Ontario is saying we’re doing a great job.

Through three rounds of the Skills Development Fund to date, Ontario has invested $700 million through 388 projects. The result: 400,000 workers have taken the next step in their careers in in-demand industries. That’s what we’ve done.

We are supporting training specifically for women under-represented in skilled trades, Indigenous people, newcomers, visitors under the emergency travel measures, young people, workers with disabilities, people on social assistance, and people who have been in conflict with the law to get back on track for sustainable employment.

These are the ways we are working to make sure we’re delivering results for the people of Ontario.

Thanks to this government, because of the policies that were created, because of the investments and new employers that came to Ontario, we have more jobs today than we had in 2018.

So what we need to do if there’s a problem is, we need to find a solution.

Our government is transforming the way employment services are delivered. We’re making it easier for job seekers to access the training and support they need, especially those on social assistance. We’re doing this by creating a streamlined, one-stop shop for employment services. This means better access to job matching and career coaching. It also means that we’re working and making it easier for employers to find workers to grow their business. And the result? The result is, we have seen 63,200 people now on a path to a job, including over 23,000 who were on social assistance. That is how we turn the tables. It’s not just giving them a job or just giving them financial independence; it is empowering them. That is the focus of our government—to empower Ontarians so that we can come together and build a better Ontario.

Recently, the minister announced that we are bringing new employment services to Windsor-Sarnia, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Barrie, Durham and the Ottawa region. This includes introducing service system managers—organizations that will design, plan and deliver employment programs in these local areas.

Madam Speaker, I talked about SDF. Our government is also investing $224 million in a new capital stream of the Skills Development Fund, which will provide eligible applicants, including unions, with funding to update or convert their existing facilities into training centres. I always talk about this—simply put, it is common sense. Jobs need people, and people need jobs. What we need to do is to bring them together, help them, upskill them, give them the tools required, and with those, we can help them to get a job. When people get a job, they contribute to society, and employers thrive. But we can’t do it alone—unless we work with everyone.

Immigration is another focus area for the government. While Express Entry is the flagship federal program to immigrate to Canada, the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program has been proactively responding to the skills shortages in the target areas. Yet, relative to the population, Ontario can select fewer economic immigrants than any other province; for example, we were only allowed to have 4.5%, compared to Quebec’s 52%. Thanks to this minister, and thanks to each one of you, in fact, we advocated and we worked hard, and the results came—I talked about the problems and the solution and the result. That’s why the Premier and the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development has worked with the federal counterpart to land a better deal for Ontario. Thanks to those efforts, Ontario now gets to double its OINP allocation to 18,000 by 2025—starting from 9,000, to 18,000. This historic increase will help us fill jobs in the skilled trades, technology and health care. In other words, we’ll be able to serve our Ontarians better.

As we invite more people to call Ontario home, we are also creating an enabling environment to help them realize their dreams. In 2020, immigrants made up about 33% of Ontario’s workforce. The vast majority, however, are not working in the fields in which they are educated—75% of internationally educated immigrants are not working in their field. If these immigrants are able to work in the field in which they are educated, it would mean collecting a bigger paycheque; it would mean increased revenue for the employer; it would mean higher contribution to our province and the local economy. So it’s a win-win situation. When we help immigrants get to their dreams faster, we all win. That is why we are making it easier for immigrants to settle and find jobs in their field.

Ontario was the first province in Canada to prohibit regulated professions from requiring internationally trained persons to have Canadian work as a qualification for registration. To further help them work faster, we are making additional changes, through Working for Workers, 2023, to the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act. The proposed changes in Working for Workers, 2023, will include introducing a new duty for regulated professions to consult with their oversight ministries and to make sure that they’re considering Ontario’s labour market needs—again, a problem followed by a solution. That is what this bill is doing.

We are also going an extra mile in supporting our skilled trades. There are roughly 1.2 million people working in skilled trades as of right now. But at the same time, in 2021 nearly one in three journeypersons with a certificate of qualification in Ontario was aged 55 or older. In the construction sector alone, 72,000 new workers are needed by 2027. We talk about building 1.5 million homes. We talk about having subways. We want to have highways. We want to have 86,000 child care centres. We want to have these places—long-term care for our seniors—but all those would need skilled trades, all those would need more labour.

That’s why we want to make sure, to help deliver the province’s infrastructure plan, we are here to help Ontario.

That is why we introduced Ontario’s Skilled Trades Strategy, investing nearly $1 billion to make it easier than ever to learn a trade, by breaking the stigma and attracting youth, by simplifying the system, and by encouraging employer participation.

We’re doing this by our government launching our first annual trades career fairs, where high school students get to learn about life-changing career opportunities, try trades, and hear directly from the tradespeople.

Under the leadership of Premier Ford, working together, we are seeing the progress—again, a problem followed by a solution and seeing the result of it. As of February 2023, apprenticeship registrations are up by 27% in Ontario compared to last year. And what’s most important—we talk about having more women in construction, in the trades. It’s not just words; we’re delivering it. How? Registrations for women in Ontario are up by 24%. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who has registered. These are fantastic opportunities—the chance to make a six-figure salary, have a job for life, and be proud of what you build.

Starting with students entering grade 9 in September 2024, all students will now be required to earn a grade 9 or 10 technological education credit as part of their Ontario secondary school diploma. The new graduation requirement will introduce Ontario students to at least one technological education course that would guide them to a future career in the highly skilled workforce, including the skilled trades. In addition, our government is also allowing students in grade 11 to transition to a full-time skilled trades apprenticeship program. Upon receiving your certificate of apprenticeship, you can apply for your Ontario secondary school diploma as a mature student.

Madam Speaker, it’s as simple as this: When we talk about having more people in the skilled trades, we need to encourage, we need to make our students—and more than students, I think; we need to make our parents aware of all the opportunities we have in the skilled trades. Think about if we didn’t have people from the skilled trades. Look at this beautiful building—we would not have anything which we have here. So it is important for us to work with the parents and make them aware that through the skilled trades, we’re able to achieve a better Ontario.

We will not stop here. We will also talk to the education stakeholders, and we’ll push forward to get more workers that we need to build a stronger Ontario.

Under the leadership of Premier Ford, we are working tirelessly to inform job seekers of the unlimited opportunities available here in Ontario. Together, we are building a stronger Ontario that leaves no one behind.

The minister briefly talked about the support that we’re getting from our staff. I usually think about an analogy: When you talk about the minister or I—we’re basically like a screen, but there is a big processor behind that screen, and that processor is no one but our wonderful staff.

I want to take a moment to thank my constituency staff and the ministry staff for everything they do for us, so that we can deliver to the province of Ontario.

Madam Speaker, to conclude, this bill is very simple. We heard from the stakeholders, but rather than just listening to what they said, the minister took time, effort and made sure what they told us, as a problem—when we worked with them, consulted them, to provide us a solution, by working with them, we are able to bring the legislation that will give us the results.

Through this bill, we are making sure—for military service, we’re proposing to reduce the service requirement from three months to two months. We are also expanding the reason for taking leave to include physical or mental treatment.

We are expanding cancer coverage for firefighters.

We are making sure we are enhancing fines to protect workers—making sure that, through the Occupational Health and Safety Act, we are increasing the fine from $1.5 million to $2 million. In fact, those employers convicted of taking possession or retaining a foreign national’s passport or work permit—we’re enhancing the fines for them.

We’re making sure we have clean washrooms on construction sites.

We want to make sure that we have our women’s workforce—giving them the support they need by providing that large construction sites with over five washrooms at least have one washroom exclusively for female workers.

We’re providing remote work protection.

We’re preparing students for skilled trades jobs.

We’re helping newcomers start their careers and expanding employment services.

This is a bill which in turn is going to build on our narrative of building a stronger Ontario.

I am going to support this bill, and I’m looking forward to each and every member of our caucus supporting this bill.

I thank the member for that question, and I thank the member for recognizing the awesome career development that will take place as a result of the progress made by the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development towards getting young people into the skilled trades at an early age. Getting them into the trades at an early age is going to benefit them, because it’s going to increase their earning potential massively, and it’s going to get those people into the skilled trades so that we can use their talents to build this province into a greater and better province. And of course, we have a robust WSIB system that’s already in place, and people who are injured can have access to that system. That’s what it’s there for.

With respect to his question, skilled trades—I talked about Essex county, but it could apply to the mining industry. We have a mine in my area. It’s called the Windsor Salt mine, and just about everybody in that salt mine has a skilled trade. Think about it: You would need maintenance workers, heavy equipment operators, people who know how to operate a drill, people who know how to read the instruments. So I thank the member for that question, and it was right on point.

Those people have access to proper language services not only in Ontario but also through the consulate situated in Leamington.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, we had a huge wave of migrants entering Canada and they went into the construction industries—many of them were Italian—and those skills were needed desperately. The way this bill assists in our era is it will recognize skills training that people from outside of Canada have received. They’ve brought those skills here, and now those skills are going to be properly recognized or given credit here in Ontario so they can get right into the industry and do the skilled jobs that they’re supposed to do so that we can use those skills to build Ontario, just like they did in the 1950s and 1960s with infrastructure and highways and schools and other great things.

Report continues in volume B.