To the member opposite, I appreciate your comments today. It was interesting to learn that you’re currently an undergraduate student at McMaster University.

Every campus in Ontario has a sexual assault issue—sexual harassment and violence, and 2SLGBTQ students are disproportionately affected by sexual harassment and violence. I’m wondering—because you are an MPP and a student, you are a leader on your campus—what will you do to curb sexual harassment and violence on your campus? Will you join the gay-straight alliance on your campus and will you help out with the sexual assault centres?

I want to thank the member from Markham–Thornhill for the question. We are all agreed that we need to deal with sexual harassment and violence on campus, and this bill just doesn’t go far enough. There should be much more. There should be an education component and there should be supports for survivors built into this bill. That’s what was asked for at committee by many, many organizations and experts. Unfortunately, it didn’t get incorporated into the bill, which is a real lost opportunity.

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

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

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

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