Thank you, thank you.

So I’m officially today in my seventh year of service here in the Legislature, and I’m very thankful to the good people of Niagara West for sending me here and for the issues that we are able to debate. But at that time, one of the questions I got a lot in the fall of 2016 was if I was going to pursue post-secondary education. It’s no secret that I was quite young when I first entered this House. I was just 19 years old and people were a little bit concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to pursue some of the opportunities that I had been planning for. Of course, that would limit my future opportunities as well, in being able to pursue some of the areas that I’m passionate about. I had a lot of people when I was first elected, even during the campaign, come to me and say, “I hope you’re going to still go to school, Sam. I hope you’re not going to give up on getting a degree or wherever you’re going to end up going,” and I said, “No, I’m going to make sure I do.”

So starting in January 2017, a couple months after I was elected, I went to Brock, which I lived far closer to at the time, and I entered there in a degree for political science and economics. Over time, my wife and I met and married; we have a son, Sullivan, and I moved closer towards the Hamilton side of the riding. It just made more sense, given the proximity, to transfer to McMaster. And so since that time, I’ve been taking a course a semester almost every semester. Right now, I’m taking a philosophy course.

Over the past six years, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with so many amazing people in this building and amazing people in my community in my role as MPP. But one of the things I don’t really talk about too much because it’s something, I guess—people always get so curious about what it’s like and then I have to go into a whole conversation about what it’s like to be an MPP while being in university for political science and what that means. I could tell you a few different stories. But I’ve had also the amazing opportunity to be able to be in a classroom in a very practical sense and to speak with students—students who, bluntly, don’t know that I’m involved in politics. For all they know, I’m just another undergraduate student like they are. Of course I am, but I’m part-time; I’m one course a semester. I don’t go in a suit and tie. I usually am wearing a sweater, I’ll wear some jeans, and I have my notebook out. I’m wearing contacts, actually, this afternoon. I usually wear contacts, not glasses. People recognize me a lot more with glasses, and then things can get a little spicy in a first-year political science course.

But the reason I talk about this, Speaker, is because over those conversations with those post-secondary students, even as recently as last week—to hear their joy and optimism about where they are here in Ontario, in our post-secondary institutions, at McMaster University, a world-class university—with no disrespect to anyone who has gone to any other institution—there’s a belief in what they’re participating in on that educational journey, and an optimism—dare I call it a “youthful exuberance,” and it feels a little strange saying that—a youthful exuberance about the potential that they’re being able to provide to their community, to the world, to our province. They participate in those studies with such enthusiasm, they talk about the issues, and one of the issues that has come up multiple times over the course of my studies is this very conversation that we’re having about sexual violence and sexual harassment on campus. I’ve heard stories from my colleagues, not just here but fellow students in class, about either situations that, perhaps, were just made to feel uncomfortable, or actual stories of tragic sexual harassment and assault on campus—something that is completely unacceptable and that I know each and every single one of us in this chamber condemns, and rightfully so.

Now, in those conversations, unfortunately what I heard was that those were terrible interactions and terrible tragedies that occurred, often between students. But one of the things I’ve noticed in participating in the classroom discussions—and I’m now a little bit older; I’m 25. I’m almost finished my studies. I’ll almost have a degree in about a year, hopefully, if, Lord willing, things continue the way they are. But so many of these are young students, they’re 17, maybe 18, maybe 19 or 20 in some of the first-year courses, and the respect that they have for the faculty that they’re interacting with, you can see the awe in their eyes and this view of, whether it’s the TA or the professor—not that they’re unquestioning; of course they’re questioning and they have those discussions in a healthy and vigorous way, but you can see they very much trust the people who are teaching them and are there to teach them.

I know that for the vast majority of those staff members, who I have so much respect for, the work and the reason they’re there is to be able to help craft and provide insight and knowledge and learning to students who are excited to learn more about the world and their contributions to the world. That is, I believe, a position of sacred trust. It’s one that—everyone who has had the opportunity to teach is someone who has had the opportunity to help craft and shape the future of our world in an amazing way.

I believe one of the sayings—I’m trying to figure out which one it is here. I believe it’s on one of these pillars, and the saying, when translated from Latin—I can’t see them all right now—one of the sayings is, “By teaching, learn.” So there’s a real recognition in this House as well in the inscriptions on our pillars of the value that teachers bring, and I believe that applies also to post-secondary education.

But then to have, in that type of setting where a student is looking up to, admiring, respecting their faculty member, their professor, their TA—to have a terrible destruction of that sacred trust by an act of violence, an act of disrespect, a tragic breaking down of that trust in unfathomable ways that creates often lifelong trauma, that creates lifelong hurt, that creates damage to that person in terrible, terrible ways, is something that I, having sat in those classrooms and still going back to those classrooms—I was thinking about this, actually, just last week when I was in class. Thinking about this legislation, it reminded me of the vital importance of having measures that keep those students safe, that protect them and that bluntly punish those who break those sacred bonds of trust. I believe that that is why we are having this debate this afternoon.

I’m thankful to speak to the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act. I fully support this legislation, because I understand and see the value that strengthening our protections for students in post-secondary education will bring. Those who go to a college campus, a university campus, whether they’re involved in an apprenticeship or wherever else, are opening themselves up in a vulnerable way to learning, and, to learn, you have to break down some of the barriers, some of fences that you might have in your own heart, your own mind, when you’re thinking about your perception of a particular issue or a particular career path. Everyone has presuppositions; they have philosophical underpinnings to how they view the world, and those are good; it would be false for any of us to say that we don’t have a particular lens that we view the world through, but we also need to make sure that we’re able to reduce those fences to learn from others’ experiences, to learn from lived experience, to be able to have empathy and to be able to grow.

To think of students who are in that process of learning, of opening themselves up to that knowledge from someone who they believe can teach them, and then to have that trust shattered by a despicable act of sexual violence or harassment or abuse, necessitates a response from all of us as legislators. And I know there has been good work done on all sides of the House, actually, I believe, on this. I think of work brought that’s been brought forward by all-party committees of the Legislature. I think of work that’s happened from members of the opposition, as well, on fighting sexual harassment and violence. I think of the work that’s happened by so many members of our team and, as much as I don’t regularly give praise to former Premier Kathleen Wynne, one of the issues I believe she was strong on was with regards to this, culturally, recognizing the damage it causes.

So I think it’s important for all of us, as we consider this legislation, to perhaps not get too bogged down in minutia and legalese, if you will. I know I’ve heard some concerns raised by members of the opposition, and I respect that. I think it’s important that they’re able to share. They’re the opposition, after all. But I don’t believe that the members of the opposition are going to allow those mild concerns that they might have around some legalese within the bill—they might have some phraseology concerns—are going to prevent them from supporting, as I know every member on this side will, legislation that will protect students and that will ensure that, when they come onto that campus—as I saw them again this September.

I hate to go on a little aside, but for a couple of years, most of my courses were online, and there was some benefit to that, I would say, in that I was able to multi-task a little more and able to do some other things at the same time, not having to drive into McMaster. But when I was back in September—I know people have this with me, so it feels very strange saying this—I was struck by how young they were, right?

Interjections.