I am pleased to build on Minister Dunlop’s remarks about the proposed legislative changes. These changes will help set students up for success throughout their post-secondary education and as they transition into rewarding careers.

As a government, our priority is to support Ontario students and help them access high-quality education—education that will help them develop the knowledge and skills they need to get good-paying jobs and support the growth of our economy.

In order for students to flourish in post-secondary education and beyond, we first need to provide them with a solid foundation that fosters success. All students in Ontario deserve to learn in a healthy, safe and respectful environment—an environment where they don’t have to worry about discrimination or harassment while accessing an education.

The safety and well-being of students on campuses across Ontario is a critical responsibility of our colleges, universities and private career colleges—and on our part, our government will continue to take action to support institutions in their efforts.

That’s why today I’m proud to show my support for the two initiatives outlined in Bill 26, the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act, 2022.

As Minister Dunlop explained, the first set of proposed amendments in the bill introduce changes that demonstrate our zero tolerance stance for sexual assault, harassment and any other form of sexual misconduct in our post-secondary communities. This legislation seeks to help publicly assisted colleges and universities and private career colleges to better address faculty and staff sexual misconduct against students. This includes equipping institutions with stronger tools to address these instances should they occur, unfortunately. Institutions would also be required to have employee sexual misconduct policies that set out rules for behaviour between employees and students and set out examples of disciplinary measures for employees who break these rules.

Finally, the proposed changes would prevent the use of non-disclosure agreements, which can sometimes be used to hide the prior wrongdoing of an employee when they leave one institution for another.

As Minister Dunlop mentioned, after considering the bill in more detail and listening to feedback we received, we are strengthening the language in the bill to protect students even more by using the term “sexual misconduct” instead of “sexual abuse” to refer to both physical and non-physical acts, and making it clear that the use of NDAs, or non-disclosure agreements, is unacceptable unless the student requests it.

As someone who led hiring and recruitment at Sheridan College for the past 13 years, I can tell you first-hand about the level of responsibility institutions feel to get it right. No one should have to worry about sexual misconduct on- or off-campus, especially not students. Our post-secondary institutions go to extensive lengths to attract and retain the best talent for our students. Candidates are led through a rigorous recruitment process and vetted extensively.

Non-disclosure agreements put staff, students and visitors in harm’s way when prior wrongdoing remains a secret.

We need to ensure a safe environment for post-secondary learners, fostering feelings of safety and personal comfort in which to learn, live, work and grow. Not only do we want to surround our students with educators who are inspiring and engaging; we also want to ensure these educators are unfailingly professional.

I’d like to reiterate Minister Dunlop’s statement that in most instances, the faculty and staff at our post-secondary institutions are doing an exceptional job and are demonstrating incomparable behaviour. Unfortunately, there are a few cases where this cannot be said, and so our government will not hesitate to step in.

The second set of amendments in the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act, 2022, would change the name of Ryerson University to Toronto Metropolitan University. As Minister Dunlop mentioned, the university took steps towards making this name change because of concerns with the legacy of Egerton Ryerson and his role in the creation of Canada’s residential school system. The university came forward earlier this year to request that the government make Toronto Metropolitan University the official legal name of the institution. We are pleased to support this step in the university’s continued journey—a journey that better aligns the university’s name with its current values. The university’s renaming is one of many steps the university is taking to move beyond the legacy of Egerton Ryerson and his role in the design of Canada’s residential school system. I would like to congratulate the university on their decision to rename, on the extensive community consultation they have completed in order to arrive at this decision, and on the resulting report of its task force. I look forward to seeing how the university further acts on the recommendations of its task force to move towards greater inclusion and equity for Indigenous learners.

For many years, I’ve been a committed mentor and coach for students, working with high school, college and university learners to help them overcome the challenges they face when entering the workforce. As someone who is passionate about post-secondary education and supporting students on their career journeys, I can so clearly see how these proposed legislative amendments would be critical to bolstering student success. Ultimately, it all comes down to supporting student access to post-secondary education and ensuring a safe, inclusive learning environment once they get there. I’m proud to say that our government has taken extensive action over the past few years to make this happen.

But while a relatively high number of Ontarians participate in post-secondary education overall, there are still groups that, for various reasons, are under-represented at colleges, universities and Indigenous institutes. That’s truly a shame, because this province needs representation from all individuals who call Ontario home. Their varying perspectives and ideas make us undoubtedly stronger.

For example, low-income students have a high school dropout rate of 30% to 50%, and are less likely to enter a post-secondary education and to succeed once they arrive. As you can imagine, family income is an especially strong predictor for attending university. As such, young people from high-income families are two to three times more likely to go to university than students from low-income families.

Youth in extended care, often referred to as crown wards, face similar challenges in accessing post-secondary education, with a 56% chance of dropping out of high school. It goes without saying that this can often lead to unemployment and underemployment.

And there are students whose parents did not attend post-secondary education. It can be a great honour and also a lot of pressure to be the first in your family to pursue higher education. Unfortunately, only 56% of first-generation individuals—that’s the term we use to describe individuals who are the first in their family to pursue post-secondary education—have a post-secondary credential. That number jumps to 89% for those whose parents both have a degree, a diploma or some other credential. Speaker, 56% compared to 89%—that’s a significant gap.

Students with disabilities face their own unique set of challenges accessing and succeeding in post-secondary education. In 2021-22, over 96,000 post-secondary students were registered with offices for students with disabilities at publicly assisted colleges and universities, and that number has been on the rise for years.

Finally, I’ll note that in 2019, 37% of Ontarians reported having a university degree, but only 16% of off-reserve Indigenous individuals did.

I realize these stats can paint a stark picture of inequity in our province and in Ontario’s post-secondary sector, but it’s important we acknowledge the many factors at play in the context of the important legislation being discussed today.

I’m proud to say that our government has taken definitive action to better support the inclusion, access and success of more students at post-secondary institutions across Ontario. For example, in March of last year, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities engaged with the Premier’s Council on Equality of Opportunity. The council is an advisory group that champions community voices and provides advice to the government on how to help young people succeed in Ontario’s changing economy. The goal of engaging the council was to help seek feedback from stakeholders, advocates and students themselves on how the government can better respond to accessibility challenges faced by minority groups at colleges and universities. We coordinated consultations with different under-represented groups in the post-secondary sector, including those I mentioned earlier. We wanted to hear directly from individuals regarding the barriers they experienced accessing higher education and any challenges they had once they got there. That insight is helping our government shape a better, more inclusive post-secondary system.

I’m proud to say that we have many programs in place that are making a very tangible difference in this area. For example, we provide nearly $10 million annually to Pathways to Education, a not-for-profit organization that provides academic, financial, social and one-on-one supports to Ontarians in certain low-income communities in the province. Pathways to Education helps these youth graduate from high school and successfully transition to post-secondary education. This program supported more than 3,000 students in Ontario last year. That’s 3,000 students who suddenly had the door of higher education opened to them; 3,000 more students who will gain the skills they need to graduate, get a meaningful, well-paying job and help drive Ontario’s economy forward. I know Minister Dunlop had the pleasure of attending the Pathways to Education grad ball a few weeks ago. The event is always a wonderful opportunity to see the very real difference this program can make to so many young people.

Our government also provides more than $11 million annually to support Ontario Postsecondary Access and Inclusion Programs at colleges and universities. This funding helps institutions to provide outreach, transition and retention programs to students who, without supports and interventions, would not otherwise access post-secondary education. It is designed to help students see the value of higher education, see themselves in post-secondary, and help them make the transition and succeed once there. This program had about 273,000 interactions with students in the 2020-21 academic year. That’s more than a quarter of a million touchpoints with students to help them in their post-secondary journey.

We also support something called Ontario Education Championship Teams. As I mentioned earlier, it can be challenging and overwhelming for a first-generation post-secondary student to pursue higher education. This is also true for youth in extended care. Ontario Education Championship Teams help remove informational and administrative barriers for those students so they can transition to post-secondary education and access training and employment. The 21 teams are made up of children’s aid societies, school boards, post-secondary education institutions and employment services. They are doing truly great work. Each year, this important program supports an average of 6,000 students. Again, that’s 6,000 students who may not have thought a post-secondary education was even a possibility for them.

Finally, in the context of today’s proposed amendments to help Toronto Metropolitan University move beyond the legacy of the Indian residential school system, I would like to highlight the work we are doing to support more Indigenous learners with their post-secondary goals. As a government, we are supporting both changes at the local level, such as Toronto Metropolitan University’s name change, and taking concrete steps towards building a post-secondary system that embraces accessibility and equality and promotes success for Indigenous learners and all students.

We know there is an attainment gap in post-secondary education between Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners. Approximately 53% of Indigenous people aged 25 to 64 hold a post-secondary credential, compared to 65% of the non-Indigenous population. There is widespread agreement by Indigenous leaders, communities and education professionals that investing in culturally responsive post-secondary education opportunities for Indigenous learners will have tremendous benefits and reduce this gap.

To this end, colleges and universities across Ontario are committed to improving Indigenous learners’ access, inclusion and participation in post-secondary education. They have prioritized many activities, some in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, including hiring and retaining more Indigenous faculty and staff; increasing recruitment, bursaries and scholarships for Indigenous learners; including more Indigenous content in courses; offering new courses, programs and degrees specializing in Indigenous subject matter; and increasing partnerships with local Indigenous communities.

Our government supports colleges and universities in providing culturally appropriate services and student supports to Indigenous learners through the Indigenous student success fund. Through this fund, our government invests $18.2 million annually to fund programs and services such as Indigenous counsellors; post-secondary education experience camps; elders-in-residence; academic supports; access to Indigenous-focused mentoring, counselling and advising services; partnership development; and student and community outreach activities. To further ensure that universities and colleges include culturally appropriate services, institutions that receive the grant are required to maintain an Indigenous education council comprised of Indigenous community members. The council provides advice and input on programs and services. To respond to community needs, colleges and universities also offer Indigenous study programs such as social work, teaching, early childhood education, and language programs.

In addition to promoting inclusion for Indigenous learners at colleges and universities, Ontario supports Indigenous institutes in providing post-secondary education and training for nearly 1,500 Indigenous learners. Indigenous institutes are an important pillar of our post-secondary education sector. That’s why, five years ago, Ontario took a historic step to formally recognize their important role in delivering post-secondary education in the province. That is when the Indigenous Institutes Act, 2017, came into force. The act allows Indigenous institutes in Ontario that have been independently quality-assured through the Indigenous Advanced Education and Skills Council to offer independently delivered post-secondary education credentials.

Nine Indigenous institutes in the province are currently part of the publicly assisted post-secondary education system. Not only do they provide education and training for thousands of Indigenous learners; they offer programming in a culturally holistic and safe learning environment—an environment where Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing are woven into all aspects of the learner experience. Several institutes serve communities in northern, rural and very remote parts of the province. They provide critical access to learners who might not otherwise participate in post-secondary education and training.

Our government is committed to supporting Indigenous institutes in providing learners in all parts of the province with access to high-quality education and training, so that Indigenous institutes continue to flourish and respond to community demands and the needs of the local labour market. That’s why our government continues to invest in Indigenous institutes across Ontario. In 2021-22, Ontario invested $24.8 million in the Indigenous Institutes Operating Grant, and, in budget 2022, committed an additional $4.5 million over the next three years, for a total of $26.3 million in 2022-23.

There is no greater investment than in the talent and skills of the next generation.

There has never been a more rewarding time to contribute to Ontario’s health care workforce. To help meet the unprecedented health care challenges brought into sharp focus throughout the pandemic, our government is investing $34 million over four years to increase enrolment in nursing and in personal support worker programs at six Indigenous institutes. This funding will help participating Indigenous institutes expand existing programs or create new ones to support the training of approximately 340 practical nurses, 60 registered nurses and 400 personal support workers over four years. To assist these students with completing their studies, Ontario is providing subsidies for tuition, textbooks, child care and costs related to clinical education. Ultimately, we want to make it easier for learners to pursue training as a nurse or a PSW. Overall, this increase in skilled nurses and PSWs will make a significant difference in supporting our health care system and will help Indigenous learners pursue rewarding careers.

In addition to funding for personal support worker and nursing programs, Ontario promotes a diversity of programs that meet the economic, health and social needs of Indigenous communities. Our government is dedicated to creating the conditions that make it easier for Indigenous learners to access a high-quality education. This includes all aspects of a student’s experience, from the learning environment to mental health supports to financial assistance.

To provide Indigenous students, faculty and staff with access to modern and safe learning environments, through budget 2022, our government is investing $4.5 million over three years to support the maintenance of Indigenous institute facilities.

We have also taken decisive action to provide flexible and increased access to mental health supports for Indigenous students. In 2022-23, Ontario is investing $950,000 in the Indigenous Institutes Mental Health Grant. This funding will continue to support Indigenous institutes in offering new or increased access to mental health, wellness, and trauma-related programs, services and supports, primarily for learners at Indigenous institutes. Funding may also be used to provide mental health, wellness, and trauma training for their staff and faculty.

To make it easier for Indigenous people to access a culturally supportive and high-quality post-secondary education, we are also removing financial barriers for Indigenous learners. Our government opened the door to OSAP eligibility for Indigenous institutes as of the 2020-21 academic year. In addition, Ontario offers a range of grants and loans through OSAP to support the unique needs and economic circumstances of Indigenous learners. There were over 5,700 Indigenous learners who received OSAP for the 2021-22 academic year, totalling approximately $78 million in federal and provincial grants and loans across all post-secondary institutions. These supports include the Ontario Indigenous Travel Grant, which addresses the high cost of travelling to a post-secondary school for Indigenous students living in remote First Nations communities.

The real winners are Ontario’s students and communities, who benefit from the incredible work being done at our institutions across the province.

As I mentioned earlier, most faculty on campus are doing a remarkable job of supporting student success. We see this in some of the examples that I’ve shared today. But we need to do more to set students up for success so that they can achieve such milestones. We need to remove barriers to education and provide students with the kind of safe, encouraging, respectful environment where they can focus on what is most important.

Our government is ready to take bold, decisive action in order to do what’s best for Ontarians.

As someone who has worked in the sector for many years, I know that if students don’t feel safe or have a sense of belonging, this will impact their success. That’s why I’m so pleased to see that the measures we are proposing today are truly focused on what matters: the students.

I thank both the minister and the parliamentary assistant to the minister for their comments this morning. This is a bill that I think we can all support. The end goal is really good.

There is one part of the bill that we have tried to amend, and that has to do with education. Does the parliamentary assistant believe that if we were to make education on sexual harassment for everybody attending college and university mandatory, that, over the years, as more and more students become educated on this topic, it would have a long-term effect on decreasing the amount of sexual harassment we see not only in colleges and universities but throughout our society?

I would like to say that I think this is a positive step forward.

The member spoke about quite a few other things during her talk, and I’d like to address one of them. Students, during COVID, received increased grants from the federal government through OSAP; however, if they were on ODSP—in other words, they were struggling to have enough money to go to university, and they had a disability—their money was clawed back. So students who didn’t have a disability were able to keep the entire amount of the grant, but students with a disability actually had to give some of that money back. I’m wondering if the member is able to speak to that at all, because it did put students with a disability at a further disadvantage.

Bill 26 proposes changes that, quite frankly, are long overdue. Protecting students at colleges and universities is so important, and I’m so glad to see this government making these changes. I thank the minister and the PA for the work they’ve done on this. Can the member please outline how these measures will specifically support students and survivors of sexual misconduct?

Thank you to the member across for your question.

Our government is committed to ensuring students have access to a secure and safe learning environment. That’s why we have taken these steps to strengthen supports for students reporting sexual violence or harassment. Colleges and universities are each autonomous organizations and have their own policies and processes in place regarding sexual violence codes of conduct on campus. This legislation specifically addresses sexual misconduct of staff and faculty towards students.

Last March, our government imposed regulations designed around empowering students who are survivors or have knowledge of an instance of sexual violence. One of the most important changes we put in place was that if someone comes forward with information about an act of sexual violence, they are granted certain exceptions from campus policies; the biggest of these is the school’s drug and alcohol policies. While we don’t want to encourage any illegal or excessive use of drugs or alcohol, students should not be reluctant to come forward with information because they’re concerned for their academic success or standing out of fear of being punished for doing so. Another addition that we’re building on is the removal of unnecessary questions regarding themes such as the sexual history of the student. When it comes to matters of consent, all that matters is whether or not someone has provided it in the moment. But most importantly, these regulations require all schools to have a sexual violence policy.

The bill in front of us today talks about non-disclosure agreements, sexual misconduct, and the renaming of Toronto Metropolitan University.

With respect to your question around OSAP, I’ll share that supporting post-secondary education is one of the best investments this government has made for students in the future. That’s why we’re getting it done for students in their greatest time of need. We’ve expanded OSAP to be eligible for students enrolled in Indigenous institutes. We’ve expanded OSAP to cover microcredentials, so that learners have more options on how to expand their education. And in 2020-21, we invested $4.7 billion in direct student aid to 400,000 students.

Put simply, Bill 26, if passed, will put an end to the secrecy around faculty-student sexual violence on campus and off-campus. As we have seen in reports in recent years, use of non-disclosure agreements to prevent students from seeking legal recourse against the offender and the ability for faculty and staff to move from one school to another without facing any punishment or outright dismissal is far too common in post-secondary education. If passed, Bill 26 would give institutions greater power to discipline and dismiss offenders and empower students to come forward with evidence of sexual violence.

Once again, Bill 26 speaks to sexual misconduct of staff and faculty toward students.

In terms of prevention, colleges and universities are autonomous institutions and have their own policies and procedures in place around codes of conduct for students and codes of conduct for employees. It may be something that the government considers, moving forward, in the form of a directive. We do meet with our stakeholders in colleges and universities regularly to talk about best practices in this and other areas, and we are looking to share those practices with all other post-secondary institutions.

Madam Speaker, we have some of the best faculty and staff at our colleges and universities, and in no way is Bill 26 an attack on our faculty and staff or a way to limit their rights. In fact, many of the faculty and staff see this as keeping them safe as employees, as well as keeping students safe.

Ontario has some of the best faculty and staff in the world working at college and university campuses across the province.

Interjections.

In fact, in many cases, these institutions are not just home to some of the best and brightest, but they’re also some of the largest employers in our communities.

We know Bill 26 has a strong focus on faculty-on-student sexual violence, but we have heard from the minister and others that this legislation is a welcome addition to the sector.

Can the member elaborate on how Bill 26 is not just good for students, but also for members of the faculty and staff as well?

I am very delighted to introduce Paul Persaud and Samuel Allicock, two wonderful grade 10 students from Woburn Collegiate Institute who are visiting Queen’s Park to discuss student safety at schools. We’ve had some really tragic incidents of violence at Scarborough schools.

I’m also delighted to introduce the parents and family of our page captain from University–Rosedale, Joel Bozikovic. We have Liv Mendelsohn, Susan Cohen and Alex Bozikovic in the House today. Please welcome them.

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House today to address Bill 26, the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act. I have to say, Speaker, that when this bill was first tabled, I was feeling optimistic, as someone who used to work in this sector specifically on the issue of sexual violence and harassment in post-secondary, that we had a real opportunity to make progress for students, faculty, staff and other members of our campus communities across Ontario.

The government’s legislative agenda this fall has not been a great source of hope and optimism, as the government seems to be setting fires wherever it goes, while somehow simultaneously ignoring the chaos of our health care system, but I thought this bill showed some promise. Not all the pieces were there yet, and I and many of my colleagues highlighted the areas where we hoped the government would do better during debate at second reading. The government was so steadfast during its speeches that they wanted to protect students and so adamant that this was an important issue that I thought surely the government would come to committee in good faith; listen to the feedback of students, faculty, staff, administrators and experts on gender-based violence; and make the necessary changes to make this a good bill, one that actually makes the changes required to protect students and other members of the post-secondary community.

Instead, what we saw was a situation where every single stakeholder brought forward changes they wanted to see to the bill, and the government refused to make almost every single change requested. That included student leaders pleading with the government in committee and in a press conference last week to do better. The government has not listened to these student leaders.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, Speaker, because this is a pattern we have seen from this government. They refuse to consult with the people who are affected by their legislation, like we saw with Bill 7, which forces seniors and people with disabilities to move into long-term-care homes against their will, and yet the government couldn’t be bothered to speak with a single seniors’ organization or disability organization, or even hold a committee hearing on the subject; or Bill 28, which trampled all over the rights of low-paid female workers, forcing them out of our education system, thereby ensuring that our kids wouldn’t get the fundamental supports they need and deserve. The government rammed that one through, too, without talking to a single worker, parent, education expert, labour lawyer or constitutional expert. Maybe if they had, they wouldn’t have had to repeal the bill the following week because they never would have proceeded with such excessively damaging legislation if they had bothered to talk to Ontarians first.

We’ve also seen the government conduct the barest sketch of a consultation they could possibly get away with calling a consultation—like on Bill 23, where the government refused to hold hearings across the province because apparently cities like Ottawa are exactly like Toronto, or maybe because they still haven’t figured out that Ottawa is in Ontario.

They refused to hear from the Association of Ontario Municipalities on a bill that fundamentally affects municipalities, their funding and their democratic structures. They shut down committee hearings. They refused to hear from former mayors like John Sewell. They ignored the feedback of former and current mayors and city councillors in Ottawa and Toronto.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the same pattern repeated here. The minister claimed the bill was based on consultations, but all the stakeholders that came before us said the bill didn’t do enough, didn’t go far enough and didn’t do it well enough. All of them asked for amendments. I guess we should be grateful that the government condescended to make a few changes to the bill, but I’m not feeling grateful because this is such a lost opportunity—a lost opportunity to seriously address this issue, to make progress for students, faculty and staff, and everyone who is affected by the issue of sexual violence and harassment.

How long will it be now before we actually see the trauma-informed, survivor-centric, comprehensive and prevention-focused approach to sexual violence and harassment that students, faculty, staff, administrators and experts on gender-based violence are demanding? Is the government going to go back to the drawing board to create a new bill to address all of the concerns and issues that we heard, delaying change for months? Or are they going to continue to ignore the pleas of students, faculty, staff, administrators and gender-based violence experts, refusing to address this issue again for the rest of their term, making everyone wait years for change?

It makes me a little sick to my stomach to think that we might need to wait years to get this issue properly addressed, because we are talking about something so serious, something that has such a profound effect on people’s lives.

We heard testimony from survivors like Micah Kalisch about how life-changing the experience of sexual violence or harassment can be. We know that it can cause serious mental, emotional and physical health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and dissociation. It can create academic challenges and problems at work.

In response to the Statistics Canada Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population, students said that experiencing sexual violence or harassment made them feel more fearful. It affected how they moved around campus, making them choose different routes or avoid certain buildings, or only travel at certain times of the day.

One of the most disturbing elements of that survey was the revelation that 71% of post-secondary students in Canada have seen or experienced inappropriate sexual behaviours. That’s almost three in four students. Just imagine all the lives affected by this, the mental and physical health effects of this, the academic challenges created by this.

It is urgent that we get this right. People’s lives are depending on us. We have an obligation as legislators to try to get this right. I firmly believe that members opposite share that goal with us. I don’t think anyone in this House wants to see people’s lives derailed by sexual violence. I think we all want to see people protected against this kind of violence.

But that’s why I am genuinely baffled by this government’s refusal to work with students, to work with experts on sexual and gender-based violence, to work with faculty and staff unions, to work with administrations to get this right. When you want to get this right and yet you don’t listen—I don’t understand what motivates that. I don’t understand what members think they have gained by voting against amendments at committee simply because they were moved by another party, when they were amendments that came from students who were begging you to improve this bill.

Even before the bill came to the Legislature, I don’t understand why the government would have ignored all the good work that is being done in this sector and the recommendations that are being put forward, many of them consensus recommendations.

A coalition of 24 student organizations that included the Canadian Federation of Students, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, the College Student Alliance, the University of Ottawa Students’ Union, the University of Toronto Students’ Union and the Wilfrid Laurier student union released a comprehensive report in August called Our Campus, Our Safety that had 10 calls to action, including four addressed to provincial and territorial governments.

They called for:

—provincial standards for data collection on campuses, in collaboration with key stakeholders;

—a strengthened legislative and regulatory framework to address and prevent sexual violence that would include prevention education, minimum standards for sexual violence policies, mandatory review processes, mandatory inclusion of students in the development and review of policies, processes and education;

—committees to oversee these policies at each institution, with student representation;

—a provincial advisory committee on campus sexual violence, with paid student representation; and

—sustainable funding for community sexual assault centres and post-secondary sexual assault services.

None of these recommendations are included in this legislation. I asked the minister if she had read the report and she assured me she had. But she had no reason to give me as to why none of the recommendations put forward by our student leaders across the province are included in the bill.

We also had Courage to Act testify before committee last week, Speaker. This is a national project, funded by the federal government, which has brought together 3,500 stakeholders on this issue over the past three years and developed 82 different tools to support post-secondary institutions, students, investigators, unions and, really, all members of the campus community—all the groups that are responsible for dealing with and addressing the issue of sexual violence and harassment on campus to make sure that they are following the best practices based on evidence, experience and research. I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with Courage to Act as one of those 3,500 stakeholders, and so I can say without hesitation that they are doing really amazing work. Really, if you want to get the best understanding and the best advice about sexual violence and harassment in the post-secondary sector specifically, you want to start with Courage to Act. And yet I asked if they were consulted by the minister on the development of this bill and the answer was no. Why wouldn’t you want to start with recommendations being put forward by the experts on this, Speaker?

Similarly, Dr. Julie Macfarlane is running a campaign called Can’t Buy My Silence to eliminate the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual violence and harassment, based on her own experience at the University of Windsor. And yet, not only did the government not consult Ms. Macfarlane or other experts on the subject of NDAs, but we couldn’t even get them into committee to testify on this bill because the government wouldn’t allow for sufficient time for hearings for all the stakeholders who wanted to be heard.

I don’t understand why, if you want to get this right, you wouldn’t start by going to the experts in this field. I don’t understand why, if you didn’t go to the experts right at the start, you wouldn’t at least want to bring them into committee and hear from them there to make sure that you have the best possible bill in the end.

What is clear when you look at the recommendations of students, of Courage to Act, of organizations like Possibility Seeds and the YWCA, of gender-based violence experts, of unions like OCUFA and CUPE and OPSEU and OSSTF, is that what we need is a comprehensive approach to sexual violence and harassment that is survivor-centric and trauma-informed. These are words that are used a lot in this sector and that came up a lot during the committee hearings, so I just want to pause here to talk about why they are so important.

A survivor-centric approach puts the survivor of sexual violence at the centre, prioritizing their rights, their dignity, their safety and their well-being. Experiencing sexual violence and harassment can be incredibly disempowering, and if we are not careful to centre the survivor, the response can cause further harm and trauma, making someone feel even more disempowered, disrespected and wounded. Because people respond differently to traumatic incidents, what survivors want and need can vary. Being survivor-centric means building processes that, as much as possible, give the survivor agency and control. Even where they don’t hold decision-making power, it means checking in constantly with a survivor, making sure they are informed about the process, about timelines, about possible outcomes and impacts. It means making sure that supports and services are available for the survivor, regardless of what process they choose and what outcomes they want to see. This is really about ensuring that, first and foremost, we do not cause harm.

A trauma-informed approach recognizes that we have all experienced many things in our lives and some of those things may have caused trauma. Trauma affects how we engage and are able to process things. People respond differently to trauma. Some people freeze or become dissociative; others can be in a state of hypervigilance. Some people have memory problems and can’t remember the traumatic events clearly while others relive the trauma over and over and over again.

To have a trauma-informed approach to sexual violence and harassment is to recognize that people may come to an experience with pre-existing traumas, but because we all experience events differently and have different resources available to us to respond, one person may have a trauma response to an event and another may not.

To be trauma-informed begins with recognizing the signs and symptoms of trauma and requires a response that is informed by knowledge about trauma and its impact. As Klinic Community Health centre’s tool kit on trauma-informed care frames it, “The trauma-informed model replaces the labelling of clients and patients as being ‘sick,’ resistant or uncooperative with that of being affected by an ‘injury.’ Viewing trauma as an injury shifts the conversation from asking ‘What is wrong with you’ to ‘What has happened to you?’”

I think you can see why it’s so important to stakeholders in this sector that our approach be survivor-centric and trauma-informed. It is all about “First, do no harm.”

The third element that students, gender-based violence experts and unions have called for is that our response be comprehensive. As the Our Campus, Our Safety report, pulled together by the 24 student groups, says, we have to go beyond stand-alone, individualistic measures. We need an approach that addresses policy, procedures, prevention and data collection. We need meaningful collaboration between government, post-secondary institutions, survivors, students, administrations, faculty, staff and grassroots movements.

Instead of a comprehensive approach, what we got from this government is a bill that focuses on one tool and one tool only: punishment. But why on earth, when we know what the outcomes are, when we know how high levels of sexual violence and harassment are on post-secondary campuses, would we not want to start with prevention, Speaker? When we know how damaging and how life-altering it can be, why wouldn’t we want to stop it from taking place in the first place rather than simply punishing perpetrators after the fact? Yet this is a bill that contains not one single preventative measure—not one.

All of the witnesses were unanimous last week: They wanted to see prevention measures included in this bill. They wanted to see, at the very least, the bare minimum, mandatory education for everyone on campus: education on consent, education on prevention, education on safety measures, education on what your rights are, education on what to do if something happens to you, how to intervene safely if you see something happening to someone else, what to do if someone discloses an incident of sexual violence or harassment to you.

We tried to add that to the bill, Speaker. My colleague the member for Nickel Belt and I moved amendments at committee that would have added a requirement for mandatory prevention education for all students, faculty and staff at publicly funded universities and colleges and private career colleges, but the government voted against it. Their rationale was that they couldn’t add this to the bill without doing consultation on it—this despite the fact that students and others have been calling for this for years now. They all called for it during the committee hearings and in their written submissions: the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, the Canadian Federation of Students, Courage to Act, Possibility Seeds, the University of Toronto Students’ Union, the PEARS Project, OCUFA, Western University.

If the hearings on the bill didn’t convince the government that prevention education is necessary, then I’m not sure what would. It would be hard to imagine an issue on which there is more consensus. I worked in this sector for six years and I can tell you that there are not a ton of issues that administrators, students, staff and faculty unions all agree on. So I don’t understand the impediment to action here, Speaker, just like I don’t understand why the government won’t be supporting my colleague from Toronto Centre’s bill on Consent Awareness Week. When only 28% of Canadians understand what consent means, surely we want to be doing our best to educate everyone on consent and have conversations across the province. Here is something concrete and tangible that the government can do, supported by stakeholders from all sides, and the government is saying no. It’s truly baffling.

A comprehensive approach also means taking into account that post-secondary communities have many different participants, not just students, and that there are shifting roles and responsibilities and many different possible interactions. There are students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, third-party contractors and visitors. We know that all these members of the campus community are affected by and can be victims of sexual violence and harassment, and they are all worthy of our protection—not just one group.

There’s also not a firm division between students and workers. Many students are workers filling instructional roles as well as staff roles. There are shifting identities and balances of power in which someone might be a classmate in one setting, a supervisor in another and a supervisee in yet another.

Finally, we know that most incidents of sexual violence and harassment on campus or in off-campus spaces related to the post-secondary institution are student-on-student incidents. Yet in this bill, rather than take a comprehensive approach that takes account of these many identities and the relationships between them, the government has chosen to focus on only one single relationship and treat it as if it is unidirectional and unchanging. We heard concerns from student groups about the fact that the bill focuses only on faculty and staff and doesn’t take into account that students themselves can be faculty and staff.

When asked about it, the minister said there are other tools to address sexual violence between students. But there are also already other tools to address sexual violence between employees and students. The point isn’t whether or not there are existing tools, the point is whether the existing tools are good enough, and what we heard from the students was a very firm no.

Finally, “comprehensive” means taking into account that post-secondary education is not what just takes place in the classroom. Post-secondary institutions are places of employment and residences and the location of many social events. There are also interactions between members of the community off-campus and online that are no less connected to the institution just because they’re not on campus.

And increasingly, there is experiential learning. In fact, this was an area flagged by multiple witnesses at committee as an area that the government should be paying attention to. The government is pushing for more and more students to do experiential learning or work-integrated learning placements. These placements put students into situations were there is a huge power imbalance, since students depend on these placements to complete their program and get their diploma or degree, to break into the field after graduation, but they don’t have the rights and protections of employees. This puts them in a position where it is incredibly hard to stand up or say no to problematic behaviours, where it is hard to report problematic behaviours and where students fear the consequences or repercussions of coming forward.

It’s so important that students and the workplaces providing these opportunities know that students are protected by post-secondary sexual violence policies while they are doing these placements. And yet, the government defeated our amendment that clearly spelled out that policies would apply on-campus, off-campus, online and in experiential learning settings. The government members said that the clarification wasn’t necessary because the minister had said at committee that the bill will apply in all of these settings. Apparently, the members are very confident, or very hopeful, that there are a lot of people reading committee transcripts from the Ontario Legislative Assembly, because I’m not sure how else students, administrators and employers are supposed to know about the minister’s assurances. The way to genuinely provide clarity and assurance to everyone that the policy applies comprehensively across the board in all places and all situations where post-secondary activities take place would be to include it in the bill.

Student leaders who appeared at the committee last week, like Jessica Look and Octavia Andrade-Dixon of OUSA, and Micah Kalisch of the PEARS Project, made it clear that students can only claim their rights if they know what their rights are, and knowing what their rights are means clearly spelling out what their rights are. I don’t think the minister saying something once in committee clearly spells out to students what their rights are. This is another missed opportunity because the government did not want to listen to students and other stakeholders.

Another element that is missing from this bill that we clearly heard from stakeholders they wanted to see is minimum standards. We already have a requirement for stand-alone sexual violence policies, and now this bill adds the requirement for post-secondary institutions to create an employee sexual misconduct policy, but there is a complete absence of guidance for post-secondary institutions on what these policies should look like and what standards they should have to meet to be acceptable. This means that we will have 48 different policies with 48 different definitions and 48 different standards at the publicly funded universities and colleges alone, and hundreds of different policies if each private career college develops their own separate policy. It also means that what constitutes sexual misconduct at Algonquin College in my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean might not be considered sexual misconduct at the University of Ottawa or Carleton University or La Cité college. Students at these four institutions will have completely different expectations about processes, policies, procedures and supports.

Student leaders have asked for the government to set out minimum standards for these policies to be developed by an advisory committee consisting of the Council of Ontario Universities, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, and representatives from faculty and staff unions. These minimum standards should cover the definitions of “sexual violence” and “harassment,” the scope of institutional policies, data collection, training, investigations, confidentiality, campus safety audits and consultations. This would ensure that every student on every campus could count on the same high degree of protection and support.

Unfortunately, when my colleague the MPP from Nickel Belt and I moved an amendment that would have added these kinds of minimum standards to the bill, the government voted against it. Their argument was that we couldn’t waste time developing standards that students could expect—the issue was too urgent. Of course, this was shortly before they voted against mandatory education, because, on that one, we had to consult indefinitely on an issue on which there already was consensus and certainly could not hasten to act despite the urgency of the pleas, so no one can accuse the government of consistency on this issue.

We know that the resources of universities and colleges vary from institution to institution: The expertise and the personnel, even the interest that administrators take in this issue and their desire for change. We can see it already in the existing sexual violence policies. There are some very good ones and there are some very weak ones. Why should some students go without adequate protection because administrators couldn’t be bothered to create a good policy, or because they don’t have the resources and support to do so? Why aren’t we creating more forums for sharing of information and best practices—which, I should note, is something the administrators who appeared before committee told us they would very interested in—and support that work by having a provincial-level committee creating minimum standards based on best practices? When you are trying to protect students, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t start by listening to students.

Students, unions and experts on gender-based and sexual violence have also been calling for better data collection. This is something we also heard at committee. We can’t know how post-secondary institutions are doing in responding to and preventing sexual violence and harassment when we have no idea at all what is happening.

The Our Campus, Our Safety report recommends regular campus climate surveys that are publicly released, so that stakeholders can monitor progress and identify emerging challenges. We also heard from Farrah Khan of Possibility Seeds that these campus climate surveys need to cover everyone, not just students. We have massive gaps in our knowledge about the experience of other members of the post-secondary community. Addressing the problem starts with knowing the problem, Speaker.

We also know that post-secondary institutions could be collecting and sharing aggregate data about disclosures and reports, including what form the response took, whether the complaints were deemed to be founded and what disciplinary measures were implemented. Without any kind of data, there is no way to hold institutions accountable and no way even to know whether the measures the government has put forward in this bill are even effective—although perhaps that is the point here, to the government.

Students have also asked to be treated like equal partners in the work of preventing and addressing sexual violence and harassment on campus. So many institutions pay lip service to student consultation, but don’t meaningfully address the concerns and the issues that students are raising.

Faculty and staff also deserve to be consulted on the creation and implementation of these policies. Consulting with members of the campus community will ensure that policies are truly comprehensive, protect every member of the campus community and take into account differing identities and power differentials, different roles and responsibilities. For instance, one of the concerns that has been raised repeatedly about this bill is the fact that it is completely silent on the fact that students are employees, too. Having students and workers involved in the creation and implementation of policies ensures that roles such as student workers are understood and addressed by the policy. These committees can also play a role in assessing the data or reviewing the campus climate surveys to ensure that gaps are being addressed, progress is being measured and no one is falling through the cracks.

Students are also calling for the government to create a provincial-level advisory committee with representation from administration, student groups like the Canadian Federation of Students and Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, faculty and staff unions. This will provide a constant source of information for the government on the challenges and successes, best practices and shortcomings in this area, allowing for future tweaks through legislation or regulation. It would also allow for the creation of minimum standards. Unfortunately, the government voted against our amendment to set up a permanent advisory committee—no advice needed, I guess.

Finally, students, faculty, staff and administrators were very clear in their call for funding to support the work that is being done and needs to be done. Particularly in the area of sexual violence response, there is a significant funding shortfall. Ontario’s sexual assault centres are seeing huge demand and long waiting lists, and the funding from this government is just not keeping up. One sexual assault centre told the CBC in May that their wait-list is at a 33-year high. The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre said that its funding hasn’t changed in 15 years, while demand has increased 20% in the last two years alone. This government cancelled an increase in funding to sexual assault centres that was promised by the previous Liberal government, and their funding envelope has not even kept up with inflation, let alone demand.

We heard at committee last week from Farrah Khan of Possibility Seeds that there has been a huge increase in demand for this sector over the past two years, as the pandemic has contributed to an epidemic of gender-based violence. This in turn is resulting in burnout among staff and many staff leaving the sector.

We know that when people are asked to provide care in impossible conditions, that can become a form of trauma or harm in and of itself. People can experience secondary trauma, depression, anxiety or suffer from compassion fatigue. We need to support the people who are doing this important and valuable work. There needs to be both permanent funding to post-secondary institutions to run sexual violence response offices and funding to sexual assault centres and services in our communities. Many students and workers who experience sexual violence or harassment end up seeking support from community organizations. We need to make sure that those organizations have the funding they need to provide that support, to keep staff in place and to provide culturally competent, trauma-informed, survivor-centric care. We need to increase funding to Ontario’s sexual assault and rape crisis centres by 30% and make that funding stable.

We also need to make sure that institutions have the funding they need for prevention programming, like mandatory education and campus safety audits.

The government is happy to talk about punishing perpetrators, Speaker, but is not putting a penny towards preventing sexual violence and harassment from taking place in the first place. It’s an odd thing coming from a government that is sitting on billions of dollars in unallocated funding. You would think that the goal of protecting students would actually merit some spending when the government is so flush with cash.

One final element that I will note is missing from this bill. As weak as it is, it excludes one group of students entirely from the protections that it does offer: students at private universities. When I asked the minister about this at committee, she had no answer as to why they would be excluded. She simply said it was something that the committee could consider changing at the amendment stage.

So I moved an amendment to include students at private universities. If we are trying to protect students, why wouldn’t we want to protect all of them? Well, the government voted that one down, too, and I am still scratching my head over their rationale. Their rationale was that the funding model for publicly assisted universities and colleges is different than the funding model for private universities. Well, that’s true, but this bill does cover students at private career colleges—and newsflash to the government: The funding model for private career colleges is also different than the funding model for publicly funded universities and colleges.

At the end of the day, what does the funding model even have to do with the rights of students to be protected against sexual violence and harassment? Students at universities that are funded exclusively through private means are not any less traumatized or affected when they experience sexual violence or harassment. They are not less likely to experience mental and physical health effects. They are not less likely to experience academic or employment challenges. They are not any less deserving of counselling or supportive services, and they are not any less deserving of seeing justice served and consequences for the perpetrator. I simply cannot understand why the government does not think that they are worthy of any support or protection just because they go to a privately funded university.

So that’s everything that’s not in the bill that should have been there. Let’s look now at what is in the bill. The bill has three schedules. The first two are nearly identical, with one addressing publicly funded universities and colleges—or as the government likes to call them since their funding commitment is so incredibly low, “publicly assisted”—and the other addressing private career colleges. Both these sections set out the same definitions and requirements for publicly funded institutions and private career colleges, which is why, again, it is so weird that the government couldn’t bring itself to do the same for privately funded universities.

The first thing that the bill does is define sexual misconduct. Now, this is a marginal improvement from the terminology in the previous version of the bill at second reading, which was “sexual abuse.” What we heard loud and clear from stakeholders, including Possibility Seeds, Courage to Act, the PEARS Project, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and others, is that “sexual abuse” was the wrong language. But you will notice, Speaker, that throughout my remarks, I have been using the terminology “sexual violence and harassment,” not the term “sexual misconduct,” which the bill now uses. That is because the witnesses were very clear that sexual violence and harassment were the preferred terms because those are the terms that students and experts in the sector are using. “Sexual abuse” was not an appropriate term for this situation and this sector—that was very clear. But the government just made up this term of “sexual misconduct.” No one was asking for it.

When my colleague the member for Nickel Belt asked the government members of the committee to name just one stakeholder or expert who used the term “sexual misconduct” or requested that the government use it, the silence from the other side of the table was deafening. No one is asking for this term to be used. Everyone is asking for the term “sexual violence and harassment” to be used. These are the terms that are already being used by students. As the students reminded us several times during our deliberations, students can only claim their rights if they can understand their rights, and understanding their rights means using familiar and recognizable language. We need to listen to what students and experts have told us and use the words that they want. This is not partisan language—it is a definition put forth by the people that we have a duty to protect. If we use language in a bill that they’re not using on campus, it is going to be less effective.

My colleague from Nickel Belt and I tried to amend the bill to make the language consistent with what students and experts are calling for. The government voted against that amendment and put forward this terminology with no explanation offered whatsoever as to the reason why it was so important to use a made-up term that no one is calling for. It feels like the government is so dead set on seeing everything as a partisan battle to be won or lost that they can’t even make a single change on terminology that is being unanimously demanded by stakeholders because that would somehow be a loss, instead of a victory that we could all celebrate because we are now making students safer.

The witnesses were also unanimous that the definition in the bill is not good enough. The definition of the government’s new term of “sexual misconduct” is now up to every single individual institutional policy to determine. At the end of the day, we could have hundreds of different definitions of sexual misconduct across the province. What might be punishable behaviour at one institution might be perfectly okay at the one next door. There’s not even a requirement for consultation with anyone—students, gender-based violence experts or legal experts—let alone a minimum standard for what the definition must contain or what it should look like. Institutions are being given this power to determine the definitions without any consultation, with no regard to the fact that they’re not disinterested participants in this process. They have a vested interest here in protecting institutional reputations, in downplaying sexual violence and harassment to appeal to donors and prospective students.

This is even more so for private career colleges, who have shareholders that they have to be accountable to. You know what’s not good for enrolment and profits? Sexual violence. One way to make sure you don’t have a problem with sexual violence and harassment is to make your definition as weak and as exclusive as possible.

On the flip side, the government is giving employers the power here to override the Labour Relations Act and collective agreements based on the definitions that employers themselves will be able to set forward. Define a behaviour as problematic and suddenly you can fire someone with no recourse to due process, employment rights or rights under the collective agreement. No employer should have that kind of power without some kind of accountability.

Witnesses told us that there were existing definitions out there that could be seen as the gold standard, and that one of those gold standard definitions should be made universal in all of these policies. But when my colleague from Nickel Belt and I tried to move an amendment to put that gold standard definition into the act, the government voted against it because they said that universities and colleges were autonomous institutions that should have the right to make up their own definitions.

It’s a funny thing how universities and colleges being autonomous institutions doesn’t matter when the government wants to legislate that they all have to create sexual violence—sorry, “sexual misconduct” policies, but suddenly it matters when it comes to legislating what has to go into that policy. And so here we are with a bill that uses a made-up term and an incredibly weak, shifting definition of that term that will vary from institution to institution to institution to institution across the province. And that’s just the first part.

The next part of the bill allows post-secondary institutions to discharge or discipline an employee for committing acts of sexual misconduct. Now, if, like me, you’ve worked in the area of labour relations for the past few years, you might be wondering, “Well, wait a minute. I thought employers could already discharge or discipline an employee.” And indeed they can.

What this section actually allows them to do is disregard any standard of due process; any rights to appeal; the Labour Relations Act, which is the result of decades of worker activism to ensure that all employees have basic rights and protections; and collective agreements, which in the post-secondary sector are often the result of decades of collective bargaining between workers and employers.

When I asked the minister about this, she insisted that we had to override collective agreements and labour law in order to give universities and colleges one more tool to be able to respond to sexual violence and harassment.

But the reality is that labour law and collective agreements already allow employers to discipline and terminate workers. In fact, they set out the processes and steps that must be followed for discipline and termination. This is to ensure that discipline and termination are not arbitrary, that they follow standards of due process and progressive discipline, and that there are accountability mechanisms such as arbitration or right of appeal. These are safeguards for the person who is accused, but they are also safeguards for the employer.

Now the government is saying none of that matters. As the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa said, what the government is doing here is setting out a harsher punishment than even the Criminal Code imposes, because there is no right of appeal. There is no standard that the investigation has to meet, no qualifications that the investigator or decision-maker has to have, no requirements that the respondent has to have the opportunity to offer a defence, no appeal rights if the respondent or the survivor believes there has been a miscarriage of justice.

I know this government doesn’t like collective agreements or collective bargaining. I know they like to legislate away workers’ rights. I know they’re incredibly disdainful of the work that unions do to negotiate protections and rights for workers. We’ve just seen that with Bill 28, and we saw it again last week at committee when the government attacked OCUFA, as if OCUFA wasn’t there like every other stakeholder asking the government to take action to protect students and add prevention measures to this bill.

But this government just can’t seem to learn lessons when it comes to using legislation to override workers’ rights and trample on collective agreements. These efforts inevitably end up in court, just like Bill 124, and the courts do not look favourably on the government ignoring charter-protected rights, just like Bill 124.

And in this case, what will happen when this ends up in court? A survivor will experience months, potentially years, of additional harm and re-traumatization as the case goes through the court process. And what’s so frustrating about all of this is that it’s so unnecessary. You don’t need to be able to override collective agreements and labour law in order to discipline or fire perpetrators. Employers already have those rights.

The next section concerns non-disclosure agreements. This is another area where the government failed to listen to the experts completely the first time. The previous draft of this bill failed to get this right completely. It banned non-disclosure agreements, but only after a court or adjudicator or arbitrator ruled that sexual abuse had taken place. This ignored the fact that the majority of non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements are used before a decision is ever made and, in fact, were being used in some cases to avoid a decision ever being made.

A respondent could agree to leave voluntarily, no need to finish the process or fire anyone, on the grounds that a non-disclosure agreement be put in place. This could then result in a situation where the wrongdoer could get away scot-free and the survivor or anyone else who shared legitimate information about what happened is the one who faced consequences.

In fact, we know that this already happened with the case of Julie Macfarlane, a professor at the University of Windsor. The alleged perpetrator was able to negotiate a deal with the university that he could leave with an NDA and a letter of reference from the university that made no mention of the allegations or the investigation. But when a perspective employer reached out to Dr. Macfarlane to ask about him and she told them the real circumstances of the alleged perpetrator’s departure, it was Dr. Macfarlane, not the perpetrator, who was punished by the University of Windsor.

And that’s just one situation. We have no idea how many survivors have been harmed by the use of non-disclosure agreements. We have no idea how many perpetrators have been able to find other employment in the sector and to continue to harm students because of non-disclosure agreements. And we have no idea how many times non-disclosure agreements have been used to avoid responsibility and consequences.

The stakeholders were all clear: The language in the first version of this bill was not nearly good enough and did not go far enough to ban the most problematic uses of non-disclosure agreements.

But we also want to have a survivor-centric response, and that means recognizing that sometimes survivors want non-disclosure agreements. We need to respect survivors’ wishes and allow them to control and direct the process. Sometimes, what the survivor wants to restore a sense of control and dignity is to keep things quiet, so an absolute ban is not survivor-centric. It does not allow survivors to express their needs and wishes.

So many stakeholders called for changes to this section of the legislation: Possibility Seeds, Courage to Act, the PEARS project, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, OCUFA, OPSEU, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Canadian Centre for Legal Innovation in Sexual Assault Response and Dr. Julie Macfarlane.

Stakeholders also raised concerns about how the government went about making the changes proposed here. I want to read this piece by Dr. Macfarlane which highlights the government’s whole approach to consultation and what the effects are for people who are directly affected by this issue and this legislation. It’s entitled, “A Tale of Two Committee Hearings on NDAs

“As the public becomes increasingly aware of the misuse of non-disclosure agreements or NDAs in covering up misconduct of many kinds—sexual harassment, assault, discrimination, abuse and bullying, as well as defective goods, construction and negligence causing harm—governments are starting to legislate to restrict their use. But the approaches being taken are a study in contrasts.

“In Manitoba three weeks ago, the committee hearing on the non-disclosure agreements bill heard from more than 15 individuals who had signed an NDA and could only now, for the very first time, speak about what had happened to them with the protection of parliamentary privilege (otherwise they could have been sued for breaking their NDA by speaking up).

“The testimony ... was incredibly moving, as individual after individual—former nurses, teachers, police officers, IT workers, women, Indigenous people and others—stood up and described how their efforts to complain about ill treatment resulted in a permanent gag on them. ‘Former’ because for most, standing up for themselves ended their career.

“The committee permitted all those who asked to testify, sitting until after midnight. It was a remarkable exercise in democracy. As Julie Roginsky, co-founder with Gretchen Carlson of US organization Lift Our Voices, who also testified before the committee about the harmful impact of NDAs puts it, ‘It’s very nice, from this side of the border, to see comity (civil and inclusive dialogue) in a legislature. We don’t get to see much of that.’ Numerous others have since pointed to Manitoba’s committee hearing as an example of best practice in responsibly presenting critical and otherwise hidden information and experience to lawmakers.

“The bill now proceeding in Manitoba addresses the use of NDAs broadly in complaints about harassment and discrimination. In Ontario, the ... government has introduced Bill 26 that focuses on the use of NDAs by universities and colleges to secretly move faculty and staff who have behaved abusively to other schools (a topic with which I am familiar). Bill 26 held its committee hearing on Tuesday November 22, having asked organizations and individuals to register to testify in a 48-hour window the week before. I registered on behalf of our campaign Can’t Buy My Silence, which has been working with lawmakers in PEI (where legislation is already passed), Manitoba and Nova Scotia, as well as with 78 universities in the UK who have signed a pledge not to use NDAs.

“However, neither I nor any other experts on the use of NDAs seem to have been called to testify. Unlike Manitoba, there appears to be no online record of the proceedings. I am also not aware of any who have signed NDAs being called to testify about the impact on them. In short, this seems to have been perfunctory hearing to ‘tick the box.’

“This is especially concerning given the grave inadequacy of the Ontario provision in the proposed legislation. It would only apply to NDAs made after an adjudication. By this point, an NDA is pointless because everything has already been argued in the public domain. In order to actually stop the use of NDAs in universities to cover up wrongdoing and protect students—which is what the Ontario government claims it wants to do—the clause needs to be amended to include NDAs that are forced on complainants in the settlement process. In its present form it will not change the current practice at all. I proposed such an amendment, to be met only by silence from the committee.” In fact, Speaker, my colleague from Nickel Belt and I moved Dr. Macfarlane’s proposed amendment. Guess who voted against?

But I’m glad the government did listen at least a bit in this area of the bill and did make some of the amendments that were needed here, but there is still more to do. This legislation will only protect students from NDAs, leaving survivors in other sectors still subject to non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. We need stand-alone, survivor-centric, trauma-informed legislation like Prince Edward Island’s to ban non-disclosure agreements in all sectors for all survivors.

Finally, these first two schedules of the bill require institutions to develop sexual misconduct policies that govern the rules with respect to sexual behaviour between employees and students of the institution, examples of acts that contravene the policy and examples of disciplinary measures that may be imposed on the employees who contravene the policy, but once again the government has chosen to give institutions wide latitude and no guidelines whatsoever on a sexual misconduct policy.

There is no requirement to consult with anyone or to follow any best practices or to meet any minimum standards. Acts that constitute sexual misconduct at Toronto Metropolitan University may not be sexual misconduct at the University of Toronto or York University or Sheridan College or George Brown College. There will be potentially hundreds of variations of what constitutes sexual misconduct across the province.

Student leaders, like the Ontario Undergraduate Students Alliance and the PEARS Project, Courage to Act’s Britney De Costa called for institutions to be required to consult with students, faculty, staff and gender-based violence experts on the development of these policies. Faculty and staff unions echoed this concern. Yet, once again, when my colleague from Nickel Belt and I moved an amendment that required institutions to consult with faculty, staff and employees on these policies, the government voted against the amendment. Because post-secondary institutions are autonomous institutions, we apparently can tell them that they have to have a policy, but we can’t tell them that they have to talk to anyone in the development of the policy. It’s absolutely bizarre, Speaker, that just like with the funding, sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t. There is no consistency.

And so, what we are left with is a bill that is much less than it should be. Students, faculty, staff, administrators and gender-based violence experts were all very clear last week that they wanted the bill to do more and to do it better. The government has not listened to those pleas and so we will have to wait now and continue to engage in advocacy in hopes that the government will listen in the coming months and address all of the outstanding work that needs to be done rather than waiting until they are defeated in 2026 for a new government to finally listen to students and other stakeholders and take a comprehensive, trauma-informed, survivor-centric approach to sexual violence and harassment.

Finally, Speaker, I want to conclude by acknowledging that the third schedule of the bill makes the name change of Toronto Metropolitan University official. This is an important step towards reconciliation. Residential schools are a dark stain on our history—a stain whose legacy continues into the present in ways large and small. We should not honour the men and women who devised and implemented this system, who condoned and carried out atrocities against children. We should not celebrate the architects of genocide. Name changes may be a small step toward reconciliation and atoning for our past, but they are a vital step. We cannot achieve reconciliation if we are still celebrating the perpetrators.

One of the things I appreciated at committee last week was the opportunity to hear from Toronto Metropolitan University and the Standing Strong Task Force on the process that was followed in looking carefully at the legacy of Egerton Ryerson and the harm that was caused by honouring his legacy. There are lessons that we can learn here for other post-secondary institutions as they grapple with colonial legacies and with the work of reconciliation and decolonization.

They heard from thousands of community members, making the time and space for people’s experiences to be heard fully. They did not try to set opposing viewpoints off against each other. They engaged in careful research and learning, and they made thoughtful recommendations to genuinely make progress on reconciliation at the end of that process. The name change was only one of more than 20 recommendations that came out of that process. Post-secondary institutions should not be afraid to create space for different voices, to listen, to put aside critical impulses and to take action when harm is identified.

To wrap up, although I think this is a lost opportunity on sexual violence and harassment, I think this bill is a positive step forward on reconciliation and decolonization, and I hope that everyone will learn lessons from that experience. It is never too late to start listening, to start learning, to value the contributions and perspectives and wisdom and experience of others. It is never too late to take actions when harms are identified, when gaps or problems we weren’t even aware of are identified. It only makes us stronger—as communities, as institutions and as a province.

I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Ottawa West–Nepean for her very thorough explanation of what happened at committee, and the limitations of this bill to effectively address sexual violence and harassment.

I know the member will be aware of the events that happened at Western University in September 2021. We had 30 female students alleging being drugged and sexually assaulted on campus. In the wake of those allegations the university conducted an extensive internal review and an extensive external review. The first recommendation of both those reviews was to invest in mandatory training and education for all students, all staff, the entire university community.

What does the member think about legislation that is not accompanied by that kind of investment in training and education that would help really move the issue forward?

Thanks to the member for London West for that excellent question. Western University was one of the deputations that appeared before committee last week, and they shared that work that has been done and the training that they’ve undertaken, which I have to say I find incredibly important and impressive.

But Western University also called on the government to make amendments to this legislation, to include mandatory prevention education. We heard it from all stakeholders, from students, administrators, faculty, staff, gender-based violence experts: The number one thing we need to actually prevent and not just respond to incidents of sexual violence is education, training on consent, making sure that everybody knows what their rights are, how to intervene safely when they see an incident. This was absolutely a lost opportunity to listen to stakeholders like Western University and mandate that kind of education on campuses across Ontario.

When the member for Nickel Belt asked the government to say who is asking for the term “sexual misconduct” to be used, the government could not answer. Making up a stakeholder after the fact who might have preferred the term “sexual misconduct” doesn’t actually help with the situation of making sure that students who are at universities and colleges now actually know what their rights are and can claim their rights.

But I do also recognize that it is only one small step, and there is a lot of work still to be done on reconciliation. We have a situation in Ontario today where there are people who don’t have access to clean drinking water or safe housing or safe roads or fire protection services, for no other reason than because they are Indigenous. I think that’s absolutely unacceptable, and a government that was truly committed to reconciliation would be taking urgent action on all of those issues.

I think Toronto Metropolitan University had a really great process to actually listen to community members, to identify that harm and to recommend multiple steps that could be taken. I’m glad that this bill formalizes that name change so that we no longer honour the legacy of somebody who caused that kind of harm in Ontario.

Bill 26 is great piece of legislation, but it is unfortunate it is necessary that these kinds of protections have to be put in place. If passed, this bill will set minimum standards to protect our students. This bill will ensure that employees who commit an act of sexual misconduct of a student will be discharged by the institution.

We have heard from many, many stakeholders wonderful things about this bill, and that the government is taking a step in a positive direction. Congratulations to the member from Ottawa West–Nepean for your marathon remarks.

To the member, my question is simple: What are the good things you see in this bill?

My thanks to the member opposite for her participation in debate, and my thanks to all members today for speaking to this legislation and for the Legislature considering what I believe is a very important change to the structure that we have in place protecting students in post-secondary educational settings.

I have the great privilege of currently still attending a post-secondary institution. I’m not sure if I’m perhaps one of the only members in the House to do so. I’m currently a McMaster student. Since January 2017, shortly after I was elected, I have been plugging away at my undergrad studies part-time. I’m thankful for that opportunity to be able to go to a world-class university here in Ontario.

Perhaps not a lot of people know this, and I’ll share it with the Legislature—it isn’t something, I don’t think, that I have on the record, but prior to getting elected, I actually was accepted to university for music performance. Music performance is sort of my passion, it’s my background, and before getting involved and working in politics, that was my life, really. I spent many hours every day practising: singing in choirs, playing the piano and studying for Royal Conservatory exams.

When I thought about what I wanted to do after high school, I saw the opportunities that an undergraduate degree of, frankly, almost any stripe here in the province of Ontario will provide. I understand and respect those who are getting into the skilled trades. As a government, we’ve done a lot to promote that. I have many family members who are working in the skilled trades, who are in agriculture, who are in business, and many family members who went to college as well. I have a very large family, so it’s easy for me to say there are many family members in a lot of different areas.

But music was my passion, and I applied to a number of different universities for a degree in music performance. I was accepted; I ended up actually going off to Ottawa, working on Parliament Hill for a year instead, because of some opportunities that arose at that time, and I wasn’t able to practise to the extent that, of course, is needed in order to take that level of education in music. But it’s still something I try to pursue in my spare time and it’s something I believe in.

When I was elected in the fall of 2016—actually, I believe yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my swearing in here in this chamber.

Interjections.

And I know; I know. You can laugh. I get that a lot. But frankly, again, these are young people, for the vast majority. They’re 17, they’re 18, maybe 19. They’re coming onto campus. Their joie de vivre, their appetite for learning, is limitless. The best courses are first-year courses, before they become a little bit jaded by the time they get to third or fourth year and they don’t engage as much. But the first-year students, they’re there to learn, they’re there to discuss, they’re there to experience post-secondary education, and I can’t imagine how devastating and how destructive an act can be to someone coming in with those expectations.

And that, then, is a call to all of us to take that seriously, to act not just in this way—this is an incredibly important piece of legislation that builds on the work that’s been done in a non-partisan way, and I know that any member in this House would be the first to say that it’s not the end, that there is more work that should be done. I, frankly, don’t know exactly what that is. If I did or if we did, then I know we would bring it forward. But I know that that’s something all of us share, a belief in always doing more, being better and serving—serving those who we strive to represent, including those young people who are seeking to improve themselves and to contribute, to make a difference in our communities.

And that’s why I’m speaking in favour of this legislation this afternoon, Speaker. It’s because when I think of the people that I go to school with and the people who have gone to school and have experienced, unfortunately, the terrible trauma, the déjà vu, if you will, of having been abused or having been harassed or having been assaulted by someone who is in a position of authority, in a faculty position, and then going back onto that campus, seeing that person at the front of class, teaching, speaking with authority—I can’t imagine what that would be. And I recognize, Speaker, that I’m not someone who is in a position that likely will ever experience that. I pray no one in my family will experience that; I pray that no one I know will experience that. But there are many who have.

So then it’s not enough for us just to say, “Well, the existing processes are good enough. It’s good enough, what we’ve got. Yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough.” There’s a flavour of that in what I hear. Defending these unethical NDAs—the approach of the past, frankly, in approaching these sensitive and important topics, is not good enough. That’s why this legislation is needed and it’s why I support it.

I would just ask all members to think either of their family members—or perhaps, if not family members, those they know, those they interact with. Think about the university or the college in your community. So many of us have them. There are so many amazing colleges and universities in this province that do fantastic work. Think about when you go there—we’ve all been there, right? They invite us. Perhaps it’s a new facility opening. Perhaps we get asked to speak to a class. Perhaps we’re invited to visit a high school and share about our life as an MPP or the policies that our government is providing.

When you look out upon that group of children or young adults or teenagers and think about the terrible statistics that have necessitated this type of action, the fact that so many have experienced terrible abuse or trauma from those in positions of authority—consider that when casting your ballot, and vote yes. Vote yes to a safer university campus. Vote yes to a safer college campus. Vote yes to supports in place that provide opportunity, that encourage growth so that that eager and enthusiastic group of students who I see when I go to campus don’t have the devastation and disappointment of experiences that I pray none of us will ever see.

Speaker, in conclusion, I strongly support this legislation. I will be voting for this legislation and I ask all members of this House to join me in doing so. Thank you very much.

Whether it’s this legislation or other legislation, I’m committed to working and listening. It’s so important to ensure that we’re listening to those who have had lived experiences. Whether it’s in seminars or events—I frankly don’t get to quite as many events on campus as I would like to, just given the other requirements of the job—I’m going to continue to listen and have those help inform my work and advocacy here as an elected member as well. My thanks to the member for the question.

Thank you to the member from Niagara West. I would like a little bit more context, because when the member takes off his glasses, he’s like Clark Kent. I would like to know what the students are saying to you as a fellow student and what you’re hearing directly from the students about the issue that we’re speaking about now.

My thanks to the member for Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry. It’s not just the glasses. The glasses are part of it, but I can’t wear a collared shirt. I find that with collared shirts, people will recognize me as well, so I have to wear T-shirts. A sweater is preferable, maybe a Mac one.

What I’m hearing from students—and it’s unfortunate—is a bit of a feeling that they are on their own and that governments historically haven’t had their back. I think that, again, is just why this type of legislation is so important. This type of legislation says, “No, we have your back.” It says to young people who I hear from in seminar—again, they don’t know I’m a member; they’re just talking about their experiences or their frustrations with the system. They see a piece of legislation like this, and I believe that they know then, “Okay, there’s a government that’s listening. There’s a government that’s taking action. They’re not using students as pawns. They’re not using them as bargaining chips in negotiations or in contract talks; they’re listening and they’re taking action.” I believe that’s what I’m hearing from my colleagues on campus.

It’s not just saying, “This is the end of all harassment on campus”—it’s not. Despite the fact that the majority of sexual harassment on campus might be from student to student, that doesn’t excuse or stop us from having to take action against that which is based in faculty. I think there’s always more that can be done. I know that our government is committed to always doing more, but this is a step in the right direction.

I would say that my understanding of the legislation specifically is that that’s not the process that this particular piece of legislation is intending to push for educational awareness around all these issues. This is specifically around that need to address sexual violence, specifically as it pertains to faculty members perpetrating acts against students.

But I also think that the member opposite does raise an important point, which is a call to all of us as individuals, whether we’re on campus or whether we are MPPs, to be able to raise awareness around these crucial issues. So I invite the member to promote the awareness of that, as well as myself and everyone else in this chamber.

I listened to the remarks from the member across the way, and I just want to emphasize how prevalent gender-based violence is on university and college campuses in Ontario. The government’s own climate survey showed that 63% of university students—that’s two thirds—experienced sexual harassment while on campus, and 23% disclosed a non-consensual sexual experience. It is a crisis at our post-secondary institutions.

But the majority of the sexual violence that is experienced is student-on-student sexual violence; it is not faculty to student. So I’m wondering, when so many organizations came to the committee and urged the government to include prevention in this bill, to include measures to reduce the prevalence of student-on-student sexual violence on campus, why did the government ignore all of that input?

Speaker, Bill 26 proposes changes that are, quite frankly, long overdue. They’re going to protect students at colleges and universities, like my sons. I have a son who graduated from the University of Windsor, one currently studying at Guelph and one with his whole future in front of him, so I’m so glad this government is making this a priority.

Can the member please outline how these measures specifically will support students, all our children, all our students across this province to support students and survivors of sexual violence?

In these situations involving post-secondary institutions and the faculty that often teach in them and the relationships between those people who, I will just say, are in a superior role and the students, who I will describe as being in an inferior role and even sometimes a dependent role, oftentimes there is a power dynamic. The power dynamic differs from relationship to relationship. Oftentimes we describe these relationships in legal terms. We might call them something related to a fiduciary relationship, and in common, everyday terms we might describe them as a relationship of trust or respect. Difficulties arise when individuals involved in those relationships cross the line one way or the other.

I would just like to invite the member to comment on how the member perceives those relationships and what might be included in this particular act which might help define those relationships and prevent the crossing of the line, if I may put it that way.

My question is, 2SLGBTQ students are disproportionately affected by sexual harassment and violence. What should campuses be doing to keep 2SLGBTQ students safe?