Thank you to the member from Spadina–Fort York for your wonderful presentation. I know you also come from an academic background, and I like your research and your numbers. You passionately talk for the marginalized and vulnerable people in our province.

Members of this Legislature have a rare opportunity to all stand together across party lines and support this piece of legislation preventing sexual misconduct. It’s not a partisan issue. So will the member support our government’s bill and encourage all of the members to do the same thing so we can send the clear message that MPPs in Ontario don’t and won’t stand for sexual misconduct in the post-secondary system?

Questions?

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I want to thank the member from Spadina–Fort York for his presentation. I listened very intently because I know he brings in a lot of experience and a lot of research for his presentations as well. One of the things he talked about was our amendments that we proposed during committee, Speaker. He talked about the different institutions and almost a decade now where people have come forward and talked about the different types of issues that are faced, and when we look at this measure—and I completely agree. We all have to come together and address this kind of issue, especially when it comes to reconciliation and when it comes to sexual abuse and how we address that.

But when I look at this bill, the first portion of this bill really looks at punitive measures but doesn’t really talk about: How do we prevent it? How do we address it? How do we help students? I wanted to see if he would elaborate a little bit more, in the careers that he’s had, to talk about some of those amendments and measures.

When you’re talking about education, I mean, it’s very clear: The statistics are clear that 96% of Canadians believe that there should be consent with sexual activity, but one in three don’t know what consent means. So that’s where the gap is. That’s where we really need education, and that’s why I’m really hoping the government will push through the consent awareness act that our colleagues have brought forward, because that is going to mandate education about what consent actually means across the province.

There are some good things in this bill, but this in itself is not going to protect students on campus, and that’s got to be our goal. There should be no holds barred on that, like we’ve got to do—well, we’ve got to do it within the Constitution and the charter, but we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we possibly can to make students safe on campus. This bill just doesn’t go far enough.

The other thing that people were asking for is comprehensive data and province-wide data on this issue, because the data is the key to understanding how broad, how widespread this problem is and then to address—creating real solutions for it.

The question back for me, especially reading the reports coming out of committee, was, why weren’t the recommendations from so many deputants incorporated into the legislation? This bill was an opportunity to address this. The last time that this issue came up in this Legislature was back in 2015-16, when the Liberal government was in. They provided money for cameras and lights and they mandated policies at campuses, but it just wasn’t enough and it didn’t stop the problem. My fear is that this bill is not going to stop the problem.

I’d like to thank my colleague the member from Spadina–Fort York for his presentation. He is approaching this bill with a lot of experience, both as a graduate student and as a professor in a university.

He talked a bit about the committee hearings, and I’m interested to know more about the stakeholder reactions—if he could share with this House, particularly what students have said need to go into the bill. What were some of the recommendations that came out of the report from Western University that could be added to this bill?

I thank the member for his comments, in particular given his role in the past in post-secondary education. So I appreciate that and was listening.

But I will say that given the timing of this bill, Bill 26 will happen right before the holiday break across this province. After the break, students will be returning home, ready to start a new semester in the new year, a semester in which students will either have the protections of Bill 26, if passed, or not. Members opposite can make sure this legislation passes. So I’d ask the member, will you join with us in supporting Bill 26 and giving students this protection they do not have today?

For too long, students have been silenced by a system that allowed perpetrators to hide behind non-disclosure agreements and continue to move around to each institution. Silence protects predators. Silence is complicity. This bill prevents perpetrators of sexual misconduct from continuing to work at their institution or popping up at other institutions. It allows institutions to integrate their own sexual violence policies alongside the Ontario Human Rights Code and Criminal Code interpretations of sexual solicitation and violence. Will the member opposite support our bill?