.

Some kids from Anderdon Public School became very successful at the skilled trades. For example, one of those kids was Norbert Bolger. Norbert graduated out of Anderdon Public School. He started building homes because he was a skilled tradesperson. His business got bigger and bigger. He started building more and more homes. Now, across Essex county, there are hundreds of homes that have been built or are being built by Norbert’s company, called Nor-Built Construction. Norbert and his company Nor-Built Construction are a success story that got their start—

So, Madam Speaker, let’s talk about how this government is going to get young people into the skilled trades, to join the fabulously successful people like Norbert Bolger and Terry Jones. Madame la Présidente, parlons de la façon dont ce gouvernement va redonner aux jeunes les métiers spécialisés pour qu’ils se joignent à des gens de métier prospères comme M. Bolger et M. Jones.

Les métiers spécialisés offrent des carrières qui mènent à des emplois sûrs et à une bonne qualité de vie qui s’accompagne souvent d’avantages sociaux et d’une pension. Il y a près de 300 000 emplois vacants en Ontario. Ce sont des chèques de paie qui attendent d’être encaissés.

Bon nombre de ces emplois sont dans les métiers spécialisés. Nous avons besoin de milliers de travailleurs dans les métiers spécialisés pour aider à construire plus de maisons et à réaliser d’importants projets d’infrastructure partout dans notre province.

Nous devons construire des maisons pour faire face au manque de maisons. Nous devons augmenter l’offre pour faire baisser le prix des maisons. Nous devons construire des maisons pour les quelque deux millions de nouveaux Canadiens qui arriveront en Ontario au cours des 15 prochaines années.

Au sujet des nouveaux arrivants, notre gouvernement est fier que l’Ontario soit une destination pour de nombreux nouveaux arrivants qui sont venus au Canada à la recherche de meilleures possibilités économiques pour eux-mêmes et leurs familles.

Afin de créer une voie claire leur permettant d’appliquer pleinement leurs compétences, le gouvernement de l’Ontario a l’intention de proposer des changements qui vont aider à éliminer des obstacles empêchant les nouveaux arrivants d’obtenir un permis et de trouver des emplois correspondant à leurs qualifications et compétences. Il faut d’habitude de deux à cinq années pour obtenir un certificat de métier.

It usually takes two to five years to complete your apprenticeship and get a certificate in the skilled trades. On average, a person entering an apprenticeship program in Ontario is 29 years old. Do you know what that means? What it means is they started doing something else, and then they had to change. We can’t let people do that if we want to fulfill the needs that we have today. We can’t let people lose years of valuable earning potential. We can’t let people lose years of applying their skills to build the needed houses and infrastructure here in the province of Ontario. We need those skills, and that’s why we need to get people started earlier—earlier than 29 years old. We need to start them in high school.

As the minister has announced, starting this fall, students in grade 11 can start a full-time apprenticeship program and also, when they complete their program, earn their Ontario secondary school diploma, their OSSD, as an adult student. That means we’re going to get people into the skilled trades faster than ever. That also means that the same young person who graduates with their certificate of apprenticeship will have a job waiting for them the day they have their certificate. They will walk into a full-time career the day they graduate. They will be debt-free, looking forward to a great career of earning potential right from day one, because, as we say, when you have a skilled trade, you have a job for life. Then, after finishing their training, they receive a certificate and they’ll have their OSSD as an adult. This is how we’re going to get young people into the skilled trades and get them in there faster. This is how we’re going to deal with the province’s historic demand for skilled trades workers. This is how we’re going to get it done.

And that brings me back to Anderdon Public School and Mr. Grodzinski.

One day we were finishing shop class and the boys lined up and started filing out of shop class, and I happened to be the last boy in line. I kind of hung behind and as I was passing Mr. Grodzinski, I remembered that his name ended with a vowel, but it wasn’t Italian. So I screwed up my courage and I asked Mr. Grodzinski, “Mr. Grodzinski, what are you?” And Mr. Grodzinski looked at me with his stern face and his big black moustache, and he said to me that his family had originally come from Ireland and that his family name was originally O’Grodzinski, and that when they arrived here in Canada, they had dropped the “O” and changed their name simply to Grodzinski. And I thought about that, and I knew Italian families who had come here and changed the spelling of their name to make it easier or they had anglicized their name to make it sound perhaps less Italian. The story that Mr. Grodzinski told me seemed perfectly reasonable, rational and believable, and I believed it.

I believed it until one day I talked to my friend Alex Augustyniak. Alex knew I was Italian. We were in the same grade, and we went to Anderdon Public School. I knew Alex was Polish, and I knew there were lots of Italians at Anderdon Public School, but I didn’t know any other Polish kids. So I asked Alex, “Alex, are there any other Polish people here at Anderdon Public School?” Alex said, “Yes, Mr. Grodzinski,” and I thought about that.

Madam Speaker, I learned three important things that day. First of all, I learned that, in fact, Grodzinski is not an Irish name; it is actually a Polish name. The second thing I learned was that although Mr. Grodzinski had a very stern exterior with a big black moustache, underneath that, he had a very good sense of humour. And the third thing I learned was an even increased respect for people in the skilled trades.

As I was saying, in my riding of Essex there is a huge demand for skilled trades. We have a demand in my riding for skilled trades in just about every sector. We have a demand for skilled trades in the agricultural sector, in the construction sector, in the automotive sector—there is no sector where we don’t need more skilled tradespeople. We need them in every industry in Essex county.

So Madam Speaker, I’m going to thank the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development again for this excellent bill, which I believe is going to help fulfill the need for skilled tradespeople in Essex county and put young people in grade 11 on the path to a great career—a meaningful career where they’re going to have a great standard of living. With this legislation, we’re going to start filling not only the needs of Essex county but also the needs of all the province of Ontario, and it will be my pleasure to vote in favour of it and hope that it will pass.

Questions?

I want to return to something that the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore said. He gave a very poignant story about his family’s experience with waiting for 12 years to actually get something from WSIB that they deserved to get. But he suggested that things are better, and in fact, things are quite a bit worse than they were at that time and people wait for years with no income supports whatsoever.

So there are a couple of things I want to raise. I worry a lot about the number of young people who are going to move into the skilled trades. I think it’s a great idea, but what’s going to be there when they are injured? The WSIB is not there for people.

I also want to point out that WSIB—speaking of getting worse and worse—really stole money from injured workers by refusing to give the correct amount for the cost-of-living allowance. The result is that the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups has had to take them to court to try and get money that is owed to them.

But I want to ask the member—thank you for your journey down memory lane. I’ve wondered if I need to say, “Oh, I’m Italian too.” But I’m wondering if you have read the Platform for Change, which is put together by the Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers’ Support Group. It’s a brilliant document.

The member hails from a beautiful part of Ontario, but there’s a lot of need to focus on safer workplaces and supports for migrant workers in his neck of the woods. So when we look at some of the changes made in schedule 1 to this bill, the minister has made some announcements, but beyond the 1-800 number promoted by the minister, I’d like to ask, is the Minister of Labour expecting exploited migrant workers to call in a complaint? How is this information going to be made available to them? Is it going to be in multiple languages? Are these exploited workers going to be further penalized by losing their right to remain? Will many be deported? We have questions about the announcement, and of course, there’s not any substance in this bill that we can draw from.

So I guess there’s a missed opportunity of committing to more workplace inspections, where they live on site, ensuring that migrant workers are paid at the same rates as other workers, protections from reporting conditions or accessing WSIB without prejudice. I have lots of questions; I’m excited to hear the member’s answer.

I listened intently to the speech from the member opposite. As he was talking about some of the stuff in the skilled trades, it made me think back to just last week. I had a presentation from some university students who actually said that we should stop investing in skilled trades and invest more money in the humanities, because we are going to see all of those skilled trades replaced by artificial intelligence. I was a little bit confused by their comments at first, but I understand that usually university students think in terms of what they’re taking for courses.

I’d like the member from Essex to expand a little bit on how the skilled trades are actually integral to our Critical Minerals Strategy and how as we develop more of these mines we’re actually going to need those construction workers, those skilled trades workers to build those mines and build the roads to it.

The member from Peterborough–Kawartha.