I appreciate that question, and it’s interesting. I also met with firefighters when they came here and had their legislative day. What they said to me was exactly what we are doing, that they needed these protections for their members.

Again, I’ve never seen a government work so quickly that the ask comes in when I had my last meeting with them after the election, and we’re announcing that change to legislation today to include those types of cancers in presumptive legislation.

It’s interesting how those things are all tied together, emotional trauma and physical trauma. It’s amazing how an awareness day—you can think, “Oh, what’s an awareness day?” But the conversations I’ve had with first responders about the experience they have had through their trauma—it’s absolutely amazing how having that awareness day has led to that.

It’s the same thing here. We need to acknowledge and we need to do something about it. Providing the supports for firefighters in adding these two types of cancers to presumptive legislation just speaks to how much our government cares for first responders.

I’m looking forward to Working for Workers 4 and to see what else we can do to support workers in the province of Ontario. I appreciate those, and I very much look forward to his support when we pass this legislation.

As far as mass termination goes, the reality is that we’ve seen the largest shift of work to remote work in history. In the fourth quarter of 2022, about 2.2 million people in Ontario worked from home; about 1.4 million are doing so on an exclusive basis and another 800,000 were doing so on a hybrid basis. To respond to this increase in remote work and a changing economy, we are introducing legislation that puts workers first. We are updating how a workplace is defined in Ontario’s labour laws to extend these protections to those who work from home. Furthermore, our government is also proposing changes that would require employers to provide new hires with basic information in writing about their job, such as pay, work locations and hours of work, even before their first shift.

But what’s really fascinating to me is that I haven’t really heard any negative parts about this legislation at all yet from the opposition. I guess my question back to them will be: We appreciate your ideas. We look forward to having another piece of legislation in Working for Workers 4. And will you be voting in favour of this legislation and supporting workers in the province of Ontario?

That’s why it’s so exciting to see that, starting this fall, students in grade 11 can transition to a full-time skilled trades apprenticeship program and earn their Ontario secondary school diploma at the same time. They don’t need to give up on their OSSD in order to pursue the dream of a trade. In fact, in the new high school that we announced in St. George, I know, working with the school boards, we hope to be graduating students who can challenge their first exam in the trade of their choice. I’m very excited about that.