This government can’t be trusted to manage the economy. There’s a shortage of MTO ferry crews, service is being disrupted, and yet, with Bill 124, this government has suppressed salaries below prevailing wages, so, naturally, ferries are losing workers.

I’ll start with paramedic service on Wolfe Island, which was recently cut again in favour of paramedic crews based on the mainland. Residents were told that adding the new, second ferry could compensate during emergencies. Now, not only has the new ferry been tied up for a year awaiting crew and not only has the current service been disrupted by the lack of crew, now MTO is saying, not surprisingly, that they have to break their promise of running the new ferry alongside the old ferry because—wait for it—there’s a lack of crew.

What’s making the staffing shortage worse? This government has been suppressing wages with Bill 124. Workers have been sucked away to the private sector. This government has been hiring temporary crew from agencies to fill permanent positions and incurring much higher costs. Regular salaries are $23 an hour for deckhands, $38 an hour for a captain. My order paper question revealed that the Conservatives are paying $86 an hour for temporary workers. That’s salaries, expenses and also agency profits.

This is the exact same pattern we’ve seen with nurses in Ontario. It’s a pattern of economic mismanagement we cannot afford.