I thank the government for bringing the bill forward. As we know, this week we talked about gender-based violence. We had presentations on how it impacts our society, how it impacts all families—every member of the family. So I’m glad to see that this initiative has been taken, especially for young people going to university and college, and that these measures are happening. But I need to talk about prevention. The member from Nickel Belt alluded to education. I think that’s such an important piece in order to make sure that we can look to the future for eliminating or mitigating it not happening.

How are universities and colleges getting the best practices and standardized policies universally throughout the system so that there’s not a patchwork being done and everybody’s on board with the same topic and can proceed with the good work that this bill has started?

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.

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?

I’d like to congratulate my colleague the member for Toronto Centre on her remarks today, but also her leadership in her private member’s bill on Consent Awareness Week. I was privileged to attend the launch of that bill the day that she tabled it in this Legislature, and I heard the widespread support from student organizations who really identified the importance of consent education on campus as a measure that’s going to really help reduce incidents of sexual violence on campus.

So I wondered if the member could comment on the shortcomings of an approach, as set out in this bill, that focuses only on punitive cases of faculty-to-student sexual violence and doesn’t encompass the kinds of prevention initiatives like Consent Awareness Week.